of ^^dinhurgli, Session 1883-84. 
289 
5. Further Study of Aggregation — Cellular Therapeutics. — High, 
as is the importance of observations upon preserved tissues, the 
present hypothesis clearly points towards the importance of con- 
tinuous observation of living cells when treated with various re- 
agents — aline of research which Professor Prommann* is at present 
almost alone developing, and with such remarkable results. We 
must observe the effects, not of ammonic carbonate only, but of 
the whole pharmacopoeia, and not upon the tentacles of Drosera 
merely, but upon vegetable and animal cells and tissues from the 
lowest to the highest ; noting the changes which take place in all the 
structures and functions of the cell, and this, under all variations of 
temperature, light, electric state, and for various periods of time. 
Of the practicability and interest of such an investigation only a 
single instance need be taken. When one treats an Actinosplimrium 
with dilute ammonic carbonate, the most striking change results; its 
pseudopodia disappear, its complex protoplasmic structure vanishes; 
it loses its regular spherical shape, and collapses into an irregu- 
gular granular amoeboid mass with blunt pseudopodia — (the very 
likeness of the ancestral amoeba), — and then soon breaks up. 
And similarly there is little doubt thkt such a reagent would pro- 
duce marked effect upon the epidermic cells of growing tadpoles, — a 
convenient means of research. Thus we set out from these re- 
searches of Mr Darwin upon a general investigation into what 
changes chemical substances produce upon cells,- — an investigation 
which touches the general question of pharmacy and therapeutics in 
the most direct way, and which we may in fact speak of as Cellular 
therapeutics. The interest of the admission of a drug does not 
end when it has been conteyed into the stomach, but really begins 
there. We must know what happens to the component cells of the 
organism, — we must, in short, observe the therapeutic effects of 
reagents upon the cells of vertebrates, — an investigation which points 
far. Such observations would not require constant but only frequent 
attention for long periods, and are thus perhaps especially suitable 
for the skilled pharmacist, f 
* Frommann, “tJntersuch. ueb. Struktiir, Lebenserscheiniingen n. React- 
tionen thier, u. pflanz. Zelleu,” Jena Zeitsclir., xvii. and sep. pub., Jena, 
1884. 
t Cf. Author’s paper in /oitr. Pharmaceutical Soc. Loud., No. 714, 1884, 
