156 
PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 
ment of the individual in the higher animals repeats in its more 
general character, and in many of its specific phenomena, the phy- 
logenetic development of the race. If we admit the progressive 
nature of the changes of development, their similarity in different 
groups, and their common characters in all animals, nay, even in some 
respects in both plants and animals, we can scarcely refuse to recognize 
the possibility of continuous derivation in the history of their origin ; 
and however far we may he, by reason of the imperfection of our 
knowledge of palaeontology, comparative anatomy, and embryology, 
from realizing the precise nature of the chain of connection by which 
the actual descent has taken place, still there can be little doubt 
remaining in the minds of any unprejudiced student of embryology, 
that it is only by the employment of such an hypothesis as that of 
evolution that further investigation in these several departments will 
be promoted so as to bring us to a fuller comprehension of the most 
general law which regulates the adaptation of structure to function in 
the universe.” 
Staining the Human Body by administering Nitrate of Silver . — It 
used to be a common thing some years ago to see a man whose face 
was reduced to a blackish shade by the habit he had formerly had of 
taking nitrate of silver. The ‘ Medical Record ’ (May 15) says that 
Dr. Neumann gave an historical sketch of the observations on the 
effect of administration of nitrate of silver, and described the results 
of microscopic examination, which he had lately had the opportunity 
of making. All the cellular organs, the epidermis, the rete Malpighii, 
the covering of the sweat-gland, the cells of the inner and outer 
root-sheaths, were quite free from silver. The metal, however, was 
abundantly deposited in granules in the upper portion of the cutis, 
also, in a thin layer, in the walls of the sweat-glands, as well as in the 
connective tissue portion of the hair-follicles, in the sarcolemma of 
the striated muscles, between the cells of the unstriped muscular 
fibres, in the neurilemma of the nerves, and in the tunica adventitia, 
and between the cells of the middle coat of the blood-vessels. The 
subject was an Italian, aged fifty, who had, during twenty-six years, 
been in the constant habit of applying nitrate of silver for the removal 
of enlarged papilla; on his tongue. He had observed, when in hospital, 
that the nitrate was applied to morbid growths. There was distinct 
coloration of the conjunctiva bulbi, of the mucous membrane of the 
mouth and pharynx. 
The Microspores of Enteromorphce compressoe . — In a notice of the 
memoir ‘ Do Copulatione Microzoosporarum Enteromorphae com- 
press,’ (L.) Scripsit J. E. Areschoug, ex Botaniska Notiser, ‘ Silli- 
man’s Journal’ says that in their ‘Observations sur quelques Algues 
possedant des Zoospores Dimorphes,” Janczewski and Rostafinski 
called in question the observations of Areschoug in which he main- 
tained that the microzoosporcs of Enteromorpha compressa conjugated. 
In the present paper, Areschoug gives a detailed account of repeated 
observations of the conjugation of microzoospores of Enteromorpha 
compressa made during the past summer, and it would appear that 
