1885.] 



MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



89 



the circulation of the blood in animals. 

 One of our members will endeavor to 

 illustrate this physical fact this even- 

 ing in a way that could Hai*vey have 

 done it, would have rendered any fur- 

 ther argument unnecessary. It is not 

 now a question of whether -or no the 

 blood circulates in animals, but the 

 question is, what are the primary 

 causes of a similar circulation in 

 plants? And instead of considering 

 motion or the power of motion as 

 the peculiar property of animal life, 

 we almost persuade ourselves, as we 

 look on the Brown ian movements of 

 inorganic particles, that all matter 

 has something of life in its nature. 

 But it is not merely for beauty or for 

 scientific research that the microscope 

 can be applied. It may play its part 

 in the most ordinary concerns of life. 

 It will tell you of the chicory the 

 grocer puts in your coffee, and the 

 cotton that forms the warp of your 

 silk dresses. You may see through 

 it the menagerie you keep in the vine- 

 gar cruet, and you will have ex- 

 plained to you this evening by a 

 member of the society the difference 

 between butter and oleomargarine, a 

 difference allow me to assure you 

 that you can find out in no other way. 

 And finally when stern justice puts 

 on her cap, and, clothed in the maj- 

 esty of law, seeks to hunt out, to 

 punish the murderer, it is not unfre- 

 quently to the microscope that appeal 

 is made for evidence in no other way 

 to be obtained. 



Hundreds of years ago when the 

 Danes ravaged the east of England 

 they pillaged a church. Tradition 

 said that the Saxons captured some 

 of them and for this sacrilege flayed 

 them alive and nailed their skins to 

 the church door. A few years ago, 

 on taking down the old church door 

 and removing the hinges, portions of 

 something like dried leather fell out 

 and revived the memory of the almost 

 lost tradition. The material was col- 

 lected and sent to a skilful micro- 

 scopist, and when he examined these, 

 after centuries of exposure he found 



hairs that could only grow on a 

 human form, and the tradition of ages 

 was confirmed by the testimony of an 

 art and an instrument that has grown 

 up as it were since yesterday. 



Staining Tissues in Microscopy.* — 

 II. 



BY PROF. DR. HANS GIERKK. 

 CARMINE. 



1 . Goppert und Cohn. Ueber die 



rotation des Zellinhaltes von Ni- 

 tella flexilis. Botan. Zeitung, 

 No. 37, 1849. 

 The first attempt to differentiate 

 tissues by staining in microscopy. 



2. Hartig. Chlorogen. L. c. No. 32, 



Hartig stains chlorogent with am- 

 moniacal carmine and tries other dyes. 

 Attempts to explain staining. 



3. Hartig. Ueber die Functionen 



des Zellenkerns. L. c. No. 33. 

 Investigates the facility with which 

 carmine combines with various ele- 

 ments of plant structure. Nucleus 

 only absorbs the dye, which unites 

 with albumen and gelatin. Washed 

 gluten and gelatin absorb dyes, but 

 vegetable gums do not. In order to 

 stain cell-nuclei the plant or tissue 

 must be dead. The nuclei of living 

 structures do not take color. 



4. Hartig. Ueber das Verhalten des 



Zellkerns bei der Zellentheilung. 

 L. c. No. 51. 

 Describes his method of investiga- 

 tion. 



5. Lord S. G. Osborne. Vegetable 



cell structure and its formation, 

 as seen in the early stages of the 

 growth of the wheat plant. 

 Trans. Micr. Soc, v, 1856. 

 Cultivated wheat in solution of car- 

 mine, and found the tissues colored, 

 contrary to Hartig. Beale quotes 

 Osborne to show the use of carmine 

 before Gerlach's time. 



♦ From the ZriUchri/t /iir ■wissenscka/lliche Mi- 

 kroskopie. Translated for this Journal by Prof. 

 Wm. H. hJeaman. M. D. 



t A name given by Hartig to portions of protoplasm 

 that ultimately become chlorophyll-granules. 



