TUB 



PREPARATION AND MOUNTING 



or 



MICROSCOPIC OBJECTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THIS work having been written chiefly to help students, 

 the writer does not venture to affirm of it that it is by any 

 means complete or exhaustive. The art of microscopic 

 manipulation is progressive, and it is scarcely possible, 

 therefore, to say of a work on the subject, that it holds all 

 that is known at any given time. It is an art, too, which 

 is so inextricably mixed up with the highest branches cf 

 scientific inquiry, that new modes of investigation are daily 

 devised by the acutest intellects, and with these it is very 

 difficult for a writer to keep pace. 



It is a well-nigh hopeless task to attempt to teach such 

 modes of inquiry by precept, yet it is felt that some short 

 account of them may reasonably be expected here. Refer- 

 ence is now made more particularly to the practical part of 

 human and comparative histology. As this is not a treatise 

 on histology, but is devoted mainly to the methods of pre- 

 serving the results of researches in that science, it is scarcely 

 possible to indicate to the student how he shall proceed in 

 any given case ; yet there are certain tests, reagents, and 

 staining matters employed, with the uses and effects of 



B 



