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. This instrument is the first automatic microtome ever developed. It revolutionised histology by making it much easier and faster to cut sections, as well as ensuring the sections were consistently the correct thickness.

Richard Threlfall designed the instrument during the second year of his Natural Sciences Tripos degree. This was following a suggestion from zoologist William Hay Caldwell, who had been cutting sections manually for his research into the embryology of marine animals. Threlfall commissioned Professor Stuart's Workshop to make the instrument and it was completed by a worker called Ruffett in the Easter Term of 1883. Threlfall later wrote, "During the time that the machine was under construction I met with a good deal of criticism, particularly from [Albert George] Dew Smith, of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Co., and Caldwell himself. I remember particularly that Dew Smith's view was that I had once seen a horizontal engine and could not get it out of my head, while Caldwell claimed that he had nothing to do with the construction, that he was not in any way responsible for the machine, and that when it failed, as he expected it to, it would be my affair entirely." However, the instrument was successful and was used at the Comparative Anatomy Laboratory for many years.

Threlfall did not patent the instrument because he thought it was improper to patent something for the furtherance of scientific research. Local firm Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company produced the instrument commercially, later simplifying the design.
24/01/2022
Created by: Morgan Bell on 24/01/2022