1889.] MICEOSCOPICAL JOUKNAL. 199 



these matters of fact, though their opinions as to how the blood came 

 there, how long it has been there, or like questions, may be honestly 

 opposed. 



In the broad field of chemistry and toxicology the microscope is not 

 only an important means by which to determine the composition of 

 fluids and solids, but is frequently used to corroborate ordinary tests 

 made in the chemical laboratory. 



It is not many years since that deaths from poisoning were sur- 

 rounded b}^ a fear and dread scarcely appreciable at the present day. 

 Then, the action of poisons and their means of detection were un- 

 known. So great an atmosphere of suspicion and dread surrounded 

 a sudden and inexplicable death that the grossest legal abuses pre- 

 vailed. Severe punishments were inflicted upon persons suspected of 

 having committed murder by poisoning, and those convicted in Eng- 

 land were for a long period bi"oiled alive, and in France, burned at the 

 stake even so late as 1791. With modern methods of investigation a 

 knowledge of poisons has been obtained, and methods introduced for 

 their detection have become so perfect as to render the fear of discovery 

 greater than the fearful and indescribable dread once experienced of 

 being the victim of a mysterious death. 



With a special form of the modern microscope made for chemical 

 work so arranged that the objective is below the stage, where it is pro- 

 tected from the corrosive action of reagents, qualitative chemical an- 

 alysis of minute quantities may be conducted with ease and accuracy, 

 the reactions and crystalline deposits of diflerent chemical combina- 

 tions being obsei'ved through the instrument. Although the inverted 

 microscope has been known for some years in the forms issued by M. 

 Nachet, it has been used but little on account of its limited scope and 

 unsatisfactory definition as compared with the usual upright model. 

 Through the combined skill and ingenuity of one of the members of 

 this Society, Mr. Edward Bausch, the instrument has been greatly 

 modified and improved and introduced in the form of a combined in- 

 verted and vertical microscope. The practical application of the pres- 

 ent model extends the field it was intended to occupy, and renders easy 

 micro-chemical investigations heretofore impossible, or requiring the 

 most delicate and tedious manipulation. 



The greatest advance made in modern legal chemistry was through 

 the brilliant achievements of Bunsen and Kirchhoft" in iS!;9, by which 

 we are enabled, through the means of the spectroscope, to identify with 

 unerring accuracy not only the elementary forms of matter but many 

 compounds, and in quantities so minute as to be beyond the reach of 

 all other known methods of analysis. With the great activity charac- 

 teristic of modern science, no sooner was the wonderful capacity of 

 the spectroscope appreciated than eflbrts were made to devise a combi- 

 nation whereby it could be utilized in microscopical research. Largely 

 to the eflbrts of Mr. H. C. Sorby this was accomplished and the micro- 

 spectroscope introduced, through which new ancl important discoveries 

 have since been made, especially in the field of forensic microscopy. 

 The first notable improvement in micro-spectroscopes was a modifica- 

 tion by Zeiss, of Jena, who tlevised an arrangement whereby the direct 

 vision prism may be turned one side, and the slit opened, thus enabling 

 the object under inspection to be accurately focused. 



