Abstract The Gibson microscope slide collection was donated to the Medical History Museum in Manchester (later the Museum of Medicine and Health) in 1977 by Arthur Gibson (1903–1984), a pharmacist living in the nearby coastal town of Southport. The collection is composed of 681 slides, and dates mainly from late Victorian times (1889–98). The slides were produced by thirty-four different suppliers with particular emphasis on agents in the north-west of England. Slides were typically labelled with the supplier’s name and the identity of the specimen, together with information on the date of production, the origin of the specimen and details of the preparation. The collection contains a wide variety of material, including microscopical curios, minerals, and an extensive range of botanical and zoological specimens. The origin of the collection predates the donor and appears to relate to the early years of the Southport Society of Natural Science. The assembly of this collection reflects the growing interest in microscopy that developed in the late nineteenth century.
Sigee et al. (Thu,) studied this question.