A Kofler bench or Kofler hot-stage microscope is a metal strip with a temperature gradient (range room temperature to 300°C). 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 (30 November 1891 Dornbirn - 23 August 1951 Innsbruck) and his wife Adelheid Kofler. In 1936, the Koflers and Mayrhofer published their "Mikroskopische Methoden in der Mikrochemie" [Kofler, L., A. Kofler and Mayrhofer, A. (1936)], ...