Intercellular Substance of Cartilage, 
97 
4. That in the development and growth of these tissues, 
the pabulum becomes (a) germinal matter ; the germinal 
matter becomes {b) the formed material (intercellular sub- 
stance),, which accumulates^ and gradually undergoes conden- 
sation. 
I have endeavoured to show that at an early period of 
development the elementary parts of all tissues consist of — 
(1) matter in a living, active state; and (2) matter which 
has lived, and which has ceased to exhibit vital or formative 
power. The first I have called germinal matter, because it 
alone is concerned in growth, development, and formation, 
and gives origin to new elementary parts ; and the second 
has been called formed material, because it results from 
changes which have occurred in the germinal matter. The 
germinal matter passes gradually into the formed material, 
so that, passing from without, inwards, we have {a) formed 
material; {b) imperfectly developed formed material, ^rsidually 
passing into (c) germinal matter ; and in the nutrition 
of an elementary part the inanimate pabulum first passes 
through the formed material, comes into contact with and 
is converted into (1) germinal matter. The oldest por- 
tions of germinal matter undergo change, and become (2) 
formed material. The formed material either accumulates 
outside the germinal matter as ^ celLcontents,^ ^cell-wall,' 
'intercellular substance,^ or becomes disintegrated and re- 
solved into other compounds, which are removed in the form 
of ' secretions.' 
If it could be shown that the intercellular substance of 
cartilage is deposited from the blood independently of the 
cells j or that ' intercellular substance ' or ' cell-walls ' are 
ever formed independently of germinal matter ; or that the 
matter of which the cell-wall' consists is deposited layer upon 
layer, instead of layer within layer ; or that the germinal mat- 
ter is not, at any period of development, in bodily con- 
tinuity with the formed material ; or that the germinal mat- 
ter is capable of exerting an influence upon matter situated 
at a distance from it, or that pabulum does not become ger- 
minal matter, but is merely changed or converted into new 
matter by some metabolic action exerted by the germinal mat- 
ter, without coming into actual contact with it or becoming 
a part of it ; or that cell-wall or intercellular substance pos- 
sesses the power of selecting certain substances from the 
nutritive fluid, and converting these into matter like itself; 
nay, if it can grow in and form septa, as is described by 
almost all observers to take place in cartilage — if but one of 
these positions can be proved, my view must be greatly modi- 
