
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 13 
| to the little book called ‘‘Bioplasm,’’ which should be 
studied exhaustively by all biologists, but more particularly 
| those belonging to the medical profession, for it keeps ever 
in the foreground the truly vital part of the functions of 
living beings; whereas the bulk of most of the very bulky 
| text-books on physiology is taken up with the quite 
| subordinate departments belonging to chemistry and 
physics. 
| Let me here call to mind the chief points of the proto- 
| plasmic theory, in order that we may discuss its bearing 
| on the definition of life. According to Beale, the sole 
| living matter, called by him germinal matter or bioplasm, 
| is generically one, although specifically capable of infinite 
variety. In its physical aspect it is transparent and 
colourless, and as far as can be detected by the highest 
/powers, perfectly structureless at every period of its 
existence. In consistence it is semi-fluid, slightly viscid 
like gum or syrup, colloid, capable of imbibition to a large 
extent with water, but not soluble or diffusible. No 
difference can be detected by the microscope between the 
| germinal matter of the lowest epithelial scale and that 
‘from which the nerve-cells of man’s brain are evolved. 
| From these physical characters, common to all bioplasm, 
| it appears precisely the same in all living beings, although 
fit may display an almost infinite variety of specific powers 
}in the different simple organisms, and in the different 
‘organs of the more complicated organisms which it 
animates; nevertheless certain differences in composition 
of the varieties of living matter have been inferred from 
differences detected by analysis of the chemical proximate 
principles found in it after death. 
im The bioplasm, or one living matter of Beale, corresponds 
to the following histological elements of other authors, 
viz.:—The viscid nitrogenous substance within the pri- 
