The Diagnostic Microscope

Abstract

The science of parasitology as it evolved in the nineteenth century hinged on the use of the compound microscope. It was in this century that the instrument developed from what had been a sort of scientific toy into something that revolutionised microbiology, pathology, parasitology and biology in general. While Galileo can be said to have been the first to appreciate the possibility that the microscope could be used to examine small objects his own thoughts were directed to the heavens. It was later savants in the seventeenth century who began to use simple microscopes to describe the minutiae of nature as found in plants, insects and other small invertebrates. Among these were Robert Hooke from England, Marcello Malpighi from Italy, Jan Swammerdam and Antony van Leeuwenhoek from Holland (Singer, 1931, p. 167). Swammerdam was a pioneer in the use of the microscope as an aid to the dissection of insects and in 1669 published a monograph on the subject. Swammerdam died at the age of 43, for many years of his life being troubled with chronic malaria (Hagelin, 1990).