Images(3)

Leyser-type sledge microtome

Datecirca 1874

Inventory Number1912

ClassificationMicrotome

Subject

Maker M. Leyser fl. 1850 - 1880

Owner Charles Sedgwick Minot ? 1852 - 1914

Cultural Region

Place of Origin

Dimensions9 × 15.7 × 8.3 cm (3 9/16 × 6 3/16 × 3 1/4 in.)

Material

DescriptionThis is a Leyser-type sledge microtome. The small brass instrument is mounted on a cast iron base. One side of the microtome holds the knife block, which slides in a horizontal track alongside the spine. The other side has an inclined track in which slides the specimen block. The specimen is held in a clamp. The spine has a graduated scale with a vernier on the specimen block.

Signedmarked on central spine: LEYSER. LEIPZIG.

Inscribedon spine: 123

ProvenanceErnst-Lewis Collection, Harvard Medical School

Historical AttributesIn 1903, Charles Sedgewick Minot wrote: "In 1870 Alexander Brandt, who afterwards became a distinguished zoologist, was working in the zoological laboratory of Prof. Leuckart at Leipzig, where they were then using the Rivet microtome. The unsatisfactory results obtained with the wooden model led Dr. Brandt to have made by Leyser, the mechanician of the university, the microtome which was long and widely known by the name of Leyser.... Of this instrument I reproduce the original figure, published by Brandt in Vol. VII of the <i>Archiv für mikroskopische Anatomie</i>, page 176. I still possess one of these early instruments, which has seen a great deal of use. Its construction constituted a great step forward. The essential addition by the Rivet type to what we had before had was the substitution of the mechanical motion of the knife for the free-hand motion, so that both object and knife were moved mechanically and therefore with comparative precision. Perhaps the principal reason why this microtome gained favor so rapidly is to be found in the fact that just before its introduction the embedding of objects in paraffine had been introduced, and the microtome was used chiefly for paraffine sections." "A History of the Microtome: II. The Earliest Types--Continued," <i>Journal of Applied Microscopy</i> 6 (1903): 2226-228. This instrument may be the example owned by Minot at Harvard Medical School.