NEW BOOKS, WITH SHORT NOTICES. 87 



pliysicians till the time at least when a better pen shall produce a 

 better substitute." But in spite of this wish, we must at the outset 

 confess that its fulfilment is avo fancy far enough away ; for assuredly 

 to the medical man and student no better work has been offered to the 

 English reader. It is of course a treatise specially devoted to the 

 medical reader, and in all that relates to his wants, it is jDCCuliarly 

 complete and modern. The book is divided into two parts, tlie first 

 being devoted to descriptions of the instrument, the theory of its con- 

 struction, its various forms at present in use ; the apparatus for measixr- 

 ing and drawing ; the binocular stereoscopic and polarizing micro- 

 scopes ; testing the microscope ; the preparation of microscopic objects, 

 fluid media, and chemical reagents ; modes of staining, impregnation 

 with metals, drying and freezing, methods of injecting ; and, lastly, 

 the mounting and arrangement of microscopic objects. Under almost 

 all of these several departments the information supplied is most 

 complete, and in many cases novel. We cannot of course examine 

 every section, but we may take a few, which strike us as being of 

 special importance, under consideration. It is rather strange that the 

 editor, not the author, makes an assertion to the effect that Dr. Car- 

 penter, in the last edition of his ' Microscope and its Eevelations,' has 

 made a misstatement in regard to M. Nachet's student's microscope. 

 He states that the improved stage which M. Nachet has adopted, and 

 which Dr. Carpenter especially praises as being M. Nachet's, was 

 really " invented by Zentmayer in 1862, but which was copied by a 

 Paris maker, to whom Dr. Carpenter gives the credit of being the 

 inventor. In speaking of this instrument (Nachet's student's micro- 

 scope). Dr. Carpenter says, ' The chief peculiarity of this instrument, 

 however, lies in the stage, which the author has no hesitation in 

 pronouncing to be the most perfect of its kind that has yet been 

 devised.' The instrument from which Nachet copied the circular 

 stage was made by Zentmayer, in 1864, for Dr. W. Keen, of Phila- 

 delphia, who showed it three different times to M. Nachet, and had it 

 packed by him in the spring of 1865 for transportation." This is a 

 serious assertion, and one too of which we question the accuracy ; 

 but we have not the smallest doubt that Dr. Carpenter, who must 

 have based his account in great measure on M. Nachet's statement, 

 will at once admit the error if it is so. 



In reference to the use of microscopic lamps, the volume appears 

 strangely defective ; but one form, and that a most elementary one, 

 has been included in the description. And this seems the more 

 strange in an English edition of a foreign work. Clearly in regard 

 to this matter, as well as various others, the American editor has not 

 had much experience. Still we are indebted to him for his account 

 of a very ingenious section-cutter, which he has described from the 

 Proceedings of the American Ophthalmological Society for July, 1871. 

 It is the invention of Dr. Edward Curtis, a distinguished microscopist 

 of New York ; and as it is fully described and figured in the present 

 volume, we now dwell on it no longer ; it seems a most convenient 

 instrument. 



In the chapter upon fluid media, we find some valuable informa- 



