The Quest for the Invisible: Microscopy in the Enlightenment (review)

The development of the microscope and microscopy is indeed concerned with the "quest for the invisible." In the seventeenth century, lenses revealed amazing discoveries in both the heavens (telescope) and in the biological world (microscope). But while the telescope continued to reveal new scientific objects, studies with the microscope seem to have hibernated until later in the eighteenth century. Ratcliff re-evaluates the state of microscopes and microscopy of the eighteenth century, and what is revealed is that the search for continued activity with microscopes is also a quest for the invisible. What had previously been invisible to historians is the very active continuation of microscopical studies. To uncover this activity he uses a novel technique of statistical analysis of citations by scholars of microscopes and microscope makers. He uses this "underestimated source of information" to reveal "more than 2,100 eighteenth-century printed sources that mention microscopes" (98). This research with the accompanying charts, tables, and prosopographical index represents a tremendous undertaking. Ratcliff gives meaning to these numbers, considering epistemology, social context, historical trends, national trends, technological advances, and communication structures, and develops what he calls a "new historiography."

The book is divided into three chronological periods: 1680–1740 (The Definition of Good Microscopical Objects); 1740–1760 (The Break with the Past); 1760–1800 (Infusoria and Microscopical Experiments—The True Invisible Object). Within these periods, multiple levels of examination are undertaken. Some of the analysis is used to directly counter previous interpretations of the period, reflecting a recent resurgence of interest in eighteenth-century microscopy with new historiographical approaches (see Ann La Berge, "Review Article: History of Science and History of Microscopy," Perspectives on Science 7, [1999]: 111–142).

This book does a good job of presenting a new view of microscopy in the eighteenth century through a re-evaluation of scientific activity during this period. Using his citation analysis, Ratcliff shows that "the production of microscopes followed different and independent patterns throughout Europe" (19), in Chart 1.1 (17), for example. Investigators had to clear out seventeenth-century methods of producing and managing microscopes. They adapted new techniques to technical problems and research. At the same time, previous observations (like Leeuwenhoek's) although not reproducible still had validity. One of the strengths of the book is placing Leeuwenhoek's work in a new context—giving credit for his accomplishments but showing him as linked to an earlier research programme.

After describing trends in broad strokes, Ratcliff goes back to fill in the details. He defines a "Leeuwenhoek-Joblot narrative model" for scientific communication. He describes demonstrations at the Académie des Sciences where a non-systematic approach, with a wealth of information in vernacular language, created a dynamic environment for looking at invisible biological entities. Ratcliff shows how different cultures and contexts for study and for communication were continuously flowing at different levels throughout this period. When microscopes were no longer mentioned in scholarly articles, it was not because they were not useful, but because they had become commonplace, a useful and routine tool that did not require special mention.

Part II focuses on the break with the past. Ratcliff discusses the culture of citation as he describes the manufacture and distribution of microscopes, looking at the international versus the local market. The community is defined differently for each locale. With Leeuwenhoek the repetition of experiment was not possible because of technological and philosophical constraints, but with new microscopes and techniques for fixing the specimens and drawing the images, repetition by scholars and laymen alike became possible. The microscope fits (and perhaps even drives) the framework for scientific "repetition." Finally, in Part III, he brings the story around the convergence of activity using a microscope as it becomes part of a more traditionally viewed scientific enterprise.

This is a big book (with a hefty price tag), full of big ideas, vast amounts of data, and broad analyses of international scope. To cover...