AND ITS RELATION TO ANIMAL LIFE 53 



disintegration. Under all cases the caseous 

 change follows upon a certain amount of 

 hyperplasis of the tissues, for the maintenance 

 of which there has been no adequate provision 

 of new blood vessels." 



Here we have it directly admitted that there 

 is variation in the protoplasm, which is itself 

 a proteid ; therefore one cause of variation in 

 this very important constituent, which is 

 considered to be the germ of life, is variation 

 in the quality of the food, so that the very 

 germ of life is influenced or controlled by the 

 food eaten ; for it is not too much to assume 

 that a normal food must produce, or tend to 

 produce, a normal protoplasm, and conse- 

 quently that a chlorotic food must tend to 

 produce protoplasm of various degrees of 

 degeneration, and no doubt individual deficien- 

 cies would tend to special degeneration. 



For instance, " Lecithin, a nitrogenous 

 phosphorized fat, and like fats are thought to 

 be formed from the protoplasm " (Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica, vol. xix. p. 53). 



Then as there is a deficiency of lecithin in 

 consumptives, it follows that there is a defici- 

 ency of protoplasm. 



