Note
Retailer: Pacific Micro Materials Co. (San Francisco).
A: Hand Cranked tissue specimen slicer (microtome).
B: Knife Blade for Microtome (Spencer Co., Buffalo NY).
Artifact label reads:
Microtome
Bausch and Lomb Optical Co., Rochester, NY
1901
A Microtome is a precision slicing machine that makes extremely thin slices of a material so that it can be examined under a microscope. Usually these samples are plant or animal material sliced with an extremely sharp steel cutting blade (modern versions use glass, ceramic, or even diamond blades).