PBEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION ix 



to the reasons for this perhaps apparently excessive catho- 

 licity of treatment. Doubtless a large proportion of the 

 formulge given are quite superseded in modern practice ; but 

 that is not a sufficient reason for rejecting them. The inclu- 

 sion of all of them is justified by the consideration that some 

 one or other of them may perhaps serve', in some way that 

 cannot now be foreseen, to suggest some new method of value. 

 Let me give an example. Who, ten years ago, would have 

 thought that the formula of Blanchard's ( Liqueur saline 

 hydrargyrique ' deserved reprinting in a treatise on histologic 

 technic ? Yet it is to the disinterment of that forgotten 

 formula by Lang that we owe the establishment of corrosive 

 sublimate as one of the most useful fixing agents in the 

 arsenal of the microtomist. Or who would have deemed 

 Thiersch's lilac borax-carmine (Formula No. 80a), published 

 in 1865, to be of greater importance .than any other stain 

 till then made known ? Yet that formula it was that directly 

 suggested Woodward's admirable aqueous borax-carmine, 

 and through this, if I am not mistaken, the aqueous and the 

 alcoholic borax-carmines of Grenadier, the latter of which is 

 now to be found on the table of every embryologist. 



All my abstracts and translations have been made from 

 the original sources, except where it has been impossible for 

 me to obtain sight of these. Eeferences to the sources are 

 given in all cases ; but I desire here to make special acknow- 

 ledgment of the great assistance rendered me by the Jour- 

 nal of the Koyal Microscopical Society in many respects 

 the best-edited periodical known to me. 



GENEVA (SWITZERLAND] 

 February, 1885. 



