Collodion

In 1846, Louis-Nicolas Ménard and Florès Domonte discovered that cellulose nitrate could be dissolved in ether.

[1] They devised a mixture of ether as the solvent and ethanol as a diluent that rendered cellulose nitrate into a clear gelatinous liquid.

[2][3] The solution was dubbed "collodion" (from the Greek κολλώδης (kollodis), gluey) by Augustus Addison Gould of Boston, Massachusetts.

[4] In 1851, Frederick Scott Archer, an Englishman, discovered that collodion could be used as an alternative to egg white (albumen) on glass photographic plates.

Richard Hill Norris, a doctor of medicine and professor of physiology at Queen's College, Birmingham (a predecessor college of Birmingham University),[6] is generally credited with the first development of dry collodion plate when in 1856 he took out a new patent for a dry plate used in photography in which the emulsion was coated with gelatine or gum arabic to preserve its sensitivity.

Alfred Stieglitz, c. 1894 , collodion print by Frank S. Herrmann
Anonymous "A Veteran with his Wife", ambrotype
Julia Margaret Cameron 's " Alice Liddell as a Young Woman" print from wet collodion negative
Rev. David Leavitt, ca. 1855, wet collodion negative, Library of Congress