An Hour with the Microscope
This was the subject of the second lecture of the Gilchrist Series delivered at the Corn Exchange on Monday night, by the Rev. Dr. Dallinger of Sheffield, under the auspices of the Doncaster Microscopical Society.
The Rev. Canon Brock, who presided, remarked that it might have occurred to some how it was that they could have such lectures for the extraordinary price of one penny admission. He would give them a brief outline of the life and labours of Dr. Gilchrist so that they might understand this.
Having alluded to the life and travels of Dr. Gilchrist, he mentioned how, by a codicil to his will, he invested in his trustees certain monies to appropriate in such manner as they should think proper and expedient.
These trustees had instituted scholarships in connection with education, had spent other monies in advancing educational institutions; and in addition to this, £1.000 per annum was expended in procuring a special course of scientific lectures to the working classes in towns. This was the treason they were enabled to get these great scientific men to lecture to them for one penny admission.
The Microscopical Society had applied for, and had secured, the services of these lecturers. They had had the first lecture, and he would now call upon Dr. Dallinger to give them the second of the course.
Dr. Dallinger remarked that the human mind was arrested and astounded equally by the infinitely great and the infinitely small, for the illimitable belonged to both. As a rule, whatever conception was formed of infinitude was derived from vast extensions of space, and it was on this account that the illimitable vast enamoured and fascinated them.
But it was not only the vast that was suggestive of the infinite. Let them reach down in thought to the minutest atom they could define, and if they could go on dividing it by the mental blade for ever, they would never reach the limit. Therefore, there was no need to confine their suggestions to the infinity of that which was vast, it was equally unfolded to them in the exquisitely minute. Every minute atom might be cut up into parts.
Take the twenty thousandth part of an ounce of gold, which might be beaten into a square inch of gold leaf, to be divided into 250 parts, each of which would be visible to the naked eye. Take one of these 250th parts and increase its area bu a lens, 100,000,000 times, and apparently they were no nearer to the atom of which it was composed than when viewing it by the naked eye.
He would call their attention that night to living forms so minute that thousands would find ample room at the extremity or point of an ordinary pin. Each of these had organs of locomotion and the power of multiplying. People could now affirm the universality of the changelessness of nature’s laws, for this was not only true with respect to the minutest atoms visible to man, but of the most gigantic suns through space.
They were governed by universal laws. By present means the research of man could discover nothing as to the existence or nature of life, or of living things beyond this earth. They were, therefore, limited in their area of research to the earth. Many questions during the last quarter of a century had been answered with scientific certainty, and many led up to the principal question of the century, “What is life?”
To that, however, no answer had come. By this he did not mean the mere definition of the phenomena of life, but what was that which changed matter that was not living into matter, that was endowed with the properties of life. This was certain, that whatever might be the difference between them, matter in a living condition was something wholly different, not merely in degree, but in its nature and properties from matter not living.
Wherever they had life they had protoplasm. Without protoplasm there was no life; with life there must be protoplasm; but how these properties arose was inscrutable to science. All living matter, wherever found, was practically alike. There were four distinct properties of living matter which distinguished that matter from other forms.
First of all, living matter in its simplest condition, was always endowed with the power of self-motion; it could defy gravitation and move against it. Next it had the power of imbibition, or to take into itself matter unlike itself, and in the third place, to assimilate, to change this matter into its own substance, and to make that which was not life into life. Lastly, it had the power to reproduce itself infinitely.
Now was there a known or describable passage from the no living state into the living state and was there a bridge across from the living into the non-living, or was it here that there was a chasm between non-living matter and matter living. The facts known to-day compelled the deduction that only that which was living could produce that which lived.
Take a glass of ordinary drinking water and insert into it a few sprigs of hay, a few shreds of fish, or a small piece of meat, and leave it on the mantlepiece all night. In six hours, if they took a minute drop of the fluid sufficient to over the point of a needle, they would be finding it teeming with life. In eight hours more, they would find that larger organisms had taken their place, and were multiplying by a peculiar process, and in eight or twelve hours they would find still larger organisms. Yet if they held up the water to the strongest light, it looked as clear and beautiful as it did when they first but a few shreds of decomposed matter into it.
Now the great question arose whence did these marvellous minute creatures come. They were not in the water nor in the fish. Test the water by boiling, then lay it aside, and in five or six weeks they would be able to discern living creatures. Still, it was clear the no living thing came from the dead. The boiling water might have killed the adults, but it has not killed the germs.
As an example of what he meant, the lecturer would suppose that a little fish had been placed in a vessel of water and allowed to decompose. Then he would take a point of a needle, dip it into the water, and place the drop under the lens, and what did they see.
Dr. Dallinger gave an illustration of what would be found on the sheet – living creatures. Primary he said there was the water and the dish, an no organisation in either. Then how did theses organisations originate. This was the subject for enquiry. Take an organisation simply, and study its life and history the same as other creatures, and what did they find.
He was enabled in conjunction with an assistant to work out the entire life history of six distinct forms, and able to demonstrate that each one produced eggs, out of which originated hosts of creatures which multiply by self-diffusion.
After giving various illustrations, first of an ordinary spider’s head, next a lion’s claw, in conjunction a spider’s claw (explaining the differences in the details), he exhibited the saw of a saw-fly in conjunction with the point of a cutting knife, in order to show that the most exquisite work of art could not be compared with the productions of nature.
Subsequently he exhibited specimens of the eggs of the butterfly, and explained the cause of the white halo surrounding dead flies on the windows of grocers and Italian warehousemen. This was a remarkable instance of the parasite identical with that known in connection with salmon disease.
Those little creatures swam in water and never rested until they fixed on something which stimulated their growth, as to a fish. This fungus had two modes of reproduction – unfertilised and fertilised – both of which he described and showed by means of illustrations. Dr. Dillinger remarked that these illustrations would show them how they were enabled by means of the microscope to look into small things, and to discover their depth and beauty.
The lecturer next showed various designs of minute animals, found in different parts around us, yet quite invisible, and which were known by the name of spring tails. Now, on this earth were certain gases which went to make up certain portions of living bodies. Hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon were essential elements of life, and if they locked up these gasses, they locked up what might be termed the capital of the globe. In an inanimate body there was a certain amount of these gasses stored. And no sooner was life extinct than the body was attacked by these minutest creatures, and the hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen were set free, in order that they might come into the world in the organisation of beasts, animals, and men. In this way these creatures did their work, breaking up these organic structures for the future generations of animals and man.
In these minutest structures of the world, they had evidence that there were two modes of reproduction – the unfertilised mode- the mere self-diffusion into two – and the fertilised, so that the organic structure might be multiplied.
Upon our knowledge of these groups of organisations. And the organisations attached to them depend much of the health of the great cities of our land. It was known quite distinctly that some of the most terrible forms of zymotic and other diseases were associated with these organisations. They were identified most distinctly with the forms of disease which attacked men and beats, and in proportion as we studied these organisations should we become more thoroughly master of these diseases, and more capable of putting them beneath our feet.
He firmly and honestly believed that from his present knowledge of these organisations the junior members of his audience would live to see the time when man should have mastered some of the most terrible forms of disease which now attacked us.
The Rev. Canon Brock proposed a vote of thanks to Dr. Dallinger, and the reply of the latter concluded the proceedings.
[Doncaster Gazette, 2nd February 1883]