Early History of the Electron Microscope by L. Marton (review)
1970; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/tech.1970.a894171
ISSN1097-3729
Autores Tópico(s)Research, Science, and Academia
Resumo320 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Electronics in the West: The First Fifty Years. By Jane Morgan. Palo Alto, Calif.: National Press Books, 1967. Pp. xiv-)-194. $4.95. This work was commissioned by the Office of Education of Santa Clara County (which contains such artifacts as Stanford University, Stanford Industrial Park, and Foothill Electronics Museum) and repre sents an imaginative use of National Defense Education Act funds for the development of a resource text at the junior-high-school level. Although lacking all bibliographical apparatus, the book is a rich source of carefully researched and reliably reported anecdotal and pictorial material. The San Francisco Bay Area has been prominent in electronics from the start: the first ship-to-shore radio communication in the United States took place there in August 1899, a month before Mar coni’s arrival in New York; the first air-to-ground transmission was made in San Bruno, California, in 1910; and Lee de Forest, who had invented the triode in 1906, finally made it work as an amplifier in Palo Alto in 1912. San Francisco was both terminus of the first transconti nental telephone line in 1915 and a key point in the Pacific radio net work that helped the nation fulfill its manifest destiny. Mrs. Morgan (a freelance writer who is married to an engineer) lovingly traces all these firsts, as well as inspirational biographical vi gnettes of such western electronics “greats” as Farnsworth, Litton, and the Varian brothers and the genesis of company after company founded by selfmade men who seemed determined to give the lie to the propo sition that the Horatio Alger myth was dead. The book is amply illustrated with two-color drawings and with photographs reproduced by the offset process, but its general appear ance is marred by the tiny margins evidently dictated by competitive bidding under government specifications that omitted the aesthetic. Charles Susskind* Early History of the Electron Microscope. By L. Marton. San Fran cisco: San Francisco Press, 1968. Pp. v-(-56. $2.75. Dennis Gabor, in his gracious and perceptive preface to this book, characterizes the modern electron microscope as the most wonderful and successful instrument of our times. This warrants interest in a trea tise on the origins of the electron microscope by one of the pioneers, who demonstrated that unstained biological specimens could be imaged with electrons. In this book the reader will, indeed, learn about the principal steps which led from surmise to the realization of a practical instrument as well as the names of the many men who were involved in these steps. Yet these may be found elsewhere, with appropriate evaluation of their relative importance in the total development. * Dr. Süsskind is professor of engineering science at the University of California in Berkeley and author of many publications on the history of technology (espe cially electronics) and its effects on society. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 321 Marton’s book is of interest, rather, as a personal account of one of the men who made the realization of a workable electron microscope a life goal. It conveys both the doubts in the minds of many early workers—which applied more to the potential usefulness than to the perfectibility of the electron microscope—and the competitiveness en gendered by parallel efforts in a number of different laboratories. Along with the memoirs of other electron microscope pioneers, which have appeared or are yet to be written, this book illuminates an exciting development in troubled times. E. G. Ramberg* One Hundred Years of Pharmacy in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Academy of the History of Pharmacy, 1969. Pp. 38. $2.00. This is the record of a symposium held in 1967 during Canada’s cen tennial celebration. It contains three papers. The first, by Glenn Sonnedecker , on Canadian pharmaceutical education, demonstrates that this has paralleled developments in the United States, but with each step occurring at a somewhat later date. The second paper, by Ernest W. Stieb, on the organization of Canadian pharmacy, shows that during the 19th century it followed the British pattern of control by provin cial societies, but in the 20th century the national society has domi nated. The third paper...
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