786 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
ance in the dissecting-room of Assistant Professor Axe. You 
will with these aids, I doubt not, in the course of a very 
short period become familiar with all parts of the animal 
body, so far as you can observe them by your unaided 
eyesight. 
But having learned something of the names and positions 
of bones, and muscles, and arteries, and nerves, and of the 
situation of various organs of the body, you will naturally feel 
inclined to inquire of what these things are made. You 
look at a piece of muscle and it presents itself to your eye as 
a mass of red substance. You will desire to know what this 
red substance is composed of. Then you go on to separate 
it into its elements, and by and by you find that your eyes 
are no longer of use to you, and you take your pocket lens 
and you find what you can get with this aid. By and by this 
becomes of no use to you, still there is something more to be 
done. Then you take what I was going to say, unfortunately, 
is called a microscope, because the microscope which you will 
use in the brass stand is not more a microscope than the lens 
which you carry in your pocket; but the impression has 
gone abroad that it is something very remarkable in arrange¬ 
ment, something which requires an almost exclusive attention 
to enable the observer to use it efficiently, something the 
study of which takes up more time than the matter is really 
worth, and thus considerable opposition has arisen to its em¬ 
ployment. 
If you will simply bear in mind that the microscope is supply¬ 
ing the place of your eyes, which are not sufficiently active for 
the purpose, you will understand that when you want to find out 
the ultimate elements of structure this instrument furnishes 
you with the only method of doing it. It is simply monstrous 
that there should be any question about the fact of every man 
who is concerned with the treatment of animal disease being 
able to use this instrument with perfect facility and readiness, 
and calling it to his aid on every occasion when the least 
doubt arises. 
Having carried on minute investigation to a certain 
point, probably questions will arise in your mind as to 
the uses of these various parts, and thus is introduced to 
you the subject of physiology, which may be looked upon 
as the sum of the actions which are going on in the or¬ 
ganized body, and the manner in which those actions are 
performed. This interesting science will take you through 
the minutise of the actions which are going on in animals and 
vegetables, and will enable you to understand something of 
the processes which are entirely hidden from those who are 
