24 THE MICROSCOPICAL NEWS. 
suspicious blood-spots upon his clothing, weapons, etc., by attribu- 
ting them to the ox, pig, sheep or goat, or to any of the birds used 
for food, we can, under favourable circumstances, absolutely disprove 
his false statement, and materially aid the cause of justice by break- 
ing down his lying defence, even if twenty years have elapsed. 
fourth—But, if the accused person ascribes the tell-tale blood to 
a dog, an elephant, a capybara, or any other animal in Dr. Wood- 
ward’s list, it is useless to attempt to dispute his story, on micros- 
copical evidence, as to the size of the blood-corpuscles. 
/ifth—In cases of innocent persons wrongly accused of murder, 
and really stained with the blood of an ox, pig, or sheep, testimony 
of experts, founded upon measurement of the corpuscles, would be 
valuable, but less conclusive, because, under certain circumstances, 
human blood-corpuscles may shrink to the size of those of the ox, 
whilst under no known condition do ox or pig corpuscles expand to 
the magnitude of those in human blood. 
Szxti—In order to do away with ingenious objections of lawyers 
that the murdered person may have been affected with some disease 
which altered the size of his blood disks, or that the articles of 
clothing, etc., upon which the stains were deposited had produced, 
chemically or otherwise, some similar change in their magnitudes, 
it is very important to obtain, promptly, stains from the fresh blood 
of the victim, made in the presence of witnesses, upon portions of 
the prisoner’s clothing, or weapons analogous to those upon which 
suspicious red spots are found when he is arrested. When this 
cannot be done, spots of the murdered person’s blood, sprinkled 
on white paper, and fragments of his lungs and kidneys, should 
be carefully preserved, the former by a rapid drying and the latter 
by preservation in diluted alcohol. ‘These little precautions, which 
may in any instance, prove to be of infinite importance, should be 
earnestly impressed upon coroners, district attorneys and police- 
men, throughout the civilized world. 
NOTES AND QUERIES: 
MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY FOR BRADFORD.—We have received 
the printed rules which guide the members of this Society ; perhaps 
we are correct in guessing that a combination of microscopists has 
only just been formed. If this be so, we wish the Society a long 
life. 
BRAINTREE AND BocKING MicRoscoPicaL SocieTy.—The Jour- 
nal and annual report of this Society has come to hand since our 
last issue. From it we gather that the following papers were read 
