A new microtome / by Charles S. Roy.

Date:
[1890?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new microtome / by Charles S. Roy. 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.

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    A NEW MICROTOME*. By CHARLES S. ROY, M.D. With practice sections of hardened tissues sufficiently good for most purposes can be cut without the aid of a special instrument, while the increased accuracy attained by using a suitable microtome is often more than counterbalanced by the expenditure of time and trouble required when sections are cut with its help. This is more especially felt when, as is often the case in pathological work, a few sections are required from each of several different specimens, or from different parts of the same specimen. Here the time wasted in fixing the tissue to be cut in the instrument, in waiting till the imbedding mass has hardened, &c., is very often more than can conveniently be afforded. On this account not a few of the best histologists have rejected the use of a microtome in any of the numerous forms which have been given to it. The waste of time which is so often connected with the use of a section-cutter is, I believe, in a great measure avoided in the case of the instrument which is described in the following pages. It presents nothing new in principle, consisting, like most section-cutters, of a sup- port for the knife or razor which is used to cut the tissue, and of a screw arrangement for moving the latter forwards. The object aimed at in planning it was to combine the accuracy gained by the use of a good microtome with the simplicity and convenience with which sections can be cut with the unsupported razor. I have employed it exclusively during the last two years for cutting sections both of hardened and of frozen specimens, and have had every reason to be satisfied with its accuracy and convenience of application. A glance at the woodcut, where it is represented (natural size), will make the description readily intelligible. The horse-shoe shaped piece of glass rod (a) is intended to support and guide the knife or razor which is used for cutting, and which glides on the surface turned, in the figure, towards the observer. This glass rod is firmly fixed by its two extremities in the brass plate (b). The smaller brass plate c, on the upper surface of which a thin layer of cork is cemented, can be moved forward or backward by the fine-threaded screw d, movement ^ Tins instrument was made for me by Mr Gardner, Instrument maker, South Bi idge, Edinburgh. '■) 9