A HOMU-MABJE MICROSCOPE, 95 



and unnatural strain upon the brains of business and professional 

 men. To diminish this would be an almost impossible task. I can 

 only suggest a diminution of working hours, the necessity for regular 

 meals and habits, and means to prevent large cities from being over- 

 stocked by the agricultural classes, who imagine themselves in these 

 days particularly fitted for business and professional pursuits. We 

 should abolish immoral entertainments, advertising quacks, so-called 

 anatomical museums, and obscene and sensational literature, as far as 

 possible. 



Legislation should strictly regulate the sale of poisonous drugs, and 

 the police should enforce the laws. Friends and relatives of excitable 

 and nervous persons should be alive to the necessity of keeping from 

 their reach razors, cutting instruments, and poisons. They should also 

 endeavor, as far as possible, to prevent the formation of the opium- 

 habit, self-administration of chloroform, and alcoholic indulgence. 



Careful watch should be kept on all persons who go uj) into high 

 public buildings, church-spires, and other eminences. Physicians 

 should employ caution lest their patients should habitually indulge in 

 some narcotic drug originally prescribed. The boards of health of 

 the diiferent cities cannot be over-zealous in suggesting means for the 

 improvement of the dwellings of the poor. Air, light, and ventila- 

 tion, should be provided, if possible, for these are absolutely necessary 

 for nervous development and healthy cerebration. I have always 

 considered the system of small dwellings, that has succeeded so well 

 in Philadelphia and other cities, an inestimable boon to the working- 

 classes. A healthier moral and physical tone is engendered, both by 

 elevating the self-reliance of heads of families, and the abolition of 

 moral contamination so prevalent in tenement-house life. 



The establishment of bureaus and other agencies for procuring 

 work for immigrants, freeing the cities from the surplus of these peo- 

 ple, would prevent much desperation, misery, and self-destruction. 



A HOAIE-MADE MICEOSCOPE. 



By JOHN MICHELS. 



THE progress of science in recent times is in a great degree due 

 to the employment of instrumental aids to observation ; and 

 whoever wishes to keep up with this advance, or indeed to gain an 

 adequate notion of its extent and interest, can only do so by the 

 use of similar means. In the study of chemistry, experiments and 

 actual observation of the behavior of substances under various 

 conditions, are indispensable ; in physics, multifarious appliances for 

 the illustration of principles are constantly required ; in astronomy. 



