From the preface to this work, we learn that it is based on Dr. Drysdale's inaugural address as President of the Microscopical Society of Liverpool in1874. The author makes no claim to original discovery, and his object appears to be to supplement and confirm what he had already said as to the biological views of the late Dr. John Fletcher, in a prior work entitled, "Life, and the Equivalence of Force." This writer appears to have been the originator of the protoplasmic theory of life-a theory which postulates that "every ...
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From the preface to this work, we learn that it is based on Dr. Drysdale's inaugural address as President of the Microscopical Society of Liverpool in1874. The author makes no claim to original discovery, and his object appears to be to supplement and confirm what he had already said as to the biological views of the late Dr. John Fletcher, in a prior work entitled, "Life, and the Equivalence of Force." This writer appears to have been the originator of the protoplasmic theory of life-a theory which postulates that "every action properly called vital, throughout the vegetable and animal kingdoms, results solely from the changes occurring in a structureless, semi-fluid, nitrogenous matter now called protoplasm." It would be impossible, in the space which we have at command, for us to examine that theory fully; and we must content ourselves with referring to a few of the most salient points discussed by Dr. Drysdale in the present work. We are glad to see that our author, while asserting the priority of Fletcher's theory, does credit to the labours of Dr. Beale, whose researches require that he should be accredited as the actual demonstrator of the truth of that which had before only been hypothetically advanced. The theory, nihil vivum nisi protoplasma , now established, includes not merely the origin, but also the continuance of life, every particle which goes to form the organized structure and its secretions having first to "enter into and become part of the living, semi-solid matter itself," and the decay of protoplasm being necessary to give rise to the actions which are the marks of vitality. The death of protoplasm must result in the formation of certain by-products as well as of Beale's "formed-material," and Dr. Drysdale points out that it is for organic chemistry to test the existence of those products, and thus confirm or disprove the theory. As tested by its explanation of blood-formation and nerve-action, the protoplasmic theory would seem to leave little to be desired. The former is strictly a growth and death of bioplasts, "the part that grows and lives constituting the white corpuscle which pass into the lacteals, and finally into the blood-vessels; while the part that dies constitutes the serum, or true pabulum, which is. still further elaborated by the bioplasts of the blood-vessels, and those floating in the blood itself." Again, the nerves consist of dead formed material, but they require special bioplasts for their formation and repair, and they are "studded at short intervals with bioplasts, or little masses of living matter, which, besides their other living functions, act as little batteries, from which the vis nervosa - a mere dead force like all other forces, and possibly electricity-is evolved." Dr. Beale would seem to be of opinion that nerve force is merely electricity, but our author supports the view that, although allied to electricity, it is essentially distinct. - Anthropologia , Volume 1 [1875]
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