Photo-Micrographs and How to Make Them. Illustrated by Forty-seven Photographs of Microscopic Objects, Photo-Micrographs, Reproduced by the Heliotype Process

Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1883. First Edition. Cloth. Good. First Edition. xv, [2], 18-204 pp + 20 heliotype plates (including frontis) extra to the pagination with tissue guards. 8vo. Publisher's brown pebbled cloth with beveled edges. Stamp of "Chas. F. Prentice 201 Singer Building 149 Broadway, N.Y." on front flyleaf. Discoloration to the foreedges of the binding (sun, smoke, or damp). Corners, head/tail of spine and edges worn. Hinges cracked but still sound (some old glue repairs). Internally clean and bright with clean plates - albeit a well read copy. Cloth. Author Sternberg is well known to medical and microscopy collectors both for his work as a bacteriologist and microscopist.

"Brigadier General George Miller Sternberg (June 8, 1838 - November 3, 1915) was a U.S. Army physician who is considered the first American bacteriologist, having written Manual of Bacteriology (1892). After he survived typhoid and yellow fever, Sternberg documented the cause of malaria (1881), discovered the cause of lobar pneumonia (1881), and confirmed the roles of the bacilli of tuberculosis and typhoid fever (1886). As the 18th U.S. Army Surgeon General, from 1893 to 1902, Sternberg led commissions to control typhoid and yellow fever, along with his subordinate Major Walter Reed. Sternberg also oversaw the establishment of the Army Medical School (1893; now the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research) and of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps (1901). The pioneering German bacteriologist Robert Koch honored Sternberg with the sobriquet, 'Father of American Bacteriology'." (Wikipedia)

Sternberg is also well known for his work with photo-micrography: "Doctor Sternberg since 1880 has been in the habit of illustrating his published works and scientific papers by photomicrographs made by himself. He has shown himself a master in this difficult art, and in 1884 published a volume on photomicrographs and how to make them. [as here]" and "In 1881, while stationed at Fort Mason, Cali- fornia, he demonstrated and photographed probably for the first time in America the tubercle bacillus, which had been discovered by Koch in 1881" (Kober)

Charles F. Prentice (a previous owner) has been called the "Father of American Optometry" and worked with his father James Prentice who manufactured ophthalmic devices. We've included a summary of his major book "Legalized optometry and the memoirs of its founder" with condensed biography by John F. Amos for reference.

LITERATURE:
Davis and Dreyfus, Greatest Instruments Ever Made, p263 (Noting Prentice, James and Son were active in New York, NY and at least one catalog known from 1884-85 of 192 pages)
Kober, George M., "George Miller Sternberg, and Appreciation", Am J Public Health (N Y). 1915 Dec; 5(12): 1233-1237.