Notes on the early history of microscopy / by Charles Singer.

  • Charles Singer
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Notes on the early history of microscopy / by Charles Singer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/54
    By Charles Singer, M.D. In view of the immense interest in microscopic investigation evinced during the last fifty years, it is remarkable that no exhaustive history of the instrument has yet appeared. Many points in the earlier history of the subject remain doubtful, and in spite of the helpful essays of P. Harting ^ in Holland, of Landsberg ^ and Petri ^ in Germany, and of Vincenzo Rocchi ^ in Italy, there are still gaps in existing accounts. English literature on the subject is particularly scanty.® We have, therefore, endeavoured in the following pages to place before the reader a short and consecutive account, giving especial attention to the recorded observations of some of the earliest workers. (I) The Simple Microscope. The use of lenses may be certainly traced back to the thirteenth century, and is not improbably of far earlier origin. It seems likely that spheres of glass filled with water were used as magnifiers by the gem cutters of antiquity, whose work could hardly have been accom- plished without some aid to vision. Pliny ® mentions that burning- glasses were used by physicians as cauteries. “ Letters, however small and dim,” says Seneca’ (c. a.d. 63), “ are comparatively large and distinct when seen through a glass globe filled with water.” The Indian drama “ Sakuntala ” ® of Kalidasa also distinctly refers to burning-glasses. ' P. Harting, “ Het Mikroskoop, deszelfs gebruik, geschiedenis en tegenwoordige toestand,” 3 vols., Utrecht, 1848-50. - C. Landsberg, Central Zeitnng f. Optik u. Mekanik, 1890, p. 272 (unfinished). “ B. J. Petri, “ Das klikroskop,” Berk, 1896. Historical introduction. < Vincenzo Rocchi, “ Appunti di Storia Critica del Microscopic,” Bivista di Storia Critica delle Scienze Mediche e Naturali, January, 1913, anno iv, p. 1. ‘There are, however, the Cantor Lectures of John Mayall, published \u the Journal of the Society of Arts for 1886. Professor L. C. Miall has also dealt with much learning on the classical microscopists in his work on ‘‘The Early Naturalists, Loud., 1912. “ C. Plinius Secundus, “ Naturalis Historia,” xxxvi, p. 67 and elsewhere. ’ Lucius Annaeus Seneca, “ Quaestiones Naturales,” book i, ch. vi. ® Kalidasa, ‘‘ Sakuntala,” act ii. Orientalists usually date this work between a.d. 300 and A.D. 600.
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