mit MICROSCOPE. 
VoE: VI. ANN ARBOR, JULY, 1886. No. 7. 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
MICROSCOPY IN MEDICINE.* 
A. G. FIELD, M. D., DES MOINES, IOWA. 
F there is misfortune in our natural deficiencies of feeling, 
of hearing and of seeing, and if the progressive and arbitrary 
demands of modern medicine upon the special senses impress 
us with a sort of disagreeable consciousness of the fact, that 
misfortune has been met to a large extent by the supple- 
mental aids incidentally supplied in the rapid advancement of 
the physical sciences. At the bedside and in his office, the 
modern physician employs these aids to a large extent, and 
more constantly than do those engaged in any other calling or 
profession. This is emphatically true in relation to the micro- 
scope. In normal and pathological histology, in diagnosis and 
prognosis, as well as in the etiology of disease, this adjunct to 
the sense of seeing is indispensable. 
The microscope brings nearly every branch of medical 
science within the pale of rationality; and it renders the pres- 
ent an era of demonstration rather than of theory so that the 
student, as a rule, proceeds from the college to the field of 
practice with clear cut opinions upon the subjects of his work. 
It would appear idle on an occasion like this, and before 
such an audience, to attempt a review of microscopy as a factor 
in the establishment of our present advanced knowledge of 
nearly every disease. It alone has disclosed the fascinating 
pictures of tissue structure and tissue change in health and in 
growth, and of tissue change in degeneration and disease; and 
it has furnished everywhere suggestions to improve our thera- 
*Read before the annual meeting of the Iowa State Medical So- 
ciety, held in Des Moines May 18-21, 1886. 
