214 Natural Salvation. 



from bursting arteries or veins and from arterio-capillar 

 schlerosis, therg is in aging organisms a slow chemico- 

 mechanical contraction and diminution of the caliber of 

 the capillaries, which results in starvation of the tissue 

 cells, from exclusion of the blood corpuscles and even of 

 the blood plasma. Oxygen and nutrient particles are 

 from this cause slowly excluded from the cell which 

 starves like a captive shut up in a dungeon. The pro- 

 gressive shrinkage and diminution of the capillary-tubes 

 has been ascribed to chemical changes in the " formed 

 matter " of which they are composed. In foetal life 

 capillaries grow forward from a terminal cell-bud and are 

 hollowed into channels behind the cell as it advances. It 

 has been argued that after a certain lapse of time, this 

 formed tube deteriorates from chemical instability, irre- 

 spective of the personal life and without reference to it. 



A quarter of a century ago, when research was younger, 

 many of us fondly believed that we held the key to the 

 vital situation in a discovery — then believed authentic — 

 that unicellular life was naturally immortal ; that certain 

 infusoria, bacteria, protozoa, 'meaning the first simple forms 

 of life, lived and juultiplied by fission and division with- 

 out dying; that there was really no such calamity as 

 death in this primary form of terrestrial life. 



This fact, if fact it had proved, was perceived to be of 



