The Problems with Lenses, and the 19th-century Solution

The description of the first lenses that were free from both of these aberrations was published in 1830 by Joseph Jackson Lister (1786-1869). Although achromatically corrected lenses had been made before Lister's work, he was the first to describe a full achromatically and spherically corrected optical system for the compound microscope. Lister was not an instrument maker, so he worked with craftsmen such as William Tulley to produce the lenses (Image 2). In the first decades of the 19th century, many attempts had been made to make achromatically corrected lenses for the microscope. Tulley himself had attempted and failed to make a lens that was corrected for both aberrations in 1807.

It was easier to deal with abberation for telescopers lenses, and as solutions were already known before the time microscope lenses were corrected. Telescope lenses are larger, and so it is far easier to grind them for correction. Alternatively mirrors could be used, and reflecting telescopes were popular. Reflecting microscopes were made, but like the lenses, small mirrors were difficult to construct accurately.

Whilst the removal of chromatic and spherical aberration was certainly an important step forward in the development of the microscope, it is not clear how directly it affected the history of scientific discovery.