Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-29
NEW MICROSCOPES
SHOW PROTOPLASM
Scheme Reveals
Minute Life Long Sought
by Scientists.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
PHILADELPHIA, December ga
new type of microscope that makes
clearly visible the submicroscopic de-
tails Of cell structure, which has es-
capped the searches of scientists because
they were too small to be seen in exist
ing types of instruments, was recently
described by Prof. William Seifriz of
the University of Pennsylvania in a
recent lecture.
This instrument is the latest develop
ment in magnifying images of objects
so unbelievably small that millions of
them could exist on the point Of pin.
New Illuminating Scheme.
The main feature of the new micro
scope is a minute mirror of platinum
or gold, plated on the upper side of the
lower lens so that it reflects light down
on the object being observed. The
light is then reflected back up from the
object and passes around the sides of
the mirror through the lens and into
the observers eye.
BY this illumination and the great
clearnesS obtained, the cell walls of a
plant show up like a forest of exceed
toplasm shows up on this instrument
as parallel strands of fibers on back
ground of gray.
First to See Microbes.
More than $50 years have gone by
since an obscure drygoods clerk became
interested in lenses. He made his own
lenses and mounted them in his own
way to investigate, for his own amuse-
r0lx inn l1s1v1o Aai AIoa
skin on the back of his hand and
many things that most humans pass
over without a thought as to what
they are really like.
No so with Leeuwenhock, that per-
sistent Hollandar, self-trained locker
in on the submicroscopic world of
things. He ground his own lenses, dis
daining to buy them. He found way
to grind very tiny ones that had a
magnifying power never thought Of
before.
One day, after mounting particu-
larry small and finely made lens and
turning it on a rain drop, after exam
ming the legs of louise, the stringer
of a flea, he was startled to see inside
the drop a number of tiny animals
that swan around. He was looking for
the first time at the subvisible world
of microscopic creatures, world later
to be found by Pasteur, Koch, Roux,
Bruce and others to contain thousands
Of varieties of terrible enemies and
beneficient friends to mankind. He had
discovered microb2s-bacterial
Germ Studies by Microscopes.
Since Leeuwenhoek's first ventures
into the world of the minute spaces,
scientists have discovered the nature
of these tiny creatures, their births and
deaths, their foods, their chemical
abilities They have learned how to
grow cultures of the most rabid kinds
Of baciln. They have tested cultures
ssUarming in the destroyed bodies of
their victims and have discovered a
number of ways to combat these
vicious attacks with serums and anti
toxins, which can help the body to
ward of these attacks.
Seeing Into Matter.
And in metallurgy, in the study OF
minute crystals of metals, in learning
how TO alloy these metals and how the
addition of tiny amounts of other
metals make them far stronger, there
have been great strides made with the
microscope.
1t is a matter of only recent years
that scientists have had to discard
these too little" things. They have
discovered that they could not see
things which were smaller than the
light waves themselves. They have
discovered they had to use the shorter
wave lengths of ultra violent light, an
invisible radiation, in order TO see
things smaller than could be visualized
by ordinary white or colored lights.
And the tiny things which have been
are even then invisible directly TO hui
man eyes. They have to be caught by
camera, for the Photographic plate
is sensitive to light frequencies far
shorter than the human eye can see.
The developed plates, however, show
human eyes what these things look like.
The physicists have even employed
X-rays to make known the arrange
ments Of atoms in molecular structures.
although these things are accomplished
not exactly by a visual method, but
RELY on the theory of interference OF
light waves.
Lens Developments.
The first lenses used were crude af-
fairs with bulging sides, polished by
hand and often with uneven surfaces.
They were held in the hand and
focused by moving back and forth be-
tween the eye and the object being
viewed until the object showed most
clearly.
During the last SO years improve
ments in grinding and a better under
standing of the optical art have made
possible the production Of high powered
instruments that opened up world Of
previously invisible objects and crea-
lures.
But still up to the present there have
been many things, many details that
| we're too small and which have escaped
the searching eye Of the inquisitive OBJ
server The ultra-minute details Of
cell structure, such as the cell walls in
| living protoplasm, as small as one-fifty
| thousandth of an inch or less in width,
have up till now been largely matters
Of conjecture.