In the Lab
In the Lab
In the Lab
In the Lab
In the Lab
In the Lab
The medical laboratory is perhaps the most underappreciated and least understood workshop in the modern hospital. Uncover the fascinating past of how the hospital lab has shaped modern medicine and changed the way we view life in world. Exhibit highlights include vintage microscopes and equipment and a portion of a full-scale reconstructed 1950s medical laboratory.
Microscope
Description
The microscope is one of those inventions that has numerous inventors going back as far as the 16th century, but its use in medicine begins in Louisiana at Tulane University. A Professor of Chemistry, John Leonard Riddell, invented the first practical binocular microscope in the 1850s while he was investigating cholera, a devastating disease rampant in the 19th Century.
One limiting factor was illumination. At first sunlight concentrated with a mirror was used to light the specimen. Then with the advent of electricity, more and more powerful electric lights were used.
The microscope dates from the mid-20th century and was made by a leading manufacturer of medical optics, AO Spencer and was part of the original equipment in Willis-Knighton's first laboratory.
Location in Museum
In the Lab exhibitAge
Mid-20th Century
