Kofler bench


A Kofler bench or Kofler hot-stage microscope is a metal strip with a temperature gradient. Any substance can be placed on a section of the strip revealing its thermal behaviour at the temperature at that point.
This melting-point apparatus for use with a microscope was developed by the Austrian pharmacognosist Ludwig Kofler and his wife Adelheid Kofler. In 1936, the Koflers and Mayrhofer published their "Mikroskopische Methoden in der Mikrochemie" , Kofler and Kofler published their "Thermomikromethoden" in 1954.
Kofler, his wife Adelheid, and their colleague, Maria Kuhnert-Brandstätter, investigated numerous organic molecules, and published some 250 papers describing their work.
Thermomicroscopy, incepted by Ludwig and Adelheid Kofler and developed further by Maria Kuhnert-Brandstätter and Walter C. McCrone is a technique for studying the phases of solid drug substances.