46 
The Presidenfs Address. 
To say that Microscopical Science is worthy of our 
pursuit is a proposition to which every one assents. But 
what do we mean by Microscopical Science ? Is it the mere 
collection of detached facts ? Is it to ascertain the purity, or 
otherwise, of commercial products? Is it to be chiefly 
valued for its utility and its practical applications ? Even 
in the view of utility alone, the microscope claims a high 
place, and for an instance we need but refer to our trans- 
actions for the past year. . 
In a case of poisoning by means of corrosive sublimate 
maliciously substituted for the proper medicine, and in which 
there was a doubt, which it was of the utmost importance to 
remove, as to the source of the poison, rendering it uncertain 
whether the child had met with its death by accident, care- 
lessness, or otherwise, Mr. Deane, by the aid of the micro- 
scope, determined in the most unequivocal manner that the 
poison was derived from a small parcel of the same substance 
kept in a piece of rag in the house of the child's parents, 
where it died, thus rendering it quite certain that the 
death of the child was premeditated, and at the same time 
removing every trace of suspicion from innocent parties, 
whose care and common sense had been called in question. 
In a social as well as a medico-legal point of view, every 
one must see from the above recorded illustration how im- 
possible it is to over-estimate the scientific application of 
the microscope as an element in Medical Jurisprudence. 
There is everywhere a pressing demand for what is practical, 
and often the profoundest speculations of science or adven- 
turous experiments in science are met with contempt when 
they do not immediately pay back to the experimentalist a 
return for his labours in marketable value. 
The scientific investigator rejoices as warmly as any one in 
every addition of science to the arts, or to the practical wants 
of the day ; but he emphatically denies that the whole value 
of science is to be estimated by its present application. 
In the narrow sense of utility it may be asked. Of what use 
to know the forms of some of those beautiful diatomacea 
drawn by Dr. Greville, or of those beautiful organisms deli- 
neated by Dr. Maddox, so minute that many to the naked 
eye are invisible ; but what educated man can be indifferent 
to them, or who can say to what a more extended knowledge 
of these atoms may lead ? 
Take for example the investigation into those remarkable 
forms Eozoon Canadense. In the May number of the 
* Intellectual Observer ' is a paper on the Structure, Affini- 
