.Montlily Microscopical"! 
Journal, Sept. 1, 1S69. J 
Detection of Corpuscles. 
147 
cautions were taken as seemed of real utility in a "question so 
balanced. Having no theory to support, the general descriptive 
evidence — prefacing may he future experiments — is left to those 
who like to apply the missing " modes of motion." Unfortunately 
we, who are only at the threshold of inquiry, to suit our theories 
are apt to question somewhat dogmatically, plan rules, and set 
restrictions on the ways and means of Him who has been working 
for ages ; hence the contradictions which so continually betray our 
ignorance, whether as regards the past, present, or future of the 
smallest living speck, or the complex organism of the most sentient 
and intelligent being. What was the first "mode of motion," 
— what the first atom capable of " evolution," — of converting sur- 
rounding material to its growth, — of reproducing its like, &c. ? 
Echo will reverberate round the world, chased by its hollow sound, 
an empty answer, while Time gathers generations of the wisest. 
IV. — On the Detection hy the Microscope of Bed and White Cor- 
jpuscles in Blood-stains. By Joseph G. Eichardson, M.D., 
Microscopist to the Pennsylvania Hospital. 
Since the elaborate researches of Gulliver and Carl Schmidt, in 
regard to the exact variation of size among the blood corpuscles 
in diff'erent species of vertebrates have been laid before the pro- 
fession, microscopic examination of blood- stains has assumed an 
importance in medical jurisprudence far greater than any or all the 
other methods as yet suggested for the discovery of crime in cases 
where such recognition depends upon the presence of blood. So 
characteristic, indeed, is the combination of red and white cor- 
puscles in the circulating fluid that one might almost as well pretend 
to doubt the infinite probability that a countless procession of 
creatures, bearing every appearance of being men and women, was 
actually composed of members of the human family, as to dispute 
the fact that a drop of liquid exhibiting the normal corpuscles in 
their usual abundance, when examined with a suitable power of the 
microscope, did in reality consist of blood. 
When, however, as most commonly occurs, the microscopist is 
called upon to determine the presence or absence of blood in a dried 
spot upon cloth or other material, and especially if the exigencies of 
the case demand a decision whether, if blood, it is that of a human 
being, the task often becomes extremely difiicult, and has hitherto 
been abandoned as insurmountable by some authorities upon the 
subject; while others, more sanguine of general success as they 
