BY MOLECULAR COALESCENCE. Tk 
structure, a new condition, or a fresh unknown quantity 
is introduced into the problem; and it is exceedingly 
doubtful whether a person prudently sceptical would not 
on that account object to any conclusion arrived at from 
‘such a mode of investigation, and more especially where 
that conclusion is to serve as a foundation upon which the 
superstructure of the histology of a part is to be erected. 
We deduce the nature of a diseased structure by com- 
paring it with a sound one, the latter being taken as the 
exemplar. But Professor Kolliker reverses this mode of 
procedure, and builds up his tissue of bone with materials 
taken from the osseous tissue of a rickety subject. No 
wonder, then, if his histology of this structure partakes 
also of the abnormality of the elements of which it is 
composed.) All that can be seen in the very earliest 
stage of the ossific process are minute particles of earthy 
matter, which, from their number, cannot possibly be 
germs of cells, nor, from their size, can be regarded as 
perfectly formed cells; but they are, notwithstanding, 
particles of osseous matter; hence, it is clear that the 
production of bone is antecedent to, and independent of, 
either secreting cells or cell-germs. And besides, these 
particles, by a careful and proper mode of examination, 
can be seen to produce, by their union, lacunz ; conse- 
quently the lacunz, instead of bemg a system of organs 
designed to produce bone, that is, instead of being the 
vital cause of the elaboration of the primary osseous par- 
ticles, are only the effects of a subsequent arrangement 
and union of these same particles. So that the micro- 
scopic appearances presented by the earliest stage of the 
formation of bone in nowise agree with the cell-germ 
theory. A great deal of importance is attached by phy- 
siologists and pathologists, to the existence of a certain 
