Micro-Photography.
Micro-photography or photo-micrography, as it is indifferently termed, has, to a very considerable extent, superseded the use of the camera lucida for the delineation of images seen under the microscope. I may claim to be among the first workers with the microscope (1841) to prove beyond a doubt that the camera could be made to render invaluable aid to the microscopist, whereby a great saving of time might be effected, and a drawing obtained with greater accuracy than that of the pencil of the draughtsman.
It was about 1864-5 that Dr. Woodward’s earlier micro-photographs were first seen in London. His skill in the manipulation of the microscope had been long known. His first series of photographs of test diatoms created, I remember, quite a sensation; they have probably never been surpassed. These were taken by sun-light, magnesium, and electric-light. I was the recipient of a series taken at a later date (1870), and which, bound in quarto volume, are almost as perfect in definition as any of a later date taken by oil-immersion objectives.
The objectives used by Dr. Woodward, throughout, were a 1⁄8-inch of Wales’s (new series), and a 1⁄16-inch immersion, of Powell & Lealand’s, especially produced for work with the camera. The magnification varied from 800 to 3,000 diameters, a frustule of Grammatophora Marina magnified 2,500, and a scale of podura, marked 3,000 in my collection, are equal in definition to those taken by a high-angle 1⁄12-inch oil-immersion. Pathological specimens taken with lower powers are equally instructive, a section of epithelial cancer showing both nuclei and cells with distinctness.
Dr. Maddox in 1864 was also experimentally engaged in the improvement of the processes of photography for the purpose of promoting the work of microscopists. His labours were attended with great success. To him we are indebted for the gelatine dry-plate process, which gave a remarkable impetus to photography in general. Dr. Maddox has, for a period extending over forty years, diligently and successfully cultivated and promoted micro-photography. Among other workers to whom we are indebted for improvements in micro-photography I may mention Wenham, Draper, Shadbolt, Highley, Koch, Sternberg, Pringle, Leitz, and Pfeiffer.
Dr. Koch justly claims the credit of having extended the application of micro-photography to the delineation of bacteria. A series of instructive micro-photographs were published by him in 1877.
The importance of the camera has become more manifest as the work of the bacteriologist has progressed. Koch strongly advocated micro-photography on the ground that illustrations, especially of bacteria, should be as true to nature as possible. Dr. Edgar Crookshank holds the same opinion, and in support of his views we have numerous illustrations of the bacteria given in his valuable “Text-book of Bacteriology.” But he does not disguise the truth that there are difficulties to be encountered, the first of which is owing to the fact that the smallest and most interesting bacteria can only be made visible in animal tissues by staining. This drawback has been very nearly overcome by the use of eosin-collodion. With this medium, and by shutting off portions of the spectrum by coloured glasses, Koch succeeded in obtaining photographs of bacteria, which were stained with blue and red aniline dyes. This method, however, introduced a disturbing element of another kind. Owing to the longer exposure required, the results were wanting in definition, attributable, it was thought, to vibrations of the apparatus produced by passing traffic, or by assistants moving about over the floor of the laboratory.
Koch nevertheless showed, at the great meeting of the International Medical Association in London, 1881, a series of micro-photographs of bacteria and tissue sections, which were the admiration of all who saw them. To meet a difficulty occasioned by the aniline dyes, Koch recommended that the preparations should be stained brown; other experimenters found that preparations stained either yellow or yellowish-brown gave good photographic representations; but it is by no means an easy matter to find a good differential stain of bacteria in the tissues, as even Bismarck brown is not entirely successful. Other bacteriologists have encountered similar difficulties at the outset. Hauser succeeded in showing the value of micro-photography in the production of pictures of impression preparations and colonies of bacteria in nutrient-gelatine. But to give the general effect, as well as faithfully reproduce the minute details in these preparations of bacteria by the aid of the pencil, would in most cases create insurmountable difficulties, except in the hand of the most accomplished draughtsman. Hauser employed Gerlach’s apparatus, and Schleusser’s dry-plates, and obtained his illumination by means of a small incandescent lamp, which gave a strong white light. The preparations so photographed were for the most part stained brown, and mounted in the ordinary way in Canada balsam.
In 1884, Van Ermengen succeeded in photographing preparations of comma-bacilli stained with fuchsine and methyl violet. These pictures afforded the first practical illustration of the value of iso-chromatic plates in micro-photography, and their introduction marks a distinct era in the progress of micro-photography. The iso-chromatic, or more properly the ortho-chromatic, dry-plate process was introduced because in photography blue or violet comes out almost or quite white, while other colours, yellow and red, are represented by a sombre shade or even by black. This is due to the want of equality of strength between the luminous and the actinic or chemical rays of light. In other words, the violet and blue rays are more chemically active than any other portion of the spectrum. It was found, then, that if plates were coloured yellow with turmeric, the blue and violet rays were intercepted, and their actinism proportionately reduced.
“In 1881, the so-called iso-chromatic plates were introduced. The emulsion of bromide of silver and gelatine was stained with eosin, and it was claimed that colours could be represented with their relative intensity; chlorophyll and other stains have also been tried, and by such methods the ordinary gelatine dry-plates can be so treated that they will reproduce various colours, according to their relative light intensity, and thus be rendered iso-, or what is now known as ortho-chromatic.”