230 The Microscope. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Blood Under the Microscope. — The article we copy from 

 the " Scientific American," under the above title, is a fair spec- 

 imen of scientific truth adapted to the popular demand. We 

 do not here criticise Dr. Piper in any way, for there is no positive 

 evidence that he said what is here credited to him. But there 

 are thousands of people who have read the article, now ready 

 to believe that the microscope can tell the blood of a man from 

 that of a woman; or purchance the blood of a u furious" man 

 from that of a " mild " man ; or perchance by an examination of 

 the blood we can tell the disposition or temperament of an in- 

 dividual; hence the extreme value to young men about to en- 

 gage in matrimony, for how easy and valuable to have the ques- 

 tion of temperament decided before it is everlastingly too late. 

 Plenty of rich fees already loom up before us, and by the aid of 

 Heitzmann's wonderful skill in this kind of work, we see engage- 

 ments made and broken, marriages forbidden and recommended 

 all at our bidding. Perhaps, however, when a man is on a 

 pillow his blood corpuscles are softer and rounder than when on 

 a hard, flat carpet. But it is to the last paragraph of the article 

 that we call serious attention. In a word, we believe the facts 

 have been reversed. It should say that as between human blood 

 and dog's blood it is impossible to tell, while between human 

 blood and hog's blood it is certainly possible to tell. Prof. 

 Wormley says his measurements give for man, 1-3,250; for the 

 dog, 1-3,561 ; for the hog, 1-4,268. 



Mr. Geo. S. Davis, of Detroit, has just completed arrange- 

 ments to offer a case of Materia Medica Specimens, containing 

 288 specimens of the crude vegetable drugs. Students of med- 

 icine and pharmacy will gladly avail themselves of this oppor- 

 tunity. The whole collection is listed at only ten dollars. 



White Zinc Cement. — As a result of considerable corre 

 spondence with Dr. F. L. James, of St. Louis, we have discovered 

 some of the causes this cement, as made by some houses, is not 

 always satisfactory. For instance, when we said that the mater- 

 ials used to make this cement were all cheap and that as a result 

 the cement should sell much cheaper than it does, he replied as 



