
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Va 
VITAL PROPERTIES OF PROTOPLASM. 
Dr. Beale thus sums up the chief vital actions of proto- 
plasm: “It alone is concerned in development and the 
production of those materials which ultimately take the 
form of tissue, secretion, or deposit, as the case may 
be; and of producing matter like itself out of matters 
differing materially in composition, properties and 
powers. Upon it all growth, multiplication, conversion, 
and in short, life depend. By its agency every kind of 
living thing is made, and without it, as far as is known, 
no living thing ever has been made or can be made at 
this time, or ever will be made.” ‘The difference 
between germinal or living matter, or bioplasm, and the 
| pabulum which nourishes it on the one hand and the 
formed material on the other hand is, I believe, absolute. 
The pabulum does not shade by imperceptible gradations 
| into the living matter, and the latter into the formed 
 material’’ (Bioplasm, p. 185). Thus as all formed 
| material is dead, the formation of all tissues and 
secretions, and all work done, implies the death of a 
corresponding amount of protoplasm, or as Beale ex- 
presses it, the protoplasm of this or that special kind 
dies into this or that tissue or secretion—not only so, but 
_ “every action in every animal, from the first moment of 
its existence to the last, marks the death of bioplasm 
and 1s a consequence of it. Every work performed by 
| man, every thought expressed by him, is a consequence 
of bioplasm passing from the state of life—ceasing in 
fact to be bioplasm—and becoming non-living matter 
with totally different properties” (p. 10). 
Here then is a basis for the definition of life as simply 
“the consumption of protoplasm.” But as the continual 
supply of fresh material is required, and as “every particle 
