Microscope
date: label: date made
content: 1745-1755
name: label: maker
content: Cuff, John
notes: label: Description
content: The aquatic microscope is a simple low-power instrument so designed that the lens can move back and forth and from side to side, to follow the movements of small creatures swimming on the stage. The form was developed in the mid-1740s by a London artisan named John Cuff, at the behest of a Swiss naturalist named Abraham Trembley. This example fits into and stands on a wooden case covered with sharkskin. The inscription on the stage reads “I. CUFF Londini Inv. & Fec.” There are six lenses (# 1, 2, 3, and 4, and two unmarked), some brass slides and some bone slides.
label: Description
content: In 1752, Cuff modified the microscope for the naturalist, John Ellis, and Ellis included an explanation and illustration of that instrument in his popular <i>Essay Towards a Natural History of the Corallines</i> (London, 1755). That instrument, known as “Ellis’s aquatic microscope” and made by others, remained popular for years.
label: Description
content: Ref: Savile Bradbury, <i>The Evolution of the Microscope</i> (Oxford, 1967), pp. 97-98.
label: Description
content: Julian Holland, "John Cuff (1707?-after 1772: 'the best Workman of his Trade in London'," <i>Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society</i> 141 (2019): 2-14; and 142 (2019): 4-18.
label: Description
content: Deborah Warner, "The Oldest Microscope in the Museum," https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/microscope
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, London
topic: label: Subject
content: Medicine
label: Subject
content: Microscopy
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
label: See more items in
content: Microscopes
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content: Science & Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-09898
label: catalog number
content: M-9898
label: accession number
content: 237347
objectType: label: Object Name
content: microscope
label: Other Terms
content: microscope; Medicine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (case material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (microscope material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (microscope material)
label: Physical Description
content: velvet (case material)
label: Measurements
content: microscope: 12.4 cm x 6 cm x 7.7 cm; 4 7/8 in x 2 3/8 in x 3 1/16 in
label: Measurements
content: case: 4.7 cm x 22.4 cm x 13.8 cm; 1 7/8 in x 8 13/16 in x 5 7/16 in