276 THE MICROSCOPE. 
I have never found it too cold for good cutting of fresh tissues. 
I was once cutting the tuberculous lung of a rabbit, with the 
temperature 30° below zero. This became too hard, and the 
razor jumped and the edge turned. Fresh tissues, at zero, cut as 
nicely as old cheese; then drop them into a saucer or cup of water. 
Water-soaked and diseased tissues do not work so well. 
Tissues preserved in alcohol may be soaked out in water and 
frozen, but they become too hard at zero. They may be cut in 
a temperature of 20° to 30° above, but I failed to get such satis- 
factory results as with the fresh specimens at zero. 
In this way it is no trouble to make sections of animal 
tissues in this country where all out-of-doors is a great freezing 
microtome. Almost any morning for three winter months, I 
cut with a dry razor; and if there is no wind, the sections may 
be let fall on a piece of paper and rolled up like cigars. When 
done, turn them into a saucer of water when they will im- 
mediately spread out flat. 
I find this the cheapest, easiest and best method of sectioning 
frozen tissues that are fresh, with the animal juices all in, for 
such do not freeze so readily, nor so hard as water-soaked speci- 
mens. It is, too, a method at the command of every one who 
owns a razor. 
The specimen, when sectioning, must be held in a hand micro- 
tome, or in some other way, as between two pieces of corn pith, or 
even two light flat pieces of wood. It cannot be held in the 
fingers for obvious reasons. 
These specimens do not mount very well in balsam. The 
alcohol and turpentine processes contract and distort them too 
much for satisfactory slides. Farrant’s medium or glycerine jelly 
is better. 
Many years ago I felt a desire for specimens of my own 
hands’ working for my microscope. Then we had no teachers of 
this art in the medical colleges, and the works of Hogg, Car- 
penter, and others on the microscope were not well calculated 
to inspire the entirely inexperienced. They told us to clip off 
pieces with the scissors for temporary study. The hardening 
process we did not understand, and thus twenty to thirty years 
ago we were without specimens, except such as were made by 
experts for sale. Thus we were taught that only a few persons 
could do such work, and we consequently lost the opportunities 
