Photography the scientist's retina

"The sensitive photographic film is the true retina of the scientists . . . . for it possesses all the properties which science could want; it faithfully preserves images which deposit themselves upon it, and reproduces and multiplies them indefinitely on request; in the radiative spectrum (electromagnetic spectrum) it covers a range more than double that which the eye can perceive and soon perhaps will cover it all; finally it takes advantage of the admirable property which allows the accumulation of events, and whereas our retina erases all impressions more than a tenth of a second old, the photographic retina preserves them and accumulates them over a practically limitless time." P.C.Janssen 1888