Title: Nachet Large Drum Microscope

Identifier: LL02.48.03.10   (https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/22107)

Description: This instrument is the largest of the Nachet drum microscopes. It includes eight objectives, polarizing prisms, camera lucida, 45 degree tilted observation prism, goniometer, stops and condensers in a fitted box. The engraved address, Rue Serpente 16, dates it from 1851-1862. The handle plate on the box is engraved Dr. J. F. M. Geddings, Charleston, South Carolina. The owner was John Frederic Meckel Geddings (1829-1887). He was the son of the well-known surgeon, Eli Geddings. John graduated from the Medical College of South Carolina in 1849 and spent 2 years of advanced study in Paris and Germany. He probably acquired this microscope at that time. After returning to his practice in Charleston, he served as faculty at the Medical College and was president of the South Carolina Medical Society. During the Civil War, Dr. Geddings was Senior Surgeon of the provisional army of the Confederate States, serving at the Adams Run, South Carolina Hospital in 1862, Senior Surgeon for the second military district in 1863, and Surgeon in charge of the third Georgia Hospital in Augusta during 1864. He was particularly interested in pathology and the use of the microscope. Microscopy was already in use at the Medical College of South Carolina before the Civil War and Nachet microscopes were used there (Porcher FP, Illustrations of Disease with the Microscope, Charleston, 1861).