EARLY DAYS OF THE MICROSCOPE 



of all the scientists who have helped to bring the 

 microscope to its present state of perfection, al- 

 though many of their descriptions of objects and 

 apparatus are as quaint as the latter. Scheiner, 

 for example, who wrote in 1630, mentions " that 

 wonderful instrument the microscope, by means of 

 which a fly is magnified into an elephant, and a flea 

 into a camel." To Kircher belongs the credit of 

 being the first worker to construct an instrument 

 with coarse and fine adjustment and with a substage 

 condenser, which could be used either for concen- 

 trating the sun's rays or those from a lamp. With 

 an instrument of this pattern Malpighi saw the 

 circulation of blood in a frog's lung. By 1685, when 

 instruments with four and six lenses were being 

 used, the compound microscope was firmly estab- 

 lished as a help to scientists, and the simple lens 

 was used thereafter as an adjunct but not a rival 

 to the newer instrument. 



History makes a strong appeal to many people, 

 and those who are fascinated thereby will find 

 endless amusement in reading old books on the 

 microscope and its objects. In the preface to 

 Mouffet's Inscctorum, Theatrum, one of the earliest 

 books on insects, we read the following quaint 

 lines : "If you will take lenticular object glasses of 

 Crystal (for though you have Lynx his eyes, they 

 are necessary in searching for atoms) you will ad- 

 mire to see the Fleas that are curasheers, and their 

 hollow trunk to torture men, which is a bitter plague 

 to maids, you shall see the eyes of Lice sticking 



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