Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/860

838 imbued with certain characteristics of that tissue. Hence a difference, a variation, between the parent germs and their offspring.

Now, the one characteristic of the tissue which most strikes our attention is its degeneracy, and this degeneracy must exert its influence on the organisms which depend upon it for existence, so that in the thus derived organisms we have the germ vitality and function, plus a certain amount of degenerate tissue characteristic. Germs thus modified and brought into contact with tissue of the same kind, though less degenerate, will, in virtue of this constitutional modification, stand a better chance of establishment thereon, at the same time adding to the degenerate condition with which they meet in the new tissue the characteristics of the degeneracy of tissue they have left. The effects thus produced will be more acute, the constitution of the germs further modified, and their power increased. Hence it is possible to conceive that if by any chance a condition of tissue which could be called perfectly healthy was to be anywhere met with, even this tissue might in time become subject to the influence of these organisms. Of course tissues may be more or less susceptible to their influence, more or less healthy, but it is more than doubtful whether it can be positively said of any one tissue that it is absolutely healthy, any more than it can be said of the individual man or woman. 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.

But there is another direction in which these germs must have been modified fully to account for the differences we now see. Germs may still exist which have only the power of exciting a simple inflammation in any degenerate tissue. Others, a step more advanced, are found, whose action is more potent, which have attractions for the one special tissue in which they have been bred; while others are capable of exciting the special form of inflammation in which they have had their origin, in tissues various in structure and composition. This power or, rather, increase of power—in other words, further variation in constitution—thus displayed is only to be accounted for by the supposition that its acquisition is secondary to the act of establishment, and that it is brought about by means of the blood itself receiving some of the germs and conveying them to some other tissue, on which, in virtue of its degeneracy, and possibly of a further modification, they have themselves received from the blood, they are enabled to effect a settlement. It must also be remembered that their modification, which enables them to select a tissue for their primary and more virulent action,