268 GEORGE HOGGAN ON A 



Unfortunately, the histological mind appears to have got into a 

 groove with regard to the section-cutters, from which it seems 

 helpless to extricate itself ; for proof of this one has only to look 

 at the tube section-cutter and the hundred and one modifications 

 and names which it bears. Thus we have Topping's, Beale's, Stir- 

 ling's, Ranvier's, Rutherford's, all very good in their own way, and 

 a host of others too numerous to name here. The name of the 

 original inventor of this good and simple little machine seems to 

 have been long lost,* though Ranvier tells me (he himself laying no 

 claim to the invention) that above thirty years ago it was in use in 

 some German laboratories ; now-a-days, however, anyone desirous 

 of obtaining a name in histology has only to add a screw here, or 

 a plate there, or take away the same, and henceforth the machine 

 is called by his name, and the histological laity who examine the 

 parts of the completed machine, gape in wonder at the ingenuity of 

 the individual whose name it bears. 



Luckily for me I had never seen one of them when I commenced 

 the construction of my machine, and it is probably to that fact that 

 I owe the conception of a machine differing in all its parts, move- 

 ments, and action, from any other. At the same time do not sup- 

 pose that the finished machine now exhibited is similar in its parts 

 to the one I at first constructed — the design is certainly the same, 

 but I have added many improvements, and failed in ten times more 

 supposed improvements, which have therefore been discarded, but 

 which will probably be again brought forward by a future host of 

 plagiarists who will add a screw here, and a pin there, to the 

 general detriment of the machine, and will thenceforth call my 

 child by their name. Yet with that future clearly before me, I give 

 forth my invention freely to the world, without patent or any hin- 

 drance whatever, either to earnest worker or imitator. 



As the machine now exists, it may appear to most of you as being 

 too complex, at least when compared with most of the section- 

 cutters now in use ; and those people who believe in the common- 

 place idea that the more complex a machine is, the less useful it 



* " The first instniment of this kind was invented by Adams, about the year 

 1770, and was subsequently improved by Mr. Gumming ; it is described and figured 

 in the microscopical essays of the younger Ad j^ms # * * # 



A very excellent machine for this purpose, which the author has been in the habit 

 of using for many years * *= is shown in fig. 254. * * 



Mr. Topping has contrived a very convenient and useful form." * # * 



—QueTcett on the Microscope, 3rd Ed., 1855, p. 359.— Ed. Q. M. J. 



