. -·- +:�..·:-::_ :�·-.

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9 780815 315612
 nstrulllents o c1ence
•

An istorica Encyc o�e ia

•

\'../.
....
,

Editors
Robert Bud
;: .
'' '
', '
·.'· .
i::�
..
·' .
:_.
The Science Museum, London

Deborah Jean Warner

The National Museum of American History
Smithsonian Institution

Associate Editor
Stephen Johns_ton
Museum of the History of Science, Oxford

[}{ . Managing Editor

·Betsy Bahr Peterson
The Science Museum, London

Picture Editor
Simon Chaplin
The· Science Museum, London

THE SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDON

and
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, SMITHSONIAN JNSTITUTION
in association with
GARLAND PUBLISHING, INC.
A member of the Taylor & Francis Group
New York & London
·
. ·.
: ..
.
1998
Copyright © 1998 by The Science Museum, London and The National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Ail rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Instruments of Science : an historical encyclopedia / editors, Robert Bud,

Deborah Jean Warn�r.
p. cm. - ( Garland encylopedias in the history of science ;
vol. 2) (Garland reference library of-social science ; v. 936)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8153-1561-9 (alk. paper)
1. Scientific apparatus and instruments-History-Encyclopedias. ·
I. Bud, Robert. II. Warner, Deborah Jean. III. Series. ·IV. Series: Garla�d
reference library of social science ; v. 936.
Q184.5.I57 1998
502.8'4-dc21 - 97-15296
CIP

Cover photograph: French equatorium, ca. 1600. Courtesy Board of Trustees of

the National Museum and Galleries on Merseyside.
•

Caver design by Karin Badger

Printed on acid-free, 250-year-life paper

Manufactured in the United States of America
 Series Introduction

..
:,./ · Since_ World War II, the historical study of science has grown enormously. Once the domain of a
:1/.'. few scientists interested in their intellectual genealogy and a scattering of intellectual historians,
:: philosophers of science, and sociologists of knowledge, it is now a mature and independent disci-
:•:-.

·.::
}. pline. However, historians of science have not had a way until now to make the essentials of their
t.; · subject accessible to high school and college students, scholars in other disciplines, and the general
;( public. The encyclopedias in this series will furnish concise historical information and summarize
'/-·:: the latest research in a form accessible to those without scientific or mathematical training.
f
.;..,.. . .

[ Each volume in the series will be independent from the others. The focus of a particular volume
�::, · may be a scientific discipline (such as astronomy), a topic that transcends disciplines (such as
if .laboratories and instruments or science in the United States), or a relationship between a science
:·�,.i/{: and another aspect of culture (for example, science and religion). The same entry title may ap-
�;-\·. pear in a number of volumes, perhaps with a different author, as individual volume editors and
[('.· co-editors approach the subject from different contexts.
,, .. · .

F'
t\,
·!• ' .

What is common to each of the volumes is a concern for the historiography of the history of
�}: science. By historiography, I mean the recognition that there is never an undisputed explanation
�\·; : of past events. Instead, historians struggle to corne to a consensus about the facts and significant
Nf issues and argue over the most valid historical explanations. The authors of the entries in this
�f; •·.and the other volumes in the series were asked to provide entries that are accurate and balanced,
�/i while also being cognizant of how historical interpretations changed over time. Where historio­
ii(.-: gra:phic debate has occurred, authors were asked to address that debate. They were also given
(,•,,,

:::_:: ) the freedom to express their own positions on these issues.

1( · The
t·.:,_.

extent to which historiographie issues are prominent in the entries varies from entry to entry
1\ and from volume to volume, according to the richness of the historical literature and the depth of
tr. - the debate. Even for a subject with a rich historiographie literature, such as science in the United
}· . .

f , States, there are topics for which there is little scholarship. The one or two scholars working on a
f(: · particular topic may still be laboring to uncover the facts and get the chronology correct. For other
: .

/:>.. · fields, there may have been too few active scholars for the development of a complex debate on
<: almost any topic.
:,.. .: .
;
:'

t _ Each entry also provides a concise, selected bibliography on the topic. Further bibliographie in-
iC. - formation can be obtained from the volumes in the Garland series Bibliographies on the History
U- of Science and Technology, edited by Robert Multhauf and Ellen Wells.
. ..

Marc Rothenberg
Smithsonian Institution

••
SERIES INTRODUCTION Vll
Introduction

Who invented the gyroscope? How has the telescope evolved? For what have bomb calorimeters
been used? How has changing gas testing technology been reflected in the cost of instruments?
This volume differs significantly from other histories of scientific instruments: its 32 7 entries ad­
dress topics ranging from antiquity to the present day and include instruments designed for rou­
tine testing as well as those used for cutting-edge research. More than two hundred scientists,
instrument pioneers, historians, and sociologists contributed entries, each of which is accompa­
nied by a list of further readings and an illustration.

What Is a Scientific Instrument?

S�ientific instruments are central to the practice of science. Ali too often they have been taken for
granted. Nonetheless, while most would agree that telescopes and microscopes are scientific in­
struments, it has proved as difficult to establish a general definition of the category as it has been
to define science itself. One of the first attempts was made by the distinguished British physicist
James Clerk Ma?CWell. Speaking at London's South Kensington Loan Exhibition in 1876, Max­
well defined instruments narrowly as those that were specifically made for scientific experiments.
A generation later, the Oxford English Dictionary distinguished instruments from tools by their
scientific purpose. Today most dictionaries emphasize measurement. In addition to those defini­
tions, lists, catalogues, encyclopedias, and common usage also configure our thinking.

The approach taken in this volume is pragmatic but not unprincipled and has been guided by a
sensit_ivity to the cp.anging historical forms of natural knowledge. There are, therefore, entries re­
lating to the mathematical sciences from antiquity onwards, the natural philosophy of the seven­
teenth and eighteenth centuries, physics and chemistry and the newly emerging life sciences of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the applied and engineering sciences, which have corne
to increasing prominence in recent years.

This historicist approach has some important consequences. For exarnple, we have chosen instru­
ments that no longer figure in modern conceptions of science, including early modern drawing
instrum�nts and sectors used in mathematics and geometry, the spheres and astrolabes of as­
tronomy, and the cross-staffs and sextants of navigation. At the other end of the spectrum, the
recent developments in biology and biotechnology suggested entries that confound traditional con­
ceptions of an instrument, including four organisms that are crucial in biological research-E. coli,
neurospora, drosophila, and the mouse. Reflecting the importance of applied science, we have also
explored the usës of instruments in sites of routine testing and monitoring such as the hospital,
the petroleum refinery, and the airplane cockpit.

INTRODUCTION IX

,,
Carrent Scholarship
The historical significance of instruments has become vastly better understood·thàn was the case
even a decade ago. The growing material record preserved in museums has challenged and inspired
curators to focus upon its meaning. The practice of science equally has attracted detailed atten­
tion from a wide field of historians, philosophers, and sociologists. 1 This volume has benefited
from. their enormous efforts as well as from the knowledge and experience of practitioners.

Despite such expertise, the complexity and scope of science remain a formidable challenge. While
for some instruments we are in a position to locate a detailed understanding within a rich con­
text-intellectual, social, and economic-for others even the establishment of a skeletal chronol­
ogy has proven difficult. Thus this volume represents current understanding and the questions
being raised by scholars today.

Science may be international, but its practice is often affected by local conditions, where both the
uses of instruments and their patterns of evolution diverge and where manufacturers, key people,
and urgent problems differ. Whereas this volume is international in scope, the emphases of the
authors, who work in a dozen countries, naturally reflect their own experience and knowledge.
Readers will find themselves challenged to produce accounts reflecting the local conditions most
familiar to themselves and to develop further international overviews.

Moreover, in many modern worksites, instruments.areoften brought together into .systems and
networks, becoming part of ensembles such as astronomical observatories, mineralogical labo­
ratories, or automobile dashboards. .Although our A-Z listing of individual instruments preserves
the sense of instruments as distinctive and unique artifacts, we hope that scholars will integrate
accounts of individual instruments in ways that this volume could not attempt.

How Significant Is an Instrument?

The instruments discussed in this volume were selected from texts on the history of science, trade
catalogues, museum collections, and treatises on modern scientific practice.2 Although the selec­
tion can not be comprehensive, it does encompass most well-known devices, including those that
have been important in the creation of new scientific fields and that have been widely used over
long periods of .time. It also includes many that have been used for practical applications from
cell counting to paper-making, as well as some designed for education.

Although ail instruments are clearly not of equal importance to the development of scientific
ptactice, allocation of space in this volume could not possibly reflect the scale of such diversity.
Cross-references to other entries are indicated by bold type. Lists of further reading suggest the
fuller accounts that we could not provide for the history of better-known devices. In other cases,
however, this volume's entries bring together for the first time information available in scattered
and often obscure sources. Therefore, the space allocated to each of our instruments falls within
a relatively narrow range: most entries are· approximately one thousand words in length.

The volume is intended to communicate clearly to a wide audience and is itself the product of a
diverse community of specialists. In most cases, therefore, modern units, rather than cont�mpo­
rary or archaic measures, are used. Moreover, it has not been possible to standardize to e.ither
metric or imperial so both will be found.

The lists of up to five further readings follow each entry. These also serve to provide full refer­
ences for sources referred to in the text or in picture captions. Many of the photographs corne
from the collections of the Science & Society Picture Library at the Science Museum or from the
collections of the National Museum of American History.

This volume is the result of a collaboration between two major national museums and draws upon
the strengths of their object, archivai, and picture collections. Their institutional support and ac­
cumulated resources have made this volume possible. We are grateful also ,to the members of the

X INTRODUCTION
 advisory committee who providèd valuable guidance throughout the project. Severa! staff mem­
bers of the two museums worked bard to ensure the success of this multinational endeavor. We
are grateful to Angela Murphy for facilitating the provision of Science Museum photographs,
Catherine Cooper for· work with copyright clearances, Charlotte Cowling and Tia Snell, who
· checked bibliographie references, Susan Gordon for her help with computing, and Marjorie Castle,
Julia Law, Lorraine Gray, and Margaret Sone, who sustained the network of editors, authors, fax
machines, e-mails, and entries with effitiency and good humor. We are also delighted to thank
.. Sarah Angliss, Eunice Petrini, and the production staff at Garland who employed great care, te­
nacity, and patience to ensure the project would finally finish.

Robert Bud
Deborah Jean Warner
Stephen Johnston

. Notes
1. See, for example, such general guides to the history of scientific instruments as J .A.
Bennett, The Divided Circle: A History of lnstrumen'ts for Astronomy, Navigation and
Surveying, Oxford: Phaidon, 1987; Maurice Daumas, Scientific Instruments of the Seven­
teenth and Eighteenth Centuries, translated by Mary Holbrook, New York: Praeger,
·: ' :
1972; Anthony Turner, Eàrly Scientific Instruments, Europe 1400-1800, London: Philip
Wilson for Sotheby's, 1987; Gerard L'E. Turner, Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instru­
ments, Berkeley: University of California Press; London: Philip Wilson, 1983; Albert Van
Helden and Thomas L. Hankins, eds., "Instruments." Osiris 9 (1994): 1-250.
:. 2
. The search for appropriate entries was carried out over several years. Without being com­
prehensive, it might be useful to list such general works on current scientific instruments
a.s W.H. Cubberly, Comprehensive Dictionary of Instrumentation and Control, Research
Triangle, North Carolina: Instrumentation Society of U.S.A., 1988; L. Finkelstein and
·. K.T.V. Grattan, Concise Encyclopedia of Measurement and Instrumentation, Oxford:
Pergamon, 1994; B.E. Noltingk, Jones' Instrument Technology, 4th ed., London:
Butterworth, 1985; Peter Payne, Biological and Biomedical Measurement Systems, Ox­
.: : . .
.' , ... ford: Pergamon, 1991; and J.G. Webster, ed., Encyclopedia of Medical Devices and In­
strumentation, New York: Wiley, 1988.

•
INTRODUCTION Xl
 i··.

i-_:means of a worm gear, and then allowed to fall

(and fracture the test piece. In its upward move­
tia of the instrument, of the elements submitted
to pressure, must be as low as possible. The his­ I
}ment the pendulum carries a pointer over a tory of indicators is that of the improvement of
f:.s: emicircular scale that is graduated in degrees. their performance, which can be described in
WThe energy absorbed in breaking the specimen terms of the evolution of their self-frequency. The
�(is read from a table that indicates the angle Watt-Southern indicator had 6 Hz, the indicator
[fthrough which the pointer is carried by the with mechanical amplification up to 150 Hz, the
�Ymoving·pendulum. rnicro-indicator up to 400 Hz, the manograph up
t:: The Izod Machine is similar in principle, to 25,000 Hz, and the piezo-electric indicators
�\but larger and floor-standing. It has a pendu­ up to 50,000 Hz before World War Il, and up to
!t:lum ab.out 4 feet long that can swing through 150,000 Hz in the 1970s.
�: an angle of about 120°. A small vice, fixed to
lt:the base of the machine, grips the specimen in Use
t\a vertical position, as a cantilever, with the Indicators can be used on all engines through
t::notch facing the hammer. The knife-edge on which a gas or steam under pressure produces
/:?the·hammer st�ikes the specimen·and fractures or conveys mechanical energy: thermal engines
°
0.'Ït. The hammer will have swung through 60 (steam engines, internai combustion piston en­
[{:before striking the specimen, and through less gines, jet engines), pneumatic machines, canons
°
[;jthan 60 from its lowest position. The differ­ and guns, and so forth. They allow us to follow
f'.Ùence between these angles is reco{'.ded on the and to record the evolution of pressure during
�{scale and is a measure of the energy absorbed one or several working cycles, which is essen­
;�
t�Fin striking the specimen. As it is usual
. . . to make tial for ail studies concerning power, efficiency,
{tat least three tests on a specimen, the Izod test mechanical strength, and thermodynamic calcu­
(rpiece is often provided with notches on three lations. Indicator diagrams relate pressure to
{ faces. Graphs facilita te comparisons between time or to volume. The surfaces of these dia­
{results obtained on the Charpy and Izod test­ grams are proportional to the indicated work
U,in g machines. clone by the working fluid (but different from
��...-.
.....
:::.
,
.
. Denis Smith the work measured on the crankshaft by means
of dynamometric brakes). The Briti�h engineer
't···: .
�-· , · ,.

1?:•Bibliography R.H. Thurston, at the end of the nineteenth

i\ Carrington, Herbert. Experimental Mechan­ century, described the indicator as the engineer's
{; _ _ ics of Materials. London: Pitman, 1930. stethoscope.

r· -.
l\ Popplewell, William Charles. Experimental Indicators also played a major role in the
Engineering. Vol. 2. Manchester: Scien­ establishment and rise of thermal engine theory.
;/ . tific, 1901. Thus Emile Clapayron, inspired by the indica­
[s'Unwin, W illiam Cawthorne. The Testing of tor diagrams o( the steam engines, traced in
?;_ ·_ · _Materials of Construction. 2nd ed. Lon-· 1834 the Carnot cycle in a pressure-volume
-·
:
- don: Longmans, 1899. coordinate system.

History and Types of Indicators

· lndicator The development of the indicator was linked to
•·i Indicators measure and record the pressure ex­ the use of the .ne·w steam engine (using steam
:· erted by steam_ or gas in an engine, and through expansion) patented by James Watt in 1782.
< _ it other mechanical magnitudes such as power, Around 1790, Watt built an instrument with a
work, speed, ·and acceleration. They consist of cylinder enclosing a piston that moved in equi­
three basic elements: a pressure pickup, an am­ librium between steam pressure and a spring.
·_ - plification system,. and a recording device. Indi­ The piston was linked to a pointer, soon to be
_- cators were exclusively mechanical during the replaced by a peri and fiat ch3:rt. The movements
major part of the nineteenth century. Later ones of the pointer or pen were proportional to the
incorporated optical, electrical, and electronic -volume gen�rated by the piston movement. This
elements. improved "work measurer" or "ergQineter" was
The quality of an indicator is defined by its developed by John Southern, Watt's collabora­
sensitivity to the slightest changes of pressure, tor. His instrument was kept hidden in Boulton's
and this quality becomes difficult to maintain as & Watt's workshop, and first mentioned in an
the speed of evolution increases. Thus the iner- English publication in 1822.

INDICATOR 325
 ·'.

•
,.

•.

'i

.,·

�·�:.... .
.. :.'·�·. ,:.

·,

·-:'

James Wq,tt's steam engine indicator, ca. 1796. SM 1890-83. Courtesy of SSPL.

Around 1830 John McNaught replaced indicators that could record successive closed
the fla t ch art wi th a rotating drum. Arthur diagrams as well as indicators able to measure
Morin and Paul Garnier of France introduced the work developed during a period of time·.

INDICATOR
 •

Mechanical Amplification Indicators. In

:t••· 1862, the American C.B. Richard invented the
quency of 500 Hz. Manographs were con­
stantly improved until World War II� The most I
f first mechanical indicator designed to reduce efficient one was built by the French professor
&:::
� .
the inertia of the moving parts.as' well as spring Max Serruys in 1932; it had a self-frequency of
<�f�- ·.. vibrations. Instruments of this sort were 25,000 Hz.
i�\ equipped with low-flexibility springs that ai-
t.(. · lowed only a short stroke of the piston, and a Electric and Electronic Indicators. The
iii mechanical linkage that amplified the move­ first electric indicators were created in the
}}:
:\\ ment and thus increased the scale of the record.
(,,; .
...
United States in the late 1920s, and they rap­
it: • Other inventors tried to increase the self-fre- idly eliminated all competitors. They incorpo­
�:< . quency of the spring, but could not go beyond rated a pressure pickup (transducer) that de­
�J:..
t::.
i.,·:'
300 Hz. livered, after amplification with an electronic
r.. :.·-.··
...
:,
.�;( .. .
device, an electrical signal to a galvanometer
Stroboscopie Indicators. Around 1870, the or a cathode tube registering system. The use
1 .',:

[{'·
!;._;. G·er-man engineer G.A. Hirn and the Frenchman of transistors after 1950, and microprocessors
}f:,- :, Marcel Deprez created a m�fhod for raising a after 1989, greatly increased the efficiency of
�{,; "stroboscopie diagram,' that made it possible to the amplifier.
J(. reduce if not to eliminate the inertia of moving Pressure transducers, which use deforrna­
}c parts. It supposed that at each turn of the crank- tions of an elastic diaphragm, are of several
·\,, ·..

�t' .
�f' shaft only one point of the diagram was regis- forms. One is the rnagnetic transducer, in which
- tered, ail the diagrams being a succession of an . iron core fixed on the diaphragm under pres­
tr· . points obtained after a high number of cycles. sure moves inside a coil creating an electrical
�i(·, .Two types of indicators were built to exploit cÙrrent. Another is the capacity variation trans­
1.'.

:·

t:;'. · this method: those for which pressure is chosen ducer, which uses a condenser capacity with
:;

in advance and the piston position is revealed, movable plates to control the electric current.
i{>\( '. and those for. which the piston position is fixed The stroboscopie method was often used with
['. · · and �he pressure is revealed. Deprez built the indicators of this sort.
The other major type of pressure trans­
ducer uses modifications of the intrinsic prop­
��·:'V:�.:.'. boscopic indicators were abando�ed in the erties of the item submitted to pressure. The
�( · 1930s. major categories here are electric resistance
M\•·­ . variation transducers, which use-the electric
;1t.;: ,., .· High-Frequency Mechanical Indic4tors variation of small carbon disks subrnitted to a
�
t.t< and Micro-Indicators. These use an encased pressure, and quartz-pressure transducers,
......:i,: .

ft:. stem as a spring that permits the self-frequency which are based on the piezo-electric properties
J.f\ to be increased to 1,200 Hz and are charac­ · of quartz (n.amely the creation of electric
�L- .terized by very small diagrams. The micro­ charges. when a crystal is compressed ùnder
lK:�: .· indicator is based on a strong reduction of the specific conditions). Discovered by Jacques
..
. .

E;" instrument dimensions and the elimination of and Pierre Curie in 1880, this phenomenon was
t) the amplification device. The first micro- applied to indicators in the middle of the 1930s
t( indic_ator was probably built by O. Macler in by the German professors Kamm, Rickert, and
..

1912. These indicators were abandoned in the Kieln. Modern quartz-pressure transducers are
•: ·: .

;( .
�} 1930 s.
�:
the most ·efficient and the most common.
L:
(·. .::
......
· .
Alexandre Herléa
'.·
.,..
:•. .
�' .:
Optical Indicators or Manographs. The
_··,. manograph is characterized by an optical am- Bibliography
,

pl.ification system. Here the pressure element is De Juhasz, Kalman John. The Engine Indica­
connected with one or two srnall mirrors on tor: It's Design, Theory and Special Ap­
:which a light beam is focused, and a screen or plications. New York Instruments, •

p·hotographic plate replaces the drum of the 1934.

mechanical indicator. Deprez created the first Herléa, Alexandre. "Les indicateurs de pres­
manograph in 1877; this was a two:mirror in­ sion: Leur évolution en France au 19e
strument. The first commercially ·successful siècle.'' In Studies in the History of Sci­
manograph, built by the British professor John entific Instruments: Papers Presented at
Perry in 1890, had one mirror and a self-fre- the 7th Symposium of the Scientific In-

I N D I C AT O R 3 27.
 struments Commission of the Union portions in the same coil acted as primary and
Internationale d'Histoire et de Philo­ secondary circuits.
sophie des Sciences, edited by Christine Callan was influenced by the electromag­
Blondel, et al., 193-234. London: Rogers netic researches of his friend William Sturgeon,
Turner, 1989. the shoemaker turned scientific lecturer and
Labarthe, André. Nouvelles méthodes de inventor of electrical instruments, and also by
mesure mécanique. Paris: Ministère de Henry and Faraday, in that order. His,earliest ,,
l'Air, 1936. induction coils (1836) were derived from his
Roberts, Howard Creighton. Mechanical electromagnets (18 34). His device was still an
Measurements by Electrical Methods. autotransformer similar to Page's 1835 configu­
·
Pittsburg, Pa.: Instruments, 1946. ration, except that now the wires of the two·
Zelbstein, Uri. La piezo-electricité appliquée coils were of different thicknesses. His repeater
à l'etude des moteurs. Paris: Ministère de energizing the coils was a rocking. wire whose
l'Air, 1947. ends dipped alternately into cups of mercury,
operated by a clockwork motor. The electric
shocks were taken from the beginning of the
Induction Coil first and the end of the second coil, but by 183'7 ,.
<?:
An induction coil produces high-voltage sparks. he kept the two coils separate and ·took the· .J
lt usually consists of two sets of windings that shock only from the secondary coiL. This was ·..j
are either wound close to, or on top of, one the configuration of the genuine induction coil. · <�
another. Current from a battery is passed During the second phase of development,- . \}
through the primary winding, which has a small the prototypes became marketable products. ·�;•
···/{;
number of turns, and is rapidly interrupted ei­ .

ther by a mechanical or an electrical device.

This sudden make-and-break in the current of them by winding on the wooden bobbin first the · 5J
r e
the primary coil induces an emf (voltage) in the
secondary coil, which has a much larger num­
ber of turns. The amount of emf is related to the
!it::�; m:�; ���::::.!�J�:f:! !:;:� · )j
(secondary coil). He compared the behavior of j:��
1 0
ratio of the number of turns in the two coils,
and this can be many tens of thousands of volts,
depending on how well the coil has been con­
::�:�::::.:â ia� ::1!:; ;����:�
c:i::; ),11
more intense sparks. George Henry Bachhoffner, _ ..·\�
.·:·::�{

structed. The interrupter has its origin in early­ the founder of the Polytechnic Institution in ifî
nineteenth-century medical electricity, when London, had made the same observation with
0 jj
physicians began to use voltaic batteries. They
were so used to the intermittent shocks pro­
one
��!!;!: c
:;:o ���i:J s::;;:l �:;��:�pters. )i
duced by the previous generation of electro­
static machines that they devised mechanically
ln the 1840s a popular medical coil pattern ·
had both a manual and an electromagnetic in-:- ·•·- �•
:i]
operated interrupters to "break up" the con­ terrupter, so that either strong or weak shocks . (i
tinuons current of the battery. could be administered (depending on the speed •· :Jj
Much of the early pioneering work was of the interruptions). A particularly popular :"r.i
type was based on Barlow's wheel, in which ·. ii!
: .. :.....;;
done independently by Nicholas Joseph Callan,
a priest who taught physics at Maynooth Col­ the stars of the wheel rotated by hand would }� ... f;:
lege near Dublin, and by Charles Grafton Page, clip into a mercury trough during rotation. A · •);�;
a physician and designer of electrical in�tru­
ments of Salem, Massachusetts. At this time the
key factor was the development of the electro-
magnetic interrupter begun by Page in 1837, '-·
)!i�
basic principles were determined almost entirely :-:( ;
but this too had several antecedents, including :'}� �
by means of trial and error. Callan's rocking repeater. Page's most success- ;-:/�
The induction coil and the related termi­ fui design was a precursor of the auto_matic ·. };�::, . ..

nology (inductance, self-inductance, and induc­ hammer break, or vibrator, similar to the
•\�
tive current) originated from research with flat device that has become so corilrnon with the · · {

<
:;•:.��;
spiral coils of copper ribbons insulated with silk electric bell. A similar device was described · · .,.
.

that was conducted by Joseph Henry, a young by James William McGauley in 1837 and de- !]
instructor at the Albany Academy in Albany, veloped further by the physician Golding Bird, <\\:
· :.:•\� ,:
New York. Page continued this work, inventing the London instrument-maker William N�eeves· · .:f'
the first autotransformer in which different (1838), Ernst Neeff (1839), and o.thers.

3 28 I N D I C AT O R