Mounted on a wooden case, this simple Raspail monocular microscope was widely used until the middle of the nineteenth century. Due to aberration in compound microscope objectives, many single-lens microscopes of this period actually performed better than their more complex counterparts.

The microscope illustrated above contains a single convergent lens mounted in a loop diaphragm housed in a brass mount, which is attached to a horizontal support fastened to the vertical limb. Beneath the lens is a round glass plate that acts as the stage, and is also mounted on the limb by means of a brass bar. The original microscope was equipped with a concave mirror located beneath the glass stage that allowed observation with transmitted illumination. Accompanying the microscope are a set of our auxiliary lenses of different refractive power.

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