96 SELECTION AND USE 



a comparatively cheap microscope would frequently answer his 

 purpose far better. The reader will of course bear in mind 

 that by " dealer " we do not refer to experienced opticians, such 

 as are most of our microscope makers. From these men the 

 student will be pretty sure to get sound advice and efficient 

 assistance. But, as is well known, every dealer in spectacles 

 sets himself up as an optician, and professes to be competent 

 to give advice in regard to the purchase of a microscope ; and 

 the microscope which these men always advise the purchaser to 

 procure is the one that will afford them the largest commissions. It 

 is unnecessary to say that this is not always the instrument 

 that will afford the greatest amount of satisfaction to the be- 

 ginner in microscopy. 



In selecting a microscope, regard must be had, not only to 

 the excellence of the instrument, but to its adaptability to the 

 purpose for which it is intended, and to the person who is to 

 use it. A complicated and expensive compound microscope, if 

 placed in the hands of a person having little experience or skill, 

 would evidently be worse than v.-asted, while to attempt to con- 

 duct elaborate and delicate investigations by means of a cheap 

 non-achromatic instrument, would simply be to throw away 

 time, and wantonly incur the risk of serious errors. And yet no 

 mistake is more frequently made. A microscope is wanted ; the 

 purchaser is liberal with his means, and he is saddled with an 

 expensive instrument entirely unsuited to his requirements. 

 Or, on the other hand, a physician or student of limited means 

 requires an instrument, and. being unable to afford the price of 

 a really good one, he is induced to purchase a cheap affair, 

 whose indications, when applied to the subjects for which he 

 requires it, are entirely unreliable ; whereas, he ought to be 

 told that if he cannot afford a microscope which is at least pro- 

 vided with good objectives, and the necessary facilities for using 

 them, he ought to leave microscopy in its applications to medi- 

 cine and physiology alone. We feel it the more necessary to 

 be emphatic on this point, from the fact that cases involving 

 such errors have so often come under our own observation, 

 Thus we have seen cheap French instruments, with poor triplets, 

 in the hands of physicians, and used in cases where the safety 

 of the pa.tlent depended upon a correct diagnosis \ 



