The Microscope. Its History, Construction, and Application 15th ed.: Being a familiar introduction to the use of the instrument, and the study of microscopical scienceHogg, Jabez
History
The Microscope. Its History, Construction, and Application 15th ed.: Being a familiar introduction to the use of the instrument, and the study of microscopical science
Hogg, Jabez
Microscopy; Natural history
Natural injection of Medusæ may be effected without injuring the
vessels, with an opening at the side remote from it. The medusa must
be placed in a glass vessel, with the bell downwards, and a bell-jar
ending in a narrow tube above is placed over it and made air-tight;
the medusa is then covered with the injection-mass, the air in the
glass is exhausted, and as the sea-water runs out by slits in the lower
side of the annular canal, the coloured fluid runs in. In the case
of leeches and large species of earthworms, the natural injection is
made from the ventral sinus. In all cases a glass tube is used, with a
finely drawn-out point. The injection is complete when the injection
issues from the counter-opening. Besides the animals mentioned, large
caterpillars, beetles, and larvæ of various kinds are favourable
objects for injection; the glass cannula being introduced into the
posterior end of the dorsal vessel, and the counter-opening made in the
ventral vessel, and _vice versâ_.
_Staining Living Protoplasm with Bismarck Brown._--Henneguy having
treated _Paramœcium aurelia_ with an aqueous solution of aniline
brown (known as “Bismarck Brown”), found that they assumed an intense
yellow-brown colour. The colour first appears in the vacuoles of the
protoplasm, and then in the protoplasm itself, the nucleus generally
remaining colourless, and becoming more visible than in the normal
state. If a yellow-tinted paramœcium be compressed so as to cause a
small quantity of the protoplasm to exude, it is seen that it really is
the protoplasmic substance which becomes coloured. All the Infusoria
may be stained with Bismarck brown, but no other aniline colour
employed exhibits the same property--they merely stain the Infusoria
after death, and are in fact poisonous. Living protoplasm does not as
a rule absorb colouring matters, and as Infusoria are chiefly composed
of protoplasm, attempts have been made to ascertain whether protoplasm
in general, of animal or vegetable origin, behaved in the same way in
the presence of aniline brown. A tolerably strong solution of Bismarck
brown was therefore injected under the skin of the back of several
frogs. After some hours the tissues became uniformly tinted a deep
yellow; the muscular substance especially had a very marked yellow
tint. The frogs did not appear in the least incommoded. Small fry of
trout placed in a solution stained rapidly and continued to swim about.
Finally, a guinea-pig, under whose skin some powder of Bismarck brown
had been introduced, soon presented a yellow staining of the buccal and
anal mucous membranes and of the skin. Seeds of cress sown on cotton
soaked with a concentrated solution of the Bismarck brown sprouted,
and the young plants were strongly stained brown; but on crushing the
tissues and examining them under the microscope, it was ascertained
that the protoplasm of the cells was very feebly coloured: the vessels,
on the contrary, showed a deep brown stain up to their termination of
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