FACTS 175 



the surrounding dead medium ; it only extends, during 

 assimilation, to the new parts gained by assimilation. Such 

 a function does not seem transportable out of the living 

 body like functions which are defined by resistance to a 

 toxin. We may call it the function of the struggle for 

 space. But, though not transportable, it is none the less 

 well-defined and inherent in the colloid state of the proto- 

 plasm just like the other functions. 



Moreover, an extremely important experiment shows that 

 this function is really transportable into a dead body, namely, 

 into the corpse of the living being itself when death has 

 taken place under certain conditions. 



When we kill a protozoon with ammonia we are utterly 

 regardless of its colloid state, we dissolve it entirely (except 

 the skeleton when this is resistant enough). 



But in most cases its colloid state, on the contrary, sur- 

 vives the protozoon completely enough for us to recognize 

 its corpse during a certain length of time, more or less long. 

 Is the colloid state thus preserved the same as that of the 

 living being from which the corpse has come, although no 

 phenomenon of assimilation now takes place in the dead 

 protoplasm ? Evidently, the answer will depend on the 

 manner in which the living being came to its death. Be- 

 tween the osmic acid which fixes the form and the ammonia 

 which leaves not a trace behind, there are evidently inter- 

 mediate cases of every kind there are any number of ways 

 of dying. The kind of death has therefore to be specified. 



When a culture of microbes is killed by gentle heat, 

 just sufficient to produce death, we do not know any too well 

 what modification has been produced ; but we can verify 

 that the gentle heat preserves the form closely enough, even 

 in the case of unicellular beings formed of nude, soft proto- 

 plasm. Yet transformations have been realized since life 



