Presenting A Brief
History of . . . . .
The
AEROHRCRAFTER January, 1954
Page 10
As we turn back
the pages of time in the history of the evolution of the
microscope, we trace it's source back to the gray dawn of our
historic morning. In the translation from the ancient Chinese,
we find that it was used in the Chow-Foo dynasty more than 2,000
years before our Christian era. These leaned men were credited
with the making of the first refractive lens in the history of
optics.
As near as we can translate from their records, they used a
small tube some three feet in length on a suitable base and
stand, with a refractive single lens in the lower end of this
tube. And with the ingenious method of filling the tube with
different levels of water, they attained different peaks of
magnification. As near as we can translate, when the tube was
completely filled with water they attained a magnification of
some 100 moou, which is about 150 times our standard.
There seems to be little or no change in this principal or
method over a period of five centuries. And then we loose any
data on the microscope whatsoever, until again we pick it up in
the time of the ancient Greeks in about 384 B.C., where we find
that a type of microscope was used and some of its principles
recorded by Aristotle. These devices were more than likely
inferior to the ones used by the ancient Chinese. These small
spheres of glass were not only used to enlarge small objects,
but were also used as burning spheres for the cauterization of
the skin lesions of leprosy and allied infections.
We derived the word microscope from the compounding of two Greek
words, uikpos, small and okottew, view.
The first compound microscope was built by Hans Jasson and his
son Zacharias, in Middleburg, Holland, about 1590 and was used
to some extent on work with insects, but no record of the work
attained is on record.
ANTHONY VON LEEUWENHOEK, justly called the father of microscopy,
was born in Delft, Holland, in 1632. Von Leeuwenhoek built all
his own microscopes, preferring the single lens to the compound
type, which at that date was very lacking in resolution and
detail. He described many small living particles in such minute
detail that we know them today as bacteria. Many observers
possibly may have seen these live entities, but Von Leeuwenhoek
was the first to describe them in detail and record his
findings, which were embodied in the form of a contribution
which was presented to the Royal Society of London in 1883. From
the perusal of the tests and the inspection of the plates there
remains little doubt that Von Leeuwenhoek with his primitive
lens, had observed the bodies now recognized as the cause of
disease.
Many improvements were made in the microscope from that time.
The major factor being the mechanics of the instrument in its
control and adjustments. But improvements in the optical detail
were undoubtedly lacking for over 100 years. Hartnic of Paris is
accredited with the construction of the first compound objective
lens in 1640, which was a decided step forward.
Dolland of England developed in 1844, the image lens, which was
in almost its initial form to the present day. In 1870, Abbe,
the immortal optical wizard of the Carl Zeiss works in Gena,
developed and brought out the sub-stage condenser, which still
bears his name, and was one of the outstanding contributions to
the microscope of all time.
From 1880 to 1885 Carl Zeiss introduced many improvements in the
microscope. Among them the appocromat objective lens, which was
an outstanding optical achievement at that time.
Thus the microscope has slowly risen out of the dim mist of
antiquity to the modern instruments of the present day. The
writer has over a period of thirty years has designed and built
in his own laboratory 5 microscopes of power and resolution far
beyond the so-called law of optical physics. These instrument
vary in their power from 17 to 50,000 times above and beyond the
limits of the standard research instrument. The commercial
microscope being manufactured is inadequate for the observation
of filterable viruses of disease (as these minute live, living
entities are less than 1/20 of one micron in dimension). Thus
the need for a device which would carry us farther into this
important field of endeavor. We will describe in some detail the
most powerful of these microscopes, known as the universal
microscope.
The universal microscope, which is the largest and most powerful
of the light microscopes developed in 1933, consists of 5,682
parts and is so called because of its adaptability in all fields
of microscopical work, being fully equipped with separate
substage condenser units for transmitted and monochromatic beam,
dark-field, polarized, and slit-ultra illumination, including
also a special device for crystallography. The entire optical
system of lenses and prisms as well as the illuminating units
are made of block-crystal quartz, quartz being especially
transparent to ultraviolet radiations.
The illuminating unit used for examining the filtrable forms of
disease organisms contains 14 lenses and prisms, 3 of which are
in the high-intensity incandescent lamp, 4 in the Risely prism,
and 7 in the achromatic condenser which, incidentally has a
numeric aperture of 1.40.
Between the
source of light and the specimen are subtended two circular,
wedge-shaped, block-crystal quartz prisms for the purpose of
polarizing the light passing through the specimen, polarization
being the practical application of the theory that light waves
vibrate in all planes perpendicular to the direction in which
they are
propagated. Therefor, when the light comes into contact with a
polarizing prism, it is divided or split into the two beams, one
of which is refracted to such an extent that it is reflected to
the side of the prism without, of course, passing through the
prism while the second ray, bent considerably less, is thus
enabled to illuminate the specimen.
When the quartz prism on the universal microscope, which may be
rotated with a vernier control through 360 degrees, are rotated
in opposite directions, they serve to bend the transmitted beams
of light at variable angles of incidence while, at the same
time, a spectrum is projected up into the axis of the
microscope, or rather a small portion of a spectrum since only a
small part of a band of color is visible at any one time.
However, it is possible to proceed in this way from one end of
the spectrum to the other, going all the way from the infrared
to the ultraviolet. Now, when a portion of the spectrum is
reached in which both the organism and the color
band vibrate in exact accord, one with the other, a definite
characteristic spectrum is emitted by the organism.
In the case of the filter-passing form of Bacillus typhosus, for
instance, a blue spectrum is emitted and the plane of deviation
deviated plus 4.8 degrees. The predominating constituents of the
organism are next ascertained after which the quartz prisms are
adjusted or set, by means of vernier control to minus 4.8
degrees (again in the case of the filter passing form of the
Bacillus typhosus) so that the opposite angle of refraction may
be obtained. A monochromatic beam of light, corresponding
exactly to the frequency of the organism (for the writer has
found that each disease organism responds to and has a definite
and distinct wavelength, a fact confirmed by British medical
research workers) is then set up through the specimen and the
direct transmitted light, thus enabling the observer to view the
organism stained in its true chemical color and revealing its
own individual structure in a field which is brilliant with
light.
The objectives used on the universal microscope are a 1.12 dry
lens, a 1.16 water immersion, a 1.18 oil immersion and a 1.25
oil immersion. The rays of light refracted by the specimen enter
the objective and are then carried up the tube in parallel rays
through 21 light bends to the ocular, a tolerance of less then
one wave length of visible light only being permitted in the
core beam, or chief ray, of illumination.
Now, instead of the light rays starting up the tube in a
parallel fashion, tending to converge as they rise higher and
finally crossing each other, arriving at the ocular separated by
considerable distance as would be the case with an ordinary
microscope, in the universal the rays also start their rise
parallel to each other but, just as they are about to cross, a
specially designed prism is inserted which serves to pull them
out parallel again, another prism inserted each time they are
about ready to cross.
These prisms, inserted in the tube, which are adjusted and held
in alignment by micrometer screws of 100 threads to the inch in
separate tracks made of magnelium (magnelium having the closest
coefficient of expansion of any metal to quartz), are separated
by a distance of only 30 millimeters.
Thus, the greatest distance that the image in the universal is
project through any one media, either quartz or air, is 30
millimeters instead of the 160, 180, or 190 millimeters as in
the employ or air filled tube of an ordinary microscope, the
total distance which the light rays travel zigzag fashion
through the universal tube being 449 millimeters, although the
physical length of the tube itself is 229 millimeters.
It will be recalled that if one pierces a black strip of paper
or cardboard with the point of a needle and brings the card up
close to the eye so that the hole is in the optic axis, a small
brilliantly lighted object will appear larger and clearer,
revealing more fine detail, than if it were viewed from the same
distance without the assistance of the card. This is explained
by the fact that the beam of light passing through the card is
very narrow, the rays entering the eye, therefore, being
practically parallel, whereas without the card the beam of light
is much wider and the diffusion circles much larger. It is this
principal of parallel rays in the universal microscope and the
resultant shortening of the projection distaqnce between any two
blocks or prisms plus the fact that objectives can thus be
substituted for oculars, these "oculars" being three
matched pairs of 10-millimeter, 7-millimeter, and 4-millimeter
objectives in short mounts, which make possibe not only the
unusually high magnification and resolution but which serve to
eliminate all distortion as well as all chromatic and spherical
aberration.
Quartz glasses with especially thin quartz cover glasses are
used when a tissue section or culture slant is examined, the
tissue section its self also being very thin. An additional
observational tube and ocular which reveal a magnification of
1,800 diameters are provided so that that portion of the
specimen which is desired should be examined may be located and
so that the observer may adjust himself more readily when
viewing a section at a high magnification.
The universal stage is a double rotating stage graduated through
360 degrees in quarter-minute arc divisions, the upper segment
carrying the mechanical stage having a movement of 40 degrees,
the body assembly which can be moved horizontally over the
condenser also having and angular tilt of 40 degrees plus or
minus. Heavily constructed joints and screw adjustments maintain
rigidity of the microscope which weighs 200 pounds and stand 24
inches high, the bases of the scope being nickel cast-steel
plates, accurately surfaced, and equipped with three leveling
screws and two spirit levels set at angles of 90 degrees. The
coarse adjustment, a block thread screw of 40 threads to the
inch, slides in a 1 « dovetail which gibs onto the pillar post.
The weight of the quadruple nosepiece and the objective system
is taken care of by the intermediate adjustment at the top of
the body tube. The stage, in conjunction with a hydraulic lift,
acts as a lever in operating the fine adjustment. A 6-gauge
screw having 100 threads to the inch is worked through a gland
in a hollow, glycerine-filled post, the glycerine being
displaced and replaced at will as the screw is turned clockwise
or anticlockwise, allowing a 5-1
ratio on the lead screw. This accordingly, assures complete
absence of drag and inertia. The fine adjustment being 700 times
more sensitive than that of ordinary microscope, the length of
time required to focus the universal microscope ranges up to 1
« hours which, while on first consideration, may seem a
disadvantage, is after all but a slight inconvenience when
compared with the many years of research and the hundreds of
thousand of dollars spent and being spent in an effort to
isolate and to look upon disease-causing organisms in their true
form.
We sincerely hope that our efforts in the field of optics, and
its allied branches, will stimulate and create a desire in the
minds of other workers to carry on in the broad and inviting
field before us, one which presents a work so vital and
essential for the benefit of all mankind.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR- Dr. Royal R. Rife is presently retained
under contract to Rohr Aircraft Corporation for a
special assignment. A fellow of the Royal Microscopic
Society, he has designed and built his own laboratory, 5
microscopes of power and resolution far beyond the
so-called law of optical physics, several of which are
pictured here. Doctor Rife holds a Doctor of Philosophy
degree from Heidelburg University, and a Doctor of
Science degree from the University of Southern
California. He resides in Point Loma. |
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