AmMSchr;  lmlT' }   Examination  of  Vegetable  Products.  133 
utilizing  the  principles  of  other  sciences  as  means  to1  his  end.  He 
turns  his  back  on  the  methods  of  vegetable  and  animal  histology, 
physiology  and  bacteriology,  asserting  with  satisfaction  that  he  is 
a  specialist  and  as  such  must  limit  his  field  of  activity. 
This  attitude  of  the  analytical  chemist  may  be  traced  to  a  mis- 
apprehension as  to  the  province  of  a  specialist.  Such  a  worker 
must  be  limited  only  in  the  field  of  application  and  not  in  training 
or  the  methods  employed.  An  oculist,  for  example,  limits  himself 
to  defects  of  vision  and  diseases  of  the  eye  and  allied  organs,  but  in 
order  to  properly  carry  out  the  work  of  his  specialty  he  must  have 
broad  medical  training  and  be  conversant  with  the  general  principles 
of  optics,  bacteriology,  chemistry  and  perhaps  other  sciences. 
Specialists  in  other  sciences,  both  pure  and  applied,  must  also  have 
good  general  training  if  they  are  to  achieve  distinction  in  their 
limited  fields ;  otherwise  they  are  in  rmuch  the  same  position  as  the 
mechanic  who,  instead  of  mastering  his  trade,  learns  to  operate  one 
machine,  thus  •  becoming  a  mere  automaton. 
Botany  and  chemistry  are  generally  considered  incompatibles. 
The  student  of  chemistry  sometimes  takes  up  bacteriology  as  a 
minor  subject,  but  comparatively  seldom  studies  advanced  botany, 
even  though  he  intends  to  specialize  in  food  analysis,  textile 
chemistry,  paper  technology  or  some  other  subject  dealing  chiefly 
with  materials  of  vegetable  origin.  No  physiological  chemist  would 
think  of  pursuing  his  investigation  of  animal  materials  without  a 
working  knowledge  of  animal  anatomy,  yet  agricultural  and  food 
analysts  and  others  dealing  with  vegetable  materials  too  often  limit 
themselves  to  a  knowledge  of  chemical  constituents,  ignoring  the 
relation  of  composition  to  histological  structure. 
This  is  most  remarkable,  since  the  methods  of  vegetable  his- 
tology, as  well  as  of  chemistry,  are  invaluable  in  solving  problems 
relating  to  the  nature  or  constituents  of  foods,  drugs,  fibres  and 
other  products  of  vegetable  origin.  Sometimes  one  line  of  investi- 
gation alone  is  useful,  sometimes  the  other,  but  often  each  throws 
some  light  on  the  subject,  and  the  corroboratory  results  obtained  by 
such  widely  differing  means  furnish  an  indisputable  chain  of 
evidence. 
Let  us  look  more  closely  into  the  nature  and  relation  of  these 
two  applied  analytical  sciences. 
Chemical  analysis  deals  with  chemical  constituents  ;  microscop- 
ical analysis  deals  largely  with  the  form  of  some  of  these  constitu- 
