hearing, and hope that I shall say something to interest 

 you on the " History of the Microscope, and what it has 

 done for us." 



" The Microscope" is a comparatively modern inven- 

 tion. Magnifying lenses were unknown to the Ancients. 

 Aristophanes (500 B.C.) speaks of a "burning sphere." 

 Seneca, about the time of Christianity, makes mention of 

 objects appearing of larger size when viewed through a 

 globe of glass filled with water. Pliny, the elder, mention^ 

 these same globes being used for producing fire. 



In no case were these refracting globes considered as 

 magnifying instruments. Spectacles, as improvements to 

 poor eyesight, have their earliest reference in a manuscript 

 dated 12 99 from Florence. The writer says " I find 

 myself so pressed by age that I can neither read nor write 

 without those glasses they call spectacles, lately invented, 

 to the great advantage of poor old men when their sight 

 grows weak." 



Roger Bacon, of Ilchester, a Franciscan monk, first 

 used lenses to improve failing eye-sight in 12 76, but true 

 spectacles were the invention of Salvino d'Armato degli 

 Armati, a Florentine. 



These indispensable aids to nature were at first with- 

 held from the public until one, Alexander Spina, in a 

 spirit which, I am happy to say, permeates all medical 

 society of the present day, divulged the secret of their 

 construction and use to his own glory and the good of 

 his fellow men. 



Roger Bacon hardly had a fair chance, for his genius 

 brought upon him the hatred of his contemporaries, who 

 kept him for many years in prison. Finally, they shut 

 him up in a convent of his order to the end of his long 

 life of nearly eighty years. 



