MAN MAGNIFIED.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 699, 14 April 1852, Page 4

MAN MAGNIFIED.

[From Household B’oriZs.] The flea magnified, until he looks as large as an elephant, and as ugly as a crawfish, is an old friend with all sight-seers. Neither are such marvels of the microscope, as the terrible combat displayed in the circle of light on the walls of the Polytechnic Institution—where animals like all sorts of tigers and snakes, beetles and flying fish, dal t and twist and jerk in all directions —unfamiliar even to juvenile and nervous spectators. These aie amongst the chosen subjects for popular illustrations. But far more startling objects may be seen through the lenses nearer home. Man may be magnified as well as fleas. The fancies of Swift have been paralleled by the discoveries of the microscopist. The rough skin of the Brobdignagian has been shewn in reality under the object glass, with other things much more strange than any the Dean ever ventured to imagine. Nowadays from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, every tissue of the human frame has, in turn, become the subject of investigation. The bones on which the body is built —the muscles that move it —the brain that exerts the will—and the nerves which convey that will to each limb—the blood that vitalises and repairs—and the lungs which feed the blood with air—have all been put to the test, and made to reveal their peculiarities. We need not, to see all this, set up one of Ross’s fifty guinea microscopes, or trouble anatomists for specimens. The whole task has been gone through by various medical inquirers, and we have the results told in scientific terms by Dr. Arthur Hill Hassall, in his volumes on the “ Microscopic Anatomy of the Human Body, in Health and Disease,” recently completed and published. Without troubling the doctors for terms, let us see what facts they afford us. No microscope ever was made (nor ever will be made, probably) large enough to grasp up any whole specimen of the genus Homo at once. Y r ou cannot catch a life-guardsman, or even a Tom Thumb, and put him under the power of eight or nine hundred diameters. But though we cannot magnify the entire animal at once, we can yet examine him in detail, portion by portion. One hair, or one drop of blood, displays the characteristic features of its construction, just as completely as though the scalp, or the entire contents of the heart, could be seen at once. Knowing one, we know all. A small piece of skin, for instance, displays a series of ridges and furrows, having a somewhat scaly surface ;' between file lidges feus openings are seen. They are the mouths of the perspiratory ducts. Under the surface, and forming the most important and interesting portion of the skin, is the layer in which resides the sense of touch ; but if this be valuable, it is even less beautiful, as we see under the microscope, than the scaly cuticle provided for its protection, for it looks more like a dense crop of double teeth than anything else—each tooth having four sharp tubercles. Between each tooth we see the continuation of the perspiratory duct winding its deeper way into the frame, just as a good farmer places tiles to drain his lands. These fleshy teeth are known as the papillary portion of the skin, and where they are most numerous, there is the sense of touch most keen. On the soft sensitive hand and fingers of a young lady, looking the perfection of whiteness and delicacy, they are ranged thick and three-fold ; and so, too, are they on the skilful fingers of the workman trained to the more delicate manipulations of art. In the rough labourer, they become buried under a hard crust of coarse cuticle. The naked eye can easily detect the ridges into which the papillae are arranged ; each ridge being, in fact, two rows of papillae—two rows of double teeth—but the microscope is wanted, if we wish to behold them in their exact forms—beautifully adapted to the work they have to do, but rougher than the rind of a pine-apple, or the scale of a French artichoke, and by no means so picturesque as the scale armour of the magnified flea.

The hair may be called the offspring of the skin ; and in health and disease, youth and age, there is a close sympathy between tbe two. A fine growth of hair, when magnified, might be compared to a plantation of osiers, when the leaves are off; with some differences, of course. Human hair is not perfectly round, as it seems to be when seen with the naked eye ; nor is it cf the same thickness through its whole length. At its origin in the skin, it swells out into a bulbous form, like a crocus-root, or the body of a young spring onion, before the leaves are opened. From this base the hair springs forth, and gradually becomes bulkier as it lengthens. This goes on to a certain point, at which the greater growth is attained ; and then the hair grows fine and beautifully less; until, if allowed its full growth as on the head of a young damsel, its point is many times smaller and more delicate than the portion near the centre of its length.— Some hair is much rounder, more cylindrical, than other; some being oval, and some flattened. I he flat hair it is that curls most. Adonis and the negro are, therefore, alike in one point, at least. Hairs vary very much, both in thickness and in length ; those on the female scalp being, naturally, the longest of all ; and those of the beard of men being next in length, and longer than those of the male head. The hair of the female scalp is not only longer than that of the male, but, in proportion to its length, is larger in diameter. The thickest of all human hair, however, is that of the beard of men ; and the investigations of this subject tend to justify the assertion of the barbers, that frequently cutting and shaving the hair, has a tendency to make it thicker. Every hair has a stem and a root, just as a tree has ; the root being bedded in the skin, just as a tree is in the earth. But the comparison does not end here. The tree has bark, medulla, and intervening substance; the hair has the same. The bark (or cortex) of the hair displays a series of scales placed, one over-

lapping the other, just as we see tiles overlap on a house-top. Immediately below this scaly bark we have a fibrous portion, forming two-thirds of the bulk of the hair. These fibres are seen to separate when the hair splits from being left too long uncut. The centre of the hair has a little canal, full of an oily, marrow-like substance containing the greater part of the colouring matter ; black in black hair, brown in brown hair and almost absent when tbe hair has become grey. The marrow of the hair, and its two outer coatings, are well seen in a section of a hair from a well-shaved chin. The razor, day by day cuts it across ; it cannot grow longer, so it grows thicker and stronger; and each slice taken away by the matutinal shave, looks, under the microscope, like a section of a bone ; just as a bone is cut across when a ham is cut up into slices for broiling; whilst the stump remaining on the chin has just the same look as the bone on the section of grilled ham ready for the breakfast table. The primely shaved mouth is thickly dotted round by myriads of hideous hair stumps, with inner layer and marrow all exposed’. Fashion, ever since the days of Louis Quatorze, has demanded a daily sacrifice, and men continue to pay it. Happily they do not see the stumps of their beards through a microscope, or razor-makers would starve.

Fat appears to be a series of little globules, each enclosed in a vesicle. A collection of fat, therefore, is like a series of receptacles each full of oily matter. The bold of a Dutch or Irish trader full of wellfilled bladders of lard, resembles the material which makes up the rolls of fat that traditionally hang, like robes of office, about an aiderman. The consistence of fat varies in different animals, and varies also in hot and cold weather. The fat of an ox or sheep, is harder than that of a pig; that of the human subrect being intermediate between the two extremes. The quantity of fat secreted varies (as is well known) in different animals, and in different constitutions ; the tendency to its increase varies also at different times of life. In man, the unwieldy accumulation of fat usually indicates that he has passed the meridian of life. A moderate proportion of these bladders of oil, however, adds both to health and to beauty. Their uses are many. They give softness to the skin, symmetry to the human outline ; they are a garment to keep out cold ; they often (as on tbe soles of the feet) act as guards against injurious pressure on bones, and nerves, and muscles ; and, in certain cases’ form a reserve of nourishment on which the system can draw for sustaining life, when food cannot be taken, or is not to be had. So, if the fat of the frame, when magnified, does look like a portion of the contents of a provision shop, the similitude is as great in fact as in appearance. Marrow only differs from fat in this respect : — the cells are rounder , and it is less encumbered with cellular tissues. Inside a bone, the fat requires, in fact, less tying together than is needed in other situations on the body. From this partial substitute for food to the masticators of it, is no very violent digression. The teetb, under the microscope, are seen to be made pp of three different portions : the enamel on the surface above the’gum; the ivory, making up the bulk of the tooth beneath the enamel; and the coaling of the fang. The ivory of the tooth is full of small tubes, running from the cavity in the centre towards the outer surface of the tooth. These tubes are finer and finer as they approach the surface, and many of them branch out like little tubular trees. The microscope gives strength to the supposition, that decay of the teeth, with the horrible aches which accompany it, arises from a parasitical growth promoted by a vitiated condition of the secretions of the mouth. The tartar that accumulates on neglected teeth consists of lime mixed with mucus, and the refuse from the lining substances of the mouth. This substance contains in the case of neligent and dirty people, animacules and vegetable growths. Imagine a human being with a small zoological and botanical collection between, and round about, the teeth.

We have spoken of the skin, tbe hair, the fat, and the teetb ; all contributing to the appearance of the surface of the body. One other of the materials of which the frame is made up must be mentioned ; for, from it all the rest are built up ; upon its presence their vitality depends; and to its brightness and visibility is due that great charm of the beauties of England—a blooming complexion. We speak of the blood. It seems simply a crimson fluid till scrutinised under the magic glass of the microscopist. Instead of appearing one evidently bright red stream, we see that it is made up of globules, some of which are white, and others red. The white ones indeed, are largest, and roundest; but the red ones are by far the more numerous. On they flow, whilst life lasts; the red dots being too many in a plethoric aiderman, or fox-hunting squire ; and too few in a pale, love-lorn maiden. But in both alike, on, on they flow through the arteries, like myriads of red and white billiard balls running through a series of tubes. This revelation of the ultimate forms of living structure may not altogether make up a flattering picture. Man magnified may be less handsome than seen by ordinary unassisted eye-sight. Skin, rough as the bark of an old pine tree; hair, a winter osier-bed ; teeth, encrusted by earthy matter; and blood shown sometimes gluttonously rich, and sometimes indolently poor, make no flattering picture for self satisfied contemplation. But the roughness of the akin, covered by its myriads of perspiratory ducts, teaches the need for careful cleanliness ; the hair, tortured by frizzling irons, and mutilated by razors, suggests a thought as to the purposes for which portions of the frame were thus carefully covered by the Author of all things; teeth becoming sources of agonizing pain, and falling to decay, teach the wise the necessity of giving them the proper care —both direct, by washing, and indirect, by keeping the juices of the mouth pure by proper food and wholesome temperance. Blood too white or too red warns us against gluttony on the one band, or indolence and innutrition on the other. There is not one particle of the vast natural kingdom but has its lesson, if we do but take the tronble to read it. Surely there is an obvious code of morals plainly indicated in this one glimpse of Man Magnified.