810 Microscopical Society of London. 



appearances vary according as the animal may be fat or lean. Under 

 the microscope, the terminal branches of the arteries are clearly to be 

 perceived joining the capillaries, which last are beyond conception 

 numerous, and communicate with the veins. These are to be distin- 

 guished by their pale tint, and are seen accompanying the arteries 

 throughout the greater part of their course, and leaving them at the 

 terminal branches, or those immediately giving off the capillaries. 

 These also continually subdivide, until at length they become joined 

 to the capillaries. Nerves are also seen passing through the fat, with 

 a more or less frequent distribution of arteries accompanying them. 

 There does not, however, appear to be any evidence of the existence 

 of lymphatics in fat. After entering briefly into the subjeet of the 

 general structure, the development and absorption of fat, Mr. Smee 

 stated that he had also examined the appearance of the adpiose tis- 

 sue as seen in the living animal. A young rabbit having been pro- 

 perly secured, the cavity of the abdomen was opened, and a portion 

 of the omentum being gently drawn forth, was placed upon a slip of 

 glass, and covered with a' drop of water and a small piece of glass. 

 It was now examined under the microscope with a succession of pow- 

 ers of from 50 to 800 diameters. Nothing, he states, filled him with 

 so much astonishment and amazement as the scene now presented to 

 his view. "Its beauty," to use his own words, "is surpassing, its 

 intricacy amazing, and, in one of the specimens, the complexity of 

 the vascular arrangement baffles all description, while the effect of 

 the circulation of the globules exceeds anything the human mind can 

 conceive, without having witnessed it." 



Mr. Smee also made some remarks upon the relation of the ana- 

 tomy of fat to its physiology, and also on the medullary tissue, or 

 marrow. This is of a more delicate texture than fat, and is conse- 

 quently more difficult to prepare for examination ; still, however, in 

 this, cells exist, and also abundance of blood-vessels : and he con- 

 cluded with a few observations on the relation of adipose tissue to 

 the other tissues of the human frame. 



Nov. 13. — Professor Bell, F.R.S., &c, President, in the chair. 



A paper by George Busk, Esq., entitled " Some Observations on 

 the Natural History of the Echinococcus," was read. After premis- 

 ing that by the Echinococcus was meant the animalcule found in all 

 true hydatid cysts in man and other animals, Mr. Busk proceeded to 

 give a short summary of some of the leading points of the history of 

 this department of Entozoology, for which he acknowledged himself 

 indebted principally to a recent monograph on the Echinococcus by 



