biophorn.

1893 W. N. Parker & H. Rönnfeldt tr. A. Weismann Germ-plasm i. i. 40 We have to imagine that..protoplasm..consists of groups of molecules, each of which is composed of different kinds of chemical molecules. I shall call these units the ‘bearers of vitality’ (‘Lebensträger’) or ‘biophors’, because they are the smallest units which exhibit the primary vital forces, viz. assimilation and metabolism, growth, and multiplication by fission.

1908 E. Wharton Let. 8 June (1988) 151 I must confess to being always a little ahurie when I meet with biophors & determinants—though they seem like old friends after the allelomorphs & heterozygotes in Lock's ‘simple’ exposition of Mendelism.

1959 A. Hughes Hist. Cytol. iv. 83 His [sc. Weismann's] ideas on development..are as outdated as the peculiar terminology in which the postulated structure of the germ-plasm was expressed. The ‘Biophor’ has long been extinct, and the ‘Id’ has acquired a new meaning in another science.

2002 S. J. Gould Struct. Evolutionary Theory iii. 214 In Weismann's admittedly hypothetical system, the fundamental sub-microscopic particles of heredity are called ‘biophors.’