THE MICROSCOPE. 53 



upon a large screen microscopic sections of the various tissues and 

 organs of the body, magnified over 500 diameters. The doctor 

 demonstrated his method of teaching histology in the lecture room, 

 and showed conclusively that with these appliances a lecture on 

 histology could be made interesting as well as instructive. Some 

 of the pathological specimens exhibited showed very find indeed; 

 notably the sections of lung in pneumonia, phthisis, and emphy- 

 semia, also the lesions in the cord in locomotor ataxia. The 

 exhibition was a convincing proof to all of the value of that mode 

 of teaching and demonstrating the healthy and diseased tissues of 

 the body." 



[Abstracted for The Microscope by Geo. A. Hendricks, Instructor in Anatomy. University of 



Michigan.] 



ABSTRACTS. 



BACIL'LI in the Sputum of Phthisis. — Dr. Pfeiffer {Berlin Klin. 

 Woch.) has instituted researches into the character and regu- 

 larity of appearance of bacilli in the expectoration of consumptive 

 patients. He finds that in proportion to the mildness or severity of 

 the affection is the abundance or sparseness of the bacilli in the 

 sputum. A suspected expectoration requires to be examined for 

 several days in succession under high powers of the microscope 

 before a conclusion can be arrived at. An alkaline solution is used 

 to dissolve the sputa, while the bacilli is detected by gentianette or 

 Bismarck brown dyes. — British Medical Journal. 



How to Fix Aniline Dyes. — From a paper on Practical 

 Pathological Work, by PI. A. Reevis, F. R. C. S. E., the following 

 on treble staining, is taken. All working histologists will be thank- 

 ful for the discovery uf a simple and effectual mode of setting the 

 various beautiful aniline colors which have been much used of late 

 years, but which do not stand the immersion in spirit and alcohol 

 necessary to prepare them for mounting in Canada balsam, dammar 

 or turpentine. Sections of fresh tissues or of those hardened in 

 alcohol, Miiller's_ fluid, chromic acid or chromic and spirit mixture, 

 will answer for several of the methods to be described; but it is bet- 

 ter to wash chromic hardened sections in water and soak them for 

 not less than about half an hour in methylated spirit before proceed- 

 ing to dye them. Then it will be found that normal and pathologi- 

 cal structures take on distinct double and triple and multiple 

 staining. 



