Lesson 51: Ether
Anesthesia goes way back. Lots of people had different ways of relieving pain. In 1804 Fredrick Surturner invented morphine, and Ether was used as a collage party drug. Crawford Long was born in Georgia in 1815. He grew up in a wealthy family and became a surgeon after many years of studying. He moved home to Georgia and read a lot. He noticed the properties of Ether seeing that when someone got hurt, they did not, after becoming sober remember any pain or that it had happened. He invented the idea of Ether as an anesthetic in 1842. It was used by putting it on a rag and the person having the surgery breathing it in. He experimented on a brain surgery and when it was complete the man said he had felt something sort of itchy but no pain, the crowed marveled. Sometimes it did make people sick though. Long did not get credit until after his death. That’s because of three men. Men named Jackson, Morton and Wells. They all discovered Ether a little bit after Long. They had terrible fights about it for years. This is how it all ended: Jackson read an article saying that Morton was the discoverer of Ether and he went crazy. He died in an insane asylum. Morton read an article about Jackson being the true inventor. He tried to commit suicide by drowning himself. Instead, he got a heart attack and died. On his tombstone it said he was the true discoverer. When Wells saw what Morton put on his tombstone, he went crazy and committed suicide in an asylum. They all probably got the idea of ether from Long, and in the end the History books call him the inventor. March 30th is National Doctors Day. The same day Crawford Long used Ether for the first time. It has led to Anesthesia being a field all on its own. This was the most interesting thing I learned about this week. It is also a terrible thing that people will fight so hard to take credit for something.
Lesson 52: Fax Machine
Before the fax machine it was hard to make copies of important papers. You had to copy by hand. It was hard and time consuming. Alexander Bain was born in Scotland in 1811. His father was a tenant farmer and he had 12 siblings. He became a clockmaker in London. He invented the electric clock around 1840 and this lesson’s invention, the fax machine in 1843. Fax is derived from the word Faxcimily and it is Latin for: make like. It scans, copies and sends documents down a phone line. The graphic image is sent down the telephone line then the image is turned into an audio signal and the other machine, using the signal, makes a reproduction of the original paper. All in about 5 seconds. Bain kept improving the machine and a man named Fredrick Bakewell made a better version. An Italian man made a commercially successful one in 1861. In 1900 Elisha Gray created an even better one. And Xerox invented in the 1990s the modern version. The fax machines connected I Phones with computers and they make running a small business cheap.
Lesson 53: Steam Powered Iron Passengers Ships
Sailing was treacherous. It still is, but less dangerous. The steam boat fixed the problem of sailing up stream. But how could Europe trade with America. It took 80 days round trip and there were no big vessels. Isambard Brunel was born in England in 1806. He was the son of Mark Isambard Brunel the inventor of the tunneling shield. He also had good schooling and his father educated him in many things. He was apprenticed to a clockmaker and helped his father on his tunneling shield. He almost drowned doing so though. He became the chief engineer of the Great Western Railroad and invented the iron steam ship in 1843. He named it the S.S. Great Britain. Its befits were: It shipped on time and had predictable schedules. It also carried lots of passengers cheaply. Brunel was already famous and on top of that his ships out preformed his rival ships. He had grand ideas and he built the S.S. Great Eastern, the biggest ship in the world at the time. And due to immigration demands increased in the 1880s. The S.S. Great Eastern laid the transatlantic telegraph cable and immigrants transformed America. They led to the Gilded Age which gave way to the Progressive Era.
Lesson 54: Ice Cream Maker
There were ice cream types in the ancient world. Royalty enjoyed the treat. So did Roman Emperor Nero. Nero had people whose soul job was to get him ice cream. George Washington also loved ice cream. One year, he spent 200$ on ice cream. That’s the equivalent of 5,000$ today. But, it was too expensive for most people. It took hours just to make a small batch. It was very laborious. The Ice Cream Maker was invented by a woman named Nancy Johnson. Next to nothing is known about her. She patented the Ice Cream Maker in 1843. Cream, Sugar, Vanilla and Milk are what you use in your basic vanilla ice cream recipe. The ice cream maker is a bucket with a crank on it. You put your ice cream mix in a canister and put it in the middle of the bucket. Then you fill the space around the canister with layers of ice and rock salt. The salt lowers the melting point of the ice. Then you crank the handle and mix your ice cream. It makes the process less hard. Nancy Johnson sold the patent and others improved and released different designs. That led to ice cream stores. Also, mass production of ice cream emerged by the second half of the1800s. Ice Cream is cheap, delicious and can be any flavor. It represents the wealth of the western civilization. There are companies that exist just to sell ice cream.
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