Germ

“ Now, it is conceivable that a single modification or variation of the primitive germ might give rise to many correlated modifications or variations of the numerous cells into which it develops; just as an apparently trivial incident in childhood or youth may modify the whole course of a man's subsequent life. It is difficult, indeed, to see how this could be effected; to understand what could be the nature of a modification of the germ which could lead simultaneously to many favourable variations of bones, muscles, blood-vessels, and nerves in different parts of the body. ”

“ In the third place, the whole argument is one of analogy. The germ becomes a mature animal, passing through many intermediate stages, therefore the animal may have descended from some creature which when mature was as simple as the germ. The value of such an analogy depends altogether on the similarity of the “conditions” which, in such a case, are really the efficient causes at work. The germ of a mammal becomes developed by the nourishment supplied from the system of a parent, which itself produced the germ, and into whose likeness the young animal is destined to grow. ”

“ Again, to the allegation that the vital activity of every germ whence an organism arises, is obviously antecedent to the development of its structures, there is the answer that such germ is not absolutely structureless. ”

“ After their origin the middle germ layers are differentiated into several fundaments (rudiments) by processes of folding and constricting off.
The development of the connective substance and blood is explained by means of the mesenchyme germs. This is followed by chapters on the establishment of the external form of the body and on the fœtal membranes of reptiles, birds, mammals, and man. ”

“ The elementary tissues of both kingdoms have been traced, in whatever form they may be found, to a cellular origin. The minutest vegetable germ, is a cell containing a granular matter within it, and even man himself, in his embryonic state, may be represented as an insignificant point in the realms of space; and might be placed side by side with the smallest particle of living matter, without suffering by the comparison. ”

“ What part of garden plants are these germs like? Why do you think so?
3. Big plants in the garden get their food from the water in the soil. I wonder if any of you can tell me where these little germ-plants get their food? When we see persons with consumption we know that these little germ-plants are growing on the cells of their lungs. This causes their lung cells and the tissue that binds them together to decay. Then these people have to cough and spit this decayed matter up. Every bit of it is often filled with these little germ-plants, or seed of consumption. ”

“ In the case of almost every one of these diseases we have discovered the specific germ and are able to demonstrate its presence, either by its microscopical appearance, by its behavior on contact with certain stains, or by the forms that cultures of it assume. ”

“ Individual traits are not transmitted from the hen to the egg, but they develop out of germinal factors which are carried along from cell to cell, and from generation to generation....”
“The germ is the undeveloped organism which forms the bond between successive generations; the person is the developed organism which arises from the germ under the influence of environmental conditions, the person develops and dies in each generation; the germ-plasm is the continuous stream of living substance which connects all generations. ”

“ Very many of the diseases came from what we called germs. Remember that word--germs. A germ is a very small thing. It is like a woodtick, such as you find on the dogs in the spring of the year when they run in the forest. ”

“ But for the physiologist, who knows that every individual being is so evolved—who knows further, that in their earliest condition the germs of all plants and animals whatever are so similar, "that there is no appreciable distinction amongst them which would enable it to be determined whether a particular molecule is the germ of a conferva or of an oak, of a zoophyte or of a man;" ”

“ We all bear within us, in that fertilised germ that constituted the first cell of our organism, predetermined biological conditions, on which depend the physical limits of our body, as well as those of our psychic individuality. But in order that this germ may develop in accordance with its potentiality, it is necessary that it shall obtain the requisite material from its environment. ”

“ Of course, the fundamental morphological fact in regard even to the higher animals is the cell, but next to that we may place the existence of the germ layers, the complicated interrelations of which dominate the entire history of every individual alike in health and in disease. The comprehension of the morphological importance of the germ layers and their relation to the production of tissues and organs and abnormal growths of all kinds is absolutely indispensable to every medical man who wishes to have an intelligent mastery of his subject. ”

“ Not only do certain known poisons circulating in the blood, or other fluid that may bathe the germ-cells of living creatures, profoundly affect the germ-cells, but many other substances probably have great influence upon them. ”

“ It is therefore possible to conceive that at some time or other there has existed only one kind of germ, that variations from this one type have arisen in consequence of the modification wrought upon different individuals by their chance falling upon this or that degenerate tissue. Variation must lead to specialization, and finally we find diseases all dependent upon the action of germs, as different from one another as one species of animal differs from another. ”

“ We may fairly attribute to the adult organism influences which determine the phyletic development of its descendants. For the germ-cells are contained in the organism, and the [66] external influences which affect them are intimately connected with the state of the organism in which they lie hid. If it be well nourished, the germ-cells will have abundant nutriment; and, conversely, if it be weak and sickly, the germ-cells will be arrested in their growth. ”

“ Every faculty that is developed in any individual is potential in the germ-stuff from which he springs; the [149] tendency to develop any particular faculty is there too; and both faculty and tendency to exercise it are handed on by the continuity of germ-protoplasm or germ-cells. ”

“ The phrase, which was once accurate, is now misleading, for the germ “theory” is part of the definite achievement of science. Not only have we succeeded in isolating the specific germ whose introduction into the body is responsible for different diseases, but in many cases, by studying the history and behavior of the germ, we have been able to find methods of checking its inroads, and so have delivered men from scourges like yellow fever and the bubonic plague. ”

“ And so far from the fully developed organism’s being simply the germ plus the nutriment, which it has absorbed, it is probable that the adult contains neither in form, nor in substance, more than an inappreciable fraction of the constituents of the germ, and that it is almost wholly made up of assimilated and metamorphosed nutriment.”
This being true, it cannot be said that the germ (fertilized ovum) ever develops into a man or woman. On the contrary it is annihilated; and its identity is wholly lost among the daughter-cells which are made of the mother’s food. ”

“ Moreover, the parts and organs of the germ bear no actual or visible resemblance at all to the organs and parts of the organism into which the germ [Pg 51] rapidly develops. In other words, in the germ of an organism we have a structure, partly material, partly dynamic, the components of which in some way represent the adult characteristics without resembling them. During the period of the development of the individual, that is to say, during its "ontogeny," these characteristics of the germ become expressed in their final or adult form. ”

“ In the first place it is assumed that the fragment of matter out of which each organism arises consists of two portions—one of them, the germ-plasm, reserved within the generative organ of the incipient individual, representing in its components the structure of the species, and gives origin to the germs of future individuals ”

“ This germ is a tiny bit of protoplasm composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, with a possible trace of sulphur and phosphorus. It has no brain, eyes, ears, nose, touch, nor taste; no intellect, memory, nor will-power; no knowledge of anatomy, chemical elements, chemical affinity, form, size, time, nor space; nor any constructive power nor force; has no power to generate forces nor to guide and control motions.
Therefore, it is impossible for the germ-cell, or its daughter-cells, to build up, automatically, the embryo body, with all its organs and parts. ”

“ Anterior, however, to both germ and product is the organism from which the germ was derived. For every germ implies two organisms, the parent and the progeny. For germ or seed is both the seed of the organism from which it came, of the horse, for instance, from which it was derived, and the seed of the organism that will eventually arise from it, of the mule, for example, which is developed from the seed of the horse. ”

“ Did you ever hear of a germ carrier. A person who, through some source of exposure, carries germs here and there on his or her clothes, and is perfectly immune to them. That's what you must have in that room. ”

“ In all such cases it is evident that the specific results of such treatment are due to a specific organization of the germ rather than to specific stimuli.
Why does one egg give rise to a chicken and another to a duck, or a fish, or a frog? Why does one egg give rise to a black guinea-pig and another to a white one, though both may be produced by the same parents? Why does one child differ from another in the same family? Why does one cell give rise to a gland and another to a nerve, one to an egg and another to a sperm? ”

“ And even after the facts of development were fairly well known it was generally held that the germ cells were produced by the adult animal or plant and that the characteristics of the adult were in some way carried over to the germ cells ”

“ We see also, as we go back to the anatomical examination of the body, that those important structures which we call the germ cells, upon which the propagation of the race depends, which present under the microscope certain clearly recognized characteristics by which they can be distinguished from all other cells of the body, that these germ-cells cease their activity altogether in the very old, and one of the great functions of life is thus blotted out altogether from the history of the individual. ”

“ The 'Germ Theory,' briefly stated, is this. There are all around us millions of micro-organisms, parasites which thrive and grow by feeding upon the animal world. In proportion as these parasities infest, and thrive upon a given individual, so will that individual become diseased, and it has been shown that in many cases a special germ will cause a special disease. I could deliver you a lecture, hours long, upon the classification, morphology, and pathogenic action of bacteria, but I wish at present to lead your mind into a different channel. ”

“ From the view-point of cell-differentiation, which seems to me the most tenable position, there does not seem any evidence for, or any probability of, the occurrence of any roundabout mode of development of the germinal cells which could enable them to pick up acquired characters en route.
(d) We come now to the contention that the organism, being one and continuous, if any member suffers, the germ suffers with it. The organs of the body are not isolated or insulated; the blood is a common medium; the nerves ramify everywhere ”

“ There are four distinct plans of structure in the animal kingdom, and at least three, perhaps more, in the vegetable kingdom; and every germ, from the first instant when its evolution can be seen at all, is seen to develop only according to its own proper method. There is no more confusion of germs, or embryos, than of plants or animals. ”

“ If we will be consistent, we are driven to the conclusion that the apparent simplicity of the germ is real, that the germ contains no gemmules, or determinants or other representative particles; that development is truly epigenetic, a natural series of events that succeed one another according to physicochemical and physiological laws ”

“ Courses in germ sociology are therefore of prime necessity. How do germs act? On what do they live? Why do they move from place to place? What causes them to become extinct? With few exceptions, germs migrate for the same reason as man,—search for food, love of conquest, and love of adventure. When there is plenty of food they multiply rapidly. ”

“ The germ theory tells us that these particles of dust will be pretty sure to contain the germs of putrefactive organisms, and if one such is left in the albuminous liquid, it will rapidly develop at the high temperature of the body, and account for all the phenomena. ”

“ Even a very minute trace of a specific germ-plasm possesses the definite tendency to build up a certain organism, and will develop this tendency as soon as the nutrition is, for some reason, favoured above that of the other kinds of germ-plasm present in the nucleus."
In place, then, of the direct continuity of germ-cells as distinct from body-cells, we have here the direct continuity of germ-plasm as opposed to body-plasm. The germ-plasm can give rise to body-plasm to any extent; the body-plasm can never give rise to germ-plasm. ”

“ The germ in the seed is capable of assimilating, by well-determined and thoroughly specialized processes, the nutrient matter contained in its environment, precisely as the "primordial germ" develops under its environing conditions. ”