Dr. Beale^ 071 the Germinal Matter of the Blood, 57 
without destruction, and it is reasonable to infer that a low 
form of living matter from man and the higher animals might 
also be nearly dried without being killed. 
More minute examination, by the aid of higher powers, 
render such inferences at least plausible, and upon the whole 
these considerations serve but to support the general conclu- 
sion I have already arrived at, viz., that in every case particles 
of living matter are derived from pre-existing living matter." 
Certain forms of living matter placed under particular con- 
ditions may exhibit special peculiarities in growth, or as regards 
the composition and properties of the substances resulting 
from changes occurring in them, and these peculiarities may 
be retained by a very minute particle, which being removed 
from the seat of its formation and transferred to a new 
organism in which no such phenomena have ever occurred 
previously, will grow and exhibit the same peculiarities as the 
mass from which it was derived. Living particles may have 
acquired new endowments depending upon the new conditions 
under which they have been placed, and these new powers 
thus acquired are in many cases transmitted to particles which 
have descended from the first. 
On the formation of fibrin. 
When discussing the anatomy of the red blood-corpuscle, 
I endeavoured to show that the coloured matter bore to the 
colourless living or germinal matter, the same relation as 
formed material in other cases bears to germinal matter. It 
is formed from it, or rather it results from changes occurring 
in it. If the living or germinal matter die under certain 
conditions^ the red colouring matter is one of the substances 
resulting from its death. Now, numerous facts render it 
almost certain that these and other masses of germinal matter 
give rise to different substances according to the conditions 
under which the particles cease to exhibit vital phenomena. 
So that, with the view of oflPering some explanation of phe- 
nomena familiar to us, I would venture to suggest that, if 
the particles of living matter of small colourless corpuscles 
died very slowly under the conditions present in the healthy 
circulation, red hsemato-crystallin would result, while if more 
rapid death occurred, an insoluble substance which for some 
time after its formation continued to become firmer — in fact, 
fibrinj would be produced, and if the death of the living par- 
ticles of which each mass of germinal matter is made up, 
