Protoplasm Vitalism Ectoplasm Commentary

Hugo von Mohl, Jan Evangelista Purkyně, Thomas Henry Huxley cell biology

Protoplasm

• Hugo von Mohl used protoplasm
• for the “tough, slimy, granular,
• semi-fluid” in plant cells, not counting
• the cell walls, nucleus, or vacules.
• Jan Evangelista Purkyně
• divided protoplasm in animal cells
• into cytoplasm around the nucleus
• and nucleoplasm in the nucleus.
• Protoplasm was understood to be
• the principle of life. People thought
• life was maintained by a non-physical energy
• and not by physical mechanisms,
• but Thomas Henry Huxley claimed
• that protoplasm supported life by molecular forces,
• that it’s no more meaningful to say
• that protoplasm contains the principle of life
• than to say that water contains the principle of aquosity.

Vitalism

• A creative force, a spark of life
• was believed to give each cell its motive force.
• Otherwise, what would distinguish a living cell
• from a leaky bag of lumpy juices?
• The vital principle, moreover, could
• never be reduced to a physical mechanism.
• Scientists tried to prove them wrong,
• assembled the stuff of protoplasm in a test tube,
• but it didn’t come alive.
• Some opinions from the eighteenth century
• seem archaic to us now, but we may still accept
• that the whole is greater than the parts
• and that some mysteries remain mysterious.

Ectoplasm

• Protoplasm, “first form,” is not to be confused
• with ectoplasm, “external form,” an alleged
• form of matter exuded through pores of a psychic medium
• and draped over spiritual beings to make them visible,
• but we don’t have anything more to say about that,
• except that people can call things what they want.
• The term ectoplasm is also used
• for the outer portion of the cytoplasm of a cell,
• which normally wouldn’t involve deception or fakery.