NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
93 
the results obtained by long study of the very lowest, the Rhizopods 
— namely, that they both yield increasing evidence in favour of the 
doctrine of Evolution. Researches of this kind show what the life 
processes can accomplish in the history of one individual animal, and 
also that the morphological steps and stages are not arbitrary, but 
take place in a manner in accordance with all that has of late been 
revealed to us of the gradation of types in the ages that are past.” 
Influence of Quinine on the White Blood Cells . — An article in a 
recent number of the 1 Practitioner ’ deals with this subject. The paper 
is by Dr. Geltowsky, which derives additional interest from being the 
result of work done at the Brown Institution. The author confirms 
the statements of previous observers that the addition of a minute 
quantity of sulphate or hydrochlorate of quinine to drawn blood 
arrests the movements of the colourless corpuscles, either instan- 
taneously or after a time, according to the quantity used ; and he 
establishes that the action is due to the salt of quinine itself, not to 
its solvents ; and that it is not shared by methyl sulphate of strychnia, 
urea, or chloride of sodium. Proceeding further from these data, he 
estimated the quantity of quinine that would be required to affect the 
whole mass of the blood in a given animal, and injected this quantity 
into a vein. In every instance either narcotism or death was pro- 
duced ; and the corpuscles, notwithstanding, remained wholly un- 
affected. 
NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
Nomenclature of Objectives. — This controversy goes on still, and 
we are in hopes that it will prove of value to microscopists by render- 
ing the terminology of the different countries at length identical. In 
the £ American Naturalist ’ for June, a writer signing himself C. S., 
who we doubt not is Mr. Charles Stodder, says of Dr. Ward’s paper 
in the same journal that its author well says of the prevailing practice, 
“ To call two lenses of identical magnifying power respectively one- 
fourth and one-sixth inch lenses, is just as indefensible as to call two 
houses of equal height, forty and fifty feet high respectively.” An 
apt illustration of this is afforded by Dr. J. J. Woodward’s paper in 
the April number of the same journal, where he cites an instrument 
invoiced -3'^, which by actual measurement at the “ open point ” was 
only a ? But other objectives by the same maker called T 4 F , are 
known to be nearly as short focus as £ or less than 4, showing that 
no system is used in the nomenclature. Other instruments from 
other makers have given similar results. With such discrepancies, 
and confusion, microscopists have nothing to depend on in ordering or 
comparing their instruments. The points from which the measure- 
ments are to be made is the question which is most obscure. Un- 
doubtedly the best, and the true theoretic plan is to measure from 
the optical centre of the objective to the optical centre of the ocular, 
or the conjugate focus. This is the method of one maker of 
