108 Mr. Gulliver's Obsermtwns on the Blood Corpuscles 



vations apart from his hypotheses are generally remarkable 

 for their accuracy, laboured under these disadvantages, but 

 there is reason to believe that his results were not obtained 

 without the most devoted and diligent inquiry. 



The discrepancies just alluded to are frequently adduced 

 as instances of how litde credit should be attached to micro- 

 scopical anatomy generally. There does not appear to me to 

 be any reason in the objection; first, because it is seldom if 

 ever urged by those who are sufficiently acquainted with the 

 instrument to enable them to judge fairly of its use; and se- 

 condly, the same objection might in like manner be made to 

 the use of the unassisted vision in minute anatomvo Who- 

 ever has attended to the history of the elementary structure of 

 different parts in the animal oeconomy, as given by anatomists 

 who have not employed glasses, must be acquainted with dif- 

 ferences in the observations, just as remarkable as those which 

 have resulted from the use of the microscope. But no one 

 ever yet ventured to suggest that the imperfection of our 

 senses was a reason why they should be dispensed with. The 

 intimate structure of the bones, of the cellular or adipose 

 tissues, are, among others, singularly obscured by false ob- 

 servations, notable for their number as well as for their dis- 

 agreement. Yet the mici'oscope has made these things in- 

 finitely more simple. No anatomist would now require to 

 found the distinctions between the cellular and adipose tissues 

 chiefly on remote physiological phaenomena; no one would 

 doubt the difference who had once seen the vesicles of the 

 latter by the aid of the microscope. Haller could thus have 

 immediately seen and shown to others the proof of that great 

 discovery, which required so much labour to demonstrate. 

 A curious collection might be given of the errors of anatomi- 

 cal observations made by the unaided vision as compared 

 with those which have arisen from the use of the micro- 

 scope*. But this subject is foreign to my purpose, and I 

 have only to repeat the conviction which I have elsewhere 

 expressed t, that the minute anatomy of the fluids, both 

 healthy and diseased, is of the utmost importance, and that 

 the steady and successful pursuit of this object will ulti- 

 mately be the foundation of a new aera both in physiology 

 and pathology. 



76. Orang-outang, [Pitheciis Satyrus,) a female, about a 

 third grown. All the following sizes very common: l-3552nd, 



* On the limits of vision with the best instruments there is an ingenious 

 paper by Ehrenberg, of which we are indebted to Mr. Francis for an excel- 

 lent English version. See Taylor's Scientific Memoirs, Part iv. 



t On the Softening of Fibrine, Med. Chir. Trans., vol. xxii. 



