[2]
A paper by R. Warington, read before the Chemical Section of the British Association at Montreal.
Twenty-eight years ago Mr. Perkin discovered the first of the aniline dyes. It was the shade of purple called mauve, and the chief agent in its production was bichromate of potash. This salt is not actively poisonous, and no one thought of attributing injurious properties to materials dyed with the aniline mauve. Next in chronological order came magenta red. It was first made from aniline by the agency of mercurial salts, and afterward by that form of arsenic known to chemists as arsenic acid. The fact that this at one time fashionable color was prepared by means of an arsenical compound was spread through the country in a very impressive manner by the great trial as to whether the patent was valid or not, all turning upon the expression in the specification of "dry arsenic acid," and the disputes of scientists whether this expression meant arsenic acid with or without water. The public mind had been for some time previously exercised and alarmed by accounts of sickness and debility caused by arsenical paper-hangings; it was, therefore, easy for pseudo scientists to create an opinion that the magenta dye must be also poisonous, and that persons wearing materials dyed with this color were liable to absorb arsenic and suffer from its action. Ever since there have been, at intervals, statements more or less circumstantial, that individuals have suffered from wearing materials dyed with some of the artificial dyes. At the present time these statements are emphasized by the exhibition at the Healtheries of models of skin diseases said to be actually produced by the wearing of dyed garments. Whether it be true or not that any form of skin disease has been produced by the wearing of dyed articles of clothing is simply a question of evidence, and there is evidence enough to show that individuals have experienced ill effects who have worn clothing dyed with artificial colors. But, as far as we know, there is an entire want of any evidence that will satisfactorily show that the inconvenience suffered by wearers of these dyed goods has been owing to the dyeing material. Years must elapse before chemists or physicians can hope to become thoroughly informed of the physiological action produced by the cutaneous absorption of the thousands of new products which the ingenuity and industry of technological chemists have made available for the manufacture of colors; they are also new to science, most of them very complex in their constitution, and so dissimilar to previously studied compounds used by the dyer, that it may be said we have nearly everything to learn concerning their action upon the human economy. With respect to dyed woolen and silk goods it is almost entirely a question as to the innocence or otherwise of the coloring matter itself, which in nine cases out of ten is an organic body containing no mineral matter of any sort, and not requiring the assistance of any mordant to enable it to dye. Considerations of arsenic, or antimony, or mercury existing in the dyed stuffs are absolutely excluded. In a few cases the dyestuff is a zinc compound, and zinc in small traces may possibly be fixed by the material, but this metal is not known to be actively noxious. Textiles made from fibers of animal origin do not require, and as a rule do not tolerate, the addition of any metal in dyeing with the artificial colors, and if the manufacture of the color require the use of a metal, such as arsenic, which by unskillfulness or carelessness is left in it when delivered to the dyer, the tendency of the animal fiber is to reject it.
But the case with regard to textiles made from vegetables fibers is quite different; upon materials made from cotton, flax, jute, or other fiber of the vegetable kingdom, the new aniline colors cannot be fixed without the assistance of other bodies acting the part of mordants. Some of these bodies are actively poisonous in their nature, and introduce a possible element of danger to the wearer of the dyed article. For many years, almost the only method of dyeing cotton goods with the aniline colors consisted in a preliminary steeping in sumac or tannic acid, followed by a passage in some suitable compound of tin, and subsequent dyeing in the coloring matter. Sumac and tin have been used for two hundred years or more as the dyer's basis for a considerable number of shades of color from old dye-stuffs; there never has been the least suspicion that there was anything hurtful in colors so dyed. Sumac or tannic acid, in combination with alumina, may be held to be equally inoffensive; now it is a fact that the great bulk of cotton goods are dyed with the aniline colors by the agency of these harmless chemicals. But of late years the dyers of certain goods, and the calico printers generally, have found an advantage in the use of tartar emetic, and other compounds of antimony, to fix aniline colors; besides this, some colors are fixed in calico printing by means of an arsenical alumina mordant; it need not be mentioned that antimony, as well as arsenic, is, when administered internally, an active poison in even small quantities, and that externally both are injurious under certain conditions. An alarmist would require nothing further than this statement to feel himself justified in attributing everything bad to fabrics so colored; but the practical dyer or calico printer knows that though he employs these poisonous bodies in his business, and that some portion of them does actually accompany the dyed material in its finished state, not only is the quantity excessively small, but that it is in such a state of combination as to be completely inert and innoxious. In the case of tartar emetic, it is the tannate of antimony which remains upon the cloth, a compound of considerable stability, and almost perfectly insoluble in water; in the case of a few colors fixed by the arsenical alumina mordant, the arsenic is in an insoluble state of combination with the alumina, in fact, the poisons are in the presence of their antidotes, and not even the most scrupulous manufacturer has any fear that he is turning out goods which can be hurtful to the wearer. Persons quite unacquainted with the process of dyeing are apt to think that goods are dyed by simply immersing them in a colored liquid and then drying them with all the color on them and all that the color contains; they do not know that in all usual cases of dyeing a careful washing in a plentiful supply of water is the final process in the dye-house, and that nothing remains upon the cloth which can be washed out by water, the color being retained by a sort of attraction or affinity between it and the fiber, or mordant on the fiber. Dyeing is not like painting or even the printing or staining of paper for hangings, where the vehicle and color in its entirety is applied and remains. It follows, therefore, that many chemicals used in dyeing have only a transitory use, and are washed away completely—such as oil of vitriol, much used in woolen dyeing—and that of others only a very minute quantity is finally left on the cloth, as is the case in antimony and arsenic in cotton dyeing and printing.
There is evidently among working dyers, as among all other classes, an unknown amount of carelessness, ignorance, and stupidity, from which employers are constantly suffering in the shape of spoiled colors and rotted cloth. It is not for us to say that the public may not at times have to suffer also from neglect of the most common treatments which should remove injurious matters from dyed goods; what can be said is, that if the dyeing processes for aniline colors be followed out with ordinary care and intelligence, it is extremely improbable that anything left in the material should be injurious to human health.—Manchester Textile Recorder.
The following case, from its hopelessness at the outset, yet ultimate recovery under the duly recognized forms of treatment, is of such interest as to demand publicity, and will afford encouragement to others in moments of doubt.
M.A. S——, aged fifty-three, was admitted into the Kent Lunatic Asylum at Chartham on Oct. 3, 1882, suffering from melancholia, the duration of which was stated to have been three months. She had several times attempted suicide by drowning and strangulation. She was on admission ordered a mixture containing morphia and ether thrice daily, to allay her distress. On Oct. 10 she attempted suicide by tying a stocking, which she had secreted about her person, round her neck. Shortly afterward, with similar intent, she threw herself downstairs. On Jan. 4, 1883, she attempted to strangle herself with her apron. On the 30th of November following, at 4 P.M. she evaded the attendants, and made her way to the bath-room of of No. 1 ward, the door of which had been left unfastened by an attendant. She then suspended herself from a ladder there by means of portions of her dress and underclothing tied together. A patient of No. 1 ward discovered her suspended from the ladder eight minutes after she had last seen her in the adjoining watercloset, and gave the alarm.
The woman was quickly cut down, and the medical officers summoned. In the interval cold affusion was resorted to by the attendant in charge, but the patient was to all appearances dead. The junior assistant medical officer, Mr. J. Reynolds Salter, M.B. Lond., arrived after about three minutes, and at once resorted to artificial respiration by the Silvester method. A minute or so later the medical superintendent and myself joined him. At this time the condition of the patient was as follows: The face presented the appearance known as facies hippocratica: the eyeballs were prominent, the corneæ glassy, the pupils widely dilated, not acting to light, and there was no reflex action of the conjunctivæ; the lips were livid, the tongue tumefied, but pallid, the skin ashy pale, the cutaneous tissues apparently devoid of elasticity. There was an oblique depressed mark on the neck, more evident on the left side; the small veins and capillaries of the surface of the body were turgid with coagulating blood the surface temperature was extremely low. She was pulseless at the wrists and temples. There was no definite beat of the heart recognizable by the stethoscope.
There was absolute cessation of all natural respiratory efforts, complete unconsciousness, total abolition of reflex action and motion, and galvanism with the ordinary magneto-electric machine failed to induce muscular contractions. The urine and fæces had been passed involuntarily during or immediately subsequent to the act of suspension. As the stethoscope revealed that but a small amount of air entered the lungs with each artificial inspiration, the tongue was at once drawn well forward, and retained in that position by an assistant, with the result that air then penetrated to the smaller bronchi. Inspiration and expiration were artificially imitated about ten times to the minute. In performing expiration the chest was thoroughly compressed. The lower extremities were raised, and manual centripetal frictions freely applied. In the intervals of these applications warmth to the extremities was resorted to.
About ten minutes from the commencement of artificial respiration we noticed a single weak spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm, the feeblest possible effort at natural respiration. Simultaneously, very distant weak reduplicated cardiac pulsations, numbering about 150 to the minute, became evident to the stethoscope. The reduplication implied that the two sides of the heart were not acting synchronously, owing to obstruction to the pulmonary circulation induced by the asphyxiated state. Artificial respiration was steadily maintained, and during the next half hour spasmodic contractions of the diaphragm occurred at gradually diminishing intervals, from once in three minutes to three or four times a minute.
These natural efforts were artificially aided as far as possible. At 5:45 P.M. natural respiration was fairly though insufficiently established, the skin began to lose its deadly hue, and titillation of the fauces caused weak reflex contractions. Flagellation with wet towels was now freely resorted to, and immediately the natural efforts at respiration were increased to twice their previous number. The administration of a little brandy and water by the mouth failed, as the liquid entered the larynx. Ammonia was applied to the nostrils, and the surface temperature was increased by warm applications and clothing. At 6 P.M. artificial respiration was no longer necessary. The heart sounds then numbered 140 to the minute, the right and left heart still acting separately. A very small radial pulse could also be felt. At 6:45 P.M. the woman was put to bed, warmth of surface maintained, and hot coffee and beef-tea given in small quantities.
Great restlessness and jactitation set in with the renewal of the circulation in the extremities. An enema of two ounces of strong beef-tea was administered at 10 P.M. The amount of organic effluvium thrown off by the lungs on the re-establishment of respiration was very great and tainted the atmosphere of the room and adjoining ward. The pupils, previously widely dilated, began to contract to light at 11 P.M. Imperfect consciousness returned at 5 P.M. the following day (Dec. 1), and about an hour later she vomited the contents of the stomach (bread, etc., taken on Nov. 30). Small quantities of beef-tea were given by the mouth during the night. At 9 A.M. air entered the lungs freely, and there were no symptoms of pulmonary engorgement beyond slight basic hypostasis; the pulse remained at 140, and the heart sounds reduplicated; she was semiconscious, very drowsy, in a state of mental torpor, with confused ideas when roused, and she complained of rheumatic-like pains all over her.
The temperature was 100.2°; the facial expression more natural; the tongue remained somewhat swollen and sore; she was no longer restless; she took tea, beef-tea, milk, etc., well; the functions of the secreting organs were being restored; she perspired freely; had micturated; the mucous membrane of the mouth was moist, and there was a tendency to tears without corresponding mental depression. The patient was ordered a mixture of ether and digitalis every four hours. On December 2 the pulse was 136, and the heart sounds reduplicated. The following day she was given bromide of potassium in place of the ether in the digitalis mixture. On the 4th the pulse was 126; reduplication gone. On the 6th the pulse was 82, and the temperature fell with the pulse rate. She was well enough to get into the ward for a few hours. Her memory, especially for recent events, was at that time greatly impaired. On the 12th she still complained of muscular pains like those of rheumatism. Apart from that, she was enjoying good bodily health.
A curious fact in connection with this case is that since this attempt at suicide she has steadily improved mentally, has lost her delusions, is cheerful, and employs herself usefully with her needle. She converses rationally, and tells me she recollects the impulse by which she was led to hang herself, and remembers the act of suspension; but from that time her memory is a blank, until two days subsequently, when her husband came to see her, and when she expressed great grief at having been guilty of such a deed. Her bodily health is now (June 30, 1884) more robust than formerly, and she is on the road to mental convalescence.
Remarks.—The successful issue of this case leads me to draw the following inferences: 1. That in cases of suspended animation similar to the above there is no symptom by which apparent can be distinguished from real death. 2. That in artificial respiration alone do we possess the means of restoring animation when life is apparently extinct from asphyxia, and that, with the tongue drawn well forward and retained there by the hand or an elastic band, the Silvester method is complete and effective. 3. That artificial respiration may be necessary for two hours or more before the restoration of adequate natural efforts, and that the performance of the movements ten times to the minute is amply sufficient, and produces a better result than a more rapid rate. 4. That galvanism, ammonia to the nostrils, cold affusion, and stimulants by the mouth are practically useless in the early stage. 5. That on the re-establishment of the reflex function we possess a powerful auxiliary agent in flagellation with wet towels, etc. 6. That centripetal surface frictions and the restoration of the body temperature by warm applications aid recovery. 7. That the heart, if free from organic disease, has great power of overcoming the distention of its right cavities and the obstruction to the pulmonary circulation, although its action may for a time be seriously deranged, as evidenced by reduplication of its sounds. 8. That when the heart's action remains excessively feeble, and the right and left heart fail to contract synchronously, it would be justifiable to open the external jugular vein. 9. That during recovery the lungs are heavily taxed in purifying the vitiated blood, as shown by the excessive amount of organic impurities exhaled. 10. That restlessness and jactitation accompany the restoration of nerve function, and that vomiting occurs with returning consciousness. 11. That pains like those of rheumatism are complained of for some days subsequently, these probably resulting from the sudden arrest of nutrition in the muscles.
Chartham, near Canterbury.
—Lancet.
The twenty-second session of the Inventors' Institute was opened on October 27, the chair being taken by Vice-Admiral J.H. Selwyn, one of the vice-presidents, at the rooms of the institute, Lonsdale Chambers, 27 Chancery Lane, London. The chairman, in delivering the inaugural address, said that in the absence of their president, the Duke of Manchester, it became his duty to open the session of 1885. The institute having been established in 1862, this was their twenty-second anniversary. At the time of its establishment a greater number of members were rapidly enrolled than they could now reckon, although a large number had joined since the commencement of the present year. In 1862 a considerable amount of enthusiasm on the part of inventors had arisen, from the fact that at that time the leading journals had advocated the views of certain manufacturers as to sweeping away the patent laws, enacted anew in 1852, and with them the sole protection of the inventive talent and industry of the nation. This naturally caused much excitement and interest among those chiefly concerned, and a very numerous body of gentlemen associated themselves together and formed an institute for the purpose mainly of resisting the aggression and inculcating views more in accordance with true principles, as well as for explaining what were the true relations of inventive genius to the welfare of the state. He hoped to be able to show strong reasons for this action, and for energetically following it up in the future. Although on that evening there were many visitors present besides the members of the institute, yet he thought the subject could be shown to be of such national importance that it might justly engage the attention of any assembly of Englishmen, to whatever mode of thought they might belong. The institute had persistently done its work ever since its formation. Sometimes it had failed to make itself heard, at others it had been more successful in so doing; but the net result of its labors—and he did not fear to claim it as mainly due to those labors—had been to propagate and spread abroad a fact and a feeling entirely opposed to the false doctrines previously current on the subject, namely, that among our most valuable laws were those which could excite the intelligence and reward the labors of the inventors of all nations. There were still those who wished to see the patent laws swept away, but their numbers had dwindled into a miserable minority, composed mainly of manufacturers who were so curiously short-sighted as not to see that all improvement in manufactures must come from inventive talent, or those who, still more blind, could not perceive that property created by brains was certainly not a monopoly, and deserves protection quite as much as any other form of possession, in order that it may be developed by capital. He need scarcely waste time in pointing out the fallacy of refusing to pay for the seed corn of industrial pursuits, for that fallacy, bit by bit, had been completely swept away, and last year the labors of the institute had been so far crowned with success that the President of the Board of Trade, in his place in Parliament, announced his conviction that "inventors were the creators of trade, and ought to be encouraged and not repressed." Such a conviction, forced home in such a quarter, ought to have produced a great and beneficial change in the legislation on the subject, and the hopes of inventors were that this would surely be the case; but when the bill appeared these hopes were considerably depressed, and now, after a year's experience of the working of the changed law, scarcely any benefit appears to have been obtained, beyond the meager concession that the heavy payments demanded, for an English patent may be made in installments instead of lump sums. Against this infinitesimal concession had to be set a number of disabilities which did not formerly exist, such as compulsory licenses, which disinclined the capitalist to invest in inventions, attempts to assimilate the provisional specification to the complete, or to restrict the latter within the terms of the former, attempts to separate the parts of an invention, and thus increase the number of patents required to protect it, and many other minor annoyances which would take too much time to explain fully. It was true that there was some extension of the time for payment—some such locus penitentiæ as would be accorded to any debtor by any creditor in the hope of getting the assets; but the promised spirit of encouragement to inventors was not to be found in the bill; it was still a boon which must be earnestly sought by the institute.
He had said that the concessions granted were almost infinitesimal, yet a result had been obtained, surprisingly confirmatory of the views always advocated by the institute as to the potentiality of the inventive talent of this nation were it released from its shackles. While in former years the highest number of patents taken out had slowly risen to the number of five to six thousand per annum, in the year now expiring it had bounded to more than three times five thousand—had at one leap reached an equality with the patents of the United States, where only £4 ($20) was paid for a patent for seventeen years, instead of £175, as in Great Britain, for a term of fourteen years. If in the future we could hope to persuade the legislators to be content with no heavier tax than in the United States had yielded a heavy surplus over expenses of a well-conducted Patent Office, he did not fear to assert that the number of patents taken out in this country would again be trebled, and that trade and industry would be correspondingly animated and developed. The result of the wiser patent law of the United States had been to flood our markets with well-manufactured yet cheap articles from that country which might have been equally well made by our artisans at home had invention not been subject to such heavy restrictions, and had technical skill been equally sure of its reward.
The business of the institute in the future was not to rest satisfied with the proposition of Mr. Chamberlain, but to lead him or his successors forward by logical and legitimate means toward the necessary corollary of that proposition. If inventors were indeed the creators of trade, then the President of the Board of Trade was bound to see, not only that they were not prevented from creating trade, but that they received every facility in performing their work. Hence all exertions should be used to convince the Chancellor of the Exchequer that a less tax may produce a greater income: to persuade the legal authorities that this description of property, of all others, most deserves the protection of the law. Inherited direct from the Giver of all good gifts, no person had been dispossessed of anything he previously owned, and the wealth of humanity might be indefinitely increased by means of it. Not many mighty, not many noble, received this gift, but it was the inexhaustible heritage of the humble, it was the rich reward of the intelligent of all races that peopled the earth. To whomsoever given, this gift was intended to contribute to the health and the wealth of the human race, for the bringing into existence new products, for their utilization for the encouragement of the general intelligence of the nations, and for the lightening of the burdens of the poor. It would also cause technical education to be more highly valued as a means to an end—for true inventive genius was never so likely to succeed as when it passed from the summit of the known to the confines of the possible, when, having learnt and appreciated what predecessors had accomplished, it went earnestly to work to solve the next problem, to remove the next obstacle on the path which to them had proved insurmountable.
More beneficial than any other change whatever in our legislation would be a full and cordial recognition, a complete and efficient protection, of property created by thought. Then the humblest individual in the land might have confidence that he could call into existence property not inferior in value to that of the richest landowner, the most successful merchant, or the most wealthy manufacturer, in the whole world. As an instance of this Admiral Selwyn mentioned two prominent cases arising out of the pursuit of two widely differing branches of knowledge, in the one case by an outsider, in the other by a specialist. He referred to Sir H. Bessemer, one of his valued colleagues in the vice-presidency of the institute, and Mr. Perkins, the discoverer of aniline dyes. In each of these instances, whatever might have been the results to the inventors, and he hoped they had been satisfactory, a sum which might be estimated at twenty millions sterling annually, constantly on the increase, and never before existing, had been added to the income-tax-paying wealth of the country. With such a result arising from the development of only two inventions, he thought it would be seen that he must be a most ignorant, foolish, or obstinate Chancellor of the Exchequer who would refuse to allow such property to be created by requiring heavy preliminary payments, or in any way discourage or fail to encourage to the utmost of his power the creation of property which was capable of producing such a result—a result which he would in vain seek for did he rely on landed property alone, since this, in the hands of whomsoever it might be, never could largely increase in extent, and was subject at this moment to serious depreciation in tax-paying power.
The exertion of intelligence, combined with a sense of security in its pecuniary results, was in itself opposed to loose notions of proprietary rights, and tended to diminish that coveting of neighbors' goods which was the fertile source of vice and crime, and which was capable of breaking down the strongest and most wealthy community if indulged, till at last society was resolved into its elements, and when nothing else was left as property, man, the savage, coveted the scalp of his fellow man, and triumphed over a lock of hair torn from his bleeding skull.
Invention was an ennobling pursuit, and was, even among those who were not also handworkers, a means of employment which never left dull or idle hours, while to the handworker it meant more, for it offered the most ready means of rising among his fellows, and, where invention received proper protection, of securing a competence for old age or ill health. Not only, as he had before said, did the results of invention cause no loss to any other individual, unless by displacing inferior methods of working, but in most instances some distinct benefit arose to the whole human race, and unless this was the case the patented invention failed to obtain recognition, soon died out, and left the field clear for others to occupy.
He regretted that so few results had been obtained from the Patent Bill of last year, but he would briefly refer to some of the changes thought desirable by inventors and by the council of the institute.
No one could deem it desirable, it could scarcely be thought reasonable, that an Englishman who was called upon to pay in the United States £7 for a valid patent for seventeen years should be still obliged in his own country to pay £175 for a less term of a patent which does not convey anything but a right to go to law. It was also not reasonable to pretend by a deed to convey a proprietary right while reserving the power to grant compulsory licenses, which must tend to destroy the value of such proprietary right.
It was a reproach to legislative perspicacity that the grantee of a patent should be obliged to accept the view of the state, the grantor, as to the value of the invention to the nation, and also that any other method of proceeding to upset a patent, once granted, should be allowed than a suit for revocation to the crown, on the ground of error, such revocation if obtained not to prejudice the granting anew, with the old date, of a valid patent for the parts of the invention which are not proved to be anticipated at the trial. There are many other points which could not be referred to on the present occasion, but he might say that the duty of the council would be to press them forward until the capitalist could consider patented property at least as sound an investment as any other. So might the wealth of the nation be largely increased, and the sense of justice between man and man be more fully inculcated. In the United States inventors were able at once to secure the favorable attention of capitalists, because there the whole business of the Patent Office was to assist the inventor to obtain a valid—and, as far as possible, an indisputable—patent.
Even so small an article as a pair of pliers, one of the most familiar of tools, had been proved to be capable of patented improvement. Formerly these were always made to open and close at an angle which precluded their holding any object grasped by them with the desirable rigidity. A clever workman invented a means of producing this effect by the application of a parallel motion. He probably went to the office at Washington, was referred to a certain room in a certain corridor, and there found a gentleman whose business it was to know all about the patents for such tools. By his aid he eliminated from his patent all anticipatory matter, and issued from the office with a valid patent, which, developed by capital, had supplied all the trades which employ such instruments with a better means of accomplishing their work, had employed capital and labor with remunerative results in producing the pliers, and had added one more to the little things which create trade for his country.
This was a typical instance of the way in which invention was encouraged in America. Why should it be otherwise here? For many years literary property had received a protection which was yet to be desired for patented invention. Not only for fourteen years, but for the duration of a man's life, was that kind of brain property protected, and even after his death his heirs still continued to derive benefit from it. Should a romance or a poem be deemed more worthy of reward than the labors of those inventors to whom he had referred, and which certainly produced far greater and more abiding advantage to the nation? To secure a due appreciation of the whole importance of invention, no other means could be adopted than that which the institute had been formed to secure, namely, the union of inventors, not only of one nation, but of the whole world. The international character of the subject had been recognized by the institute, and they had never neglected any opportunities of pressing that view of the subject, which had at last obtained some recognition from our government.
No great result could, however, be expected from a congress where inventors, not lawyers or patent agents, still less officials trained in a vicious routine, formed the majority. It might be hoped that next year there would arise an opportunity for such a congress, and that the institute would do its best to improve the occasion. There never had been a time when England more required the creation of new industries. Our agriculturists had signally failed to hold their own in the face of unlimited competition, and the food of the nation no longer came from within. But if that were the case, then some means must be found of paying for the food imported from abroad, and this could only be done by constant improvement in manufactures, or some change by which we might sell some of our other productions at a profit if the food could not be produced but at a loss. Here invention might fitly be called to aid, but could only respond if all restrictions were removed and every facility granted.
Capital must be induced to consider that home investments are more remunerative and not less secure than any others, and this could only be done by adding to the security of the property proposed for investment. He had referred to the unlimited nature of the property created by invention, and they would infer that if properly protected there was equally no limit to the capital that could be profitably employed in developing such property. The institute did not exist solely or even mainly for the purpose of advocating the claims of inventors to consideration, either individually or collectively, but for the great object of forcing home upon the convictions of the people the fact that at the very foundation of the wealth and prosperity of every nation lies the intelligence, the skill, the honesty, and the self-denial of its sons.
If, when these were exercised, for want of wise legislation such virtues failed to secure their due reward, they sought a more genial clime, and that nation which had undervalued them sank to rise no more; or, if the error were acknowledged, and too late the course was reversed, found itself already outstripped in the race of progress, and could slowly, if ever, regain its lost position. Finally he urged the inventors of England to rally round the institution in all their strength, and thus secure the objects of which he had striven, however feebly, to point out the importance. If they did so, this institution would take a rank second to no other in the empire: and while acknowledging that the interests of the inventor must always be subordinate to the welfare of the state, he asserted that the two were inseparable, and that in no other way could the latter and principal result be so completely secured as by according a due consideration to the former.
We present herewith, fromL'Illustration, views of the amphitheater, and first and second year laboratories of the new Central School at Paris.
THE NEW CENTRAL SCHOOL AT PARIS.
THE NEW CENTRAL SCHOOL AT PARIS.
The amphitheater does not perceptibly differ from those of other schools. It consists of a semicircle provided with rows of benches, one above another, upon which the pupils sit while listening to lectures and taking notes thereof. Several blackboards, actuated by hydraulic motors, serve for demonstration by the professor, who, if need be, will be enabled, thanks to the electricity and gas put within his reach, to perform experiments of various kinds. Electricity is brought to him by wires, just as water and gas are by pipes. It will always be possible for him to support the theory that he is explaining by experiments which facilitate the comprehension of it by the pupils. The amphitheater is likewise provided with a motor which furnishes the professor with power whenever he has recourse to a mechanical application.
It will not be possible for the pupils to have their attention distracted by what is going on outside of the amphitheater, since the architect has taken the precaution to use ground glass in the windows.
THE NEW CENTRAL SCHOOL AT PARIS.
THE NEW CENTRAL SCHOOL AT PARIS.
As regards the laboratories, it is allowable to say that they constitute the first great school of experimental chemistry in France. The first year laboratory consists of a series of tables, provided with evaporating hoods, at which a series of pupils will study general chemistry experimentally. Electricity, and gas and water cocks are within reach of each operator, and all the deleterious emanations from the acids that are used or are produced in studying a body will escape through the hoods.
The third year laboratory is designed for making commercial analyses. These latter are made by either dry or wet way. The first method employs water chiefly as a vehicle, and alkaline solutions as reagents. The second employs reagents in a dry state, and the action of which requires lamp and furnace heat. The furnaces employed in the new school are like those almost exclusively used industrially for the analysis of ores. The tables upon which analyses by dry way are made are large enough to allow sixteen pupils to work.
THE NEW CENTRAL SCHOOL AT PARIS.
THE NEW CENTRAL SCHOOL AT PARIS.
Analyses by wet way are made upon tables, with various sorts of vessels. Along with water, gas, and electricity, the pupils have at their disposal a faucet from whence they may draw the hydrosulphuric acid which is so constantly used in laboratory operations.
The architect of the new school is Mr. Denfer.
To all who have familiarized themselves, even cursorily, with modern scientific knowledge, it is well known that the mind encounters theinfinitein the contemplation of minute as well as in the study of vast natural phenomena. The farthest limit we have reached, with the most gigantic standard of measurement we could well employ, in gauging the greatness of the universe, only leaves us with an overwhelming consciousness of the awful greatness—the abyss of the infinite—that lies beyond, and which our minds can never measure. The indefinite has a limit somewhere; but it is not the indefinite, it is the measureless, the infinite, that vast extension forces upon our minds. In like manner, the immeasurable in minuteness is an inevitable mental sequence from the facts and phenomena revealed to us by a study of theminutein nature. The practical divisibility of matter disclosed by modern physics may well arrest and astonish us. But biology, the science which investigates the phenomena of all living things, is in this matter no whit behind. The most universally diffused organism in nature, the least in size with which we are definitely acquainted, is so small that fifty millions of them could lie together in the one-hundredth of an inch square. Yet these definite living things have the power of locomotion, of ingestion, of assimilation, of excretion, and of enormous multiplication, and the material of which the inconceivably minute living speck is made is a highly complex chemical compound. We dare not attempt a conception of the minuteness of the ultimate atoms that compose the several simple elements that thus mysteriously combine to form the complex substance and properties of this least and lowliest living thing. But if we could even measure these, as a mental necessity, we are urged indefinitely on to a minuteness without conceivable limit, in effect, a minuteness that is beyond all finite measure or conception. So that, as modern physics and optics have enabled us not to conceive merely, but to actually realize, the vastness of spatial extension, side by side with subtile tenuity and extreme divisibility of matter, so the labor, enthusiasm, and perseverance of thirty years, stimulated by the insight of a rare and master mind, and aided by lenses of steadily advancing perfection, have enabled the student of life-forms not simply to become possessed of an inconceivably broader, deeper, and truer knowledge of the great world of visible life, of which he himself is a factor, but also to open up and penetrate into a world of minute living things so ultimately little that we cannot adequately conceive them, which are, nevertheless, perfect in their adaptations and wonderful in their histories. These organisms, while they are the least, are also the lowliest in nature, and are to our present capacity totally devoid of what is known as organic structure, even when scrutinized with our most powerful and perfect lenses. Now these organisms lie on the very verge and margin of the vast area of what we know as living. They possess the essential properties of life, but in their most initial state. And their numberless billions, springing every moment into existence wherever putrescence appeared, led to the question, How do they originate? Do they spring upde novofrom the highest point on the area ofnot-life, which they touch? Are they, in short, the direct product of some yet uncorrelated force in nature, changing the dead, the unorganized, the not-living, into definite forms of life? Now this is a profound question, and that it is a difficult one there can be no doubt. But that it is a question for our laboratories is certain. And after careful and prolonged experiment and research the legitimate question to be asked is, Do we find that, in our laboratories and in the observed processes of nature now, the not-living can be, without the intervention of living things, changed into that which lives?
To that question the vast majority of practical biologists answer without hesitancy,No, we have no facts to justify such a conclusion. Prof. Huxley shall represent them. He says: "The properties of living matter distinguish it absolutely from all other kinds of things;" and, he continues, "the present state of our knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living and the not-living." Now let us carefully remember that the great doctrine of Charles Darwin has furnished biology with a magnificent generalization; one indeed which stands upon so broad a basis that great masses of detail and many needful interlocking facts are, of necessity, relegated to the quiet workers of the present and the earnest laborers of the years to come. But it is a doctrine which cannot be shaken. The constant and universal action of variation, the struggle for existence, and the "survival of the fittest," few who are competent to grasp will have the temerity to doubt. And to many, that lies within it as a doctrine, and forms the fibre of its fabric, is the existence of a continuity, an unbroken stream of unity running from the base to the apex of the entire organic series. The plant and the animal, the lowliest organized and the most complex, the minutest and the largest, are related to each other so as to constitute one majestic organic whole. Now to this splendid continuity practical biology presents no adverse fact. All our most recent and most accurate knowledge confirms it. Butthequestion is, Does this continuity terminate now in the living series, and is there then a break—a sharp, clear discontinuity, and beyond, another realm immeasurably less endowed, known as the realm of not-life? or Does what has been taken for the clear-cut boundary of the vital area, when more deeply searched, reveal the presence of a force at present unknown, which changes not-living into the living, and thus makes all nature an unbroken sequence and a continuous whole? That this is a great question, a question involving large issues, will be seen by all who have familiarized themselves with the thought and fact of our times. But we must treat it purely as a question of science; it is not a question ofhowlifefirstappeared upon the earth, it is only a question of whether there is any natural forcenowat work building not-living matter into living forms. Nor have we to determine whether or not, in the indefinite past, the not-vital elements on the earth, at some point of their highest activity, were endowed with, or became possessed of, the properties of life.
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
On that subject there is no doubt. The elements that compose protoplasm—the physical basis of all living things—are the familiar elements of the world without life. The mystery of life is not in the elements that compose the vital stuff. We know them all, we know their properties. The mystery consistssolelyinhowthese elements can be so combined asto acquirethe transcendent properties of life. Moreover, to the investigator it is not a question ofby what meansmatter dead—without the shimmer of a vital quality—became either slowly or suddenly possessed of the properties of life. Enough for us to know that whatever the power that wrought the change, that power was competent, as the issue proves. But that which calm and patient research has to determine is whether matter demonstrablynot livingcan be, without the aid of organisms already living, endowed with the properties of life. Judged of hastily, and apart from the facts, it may appear to some minds that an origin of life from not-life, by sheer physical law, would be a great philosophical gain, an indefinitely strong support of the doctrine of evolution. If this were so, and, indeed, so far as it is believed to be so, it would speak and does speak volumes in favor of the spirit of science pervading our age. For although the vast majority of biologists in Europe and America accept the doctrine of evolution, they are almost unanimous in their refusal to accept as in any sense competent the reputed evidence of "spontaneous generation;" which demonstrates, at least, that what is sought by our leaders in science is not the mere support of hypotheses, cherished though they may be, but the truth, the uncolored truth, from nature. But it must be remembered that the present existence of what has been called "spontaneous generation," the origin of lifede novoto-day, by physical law, is by no means required by the doctrine of evolution. Prof. Huxley, for example, says: "If all living beings have been evolved from pre-existing forms of life, it is enough that a single particle of protoplasm shouldoncehave appeared upon the globe, as the result of no matter what agency; any further independent formation of protoplasm would be sheer waste." And why? we may ask. Because one of the most marvelous and unique properties of protoplasm, and the living forms built out of it,is the powerto multiply indefinitely and for ever! What need, then, of spontaneous generation? It is certainly true that evidence has been adduced purporting to support, if not establish, the origin in dead matter of the least and lowest forms of life. But it evinces no prejudice to say that it is inefficient. For a moment study the facts. The organisms which were used to test the point at issue were those known asseptic. The vast majority of these are inexpressibly minute. The smallest of them, indeed, is so small that, as I have said, fifty millions of them, if laid in order, would only fill the one-hundredth part of a cubic inch. Many are relatively larger, but all are supremely minute. Now, these organisms are universally present in enormous numbers, and ever rapidly increasing in all moist putrefactions over the surface of the globe.
Take an illustration prepared for the purpose, and taken direct from nature. A vessel of pure drinking water was taken during the month of July at a temperature of 65 deg. F., and into it was dropped a few shreds of fish muscle and brain. It was left uncovered for twelve hours; at the end of that time a small blunt rod was inserted in the now somewhat opalescent water, and a minute drop taken out and properly placed on the microscope, and, with a lens just competent to reveal the minutest objects, examined. The field of view presented is seen in Fig. 1, A. But—with the exception of the dense masses which are known as zooglœa or bacteria, fused together in living glue—the whole field was teeming with action; each minute organism gyrating in its own path, and darting at every visible point. The same fluid was now left for sixteen hours, and once more a minute drop was taken and examined with the same lens as before. The field presented to the eye is depicted in Fig. 1, B, where it is visible that while the original organism persists yet a new organism has arisen in and invaded the fluid. It is a relatively long and beautiful spiral form, and now the movement in the field is entrancing. The original organism darts with its vigor and grace, and rebounds in all directions. But the spiral forms revolving on their axes glide like a flight of swallows over the ample area of their little sea. Ten hours more elapsed and, without change of circumstances, another drop was taken from the now palpably putrescent fluid. The result of examination is given in Fig. 1, C, where it will be seen that the first organism is still abundant, the spiral organism is still present and active, but a new and oval form, not a bacterium, but amonad, has appeared. And now the intensity of action and beauty of movement throughout the field utterly defy description, gyrating, darting, spinning, wheeling, rebounding, with the swiftness of the grayling and the beauty of the bird. Finally, at the end of another eight to sixteen hours, a final "dip" was taken from the fluid, and under the same lens it presented as a field what is seen in Fig. 1, D, where the largest of the putrefactive organisms has appeared and has even more intense and more varied movements than the others. Now the question before us is, "How did these organisms arise?" The water was pure; they were not discoverable in the fresh muscle of fish. Yet in a dozen hours the vessel of water is peopled with hosts of individual forms which no mathematics could number! How did they arise? From universally diffused eggs, or from the direct physical change of dead matter into living forms? Twelve years ago the life-histories of these forms were unknown. We did not know biologically how they developed. And yet with this great deficiency it was considered by some that their mode of origin could be determined by heat experiments on the adult forms. Roughly, the method was this: It was assumed that nothing vital could resist the boiling point of water. Fluids, then, containing full-grown organisms in enormous multitudes, chiefly bacteria, were placed in flasks, and boiled for from five to ten minutes. While they were boiling the necks of the flasks was hermetically closed; and the flask was allowed to remain unopened for various periods. The reasoning was: "Boiling has killed all forms of vitalityinthe flask; by the hermetical sealing nothing living can gain subsequent access to the fluid; therefore, if living organisms do appear when the flask is opened, they must have arisen in the dead matterde novoby spontaneous generation, but if they do never so arise, the probability is that they originate in spores or eggs."
Now it must be observed concerning this method of inquiry that it could never be final; it is incompetent by deficiency. Its results could never be exhaustive until the life-histories of the organisms involved were known. And further, although it is a legitimate method of research for partial results, and was of necessity employed, yet it requires precise and accurate manipulation. A thousand possible errors surround it. It can only yield scientific results in the hands of a master in physical experiment. And we find that when it has secured the requisite skill, as in the hands of Prof. Tyndall, for example, the result has been the irresistible deduction that living things have never been seen to originate in not-living matter. Then the ground is cleared for the strictly biological inquiry, How do they originate? To answer that question we must study the life histories of the minutest forms with the same continuity and thoroughness with which we study the development of a crayfish or a butterfly. The difficulty in the way of this is the extreme minuteness of the organisms. We require powerful and perfect lenses for the work. Happily during the last fifteen years the improvement in the structure of the most powerful lenses has been great indeed. Prior to this time there were English lenses that amplified enormously. But an enlargement of the image of an object avails nothing, if there be no concurrent disclosure of detail. Little is gained by expanding the image of an object from the ten-thousandth of an inch to an inch, if there be not an equivalent revelation of hidden details. It is in this revealing quality, which I shall callmagnificationas distinct fromamplification, that our recent lenses so brilliantly excel. It is not easy to convey to those unfamiliar with objects of extreme minuteness a correct idea of what this power is. But at the risk of extreme simplicity, and to make the higher reaches of my subject intelligible to all, I would fain make this plain.
But to do so I must begin with familiar objects, objects used solely to convey good relative ideas of minute dimension. I begin with small objects with the actual size of which you are familiar. All of us have taken a naked eye view of the sting of the wasp or honey bee; we have a due conception of its size. This is the scabbard or sheath which the naked eye sees.3Within this are two blades terminating in barbed points. The point of the scabbard more highly magnified is presented, showing the inclosed barbs. One of the barbs, looked at on the barbed edge, is also seen. Now these two barbed stings are tubes with an opening in the end of the barb. Each is connected with the tube of the sac, C. This Is a reservoir of poison, and D is the gland by which it is secreted. Now I present this to you, not for its own sake, but simply for the comparison, a comparison which struck the earliest microscopists. Here is the scabbard carefully rendered. One of the stings is protruded below its point, as in the act of stinging; the other is free to show its form. Now the actual length of this scabbard in nature was theone-thirtiethof an inch. I have taken the point, C, of a fine cambric sewing needle, and broken it off to slightly less than the one-thirtieth of an inch, and magnified it as the sting is magnified. Now here we obtain an instance of what I mean by magnification. The needle point is not merely bigger, unsuspected details start into view. The sting is not simply enlarged, but all its structure is revealed. Nor can we fail to note that thefinishof art differs from that of nature. The homogeneous gloss of the needle disappears under the fierce scrutiny of the lens, and its delicate point becomes furrowed and riven. But Nature's finish reveals no flaw, it remains perfect to the last.
We may readily amplify this. The butterflies and moths of our native lands we all know; most of us have seen their minute eggs. Many are quite visible to the unaided eye; others are extremely minute. A gives the egg of the small white butterfly;4B, that of the small tortoiseshell; C, that of the waved umber moth; D, that of the thorn moth; E, that of the shark moth; at F we have the delicate egg of the small emerald butterfly, and at G an American skipper; and finally, at H, the egg of a moth known as mania maura. In all this you see a delicacy of symmetry, structure, and carving, not accessible to the eye, but clearly unfolded. We may, from our general knowledge, form a correct notion of the average relation in size existing between butterflies and their eggs; so that we can compare. Now there is a group of extremely minute, insect-like forms that are the parasites of birds. Many of them are just plainly visible to the naked eye, others are too minute to be clearly seen, and others yet again wholly elude the unaided sight. The epizoa generally lodge themselves in various parts of the plumage of birds; and almost every group of birds becomes the host of some specific or varietal form with distinct adaptations. There is here seen a parasite that secretes itself in the inner feathers of the peacock, this is a form that attacks the jay, and here is one that secretes itself beneath the plumage of the partridge.
Now these minute creatures also deposit eggs. They are placed with wonderful instinct in the part of the plumage and the part of the feather which will most conserve their safety; and they are either glued or fixed by their shape or by their spine in the position in which they shall be hatched. I show here a group of the eggs of these minute creatures. I need not call your attention to their beauty; it is palpable. But I am fain to show you that, subtle and refined as that beauty is, it is clearly brought out. The flower-like beauty of the egg of the peacock's parasite, the delicate symmetry and subtle carving of the others, simply entrance an observer. Note then that it is not merelyenlargedspecks of form that we are beholding, but such true magnifications of the objects as bring out all their subtlest details. And it isthisquality that must characterize our most powerful lenses. I am almost compelled to note in passing that thebeautyof these delicate and minute objects must not be consideredan end—a purpose—in nature. It is not so. The form is what it is because itmust beso to serve the end for which the egg is formed. There is not a superfluous spine, not a useless petal in the floral egg, not an unneeded line of chasing in the decorated shell. It is shaped beautifully because its shape is needed. In short, it is Nature's method; the identification of beauty and use. But to resume. We may at this point continue our illustrations of the analytical power of moderate lenses by a beautiful instance. We are indebted to Albert Michael, of the Linnean Society of England, for a masterly treatise on a group of acari, ormites, known as theoribatidæ. Many of these he has discovered. The one before you is a full grown nymph of what is known as apalmicinctum. It is deeply interesting as a form; but for us its interest is that it is minute, being only a millimeter in length. But it repeatedly casts the dorsal skin of the abdomen. Each skin is bordered by a row of exquisite scales; and then successive rows of these scales persist, forming a protection to the entire organism. Mark then that we not only reveal the general form of the nymph, but the lens reveals the true structure of the scales, not enlargement merely, but detail. The egg of the organism, still more magnified, is also seen.
To vary our examples and still progress. We all know the appearance and structure of chalk. The minute foraminifera have, by their accumulated tests, mainly built up its enormous masses. But there is another chalk known as Barbados earth; it is silicious, and is ultimately composed of minute and beautiful skeletons such as those which, enormously magnified, you now see. These were the glassy envelopes which protected the living speck that dwelt within and built it. They are the minutest of the Radiolaria, which peopled in inconceivable multitudes the tertiary oceans; and, as they died, their minute skeletons fell down in a continuous rain upon the ocean bed, and became cemented into solid rock which geologic action has brought to the surface in Barbados and many other parts of the earth. If a piece of this earth, the size of a bean, be boiled in dilute acid and washed, it will fall into powder, the ultimate grains of which are such forms as these which you see. The one before you is an instance of exquisite refinement of detail. The form from which the drawing of the magnified image was made was extremely small—a mere white speck in the strongest light upon a black ground. But you observe it is not a speck of form merely enlarged. It is not merely beauty of outline made bigger. But there is—as in the delicate group you now see—a perfect opening up of otherwise absolutely invisible details. We may strengthen this evidence in favor of the analytical power of our higher lenses by one morefamiliarexample, and then advance to the most striking illustration of this power which our most perfect and powerful lenses can afford. I fear that may be taking too much for granted to assume that every one in an audience like this has seen a human flea! Most, however, will have a dim recollection or suggestive instinct as to its size in nature. Nothing striking is revealed by this amount of magnification excepting the existence of breathing pores or spiracles along the scale armor of its body. But there is a trace of structure in the terminal ring of the exo-skeleton which we cannot clearly define, and of which we may desire to know more. This can be done only by the use of far higher powers.
To effect this, we must carefully cut off this delicate structure, and so prepare it that we may employ upon it the first of a series of our highest powers. The result of that examination is given here.5You see that the whole organ has a distinct form and border, and that its carefully carved surface gives origin to wheel-like areolæ which form the bases of delicate hairs. The function of this organ is really unknown. It is known from its position as thepygidium; and from the extreme sensitiveness of the hairs to the slightest aerial movement, may be a tactile organ warning of the approach of enemies; the eyes have no power to see. But we have not reached the ultimate accessible structure of this organ. If we place a portion of the surface under one of the finest of our most powerful lenses, this will be the result.6Now, without discussing the real optical or anatomical value of this result as it stands, what I desire to remind you of is:
1. The natural size of the flea.
2. The increase of knowledge gained by its general enlargement.
3. The relation in size between the flea and its pygidium.
4. The manner in which our lenses reveal its structure, not merely amplify its form.
Now with these simple and yet needful preliminaries you will be able to follow me in a careful study of the least, the very lowliest and smallest, of all living things. It lies on the very verge of our present powers of optical aid, and what we know concerning it will convince you that we are prepared with competent skill to attack the problem of the life-histories of the smallest living forms. The group to which the subject of our present study belongs is the bacteria. They are primarily staff-like organisms of extreme minuteness, but may be straight, or bent, or curved, or spiral, or twisted rods. This entire projection is drawn on glass, withcamera lucida, each object being magnified 2,000 diameters, that is to say, 4,000,000 of times in area. Yet the entire drawing is made upon an area of not quite 3 inches in diameter, and afterward projected here. The objects therefore are all equally magnified, and their relative sizes may be seen. The giant of the series is known asSpirillum volutans;and you will see that the representative species given become less and less in size until we reach the smallest of all the definite forms, and known to science asBacterium termo.
Now within given limits this organism varies in size, but if a fair average be taken its size is such that 50,000,000 laid in order would only fill the hundredth of a cubic inch. Now the majority of these formsmovewith rapidity and grace in the fluids they inhabit. But how? By what means? By looking at the largest form of this group, you will see that it is provided with two delicate fibers, one at each end. Ehrenberg and others strongly suspected their existence, and we were enabled, with more perfect lenses, todemonstratetheir presence some twelve years ago. They are actually the swimming organs of this Spirillum. The fluid is lashed rhythmically by these fibers, and a spiral movement of the utmost grace results. Then do the intermediate forms that move also possess these flagella, and does this least form in nature, viz.,Bacterium termo, accomplish its bounding and rebounding movements in the same way? Yes! by a series of resolute efforts, in using a new battery of lenses—the finest that at that time had ever been put into the hands of man—I was enabled to show in succession that each motile form of Bacterium up toB. lineolaaccomplished its movements by fibers or flagella; and that in the act of self-division, constantly taking place, a new fiber was drawn out for each half before separation.
But the point of difficulty wasB. termo. The demonstration of its flagella was a task of difficulty which only patient purpose could conquer. But by the use of our new lenses, and special illumination we—my colleague and I—were enabled to demonstrate clearly a flagellum at each end of this least of living organisms, as you see, and by the rapid lashing of the fluid, alternately or together, with these flagella, the powerful, rapid, and graceful movements of this smallest known living thing are accomplished. Of course these fibers are inconceivably fine—indeed for this very reason it was desirable, if possible, tomeasureit, to discover its actual thickness. We all know that, both for the telescope and the microscope, beautiful apparatus are made for measuring minute magnified details. But unfortunately no instrument manufactured was delicate enough to measuredirectlythis fiber. If it were measured it must be by an indirect progress, which I accomplished thus: The diameter of the body ofB. termo,i.e., from; side to side, may in different forms vary from the 1/20000 to the 1/50000 of an inch.Thatis a measurement which we may easily make directly with a micrometer. Haying ascertained this, I determined to discover the ratio of thickness between the body of the Bacterium and its flagellum—that is to say, to discover how many of the flagella laid side by side would make up the width of the body.
I proceeded thus: This is a complicated microscope placed on a tripod, so arranged that it may be conveniently worked upright. There is a special instrument for centering and illuminating. On the stage of the instrument, the Bacterium with its flagellum in distinct focus is placed. Instead of the simple eyepiece,camera lucidais placed upon it. This instrument is so constructed that it appears to throw the image of the object upon the white sheet of paper on the small table at the right hand where the drawing is made, at the, same time that it enables the same eye to see the pencil and the right hand. In this way I made a careful drawing ofB. termoand its flagellum, magnified 5,000 diameters. Here is a projection of the drawing made. But I subsequently avoided paper, and used under the camera most carefully prepared surface of ground glass. When the drawing was made I placed on the drawing a drop of Canada balsam, and covered it with a circle of thin glass, just like any other microscopic mounted object. This is a micro-slide so prepared. Now you can see that I only have to lay this on the stage of a microscope, make it an object for a low power, and use a screw micrometer to find how many flagella go to the making of a body. The result is given in the figure; you see that ten flagella would fill the area occupied by the diameter of the body.
In the case chosen the body was the 1/20,400 of an inch wide, and therefore, when divided by ten, gave for the flagellum a thickness of the 1/204,000 of an English inch. In the end I made fifty separate drawings with four separate lenses. I averaged the result in each fifty, and then took the average of the total of 200, and the mean value of the width of the flagellum was the 1/204,700 of an English inch. It will be seen, then, that we are possessed of instruments which, when competently used, will enable us to study the life-histories of the putrefactive organisms, although they are the minutest forms of life. I have stated that they were the inevitable accompaniments of putrescence and decay. You learned from a previous illustration the general appearance of the Bacteria; they are the earliest to appear whenever putrefaction shows itself. In fact the pioneer is this—the ubiquitousBacterium termo.The order of succession of the other forms is by no means certain. But whenever a high stage of decomposition is reached, a group of forms represented by these three will swarm the fluid. These are the Monads, they are strictly putrefactive organisms, they are midway in size between the least and largest Bacteria, and are, from their form and other conditions, more amenable to research, and twelve years ago I resolved, with the highest power lenses and considerable practice in their use, to attack the problem of their origin; whether as physical products of the not-living, or as the natural progeny of parents.
But you will remember that only a minute drop of fluid containing them can be examined at one time. This minute drop has to be covered with a minute film of glass not more than the 1/200 of an inch thick. The highest lenses are employed, working so near as almost to touch the delicate cover. Clearly, then, the film of fluid would rapidly evaporate and cause the destruction of the object studied. To prevent this an arrangement was devised by which the lens and the covered fluid under examination were used in an air-tight chamber, the air of which was kept in a saturated condition; so that being, like a saturated sponge, unable to take in any more, it left the film of fluid unaffected. But to make the work efficient I soon found that there must be a second observer. Observation by leaps was of no avail. To be accurate it must be unbroken. There must be no gap in a chain of demonstration. A thousand mishaps would occur in trying to follow a single organism through all the changes of successive hours to the end. But, however many failures, it was evident, we must begin on another form at the earliest point again, and follow it to the close. I saw soon that every other method would have been merely empirical, a mere piecemeal of imagination and fact. When one observer's ability to continue a long observation was exhausted, there must be another at hand to take up the thread and continue it; and thus to the end. I was fortunate indeed at this time in securing the ready and enthusiastic aid of Dr. J.J. Drysdale, of Liverpool, who practically lived with me for the purpose, and went side by side with me to the work. We admitted nothing which we had not both seen, and we succeeded each other consecutively, whenever needful, in following to the end the complete life-histories of six of these remarkable forms.
I will now give you the facts in relation to two which shall be typical. We obtained them in enormous abundance in a maceration of fish. I will not take them in the order of our researches, but shall find it best to examine the largest and the smallest. The appearance of the former is now before you. It is divergent from the common type when seen in its perfect condition, avoiding the oval form, but it resumes it in metamorphosis. It is comparatively huge in its proportions, its average extreme length being the 1/1000 of an inch. Its normal form is rigidly adhered to as that of a rotifer or a crustacean. Its body-substance is a structureless sarcode. Its differentiations are a nucleus-like body, not common to the monads; generally a pair of dilating vacuoles, which open and close, like the human eyelid, ten to twenty times in every minute; and lastly, the usual number of four flagella. That the power of motion in these forms and in the Bacteria is dependent upon these flagella I believe there can be no reasonable doubt. In the monads, the versatility, rapidity, and power of movement are always correlated with the number of these. The one before us could sweep across the field with majestic slowness, or dart with lightning swiftness and a swallow's grace. It could gyrate in a spiral, or spin on its axis in a rectilinear path like a rifled bullet. It could dart up or down, and begin, arrest, or change its motion with a grace and power which at once astonish and entrance. Fixing on one of these monads then, we followed it doggedly by a never-ceasing movement of a "mechanical stage," never for an instant losing it through all its wanderings and gyrations; We found that in the course of minutes, or of hours, the sharpness of its outline slowly vanish, its vacuoles disappeared, and it lost its sharp caudal extremity, and was sluggishly amœboid. This condition tensified, the amœboid action quickened as here depicted, the agility of motion ceased, the nucleus body became strongly developed, and the whole sarcode was in a state of vivid and glittering action.
If now it be sharply and specially looked for, it will be seen that the root of the flagellasplits, dividing henceforth into two separate pairs. At the same moment a motion is set up which pulls the divided pairs asunder, making the interval of sarcode to grow constantly greater between them. During this time the nuclear body has commenced and continued a process of self-division; from this moment the organism grows rapidly rounder, the flagella swiftly diverge. A bean-like form is taken; the nucleus divides, and a constriction is suddenly developed; this deepens; the opposite position of the flagella ensues, the nearly divided forms now vigorously pull in opposite directions, the constriction is thus deepened and the tail formed. The fiber of sarcode, to which the constricted part has by tension been reduced, now snaps, and two organisms go free. It will have struck you that the new organism enters upon its career with onlytwoflagella, and the normal organism is possessed of four. But in a few minutes, three or four at most, the full complement were always there. How they were acquired it was the work of months to discover, but at last the mystery was solved. The newly-fissioned form darted irregularly and rapidly for a brief space, then fixed itself to the floor or to a rigid object by the ends of its flagella, and, with its body motionless, an intense vibratory action was set up along the entire length of these exquisite fibers. Rapidly the ends split, one-half being in each fiber set free, and the other remaining fixed, and in 130 seconds each entire flagellum was divided into a perfect pair.
Now the amœboid state is a notable phenomenon throughout the monads as precursive of striking change. It appears to subserve the purpose of the more facile acquisition and digestion of food at a crisis. And this augmented the difficulty of discovering further change; and only persistent effort enabled us to discover that with comparative rareness there appeared a form in an amœboid state that was unique. It was a condition chiefly confined to the caudal end, the sarcode having became diffluent, hyaline, and intensely rapid in the protrusion and retraction of its substance, while the nuclear body becomes enormously enlarged. These never appear alone; forms in a like condition are diffused throughout the fluid, and may swim in this state for hours. Meanwhile, the diffluence causes a spreading and flattening of the sarcode and swimming gives place to creeping, while the flagella violently lash. In this condition two forms meet by apparent accident, the protrusions touch, and instant fusion supervenes. In the course of a few seconds there is no disconnected sarcode visible, and in five to seven minutes the organism is a union of two of the organisms, the swimming being again resumed, the flagella acting in apparent concert. This may continue for a short time, when movement begins to flag and then ceases. Meanwhile, the bodies close together, and the eyenots or vacuoles melt together, the two nuclei become one and disappear, and in eighteen hours the entire body of "either has melted into other," and a motionless, and for a time irregular, sac is left. This now becomes smooth, spherical, and tight, being fixed and motionless. This is a typical process; but the mingled weariness and pleasure realized in following such a form without a break through all the varied changes into this condition is not easily expressed.