Photo-micrographs and how to make them.

Sternberg, George Miller, 1838-1915.

Boston : J. R. Osgood and company, 1883.

Description : [1 l.] frontis., [i]-xv p. [16]-204 p., [19 l.] pl. ; ill.: 20 pl., tab. ; 24 cm.

Photographs : 20 leaves (inc. frontis.) of photomicrographs. Heliotypes.

Photographer : Dr. George Miller Sternberg.

Subject : Photomicrography.

Notes :

• Author caption : By George M. Sternberg, M.D., F.R.M.S., Major and surgeon, United States Army; member of the Biological society of Washington; honorary member of the Microscopical societies of Baltimore and of San Francisco; fellow of the American association for the advancement of science ; etc., etc.
• Medical degree, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, 1860.
• Assistant surgeon, U.S. Army, 1861-64.
• Army medical director, Cleveland Hospital, 1865.
• Post surgeon, Fort Harker, Kansas, 1867.
• Attending surgeon, Fort Riley, Kansas, 1869.
• Post surgeon, Fort Columbus, New York, 1871.
• Post surgeon, Barrancas, Florida, 1873, 1875.
• Member, Havana yellow fever commission, 1879.
• Delegate, International Sanitary Conference, Rome, 1885.
• Surgeon-general, U.S. Army, 1893-02.
• Chief organizer, Army Medical School, 1893.
• President, American Medical Association, 1897.
• Chief organizer, U.S. Army Nurse Corps, 1901.
• Photographs printed by Heliotype Printing Co., Boston.
• Index Medicus: 11101221150, 11306741180.

The critics should remember in judging of the merits of a photo-micrograph, that it should not be compared with hand-work, which, intentionally or otherwise, is usually more or less diagrammatic or "conventionalized." On the other hand, it should be compared with the picture seen under the microscope. Those who are not familiar with the views from nature obtained in this way, and who are familiar with the woodcuts commonly employed for the illustration of works relating to the microscope and its revelations, will be likely to prefer the neat appearance and the sharply drawn lines of the latter to a photograph from nature.

But for the trained eye, the photo-micrograph possesses special attractions; just as the photograph of a friend conveys impressions and gives rise to reminiscences of an agreeable nature, while that of a stranger is looked upon with indifference. The expert microscopist, also, knowing the difficulty of obtaining an ideal field free from extraneous objects, and having every portion in perfect focus, is willing to make some allowance for slight defects which at once attract the attention of a critic who is not a microscopist. In the same way, the connoisseur in art in looking at a famous old picture learns to overlook the stains and fissures imprinted by the hand of time, and to his mental vision the work of the master is revealed in all its beauty, while for the untrained eye the scarred and dingy canvas possesses no attractions.—Pages 20-21.

Fig. 2. of Plate II, representing "Microccoci in blood of rabbit," was first published in the journal, Studies from the Biological Laboratory, where it illustrated Sternberg's paper on the pneumococcus bacillus, his greatest contribution to the canon of bacteriology. Three more microscopic figures – one from Plate II and two from Plate IV – are also culled from that journal where they illustrated another of his papers, on the subject of bacterial organisms of the mucosi.