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Microscope Museum Collection of antique microscopes and other
scientific instruments |
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Microscope
273 (Carl
Reichert; medium stand III microscope; c. 1907)
Carl
Reichert (1851 – 1922) was an optician who established one of the principal
microscope manufacturing firms in Europe in the late 19th century.
Reichert married into the Leitz family in 1874 (and
was son in law of Ernst Leitz). In 1876 in Vienna,
he founded the Optische Werke C. Reichert. He
employed some Leitz technicians, explaining one
reason why his products were so similar to those of
Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar.
Reichert designed new lenses, lighting equipment for microscopes, and one of
the first microscopes for the study of metal surfaces. By 1900, the company
had produced 30,000 microscopes, and 100,000 microscopes in 1930. Instruments
were usually signed "C. Reichert, Wien". The firm was partially
sold to American Optical in 1962, which was taken over in 1968 by Warner
Lambert. By 1986, this company merged with Jung of Heidelberg and was sold to
Cambridge Instruments, which in 1990 merged with Wild Leitz
to form the Leica Group. In 1999 Reichert stopped microscope production,
concentrating to instruments for sample preparations for transmission
electron microscopy. Microscope 273 is
signed with ‘C. Reichert, Wien’ and has the serial number 36789. This
microscope can be dated to c. 1907. This instrument was described as
microscope medium stand III the firm’s catalogues of that time (Figure 1).
The instrument came with its original wooden box, which is labelled
with a metal plate containing the inscription ‘Quick Lab Cam’,
suggesting that, at some point in its history, this microscope belonged to
the Quick Laboratory at University of Cambridge. This laboratory worked
between 1907 and 1921 and was a single room on the ground floor of the
Cambridge Medical School building. The Quick Laboratory was associated with
the Quick Professorship of Biology, covering the field of protozoology, named
after Frederick James Quick (1836 – 1902), a coffee merchant and senior
partner in the London coffee-firm Quick, Reek and James at the time of his
death, who donated most of his wealth to the University of Cambridge. George
Nuttall became the first holder of the chair in 1906, an American-British
bacteriologist who contributed much to the knowledge of parasites and of
insect carriers of diseases.
Figure
1.
Reichert’s medium stand III microscope as engraved
in a 1908 catalogue of the firm. LAST
EDITED: 02.10.2022 |
