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Cathcart Freezing Microtome

This is the Cathcart Freezing Microtome, which is dated 1906, named after Charles Walker Cathcart, Conservator and Curator of the Museum. A microtome is an instrument that allows for specimens, such as tissue samples, to be sliced thinly so that they can be viewed as a slide under the microscope. The most common way of preparing samples traditionally was by embedding the tissue in molten paraffin wax. When it had set, these could then be sliced. This particular microtome used an ether spray to first freeze, and then cut samples.