PART I.] Examination of Cholera Blood Enclosed in Wax Cells. 69 



bioplasm — bioplasm so fluid and diluted as in many instances to be almost, if not 

 entirely, indistinguishable by refraction from the surrounding medium. But changes 

 gradually take place in the recent blood. Again and again, has a patch of scattered 

 granules been noted moving in unison across the field, and only after prolonged 

 examination and most careful management of the light has it appeared that the 

 individual granules were really included in a portion of bioplasm and were moved 

 by its movements only. Gradually the consistence of these large bioplastic masses 

 appears to increase, and they, as it were, grow into sight (Fig. 2), Their movements 

 are extremely constant and free, no mere alterations of form, but free progression, 

 along with such movements. The alterations in form vary extremely, sometimes 

 consisting of the emission of rounded and lobulated protrusions, and at others 

 of the running out of elongated slender extensions and threads. 



Coincidently with the appearance of these bodies in the marginal serum, others 

 of a similar nature may be observed in the serous spaces in the clot, and at this 

 time also, in some cases, an abundance of small refractive bioplasts may be detected 

 in the same localities. These small bioplastic bodies have seldom been seen to move 

 or alter form, and, save slight increase in size, have not been observed to undergo 

 any change, and seem shortly to disappear. In a few instances also the interspaces 

 of the clot are occupied by very delicate branched fibrillse, but this is by no means 

 a constant or characteristic phenomenon. 



Concerning the nature of the masses of plasma which have crawled out of the 

 clot, the question arises — are these large masses of bioplasm the results of very rapid 

 new development, or are they present in the blood from the beginning, but so fluid 

 and so closely approaching the surrounding medium in density as to be indistin- 

 guishable until rendered somewhat firmer by changes occurring in them, induced by 

 altered temperature of the medium or slight chemical changes in it, or unless they 

 come to contain granular matter ? At the close of an hour after the blood has been 

 drawn, they are to be found in abundance crawling free in the serum and issuing 

 from the edges of the clot. It is possible that the irregularly rounded particles in 

 the osmic preparations may be due to the breaking up of these bodies, and the 

 subsequent condensation of the substance of the bioplastic fragments resulting from 

 the rupture. For a short time the ring of serum, and the serum above the clot, is 

 full of these large irregular masses of bioplasm, moving freely in all directions. Soon, 

 however, they begin to sub-divide and break up into a second generation of bioplasts 

 (Fig. 3). The process of division can be seen most distinctly, sometimes occurring 

 rapidly and, so to speak, decisively ; whilst at others, after the two secondary bodies 

 are widely separated, and only connected by a very slender, barely visible thread, 

 one is retracted and, as it were, absorbed into the mass of the other, to be succeeded 

 by one or more similar protrusions, ere division fairly takes place; the serum now 

 swarms with multitudes of bioplasts of smaller size than those originally present, but 

 resembling the previous generation in their delicacy of outline and great activity. 



