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Robert Hooke: Microscopes
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A stickler for accuracy, Hooke realised that science required technology to advance and spent a lot of time devising more accurate measuring instruments. He invented the microscope and subsequently published the first microscopy book, Micrographia, in 1665. He was ... actively involved in the development of the telescope and invented the modern-day iris diaphragm which is used in telescopes and cameras today. Fascinated by the planets, Hooke reported seeing spots on the surface of Jupiter as early as 1664!
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The microscope illustrated in Figure 1 is a simple compound microscope invented by British microscopist Robert Hooke sometime in the 1660s. This beautifully crafted microscope has an objective lens near the specimen and is focused by turning the body of the microscope to move the objective closer to or farther from the specimen. An eyepiece lens is inserted at the top of the microscope and, in many cases, there is an internal "field lens" within the barrel to increase the size of the viewfield. The microscope in Figure 1 is illuminated through the oil lamp and water-filled spherical reservoir... illustrated in Figure 1. Light from the lamp is diffused when it passes through the reservoir and is then focused onto the specimen with a lens attached to the reservoir. This early microscope suffered from chromatic (and spherical) aberration, and all images viewed in white light contained "halos" that were either blue or red in color.
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Cells were first described by the English scientist Robert Hooke, who in 1665 published a book about his findings. Hooke had sliced thin sections of cork to view under a microscope of his own design. He was able to see the minute, boxlike units of which the cork was made up. Hooke called these structures cells because he thought the boxes looked like monastery cells.
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In between experiments involving hapless animals, Hooke set new standards in instrument design. Behind his lifelong quest to develop observational instruments like the microscope and the telescope were his religious convictions. Using the best instruments, he believed, people could regain the perfect senses that humanity had lost after the expulsion from Eden.
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Hooke began his observations with studies of non-living materials, such as woven cloth and frozen urine crystals, after which he proceeded to investigations of plant and animal life. He published the first studies of insect anatomy, giving a lucid account of the compound eye of the fly, and illustrating the microscopic details of such structures as apian wings, flies' legs and feet, and the sting of the bee. His famous and dramatic portraits of the flea and louse, a frightening eighteen inches long, are hardly less startling today than they must have been to Hooke's contemporaries. His botanical observations include the first description of the plant-like form of molds, and of the honeycomb-like structure of cork, which last he described as being composed of "cellulae," thereby coining the modern biological usage of the work "cell" to describe the basic microscopic units of tissue.
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Scholars think Robert Hooke used this microscope when he prepared Micrographia, the first book describing observations made through a microscope. The middle glass of this three-lens instrument can be removed to more closely examine a specimen. (M-030 00276)
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