1893.] Pathology among Biological Studies. 123 



its presence was quite independent of all nervous structures, as is 

 shown by the example of the lower animals which possess no nerves. 

 In the posthumous writings of Hunter, which Owen has collected, 

 the very striking expression " simple life " is met with, a state most 

 clearly to be recognised in plants and the lowest animals. This simple 

 life was in Hunter's view the ultimate source of all living activities, 

 pathological as well as physiological. 



Hunter was out and out a vitalist, but his materialistic vitalism, so 

 to speak, differed toto cailo from the dynamic vitalism of the German 

 schools. If living matter existed independently of alJ organisation, 

 such living matter was beyond the scope of anatomical investigation ; 

 but, on the other hand, if it were present in non-organised parts, such 

 as an egg, it was in itself the ultimate source of the organisation 

 which subsequently makes its appearance in these parts. It must, 

 therefore, to adopt a later mode of expression, be of a plastic nature. 

 Here Hunter's notion fell in with that of the plastic lymph, as de- 

 veloped by Hewson; and it was only logical that Schultzenstein 

 at last applied it to the blood, and designated as "plasma" the 

 material of life present in the blood. In this way the formative and 

 nutritive matter necessary to physiological life, as well as the plastic 

 exudations occurring in diseased conditions, could be attributed to 

 the same material — a highly satisfactory result in appearance, and 

 one providing a most convenient basis for interpretations. The ex- 

 ponents of this notion had no scruples in going one step further, and 

 in providing this material of life with a technical name. They called 

 it " fibrin." Evidently this did not quite correspond with Hunter's 

 ideas, for we know of no such matter, either in the egg or in the plants 

 or the lower animals, as that to which he attributed simple life ; but 

 the exigencies of pathology overcame all such scruples, and the plastic 

 exudations were received as undoubted evidence that fibrin possessed 

 the power of becoming organised. They formed, in the crasis doctrine 

 of the Vienna School, the bright spot in the history of this newest 

 kind of hsemato-patbology. 



Wherever fibrin failed, blastemata were brought to the fore. Ever 

 since Schwann had given the name of cyto-blastema to the organising 

 material of the egg, the way had been open for assuming, in other 

 places, the existence of material with this ambiguous name. 



But of course through these steps the one simple matter of life 

 predicated by Hunter was replaced by many " matters of life," and 

 thus the entire advantage gained by the exposition of a unitary theory 

 of life was at once lost. 



Even when, finally, the cell-contents were designated as protoplasm, 

 and thus the one requisite of Hunter, namely, that the material of 

 life must also be contained in the individual parts, appeared to be 

 fulfilled, yet no single specific material was thereby arrived at. No 



