The Microscope. 199 



titioners wlio shrug their shoulders distrustfully when the 

 younger physicians use the microscope, even the old ones are 

 unconsciously affected in their practice by advancement in mi- 

 cros3D[)ical inve3tigxtions. Th3 president- spoke of 



BIOLO(iV, 



which owed its existence to microscopy and which has worked 

 a revolution in medicine. Anything that can claim to aid us in 

 coping with contagious diseases with blights upon our crops and 

 diseases of our flocks is of intense interest to the public, and it 

 is witli these that biology deals. It is in its infancy yet, but it 

 is destined to become more and more important. The speaker 

 said that it had been shown that the two hundred millionth part 

 of a drop contains enough bacteria to be deadly infectious. He 

 said that when it is shown that ventilation and sewage have been 

 greatly benefitted by microscopical investigations it may be con- 

 sidered fortunate that some men have microbes on the brain as 

 has been said in jest. He said that biology may yet prove that 

 the infinitesimal organisms in which it deals are not alone con- 

 cerned with diseases but with health as well and that they, act- 

 ing in the pores of the human system as workers, carry oil' the 

 sewage of the system and thus overcome the effects of violations 

 of nature's laws, and thus work to the end of aiding man in work- 

 ing out ir himself the theory of 



THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 



He said that microscopy has a great work to do in geology, and 

 thus in affecting the commerce of the world. It has been said, 

 " Make it unfashionable for men to drink and gamble, and our 

 sons will stay away from the saloon and gambling hell.'" Fashion 

 cannot be compared in its force with the influence of science 

 studies on man. The hod carrier, who climbs the ladder with 

 his burden, is better and happier for that which has been accom- 

 plished by scientific research which, with its electric lights and 

 telephones, have done so much to lift him out of the ditch in 

 which his fathers were. 



The professor did not claim everything for scientific re- 

 search, but likened it to the carefully made balance wheel in 

 the chronometer which, although but a part of the delicate 

 machinery, is an essential part. He closed with an elegant bit 



