Retinotype

Source / Recreative Science
Title / Mike Ware


It has been concluded by doctors in America, that the last image formed on the retina of the eye of a dying person remains impressed upon it like the image on a photograph, and that if the last object seen by a murdered person was his murderer, the portrait drawn upon the eye would remain a fearful witness in death to detect him and lead to his conviction.

Dr. Sandford, of New York, reports that he examined the eye of a murdered man at Auburn by means of the microscope, and found impressed on the retina the rude, worn away figure of a man, supposed to be the assassin.


Mike Ware is a british chemist and inventor of the New Cyanotype process – amongst others and an author of many books.

Source: Recreative Science: a record and remembrancer of intellectual observation (Vols 1 and 2, Groombridge and Sons, London 1860/1) In which C.M.Archer contributed articles on an ‘Anecdote History of Photography’

p.s. this is NOT a serious process and should not be tried at home.

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