I have just finished S. D. Humphrey’s American Hand Book of the Daguerreotype (1858) (available for free from Project Gutenberg). As everyone knows and states quite often: this book is utterly devoid of safety. On page 81, Humphrey states (with one of the few cautionary asides):

If by accident (we would not advise a trial to any extent of this), you should inhale a quantity of the vapor of bromine, immediately inhale the vapor of aqua ammonia, as this neutralizes the dangers effects of the bromine vapor.

Now admittedly I’m not medically or chemically savvy enough to say with any authority whether this method would work; to me it just sounds like a bad idea.

Once you get past the lack of safety and, really, the lack of knowledge that a lot of the chemicals were actually dangerous, the book is a must read. A must read for daguerreotypists anyway. Even though a lot of the procedures he uses can be replaced with mechanical means or require extra considerations of safety, there is a pile of information that allows one to fine tune and troubleshoot the process as well as whet their appetite for experimentation. Once I start using mercury development it would be great to try some of the formulas he describes for preparing the ‘quick’.

There is also a chapter on light and optics. The mid 1800s concept of light is more limited from ours now but it’s fascinating to read their perspective. They knew that daguerreotypes were sensitive to blue light and a light beyond the blue which they called lavender. For some reason (perhaps it’s the physicist in me) I found this endlessly funny! Lavender light!?! Now I’m sure the information was dumbed down quite a bit for the audience but still, I found it funny.

Anyway, the book has a lot of interesting insights and ideas. It is worth the read or even just to have around as a reference. This book probably contains most of the final ‘best practices’ of the art before it rapidly went into decline in the 1860s. In a book I recently picked up, J. Towler’s The Silver Sunbeam (1864), the daguerreotype process is confined to a mere 4 pages out of the 330+ pages describing photographic processes. Only 6 years after Humphrey’s hand book and the daguerreotype process is barely more than a footnote. However, it does have this to say about the process (p.268):

The Daguerreotype
A photograph on a silver or silvered plate is superior in definition and beauty to all other photographs taken on other materials.

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