The Dawn of Microscopy

Single Lenses generate Clear Images

1) Trichinella spiralis resolved by a simple microscope

This parasitic worm, here encysted in guinea-pig striated muscle, is stained with haematoxylin and eosin and imaged with a single lens (=simple) microscope.

2) Vascular bundle of a fern rhizome

Xylem and phloem are well resolved by a single lens. This standard section is here viewed through a single lens of Victorian manufacture.

3) Club-moss spores resolved by a single magnifier

Stained with safranin / light green, this section of a strobilus of Lycopodium is imaged through a spinel lens ground by the late Horace Dall of Luton.

4) Uredospores on a section of wheat

A sporing body on a sectioned wheat stalk, unstained and mounted in immersion oil, is clearly imaged by the single spinel lens.

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Consult introductory page History of the Microscope or read on Leeuwenhoek as experimental biologist.