Now, as in the past,
scientific journals devoted to a particular specialty are useful assets
allowing one to
keep abreast of current discoveries and developments concerning new
technologies and equipment. As time goes by,
a journal can also serve as source of information on the history of the
science and its associated technology.
A good example of this is The Journal of the Royal Microscopical
Society. Early volumes of this journal contain
a wealth of information, much of which is not easily available
elsewhere, that is useful to collectors and historians
of the microscope. Many of the microscopes and accessories that where
introduced during the years covered by the
journal are described most of these descriptions are accompanied by
illustrations.
Some years ago, after trying to locate information about a particular
microscope, I consulted this journal and
found that I had to search for the microscope by checking a separate
table of contents that accompanies each volume.
While I finally found what I was looking for, it occurred to me that a
cumulative index of for all the volumes
would be useful. The result is the indexes presented on this site.
The index starts with the first volume of the journal which was issued
in 1878. I decided to limit the index to
1907 (this is about the time that my own collecting interest ends). I
limited the index to cover equipment and
excluded the numerous articles covering the science of microscopy. I
tried to index all the microscopes described
in the years covered. The accessories were usually indexed only if the
journal also included an illustration. There
are surely some errors and omissions I apologize for these in advance.
Obviously, this index will be of most value to those of you who have
access to the journal. Recently Google books made the various volumes
of the Journal available online. You can use the index to find the item
you are looking for and then use the link to the appropriate volume
where you can enter the desired page number to retrieve the
information. If we can assume
that the articles in the journal were published
in a timely manner, then the date of the article would correspond to
the date that a new piece of equipment was
introduced. Two versions of the indexes are provided in the links
above. The first is sorted on the maker's
name and the second is sorted by the apparatus described. Use the find
command in your browser to locate what you
are looking for.
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