[f. Gr. στερεό-ς solid + -SCOPE.]
1. An instrument for obtaining, from two pictures (usually photographs) of an object, taken from slightly different points of view (corresponding to the positions of the two eyes), a single image giving the impression of solidity or relief, as in ordinary vision of the object itself.
In the original form of the instrument (reflecting stereoscope), invented by Wheatstone, the images were combined by means of mirrors placed at a suitable angle; the common form (refracting or lenticular stereoscope), invented afterwards by Brewster, has two tubes each containing a lens, through which the two pictures are viewed by the corresponding eyes.
1838. C. Wheatstone, in Phil. Trans., CXXVIII. 374. I … propose that it be called a Stereoscope, to indicate its property of representing solid figures.
1849. Rep. Brit. Assoc., II. 6. The most generally useful of these forms is the Lenticular Stereoscope.
1856. Mech. Mag., 12 Jan., 36. The Cosmorama Stereoscope.
1858. Edin. Rev., Oct., 453. The books of Mr. Newman, the well-known philosophical-instrument-maker supply … evidence of his having constructed stereoscopes for Professor Wheatstone in … the year 1832.
1861. Sir D. Brewster, in Mrs. Gordon, Home Life (1869), 346. I am not the discoverer of the Stereoscope. I am only the inventor of the Lenticular Stereoscope now in universal use.
1863. Fawcett, Pol. Econ., I. v. (1876), 59. The stereoscope has now become a drawing-room toy.
2. Surg. An instrument resembling a catheter, for detecting solid foreign bodies, as calculi. rare.
1857. Dunglison, Med. Lex., Stereoscope..., an instrument for detecting a calculus in the bladder, and foreign bodies in the soft parts.
