The Earliest Measurements of Microscopic Objects

The micrometer is an accessory for the microscope that allows measurements to be taken of minute objects. One early method of measuring through a microscope involved placing a fine lattice of silver wires between the microscope's lenses. 'Micrometry' is the technique of using micrometers, though the term was only coined in the 19th century. In the 18th century, however, there was considerable debate about the importance of microscopic measurement, and also how it was to be achieved. Here the debate is illustrated by a pamphlet from the late 18th century.

The first convenient micrometer

"I have always judged a Microscope extremely imperfect and defective without a Micrometer" (1)

This statement by Benjamin Martin, though made in a pamphlet (circa 1775) promoting his own design of micrometer, may be taken seriously as his view on the correct use of a microscope. It was Martin who had, in 1732, resolved the problem of convenient measurement with a microscope. The variety of attempts before that date illustrate both the difficulty of and need for an accurate method of assessing the size of microscopic phenomena.

Frogs are often used by scientists as 'model organisms': like mice and fruit flies they are a specific type of animal that is widely studied to provide insight into more general biological processes. Our profile of frogs in the museum both examines and imitates the biological use of 'model organisms' by focusing on frogs as an example of the use of animals in science. Since biological research focuses on and uses living things, our museum represents this history indirectly, preserving the non-living material objects that were used to manipulate, represent and understand these living creatures.

Frogs in the collection

The first question prompted by our profile of 'frogs in the history of science' is both simple and obvious. Why frogs? Why not people, or any other animal in the world? One can answer simply by pointing to the Whipple Museum's collection: we have a relatively high number of objects that are related to frogs. But that prompts another question: why have frogs played such a significant role in the history of science? By surviving in our collection, the Whipple's froggy objects force us to ask: why have scientists so persistently used these strange creatures to ask hugely ambitious questions about life and nature?

Asking our question in this way highlights a key idea in scientific work. In 1929, a physiologist named August Krogh articulated what some now call the 'Krogh Principle.' He wrote "For a large number of problems there will be some animal of choice or a few such animals on which it can be most conveniently studied." Today, we call these 'model organisms.' Krogh's Principle also frames our look into the Whipple Museum's collection: just as scientists will choose one organism to study general phenomena, likewise our exploration of the Whipple Museum's collection selects one organism - the frog - to exemplify how living animals, material objects, and scientific work all interact in fascinating and productive ways.

You may be disappointed to find that we house no live frogs in our collection. The scientific legacy of the frog enters the museum in other ways, through the non-living things that we use to pursue knowledge of living beings. We do have objects that look like or represent frogs, like models, illustrations, and posters. But this page also goes beyond them. Some of our 'froggiest' instruments don't actually resemble frogs - for example the voltaic pile and medico-galvanic machine, which are simply common electrical tools.

Two sub-disciplines in the biological sciences orient this Explore section: zoology and physiology. Those Cambridge departments donated many of the Whipple Museum's froggy objects. These disciplinary affiliations also influence this Explore section's chronological scope: all of our instruments come from the years between 1740 and 1960, when zoology and physiology enjoyed great importance and prestige. The use of frogs in science changed at the beginning of that period, and few of their prior uses leave any material record for many interesting reasons. Our instruments embody the new, modern strategies of investigation into the mechanics of bodily motion and the origins of animal life.

Early uses and methods

The micrometer was important not only for the measurement of specimens: whilst there is a way to find the magnification power of lenses by measuring their dimensions, this was not practical for most natural philosophers in the 18th century,. The lenses themselves were not made to a high, and regular, enough standard to allow any generalisations to be made. Indeed, Martin lists the primary use of the micrometer as being:

"to determine the Magnifying Power of single and compound Microscopes." (2)

Martin stressed that merely observing Nature's minute curiosities did not pay due respect to their Creator; one had to attain "a knowledge of the amazing Gradations of diminishing Magnitude."(3) Following this, he gives a critique of earlier attempts at micrometry, which amounts to a brief history of the subject:

"it was long after the Invention of the Microscope, before a Word was Mentioned of a Micrometer; Power, Leeuwenhoek, Hooke, Swammerdam, Hugenius, Baker, and many others who have wrote largely on this Subject, are either wholly silent about it, or mention only Grains of Sands, Shreds of fine Wire, Lattices in Brass, &c." (4)

The "grains of sand" were Dutch microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's point of reference under the microscope. "Shreds of fine wire" was an ingenious method proposed by James Jurin in 1718 that involved winding silver wire around a pin until an inch had been covered, counting the number of coils and thus working out the wire's diameter; small sections would then be cut and scattered about the microscope stage for comparison with the specimen. The "lattice in brass" was developed by John Cuff to accompany his new design of microscope.

The competitive market

In criticising Cuff's approach, as well as his patron Henry Baker, Martin was responding both to competition in business and to the lack of recognition he had received in Baker's extremely popular book, The Microscope Made Easy (1742). The book describes one of Martin's methods - engraving divisions on a glass plate in the lens system - but Baker ignores the more successful screw system proposed in 1732, saying merely:

"There are some other Sorts of Micrometers, or Inventions for measuring the small Objects seen in Microscopes; but as they are more complex and difficult, I shall not swell this volume with them."(5)

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