THE 
PREPARATION AND MOUNTING 
OF 
MICROSCOPIC OBJECTS. 
CHA P LER 1: 
INTRODUCTION. 
Tais work having been written chiefly to help students, 
the writer does not venture to affirm of it that it is by any 
means complete or exhaustive. The art of microscopic 
manipulation is progressive, and it is scarcely possible, 
therefore, to say of a work on the subject, that it holds all 
that is known at any given time. It is an art, too, which 
is so inextricably mixed up with the highest branches cf 
scientific inquiry, that new modes of investigation are daily 
devised by the acutest intellects, and with these it is very 
difficult for a Writer to keep pace. 
It is a well-nigh hopeless task to attempt to teach such 
modes of inquiry by precept, yet it is felt that some short 
account of them may reasonably be expected here. Refer- 
ence is now made more particularly to the practical part of 
human and comparative histology. As this is not a treatise 
on histology, but is devoted mainly to the methods of pre- 
serving the results of researches in that science, it is scarcely 
possible to indicate to the student how he shall proceed in 
any given case; yet there are certain tests, reagents, and 
staining matters employed, with the uses and effects of 
B 
