Mr. F. Martin Duncan, President of the Photomicro- 

 graphic Society, then gave a resume of his paper, " Some 

 Notes on the History and Design of Photomicrographic 

 Apparatus." 



SOME NOTES ON THE HISTORY AND DESIGN OF 

 PHOTOMICROGRAPHIC APPARATUS. 



By F. Martin Duncan, F.R.M.S., F.R.P.S., F.Z.S. 

 President of the Photomicrographic Society. 



No survey of the present position of microscopy would be complete 

 without a reference to the very important part which photomicro- 

 graphy plays as a means of accurately recording the various objects 

 which are submitted to microscopic examination. To the investigator 

 in bacteriology, biology, and metallography, a photomicrographic 

 apparatus is to-day an essential p?.rt of his microscopic outfit, and 

 therefore the consideration of the design of such apparatus has 

 become a matter of prime importance. 



Scientific workers were quick to realise the value of photography 

 as a means of obtaining an unbiased graphic record of their observa- 

 tions, and it was only the limitations and technical difficulties of 

 the early processes that prevented its wider use. From the time of 

 its first discovery there have been microscopists who have employed 

 photography in preference to the pencil. Thus in 1845 Doune and 

 Foucault illustrated their ''Atlas of ^licroscoj^ic Anatomy" by etch- 

 ings from photomicrographs taken on Daguerreotype plates, while as 

 early as 1835 Fox-Talbot had obtained images of objects in the 

 solar microscope by means of his recently discovered process. It 

 would be out of place here to enter into a description of the early 

 pioneers of photography, intensely interesting though the subject be, 

 b_it in passing one cannot heap feeling proud of the fact that the 

 discovery of photography was due to British and French scientists 

 alone, and that the first to apply it successfully to the recording of 

 microscopic objects were Fox-Talbot in England, Daguerre in France, 

 and Draper in America. And since those first days of the history 

 of photomicrography, it has been in France, in Great Britain, and 

 in America that the greatest experts, the most notable advances and 

 inventions, and the most perfect apparatus for photomicrography 

 have been produced."^ 



Naturally the apparatus used in the early stages of the application 

 of photography to microscopy was of a somewhat crude character. 

 The earliest cameras were little more than light-tight boxes, while 

 many of the pioneers dispensed with any form of camera at all, the 



* For a short accooint and early bibliography see an article entitled 

 "Chapters in Photomicrography," which I contributed to the British 

 Journal Photogra-phic Almanac for 1903, pp. 691-725. 



