Joseph Lister...Father of Antiseptic Surgery

A broken leg today is very painful. It requires medical treatment, and can be of great inconvenience to the patient during the recuperation stage. Even if the broken bone has pierced the surface of the skin, the patient has every expectation of returning to a normal healthy lifestyle.
Just 150 years ago this was not the case—the leg probably would have been amputated, and in about half of such cases the patient subsequently would have died of infection. The man whose work virtually put an end to this tragic waste of human life was Joseph Lister.

Lister’s early life

Joseph Lister was born in Upton, Essex, England, on April 5, 1827. He was the second of three children born to Joseph Jackson Lister, a very successful wine merchant and amateur scientist. Joseph Jackson Lister’s design of a microscope lens which did not distort colours opened the way for the microscope to be used as a serious scientific tool. This contribution to science resulted in Joseph Jackson Lister’s being made a Fellow of the Royal Society—the prestigious British association of experimental scientists.
The Listers were Quakers who led a quiet, simple life. Young Joseph attended Quaker schools in Hertfordshire and London, where science subjects were emphasized. Following matriculation, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of London in 1847. Shortly after this he contracted smallpox. When he had fully recovered, he returned to the University of London as a medical student, qualifying as a doctor in 1850. Lister obtained Bachelor’s degrees in Medicine and Surgery, and in the process won two university gold medals for his outstanding marks. Further study saw Lister easily pass the examination to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) in 1852.

Overcoming hurdles

Modern surgery as we know it today was not able to develop until three great hurdles had been overcome. These were the control of bleeding, the control of pain, and the control of infection. In 1552, a leading French doctor, Ambroise Pare, developed and systematized the idea of tying off the ends of broken or cut blood vessels with threads called ligatures in order to minimize bleeding. The control of pain through anaesthesia was just being introduced during the time when Lister was a university student. Before this, surgery had involved agony for the struggling patient, which in turn meant that doctors had to operate as quickly as possible.
The introduction of anaesthetics opened up a new era in surgery, as doctors were now able to take the time necessary to improve their techniques. The third major hurdle, the control of infection, remained unconquered when Lister began working as a surgeon.

Recognition of research

In 1853, Lister went to Edinburgh, Scotland, to spend four weeks with Professor James Syme, who was considered to be the greatest teacher of surgery at that time. Lister soon decided to stay in Edinburgh as Syme’s assistant. Three years later, Lister married Syme’s daughter Agnes and joined her as a member of the Episcopal church. He remained a faithful member of this church for the remainder of his life. Throughout the Listers’ long and happy, but childless, marriage, Agnes was of great assistance to her husband, helping with experiments and writing up his notes.
While still a student, Lister had decided not just to practise medicine, but also to conduct research to improve medical knowledge. His early investigations explored the action of muscles in the skin and the eye, the mechanism involved in the coagulation of blood, and the role played by blood vessels in the early stages of infection. Lister's research required frequent use of a microscope—a tool very familiar to him because of his father's involvement with it. Lister’s research required considerable sacrifice and dedication, as it was undertaken at night after he had completed a full working-day in the hospital wards. Recognition of Lister’s early research came in 1860, when he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, the same honour that had been bestoyed upon his father.
In the Edinburgh Hospital where Lister worked, almost half of the surgery patients died from infection. In some hospitals in Europe, as many as 80 per cent died. While surgeons regretted this high death rate, they trained themselves to accept this unpleasant aspect of their work. After all, they thought, nothing could be done about these infections, because they arose spontaneously inside the wound. Lister however, was not convinced of the inevitability of infection (which was also known as sepsis). He began to search for a way of preventing infection—that is, an antisepsis method.

Preventing infection

Lister’s first clue as to the cause of infection came from comparing patients who had simple fractures with those who had compound fractures. Simple fractures do not involve an external wound. These patients had their bones set and placed in a cast, and they recovered. Compound fractures are those where the broken bone pierces the skin and is exposed to the air. More than half of these patients died. Lister reasoned that somehow the infection must enter the wound from the outside. But how exactly did this occur? And what could be done to prevent it?
Lister began washing his hands before operating, and wearing clean clothes. (Others such as Florence Nightingale, the pioneer of modern nursing, had already found that increased cleanliness reduced the death rate from infection among hospital patients. However, these ideas had not yet gained widespread acceptance because the reason behind their success was not understood.) Even though Lister’s procedures were scoffed at by some of his colleagues, who considered it a status symbol to be covered in blood from previous operations, his talent was becoming recognized. In 1860 he became Professor of Surgery at Glasgow. There, a friend lent him some research papers by the outstanding French chemist, Louis Pasteur. (Like Lister, Pasteur was a committed Christian.)
As the son of a wine merchant, Lister was all too familiar with the problem of wine going bad because of faulty fermentation. Pasteur had shown that the problem was caused by germs which entered from the air, and that organisms did not come to life spontaneously from non-living matter within the wine. Pasteur had demonstrated that life arose from life. His experiments gave no support to the evolutionary idea that the first life arose from non-living matter—a belief still held today by evolutionists. Unlike the evolutionists, whose thinking was held back by their attachment to the idea of spontaneous generation, Lister immediately recognized the truth and usefulness of Pasteur’s work. If infection arose spontaneously within a wound, it would be virtually impossible to eliminate it. However, if germs entering from the air outside the wound caused infection (in the same way that the wine became contaminated), then those germs could be killed and infection prevented.
Pasteur had used heat and filters to eliminate the germs in the wine, but these techniques were not suitable for use with human flesh. Instead, Lister needed to find a suitable chemical to kill the germs. He learned that carbolic acid was being used as an effective disinfectant in sewers and could safely be used on human flesh. Beginning in 1865, Lister used carbolic acid to wash his hands, his instruments, and the bandages used in the operation. Lister also sprayed the air with carbolic acid to kill airborne germs. After more than a year of using and refining these techniques, Lister had sufficient data to show that his methods were a success. He published his findings in the medical journal, The Lancet, in 1867.

Above: An operation in progress in the late 1800s. The man on the right is using a version of Lister’s carbolic spray.

Lister was always eager to acknowledge Louis Pasteur’s invaluable contribution. In a letter to Pasteur in February 1874, Lister gave him ‘thanks for having, by your brilliant researches, proved to me the truth of the germ theory. You furnished me with the principle upon which alone the antiseptic system can be carried out.

Slow acceptance

Two years after publishing his findings, Lister returned to Edinburgh to become Professor of Clinical Surgery—the position formerly held by his eminent father-in-law for more than three decades. Lister introduced his antisepsis procedures in Edinburgh and again met with dramatic success. However, widespread acceptance of Lister’s procedures was rather slow, as is often the case with revolutionary new ideas. Some busy doctors were unwilling to take the time to even consider new ideas. Some found it difficult to believe in germs—living organisms that wrought havoc but were too small to see. Others tried Lister’s procedures, but did so incorrectly and therefore failed to obtain the desired result. (Part of the reason for this was the complexity of Lister’s procedures and the constant modifications he made to his system in order to improve them.) Also, Lister’s method added to the expense involved in dressing wounds.

Lister was neither angered nor discouraged by the controversy that raged about his work. Instead, ‘Lister went on his gentle, unconcerned way saving his patients and trying to cheer them while doing so’.² His compassionate personal involvement with his patients was quite a contrast to the arrogance of those surgeons who believed that such involvement would ‘somehow lessen the holy awe and respect in which patients should hold their doctors’.³

Over the next 12 years, Lister’s methods gradually gained acceptance. Doctors from Denmark and Germany were the first to implement Lister’s antiseptic principle, and they met with stunning success. (For example, in Munich the death rate from infection after surgery dropped from 80 per cent to almost zero.) By 1875, Lister was receiving international acclaim in Europe. However, the majority of English doctors still misunderstood Lister’s work and therefore failed to accept its usefulness. It was not until Lister was appointed Professor of Surgery at King’s College Hospital in London in 1877 that he began to win over the English doctors. By 1879, Lister’s principle of antiseptic surgery had gained almost universal acceptance.

New techniques

Lister went on to develop new surgical techniques by applying his antiseptic principle. He showed that suitably sterilized materials could be left inside the patient. In 1877, he tied broken bones together with sterilized silver wire which was left inside the patient. ‘Anyone trying to wire the broken pieces together without the antiseptic technique would be faced with an infected knee and hospital gangrene. In 1880, he introduced the use of sterilized catgut for internal stitches, as this would subsequently dissolve. (Previously, silk thread used in internal stitching was left hanging out of the wound and was pulled out later, often causing further damage.) Lister also introduced the use of rubber drainage tubes after first using one on Queen Victoria. (For many years he had been surgeon to the Queen.)

In 1883, Queen Victoria honoured Lister by making him Sir Joseph Lister. In 1897, he was given the title Lord Lister of Lyme Regis. He was first to be made a British peer for services to medicine. In 1902, he was given the Order of Merit, and made a Privy Councillor.
In his later years, Lister was given many prestigious positions by the scientific community in recognition of his great contribution to medicine. These included Vice-President of the Royal College of Surgeons, President of the Royal Society, and President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1891, Lister had helped to establish the British Institute of Preventative Medicine. In 1903, this was renamed the Lister Institute in his honour.

Conclusion

Lister died on February 10, 1912, at Walmer, Kent, England. He had retired in 1893 after a long and outstanding career. Although the materials and procedures used have changed over the years, the antiseptic principle itself remains today as the cornerstone of modern surgery. The importance of Lister’s antiseptic principle is emphasized by eminent creation scientist, Dr. Henry Morris, who says, ‘This development is probably second only to Pasteur’s contribution to the saving of human lives’.⁵

Lister was a committed Christian. He wrote: ‘I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity’.⁶ Lister’s character readily showed the outworking of his faith. The World Book Encyclopedia says that ‘Throughout his life, he remained a gentle, shy, unassuming man, firm in his purpose because he humbly believed himself to be directed by God.’

Wayanad Laughing Thrush Rare bird spotted

Rare bird spotted after 23 years


The birds, belonging to the Laughing Thrush family ,are mostly found in north India and only three species of these birds are found in south India.


The Wayanad Laughing Thrush a rare bird was spotted in the forest of Joida taluk after 23 years of its detection. The bird's scientific name is Garrulax delesserti, according to Vijay Mohanaraj Chief Executive Officer of Uttara Kannada Zilla Panchayat.


Famous ornithologist Ranjit Daniels had discovered this bird in the forests of Castile Rock in Joida taluk way back in 1988. Now Prasanna Parab has detected this bird in the Diggi forest. He has submitted the details to Mr. Mohanaraj for the confirmation. The rediscovery of this rare bird has highlighted the importance of the bio-diversity of forests in Joida.

The birds belonging to the Laughing Thrush family are mostly found in north India and only three species of these birds are found in south India. Parab has spotted rare birds such as Malayan Night Heron and Nilgiri Wood Pigeon in Joida forests. The forest falls under the Dandeli - Anashi Project Tiger area and adjacent to the Molem Wild sanctuary in Goa. Malbar Tregon, Grey headed Bulbul, Ruby Throated bulbul are also identified in these areas, according to Vijay Mohanraj.

Louis Pasteur.

WHO WAS LOUIS PASTEUR?
Louis Pasteur was a world renowned French chemist and biologist. He was born on December 27 1822 in the town of Dole in Eastern France. Pasteur's parents were peasants, his father was a tanner by trade. He spent the early days of his life in the small town of Arbois where he attended school and where it seems that Pasteur did not do very well, preferring instead to go fishing. His headmaster, however, spotted potential in Pasteur and encouraged him to go to Paris to study. So, aged fifteen Pasteur set off for Paris hoping to study for his entrance exams. Unfortunately, the young Pasteur was so homesick that his father had to travel to Paris to bring him home. He then continued to study locally at Besancon, until he decided to try again in Paris. This time he succeeded and went on to study at the Ecole Normale Superieure. Curiously, although the young Pasteur worked hard during his student days he was not considered to be exceptional in any way at chemistry.
In 1847 Pasteur was awarded his doctorate and then took up a post as assistant to one of his teachers. He spent several years teaching and carrying out research at Dijon and Strasbourg and in 1854 moved to the University of Lille where he became professor of chemistry. Here he continued the work on fermentation he had already started at Strasbourg. By 1857 Pasteur had become world famous and took up a post at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. In 1863 he became dean of the new science faculty at Lille University. While there, he started evening classes for workers. In 1867 a laboratory was established for his discovery of the rabies vaccine, using public funds. It became known as the Pasteur Institute and was headed by Pasteur until his death in 1895.

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SO WHAT DID PASTEUR ACTUALLY DO?

Pasteur founded the science of microbiology and proved that most infectious diseases are caused by micro-organisms. This became known as the "germ theory" of disease. He was the inventor of the process of pasteurisation and also developed vaccines for several diseases including rabies. The discovery of the vaccine for rabies led to the founding of the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1888.

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SO HOW DID PASTEUR MAKE HIS DISCOVERIES?
When he was only twenty-six years old Pasteur solved a problem that had been puzzling the great chemists of the day. He found that when light was passed through tartaric acid - this was found in wine dregs, it produced a strange effect. Pasteur proved that this was because the acid is actually not one acid but a mixture of different acids. This find impressed the scientists of influence and established Pasteur's reputation.
While at the University of Strasbourg he became interested in fermentation and this interest continued when he moved to the University of Lille. The faculty had been established partly to serve as a means of applying science to the problems of the industries of the region, especially the production of alcoholic drinks. This work in fermentation enabled Pasteur to identify that the changes brought about when beer or wine ferments, milk turns sour or meat decays, occur when special micro-organisms are present.
As a result of these findings Pasteur was asked to help the local breweries where the beer had turned bad. The souring of wine and beer was a major economic problem in France. Pasteur looked at some droplets of bad beer through a microscope and observed that the beer contained small rod shaped bacteria, instead of round yeast cells. Although micro-organisms are essential in fermentation they must be the right ones. This was a major discovery. Pasteur made brewing a more scientific procedure and showed brewers how to culture the right organisms for good beer. He also demonstrated to the wine industry that if wine is gently heated to sixty degrees celsius for a short time, the growth of harmful bacteria is prevented and the wine does not go sour in bottles or barrels.
Pasteur then extended this to other problems such as the souring of milk. He proposed heating the milk to a high temperature and pressure before bottling. The process is now in widespread use and is called pasteurisation.

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WHAT OTHER DISCOVERIES DID PASTEUR MAKE?
By 1857 Pasteur had become world famous and took up an appointment as director of scientific studies at the Ecole Normale in Paris. He was asked to help to investigate a serious disease that was ruining the silk industry in southern France. The disease known as pebrine attacked the silk worms. The signs of the disease were that the eggs did not hatch or the worms would die before making their silk cocoons. It had now reached epidemic proportions and even disease free worms brought in from Spain and Italy had been contaminated. By 1864 there were no uncontaminated eggs left, except for those brought in from Japan.
Pasteur observed through his microscope that the diseased caterpillars and eggs all contained tiny organisms. He identified these as disease producing organisms. He managed to obtain some healthy worms and he divided them into two lots. He fed one lot with mulberry leaves smeared with the remains of diseased worms and fed the others with mulberry leaves smeared with the remains of healthy worms. Pasteur was able to show that the worms fed on diseased smeared leaves got the disease, whereas those fed on uncontaminated leaves remained disease free. He then worked with the silk industry to devise a simple way of keeping silk worms under healthy conditions and therefore disease free.
Not only had Pasteur rescued the French silk industry but he had established the connection between bacteria and disease. The connection had not been fully understood before.
This was a major discovery.
Pasteur's work on the link between bacteria and disease came to the attention of the famous Edinburgh surgeon Lord Lister. Lord Lister was concerned with the number of people who died after having operations in hospital. To combat infection, Lister introduced disinfectant sprays during operations, these prevented bacteria from entering a wound. He also introduced the use of dressings soaked in carbolic acid and strict hygiene rules to combat sepsis. The sterile methods introduced by Lister, drastically reduced the number of hospital deaths.
In France at that time many cattle suffered from anthrax, a serious disease from which many of them died. Pasteur made a careful study of anthrax and noticed that some cows developed the disease more severely than others. So he decided to inject two cows with a strong dose of the anthrax bacteria, fully expecting them to die. To Pasteur's amazement neither of them developed the disease. Later, he found that both animals had already suffered from anthrax. Could they be immune to it? Could they be protected in some other way? Pasteur believed that if it were possible to give an animal a mild attack, this might be sufficient to prevent it from getting the disease later on.
Eventually, after many experiments Pasteur succeeded in producing a weakened and harmless culture of anthrax bacteria. He inoculated cattle and sheep with this giving them a mild form from which they recovered. When these animals were put with others who had a severe form they remained unaffected. They were immune.
Pasteur worked throughout the rest of his life on the various causes of diseases and how these could be prevented by vaccination.

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PASTEUR AND RABIES
Pasteur is particularly renowned for his work on the vaccine for rabies, a highly contagious infection which attacks the central nervous system. It enters the body through the bite of an infected animal or through infected saliva entering an existing wound. After experimenting with the saliva of animals suffering from the disease, Pasteur concluded that the disease rests in the central nervous system of the body. When an extract from the spinal column of an rabid dog was injected into healthy animals symptoms of rabies were produced. By studying the tissues of infected animals- rabbits, Pasteur was able to produce an attenuated form of the virus. This could be used for inoculation.
On July 6 1885, Pasteur tested his pioneering rabies vaccine on man for the first time. He saved the life of a young man called Joseph Meister who had been bitten by a rabid dog. Pasteur was urged to treat him with his new method. The treatment lasted 10 days and at the end he recovered and remained healthy. Since then thousands have been saved by this treatment.
On March 1886, Pasteur was invited to present his results to the Academy of Sciences and in 1888 went on to found the Pasteur Institute in Paris. This was a pioneering clinic for the study of infectious diseases, the treatment of rabies and a centre for teaching. Pasteur directed the Institute personally until he died. The Pasteur Institute is still one of the most important centres in the world.
Pasteur became a national hero and was honoured in many ways. He died at Saint-Cloud on 28 September 1895 and was given a state funeral at the Cathedral of Notre Dame and his body placed in a permanent crypt at the Pasteur Institute.
Modifications of the Pasteur method are still used in rabies therapy today. The traditional vaccine contains inactivated rabies virus grown in duck eggs. A newer vaccine which contains virus prepared from human cells grown in the laboratory is safer and requires a shorter course of injections.
 

Ignaz Semmelweis ..Unsung hero of Antisepsis

Ignaz Semmelweis

According to Wikipedia*, "Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (July 1, 1818 - August 13, 1865) was the Hungarian physician who demonstrated that puerperal fever (also known as "childbed fever") was contagious and that its incidence could be drastically reduced by enforcing appropriate hand-washing behavior by medical care-givers. He made this discovery in 1847 while working in the Maternity Department of the Vienna Lying-in Hospital. His failure to convince his fellow doctors led to a tragic conclusion, however, he was ultimately vindicated.

Semmelweis realized that the number of cases of puerperal fever was much larger at one of his wards than at the other. After testing a few hypotheses, he found that the number of cases was drastically reduced if the doctors washed their hands carefully before dealing with a pregnant woman. Risk was especially high if they had been in contact with corpses before they treated the women. The germ theory of disease had not yet been developed at the time. Thus, Semelweiss concluded that some unknown "cadaveric material" caused childbed fever.

He lectured publicly about his results in 1850, however, the reception by the medical community was cold, if not hostile. His observations went against the current scientific opinion of the time, which blamed diseases on an imbalance of the basical "humours" in the body. It was also argued that even if his findings were correct, washing one's hands each time before treating a pregnant woman, as Semmelweis advised, would be too much work. Nor were doctors eager to admit that they had caused so many deaths. Semmelweis spent 14 years developing his ideas and lobbying for their acceptance, culminating in a book he wrote in 1861. The book received poor reviews, and he responded with polemic. In 1865, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an insane asylum where he soon died from blood poisoning.

Only after Dr. Semmelweis's death was the germ theory of disease developed, and he is now recognized as a pioneer of antiseptic policy and prevention of nosocomial disease."

Antony Van Leewenhoek... discovery of microbes

Antony Van Leewenhoek

Its hard to imagine doctors and surgeons performing operations without washing their hands or equipment, but at one point in time it was standard practice. Before the discovery of bacteria, thousands died from mysterious illnesses that were often attributed to other causes. In the late 1600's Antony Van Leeuwenhoek had observed microscopic organisms with microscopes he had perfected. His findings and suggestions that these one-celled organisms existed were originally met with skepticism from the Royal Society of London, but were later tested and proven to be true. Today, we owe what we understand about bacteria to Van Leeuwenhoek, his initial work has lead to our modern advances in health care, biology, and how the world works. Bacteria play a vital role in our world from disease prevention and cure to unlocking the origin of life itself, and without our knowledge of these invisible life forms life for us would be very different, if possible at all.

In a letter of September 7, 1674, Leeuwenhoek described observations on lake water, including an excellent description of the green charophyte alga Spirogyra: "Passing just lately over this lake, . . . and examining this water next day, I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise, and orderly arranged, after the manner of the copper or tin worms, which distillers use to cool their liquors as they distil over. The whole circumference of each of these streaks was about the thickness of a hair of one's head. . . all consisted of very small green globules joined together: and there were very many small green globules as well."

On September 17, 1683, Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society about his observations on the plaque between his own teeth, "a little white matter, which is as thick as if 'twere batter." He repeated these observations on two ladies (probably his own wife and daughter), and on two old men who had never cleaned their teeth in their lives. Looking at these samples with his microscope, Leeuwenhoek reported how in his own mouth: "I then most always saw, with great wonder, that in the said matter there were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving. The biggest sort. . . had a very strong and swift motion, and shot through the water (or spittle) like a pike does through the water. The second sort. . . oft-times spun round like a top. . . and these were far more in number." In the mouth of one of the old men, Leeuwenhoek found "an unbelievably great company of living animalcules, a-swimming more nimbly than any I had ever seen up to this time. The biggest sort. . . bent their body into curves in going forwards. . . Moreover, the other animalcules were in such enormous numbers, that all the water. . . seemed to be alive." These were among the first observations on living bacteria ever recorded. 

Blood Banks.

Dr. Charles Richard Drew (June 3, 1904 - April 1, 1950) was an American medical doctor and surgeon who started the idea of a blood bank and a system for the long-term preservation of blood plasma (he found that plasma kept longer than whole blood). His ideas revolutionized the medical profession and have saved many, many lives.
Dr. Drew set up and operated the blood plasma bank at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, NY. Drew's project was the model for the Red Cross' system of blood banks, of which he became the first director. Drew resigned his position as director after the US War Department issued a directive stating that blood taken from white donors should not be mixed with blood taken from black donors. Dr. Drew strongly objected, and stated "the blood of individual human beings may differ by blood groupings, but there is absolutely no scientific basis to indicate any difference in human blood from race to race." Dr. Drew also formed Britain's blood bank system.
Dr. Drew died on April 1, 1950, after a car accident in in rural North Carolina. Although there is a legend that he died as a result of being denied a blood transfusion and medical care from a "whites-only" hospital, Dr. Drew got immediate medical attention, in part from the other doctors (his friends) who were in the car accident with him (but were less severely injured). Dr. Drew was admitted to a mixed-race hospital, but died after being treated for massive internal injuries. A U.S. postage stamp was issued in 1981 to honor Dr. Drew.
Stamp in honour of Dr.DrewDr.Chales Richard Drew

CAN OPENERS

Can Opener, 1858

British merchant Peter Durand made a huge stride in food preservation with his 1810 invention of the can. Canned rations provided to soldiers and explorers saved legions from sure starvation. So grateful for its inner contents were the hungry recipients that no one really complained about the sweat and toil often required to simply open the can.

In 1858 Ezra J. Warner of Waterbury, Connecticut, patented the first can opener. An intimidating combination of bayonet and sickle, Warner's invention was nonetheless eagerly adopted by the U.S. military during the Civil War. Household use of the can opener increased when William W. Lyman's more user-friendly model was introduced in 1870. No longer did opening a can of peaches mean risking one's fingers. 

MODERN CAN OPENER.

Lever type Can Opener

Electric Can Opener
Swiss Knie with can opener

Fascinating facts about the invention of Instant Photography by Edwin Herbert Land in 1947.

 EDWIN LAND

Erasmus Bartholin (1625-1698) was sent, in 1669, a transparent crystal from Iceland (Iceland spar) and, by rotating the crystal, he discovered that objects seen through it appeared double. He correctly deduced that light traveling through the crystal was refracted at two different angles. Today, these are still called the ordinary and extraordinary rays. The explanation required the genius of Thomas Young (1773-1829) to account for them some 150 years later: the two rays were polarized at right angles to each other. William Nicol (1768-1851) had the ingenious idea of cementing two crystals of Iceland spar together with Canada balsam so that each ray was separated at right angles. The resulting Nicol prism could then be used to measure the angle of polarization of compounds, which later resulted in a profound understanding of many aspects of chemistry. Today, Nicol prisms are still very expensive, bulky and of limited aperture. Edwin Land, when a Harvard freshman, conceived the idea that a polarizer might be made by lining up a myriad of tiny crystals (iodoquinine sulphate) in the same direction and embedding them in transparent plastic which, when set, prevented the crystals from drifting apart. The new polarizer was patented in 1929.
	The conventional photographic process involves exposing light sensitive material, which in turn must be developed, fixed, printed and the print developed and fixed, a procedure which can take hours, (or days if the processing facility is far from the place where the photo was taken.) In 1947, a remarkable new system of developing and taking pictures was introduced by American physicist Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991).
Land had left Harvard after his freshman year to conduct his own research on the polarization of light. Two years later, he invented a sheet polarization filter which could be used on camera lenses to eliminate reflection and glare. In 1937, Land founded the Polaroid Corporation to manufacture and market his filters, lamps, window shades and sunglasses.In February 1947, he introduced Polaroid (po’lar-oid) instant film for use in his own Polaroid Land Camera. The Land camera (patent #2,543,181) was first offered for sale on November 26th, 1948.  Polaroid film processes chemicals in a flat, hermetically sealed compartment attached to the photosensitive paper. A pair of pressure rollers spreads the chemicals uniformly across the paper when exposed, and the completed print is ready a minute later. In 1963, Land introduced Polacolor, a full color film, which could be processed in less than a minute. In 1972, the "SX-70" replaced the wet, peel-apart development process with dry films that developed in light. (Land even created an instant color movie-making system, "Polavision," in 1978; but this never enjoyed the commercial success of his still-photography cameras.)

Improvement in Steam Generators Steam Generator

George Babcock  Born Jun 17 1832 - Died Dec 16 1893 Improvement in Steam Generators Steam Generator Patent Number(s) 65,042 Inducted 1997 Invention Impact George H. Babcock and Stephen Wilcox invented an improved water tube steamboiler, which provided a safer and more efficient production of steam.  Inventor Bio Born in Unadilla Forks, New York, Babcock was part of a family of inventors and mechanics. In 1860, after moving to Brooklyn, he attended evening classes at Cooper Institute. During the American Civil War, he worked for the Mystic (Connecticut) Iron Works building ships for the U.S. government. He became the chief draftsman at the Hope Iron Works in Providence, R.I., where he joined Stephen Wilcox in improving boiler designs. The two men received their patent in 1867 and formed a partnership that same year. In 1881, the company was incorporated with Babcock as president and Wilcox as vice president. Since then, Babcock & Wilcox has become a world leader in the power generation industry and is a major operating unit of McDermott International, a worldwide energy services company.

Hair Lotion

Despite the hardships suffered through slavery, many African Americans have managed to become great inventors, scientists, and thinkers.
Sarah Bedlow

Invented: Hair Lotion for black womSaah Breedlove, who later became known as Madam C. J. Walker, was born into a former-slave family to parents Owen and Minerva Breedlove. Madam Walker was an entrepreneur who built her empire developing hair products for black women. She claims to have built her company on an actual dream where a large black man appeared to her and gave her a formula for curing baldness. When confronted with the idea that she was trying to conform black women’s hair to that of whites, she stressed that her products were simply an attempt to help black women take proper care of their hair and promote its growth. She was the first African-American woman millionaire.