Klaus Staubermann

00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page i Illuminating Instruments 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page ii 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page iii Illuminating Instruments Artefacts: STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, VOLUME 7 Edited by Peter Morris and Klaus Staubermann Series Editors Robert Bud, Science Museum, London Bernard Finn, Smithsonian Institution Helmuth Trischler, Deutsches Museum, Munich WASHINGTON, D.C. 2009 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page iv 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page v he series “Artefacts: Studies in the History of Science and Technology” was established Tin 1996 under joint sponsorship by the Deutsches Museum (Munich), the Science Museum (London), and the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC). Subsequent sponsoring museums include: Canada Science and Technology Museum, Istituto e Museo Nazionale di Storia della Scienza, Medicinsk Museion Kobenhavns Universitet, MIT Museum, Musée des Arts et Métiers, Museum Boerhaave, Národní Technické Museum, Prague, National Museum of Scotland, Norsk Teknisk Museum, Országos Mıszaki Múzeum Tanulmánytára (Hungarian Museum for S&T), Technisches Museum Wien, Tekniska Museet–Stockholm, The Bakken, Whipple Museum of the History of Science. Editorial Advisory Board Robert Anderson, Cambridge University Jim Bennett, Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford Randall Brooks, Canada Science and Technology Museum Ruth Cowan, University of Pennsylvania Robert Friedel, University of Maryland Sungook Hong, Seoul National University David Hounshell, Carnegie Mellon University Otmar Moritsch, Technisches Museum Wien Peter Morris, Science Museum David Rhees, The Bakken Christian Sichau, Deutsches Museum Thomas Söderqvist, Medicinsk Museion Kobenhavns Universitet Liba Taub, Whipple Museum of the History of Science Eva Vamos, Hungarian Museum for Science and Technology Hans Weinberger, Norsk Teknisk Museum Helena Wright, Smithsonian Institution Tom Zeller, University of Maryland 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page vi Published by SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION SCHOLARLY PRESS P.O. Box 37012, MRC 957 Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 www.scholarlypress.si.edu In cooperation with ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 by Smithsonian Institution All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover images: <brief description to come> British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: [cip data to come] ISBN-13: 978-0-9788460-3-9 ISBN-10: 0-9788460-3-6 Printed in the United States of America ϱ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48–1992. 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page vii Contents Series Preface ix Introduction 1 Instruments in Practice Chapter 1 Instrument and Image: Inside the Nineteenth-Century 5 Scientific Lantern Slide Klaus Staubermann Chapter 2 The Enlightened Microscope: Working with Eighteenth-Century 21 Solar Microscopes Peter Heering Instruments in Industry Chapter 3 Refractometers and Industrial Analysis 43 Deborah Jean Warner Chapter 4 Regional Styles in Pesticide Analysis: Coulson, Lovelock, 55 and the Detection of Organochlorine Insecticides Peter Morris Instruments in the Museum Chapter 5 Hard Times: The Difficult Lives of Three Instruments 75 in the Museum Christian Sichau Chapter 6 Why Display? Representing Holography in Museum Collections 97 Sean Johnston Chapter 7 Inside the Atom: Two Sides of a Story 117 Jane Wess ■ VII 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page viii VIII ■ Contents Chapter 8 Looking into (the) Matter: Scientific Artifacts and 133 Atomistic Iconography Arne Schirrmacher Chapter 9 Select Listing of Museum Instrument Collections 159 Klaus Staubermann Select Bibliography 165 Index 167 About the Contributors 00 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page ix Series Preface N RECENT YEARS, as more and more historians of science and technology have found employment in museums, there has been a growing concern that objects have Inot received proper attention in serious historical studies, and even in exhibits they more often serve as icons than as historical evidence. Yet there has been no concerted effort to resolve this dilemma. There is little relevant training in academic programs, and museum scholars have failed to develop a compelling body of literature that might serve as a model for themselves and their academic colleagues. Beginning in the fall of 1993, the three of us, with encouragement from colleagues in both academic and museum worlds, considered what we might do to address this problem. With help from our respective institutions, we established “Artefacts,” a name associated on the one hand with annual meetings that focused on different topics where these issues might be discussed, and on the other hand with a series of books with articles based on these same topics. With this volume, the seventh, we feel that we have reached a milestone. The Smith- sonian Institution Scholarly Press has taken over responsibility for publishing from the Sci- ence Museum, with whom we have had a very happy relationship. We have taken advantage of the time it has taken to make the change to give ourselves a more formal structure, notably to establish an Advisory Editorial Board, listed on the copyright page. This should strengthen our intellectual base and—most important—provide volume editors with welcome support. At the same time we are making formal recognition of what we hoped would be true from the start: that this would be a collaborative effort, involving as many museums deal- ing with the history of science and technology as possible. Our only criteria for inclusion being an expression of support for our goals and the commitment of a very modest amount of staff time, as appropriate, in their pursuit. The expansion of our list of sponsoring museums, to date, is noted on the copyright page. None of this would be possible—at least so it seems—without the Internet. We have there- fore launched a Website, hosted by the Science Museum, at http://*********. As is readily ■ IX 00frontmatter.qxd 6/13/09 9:00 PM Page x X ■ Series Preface apparent, it already includes a considerable amount of information about our past activities. It is our expectation that its usefulness will increase substantially as our new partners provide fresh ideas and substantive material. Thanks to all of those institutions and people who have leant their support; we look for- ward to collaboration with many more. Robert Bud, Science Museum, London Bernard Finn, Smithsonian Institution Helmuth Trischler, Deutsches Museum, Munich 00introduction.qxd 6/13/09 8:55 PM Page 1 Introduction HIS SEVENTH VOLUME in the Artefacts series, which began in 1999, deals with the artefacts most closely identified with science museums and, indeed, science, Tnamely scientific instruments. It has its origins in an Artefacts meeting held in Octo- ber 2004 at the University Museum in Utrecht titled “Scientific Instruments as Artefacts: Shiny Objects and Black Boxes,” which was cosponsored, like all previous Artefacts confer- ences, by the Deutsches Museum, Science Museum, and Smithsonian Institution and organ- ized by one of the editors of this volume (Klaus Staubermann) who was then a curator at the University Museum. Most of the papers were originally presented at this meeting, one (by Peter Morris) was originally presented at an earlier Artefacts meeting abut the environment held in Munich in 2000, and two others (by Deborah Jean Warner and Sean Johnston) were specially commissioned for this volume. The definition of a scientific instrument has been a matter of some debate in recent years. Deborah Warner has shown how in the nineteenth century instruments became “scientific.” Before that, they would have been either “mathematical” or “philosophical” instruments, depending on the ways they were employed. In the early twenty-first century scientific instruments are considered as “research technology”. Regardless of how one defines a scientific instrument, and we have taken a pragmatic view in this volume, they illuminate many things. Of course some scientific instruments, including two in this volume—the solar microscope and the magic lantern—provide illumination in a direct sense but all scientific instruments shed light on scientific phenomena. Furthermore, they are the product of local skills and practices, upon which this volume also sheds light. But the illuminating role of scientific instruments goes much further than that. We would argue that they can be sensitive probes for revealing the scientific, social, cultural environment of the instrument even after it has ceased to be used actively as instrument papers in this volume demon- strate. The volume shows how scientific instruments are an excellent probe for local culture and cultural contacts. Klaus Staubermann, in his reworking of demonstration practice, has come to a similar conclusion: instruments are an expression of their local culture as well as rendering this local culture by their very use. In this volume, Peter Henning’s paper shows ■ 1 00introduction.qxd 6/13/09 8:55 PM Page 2 2 ■ Introduction how the reconstruction of solar microscopes sheds light on the various uses of these instruments and the nature of scientific dilettantism in the eighteenth century. By contrast Deb- orah Warner’s paper illuminates the use of instruments for quality control in industry and the search for new ways of testing samples, thus revealing the nature of nineteenth-century industrial analysis. In a later period, Peter Morris’s paper on the analysis of DDT demon- strates how concern about pesticides residues increased in the 1950s well ahead of the publication of Silent Spring in 1962.

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