*jou?uL.^eb!'!?i86? Boyal MicrosGo;pical Society. 79 
din of civil war has ceased, the more agreeable note reaches ns that 
science there has not been forgotten ; but rather received an 
impulse from what otherwise might be supposed to have thwarted it, 
for years to come. In the Catalogue of the Microscopical Section 
of the United States' Army Medical Museum (Washington, 1867), 
we have an admirable proof of how much can be achieved by 
zealous and practical workers in a short space of time. Some 
2120 specimens, well classified and succinctly catalogued already, 
are in the cabinet of the above Museum. 
The arrangement chosen, as might be expected, is a physio- 
logical one. 
Part I. — Contains a series of elementary tissues, followed by 
systems and organs. Each section is further subdivided into speci- 
mens from man, from animals, and pathological conditions. Patho- 
logical growths (tumours) of themselves form a group equivalent 
to organs. Parasites the same. Articles of food and clothing, and 
Materia Medica another. Diatoms and other test objects still 
another, and, lastly, miscellaneous objects. 
Part II.~Devoted to photographic negatives of microscopic 
objects, has the same number of subsidiary divisions as the above. 
Part III. — Is a series of photomicrographs presented to the 
Museum. 
Strictly speaking, the foregoing comprises a speciality, and is 
not illustrative of the arrangement of general or miscellaneous 
substances; yet, as it points to well directed efforts towards the 
establishment of consulting and teaching microscopical collections, 
consistently classified, it merits attention. 
3. Microscopic Collection, College of Surgeons. — An innate love 
of nature and partiality for her minute workings, was a ruling pas- 
sion with John Quekett from a lad onwards in life. Hardly had he 
got a footing at the Hunterian Museum ere he pursued vigorously 
those researches he had already commenced as a student. These 
the earlier numbers of the ' Microscopical Society's Transactions ' 
bear witness to. But soon the breadth of his views concerning 
minute texture developed themselves in the founding of a series 
of preparations equivalent to, and in some respects corresponding 
with, those of the immortal John Hunter. His intention, as he 
has personally informed me, was to amass histological material illus- 
trative of nature in its widest acceptation. Thus not only to 
represent substances in their healthy condition, but also in their 
pathological changes, in their development, and as applied to useful 
purposes. He had already published two volumes,* and had others 
* Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Histological Series contained in 
the Museum of the Koyal College of Surgeons of England. Vol. I. Elementary- 
Tissues of Vegetables and Animals, 1850. Vol. II. Structure of Skeleton of 
Vertebrate Animals, 1855. 
