LECTURE I.
FEBRUARY 10, 1858.
CELLS AND THE CELLULAR THEORY.
Introduction and object — Importance of anatomical discoveries in the history of medicine — Slight influence of the cell-theory upon pathology — Cells as the ultimate active elements of the living body — Their nature more accurately defined — Vegetable cells ; membrane, contents, nucleus — Animal cells ; capsulated (cartilage) and simple — Nuclei of — Nucleoli of — Theory of the formation of cells out of free cytoblastema — Constancy of nucleus and its importance in the maintenance of the living cell — Diversity of cell-contents and their importance as regards the functions of parts — Cells as vital unities — The body as a social organization — Cellular, in contradistinction to humoral and solidistic, pathology. Explanation of some of the preparations — Young shoots of plants — Growth of plants— Growth of cartilage — Young ova — Young cells in sputa.
Gentlemen,—Whilst bidding you heartily welcome to benches which must have long since ceased to be familiar to you, I must begin by reminding you, that it is not my want of modesty which has summoned you hither, but that I have only yielded to the repeatedly manifested wishes of many among you. Nor should I have ventured either to offer you lectures after the same fashion in which I am accustomed to deliver them in my regular courses. On the contrary, I will make the attempt to lay before you in a more succinct manner the development which I myself, and, I think, medical science also, have passed through in the course of the last fifteen years. In my announcement of these lectures, I described the subject of them in
