About a 1000 years ago (in computer/biotech years), no medical tests were automated. Everything was done by hand. Almost everything involved wet chemistry or wet microbiology. Until the early 1970’s, when a big hulking device was developed for and marketed by Corning (then Corning Glass Works)- the LARC- the leukocyte automatic recognition classifier. This amazing device was able to discern the percentage of leukocytes on a blood smear and classify them into six types- at a then unheard of rate of 100 cells a minute.