The Histological Investigation of Disease

Abstract

HISTOLOGICAL methods have become so perfected during recent years that we are apt to forget that there was an age of discovery when microtomes, special dyes, celloidin and paraffin were unknown. In the days of Max Schultze, of Schwann and Virchow, tissues were cut free-hand with an ordinary razor; for the purpose of embedding, pieces of carrot and liver were used, and stains were not dreamt of. Solutions of salt, acetic and mineral acids and iodine were the only reagents employed, and gradually carmine came in use. Yet that age turned out its heroes in such men as von Baer, Remak, Schwann, Max Schultze, Johannes Muller and Virchow, who with tools and media which we are unable to use now, observed appearances and processes which have remiined the corner-stones of normal and morbid histology. We are apt to forget their deeds as being antiquated. Gradually stains were introduced, and these led to fresh discoveries. Dr. Klein's work on histology, begun in Strieker's laboratory, is a permanent testimony of what a practised hand can do without our modern microtomes, embedding methods, and multitude of stains. Haematoxyline and carmine were the only dyes used. Since then various kinds of microtomes, simple and complicated, have been designed, and every laboratory possesses apparatus for cutting in paraffin, celloidin or ice, and instead of two simple stains, almost numberless reagents are a necessity for the modern worker. Methods of Pathological Histology. By C. von Kahlden. Translated and edited by H. Morley Fletcher, M.D. With an introduction by G. Sims Woodhead, M.D. (London: Macmillan, 1894.)