270 PROFESSOR LIONEL S. BEALE^ F.R.C.P., F.R.S., ON THE 



scope as innumerable separate particles easily destroyed, and 

 varying in size from extreme minuteness, to particles generally 

 measuring not more than the one two-thousandth of an inch in 

 diameter. These living bioplasts, besides being very numerous 

 in all growing tissues and orc^ans, are present in very large 

 numbers in many of the fluids of the body, especially in the 

 blood, lymph and chyle, and in milk, at an early stage of its 

 formation. In the interstitial fluid which slowly circulates in 

 all the minute interstices of the tissues, distributing nutrient 

 matter in solution, and receiving also in solution substances 

 resulting from the action and death of living matter, minute 

 particles of living matter also exist. All through the living 

 world, ever^ living particle has been derived from a living 

 particle which lived before it, and each one may give rise to 

 numerous living particles which may succeed. 



No one can tell from any given particle of living matter 

 what will be the structure, or what the properties or composition 

 of the tissues and substances to be formed by it : not even the 

 chemical composition of the lifeless compounds which result 

 from the death of any particular bioplast can be ascertained. 

 Such is the origin, and the earliest stage of all living matter at 

 this time and I think I may say, has been so generation after 

 generation from the very beginning. 



Ever}' living particle in nature as long as it lives contains 

 water, which, if much reduced in quantity, would cause the 

 death of the living matter ; and death would occur long before 

 a living particle became nearly dry. Some living particles and 

 many Protozoa consist almost entirely of water. This moist 

 Bioplasm or living matter possesses in its substance the power 

 of 7novefnent within itself, and in every dircetion — movements, 

 vital, inscrutable, inimitable, but to be seen and studied in 

 many instances as long as the right proportion of water is 

 present. 



No living particle of matter can be chemically analysed : for 

 any attempt to do so would cause its death, and then we 

 should be dealing, not with the living matter itself, but only 

 with various kinds of lifeless matter — chemical substances 

 formed at and after its death. Form, colour, composition do 

 not help us in any way to explain or account for the nature of 

 living matter. Indeed they are, as I have remarked, but 

 results of its death. Their charactei', properties and compo- 

 sition depend upon the vital changes effected by the life power 

 while the matter lived. 



In the tissues and organs of fully formed living animals and 



