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PBOGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 
cent, solution of caustic potash, the cells disappeared, leaving the 
nerve-skeleton with its branches and end swellings intact. A corre- 
sponding arrangement was found in the epithelium of the hair-sheaths. 
TJie Foetal Placenta of the Pachyderms. — M. Dastre has given the 
results of his researches to the Paris Biological Society. He states 
that in the pig the villous folds which constitute the placenta are dis- 
posed in a radiating manner around the little bald or smooth centres. 
The structure of the stroma of the chorion is modified at these points. 
Moreover, the villosities do not extend over the whole surface of the 
chorion : they leave free in one part and another of the middle zone 
two ill-determined bands. Each half of the sac of the chorion is 
divided into three zones : a middle zone, vascular and villous ; a zone 
vascular only but not villous, a continuation of the former ; finally, a 
third zone (horns of the chorion), which is neither vascular nor 
villous. In the thickness of the stroma of the chorion of ruminants 
and pachydermata, there is found, in addition, a network of chalky 
aspect, formed principally by a deposit of phosphate of lime. The 
chorion plates of this deposit are in an intimate relation with the 
function of the foetal placenta. But among the pachydermata they 
occupy the same situation as the villosities : they exist only in the 
middle zone. 
Microscopic Anatomy at Berlin, — It would seem from the corre- 
spondence of one of our medical contemporaries the subject of micro- 
scopic anatomy is not getting on as well as in former years it was 
wont to do. It is alleged that at the beginning of the last summer 
term a new professorship of Microscopical Anatomy was founded for 
the sole purpose of giving this place to a certain person, under the 
pretext that the present Professor of Anatomy was so busy that he 
could not manage both general and microscopical anatomy. But there 
was some difficulty to overcome, which the influential friends of the 
protege do not seem to have thought of. The present Professor of 
Anatomy, indeed, does not much care for microscopical teaching, and 
his assistants do not seem to be able to attract students to their own 
microscopical courses ; for when the dreadful time of examination 
comes near, the students are accustomed to attend one or two courses 
of normal microscopical anatomy under the assistants of the celebrated 
Pathologist. The latter gentlemen, seeing a respectable source of 
income threatened by the mysterious new professorship, addressed 
themselves to their chief, who was joined in his efforts to avert this 
misfortune from their innocent heads by his colleague, the not less 
celebrated Professor of Physiology, who believes, of course, that a new 
post for teaching microscopical anatomy is quite superfluous, because, 
if once the magnificent new building of the Physiological Laboratory 
is finished (which it is shortly expected to be), there is space enough 
in his own rooms, and physiological assistants enough, too, to teach 
curious students microscopical anatomy. 
The Cement-substance of so-called Endothelium. — In the January 
number of Virchow's ' Archiv,' p. 77, is an important paper by 
