48 Dr. Beale^ on the Germinal Matter of the Blood. 
When germinal matter is set free from cells of any form into 
a fluid medium, it becomes spherical. If a mass of germinal 
matter he divided into any number of particles,, each one 
assumes the spherical form, and the most minute mass of 
living or germinal matter which can be seen by the highest 
power we can yet obtain^ is spherical. 
It may therefore be laid down, that a mass of germinal 
matter always takes the spherical form, unless this is prevented 
by the action of forces external to it. It may of itself assume, 
or it may be made to assume temporarily various shapes, but 
it will always of itself return to a spherical form. 
White blood-corpuscles, and those numerous small, colour- 
less corpuscles which I have referred to in a former paper, 
consist principally of living or germinal matter, and there- 
fore always exhibit the spherical form. See PI. IX. fig. 1, b, 
and the small spherical bodies in different parts of the drawing. 
Of very mitiute particles of germinal matter in the blood. 
In the blood of man and the higher animals a great num- 
ber of minute particles, of the same general appearance and 
refractive power as the matter of which the white blood-cor- 
puscles are composed, may be demonstrated.- Some of these 
■particles, probably, under certain conditions, grow into ordi- 
nary white blood- corpuscles ; while others, after increasing to 
a certain size, become red blood -corpuscles. 
The white corpuscles vary in size to a much greater extent 
than is stated in books ; it is easy to find corpuscles as much 
as the irrVo-t^ of an inch in diameter, and others less than 
the ^-f^th of an inch. 
It has been shown that red corpuscles vary much in 
size; and as the smallest are only just visible from their 
extreme transparency, it seems not unreasonable to infer 
that some corpuscles may exist, which are so minute and so 
transparent as to be invisible to us. 
Of the multiplication of the masses of germinal matter. 
Now, I have elsewhere discussed the mode in which ger- 
minal matter absorbs inanimate nutrient matter, converts it, 
or some of its constituents, into matter like itself, and gives 
origin to a number of smaller masses. From these living 
masses of germinal matter, as in other cases, protrusions or 
