70 
Transactions of the 
[Monthly Microscopical 
Journal, Feb. 1, 1869. 
some points practically bearing on microscopical science; at all 
events, it may be accepted as a tribute to the labours of your late 
distinguished President, Professor John Quekett. To himself and 
to bis collections I am indebted for much information pertaining to 
minute organisms. 
In discussing my topic, I have merely glanced at tbe efforts of 
tbe earlier observers to preserve specimens and classify tbem. 
Passing on, I then specify a few of the more important instances 
in v^hich systematic classification has been adopted. Coming to 
Quekett 's labours, I allude to his design in the formation of the 
superb collection at the College of Surgeons ; and give an abstract 
of the series into which it is at present divided. Observations upon 
the principles of classification, cabinets, method of dividing, num- 
bering, and labelling a collection, follow. 
2. Various Arrangements of Objects. — Among the able micro- 
scopists who flourished during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, of whom such familiar names as Hooke, G-rew, Leeuwenhoek, 
Lieberkuhn, Baker, Adams, Swammerdam, Malpighi, Martin, Hew- 
son, Trembley, Ellis, and Lyonnet, furnish brilliant examples ; few, 
if any, seemed to have grasped the idea of the preservation of an 
extensive and classified series of minute objects. The improvement 
of the microscope itself formed one of the great aims of many of 
the earlier workers. But they did not lend themselves entirely to 
this latter, as the above list shows ; for more careful observers and 
faithful delineators of all sorts of natural objects than some of those 
men could not be desired. 
Although none, according to our present notions, formed a very 
large collection, yet, so to speak, their investigations foreshadowed, 
and indeed, in one instance, the identical microscopical specimens* 
(those of the acute physiologist, Hewson) have formed the nucleus 
of the most extensive modern histological cabinet. Of Hewson's 
preparations, I shall take note further on. Here, as an example of 
the nature and grouping of miscellaneous objects for the microscope 
of one of the earliest histologists, I quote Professor Harting,t of 
Utrecht, who gives a list of the sale catalogue with Leeuwenhoek's 
microscope. 
Animal Objects. 
Muscular fibres of a Whale. 
„ „ Cod Fish. 
5, „ Duck's heart. 
Transverse section of a Fish's 
muscles. 
Cuticle of Man. 
Crystalline Lens of an Ox. 
Blood Corpuscles of Man. 
Liver of a Calf. 
Transverse section of a Bladder. 
Urinary Bladder of an Ox. 
Tongue papilla of an Ox. 
* See Preface to the ' Histological Catalogue, College of Surgeons,' vol. i. 
t ' Das Microscop.' Theorie, Gebrauch, Gleschichte, und Gegenwartiger 
Zustand desselben. Translated from the Dutch into German by Fr. W. Theile. 
Pp. 918-19 (Braunschweig, 1859). 
