UNSEEN LIFE OP ODE WORLD AND OP LIVING GROWTH. 117 



any degenerativ^e clianges. It is only the particles of living 

 onatter connected with tissue, and which were concerned in its 

 formation, that cause the interstitial circulation referred to. In 

 bone fluid flows towards, and from, the living matter in the 

 lacuna, in those minute intercommunicathig tubules, known as 

 the " canaliculi," and in some other hard tissues the interchange 

 of fluid is provided for in a ver}^ similar manner. But many 

 tissues of man, animals and plants are, as already remarked, as 

 dead and lifeless while still forming a part of the living body, 

 as if they had been completely separated from it some time 

 before. 



By this unceasing interstitial circulation alone, is the health 

 and activity of the living particles in all the tissues and organs 

 of the body ensured. In man and the higher animals, it is quite 

 as important as in the lower forms of life, which are not 

 provided with self-acting circulating organs, by which the 

 nutritive fluid is propelled into the immediate vicinity of the 

 living particles, and then caused to flow towards them by the vital 

 action of each living particle. By any change in this natural 

 vital process, either in excess or deficiency, or in departure from 

 the normal composition of the fluid, as occurs in many 

 derangements of the blood as in fevers and inflammations, or by 

 the introduction of poisons into the circulating fluid, the health 

 of the part of the body may be deranged by the establishment of 

 local or general diseases of various kinds, and perhaps the 

 inception and growth of tubercle or cancer or some other 

 abnormal vital phenomena may be thus accounted for. Only 

 by taking daily a fair quantity of water can this important 

 interstitial circulation be provided for, and the health of the 

 tissues and living matter of the body insured. 



By the " death " of the whole or a part of the body, is really 

 meant the death of these innumerable particles of living matter 

 or bioplasm, which in fact constitute the only part of tissue, 

 organ, or " living body " that is really alive, and the only living 

 matter which during life, lives or dies. Through these living 

 particles of the body only, can it be said that we live and move 

 and have our being. Vital power alone accounts for growth, 

 between which process, and the lifeless aggregation as of par- 

 ticles of sand, or other non-living matter, there is no analogy. 

 Deposition of matter layer after layer is not growth. The 

 formation of crystals and their increase, is not an example of 

 groivtli. 



Between living growth — and the physical aggregation and 

 deposition of lifeless particles of matter layer upon layer or the 



