AN IMPROVED METHOD OF APPLYING, FOR MEDICINAL PURPOSES, THE AGENCY OF ATMOSPHERIC AIR, LIQUID OR GASEOUS SUBSTANCES, TO THE EXTERNAL SURFACE AND TO SOME OF THE INTERNAL CAVITIES OR PASSAGES OF THE HUMAN BODY, AND FOR THE MORE CONVENIENT AND USEFUL MODE OF EMPLOYING OIL AND SPIRITS, ON 'SIMILAR PRINCIPLES, IN LAMPS AND OTHER LUMINOUS APPARATUS
Year: 1818

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAS
MACHELL, of Great Ryder Street, Saint James's, in the County of Middlesex,
Surgeon, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-fourth day of August, in the fifty-ninth year of His
reign, give and grant unto me, the said Thomas Machell, my exors, adñiors,
and assigns, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said Thomas Machell, my exors, admors, and assigns, during the
term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my
Invention of "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF APPLYING, FOR MEDICINAL PURPOSES, THE
AGENCY OF ATMOSPHERIC AIR, LIQUID OR GASEOUS SUBSTANCES, TO THE EXTERNAL
SURFACE AND TO SOME OF THE INTERNAL CAVITIES OR PASSAGES OF THE HUMAN
BODY, AND FOR THE MORE CONVENIENT AND USEFUL MODE OF EMPLOYING OIL AND
SPIRITS, ON 'SIMILAR PRINCIPLES, IN LAMPS AND OTHER LUMINOUS APPARATUS;" in
which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, that if I, the said
Thomas Machell, shall not particularly describe' and ascertain the nature of
my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by
an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to
be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that
then the said Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever
thereby granted, shall utterly, cease, determine, and become void, as in- and

page_text: by the same, relation being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Thomas Machell, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly ascertained
in the following description thereof, (that is to say):-`
The advantages resulting from the employment of gaseous and other fluid
substances under peculiar states of the animal body, by their action upon
certain formidable diseases, have been well ascertained to be very decided and
satisfactory. In order, however, to obviate the hitherto the insuperable
difficulties dependant upon their proper administration, I have availed myself,
in a manner I believe to be entirely new, of atmospherical and mechanical
pressure, by the agency of which the required fluid or gaseous substances
can, with the most perfect facility and effect, be thrown into any of the
accessible cavities or passages of the body. Although the following description
may serve to point out the principle upon which the apparatus depends, yet
I do not hereby intend to limit myself to any particular construction thereof;
as an infinite variety of forms may be adopted agreeably to the design of the
operation, and all tending towards fulfilling the above intentions. The
receiver or outer case of the self-acting injecting apparatus may be made of
metal, elastic gum, leather, bladder, or any other proper substance, and of any
convenient size or shape; it has two perforations in its upper part, the one
through which the prepared injection, either fluid or gaseous, is to be intro-
duced, and the other into which an air or forcing pump or syringe is to be
fitted, in such a manner as either to remain fixed to the instrument, or, if it
is thought more eligible, it may form a detached part of it. At the end, or
any other part of the receiver, as may be most convenient, a stopcock must
be attached, the tube of which must nearly reach the bottom of the receiver,.
having at the other end of it, a tube, either made flexible or otherwise. A
tube of the same description may also be added to the stopper, which secures
the aperture through which the fluid or gaseous substances are introduced;
and a pipe or pipes, made either of ivory, bone, metal, or of any other proper
material, may be attached to the outer ends of the tubes for the convenience of
introducing the contents of the apparatus into any passage or cavity of the
body, or directing them upon it, as the nature of the case may require..
The following is the method of preparing the apparatus for use, viz :-
First, shut the stopcocks and take out the screw at the top of the appa-
ratus; having then introduced the gas or fluid which forms. the medicinal or
other injection or application, fix the screws tight into their places..

page_text: Secondly, give fifteen, twenty, or any other proper number of strokes of the
pump, according to the size or design of the apparatus, by alternately drawing
up and pressing down the handle of the piston.
Thirdly, screw on either or both of the flexible tubes, as may be required,
upon the end or ends of the screw stoppers, and, having introduced the nozzle
in the best manner into the passage or cavity intended to receive the injection,
or directed it upon any external part or parts of the body intended to be
operated upon, turn either of the cocks in a greater or lesser degree, as may
be agreeable to the feelings of the patient, or suitably to the purposes for
which the operation is wanted. Should the fluids, &c. proper for Clysters,
injections, shower baths, &c., be required to be used, open the stopcock
connected with the lower part of the apparatus; but if the medicated air,
steam, vapour, or gas, which is accumulated on the surface of the liquid be
requisite, then the pipe at the upper orifice must be employed, and the air,
steam, vapour, or gas, may be projected through the conducting pipe with as
much force, and in as large a stream, as the judgment of the operator or the
feelings of the patient may suggest. This principle is, as above mentioned,
also applicable to the construction of shower and other kinds of baths; I
likewise apply the same principles in the supply of oleaginous or spirituous
substances, for the supporting of flame in lamps during the act of combustion.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Machell, party hereto, have unto
hand and seal, this Twenty-second day of February, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and nineteen.
set my.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-second day of February,
in the year of our Lord 1819, the aforesaid Thomas Machell came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according
to the tenor of the Statutes made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Twenty-second day of February, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and nineteen.