Page:Microscopicial researchers - Theodor Schwann - English Translation - 1947.pdf/221

THEORY OF THE CELLS. 195 when no part of the cell is yet formed. Therefore, the greater the attractive force of the cell is, the less concentration of the fluid is required; while, at the commencement of the formation of a cell, the fluid must be more than concentrated. But the conclusion which may be thus directly drawn, as to the attractive power of the cell, may also be verified by observation. Wherever the nutrient fluid is not equally distributed in a tissue, the new cells are formed in that part into which the fluid penetrates first, and where, consequently, it is most concentrated. Upon this fact, as we have seen, depended the difference between the growth of organized and unorganized tissues (see page 169). And this confirmation of the foregoing conclusion by experience speaks also for the correctness of the reasoning itself.

The attractive power of the cells operates so as to effect the addition of new molecules in two ways, —first, in layers, and secondly, in such a manner in each layer that the new molecules are deposited between those already present. This is only an expression of the fact; the more simple law, by which several layers are formed and the molecules are not all deposited between those already present, cannot yet be explained. The formation of layers may be repeated once, twice, or thrice. The growth of the separate layers is regulated by a law, that the deposition of new molecules should be greatest at the part where the nutrient fluid is most concentrated. Hence the outer part particularly becomes condensed into a membrane both in the layer corresponding to the nucleus and in that answering to the cell, because the nutrient fluid penetrates from without, and consequently is more concentrated at the outer than at the inner part of each layer. For the same reason the nucleus grows rapidly, so long as the layer of the cell is not formed around it, but it either stops growing altogether, or at least grows much more slowly so soon as the cell-layer has surrounded it; because then the latter receives the nutrient matter first, and, therefore, in a more concentrated form. And hence the cell becomes, in a general sense, much more completely developed, while the nucleus-layer usually remains at a stage of development, in which the cell-layer had been in its earlier period. The addition of new molecules is so arranged that the layers increase more