ON THE PROGRESS OP SCIENCE. 21 



Within the past few years great attention has been bestowed 

 in the United States upon the study of the microscope, and its 

 application to anatomy, physiology and pathology. " Most of the 

 young physicians," says Dr. Holmes, of Boston, in a late communica- 

 tion to the Boston Medical Journal, " who complete their studies 

 in Europe bring home a ' Natchet ' or an ' Oberhauser,' and a certain 

 amount of skill in handling it, which they find abundant leisure to 

 improve in the early times of their practice. 



" There are now many good instruments among us in the hands of 

 those who know how to use them, and many of the highest excel- 

 lence. Our microscopists are beginning to be known somewhat be- 

 yond their own immediate circle. Dr. Dalton and the late Dr. 

 Burnett have been honored by two of the four prizes conferred by the 

 American Medical Association for essays based in great part wholly 

 on microscopic investigations. Other observers are at work, who will 

 be heard from in due season ; and it would not be surprising to find, 

 in ten years from this time, that there were more microscopists in 

 America than in Europe. In the mean time attention has been drawn 

 in this country to the art of making the instruments upon which so 

 many departments of medical science are more or less dependent. 

 Mr. Spencer's labors and triumphs are well known." 



Mr. Alvan Clark, of Boston, and Mr. J. B. Allen, of Enfield, have 

 also constructed instruments which compare favorably with the best 

 of imported glasses of similar power. Thus there is growing up 

 amongst us a market for microscopes and all that belongs to the 

 microscopic art, and skill which has never failed to show itself when- 

 ever it has been called for will find a new channel in providing for 

 this want. 



The art of minute injection, and the preparation of objects for 

 microscopical preparations, has been until of late very little practised 

 in this country. Specimens of great, beauty have been prepared by 

 Dr. John Neil, of Philadelphia ; and Dr. Durkee, of Boston, has also 

 succeeded, after many trials, in acquiring, to a great extent, the skill 

 Avhich is almost confined to a few persons abroad, who make a business 

 of preparing objects for microscopists. 



" The microscope," says the author above referred to, "is of all 

 philosophical instruments the most unfailing and untiring companion. 

 The astronomer tells us that hardly more than a dozen nights in"a 

 year are adapted to his observations. He must watch all night, ex- 

 posed to cold and damp, surrounded by costly and cumbrous ma- 

 chinery. The microscopist sits down at his fireside or his window 

 with a little instrument before him, a mere toy to look at a giant 

 mightier than the slave of the lamp or the ring in its power of trans- 



