Who's afraid of a microscope?
Emily Whittingham, an intern at the Museum and PhD student in the history of microscopy, explores the spooky side of microscope science and asks what else might be hiding in the dark ...
Imagine it's October, somewhere in the northern hemisphere. The nights are getting longer, and there’s a chill in the air …
Spooky season is upon us!
Today, we see the microscope as a scientific instrument. We use it to reveal the world that exists beyond what our eyes can see. We associate the microscope with answers and precision.
But the truth was much murkier for early users of the microscope.
If you choose to read on, beware: what you discover might just send a shiver down your spine …
Do you see what I see?
During the 1600s, microscopes began to reveal a hidden world. For the first time, people saw the invisible lifeforms that surrounded them, like tiny insects and bacteria.
The microscope also transformed the visible world beyond recognition.
Beneath its lens, common insects like spiders and flies became giant monsters with grasping claws and gnashing fangs.
However, problems with lens quality between the 1600s and early 1800s also meant some microscopes produced images that were unclear. People often disagreed about what exactly they were seeing.
You can find out how the development of achromatic lenses solved this problem in A history of the microscope in ten objects: Coming into focus.
But early microscopes still raised unsettling questions: Can we trust our eyes? And what else could our eyes not see?
Who’s afraid of the dark?
Microscopes use natural or artificial light to magnify a specimen. Before the invention of electric lights, people used candles, gas lighting, sunlight, and even moonlight to make their observations.
But to shine a light is also to cast a shadow, and who knows what might be hiding there …
The microscope revealed images that reminded people of folktales where spirits and monsters lurked in the dark.
In 1799, the antiquarian Francis Douce (1757-1834) looked at a drop of pond water through his microscope. He recorded in his notebook that he saw,
A singular animalcule [little animal]. Motion extremely swift like a jack of the lanthen. Transparent.
Douce isn’t writing about a grinning pumpkin.
In the 1800s, ‘jack of the lanthen’ (or ‘jack o’ lantern’) referred to the folkloric legend of wandering lights, which were also known as ‘will o’ the wisp’ or ignis fatuus.
These spirits were said to flicker across bogs, swamps, and marshes at night. They tricked unsuspecting travellers to leave the safety of the path where they met a watery end.
T.W.Cook, An Ignis Fatuus, or Will-o’-The-Whisp, 1820, engraving, 23 x 14.5 cm, Science Museum Group
In his description, Douce connected the creatures of the microscopic world to those which haunted popular folklore. He turned the insects living in pond water into mischievous villains.
In his Natural History of Staffordshire (1686), Robert Plot – the first Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum – also described the lights which flickered across the moors on stormy nights:
If one rides in a dark night in so wet a season that a Horse breaks through the turf and throws up this black, moist, spungy sort of earth, He seems to fling up so much fire, which lyes shineing, upon the ground like so many Embers; by the light whereof one Horse may trace another though at some distance.
Robert Plot, The Natural History of Staffordshire (1686), 115-116.
A shadowy horse that leaves a trail through the dark, wet night … Follow its fiery footsteps if you dare!
What’s for dinner? Monster soup!
If Francis Douce saw evil bog spirits in his pond water, what might be lurking in the water we drink?
By the early 1800s, viewing water through the microscope had become a popular spectacle. In London, people queued up to examine the microscopic lifeforms that hid in a drop of water.
Handbill advertising exhibitions of microscopy, June 12, 1833, Science Museums Group
The horrifying sight of these creatures produced a delightful fright. Yuck!
The printmaker William Heath poked fun at this spectacle in his satirical print, Monster Soup, commonly called Thames Water (c.1828). In this image, a woman holds up a microscope and examines a drop of water.
The sight is so terrifying she has dropped her cup of tea!
William Heath, Monster soup commonly called Thames water, being a correct representation of that precious stuff doled out to us!!!, c.1828, British Museum.
The water bubbles with hidden monsters. Some have sharp teeth, while others have snatching claws.
Despite its comical value, this image contains real terrors. Poor sewage management meant London buckled under the weight of its own poo, which leaked into the River Thames. Many died from cholera and disease.
Heath labelled his image as a ‘microcosm dedicated to the London water companies’. Can you spot the tiny water pump he included in the bottom-left corner of Monster Soup?
Here in Oxford we also have our own history of leaky sewers and disease. You can explore our Alice in Typhoidland display to find out how Victorian scientists used the microscope to study waterborne diseases and develop vaccines.
The History of Science Museum is now home to a large collection of Victorian microscopes, following a generous bequest from the Greenbaum family.
Paul Greenbaum was passionate about sharing his love for microscopy with others. That is why the Museum now runs regular object-handling sessions with instruments from the Greenbaum collection, where visitors can see for themselves what the Victorians experienced when they looked through microscopes at miniature monsters.
Today, we have nothing to fear from tap water in the UK. We also know that some microscopic creatures are a sign of healthy ecosystems, not dangerous ones.
However, many still campaign for the better protection of rivers and waterways from microplastics, sewage, and litter. And for those living without access to clean water, the terror of Monster Soup remains as real today as it did two hundred years ago.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
People used the microscope to examine a range of different specimens. Francis Douce liked to look at pond water, but others preferred to collect plants or insects.
Mary Ward (1827-1869) was an Irish woman who dedicated her life to studying nature. She published several books on how to use the microscope.
Her observations focused on entomology – the study of insects. Ward taught her readers which insects were best for the microscope and how to catch them.
But collecting specimens for science also reminded Ward of spookier activities. In her book The Microscope (1870), she wrote,
Also the collector will probably ere long set up a box of odds and ends, which may come in usefully. [...] A description of it might suggest the contents of the witches’ caldron to the reader’s memory. For instance, hairs from valuable skins, as those of the tiger, lion, etc., fishes’ eyes, remarkable feathers, scraps of eel’s and sole’s skin, and sundry cast-off entomological specimens, which most collectors of insects have to spare.
A box filled with animal hair, eel skin, and insect body parts? It is no wonder Ward imagined a witches’ cauldron!
Are you brave enough to collect spiders, beetles, and flies?
What would you do with your insects – look at them through the microscope, or boil them up into a magical potion?
Final thoughts: Spooky science
The microscope revealed the existence of an invisible world.
People used the microscope because they wanted to understand these secrets better. They made important discoveries which furthered our understanding of science, including of insects and water quality.
There was excitement about these discoveries, but also suspicion of their truth.
What was reality, and what was a trick?
This uncertainty encouraged people to connect what they saw down the microscope with folktales of spirits, monsters, and witches. By the Victorian times, the microscope was firmly associated with optical tricks and hidden fantasy lands.
The science of the microscope is therefore a spooky one. By extending our sight, the microscope raised a question we just can’t shake …
What else might be hiding in the dark?
Emily Whittingham
October 2026
