IMPROVED CONSTRUCTION OF GALVANIC BATTERIES FOR MEDICAL AND OTHER PURPOSES AND IN APPARATUS FOR APPLYING ELECTRICITY TO THE BODY
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Isac Louis Pulvermacher at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 30th October 1883.
ISAC LOUIS PULVERMACHER of 194 Regent Street in the County of Middlesex
Electrician IMPROVED CONSTRUCTION OF GALVANIC BATTERIES FOR MEDICAL
AND OTHER PURPOSES AND IN APPARATUS FOR APPLYING ELECTRICITY TO THE
BODY
This invention relates to certain construction or arrangement of cords of wires
(platinum copper & lead) coated with cotton spun on in slightly distant coils these
compact wires are then wound upon a cylinder of porous clay in spiral order and
in contact therewith. The appliance or element thus prepared or made up is
placed in a retort charged with coal or hydrocarbon gas and heated to the desired
degree to burn or carbonize the cotton coating on the wires in a similar manner as
the carbon filiaments of the incandescent lamps are carbonized The carbonized
cotton serving as the negative part of the element when a zinc rod is inserted into
the porous cylinder filled with an exciting liquid which permeates through the
pores and establishing the wet connection with the carbon envelope.
For intensifying the depolarizing action of the oxygen of the atmosphere on the
carbon envelope. I surround the element with a chimney of greater height than
the element itself upon applying a small flame to the upper part of the chimney I
create a suction through the element from below and a constant circulation of air
is ensured thus continually supplying oxygen to the carbon. Instead of the flame
as above mentioned I may force air, heated or not, into the chimney from below
such air being charged with gases of great chemical affinity for the hydrogen
accumulated on the carbon.
The next construction of battery for medical and like purposes I form of a series
of carbon cylinders and project therein from a cap affixed on one end a zinc rod on
which I place a paper cover first damped with concentrated solution, salammoniac,
I then fill the cylinder with peroxide of manganese and close up the cylinder by
another cap to prevent evaporation of the contents
I take a number of these cylinders and arrange them between tapes as to form a
band all the zinc ended caps being in the same order and touching each other to
obtain electricity in quantity but by reversing each alternate cylinder in the tapes
D031

page_text: so that the zinc ended caps are in alternate order I obtain tension electricity (or
great potential). All the caps touching each other in series.
In constructing an electrode or wot conductor of electricity from a battery to a
patient I form a disc of metal and provide the centre of it with a screw pin sharp
pointed by which the appliance can by means of a nut be attached to say the inside
of an undergarment.
The face of the disc is provided with a piece of canvas and is surrounded with a
tube of india rubber as a reservoir the tube having a pipe branch by which the
liquid can be furnished to the canvas by merely pressing the circularly bent india
rubber tube
The connection of the ends of the india rubber tube is effected by a kind of cap
two of which are soldered together and each provided with a branch pipe one of
which is the branch before referred to and the other which is set in an opposite
manner to the first is for enabling the reservoir to be filled this supply pipe being
temporarilly closed in any suitable manner.
Instead of employing one disc only any number of discs (dished) of opposite
metals can be arranged as a battery and be self generating when the liquid is
furnished thereto from the reservoir.
In constructing a pocket battery with many elements for producing high tension
electricity instantaneously I fit a series of metal sockets on to a strip or sheet of
hard yet perforated insulating material the bases of the sockets being connected in
the voltaic conduction terminating in two poles from which the generated
electricity can be conveyed by wires to terminals fitting on the closing medium by
which the liquid is retained within the vessel containing the battery proper
The battery is composed of a number of zinc tubes which fit on the sockets said
zinc tubes are each insulated from the opposite or negative electro motor forming
an exterior or envelope thereon which envelopes are openworked or slotted for the
free passage of the liquid to the interior for wetting the spiral threads of the zinc
tubes
The perforated insulated strip or sheet has all the elements affixed and it has
four legs of greater length that the elements so that they ie the elements can be
stood on end without being in contact with the vessel in which they are enclosed.
I purpose fitting a sufficient number of such elements as to leave a space at the
bottom of the vessel. The liquid being then clear of the elements but by turning
the vessel on its side the liquid is free to flow into and between the metals of the
elements and charge them by absorption with the desired quantity of exciting
liquid. On the vessel being again set upright the liquid returns to the space, the
elements being then in action without leakage of electricity