RECENT ADVANCES IN 

 MICROSCOPY 



Section I 

 THE MEDICAL SCIENCES 



By A. PixEY, M.D., M.R.C.P. 



Director of the Pathological Department, Cancer Hospital, 



London. 



INTRODUCTION 



The use of the microscope is so essential a method in medical 

 practice and research that recent advances consist mainly in 

 improvements in technique and in new observations of fine 

 structure. The details of technical methods will not be recorded 

 here ; in fact, this chapter is intended rather to give an account of 

 the present position of medical microscopy, that is, mainly of 

 microscopical anatomy, than to give a bald list of disconnected 

 observations, however interesting these might be to the profes- 

 sional histologist. That there are very definite limitations to the 

 advances possible to microscopy must of course be admitted, 

 but this in no way impairs the value of this method of approach to 

 biological truth. First, it must be made clear that histological 

 methods can never do more than give us a picture equivalent to 

 some living structure ; we must not expect to gain a view of 

 living structures at work. It may be objected that such methods 

 as supra-vital staining, as used by Sabin, supply a closer insight 

 into living structure than these words would imply. In a sense 



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