IMPROVEMENTS IN GALVANIC BATTERIES
Year: 1853

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Charles Ludovic Augustus Meinig, of 103;
Leadenhall Street, in the City of London, for the Invention of
Sealed the 5th December 1853, and dated the 13th October 1853.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Charles Ludovic
Augustus Meinig at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with his Petition, on the. 13th October 1853.
I, CHARLES LUDOVIC AUGUSTUS MEINIG, of 103, Leadenhall Street,
in the City of. London, do hereby declare the nature of the. Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN GALVANIC BATTERIES" to be as follows:-.
The object of my Invention is to produce an easily portable battery
of considerable intensity in proportion to its size. The battery consists
of a number of connected pairs of different metals (as copper and zinc)
arranged and fixed in a piece of gutta-percha or other suitable substance
on the principle of the voltaic pile, and with cells between them. The
arrangement is similar to the well known trough batteries, but the pairs
and cells are made very low in proportion to their breadth, so that the
whole battery forms rather a plate than a trough, and thereby becomes
so easily portable that a battery of 60 cells can easily be carried in the

page_text: pocket, and that small batteries on this system become eminently
adapted to be worn on the body for medical purposes. These bat-
teries may be worked with saline or acid fluids like others, but I
prefer to employ a paste composed of a metallic acid, oxyde, or
salt, mixed with starch or substances containing starch, and to which
may be added silex or similar granular matter to make it still more
porous. When such paste is filled into the cells in a dry state little or
no action takes place, and the battery thus filled may be kept a long
time without the paste being exhausted, but as soon as diluted acid,
or a solution of the salts of such metals which form metallic acids,
(such as antimony, arsenic, &c.) are communicated to the paste in the
cells, and taken up by it, the battery goes on working advantageously
for a time, the starch in the-paste by.its-peculiar-properties contributing
powerfully to the constancy of the action.
1
**
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions-of-the-Letters-Patent,
filed by the said Charles Ludovic, Augustus Meinig in. the Great
Seal Patent Office on the 13th April 1854.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
CHARLES LUDOVIC AUGUSTUS MEINIG, of 103, Leadenhall Street, in the
City of London, send greeting...
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Thirteenth day of October, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, in the
seventeenth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Charles Ludovic Augustus Meinig,
Her special licence that I, the said Charles Ludovic Augustus Meinig,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I the
said Charles Ludovic Augustus Meinig, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, should at any time agree with, and "no others, from time to
time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed;
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands,
and Isle of Man, an Invention for IMPROVEMENTS IN GALVANIC

page_text: BATTERIES," upon the condition (amongst others) that. I, the said
Charles Ludovic Augustus Meinig, by an instrument in writing under
my hand and seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner, the same was to be per-
formed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date. of the
said Letters Patent...
.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Charles Ludovic Augustus
Meinig, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the sanie is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement, thereof (that is to say).:.
The object of my Invention is to produce an easily portable 'and
manageable battery,.. which may be carried in the pocket, or otherwise
appended to the body while in action. Figure 1, represents such a battery.
A, B, C, D, is a slab of gutta-percha, or other suitable non-conducting
and non-absorbent materiál, having an elevated rib or edge 'A,C,.and
B, D, on two of the edges; their height being from one fourth to one
thirty-second of the width of the slab. i, i, i, i, are pairs of strips of
copper and zinc, or other dissimilar metals soldered together in their
whole length, and pressed in a lieated state down into the slab, so that
the ends of the pairs are fixed in the elevated ribs on the sides, and the
inferior edge of the pairs into the bottom of the slab, and with space
between each pair to form the cells of the battery; the zinc of one
pair standing opposite the copper of the next pair, and the poles being
at a, and y. For taking up the fluid of this. battery, so as to allow of
its being placed in all positions without letting out the fluid or disturb-
ing its action, I can either fill the cells with cotton, thread, or braid, or
sponge, or other fibrous non-conducting and absorbing material, or I
can fill the cells with the metallic powder.or. paste, mentioned below:;
or I can make use of. a. second slab of gutta-percha, or other suitable
-non-conducting material, on which strips of fibrous non-conducting and
absorbent materials are fixed in such a manner as to go.into and fit in
each of the cells when this slab is applied on the top of the battery, so
that when these strips of fibrous material. have been previously mois-
tened they supply the fluid to the battery when inserted in the cells:
Figure 2,shews such a slab: E, F, G, H, with strips. of cotton..braid

page_text: 0, 0, 0, 0, which project so much from the slab as the depth of the cells
of the battery to which they are to be applied, and are fixed and kept
in their place by means of upright points of gutta-percha fixed on and
projecting from the slab, designated in the Drawing by the black
points
to which the braid is cemented by means of gutta-
percha solution. The strips of cotton braid are of such a thickness
that when they are moistened with fluid and inserted into the cells of
the battery 'they fill up the width of the cell, and consequently are in
contact with both metals of each cell. Instead of cotton braid, thin
slices of sponge, or porous wood, or other suitable fibrous substance
may be used. Figure 3, shows the same construction of battery with
a different arrangement; the pairs being fixed in a circular slab, so
that the slab contains combinations of batteries on this principle, viz,
.battery No. 1, (the poles at A, and B); battery No. 2, poles at B,
and C; battery No. 3, poles at C, and D; battery No. 4, poles at D,
and E; battery No. 5, poles at E, and F; battery No. 6, poles at
.F, and G. There is a metallic connection between the metallic strips
or pairs connecting one battery with the next at a, b, c, d, and e;
whereas there is no metallic connection at i, between the batteries
.No. 1, and No. 6. The object of this arrangement is that I can at
option and with facility use a smaller or greater intensity; for if one
conducting wire is connected with A, and I connect the other conduct-
ing wire with B, I have the intensity of 5 cells; but if, instead of
connecting the other wire with B, I connect it with C, (the first wire
remaining in connection with A,) I have the intensity of ten, cells; if I
-connect it with D, I have fifteen cells; with E, twenty cells; with F,
twenty-five cells; and with G, thirty cells, included in the circuit.
In order to produce a greater intensity (number of cells) with only
trifling addition to the bulk I can construct the batteries, as above
described, on both sides of one and the same slab of gutta-percha, and
.connect the battery or batteries on one side with the battery or bat-
teries on the other side.
For the purpose of applying currents of electricity by means of these
-sinall portable batteries during some length of time to various parts of
the human and animal body, they are enclosed in envelopes, their poles
connected by insulated conducting wires or braids to metallic discs,

page_text: which I construct with a loop at the back. This loop is passed through
a hole in the middle of a piece of sticking plaister larger than the disc,
the gummed side of the plaister being turned towards the back of the
disc; and after that the hook terminating the insulated conducting
wire or braid is inserted into the loop of the disc. The disc is then fixed
and retained conveniently by the projecting part of the plaister on any
place of the body to which it is applied, and this simple arrangement
does away with the great inconvenience of fixing bands hitherto
employed.
Instead of filling the cells of these batteries with fibrous and merely
absorbing substances for taking up a suitable exciting liquid, I can
make use of a metallic powder or paste, which I excite by water or a
suitable acid, for which powder I use an oxyde or salt of such metals
which, are more negative than the positive metal of the battery for which
it is intended. Or I may take a dry metallic acid, such as antimonic,
phosphoric, or arsenic acid in a dry and powdered state, and with such
salt, oxyde, or acid, I mix up an equal or unequal quantity of powdered
starch, or suitable substance containing starch, such as flour, and as the
starch or substance containing starch contributes to retard the decompo-
sition of the oxyde or salt when fluid is applied, and make the action
less violent but more constant, the relative quantities of the two in-
gredients named, which I use in the powder, depend upon the nature
of the effect which I wish to produce. If I find it convenient to make
the powder or paste still more porous, I add to the above compound of
oxyde, salt, or acid.with starch some suitable non-conducting granular
matter, such as pulverized silica or glass.
When such powder or paste as above described is filled into the cells
of a battery in a dry state little or no action takes place, but when
water or diluted acid, or a weak solution of the salt of a metal more
negative than the positive metal of the battery, is communicated to and
absorbed by the paste, the battery acts more powerfully and constantly
than with the same fluid alone.
I do not limit my claim to the exact shape or manner of application
specified above. But what I claim as my Invention is,—.
First, the construction of portable galvanic or voltaic batteries, which

page_text: can be placed in any position without letting out the fluid, by fixing on a
slab of gutta-percha, or other suitable non-conducting and non-absorbent
material, pairs consisting of two dissimilar metals in metallic connec-
tion, in such a manner that cells are formed between the pairs adapted
to take up a porous non-conducting substance, which will absorb and
retain the fluid; the pairs being placed opposite each other so that the
positive metal of one pair stands opposite the negative metal of the
next pair in the same cell, but without contact, and that the fluid in one
cell does not communicate with the fluid in the other cells, all as above
described.
Second, the arrangement by which the fibrous non-conducting and
absorbent material intended to serve as the receptacle of the fluid in
batteries is fixed on a separate non-conducting substance, so as to be
inserted; removed, and cleansed with facility, as above described...
Third, the arrangement of the discs, and their fixing by means of
sticking plaister to the body, as above described.
Fourth, the use of a powder or paste consisting of the salt, the
oxyde, or the dry acid of a metal more negative than the positive metal
of the battery, mixed up with starch or suitable substance containing
starch, and with or without granular non-conducting matter, such as
powdered glass, silica, &c.; this paste to serve in the cells of batteries
as a receptacle for the fluid and a generator of electricity, as fully
described above.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Ludovic Augustus Meinig,
have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Thirteenth day of
April, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
fifty-four.
CHARLES LUDOVIC AUGUSTUS MEINIG. (L.S.)
Witness,
.
FRED HARRIS..