130 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Investigation of Reticulated Tissue.* * * § — M. L. Demoor found that 
the most satisfactory results were obtained with organs fixed in Hermann’s 
fluid for from six to fifteen days. After this the pieces should be 
washed in running water, and left for a day in absolute alcohol ; they 
should then be put in acetic acid, again washed, and again placed in 
absolute alcohol. By this means the protoplasm is more deeply stained, 
and there is no need for double staining. A concentrated solution of 
corrosive sublimate or of chrom-acetic acid may also serve as the fixing 
agent. Safranin was found to give very good results as a staining re- 
agent. The author did not make use of several ingenious methods, such 
as artificial digestion with trypsine, which have been proposed, as he 
feared they would produce artificial or pathological changes. 
Method for the Histological Examination of Osseous Tissue.j — 
Dr. J. Schaffer, in a review of the technique of the minute anatomy of 
bone, has put in a compendious form the advice of most well-known 
histologists on the preparation of osseous tissue for microscopical 
demonstration. In the course of his remarks the author mentions the 
experience of eighty different writers who have devoted some attention 
to the finer structure of bone, and discusses the procedures for examining 
bony tissue under the following heads : — Examination of fresh bone 
tissues ; making sections of undecalcified bone ; sections from decalci- 
fied bone ; demonstration of bone cells, canals, and canaliculi ; examina- 
tion of the ground substance and of the soft parts of bone ; how to 
examine for the developmental appearances ; and the examination of bone 
by polarized light. 
Demonstration of Psorosperms4 — Dr. Heneage Gibbes makes a 
saturated solution of anilin oil, to which he adds a 2 per cent, solution 
of rosanilin sulphate for his No. 1 stain, and a 1 per cent, solution of 
iodine-green for his No. 2 stain. Stain No. 1 is filtered into a watch- 
glass, and in it there are left for 10 minutes some sections of rabbit’s 
liver, hardened in alcohol. After washing in water and then in alcohol, 
they are placed in stain No. 2. The staining may be considered to be 
sufficient when the original red colour has changed to a dull purple. If 
the sections are now washed in water, alcohol, clove-oil, balsam (xylol) 
the parasites are stained red, nuclei and leucocytes green, fibrous tissue 
and protoplasm of liver cells purplish-red. Dr. Gibbes was unable by 
this method to demonstrate parasites in sections of fresh cancer, and he 
appears to doubt their presence. 
Conservation of Bacterial Cultivations by means of Formalin. § — 
Dr. G. Hauser has observed that gelatin which has been exposed for 
some time to the action of formalin can no longer be liquefied at any 
temperature, even in the flame of a Bunsen’s burner or by boiling in 
soda. At the same time it seems to have a permanently disinfecting 
action. If a plate fixed by means of formalin be exposed for a whole 
day, the development of aerial germs is never observed, nor can other 
cultures be successfully inoculated thereupon. 
* Arch, de Biol., xiii. (1893) pp. 5-7. 
f Zeitschr. f. wiss. Mikr., x. (1893) pp. 167-211. 
% Amer. Journ. Med. Sci., July 1893. See Brit. Med. Journ., 1893, No. 1703, 
p. 32. 
§ Miinchener Med. Wochenschr., 1893, No. 35. See Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. 
ParaBitenk., xiv. (1893) pp. 468-9. 
