Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1896-02-19
FRIEND TO MANKIND.
WILLIAM G. ROBINSON, WHO is DYING
IN WASHINGTON.

He Is Known as the "Savior OF baoies'
Ras Devised an Appliance to Cool Fever
Patients-Trying to Secure Patent TO
Help His Family.
William g. Robinson, called the
"Sayior of Babies" because OF his IN
yention, the incubator. is dying in Wash
ington.
There is being tested in the New York
hospital one of his inventions whlch
may be of far greater service to human
ity than the incubator. 1t IS a contrlv-
ance to lower the temperature ana
thereby save fever patients 1t has been
very successful in its operation. Ii the
dying man should by great good fortune
recover, his future wealth would be as
sured.
When Robinson went to the New
York hospital one day last summer TO
get one of his incubators introduced at
that institution, he noticed fever pa
tent In one Of the wards. They were
using the old time method to cool this
patients temperature There was step
ladder at the head of his cot, and on the
top Of it was water pail with piece
of ice in it. A rubber tube over the side
of the pail. descending, entered rubber
bag that rested ON the patients breast.
Another tube was arranged so as to car
~ off the water from the bag into
waste pail at the bedside. Robinson was
interested.
He asked the doctors about it, and
they told him that the contrivance was
often failure and left great room for
improvement If the patient suddenly
turned over, he was apt to bring the pail
of water down ON himself. Then, too,
the water in the pail was likely to run
out before the nurse could be aware that
the bucket was empty, and the condition
of the patient would be seriously jeopar-
died by the sudden stoppage Of the cold
application.
The inventor went back to his little
tinsmith shop in East Twenty sixth
street and built a contrivance that
should furnish steady flow of cold wa
ter. To minimize the labor and prevent
the sudden checking Of the stream he
used the same water over again.
He built frame of brass rods about
feet high. Two copper cylinders capa-
BILE Of holding ten gallons each were
placed ON sliding rods in a vertical posi-
ton, and by an arrangement of chains,
weights and pulleys the cylinders were
made to balance one another. While
one, filled with water, is at the top,
just above the patients head, the other
rests on the floor below. The top one is
filed with ice water and raised by the
turning of crank at the side. Rubber
tubing passes from it down into a
"worm, (which is great improvement
over the rubber bag of the doctors
After the water has circulated through
the coils of the worm" that lies on the
patients body, it passes into the lower
cylinder. AS soon as that cylinder gets
full it is raised to the top and empties
itself in turn into the other one, which
has been lowered.
This invention has been used for q
month at the New York hospital, and it
has saved many patients and much trou-
BILE to nurses.
Robinson went to Washington for the
sole purpose of getting patent on this
machine He had made nothing from
his incubators and thought that it was
time to try to reap some pecuniary
benefit from his work for himself and
his family of three little children.
He filed his application at the patent
Office and was arranging to return home
when he became very i'll. The doctors
said he had consumption in an advanced
stage and held out small hopes of his
recovery.
So his wife was called to his bedside.
But the fate of his patent and what ii
means to his family is his one thought.
New York Journal.