188 



SILLIMAN'S JOURNAL. 



riosity. He quotes the lines of Ferdusi, for which 

 Saadi invokes a blessing on his spirit, and the last 

 of which contains all my own morality in respect to 

 the lower animals : 



' O spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain, 

 He hves witli pleasure, and he dies with pain.' 



I am aware that the doctrine assumed in the first 

 line of the coujilet, in reference to a particular in- 

 sect, is denied by some naturalists ; and that the 

 fact assumed in the last line, in reference to the 

 lower animals, is denied by others. Whatever be 

 the truth as to the first point, I have no more doubt 

 than I have of my own existence, that some of the 

 lower animals feel severe pain : and even if the 

 words of our immortal Shakspeare as to the cor- 

 poral sufferance of the beetle trod upon be not lite- 

 rally accurate — yet who is entitled to affirm the 

 contrary ? This, I think, is clear, that the child 

 who is indulged in mutilating or killing an insect 

 for his own pleasure, has learnt the first lesson of 

 inhumanity to his own species. 



In no department of the science of organised 

 bodies, has the progress been greater or more as- 

 sured than in that which relates to the microscopic 

 structure of the constituent tissues of animal bo- 

 dies, both in their healthy and in their morbid 

 states ; and this progress is specially marked in 

 this country during the period which has elapsed 

 since the communication to the British Association 

 by Professor Owen, of his researches into the inti- 

 mate structure of recent and fossil teeth. 



The result of these researches having demonstra- 

 ted the constancy of well-defined and clearly ap- 

 preciable characters in the dental tissues of each 

 species of animal, (by which characters such spe- 

 cies could be determined in many instances, by the 

 examination of a fragment of a tooth,) other ob- 

 servers have been stimulated to pursue the same 

 minute inquiries into the diversities of structure of 

 the tissues of other organs. Such inquiries, for ex- 

 ample, have been most ably and successfully pur- 

 sued by Dr. Carpenter, in reference to the micros- 

 copic structure of recent and fossil shells ; and the 

 anatomist, the naturalist, and the palceontologist, 

 are alike indebted to the zeal and the skill of that 

 eminent physiologist ; while, in another sense, all 

 are indebted to the British Association for aiding 

 and stimulating his iuquiries, and for tlie illustra- 

 tions with which the publication of Dr. Carpenter's 

 Report has been accompanied in the transactions 

 of the Association. 



The hairs of the different mammalian animals 

 offer to the microscopical anatomist a field of ob- 

 servation as richly and remarkably developed as the 

 teeth, which formed the subject ol Professor Owen's 

 communication in 183S, and as the external cover- 

 ings of the testaceous molusca, which formed the 

 subject of Dr. Carpenter's communication in J846. 



The structure of the softer tis.sues of tlie animal 

 frame has not been less successfully investigated by 

 microscopic observers. One of the most extraor- 

 dinary, perhaps, of the recent discoveries by the 

 microscope, is that which is due chiefly to Purkinge 

 and Valentin, and which in this country have 

 been well established by Dr> Sharpey, relative to 

 the important part in the motion of fluids on inler^ , 



nal substances, performed by the vibratile action of 

 myriads of extremely minute hairs or cilia which 

 beset those surfaces. These ciliary movements for 

 example, raise the mucus of the windpipe to the 

 throat against gravity. They have been detected 

 in the ventricles of the brain, as well as many other 

 parts. 



Microscopic anatomy has been chiefly indebted 

 to Ehrenberg, Remak, and Dr. Martin Barry, for 

 the ex})osition of the ultimate structure of the ner- 

 vous and cerebral fibres. 



Exact knowledge of the nature of the retina, or 

 the vitreous and crystalline humors, and of other 

 delicate constituents of the organ of vision — the most 

 wonderful of all the organs with which God has 

 entrusted man — has been remarkably advanced by 

 tlie skilful use of the improved microscopes of the 

 present day. I rejoice that, among the proposed 

 arrangements of the Association at its present 

 meeting, one evening, Tuesday the 29th. will be 

 specially devoted to an exhibition of microscopic 

 objects. The beautiful discoveries of Sir David 

 Brewster, (whom, in this Association, we must al- 

 ways mention as one of our earliest friends and 

 patrons, three times one of our Vice-Presidents,) 

 have been carefully confirmed ; and many interest- 

 ing varieties have been noticed in the structure of 

 the crystalline lens of the eyes of different species 

 of animals. 



The most brilliant result, perhaps, of microsco- 

 pic anatomical research has been the actual obser- 

 vation of the transit of the blood from the arteries 

 to the veins ; the last fact required — if, indeed, such 

 an expression be allowable — for the lull proof of 

 Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood. 

 Malpighi first observed the transit in the large ca- 

 pillaries of the frog's w^eb. It has since been ob- 

 served in most other tissues, and in many other ani- 

 mals. 



No part of the animal body has been the subject 

 of more, or of more successful, researches than 

 tlie blood itself. The forms and dimensions and 

 diversities of structure characteristic of the colored 

 discs, corpuscles, or blood globules, as they were 

 once termed, in the difiesent classes, orders and ge- 

 nera of animals, have been described, and for the 

 most part accurately depicted ; and through the 

 concurrence of numerous observers, the anatomical 

 knowledge of these minute particles, invisible to 

 the naked eye, has become as exact and precise as 

 the knowledge of the blood vessels themselves, or 

 of any other of the grosser and more conspicuous 

 systems of organs ; and has added, — when we con- 

 sider how easily the action is deranged, by how 

 many causes it may be diseased or stopped — anoth- 

 er to the many proofs that we are fearfully as 

 well as wonderfully made. In surveying how our 

 frame is formed, how sustained, how revived by 

 sleep, one of the most wondrous of all the inci- 

 dents of our nature, what sufl'ering is produced by 

 any pressure on the lungs, and yet how uncon- 

 sciously we breathe a million times in health for 

 one in sickness — I cannot but feel that our heaven- 

 ly Father gave another proof of His essentia] cha- 

 racter, when, in answer to the prayer of Moses, 

 ''Shew me thy glory," God answered, ''I will 

 cause all my goodness to pass before thee." 



