somatoplasm

“According to Weismann the somatoplasm developed and was influenced by the environment, whereas the germplasm was segregated early in development and was not susceptible to environmental influences.”

The Genotype/Phenotype Distinction

“This claim had already been made explicitly by August Weismann at the end of the nineteenth century, who differentiated between the germplasm of an organism, the tissue that forms the gametes to produce the next generation, and the somatoplasm, the tissues of the rest of the body.”

The Genotype/Phenotype Distinction

“These were seen as the cells constituting the general bodily structure or somatoplasm, and those cells comprising the reproductive or generative tissues”

Dictionary of the History of Ideas

“Weismann thus demon - strated that the somatoplasm is in no way causally linked to the production of the germplasm.”

Dictionary of the History of Ideas

“According to this concept, the substance of the body (the somatoplasm) is in each generation produced as an offshoot of the germplasm, or germ-line, so that whatever characteristics are in - herited must be transmitted from the germplasm to the somatic part of the body.”

GENETIC CONTINUITY

“From this point of view every individual consists of only two parts, -- germ-plasm and soma or somatoplasm.”

Applied Eugenics