250 THE MICROSCOPIST. 



a diseased state may result. So that, in the great majority 

 of cases, disease, or the morbid state, essentially differs 

 from health, or the healthy state, in an increased or re- 

 duced rate of growth and multiplication of the germinal 

 matter of a particular tissue or organ. In the process of 

 inflammation, in the formation of inflammatory products, 

 as lymph and pus, in the production of tubercle and can- 

 cer, we see the results of increased multiplication of the 

 germinal matter of the tissues or of that derived from the 

 blood. In the shrinking, and hardening, and wasting 

 which occur in many tissues and organs in disease, we see 

 the effects of the germinal matter of a texture being sup- 

 plied with too little nutrient pabulum, in consequence 

 sometimes of an alteration of the pabulum itself, some- 

 times of an undue thickening and condensation of the 

 tissue which forms the permeable septum intervening be- 

 tween the pabulum and the germinal matter. 



" The above observations may be illustrated by reference 

 to what takes place when pus is formed from an epithelial 

 cell, in which the nutrition of the germinal matter, and 

 consequently its rate of growth, is much increased. And 

 the changes which occur in the liver-cell in cases of cir- 

 rhosis may be advanced in illustration of a disease which 

 consists essentially in the occurrence of changes more 

 slowly than in the normal condition, consequent upon less 

 than the normal freedom of access of pabulum to the 

 germinal matter. 



" The outer hardened formed material of an epithelial 

 cell may be torn or ruptured mechanically, as in a scratch 

 or prick by insects, or it may be rendered soft and more 

 permeable to nutrient pabulum by the action of certain 

 fluids which bathe it. In either case it is clear that the 

 access of pabulum to the germinal matter is facilitated, and 

 the latter necessarily 'grows' that is, converts certain 

 of the constituents of the pabulum that come in contact 

 with it into matter like itself at an increased rate. The 



