The Microscope. 3 



sumption in cases of life insurance. 10. To know how the 

 patient gets on under treatment. 11. To know when to add to 

 or restrict diet. 12. To know when the patient is cured. 



Remarks. — Sometimes to distinguish elastic or inelastic lung 

 fibres in the sputum, the polariscope must be used, as cotton, 

 linen or woolly fibre ma}'- be discharged by the action of the 

 sputum as to closely resemble the lung fibres, which do not 

 polarize light. No real progress to health is made in any case 

 before the normal morphologies take the place of 3Iorph. A, B, 

 D, U. The microscope alone reveals these, hence what a useful 

 and beautiful thing it is to settle so many points that are a great 

 trouble to physicians. To give an idea here of these abnormal 

 morphologies would take too much time and space. Indeed, 

 they are best taught by practical lessons from some one who 

 understands them. These ideas are not wholly original with the 

 writer. They are American, and have been in use for many j'^ears. 

 The writer reported at the Tenth Int. Med. Congress, Berlin, 100 

 cases of consumption ; 40 of them were cures most]}^ of ten 

 3^ears' standing; some of twenty-five years. The treatment has 

 been published in the Trans. Am. Med. Association, 1880, p. 70. 

 From these we infer that the Netherlands are to be much hon- 

 ored for the discovery of the microscope, that something grand 

 has been done in America with the microscope, and that if forty 

 per cent, have been saved by using the microscope it is not an 

 " accursed " instrument. N. B. — These one hundred cases do 

 not comprise all of my cases in consumption. 



RHEUMATISM. 



Morph. A, £', C. — The microscope shows this to be a disease 

 of the blood first, and next of the fibrous and cartilaginous 

 tissues. Some call it a " gravel of the blood." Without the 

 microscope no certain diagnosis can be made ; with it the fol- 

 lowing varieties may be generally made out: 1. Cystinic. 2. 

 Oxalic. 3. Phosphatic. 4. Uric. 5. Hippuric (rare). Besides 

 these are enlarged and thickened fibrin filaments ; thrombi, 

 which may become emboli ; adhesive and plastic red blood cor- 

 puscles, deprived of their covering of neurine, and thus clotting 

 into firm ridges, rows and masses like crowded and frightened 

 sheep. These conditions usually are latent for a longer or shorter 

 time, and are brought out by some secondary cause, as exposure 



