Description
This is a brass and cast iron microtome. The design of the rocking microtome was originally perfected by Horace Darwin. This microtome would have made microscopy easier and more accessible as it could cut thin slices of material between 2 and 24 micrometres in thickness whilst maintaining reliability. The rocking microtome is still in use today due to it’s reliability.

Label written by Jack Rajack, work experience student.

08/06/2017
Created by: Rosanna Evans on 08/06/2017

Description
A microtome is a laboratory instrument used to cut extremely thin slices of material, called sections. These are usually cut from specimens of human or animal tissue (embedded in a soft material like paraffin wax), and are produced for inspection under a microscope. The “rocking” type of microtome was designed by Charles Darwin’s son, Horace Darwin. Horace co-founded the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company with Albert George Dew-Smith in 1881, and the firm began manufacturing Horace’s microtome design from 1885. This design, with updates, continued to be produced well into the second half of the twentieth century. As a Cambridge Instruments sales catalogue boasted, “simplicity of operation makes it an ideal instrument for the use of students or for routine work and it has become the standard microtome for general use in laboratories all over the world.”

This particular model could cut sections between 0.002mm and 0.024mm thick.
14/03/2014
Created by: Joshua Nall on 14/03/2014