I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS

[JustAnotherTheory]

Thanks @proto57, I spent the past few hours reading your blog, it is very interesting. The parallels with the early microscopes are striking. I searched for other examples of tripod microscopes and "bulby" microscopes from the 19th century, and indeed I found several more in contemporary microscope journals that closely ressemble the containers in the VMS. I will post the results in another thread, in the "Imagery" section of the forum, when I'm ready.