1122
who worked at night, or who did not live in sunny climes,
could not avail themselves of this form of light. In such
circumstances, electric light, kerosene and oil lamps, or
the combustion of magnesium ribbon were used. The
preferred artifi cial illumination was a combination of
oxygen and coal gas or hydrogen ignited under pressure
to heat a block of lime white-hot to produce limelight.
Of course, a major disadvantage of this method was the
likelihood of setting wooden photographic equipment
and furnishings on fi re.
As important was the work area, which would prob-
ably incorporate a darkroom, where photomicrography
was undertaken. The location had to be free from vibra-
tion to avoid obtaining blurred images (exposures could
take upwards of several minutes); precautions were
observed such as suspending equipment from beams,
or equipping table legs with rubber shock absorbers.
Similarly, it was recommended not to undertake pho-
tomicrography at times of the day when heavy traffi c
was moving in nearby streets. Initially, the choice of
compound microscope was not itself crucial, although
later in the century the better the fi ne focusing mecha-
nism and lenses on the instrument, the sharper the im-
age to be photographed. Instruments manufactured in
England were often bulky, with body tubes up to nine
inches long, compared with more compact continental
European microscopes that typically had shorter body
tubes of approximately six inches. Perhaps because of
this difference in construction, English photomicrog-
raphers usually aligned the microscope, bellows, and
camera/plate assembly horizontally; the convention
of most Europeans was to align their equipment verti-
cally. The later Victorian period saw the adoption of
European techniques owing to the domination of Ger-
man laboratory science and the attendant rise of optical
manufacturing companies such as Carl Zeiss and E.
Leitz, which produced superior quality, standardized
photomicrographic apparatus.
Following the Victorian era, improved optics for
both cameras and microscopes, newer photographic
techniques and equipment such as faster speed black
and white roll fi lm, 35 mm color slide processes, motion
picture and digital technologies, led to higher quality,
more detailed and more revealing photomicrographs.
Yet these later improvements should not overshadow the
revelations and achievements of this original nineteenth-
century convergent technology. Just as important was the
lasting philosophical impact that photomicrography had
on the scientifi c mind. While art (sketching and painting)
as applied to medicine and science would endure, labo-
ratory scientists believed that photography through the
microscope was more accurate than artistic drawings of
specimens done laboriously by hand and from memory.
In brief, photomicrography (and biomedical photogra-
phy in general), like science itself, was perceived to be
objective, free of human bias, and more truthful; such
rhetoric did much to propel all three pursuits during the
nineteenth century and later.
J.T.H. Connor
See also: Wet Collodion Positive Processes.Further Reading
Barger, M. Susan, and William B. White, The Daguerreotype:
Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science, Balti-
more: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Beale, Lionel S., How to Work with the Microscope, London:
Harrison, 1865.
Bentley, W.A., and W.J. Humphreys, Snow Crystals, New York:
Dover Publications, 1962.
Bracegirdle, Brian, A History of Microtechnique, Lincolnwood,
IL: Science Heritage, 1986.
Bousefi eld, Edward C., Guide to the Science of Photo-Microg-
raphy, London: J. & A. Churchill, 1892.
Connor, J.T.H., and Michel Rhode, “Shooting Soldiers: Civil
War Medical Images, Memory, and Identity in America.” In
Invisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture
5 (2003); http://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue%205/
ConnorRhode/ConnorRhode.html.
Eder, Josef Marie., History of Photography, New York: Dover
Publications, 1972.
Frey, Heinrich, The Microscope and Microscopical Technology
(translated by George R. Cutter), New York: William Wood
& Company, 1880.
Gage, Simon Henry, The Microscope, Ithaca, NY: Comstock
Publishing Company, 1904; 1932.
Gernsheim, Alison, “Medical Photography in the Nineteenth
Century.” In Medical and Biological Illustration 11 (1961):
85–92.
Henry, Robert Henry, The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology:
Its First Century, 1862–1962, Washington, DC: Offi ce of the
Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 1964.
Hogg, Jabez, The Microscope: Its History, Construction, and
Application, London: George Routledge and Sons, 1898.
Kerr, Richard, Nature—Through Microscope & Camera, London:
The Religious Tract Society, 1905.
Knapp,W.H., “Mitosis Illustrated by Photo-Micrographs.” In
Journal of Applied Microscopy 1 (1898): 47–51
Marien, Mary Warner, Photography: A Cultural History, London:
Lawrence King, 2002.
O’Connor, Erin, “Camera Medica: Towards a Morbid His-
tory of Photography.” In History of Photography 23 (1999):
232–234.
Pringle, Andrew, Practical Photo-Micrography, London: Iliffe
& Sons, 1902.
Schaaf, Larry J., Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot, and the
Invention of Photography, New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1992.
Spitta, Edmund J., Photo-Micrography, London: Scientific
Press, 1899.
Woodward, Joseph J., On the Structure of Cancerous Tumors and
the Mode in which Adjacent Parts are Invaded, Smithsonian
Miscellaneous Collections 266, Washington, DC: Smithson-
ian Institution, 1873.
Zimmerman, Lorenz E., Daniel M. Lambert, and Joe M.
Blumberg, “William Thomson (1833–1907): Military
Surgeon, Pioneer Photomicrographer, Clinical Ophthal-
mologist.” In American Journal of Ophthalmology 69
(1970): 487–497.