218 PROFESSOR LIONEL S. BEALE^ F.R.C.P., F.K.S.^ ON 



absolute distinction — at least I venture to take this view — 

 between Matter tluit is living and Matter that does not live. 



jNow, one has to bear in mind that the part of a hving- 

 organism that is alive is, in proportion to its whole weight, 

 something very small indeed — almost, in many cases, infini- 

 tesimal in comparison. Another point of great consequence 

 is that there is no separate living particle in most animals and 

 not one in man, that is much more than one two-thousandth 

 part of an inch in diameter, and the greater number of living 

 particles are less than this. In tlie smallest insects and in 

 the very lowest organisms, it is doubtful whether the one 

 five-thousandth part of an inch will not represent the 

 dimensions of the largest distinct separate individual particle 

 of living matter that can be obtained and examined, while 

 the loAvest protozoa, fungi and bacteria being still more 

 minute, the individual living particles will be too small to 

 be visible by the aid of any magnifying power yet 

 obtainable. 



In man and in the higher animals, life depends — not on 

 tlie great part of the body which we can see, but upon those 

 minute liviiig particles which exist in all the tissues and 

 organs, and which from their origin to their death live in 

 darkness, and to the extent not only of hundreds or thousands, 

 but millions. There are millions of these separate hving 

 particles in everyone of us. Most of them are well protected 

 in the positions where they have grown. They are not in 

 close contiguity, nor do they run into each other, but they 

 are separate. They are arranged at an early period of 

 development in collections or groups. In the germ stage, 

 they grow and multiply enormously as development proceeds. 

 If you study any particular tissue soon after death, you will 

 be surprised at the enormous number of these little particles 

 of living matter among the tissues, everyone of which has 

 been formed from, and by, them. These particles used to 

 be called " cells," but it has been impossible to give an exact 

 definition of a "cell," and everyone who has attempted to 

 do so, has failed. The original idea of " cells " was that they 

 were like the bricks in a Avail, but that is not so — for nothing 

 in living organisms is arranged or built up, as it used to be 

 said, like bricks in a Avail. EA^ery part c/roivs: 



Each little particle or so-called " cell " consists of matter 

 in two distinct states — living and not living. In many cases 

 there is an outer coA^ering or envelope, Avliich is permeable 

 to air and moisture— and icitJiin this envelope is the living 



