218 WALTER KIDD, M..D., F.Z.S., ON 



The Chairman (Professor E. Hlxl, LL.D., F.R.S.). — I am sure 

 all will join in the vote of thanks to Dr. Kidd for his paper. 

 (Cheers.) 



Professor Lionel S. Beale, M.B., F.R.S. — I have listened with 

 great pleasure to Dr. Walter Kidd's excellent paper, and hope I 

 may be allowed to express the wish that ere long a greater 

 number of members of the medical profession may take part in 

 the consideration of this interesting question. 



Much has been done of late contrary to the general views 

 which have been very popular, and were advanced many years 

 ago under the name of evolution. We are gradually coming, as it 

 seems to me, into somewhat close quarters — mach closer quarters 

 than we have ever reached hitherto. I mean many interested in 

 the question are now considering the actual nature of the earliest 

 changes that really take place in the formation of structure, not 

 only in the highest organisms, but in the lowest simplest living 

 things — and it is remai'kable that, in the early stages of develop- 

 ment at least, the living matter of the one set cannot be distin- 

 guished from that of the other. I am not sure that, in some 

 respects, I cannot go even further than my friend Dr. Kidd. A 

 point which is well worthy of consideration is this : — that although 

 it is generally held, as Dr. Kidd has stated, that plants are nearer 

 to the inorganic kingdom than animals, I think this only partly 

 true, because when we come to study the very early stages of 

 plants — even the lowest of them — and the earliest stages of the 

 higher organisms, even man himself, there is much in common as 

 regards the vital phenomena. The most careful and minute 

 investigation of the actual living matter with the aid of the 

 highest powers of the microscope does not enable us to point out 

 characteristics which would enable us to say — this will develop 

 into a high and complex organism, and that into a low and simple 

 one. In the absence of colour, in consistence, and in general 

 appearance they agree. The minute particles of both kinds of 

 living matter may be extremely small, perhaps less than the one 

 hundred thousandth of an inch in diameter. From them a very 

 small amount of solid matter may be obtained. Probably, if the 

 examination were possible, we should find that as much as from 

 90 to 95 per cent, of water, or more, was present in all living matter 

 during the earliest stages of its development. In the case of the 

 higher organisms the difference of the results of development and 

 growth are not to be explained by differences in the composition 



