Historical survey of our knowledge regarding the structure and general function of the cell

Abstract

To study the cell and its activities , is to study life, and to the scientist, life means something more than mere static aggregations of molecules, even if they can grow and divide; it is an actual flux or continuous change of substance in a specialised unstable state of motion, and once this flux ceases, the organism is then considered as having lost its vitality, that is, as having lost the close relationship which existed between its internal processes and its external environment.