1901} MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 97 
accomplished by the % lens (Fig. 6). Individual ova may 
be studied under a higher power, when it is often possi- 
ble to distinguish the contained embryo which varies in 
its appearance with the age of the egg. Influenced by 
temperature, these embryos are freed from their shell in 
from a few hours to several days after they are passed 
with the urine. The most immature ova are. about 1-400 
inch in length and 1-600 inch in breadth, while fully ma- 
tured ova measure 1-280 inch in length and 1-226 inch in 
breadth. The study of ova in feces needs no special ex- 
planation.— Am. Jour. Phar. 
History of the Compound Microscope in Pharmacy. 
Compound microscopes with objectives and oculars 
fairly well corrected for spherical and chromatic aberra- 
tion have been in use for nearly seventy-five years, but 
it is only recently that they have been extensively em- 
ployed in pharmaceutical practice. This is due to the fact 
that pharmacy as a science is of recent origin; only with- 
in the last decade have the courses of instruction in the 
colleges of pharmacy been based upon scientific princi- 
ples—at least this applies to the department of botany 
and its various branches,as vegetable materia medica, veg- 
etable pharmacography, and powdered vegetable drugs. 
The leaders in pharmaceutical education admit that a good 
compound microscope is a part of the necessary equip- 
ment of the intelligent, competent practicing pharmacist. 
It is therefore much to be regretted that there are a num- 
ber of so-called colleges of pharmacy from which students 
are graduated who have never used or even seen a com- 
pound microscope. Such graduates are wholly unfit for 
the duties of a modern pharmacist, because it is only 
through the intelligent use of this instrument that he is 
enabled to vouch for the purity of most of the vegetable 
drugs and many other substances used in his practice. 
