500,000 magnification

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33276, 13 July 1973, Page 2

500,000 magnification

A Japanese electron microscope capable of magnifying a specimen 500,000 times was installed in the pathology department of the Christchurch Clinical School of medicine this week. The microscope, which cost' $50,000, was bought by the University of Otago. A grant, of $14,000 from Golden Kiwi; lottery funds will go towards' buying ancillary equipment. One of the first “accessories” needed will be an ultramicrotome to cut specimens into very thin slices. MANY USES The machine is in the charge of Professor A. R. McGiven, professor of pathology, and considerable kidney pathology work will be done on it by Dr K. J. Thom-

’son. Other clinical school and; hospital research will bej done on it, too. Similar types of micro- 1 scope are in use in Auckland • and Dunedin, and an earlier J model of the same make has. ’been used by the mechanical! ’engineering department of the University of Canterbury for some time. The new hospital micro-; ; scope is said to be the most ' fully automatic in the country. (I Although the microscope is ’ surrounded by a daunting array of dials and knobs, the ■ operator has to manipulate i only about three pairs of • controls. HAIR A BLOCK WIDE An ordinary microscope will magnify to a usable . limit of 600 to 1000 times, ■ but the electron microscope will magnify to 500,000 times. ■ This means that a 50c piece •Theoretically could be en-

larged until it was 10 miles; in diameter. Even a human hair would be about a city block wide. In an ordinary microscope a light from a lamp is trans-1 mitted through a slide and ; collected through a system of lenses. An electron microscope,; instead of a light source, has a source of electrons which pass through a specimen held in a vacuum tube. The beams of electrons are then focused by electromagnets (instead of lenses) on to a ;sensitised screen. The maker of the microscope, Jeol, Ltd. sent its chief engineer, Mr Y. Fujisaki, and an assistant, from Tokyo, to install the microscope.

Assembly of the several’; boxes of parts began on ; Monday, and the microscope was working on Wednesday morning, but until the ancillary equipment arrives it will not be fully functional. Above, Professor McGiven is shown watching Mr Fujisaki making final ; adjustments to the microscope.