Charles Brooke (surgeon)

In addition to these he was connected with many philanthropic and religious societies, and was a very active member of the Victoria Institute and Christian Medical Association.

His public papers and lectures generally pertained to the department of physics, mathematical and experimental, and his more special work was the inventing or improving of apparatus and especially of self-recording instruments for scientific use.

[2][3][4][5] Brooke also studied the theory of the microscope, and was the author of some inventions which facilitated the shifting of lenses, and improved the illumination of the bodies observed.

His name is, however, most popularly known by means of the Elements of Natural Philosophy, originally compiled by Dr. Golding Bird in 1839, who alone brought out the second and third editions.

Between 1846 and 1852 Charles Brooke[2][3][4] invented a series of self-recording instruments for the automatic registration of measurements using a light-source, mirrors and optics to amplify readings and a clockwork drum covered in photographic paper to record the results.

Charles Brooke's inventions obtained an award from the British Admiralty as well as a medal from the jurors of the Great Exhibition.

The Smithsonian report also noted that the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory had a self-registering magnetograph in 1850, which was described by General John Henry Lefroy, in Silliman's Journal, May, 1850.