252 The Microscope. 



CORRESPONDENCE AND QUERIES. 



Chattanooga, Tenn. 

 Editors of the Microscope: 



Ever since the appearance of your May issue, I have been 

 intending to reply to your very remarkable manifesto against thin 

 sections, and thus try, as far as my experience goes in microscopical 

 work, to show your error and combat its pernicious influence; but, 

 until now, have not had the favorable time to express my thoughts 

 in writing. 



After this expression of my opinion of your editorial leader on 

 the relative value of thin and thick sections, you may readily imagine 

 my surprise — indeed, regret — on reading in your June number. Prof. 

 Stowell's unqualified approval of your statements; for, like yourself, 

 he is "a man, free born, of lawful age, and well recommended " by 

 the brethren whose skilled labors have greatly aided and advanced 

 the measure of microscopical knowledge in this country. 



With each step nearer and nearer perfection of the microtome, 

 has the greater power, usefulness and value of the microscope been 

 demonstrated; and your demurrer to its greatest triumph — thin, even 

 sections — is all the more untenable because you have failed to state 

 the whole case, embracing these important facts : 



1st. Without a properly prepared specimen and a harmonious 

 technique from the moment the fresh material or tissue is first put 

 into the hardening agent and subsequently carried through the 

 various processes of clearing up, imbedding, cutting, staining, etc., 

 to the finished mount, neither good lenses, fine substage accessories, 

 the best light from the sky, nor the lamp can produce, will give a 

 clear field and satisfactory results. 



2d. The proper thickness of the section is a matter, I think, to 

 be wholly determined by the particular character of the tissue, or 

 object to be examined and studied. Of course, no one having any 

 correct knowledge of tissue structure would think of attempting to 

 cut a section of bone, or of the skin of the heel, to the same measure 

 of thinness that would be necessary to demonstrate bacilli in a sec- 

 tion of tuberculous lung? Take, for example, the section of lung 

 tissue I sent you not long ago, and which you so flatteringly acknowl- 

 edged in the same issue of The Microscope that gave forth, without 

 qualification, your fulmination against thin sections, and what would 

 have been its value if it had been cut much thicker? To me it 

 would have been entirely worthless. 



If coarse details only are required, then a thick section prop- 



