When at rest all sorts of vibratory, quivering and trembling
movements can be observed within its mass. It forms the living material
in all vegetable and animal cells; in fact, it is that component of the
body which really does the vital work. It is the formative agent of all
living tissues. Vital activity, in the broadest sense of the term,
manifests itself in the development of the germ into the complete
organism, repeating the type of its parents, and in the subsequent
maintenance of that organism in its integrity and both these functions
are exclusively carried on by the protoplasm. Of course, there is a
good deal of chemical and mechanical work done in the organism, but
protoplasm is the formative agent of all the tissues and structures.
Of tissues and structures already formed, we may fairly say that they
have passed out of the realms of vitality, as they are destined to
gradual disintegration and decay in the course of life; it is they that
are on the way of being cast out of the organism, when they have once
run through the scale of retrograde metamorphosis; and it is they that
give rise to what we have called the smell of the animal.
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