VIU PREFACE. 



constitute careful and beautiful contributions to the purposes of 

 science ; but they cannot adequately serve to bring the value and 

 charm of microscopic studies home, so to speak, to the firesides of 

 the people. Eepeatedly, day after day, new and interesting disco- 

 veries, and further amplifications of truths already discerned, have been 

 made ; but they have been either scattered in serials, or, more usually, 

 devoted to the pages of class publications. Thus this most important 

 and attractive study has been, in a great measure, the province of the 

 few only, who have derived from it a rich store of enlightenment and 

 gratification ; the many not having, however, participated, to any 

 general extent, in the instruction and entertainment which follow in 

 its train. 



The manifold and various uses and advantages of the Microscope 

 crowd upon us in such profusion, that we can only attempt to enume- 

 rate them in the briefest and most rapid manner in these few pre- 

 fatory pages. It is not many years since this invaluable instrument 

 was regarded in the light of a costly toy j it is now the inseparable 

 companion of the man of science. 



In the medical world its utility and necessity are fully appreciated, 

 even by those who formerly were slow to see its benefits. Knowledge 

 which could not be obtained by the minutest dissection is acquired by 

 the aid of the Microscope, which has become as essential to the anato- 

 mist and pathologist as the scalpel to the one and bedside observation 

 to the other. The smallest portion of a diseased structure, placed 

 under a Microscope, will tell more in one minute to the experienced 

 eye than could be ascertained by many days' examination of the gross 

 masses of disease in the ordinary method. Microscopic agency, in 

 thus assisting the medical man, materially contributes to the alleviation 

 of those multiplied " ills which flesh is heir to." 



So fully impressed were the Council of the Eoyal College of Sur- 

 geons with the importance of the facts brought to light in a short space 

 of time, that in 1841 they determined to establish a Professorship of 



