36 THE MICROSCOPE. 
tinctly how Mr. Griffith has advocated this method to me for a long 
time past. He has always been ‘just going to” get some samples 
made, but so far as I know ke has never put his plans into opera- 
tion. Mr. Griffith has the common fault of all inventors—it was the 
fault of the brilliant Spencer—never quite satisfied with his work, 
and I know to-day, of many things in common use that people 
would be surprised to learn emanated from this man’s inventive 
mind. Mr. Griffith’s compound eye-piece is a perfect surprise, yet 
somebody else will get the credit of the genius it shows unless he 
gives it more publicity. 
PRACTICAL BENEFITS CONFERRED BY THE MICROSCOPE.—In 
the presidential address of Prof. Lankester before the biological 
section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 
he strongly advocates the endowment of research and_ referring to 
the microscope he says: “The microscope, which was a drawing- 
room toy a hundred years ago, has, in the hands of devoted and 
gifted students of nature, been the means of giving us knowledge 
which, on the one hand, has saved thousands of surgical patients 
from terrible pain and death, and, on the other hand, has laid the 
foundation of that new philosophy with which the name of Darwin 
will forever be associated. When Ehrenberg, and later, Dujardin 
described and figured the various forms of monas, vibrio Spirillum, 
and Bacterium which their microscopes revealed to them, no one 
could predict that fifty years later these organisms would be re- 
cognized as the cause of that dangerous suppuration of wounds 
which so often defeated the beneficent efforts of the surgeon, and 
made an operation in a hospital ward as dangerous to the patient as 
residence in a plague-stricken city. . . . The amount of death, 
not to speak of the suffering short of death, which the knowledge of 
bacteria gained by the microscope has thus averted is incalculable. 
One other case I may call to mind in which knowledge of 
the presence of bacteria as the cause of disease has led to success- 
ful curative treatment. A not uncommon affliction is inflammation 
of the bladder, accompanied by ammoniacal decomposition of the 
urine. Microscopical investigation has shown that this ammoniacal 
decomposition is entirely due to the activity of a Bacterium. 
Fortunately this Bacterium is at once killed by weak solutions of 
quinine, which can be injected into the bladder without causing any 
injury or irritation.” 
