Fig. 110.—Pan-aplanatic Achromatic Objectives.
The Achromatic Objective, of all the optical and mechanical adjuncts to the microscope, is in every way the most necessary, as well as the most important. The ideal of perfection aimed at by the optician is a combination of lenses that shall produce a perfect image—that is, one absolutely perfect in definition and almost free from colour. The method resorted to for the elimination of spherical and chromatic aberration in the lens has been fully explained in a former chapter. It will now be my endeavour to show the progressive stages of achromatism and evolution of the microscope throughout the present century.
It is almost as difficult to assign the date of the earliest application of achromatism to the microscope as to that of the inception and many modifications of the instrument in past ages; indeed, the question of priority in every step taken in its improvement has been the subject of controversy.
Among the earlier workers in the first decade of this century will be found the name of Bernardo Marzoni, who was curator of the Physical Laboratory of the Lyceum of Brescia. He, an amateur optician, it has come to light, in 1808 constructed an achromatic objective, and exhibited it at Milan in 1811, when he obtained the award of a silver medal for its merits, under the authority of the “Institute Reale delli Scienzo.” Through the good offices of the late Mr. John Mayall one of Marzoni’s objectives, which had been carefully preserved, was presented to the Royal Microscopical Society of London in 1890.[20] This objective is a cemented combination, with the plane side of the flint-lens presented to the object. This was an improvement of a practical kind, and of which Chevalier subsequently availed himself. In 1823 Selligue, a French optician, is credited with having first suggested the plan of combining two, three, or four plano-convex achromatic doublets of similar foci, one above the other, to increase the power and the aperture of the microscope. Fresnel, who reported upon this invention, preferred on the whole Adam’s arrangement, because it gave a larger field. Selligue subsequently improved his objective by placing a small diaphragm between the mirror and the object.
In this country, Tully was induced by Dr. Goring to work at the achromatic objective, and his first efforts were attended with a success quite equal to that of Chevalier’s. Lister on examining these lenses said:—“The French optician knows nothing of the value of aperture, but he has shown us that fine performance is not confined to triple objectives.” Amici, the amateur optician of Modena, visited this country in 1827 and brought his achromatic microscope and objectives, which were seen to give increase of aperture by combining doublets with triplets. The most lasting improvement in the achromatic objective was that of Joseph Jackson Lister, F.R.S., the father of Lord Lister, and one of the founders of the Royal Microscopical Society of London.
Lister’s discoveries at this period (1829) in the history of the optics of the microscope were of greater importance than they have been represented to be. That he was an enthusiast is manifest, for, being unable to find an optician to carry out his formula for grinding lenses, he at once set to work to grind his own, and in a short time was able to make a lens which was said to be the best of the day.
Lister, in a paper contributed to the proceedings of the Royal Society the same year, pointed out how the aberrations of one doublet could be neutralised by a second. He further demonstrated that the flint lens should be a plano-concave joined by a permanent cement to the convex crown-glass. The first condition, he states, “obviates the risk of error in centring the two curves, and the second diminishes by one half the loss of light from reflection, which is very great at the numerous surfaces of every combination.” These two conditions then—that the flint lens shall be plano-concave, and that it shall be joined by some cement (Canada balsam) to the convex—may be taken as the basis for the microscopic objective, provided they can be reconciled with the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration of a large pencil.
Andrew Ross was not slow to perceive the value of Lister’s suggestions and in 1831 he had constructed an object-glass on the lines laid down by Lister, [Fig. 112]; a a′ representing the anterior pair, m the middle, and p the posterior, the three sets combined forming the achromatic objective, consisting of three pairs of lenses, a double-convex crown-glass, and a plano-concave of flint.
Fig. 111.—Lister’s double-convex crown and plano-concave flint cemented combination.