[ihnorton]

The point that you miss is that microscopy is still a bottleneck in developing and rural areas. H&E staining is not that hard, but you are right that maintaining reagents and a clean lab is a logistical challenge.

Still, a lot of smart money says the smartphone-pic-to-clinician thing could have a big impact. See Foldscope, for example, which takes this idea to the next level: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...

By the way, nice to see a Raman shout-out! Here's a slightly newer Raman paper with some nice pictures (compulsory open-access for the win): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3806096/

[gone35]

You are absolutely right: the fact that microscopy is not sufficient doesn't mean it's not necessary in the first place. Besides, a portable microscope would definitely be a boon for other types of clinical work like urianalysis --as elij pointed out-- or plasmodia detection (for some species, at least). I stand corrected.

[elij]

Microscopy is also the limiting factor in _developed_ areas when it comes to urinalysis which I'm sure this solution can easily be adapted for.