288 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Sept 



the microscope becomes satisfactory and trustworthy ; 

 objects must be seen and known relatively and in their 

 entirety before being resolved into their component ele- 

 ments: the macroscopical appearance of an object must 

 precede its microscopical appearance. 



The physician must know in what menstruum and 

 under what conditions the objects for which he is search- 

 ing exists or are developed. Neither is it enough for 

 him to know and recognise the various forms of bacilli ; 

 he must be able to classify them and know their manner 

 and method of growth, what they produce by their 

 growth and what influence they have upon humanity. 

 This is the philosophy of microscopy as relates to medi- 

 cal science. The microscope therefore becomes to the 

 physician valuable in the degree that he is able to classify 

 and arrange its revelations so that they may be read as 

 from an open book. This faculty means a familiarity 

 with the instrument born of time, — time which the 

 "country doctor" must give by piecemeal, if at all. 



I am no pessimist, although I see in a degree the pass- 

 ing of the microscope so far as it relates to the individ- 

 ual work of the ordinary medical practioner. As already 

 intimated, this passing is induced and sustained by 

 unskilled and untrained eyes, which see much and indi- 

 vidualize little. 



The structure of microscopy, if it be enduring, must 

 be built upon a comparatively errorless macroscopy. The 

 rank and file still have to learn that the microscope only 

 enables the investigator tu continue his eyesight so as to 

 observe the primary structure of an organised mass that 

 would otherwise remain unknown and unknowable. 



The first essential, then, for a physician microscopist 

 is the proper use of his eyes, supplemented by a keen 

 intellect; what he sees he must be able to describe 

 accurately, thus differentiating the various forms and fig- 

 ures that appear in the visual field. 



