650 APPENDIX. 



microscopic examination ; and even where milk has been added, 

 it can be distinguished by the presence of oil-globules, from the 

 so-called chylous urine, in which the fatty matter is found in a 

 molecular state. In the same way have been ascertained the 

 nature and origin of many strange and unusual substances dis- 

 charged from the bowels. Drs. Bennett, Todd, Quekett, and 

 others have placed upon record, numerous instances of the value 

 of the microscope, in detecting impositions and establishing a 

 certain diagnosis in obscure cases of disease. 



" Some years ago, I was summoned to see a Dispensary patient 

 laboring under bronchitis, who was spitting florid blood. On 

 examining the sputum with a microscope, I found that the 

 colored blood-corpuscles were those of a bird. On my telling 

 her that she had mixed a bird's blood with the expectoratioHj 

 her astonishment was unbounded, and she confessed that she 

 had done so for the purpose of imposition."' 



The malignant or non-malignant character of certain sus- 

 picious tumors has, on many occasions, been positively settled 

 by recourse to the microscope, as the following example will 

 show. 



"An eminent surgeon, in London, was treating a case of what 

 he considered to be pharyngeal abscess. Before opening it, 

 however, he scraped off a little of the matter on its surface with 

 his nail, and took it to Mr. Quekett, who told me that on examin- 

 ing it with a microscope, he found it to contain numerous can- 

 cer-cells. The tumor was allowed to progress uninterruptedly ; 

 and on the death of the individual, some months afterwards, the 

 bones at the base of the cranium were found to be enlarged, 

 from a cancerous growth."^ 



That medico-legal science has been greatly enriched and ren- 

 dered far more certain in its results by the aid of the microscope, 

 few persons will deny. The ends of justice have sometimes de- 

 pended solely upon its power of detecting spermatozoa in cases 

 of rape, of distinguishing between the stains of blood and those 

 of colored fluids, or of pointing out the difference between human 

 hair and that of animals. 



The microscope has afforded valuable assistance to the patho- 

 logist, in disclosing the obscure processes by which changes or 

 alterations in nutrition have gradually produced, in some of the 

 most complex tissues of the body, the peculiar morbid condition 

 known as fatty degeneration. In the hands of skilful observers, 

 this instrument has taught us that apoplexy is not always de- 

 pendent upon a plethoric or hypersemic state of the cerebral 

 vessels, but is, in many instances, the result of altered nutrition 

 affecting the structure of these vessels, impairing their strength 

 and elasticity, and otherwise altering their properties and func- 

 tions. A brief microscopic examination of the urine is not 

 unfrequently sufficient, as the laborious researches of Dr. John- 



' Bennett's Introduction to Clinical Medicine. " Bennett, op. cit. 



