Jan Evangelista Purkyne (1787-1869) and his instruments for microscopic research in the field of neuroscience

摘要

The findings obtained by the famous nineteenth-century Czech scientist Jan Evangelista Purkyne (1787-1869) in the field of microscopic structure of animal and human tissues, including the brain, spinal cord, and nerves, have already been described in depth in a number of older and newer publications. The present article contains an overview of the instruments and tools that Purkyne and his assistants used for microscopic research of tissue histology. Some of these instruments were developed either by Purkyne alone, such as the microtomic compressor, or together with his assistant Adolph Oschatz, such as the microtome. A brief overview of the development of the cutting engines suggests that the first microtome, a prototype of modern sliding microtomes, was designed and constructed under the supervision of Purkyne at the Institute of Physiology in Wroclaw. Purkyne and his assistants, thus, not only obtained important findings of animal and human nervous and other tissues but also substantially contributed to the development of instruments and tools for their study, a fact often forgotten today.