90 Tue MIcROSscOoPE. 
MICRO—ORGANISMS AND THE DECAY OF TEETH. 
Mr. W. Miller has made more than a thousand sections of 
decaying teeth and has not failed in a single instance to find a 
microscopical branching fungus, deep in the bony structure. 
Fuchsin, methyl-blue, and other stains show masses of bacte- 
ria in both longitudinal and transverse sections. Great masses 
of micrococci, bacilli, and leptothrix threads pass into the den- 
tinal canals. 
AN ELECTRIC MICROSCOPE. 
This is simply an ordinary sciopticon with microscopic 
attachment, having the light furnished by a battery, instead 
of the more ordinary lime light. 
An instrument of this kind has created considerable inter- 
est in Paris, on account of the public exhibitions given of pop- 
ular objects. ‘‘ The eye of the fly was presented in a form no 
less than four million times its natural size.” This is really 
only two thousand diameters. It is not at all uncommon for us 
to employ a power of one thousand diameters with our lime- 
light sciopticon, and were our room large enough to get the 
proper distance, there is no reason why the power could not be 
at least doubled. 
2 a 
Tue Stupy or Histotoacy.—The study of histology ought 
to be insisted upon before permitting medical students to at- 
tempt the study of pathology; not by lectures alone, but by 
the use of the microscope in the laboratory. 
ADULTERATED PEPpPER.—A new adulterant of ground pep- 
per is a finely-ground preparation of the kernels of olive ber- 
ries. If asample of the suspected mixture is scattered upon a 
mixture of equal volumes of glycerine and water, the pepper 
floats upon the surface, while the ground olive kernels sink. 
Bacitus TusercuLosis.—The British Medical Journal 
sums up the present state of our knowledge respecting the 
bacillus tuberculosis, thus: ‘“ For the development of the para- 
site some disease or defect in the pulmonary tissue is necessary, 
