Professor Wheatstone’s remarkable discovery of stereoscopic vision led, at no distant period, to the application of the principle to the microscope. It may therefore prove of interest to inquire how stereoscopic binocular vision is brought about. Indeed, the curious results obtained in the stereoscope cannot be well understood without a previous knowledge of the fundamental optical principles involved in this contrivance, whereby two slightly dissimilar pictures of any object become fused into one image, having the actual appearance of relief. The invention of the stereoscope by Sir Charles Wheatstone, F.R.S., 1838, and improved by Brewster, was characterised by Sir John Herschel as “one of the most curious discoveries, and beautiful for its simplicity, in the entire range of experimental optics,” led to a more general appreciation of the value of the conjoint use of both eyes in conveying to the mind impressions of the relative form and position of an object, such as the use of either eye singly does not convey with anything like the same precision. When a near object having three dimensions is looked at, a different perspective representation is seen with each eye. Certain parts are seen by the right eye, the left being closed, that are invisible to the left eye, the right being closed, and the relative positions of the portions visible to each eye in succession differ. These two visual impressions are simultaneously perceived by both eyes, and combined in the brain into one image, producing the effect of perspective and relief. If truthful right-and-left monocular pictures of an object be so presented to the two eyes that the optic axes when directed to them shall converge at the same angle as when directed to the object itself, a solid image will be at once perceived. The perception of relief referred to is closely connected with the doubleness of vision which takes place when the images on corresponding portions of the two retina are not similar. But, if in place of looking at the solid object itself we look with the right and left eyes respectively at pictures of the object corresponding to those which would be formed by it on the retina of the two eyes if it were placed at a moderate distance in front of them, and these visual pictures brought into coincidence, the same conception of a solid form is generated in the mind just as if the object itself were there.
Professor Abbe, however, contended that the method by which dissimilar images are formed in the binocular microscope differs materially from that of ordinary stereoscopic vision, and that the pictures are united solely by the activity of the brain, not by the prisms which ordinarily give rise to sensations of solidity. This can be only partially true, as binocularity in the microscope is due to difference of projection exhibited by the different parallax displacement of the images, and also to the perception of depth imparted by the instrument.
Wheatstone was firmly convinced that his stereoscopic principle could be applied to the microscope, and he therefore applied first to Ross and then to Powell to assist him in its adaptation. But whether either of these opticians made any attempt to give effect to his wishes and suggestions is not known. In the year 1851 Professor Riddell, of America, succeeded in constructing a binocular microscope by employing two rectangular prisms behind the objective. M. Nachet also constructed a binocular with two body-tubes and a series of prisms. But neither Riddell’s nor Nachet’s instrument was ever brought into use; they were either too complicated or too costly.
It will be understood, however, that the binocular stereoscope combines two dissimilar pictures, while the binocular microscope simply enables the observer to look with both eyes at images which are essentially identical. Stereoscopic vision, to be effective, requires that the delineating pencil shall be equally separated, so that one portion of the admitted cone of light is conducted to one eye, and the other portion to the other eye.
Select any object lying in an inclined position, and place it in the centre of the field of view of the microscope; then, with a card held close to the object-glass, stop off alternately the right or left hand portion of the front lens: it will then appear that during each alternate change certain parts of the object will change their relative positions.
Fig. 40.—Portions of Eggs of Cimex.
To illustrate this, [Fig. 40] a, b are enlarged drawings of a portion of the egg of the common bed-bug (Cimex lecticularis), the operculum which should cover the opening having been forced off at the time the young was hatched. The figures exactly represent the two positions that the inclined orifice will occupy when the right- and left-hand portions of the object-glass are stopped off. This object is viewed as an opaque object, and drawn under a two-thirds object-glass of about 28° aperture. If this experiment is repeated, by holding the card over the eye-piece, and stopping off alternately the right and left half of the ultimate emergent pencil, exactly the same changes and appearances will be observed in the object under view. The two different images just produced are such as are required for obtaining stereoscopic vision. It is therefore evident that if instead of bringing them confusedly together into one eye we can separate them so as to bring together a, b into the left and right eye, in the combined effect of the two projections we obtain at once all that is necessary to enable us to form a correct judgment of the solidity and distance of the several parts of the object.
Nearly all objectives from the one inch upwards of any considerable aperture give images of the object seen from a different point of view with the two opposite extremes of the margin of the cone of rays; the resulting effect is that there are a number of dissimilar perspectives of the object blended together at one and the same time on the retina. For this reason, if the object under view possesses bulk, a more accurate image will be obtained by reducing the aperture of the objective.
