HISTOLOGY (derived from the Greek words histos, a web or texture, and logos, a dis course) is the science which classifies and describes the structural or morphological elements which exist in the solids and fluids of organized bodies. It is identical or nearly so with general minute anatomy and with microscopic anatomy. Although its origin may be traced to the times of Malpighi (1628-94), who discovered the blood corpuscles, and of Leuwenhoek (1632-1723), who, with comparatively imperfect optical means, added much to our knowledge of the minute structure of the tissues, it never made any definite progress till the second decennium of the present century, when the compound microscope began to assume its present improved form. It was by means of this microseopico-chemical examination that the structure of the different horny tissues was first clearly exhibited, and it was thus proved that nails, cow's horn, and whalebone are similarly composed of aggregations of individual cells. _Again, in the investigation
of the nervous tissua, and of many other structures, chemistry and the microscope have been most usefully combined.
During the last quarter of a century, no department of medical science has made such rapid progress as histology. In has been successfully cultivated by Schwann, Henle,Valentin, Remak, Kolliker,Virchow, Leydig, Frey, and a host of others, scarcely less distinguished; in Holland, it has been actively prosecuted by Donders, Harting, and others; Lebe•t, Mandl, Robin, and others, have contributed to the French literature of the subject; while amongst our own countrymen, the names of Todd and Bowman, of Goodsir, Queckett, J. H. Bennett, Lockhart Clarke, and Beale, deserve honorable notice.