Werner Nachtigall

I've always been interested in microscopy...even before I was given my first microscope at about 11 years of age....and promptly spent ages looking at my hair vs my sister's hair etc., under the microscope. That first (toy) microscope was all the things that the author of this book decries. But I went on to use microscopes a lot during my university years; always wanted a decent compound microscope but could never justify the expenditure.......but ended up buying a nice "dissection" microscope which magnifies about 40 times ...and that's really good for most botanical specimens unless you need to get down to the cellular level.
Now I find my grandson is showing interest in biology and his parents have bought him quite a lovely compound microscope so I'm planning on bequeathing this book to him. The book is, as it says, "a book of discovery and learning" and a pretty good introduction to microscopy. Quite a lot of technical stuff about microscopes and the light path through them...though not always easy to follow and i think these diagrams could have been better. But a lot of useful material about making sections of specimens and making your own microtome. He makes an interesting point that I hadn't really thought about and that is that it's probably better to buy professionally mounted specimen slides than to try making your own. By all means make masses of sections and look at them under the microscope but for something permanent it's almost impossible to match the professionally done sets.
About half the book is devoted to different types of biological specimens and what to look for, how to collect, and samples of what you might see under the microscope. He has a section on plants, one on the animal kingdom (like small soil fauna) inorganic structures ...such as stone sections (though this is very limited), and he has a large section devoted to aquatic organisms, All of these practical examples are pretty good in my view.
The book suffers from the obvious weakness that it was written in 1995. Well microscopy itself hasn't changed all that much over this time frame but what has changed is the digital recording of it. For example, one can now buy small digital microscopes that will show the results directly on a screen. And photography has long been digital and the use of digital phones has become fairly common and very convenient. (Though you need attachments).
I've found that there are some really helpful Youtube videos for anyone who wants to do digital micrography..especially with an iphone and this too can be observed directly on the phone screen or on a digital monitor. But with this caveat (that the book doesn't deal with the digital age very well) I'm happy to recommend it to anyone who has microscopy as a hobby ...and maybe first year biology students at university. I give it 3 stars.… (altro)