For the examination of animal tissues it is necessary that they should be sliced very fine before they are subjected to the microscope. Perhaps a tiny muscle is being investigated and cross sections of it are needed. Well, one cannot pick up the muscle and cut slices off it as you would off a German sausage. To begin with, it is difficult even to pick the object up; and even if pieces one-hundredth of an inch long were detached they would still be far too large for examination.
So, as is usually the case when our unaided powers prove unequal to a task, we have recourse to a machine. There are several types of microtomes, each preferable for certain purposes. But as in ordinary laboratory work the Cambridge Rocking Microtome is used, let us give our special attention to this particular instrument. It is mounted on a strong cast-iron bed, a foot or so in length and four to five inches wide. Towards one end rise a couple of supports terminating in knife-edges, which carry a cross-bar, itself provided with knife-edges top and bottom, those on the top supporting a second transverse bar. Both bars have a long leg at right angles, giving them the appearance of two large T's superimposed one on the other; but the top T is converted into a cross by a fourth member—a sliding tube which projects forward towards a frame in which is clamped a razor, edge upwards.
The tail of the lower T terminates in a circular disc, pierced with a hole to accommodate the end of a vertical screw, which has a large circular head with milled edges. The upper T is rocked up and down by a cord and spring, the handle actuating the cord also shifting on the milled screw-head a very small distance every time it is rocked backwards and forwards. As the screw turns, it gradually raises the tail of the lower member, and by giving its cross-bar a tilt brings the tube of the upper member appreciably nearer the razor. The amount of twist given to the screw at each stroke can be easily regulated by a small catch.
When the microscopist wishes to cut sections he first mounts his object in a lump of hard paraffin wax, coated with softer wax. The whole is stuck on to the face of the tube, so as to be just clear of the razor.
The operator then seizes the handle and works it rapidly until the first slice is detached by the razor. Successive slices are stuck together by their soft edges so as to form a continuous ribbon of wax, which can be picked up easily and laid on a glass slide. The slide is then warmed to melt the paraffin, which is dissolved away by alcohol, leaving the atoms of tissue untouched. These, after being stained with some suitable medium, are ready for the microscope.
A skilful user can, under favourable conditions, cut slices one twenty-five thousandth of an inch thick. To gather some idea of what this means we will imagine that a cucumber one foot long and one and a-half inches in diameter is passed through this wonderful guillotine. It would require no less than 700 dinner-plates nine inches across to spread the pieces on! If the slices were one-eighth of an inch thick, the cucumber, to keep a proportionate total size, would be 260 feet long. After considering these figures we shall lose some of the respect we hitherto felt for the men who cut the ham to put inside luncheon-bar sandwiches.
In the preceding pages frequent reference has been made to index screws, exactly graduated to a convenient number of divisions. When such screws have to be manufactured in quantities it would be far too expensive a matter to measure each one separately. Therefore machinery, itself very carefully graduated, is used to enable a workman to transfer measurements to a disc of metal.
If the index-circle of an astronomical telescope—to take an instance—has to be divided, it is centred on a large horizontal disc, the circumference of which has been indented with a large number of teeth. A worm-screw engages these teeth tangentially (i.e. at right angles to a line drawn from the centre of the plate to the point of engagement). On the shaft of the screw is a ratchet pinion, in principle the same as the bicycle free-wheel, which, when turned one way, also twists the screw, but has no effect on it when turned the other way. Stops are put on the screw, so that it shall rotate the large disc only the distance required between any two graduations. The divisions are scribed on the index-circle by a knife attached to a carriage over and parallel to the disc. The Dividing Engine used for the graduation of certain astronomical instruments probably constitutes the most perfect machine ever made. In an address to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers,[1] the President, Mr. William Henry Maw, used the following words: "The most recently constructed machine of the kind of which I am aware—namely, one made by Messrs. Warner and Swasey, of Cleveland, U.S.A.—is capable of automatically cutting the graduations of a circle with an error in position not exceeding one second of arc. (A second of an arc is approximately the angle subtended by a halfpenny at a distance of three miles.) This means that on a 20-inch circle the error in position of any one graduation shall not exceed 1 / 20,000 inch. Now, the finest line which would be of any service for reading purposes on such a circle would probably have a width equal to quite ten seconds of arc; and it follows that the minute V-shaped cut forming this line must be so absolutely symmetrical with its centre line throughout its length, that the position of this centre may be determined within the limit of error just stated by observations of its edges, made by aid of the reading micrometer and microscope. I may say that after the machine just mentioned had been made, it took over a year's hard work to reduce the maximum error in its graduations from one and a-half to one second of arc."
The same address contains a reference to the great Yerkes telescope, which though irrelevant to our present chapter, affords so interesting an example of modern mechanical perfection that it deserves parenthetic mention.