44 BEALE'S ANATOMICAL SEPARATION 



each part, which the cell theory had aimed at but failed 

 to make good. The one true and only living matter, 

 called by Beale germinal matter, or bioplasm, is de- 

 scribed as " always transparent and colourless, and, as 

 far as can be ascertained by examination with the 

 highest powers, perfectly structureless ; and it exhibits 

 those same characters at every period of its existence : 

 * * * it would not be possible to distinguish the 

 growing, moving matter which was to evolve the oak 

 from that which was the germ of a vertebrate animal. 

 Nor can any difference be discerned between the ger- 

 minal matter of the lowest, simplest epithelial scale of 

 man's organism, and that from which the nerve-cells 

 of his brain are to be evolved." 



The living matter of Beale corresponds to the fol- 

 lowing histological elements of other authors: The 

 viscid nitrogenous substance within the primordial 

 utricle, called by Von Mohl, Protoplasm; the pri- 

 mordial utricle itself, in Naegeli's sense of that term, 

 viz., the layer of protoplasm next the cell wall : the 

 transparent, semi-fluid matter occupying the spaces 

 and intervals between the threads and walls of those 

 spaces formed by the so-called vacuolation of proto- 

 plasmic masses : the greater part of the sarcode of the 

 monera, rhizopoda, and other low organisms; the 

 white blood corpuscles, pus corpuscles, and other naked 

 wandering masses of living matter ; the so-called 

 nucleus of the secreting cells, and of the tissues of the 

 higher animals, and many plant cells ; the nuclei of the 

 cells of the gray matter of the brain, spinal marrow, 

 and ganglions, and the nuclei of nerve fibres. 



The term of true living or germinal matter can 



