Signedunsigned
Inscribedon lid of box: W. B. D.
Historical AttributesThis pocket microscope was owned by Captain Sandwith Drinker (1808-1857), a merchant of Macau, China. It was later owned by his daughter, Catharine A. Janvier (nee Drinker) (1841-1922). Upon her death, she passed it on to her nephew, Dr. C. K. Drinker, Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Physiology. Dr. Drinker gave it to Dr. Lewis on 2 March 1942.
Dr. Drinker believed that the microscope belonged at one time to Morgan Rodman Drinker, a cousin of Captain Sandwith Drinker. It is possible that the initials on the box (W. B. D.) were poorly written in China by a non-English reader who intended to copy M. R. D.
ProvenancePossibly Morgan Rodman Drinker; passed to her cousin, Captain Sandwith Drinker (1808-1857), merchant of Macau, China, before 1857; his daughter, Catharine A. Janvier (nee Drinker) (1841-1922), 1857-1922; her nephew, Dr. C. K. Drinker, Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Physiology, 1922-1942; gift to Dr. Frederic T. Lewis, Department of Anatomy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 2 March 1942; Ernst-Lewis Collection of Microscopes (inv. no. 163), Harvard Medical School.