Directions for making and preserving microscopical preparations / by Harting of Utrecht.

Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Directions for making and preserving microscopical preparations / by Harting of Utrecht. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    1/10
    DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING AND PRESERVING MICROSCOPICAL PREPARATIONS. BY HARTING OF UTRECHT. [from the monthly journal of medical science for afril 1852.] [The following directions are translated, in a slightly abridged form, from dif- ferent parts of Harting’s work on the microscope.1 They have been selected as likely to prove useful to that now numerous class of students who prosecute ori- ginal researches with the aid of the microscope. Personal experience enables us to attest the value of some of these hints; and the fact that Professor Harting’s unrivalled cabinet of microscopic preparations, comprising more than 6000 spe- cimens put up with his own hands, is indebted for its completeness and preserva- tion to the methods of manipulation here described, is sufficient evidence of their exc ellence.— Trans. ] Very few objects can be preserved unaltered when dry, and even when this is possible, as in the case of hairs, fish-scales, and the like, the method is not to be in general recommended. Such objects, when surrounded by air, possess too little transparency to permit a satisfactory definition of their component parts. It is only for preserving the scales of insects and certain test objects that the dry method is useful, and even preferable, from the superior distinctness with which it enables the observer to make out the different sorts of lines upon these bodies. The simplest mode of mounting these scales for microscopical examination, is to lay a few of them upon an ordinary glass object-slide, which may be moistened with the breath, if this is found necessary to make the objects adhere to it. A glass covering-plate, of suitable thickness, is then laid upon the object; and finally there is pasted round both slide and cover a piece of paper, having in its centre an opening corresponding to the position of the object. Different specimens from the organic kingdom would, if simply put up in the dry way, speedily become the prey of vegetable and animal parasites. This is the case, for instance, with sections of organs like the lungs, preserved by in- flation and subsequent drying. To prevent this disadvantage, I am in the habit 1 Het Mikroskoop, deszelfs gebruik, geschiedenis en tegenwoordige toestand. Utrecht. 3 vols. 1848-50. EDINBURGH : SUTHERLAND AND KNOX.