Nature and Art, M.yl, 1867.] 
THE MICEOSCOPE. 
143 
THE MICROSCOPE. 
U NDER this heading we propose to give, from 
month to month, a series of notes upon the 
progress made in microscopic research and the 
improvements recorded in microscopic appliances. 
Every one has a microscope nowadays, and, what 
is more, nearly every one who possesses an instru- 
ment turns it to some account in the investigation 
of various forms of animal and vegetable life. 
Hence a good many of our readers must be anxious 
to know what other microscopists than themselves 
are doing, and this information we purpose giving 
them. Our subject naturally divides itself into two 
sections, one relating to the discoveries made with 
the assistance of the microscope, and the other to 
the new forms of apparatus devised to facilitate the 
study of microscopic objects. We shall treat of 
the discoveries first. 
The event of greatest novelty, though not of 
greatest importance, in the recent history of micro- 
scopy, is the discovery of the so-called gregarinicla 
in the false hair of which ladies’ chignons are com- 
posed. This startling discovery, which was first 
announced in England in the pages of the Lancet, 
was subsequently commented on by the Daily Tele- 
graph, after the usual fashion, and not only gave 
rise to a feeling of considerable dissatisfaction and 
annoyance among ladies, but had the much more 
serious effect of materially damaging the chignon 
trade, and throwing many poor people out of honest 
employment. A professional journal like the 
Lancet should not have permitted the insertion of 
the paragraph describing the gregarinida of hair. 
The individual responsible for it must either have 
been very ignorant of zoology or must have pan- 
dered to the never-dying desire of penny -journalism 
for something sensational. The examination of 
the infected hair, which was conducted by several 
microscopists of eminence, has proved incontestably 
that there are no such things as gregarinida to 
be found in hair. The original account in the 
Lancet describes the gregarinida as proceeding from 
the common pediculus of the louse and attaching 
themselves to the hair, and it certainly conveyed 
the impression that they were a species of insect. 
Nothing could be more absurdly erroneous than 
this. Not only have no gregarinida been found 
in the pediculus, but even did they exist in this 
insect, or were they discharged from it, they 
could not possibly live upon the hair. They 
are the very lowest form of animal life, lower 
than even the sjtonges or the infusorial animal- 
cules. “ They are the inhabitants of the bodies, 
for the most part, of the invertebrate, but also of 
the vertebrate animals, and they are commonly to 
be found in abundance in the alimentary canal of 
the common cockroach and in earthworms. They 
are- all microscopic, and any one of them, leaving 
minor modifications aside, may be said to consist of 
a sac composed of a more or less structureless, not 
very well defined membrane, containing a soft 
semi-fluid substance, in the midst or at one end of 
"which lies a delicate vesicle ; in the centre of the 
latter is a more solid particle. . . . The gre- 
garinida are devoid of mouths and of digestive 
apparatus, living entirely by imbibition of the 
juices of the animal in whose intestine or body they 
are contained.” * The character of these creatures 
in the perfect reproductive stage has not been made 
out, so that the foregoing description embraces 
pretty nearly all we know about them. It is evi- 
dent, however, that they could not exist on hair 
under any circumstances. However, it must be 
admitted that many specimens of hair contain both 
animal and vegetable parasites. The animal para- 
site is the common pediculus ; the vegetable 
varieties belong to the Algse (sea-weed tribe) and 
the Fungi (mushroom tribe). The pediculus ac- 
companies living hair only ; it requires the warmth 
of the human body as one of the conditions of its 
life, and therefore it cannot exist in the hair from 
which such ornamental appendages as chignons are 
manufactured. The egg-cases might be thought to 
remain, but it is not so. The process of cleansing 
to which the hair is submitted completely re- 
moves them. But that they are present iu the 
crude hair which comes to the manufacturer is 
undeniable, for in a specimen of the refuse from 
one of the hair machines examined by us, the 
particles of hair tvere found in many instances to 
have these empty egg-capsules attached to them. 
As to the vegetable parasites we doubt their 
being of much importance. No doubt fungi are 
productive of many serious hair diseases ; but, 
so far as we have been able to determine, these 
species are not present in the hair of the chignons. 
It is, however, a fact, that in many samples of hair 
employed in the manufacture of chignons, a number 
of minute particles, evidently not part of true hair 
structure, may be found. These, Avhen first placed 
under the microscope, appear to be vesicles, which, 
under a high magnifying power, seem to be divided 
into two, four, or eight compartments. This is a 
feature which calls to mind the elementary Algse, to 
which, no doubt, the particles belong. Beyond 
this stage in their history we have not examined 
this parasitic, growth ; but two or three micro- 
scopists interested in the matter have caused these 
elementary particles to go through the whole course 
of their development by placing them in a solution 
of sugar and water. The observations of such 
specimens shows that they are undoubted algae, 
since they present the usual spores and antheridia. 
There is no reason to believe that, even if present 
* Huxley, “ Lectures on the Elements of Comparative 
Anatomy.” Churchill, 1864. 
