The Institute of Biomedical Science

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Crime of the century or chance of a lifetime?

Albert Norman Lecture, IBMS Congress 2011 Mr Alan Potter, Vice President and Former Chief Executive, Institute of Biomedical Science

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Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and can I add my own welcome to this the 2011 IBMS Congress. This is for me a truly memorable occasion. This is my seventh Congress, but my first from this particular perspective. In previous years I have been where your Chief Executive is now, trying to look at my watch without anyone seeing and worrying about  whether or not the Albert Norman lecturer would overrun (as they always did), and wreck the time table for the rest of the afternoon. We will see if I conform to this tradition.

It has been the purpose of the Albert Norman lecture to allow scientists in their field to present current advances, and many eminent people have stood where I am now, and here I need your indulgence. I have no research of my own to present to you. However as all of you will now know the Institute celebrates its centenary next year and on behalf of those who, because of time, cannot be here I would like to take us back to scientific innovation as it was 100 years ago.

(Slide 1)

Albert Norman was the first Secretary of the Institute. This post remained honorary until the appointment of R J Lavington when the Institute started to employ staff and have commercial premises (albeit shared offices with the British Road Tar Association). Roles as General Secretary and Chief Executive Officer followed - those names with a * being paid executive staff.

As you have heard Albert Norman was the visionary with others that made it possible for all of us to be here now. He knew that he and his colleagues had knowledge and skills that needed to be recorded, standardised and shared. In short it was time to form a professional association. There was at that time some considerable opposition from a number of quarters, including even some of Albert’s own co-workers. The reason for this lies mainly in the social and political climate of the day and the way in which the ego rich Victorian society worked. I would like if I may to place his achievements into some kind of context by looking for a while at the world that he was born into.

Albert Norman was born in 1882 in the parish of St Giles in Cambridge, and the census of 1891 (Slide 2) shows him aged 8 and living at 25 Madingley Road Cambridge with his father whose occupation was gardener, his mother and his paternal grandfather who was a retired farm labourer.  In short he was part of a working class family with all that this entailed in Victorian England. Albert would have grown up in a world of horses, gas lights (or possibly animal fat candles) and social system that required you to 'know your place'. At the time of Albert’s birth, Pasteur was yet to visit Edinburgh and found the Pasteur Institute in Paris; anaesthetics were very dangerous things, the ABO blood grouping system was unknown and Lister had made carbolic soap the new wonder substance, not to mention having a mouthwash named after him. Motorcars weren’t, flying machines couldn’t and the telephone (and there were probably only one or two) was definitely not mobile. Gladstone was the prime minister of a liberal government which had been voted in by only men and life was still polarised by a class structure, poverty and wealth.

The 19th century was also remarkable for its scientific discoveries and progress; however it is true to say that almost without exception the study of science either natural or otherwise was almost without exception the province of the wealthy and the clergy. This allowed the luxury of exploration, often literally, without the need for a commercial pay back.

So why then did Albert choose hospital laboratory work as a career? We do know that by the age of 14 (1896) he was working in the zoological department at Cambridge University where he gained experience in histological procedures and taxidermy and he eventually moved into the newly formed pathology laboratory. When he was about 17 he moved to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital as the sole laboratory worker, where he added the skills of museum specimen preparation, the newly discovered radiography and pharmacy.

(Slide 3)

In the 1901 census we see Albert as a 19 year old young boarder in the household of an Anthony Bailey a grocer’s assistant at 44 Grapes Hill Norwich. Albert’s occupation is shown as a 'curator's assistant' probably because more appropriate names had yet to be coined. Sadly we have few photographs (Slide 4) but this would have been from that period. A striking young man by any measure.

We do not know exactly why Albert chose the career he did, but it must have been influenced at least indirectly if not directly by the life and times of Charles Darwin who singlehandedly changed the role and perception of the microscope which must have been an essential tool for Albert Normans work. Microscopes characterise modern science and it is hard to find any instrument that more immediately symbolises laboratory research and features so frequently as a logo for scientific societies the world over. Yet surprisingly microscopes historically took their time in arriving in a practical form.

(Slide 5)

Uncharacteristically the Romans appear to have missed a trick here. They used lenses extensively as a means to start fires. These were very curved to get the right intensity and resembled the shape of lentils, and the word Lens is derived from the latin name for that plant - lens culinaris. Magnification either derived from the production of 'many fires' or possibly from the word magnificent showing the glory of magnification.

Spectacles took a very long time to be developed, probably because life expectancy in those days meant that few lived long enough to need their short sightedness corrected, or even if they did they could not read!

Leeuwenhoek is generally regarded as the inventor of the simple lens microscope, however there is now irrefutable evidence to show that Robert Hooke (of Hooke's law fame) produced the  design for Leeuwenhoek’s microscope for him.

It has to be remembered that the century in which Albert Norman was born had a population that was virtually exclusively white, Christian and totally male dominated. It is a fact that microscopy in the early 19th century was frowned upon by the church and seen as largely unacceptable socially. These early microscopists were looking at the fine detail of the 'Lords work' that created all things in 6 days, and therefore 'there must be reasons why we should not see some of it'. Microscopy was seen therefore as a pseudo religious activity and not for the masses. Most of the early microscopists were therefore from the clergy who were allowed to look as part of their devotions. I exaggerate a little to make a point, but whilst attitudes amongst the rich and the burgeoning number of scientists towards the end of the century changed, this attitude remained within the working classes and even extended way into the 20th century. I well remember my own grandmother’s whispered advice to me – 'that it does not pay to know too much about these sort things, it’s not natural'.

At the beginning of the 19th century microscopes tended to be small and understated for that reason, apart from a few belonging to the extremely wealthy for whom the normal rules of life did not apply. These were often huge ornate works of art that were status symbols more looked at than looked down. True microscopists had far lesser instruments.

(Slide 6)

This is a typical example, made all of brass and extremely well engineered and stands about 9 inches high. These were designed to be used out of doors using sunlight. Candle light was wholly inadequate so they were predominantly field microscopes and as such needed to be portable and fit into a horse’s saddlebag. As you can see this one easily folds flat.

(Slide 7)

Again from the early part of the century these are two good examples of the 'boys toy' of the day. Made in kit form again all from brass they are housed in beautifully made mahogany boxes small enough to fit the pocket – these were quite large in those days. The larger of those 2 boxes measures about 4 inches square. As you can see the boxes themselves also served as the foot of the microscope. Despite their appearance they are very easy to put together taking just a few minutes. They included a range of differing power objectives and often a live box for bugs and insects. As you can see on the right, the slides of the day were made of bone or ivory with the specimens trapped between two circles of mica and held in place by a small brass circlip.

(Slide 8)

These are photographs I took from one of those bone slides, as you can see dry mounting does suffer from dust gathering. Refraction was by then well understood, but the resolution benefits of having a mounting medium with the same refractive index as glass had not been realised. Indeed mica was a poor early choice of 'coverslip' as we now know it has two refractive indices which would have given a double image. These were the days of no glass slides, no coverslips, no Canada Balsam and no microtomes to speak of. All of this began to change quite rapidly through the 1860’s, 70’s and 80’s and history records this man (Slide 9) as being the reason although there were others with the same vision and convictions at that time but history has been less kind to them.

Microscopy and therefore Biomedical Science probably owes much in its origins to Charles Darwin. Seen here as a young man and also shortly before his death in 1887. It was 172 years ago this year that he formulated his theories on the evolution of species and 152 years ago that he published his book on that topic. Born into a wealthy family, the career chosen was the clergy and in 1828 Darwin was duly enrolled at Christ's College Cambridge to study. Current day BMS undergraduates will be relieved to hear that his studies suffered more than a little as he became somewhat distracted by a number of excesses of the flesh. In order to make a man of him, his family arranged for him to be sent away to sea, and he was engaged as companion to the master of a ship - The Beagle. What was originally supposed to be a 2 year excursion turned into a 5 year voyage and Darwin took with him a mahogany box microscope of the type we saw just now. Apparently he was very fond of this type of instrument and insisted on continuing to use them even in later live. And the rest as they say is history.

It is also worthy of note that whilst Darwin is the name universally associated with the theories of evolution, he was far from alone  in coming to those conclusions. Indeed it was the intention of one Alfred Wallace to publish similar theories that prompted Darwin to present his work to his peers. His first paper to the Linnean Society in 1858 was in fact a joint paper with Wallace to whom history has been less kind. Darwin married into the Wedgewood family and his wealth enabled a life time dedicated to his work. He had 10 offspring although 2 died as children. All seemed to have been gifted in their own way and 3 of his 5 sons became knights of the realm and one in particular continued to have a significant influence over the development of pathology technique. I shall return to this. However Darwin’s theories were not instantly accepted and heated debates with the creationists continued well into the later part of the century with Darwin being a favourite of the cartoonists of the day. These are two of the cleaner ones (Slide 10) I have no doubt that Albert Norman would have been well aware of this in his early years.

The eventual acceptance of Darwin’s theories resulted in the unlocking of microscopy as an interest and there were very many amateur microscopists by late Victorian times. Only in Ornithology and Astronomy was there a comparable encouragement of the amateur investigator with some of the societies offering the membership grade of 'Gentlemen Explorer'.

Society adopted microscopy almost as an art form with the scientific nature of the pastime being lost on many. However there was an etiquette. It was considered very much a male pastime. Ladies if they insisted were allowed to study botanical slides only, this avoiding them coming face to face with all manor of creatures that could frighten or inflame – and I’m not making that up. However there was other reason as we will see shortly. The Victorian microscopists that were scientists made their own preparations and added greatly to the techniques that cell path has now inherited, but the social microscopists did not want to get their hands dirty and a vast number of slide preparers established 'cottage industries' to supply the market. Their numbers ran into thousands and have been well catalogued by historians.

(Slide 11)

Microscopy technique was not really ready for this tidal wave of interest and making bone slide holders was too time consuming so the obvious answer was to move to wood. Microtomes other than a few personal pieces of apparatus did not really exists, so for a while hand cut slices sandwiched between circles of mica and mounted in wood was the methodology. The slice thickness did not allow cell study which was as yet not fully understood anyway, so colour injection techniques of whole pieces of tissue that were then sliced produced excellent colourful objects for the social microscope. Aesthetics were often as important as scientific value as this made them more marketable. Microscopes and slide preparations were exhibited at the Great exhibitions in Paris in 1867 and 1889 and several preparers won medals for their work.

Some standardisation was urgently needed and this was eventually supplied by the Royal Microscopical Society that received its Royal Charter in 1866. Sometime later the standard for microscope slides being made of glass and measuring 3 x 1 inches was established and the preparers quickly conformed to their market requirements.

(Slide 12)

This shows a typical slide preparers kit from about the time that Albert Norman would have started working and a very elegant slide cabinet dating from about the same time (Slide 13) these sets date from the mid to late 19th century when slides were typically covered in quite ornate lithographic printed papers. Originally this was used to hold the mica coverglass in place prior to the development of mounting media. However the practice continued well after Canada balsam and aqueous mountants gained popular use and each preparer had their own livery. One of the most prolific of preparers was this man: (Slide 14) John Thomas Norman. I had hoped that I would be able to tell you that he was the father of an uncle of Albert Norman, but other than family dates that coincide I cannot find definitive proof of that. If he was related then that would also help to explain Albert’s choice of career. It is sufficient for now to regard him as an example of one of the many preparers that were operating at that time. J T Norman was prolific and developed a business that continued into the late 1930’s and not only employed his 5 sons at various times but several other outworkers.

(Slide 15)

This can be seen from the great variation in handwriting on the slides. He was generally regarded as a scientist donating many specimen slides to the Royal College of Surgeons. His final premises and home was 178 City Road, and if you look carefully at the map on the back of his business card, the road in the middle snaking from south to north is Farringdon Road. He was therefore not that far from the Institutes current offices. His early slides are marked J T Norman but when joined by his sons just Norman. Despite what his card says it is doubtful if he ever made equipment but probably badged microscopes made by other companies. Perversely in all the census returns during his life time he described his occupation as 'brush maker'. Perhaps he had a sense of humour or there was some tax advantage I don’t know.

(Slide 16)

Some early examples show the sliced technique of gross stained tissues. This is a slice of human toe. I suspect the bone has been removed, but given the knowledge of anatomy at that time it would have produced interest and probably wonderment. It would have been lit from above using sun light and one of those large bulls eye lens on a stand.

(Slide 17)

This a piece of human skin not sliced on edge but flat showing presumably the connective tissue support in the dermis. These sort of patterns were very popular with the victorian gentleman as an after dinner activity that excluded the ladies for their own protection of course.

(Slide 18)

Slides of small insects and such beasts where also very popular for more obvious reasons. This being a lady bird larva that is remarkably well preserved with the slide being at least 150 years old.

(Slide 19)

Victorian gentleman were also fascinated by the great unwashed (yet again not suitable for the ladies) and body lice and fleas were highly prized. These are both actual examples and the flea in particular has been very well displayed both slides are again about 150 years old. By now the technology of Canada balsam mounting was well established with a vast improvement in resolution. Microscopes also spawned some very impressive art forms that were extremely popular and some but definitely not all were suitable for ladies to view.

(Slide 20)

These are 2 very good examples of diatom pattern slides. As I am sure you know diatoms are single cell algae found in plentiful supply in fivers and lakes. They have a silica exoskeleton which is ideal for dark ground microscopy and there are many different shapes and sizes. Each of these various shapes is a diatoms. The patterns themselves are about 3.5mm in diameter at their maximum and the magnification is x40. The pattern on the right has 84 individual diatoms in it each one having to be individually placed before mounting in Canada balsam. And now that you are half way through counting – try this one (Slide 21) There are several hundred here. They used gum Arabic as a glue wash and placed each diatom with an eyelash mounted on the end of a small wooden handle. As you can image these slides today are museum specimens and very valuable indeed and that slide is not mine I borrowed it -carefully! Possibly more exacting and needing more precision were the butterfly and moth wing scale artists.

(Slide 22)

These again were micro pictures only a few mm across needing either x40 or x100 magnification to see them. These specialist preparers kept colour palettes of wing scales harvested during the summer from the more colourful insects and presumably placed them in a similar way to the diatom slides.

(Slide 23)

These two fine examples use both wing scales and diatoms. The basket in the one on the right is made from diatoms. In a sense this art was pointless although incredibly skilful. Yet they were greatly valued as curiosities by wealthy Victorian microscopists. However in many ways the techniques learned by the mounters formed the basis for the methodology still in place today. Again these are not my slides although I have viewed similar.

(Slide 24)

The advent of photography in the mid to late 1800’s allowed the camera and the microscope to combine to produce microphotographs. These were the invention of J B Dancer from Manchester who, using the reverse process to an enlarger, was able to photograph images and shrink them down to microdot size requiring a x100 or x40 magnification to view them. It is thought that he used celloidin as the photographic substrate.

By 1880’s he had a catalogue of some 277 different titles. These were of course curiosities but in Victorian times would have been as awe-inspiring as scanning electron micrographs are today. The following slides are a few examples.

These are collector’s items today and depending on the subject matter can fetch prices of up to £200 each.

(Slide 25)

A set of 4 bust pictures of men of science. You can see just how tiny they are on the actual slide.

(Slide 26)

Men of science 1807 – 8, why that particular year I do not know as presumably it would not have changed much in the following year as it were.

(Slide 27)

Four more examples. The subjects that Dancer chose would have been dictated by the copyright laws as they then stood. The top left is interesting as the picture has been picked up upside down as you can see from the text.

This process did however add a new opportunity. The shrinking of photographs added potential to hide photographs that others were not supposed to see, and pornography joined forces with the microscope, and the micropornophotograph was born and mounters such as Norman would probably have had the 'specials' out the back!. I sense now that I may have your renewed attention. But this is close as you get.

(Slide 28)

Meanwhile in the world of science, The Nicholl prism had added the benefits of polarisation microscopy and this for its colours was very popular.

(Slide 29)

This is another of J T Normans slides of young mussel shells which are fairly unremarkable with bright field illumination, but viewed through crossed Nichol prisms have more of a 'wow' factor. It should be remembered that the reasons for the colours would have been very poorly understood.
In a rather unique way prepared slides also allowed individuals to experience in a rather practical way some of the major events of that century, and rather than just reading about it in newspapers they could own a tiny part of it.

(Slide 30)

This is quite a good example - although more than a little macabre. Dust from the volcanic eruption of Krakatau in 1883. This claimed 40,000 lives according to the official records, although it was without doubt massively more than this. The explosion is still considered to be the loudest in modern history, with reports of it being heard from 3000 miles away and it has been estimated to have been 13,000 times the power of the bomb that devastated Hiroshima. It is easy to imagine the impact of producing a slide like this as your after dinner entertainment. This was the reality of Victorian society and people like J T Norman exploited it, and from his position in the hierarchy of society who could blame him.  Other examples: (Slide 31) Gold dust from the great Australian gold rush – you could have a tiny part of it. It sounds almost silly now, until you reflect on the fact that all the communication and visualisation systems that we now rely on did not exist then – only the newspapers for those who could read!

(Slide 32)

The discovery of the Australian Opal would have become big news when Albert Norman was a boy. The slide preparers were ready.

(Slide 33)

Between 1872 and 1876, the voyage of the HMS Challenger was described in its day as 'the greatest advance in the knowledge of this planet', and I have no doubt that Albert Norman would have been well schooled in the details of this expedition. The sail ship travelled 70,000 nautical miles surveying and exploring. It catalogued over 4000 new species and for the first time gathered information about the depths of the oceans. In the Pacific Ocean it found what is now known as the Challenger Deep. We know this now to be 35,768ft deep. Amazingly the Challenger with presumably just rope found a depth of 2,900 fathoms which is approximately 17,000 feet, and probably the most prised microscope slides were from the soundings at this depth.

(Slide 34)

This slide has excellent credentials showing the exact spot and depth of the specimens. These are single cell protozoa that produce a mineral exoskeleton classified as 'radiolarian', and the photomicrographs are from the actual slide. According to the longitude and latitude measurements this is the exact spot where the soundings were made.

(Slide 35)

At the time of this exploration, much work was also taking place within pathology diagnostics. Unfortunately it is impossible to give exact dates for many of the technique advances, because the small number of professional associations in this area, such as the Royal Microscopical Society, did not have open membership. An individual’s status in society dictated their eligibility for membership. The result was that the perceived eminent argued whilst others like J T Norman just got on with it. Therefore it is difficult to know exactly when innovations occurred. Suffice to say that Canada Balsam as a mountant, and  paraffin wax as an embedding medium  arrived in general use some when in the period of Albert Normans childhood.

(Slide 36)

This is one of the earliest slides using logwood (haematoxylin) as the stain - (Eosin was a long way off!). The logwood tree is a native of Mexico and the Spanish, who traded with the Mexicans throughout history, took many types of supplies in exchange for Mexican gold. This produced a problem with the ships buoyancy for the return journey and the freely available Haematoxylin tree provided the answer as ballast. In order to fit the weight in nicely, the trees were cut into logs and known therefore as logwood!

(Slide 37)

Probably one of the most important innovations at that time was the development of the microtome, and here Charles Darwin returns, because it was one of his sons Sir Horace Darwin who founded the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company in 1885 and designed and produced the Cambridge Rocking Microtome.

However with all this innovation going on I did not want to be left out and am pleased to report that one of my ancestors got in on the act as well.

(Slide 38)

Herbert Potter specialised in making mounts of diatoms and his business was here in Birmingham.

(Slide 39)

I hope this brief history illustrates just how difficult it would have been for Albert Norman and his colleagues to establish this Institute bearing in mind that ‘worker unity’ of any type was severely frowned upon. The Tolpuddle Martyrs were in living memory and it was only a few years before his birth that transportation to Australia was the punishment for stealing a loaf of bread.
For me the 'opportunity of a life time' was what Albert and his colleagues did, and without them we would not be here. But 'the crime of the century' must be that Albert Norman is unknown outside of the history of the Institute because of the class and social structure that existed during his time.
However, I live in hope. In May this year, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, that records the history of Science in this country made the following statement on their website, having drawn attention to the immense contribution of early laboratory workers and the lack of knowledge of them, and I quote: "We have worked long and hard to find a laboratory worker who might exemplify this particular branch of scientific endeavour but few have left behind significant personal papers. We believe we may have found one, a gentleman called Albert Norman (1882 – 1964) who we hope will enter the dictionary soon".

I am sure the Institutes History Committee is already on the case.

Thank you for your attention.