134: Professor Raphael Meldola [-May 16, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 16, 1890. 



Edwakd Fbankland, Esq. D.C.L. LL.D. F.E.S. Vice-President, 



in the Chair. 



Professor Eaphael Meldola, F.E.S. M.B.I. 



The Photographic Image. 



The history of a discovery which has been developed to such a 

 remarkable degree of perfection as jDhotography has naturally been 

 a fruitful source of discussion among those who interest themselves 

 in tracing the progress of science. It is only my presence in this 

 lecture theatre, in which the first public discourse on photography 

 was given by Thomas Wedgwood at the beginning of the century, 

 that justifies my treading once again a path which has already been 

 so thoroughly well beaten. If any further justification for trespas- 

 sing upon the ground of the historian is needed, it will be found in 

 the circumstance that in the autumn of last year there was held a 

 celebration of what was generally regarded as the jubilee of the dis- 

 covery. This celebration was considered by many to have reference 

 to the public disclosure of the Daguerreotype process, made through 

 the mouth of Arago to the French Academy of Sciences on August 10, 

 1839. There is no doubt that the introduction of this process 

 marked a distinct epoch in the history of the art, and gave a great 

 impetus to its subsequent development. But, while giving full 

 recognition to the value of the discovery of Daguerre, we must not 

 allow the work of his predecessors and contemporaries in the same 

 field to sink into oblivion. After the lapse of half a century we are 

 in a better position to consider fairly the influence of the work of 

 different investigators upon modern photographic processes. 



I have not the least desire on the present occasion to raise the 

 ghosts of dead controversies. In fact, the history of the discovery 

 of photography is one of those subjects which can be dealt with in 

 various ways, according to the meaning assigned to the term. There 

 is ample scope for the display of what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls the 

 *' bias of patriotism.'" If the word "photography" be interpreted 

 literally as writing or inscribing by light, without any reference to 

 the subsequent permanence of the inscription, then the person who 

 first intentionally caused a design to bo imprinted by light upon a 

 photo-sensitive compound must be regarded as the first photographer. 

 According to Dr. Eder, of Vienna, we must place this experimeiit to 

 the credit of Johann Heinrich Schulzc, the son of a German tailor, 

 who WHS born in the Duchy of Madgeburg, in Prussia, in 1687, and 

 who died in 174:4:, after a life of extraordinary activity as a linguist, 

 theologian, physician, and philoso^^hcr. In the year 1727, when 



