Dr. Beale, on Nutrition . 
77 
growth; but there is not even this resemblance. A crystal, then, 
does not grow. The fungus-like (!) accumulation of carbon 
that takes place on the wick of an unsnuffed candle is not 
growth. The deposition of geological strata, the genesis of 
celestial bodies, are not examples of growth. I think that if 
Mr. Herbert Spencer would carefully study a growing micro- 
scopic fungus he would modify his views concerning the 
nature of growth , and admit that there is an essential differ- 
ence between growth and the above physical phenomena. 
From what has been stated in many physiological works the 
student would be led to conclude that the tissue or formed 
matter to be nourished, selected from a mixed fluid, in con- 
sequence of some sort of affinity, certain constituents adapted 
for its nutrition at once, and that those substances passed 
from a state of solution to the condition of tissue. But no 
instance is known in which any lifeless substance takes up 
another lifeless substance differing from it in composition, and 
converts this last into matter like itself, as occurs for ex- 
ample when a simple gelatin-yielding texture increases in 
amount although it is surrounded only by an albuminous 
material in which no trace of gelatin-yielding substances can 
be detected. 
In the hope of ascertaining the essential nature of the 
nutrient process we must not’ .limit ourselves to the considera- 
tion of the phenomena occurring in the fully-formed organisms 
of man and vertebrate animals, in which the nutrient blood 
plays so important a part ; but we must extend our observa- 
tion to plants and the lower organisms, which consist of ex- 
tremely minute independent masses of matter in a peculiar 
state of being. Many facts lead us to conclude that nutri- 
tion in its essential nature is the same in all cases ; and what- 
ever meaning be assigned to the term it ought to apply 
equally to the lowest simplest forms and the highest and 
most complex. 
A simple living organism may take up a quantity of nu- 
trient matter and increase in weight. Having reached a 
certain size portions may be detached, and each of these, after 
absorbing nutrient matter, grow and give rise to others. In 
this case the nutrient pabulum is converted into living matter, 
and as a result of nutrition there is an enormous gain in 
weight. But, on the other hand, living bodies may take up a 
considerable quantity of nutrient matter without altering in 
weight, and indeed some, in spite of being well supplied with 
nourishment, may actually lose in weight. In other words, 
the new matter taken up may exactly compensate for old 
material which is removed, or more than compensate for 
