JOURNAL 



OF THE 



NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY 



Vol. X. JANUARY, 1894. No. 1. 



ON UNIFORMLY STAINED COVER-PREPARATIONS 

 OF MICRO-ORGANISMS, FREE FROM DISTORTION. 



BY ALEXIS A. JULIEN, PH.D. 

 {Read November -^d, 1893.) 



The morphological differences between the kinds of bacteria 

 will be probably found as distinct as in all other micro-organ- 

 isms. Recent investigations have begun to emphasize their spe- 

 ■cific peculiarities in internal structure and enclosures and in their 

 outer organs of motion, and the value of these in diagnosis of 

 -species. A common impression to the contrary, long and often 

 expressed among bacteriologists, is certainly based, I think, on 

 unsatisfactory results which have been naturally derived from 

 some present easy methods of preparation of material, the use of 

 lenses of easy- working distance but narrow aperture, and easy 

 but ineffective methods of manipulation. The higher needs of 

 modern bacteriology surely call for methods of patient and pains- 

 taking treatment analogous to those long used on histological 

 preparations. There are serious objections to the process, now 

 in almost universal use, for the mounting of pure growths of bac- 

 teria and micro-organisms, and enjoined in most text books' — 

 the smearing of covers with droplets of the growth under the edge 

 of a slide drawn across the surface, or by rubbing the droplet 



IE. M. Crookshank, " Manual of Bacteriology," 3d Ed. (1890), 65. G. M. Sternberg, 

 " Mmual of Bacteriology " C'Sgz), 26, 27. 



