574 SUMMARY OP CDRRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



MICROSCOPY. 



a. Instruments, Accessories, &c.* 



C6) Miscellaneous. 



" The Compound Microscope invented by Galileo." f — A very 

 interesting paper has been published by Prof. G. Govi, Hon. F.E.M.S., 

 the eminent Italian physicist, in which he claims that Galileo was the 

 inventor of the Compound Microscope. 



It should be borne in mind at the outset in considering Prof. Govi's 

 paper that, as stated by him in a letter to the French Academy of 

 Sciences,! he understands by " simple Microscope " an instrument " con- 

 sisting of a single lens or mirror," and by " compound Microscope" one 

 " consisting of several lenses or a suitable combination of lenses and 

 mirrors." 



The following is a translation of Prof, Govi's paper: — 



In a pamphlet published in 1881,(1) treating of the invention of the 

 binocular telescope (attributed to D. Chorez, a French spectacle-maker), 

 I thought it right to recall that Chorez himself, in 1625, used the 

 Dutch telescope (with the convex objective and the concave ocular) as 

 a Microscope, (2) and stated that with a similar Microscope — 



" Un ciron apparoist aussi gros qu'un poids. Tellement qu'on 

 discerne sa teste et ses pieds, et son poil, chose qui sembloit fabuleuse 

 a plusieurs, iusqu'a ce qu'ils I'ont veue avec admiration." (" A mite 

 appeared as large as a pea ; so that one can distinguish its head, its 

 feet, and its hair — a thing which seemed incredible to many, until they 

 witnessed it with admiration.") 



To this quotation I added — 



" This transformation of the telescope into a Microscope (or as 

 opticians in our own day would say, into a Briicke lens) was not an 

 invention of the French optician. Galileo had accomplished it in the 

 year 1610, and had announced it to the learned by one of his pupils, 

 John Wodderborn, a Scotchman, in a work which the latter had just 

 published against the mad ' Peregrinazione ' of Horky. (3) Here are the 

 exact words of Wodderborn (page 7) : — 



' Ego nunc admirabilis huius perspicilli perfectiones explanare no 

 conabor : sensus ipse index est integerrimus circa obiectum proprium. 

 Quid quod eminus mille passus et ultra cum neque viuere iudicares 

 obiectum, adhibito perspicillo, statim certo cognoscas, esse hunc 

 Socratem Sophronici filium venientem, sed tempus nos docebit et 

 quotidianse nouarum rerum detectiones qua egregie perspicillum suo 

 fungatur munere, nam in hoc tota omnis instrumenti sita est pul- 

 chritude. 



' Audiueram, paucis ante diebus authorem ipsum Excellentissimo 



* This subdivision contains (1) Stands, (2) Eye-pieces and Objectives; (.3) Illu- 

 minating and otLier Apparatus ; (4) Photomicrography ; (.*>) Microscopical Optics 

 and Manipulation ; (6) Miscellaneous. 



t ' II microscopic composto inventato da Galileo. Memoria di Gilberto Govi.' 

 33 pp., 4to, Napoli, 1888. (Extract from vol. ii. series 2 of Atti E. Accad. Sci. Fis. 

 Nat. Napoli. Of. also Comptes Rendus, cvii. (1888) pp. 551-2 ; Scientitic News, ii. 

 (1888) pp. 431-2; and this Journal, 1888, pp. 1067-8, and ante, p. 163.— The num- 

 bers in brackets refer to the notes collected in the Appendix. 



X Comptes Rendus, cvii. (1888) pp. 551-2. 



