sperm, and insect eyeballs can you stare at? By the late 18th century,
microscopy stalled, even as the Industrial Revolution was exploding
across the world. To comprehend just how passé microscopy had become,
consider that the revolutionary Carl Rokitansky conducted 30,000
autopsies without ever attempting to examine the tissues with the one
instrument that could have utterly transformed his practice. Some science
writers, like David Wootton, have pondered why 17th- and 18th-century
physicians and scientists were unable to advance tissue microscopy, but
there is a rather obvious explanation for pause of advancement: the lack of
dependable dyes that had the power to bring the tissues to life.
If we were together right now in a pathology laboratory, we could
dissect and prepare tissue for microscopic evaluation, settling upon a step
where the extremely thin piece of tissue was mounted on a glass slide,
ready for viewing. If we mounted that slide on a microscope platform and
switched on the light, we would peer down the compound lens tube and see
a faint outline of cells and supporting tissues, but with almost no ability to
discriminate or comment upon the structure or function of cells. If you had
never seen a painting of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and I presented you a
low-resolution black-and-white rendering of his poignant and melancholy
artwork, there would be little impact. Conversely, an intimate experience,
face-to-face, with Vincent’s canvas, confronted with the turquoise and
Tiffany-blue background and stunning canary and butterscotch yellows of
the petals, painted with heavy brushstrokes of dolloped pigments, you
would agree that Van Gogh had achieved a “symphony in blue and
yellow.”^10
Those who would criticize the microscopists of the 17th and 18th
century would do well to remember the paucity of color and the lack of
electric lighting during that epoch; while there were simple plant dyes,
chemistry before the mid–19th century was so limited that chemical
reagents for trial-and-error experimentation did not exist. A happy
accident in the east end of London would bring color to an otherwise drab,
scientific world.
Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) was a scientific genius, committed to
methodically analyzing chemical reactions and determining why fires
burned, why we breathe, and why substances react. After fastidious
experimentation and thoughtful analysis, he reinforced the notion of the
conservation of mass, saying, “Nothing is lost, nothing is created,