8 
chose to term it. But facts were soon too strong, and prejudice 
was compelled to hide its diminished head. And then came the 
optical triumph. Many theories were tried in the furnace, as 
exemplified by the microscope and arose, phcenix-like from their 
ashes, golden facts, worthy to be set as jewels in ‘the scientific 
diadem ; while others under the same process found a dishonoured 
grave beneath the ruins they had caused. To the physiologist 
and the biologist a new world seemed to have been opened up. 
They viewed with delight the treble coats of the arteries, and 
the circulation of the blood ; the delicate layers of the eye-ball 
and the tactile corpuscles of the fingers ; the ciliated epithelium 
of the nose, and the villi distributed over the intestine. Their 
. theories became facts, and the two sciences advanced side by 
side with giant bounds, and so they have continued to progress 
to the present day. 
The penetrating eye of the microscope has pierced deep 
beneath the surface, and week by week, nay almost day by day, 
fresh facts, fresh discoveries are being piled one upon the other 
with almost bewildering confusion. 
In pathology, as dealing with diseased rather than healthy 
structures, the microscope still holds universal sway ; malignant 
tumours can be distinguished from those of benign origin with 
almost absolute certainty, and many maladies of obscure origin 
are now by their microscopical results made clear. And many a 
husband has been made supremely happy, many a mother has 
poured out her heartfelt gratitude to the Almighty when the 
physician, aided by the microscope as by the touch of a magician’s 
wand, has been able to pronounce that the beloved wife suffers 
from no incurable disease, and that the mother’s darling may long 
be spared to bring joy and sunshine to the household. In medicine 
the microscope has produced a revolution. The obscure has been 
made plain, the crooked straight. Many a disease which for 
generations had puzzled the physician and been an opprobium to 
Science is now clearly under his eye, and he can, by a careful 
examination of the smallest particle of tissue, or the most minute 
drop of secretion, gauge the condition of the patient, watch the 
progress of the disease, and prognosticate the result. 
It is to the microscope we owe the discovery of the various 
microbes which are now supposed by many to be the main cause 
of the majority of the ills that flesh is heir to. 
I would not for a moment, however, have you consider that 
I give my adherence to the theory that many of our fatal diseases 
are produced by these infinitely small bacilli ; on the contrary, my 
