856 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



wide glass witli a close-fitting wooden lid, as tins prevents the external 

 surface of the lung becoming dry in case it is not inflated for a long 

 time. 



This is also adapted for permanently preserving plants, especially 

 Algfe, without shrivelling or the chlorophyll changing. The experi- 

 ments with plants, however, are not concluded, and Herr Wickers- 

 heimer hopes to make important advances.* 



No. 3 is for microscopical objects. The process is the same as 

 for glycerine. Those which are intended to be prepared later should 

 be kept meantime in No. 2. Although with No. 3 excellent results 

 have already been obtained, experiments are not concluded. 



No. 4 is for preserving and hardening brains, and for preserving 

 fishes and birds with their feathers. 



The attention of anatomists, &c.,is called to the fact that by injecting 

 2 to 2^ kilo, of liquid No. 1 before dissecting, all possibility of blood- 

 poisoning is prevented, although decomposition may have commenced. 

 In those cases where it is not advisable to use No. 1 fluid, lest traces 

 of arsenical poisoning should be effaced, another liquid can be em- 

 ployed which is quite free from poison, but, like No. 1, renders blood- 

 poisoning in dissecting impossible. 



It is not of course remarkable to find it stated that this liquid is 

 " not new," and that it was invented by some one else twenty years 

 ago.t 



Preserving the Colours of Tissues.^ — It would undoubtedly be a 

 great advantage if the specimens in our anatomical museums could 

 be preserved with their original colours unaltered ; but, unfor- 

 tunately, hfemoglobin and most of the other pigments found in the 

 tissues are dissolved out or destroyed, to a greater or less extent, 

 by all the preservative fluids which are usually employed. If a 

 piece of fresh tissue be placed in commercial alcohol it very soon 

 becomes bleached, and the fluid becomes at the same time discoloured 

 by solution of the colouring matters. Hfemoglobin is soluble in 

 almost every known fluid, with the exception of absolute alcohol, 

 which, however, causes great shrinkage of the soft parts, and is, 

 moreover, too expensive to be very generally employed. Solutions of 

 chloral hydrate have been used (and with great advantage in many 

 cases) ; but here again, although the colouring matters are by this 

 means retained unaltered, they are not thereby rendered insoluble, 

 and hence they tend to pass out into the fluid, leaving the tissues 

 partially decolorized. Other media have been tried, but all have 

 a similar imperfection. By baking or otherwise heating the tissues, 

 the pigments are so altered as to be rendered insoluble in alcohol ; 

 but, in addition to the tediousness of the process, the action of alcohol 

 is then to turn them black in the course of time, and hence this 

 method is but little employed, except with the object of demonstrating 

 large extravasation and similar changes. 



* See. this Journal, anfe, p. 696. 



t See Duncker's 'Zeitschr. IMikr. Fleischscliau,' i. (1880) p. 100. 



X ' Jouru. Anat, ami Phvsici.,' xiv. (1880) p. 511. 



