Ixii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



a very careful study of the changes which the body, and particularly the 

 connective tissues, undergoes during its development from an embryonic to 

 the adult state ; of the changes met with in fully-grown individuals wherever 

 there is a replacement of old tissues by new, as in the skin ; and, finally, of 

 the alterations produced in normal tissues as the result of infection, both local 

 and general. In his " Disease Germs," many experiments are quoted in which 

 the marked proliferation account of the white blood corpuscles is carefully 

 depicted, and although we now know definitely that white blood corpuscles 

 are not the agents producing infectious diseases, the idea underlying Beale's 

 theory is correct, for in the light of Ehrlich's recent researches there is no 

 doubt that a cancer cell, i.e., Beale's germinal matter, may have its virulence 

 greatly increased under new conditions of environment. 



" Beale did not fall into the common error of considering histology from 

 a purely anatomical point of view. He saw that in physiological research, 

 physics, anatomy, and chemistry must go hand in hand. By the first, 

 the physical phenomena may be elucidated. By the second, the minute 

 mechanism concerned in these phenomena is ascertained. By the third, the 

 nature of the chemical analyses and syntheses taking place in the living 

 •organisms are to be determined. How much Beale valued the chemical 

 aspect of minute anatomy is shown by the care he devoted in his text-book 

 to micro-chemical methods, and by the labour he expended on urinary 

 deposits, the numerous figures being drawn with the greatest possible care, 

 and, above all, drawn to scale. He further recognised the acid reaction of 

 the ' germinal ' matter and the basic properties of ' formed ' matter. 



" To him also belongs the credit of having for the first time practised the 

 method of fixing tissues by injection, for experience had taught him how 

 rapid are the alterations ensuing after death if due precautions be not taken 

 to prevent post-mortem changes. Among Beale's discoveries the distribution 

 of the peripheral nerves and the minute structure of the cells of both the 

 central and peripheral systems are especially worthy of mention. Working 

 with the simplest methods, but gifted with the greatest patience and a natural 

 aptitude for microscopical research, he discovered that the sympathetic 

 ganglion cells of the frog were connected with two distinct processes, one of 

 which, the straight one, was continuous with the central part of the cell, 

 while the other or others were arranged spirally round the straight fibre and 

 were joined to the circumference of the ganglion cell. We now know that 

 Beale's spiral fibre is in reality the termination of a nerve-fibre springing from 

 -another cell and carrying stimuli to the ganglion cell. His methods of 

 examining tissues in dilute acetic acid allowed him to see delicate nerve- 

 fibres scarcely less numerous than those revealed by Ehrlich's intra-vitam 

 staining with methylene blue. It is only natural that Beale, having shown 

 by his simple method that the distribution of nerve-fibres in striped muscle 

 is so abundant, should have treated Cohnheim's gold method for nerve-endings 

 and the results which Kuhne obtained by this method and Max Schultze's 

 tetroxide method, sceptically. His conception of the distribution of the 



