1887.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 155 
lent results. While the color is less brilliant than the usual alum-hcema- 
toxylin stainings, the crisp, sharply defined pictures furnished leave little to 
be desired, and to those seeking a precise and reliable stain after Flem- 
ming’s solution this method is ” confidently recommended. Since the 
hematoxylin, with care and occasional filtering, may be repeatedly used, and 
as the copper solution is readily prepared anal inexpensive, the method will 
be found economical and by no means as complicated in practice as on 
paper. 
The reaction against paraffine in favor of celloidin for certain tissues 
seems to be well grounded; for entire sections of eyes and large nervous 
masses, parathne may with advantage be replaced by celloidin ; ‘by some of 
the most skilful investigators of Beran for eye, ear, brain, spiel cord, and 
skin celloidin is now always preferred. 
Much has been written regarding the necessity of having paraffine of ex- 
actly the right consistence to iaoure success in cutting ribbon-sections, but the 
desirability of having it Lomogeneous—to which much attention is given in 
Kolliker’s laboratory—has been but little emphasized. The selection of a 
pure paraffine, freedom from the turpentine or chloroform used in embed- 
ding, anda very rapid cooling after the tissue is arranged, appear to be the 
essential conditions for securing this desirable character to the embedding 
mass ; with a homogeneous paraffine it is surprising to see within what wide 
latitudes as to melting point the chains of sections will come off. 
The very usual clearing with clove or other oil is a step which can with 
advantage be omitted where the sections are thin, especially when numerous 
and fixed to the slide or cover. If the sections be thorougly dehydrated by 
being in very strong or absolute alcohol, they may be directly mounted in 
balsam. Cleaned covers, and a lighted spirit-lamp are first arranged ; the 
slide with the dehydrated sections is removed from the absolute alcohol, has- 
tily drained, a drop of pure balsam (most conveniently from an artist’s tube) 
added, and the clean cover, which is for a moment held over the flame, is 
applied, when the slide is gextly warmed over the lamp. If the sections be 
thin and well dehydrated, and the manipulations rapidly performed, the tissue 
clears up at once. There may be cloudiness at first towards the edges of 
the cover, but in a few minutes (with large sections somewhat longer) this 
all disappears ; after a night in the ovenat "40° C. thcse slides come out with 
covers so firmly fixed that oil immersions may be used and the covers 
cleaned with little fear of shifting. Hundreds of preparatious have been so 
mounted, and clearing oils find no place at present on our work-table. 
WtRzBURG, GERMANY, May, 1887. 
EDITORIAL. 
Microscope in medicine.—The appearance of such a work as Ziegler’s 
Pathology, recently completed and issued in the English translation, reminds 
one of the great debt owed to the microscope by medicine. When one looks 
through the medical literature of the days before the microscope and encoun- 
ters the absurd tissue of speculation and guess-work in the absence of an 
instrument of precision by which to secure exact results, and then, by way 
of contrast, glances over the pages of a work like Prof. Ziegler’s, it makes 
one thankful to live in this matter-of-fact age, even if it be more prosaic than 
the days of fables. Itis no exaggeration to claim that the scalpel and micro- 
scope have revolutionized medicine, taking it from the realm of witchcraft 
