1882.] 



MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



229 



is considerable misapprehension, is 

 the efficiency of disinfectants. Here 

 again the sanitarian can act without 

 relying upon any theory of disease ; 

 for whether there be a living germ or 

 a chemical poison, the disinfectant 

 must be strong enough to kill the one, 

 or at least to render it inactive, and 

 to decompose the other. The utter 

 inefficiency of carbolic acid vapor, or 

 of any aerial disinfectant whatever, 

 in a sick-room, will be evident to any 

 one who is familiar with the micros- 

 copic study of living germs. For it 

 is known that they can withstand 

 treatment with chemicals which would 

 instantly destroy the life of higher 

 organisms, and no atmosphere which 

 we could breathe would destroy, or 

 materially affect the vitality, or activity 

 of, disease-germs. It may be said that 

 ordinary aerial disinfection is utterly 

 useless. The only efficient method 

 in the sick-room is the immediate 

 disinfection of all refuse, and thor- 

 ough ventilation. 



A more accurate knowledge on the 

 part of some persons, of the capabil- 

 ity of germs to resist destruction, 

 would prevent the advocacy of absurd 

 and impracticable schemes for disin- 

 fection, such as the freezing out of 

 yellow fever from a ship, and others 

 of like character. It may be as- 

 sumed, with a fair degree of proba- 

 bility, that yellow fever, or any other 

 contagious disease, will not be carried 

 around in a ship's hold if the latter 

 is thoroughly aired and ventilated ; 

 and by a proper regard to sanitary 

 conditions, the quarantining and dis- 

 infection of vessels after long voy- 

 ages from infected ports, would be 

 rendered quite unnecessary. 



Unpressed Mounting for the 

 Microscope.* 



By Alfred W. Stokes, F.C.S. 



Blue bottles are still in season! At 

 every window, with very little or very 



* Yrom Journal of the Postal Microscopical 

 Society. 



gxtOii panes, the microscopist, on that 

 happy hunting ground, may meet the 

 buzzing monster. There are few ca- 

 binets in which *' the Tongue of a 

 Blow-fly " is not to be found ; it haunts 

 the boxes of " The Postal Microsco- 

 pical Society" with painful regularity; 

 go to any soiree, and you will, with 

 certainty, through some brazen tube, 

 see the blow-fly putting out his ton- 

 gue at you. Most books on the mi- 

 croscope seem to open easiest at the 

 picture of " the tongue of a blow-fly "; 

 they almost all have a drawing of it. 

 And all these many tongues appar- 

 ently conspire to utter the same mis- 

 statement of fact ; for how few of us 

 have ever through the microscope 

 seen anything but a squashed and 

 flattened object; — a something as like 

 the real thing as that flattened collec- 

 tion of dirty feathers over which se- 

 veral cart-wheels have passed is like 

 the once gay rooster. 



Now, seeing these are serious ob- 

 jections to the too common method 

 of mounting, and suspecting that 

 most of this distortion of nature re- 

 sults from not knowing how else to 

 preserve microscopical objects, we 

 would lay before our readers what we 

 consider a better, easier, and more 

 natural method : — a plan in which, 

 from the beginning to the end, the 

 true shape of the object is preserved. 



Let us try whether we cannot 

 mount our tongue of blow-fly, 

 for instance, so as to see its true 

 shape; to have it transparent in every 

 part ; to be able to view each hair, 

 every ramification of the internal or- 

 gans, tracheae, etc., just in the posi- 

 tions they naturally occupy. 



And, firstly, it is not necessary to 

 wait till our blow-fly has his tongue 

 protruded over some piece of sugar, 

 and then deftly to cut it off with a 

 pair of scissors. Nor need we squeeze 

 the head to make the tongue pro- 

 trude, nor pull it out with tweezers. 

 All such methods mean the expen- 

 diture of a lot of time, and the slaugh- 

 ter of a number of blow-flies, with the 

 production of a few more or less 



