126 Transactions of the Society. 



practical, it seems at times almost to have lost sight of the value 

 of practical microscopy, and to have ignored the necessity of co- 

 operating with those engaged in developing the Microscope and 

 in perfecting the means of studying pathogenetic germs and the 

 minute structure of tissues and organs — matters of prime import- 

 ance to those who have charge of patients and of the public health. 

 British skill and brains in plenty have been worked into our 

 Microscopes ; the Royal Microscopical Society has contributed 

 more to the evolution of the modern Microscope than any other 

 single body of men.; but how many who should be users of the 

 Microscope have lagged behind ! Is it possible to remedy this ? 

 Is there not at present far too little attention paid, especially in 

 our Medical Schools, to the technical instruction of the histologist, 

 normal and morbid, plant and animal, in the construction of the 

 Microscope ? 



I well remember the sensation that was created by Hughes 

 Bennett and by Rutherford when they introduced the less compli- 

 cated Continental Microscope of Oberhauser and Hartnack into 

 their histology classes in Edinburgh and London ; and by Hamilton, 

 when he opened classes of pathological histology similar to those 

 that he had entered under Strieker in Vienna, Virchow in Berlin, 

 and Cornil and Ranvier in Paris. As a medical student I had 

 but little idea of the importance of a knowledge of the funda- 

 mental principles involved in the construction and use of objectives, 

 oculars, condensers, mirrors, and the like. We were told to 

 examine a specimen with a "high power" or a "low power" 

 combination, by reflected light focused through a bullseye con- 

 denser, or by transmitted light reflected from a sub-stage mirror, 

 with the stage diaphragm wide open or with it contracted. We 

 were taught to stain specimens with the object of bringing out 

 special cellular or nuclear structure, but beyond this nothing 

 was expected of us. The thing that was most firmly impressed 

 on my mind in those days, when we had practically no acces- 

 sory apparatus, was that in screwing the objective into the 

 removable tube of the old Hartnack Microscope, with which we 

 were supplied, one -must be careful "not to allow the eye-piece 

 to fall out." Some of those ancient uncomplicated Hartnack 

 Microscopes are still in use in the same laboratory after a lapse 

 of thirty-eight or forty years. In spite of all this, the work 

 done by some 300 students a year has played a great part in 

 this one School in the development of modern methods of study 

 and research in medicine ; and one cannot but realize how much 

 more might have been done even by a small fraction of these men 

 had they been carefully instructed in matters then of common 

 knowledge to the members of the Royal Microscopical Society. 

 Indeed, since I have been privileged to take part in the proceed- 

 ings of this Societv, it has been borne in on me that if we could 



