THE MICROSCOPE. 175 



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"THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MICROSCOPISTS. " 



WE have before us the proceedings of this society, held at 

 Columbus, Ohio, August 9th to nth, 1881. 



It forms a volume of 116 pages, including six full-page plates 

 The printer has performed his work well. It remains for us to 

 review the work brought before the society. Ten original papers, 

 were presented. The first paper, as placed in the report, was given 

 by Dr. Redding, of Falmouth, Ind., upon " Muscular Contractility." 

 It would be useless to attempt a full criticism of this paper in the 

 space at our disposal, but the writer has failed completely to convert 

 us. In the first place, the histological description of the tissue ex- 

 .perimented upon is incorrect. We are not prepared to call each 

 sarcous element "a cell." We are told — "the fibrillae are composed 

 of cells." We believe that in living muscle there are no fibrillae ; 

 the arrangement into discs or fibrils depending upon various causes,, 

 alcohol giving the fibrillae and hydrochloric acid the discs. Author.^ 

 have not "ignored," neither have they "remained silent upon the 

 structure" of these sarcous elements. Brlicke says they consist of 

 minute doubly refracting elements, and he has named them "dis- 

 cliaclasts." A transverse section of these elements "presents a fine 

 granular appearance, leading one to believe that they are composed 

 of most minute fibrils," (see Stowell's Histology, p. 102). During 

 t-he contraction of a muscle the "contractile disc" becomes more 

 transparent, shorter in its longitudinal direction and broader in its 

 transverse. Now the "contractile disc" is composed of thin, oblong 

 rods, called sarcous elements, — the "cells" of our writer, — thus 

 when this disc becomes changed in shape, as described above, each 

 element participates in it, that is, each sarcous element becomes 

 shorter and thicker, "due probably to a translocation of its mole- 

 cules," (Foster). The drawings that accompany this article are so 

 decidedly diagrammatic that they are liable to mislead. 



The second paper — "Tumor of the Left Auricle," by Dr. Kins 

 man, of Columbus, shows the author to be a practical man and a very 

 close observer. The history of the case, the location of the growth, 



