INFLUENCE AS A PHYSIOLOGIST. 69 



assimilated there into perfect clearness ; and I suppose few 

 scientific writers have ever so distinctly known what they meant, 

 or expounded it with such precision, or with such a wealth of 

 apt illustration. 



One other book may be named in this connection, the 

 treatise on "The Microscope," first produced in 1856. By 

 this, said Professor E. Ray Lankester,* "the army of 

 " amateur observers, who delight in the revelations of the 

 " microscope, were trained to accurate work, and led on to 

 "become useful auxiliaries of the professional explorers of 

 " the organic world." This treatise Dr. Carpenter retained 

 in his own hands, issuing the sixth edition, immensely in- 

 creased in size, in 1881. Both in England and in the 

 United States it has filled a most important place. 



No one who has had any experience of the innumerable 

 amateur scientific societies scattered throughout the country 

 (observed a writer in the Medical Press and Circular)\ can 

 have any difficulty in determining to what extent this single 

 book has influenced the love for practical microscopy among 

 the masses. Formerly this was much more evident than now, 

 when the pioneer of popular guides is only one out of many 

 similar volumes, and when we are liable to forget the indebted- 

 ness of the present to the labourers in the past. 



VI. 



The principal physiological labours of Dr. Carpenter 

 were now complete. He was not disposed to overrate 

 their absolute value. A quick sense of justice sometimes 

 made him seem tenacious of recognition of his share in 

 the development of English biological science, as it also 

 prompted him to accord hearty welcome to the discoveries 

 of others. But when he compared his own work with what 



• Academy, November 21, 1885. t November 18, 1S85. 



