24 BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE 



of original references. But Dr. Bostock says : " Much 

 as the naturalist has been indebted to the microscope, 

 by bringing into view many beings of which he could 

 not otherwise have ascertained the existence, the physi- 

 ologist has not yet derived any great benefit from the 

 instrument." * 



These are only specimens of the manner in which 

 the microscope and its results were generally regarded 

 by the generation just preceding our own. 



I have referred you to the proper authorities for the 

 account of those improvements which about the year 

 1830 rendered the compound microscope an efficient 

 and trustworthy instrument. It was now for the first 

 time that a true general anatomy became possible. As 

 early as 1816 Treviranus had attempted to resolve the 

 tissues, of which Bichat had admitted no less than 

 twenty-one, into their simple microscopic elements. 

 How could such an attempt succeed, Henle well 

 asks,f at a time when the most extensively diffused 

 of all the tissues, the areolar, was not at all under- 

 stood ? All that method could do had been accom- 

 phshed by Bichat and his followers. It was for the 

 optician to take the next step. The future of anatomy 

 and physiology, as an enthusiastic micrologist of the 

 time said, was in the hands of Messrs. Schieck and 

 Pistor, famous opticians of Berlin. 



In those earlier days of which I am speaking, all 



• Physiology, p. 281. 



t Anatomie G^nerale, (Trad, de Jourdari;) L 125. 



