The microscopist's companion : a popular manual of practical microscopy : designed for those engaged in microscopic investigation, schools, seminaries, colleges, etc., and comprising selections from the best writers on the microscope, relative to its use, mode of management, preservation of objects, etc. : to which is added a glossary of the principal terms used in microscopic science / by John King.

  • King, John, 1813-1893.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The microscopist's companion : a popular manual of practical microscopy : designed for those engaged in microscopic investigation, schools, seminaries, colleges, etc., and comprising selections from the best writers on the microscope, relative to its use, mode of management, preservation of objects, etc. : to which is added a glossary of the principal terms used in microscopic science / by John King. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    can be seen well by the natural eye, do not require its assistance ; but with those which are too small to be thus seen, we aid the power of vision by employing the microscope, and which every individual possessed of sight can readily use. Persons with imperfect sight use spectacles to improve this sense; and the microscope improves the magnifying and defining powers of the eyes. A great obstacle to the more common use of the compound achro- matic microscope, heretofore, has been in its expensiveness, but in- struments are now made by our best opticians, called student's microscopes, which will accomplish all that any person need desire. The value of a microscope does not lie so much in the beauty or workmanship of its brass mountings and other metallic accompani- ments, as in the quality of its object-glasses and eye-glasses. An object-glass itself, however great may be its magnifying power, is useless unless it possesses penetrating and defining powers also. It is from a want of these latter powers in their objectives, that the French microscopes imported into this country are inferior in quality, notwithstanding the excellence of their brass-work and their low prices. In purchasing a microscope, the name of its manufacturer ought always to be learned, from the fact that our best microscope makers never permit poor glasses to leave their workshops.