IMPROVEMENTS IN MAKING AND REFINING INFUSIONS AND DECOCTIONS
Year: 1847

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE
ROBERT SKENE, of Bedford, Esquire, Fellow of the Royal Medical and
Chirurgical Society, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by
Her Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Thirty-
first day of March, One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven, in
the tenth year of Her reigu, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said George Robert Skene, my exors, adiñiors,
and assigns, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and autho-
rity, that I, the said George Robert Skene, my exors, admors, and assigns,
or such others as I, the said George Robert Skene, my exors, admors,
or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and all times thereafter during the term of years therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in all Her Majesty's
Colonies and Plantations abroad, and also in the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey,
Alderney, Sark, and Man, my Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN MAKING AND
REFINING INFUSIONS AND DECOCTIONS;" in which said Letters Patent is con-
tained a proviso that I, the said George Robert Skene, shall cause a parti-
cular description of 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,
to be inrolled in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six

page_text: calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto
had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
George Robert Skene, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, are fully described and
ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, reference being had to
the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked thereon,
that is to say :-
My Invention relates to improvements in arranging apparatus for making
and refining infusions and decoctions, whereby water is caused to boil expe-
ditiously by a large heating surface beneath it before being mixed with
substances to be infused, and the infusion to be agitated by heated air
ascending through it, and on removing the source of heat a tendency to a
vacuum being produced in a compartment of the vessel beneath the infusion,
it is caused to percolate quickly through a filtering medium into the lower
compartment perfectly refined and economised, having extracted its most

page_text: is a representation of a perpendicular section of the pot or vessel in Figure 4,
shewing the vessel to be divided or separated into an upper or extracting
chamber, and a lower or air chamber by a stage (c), funnel-shaped, with a fil-
tering medium or basket of sieves d in the centre of it. (e) is a bow or handle;
(S) is a perforated plate or top of the basket of sieves; (9) is a cloth or
strainer; (h) is the spout of the vessel covered air-tight with a cap (i).
Figure 6 is a representation of a perpendicular section of the stage (c),
having the basket of sieves (d) raised above the opening which connects the
two chambers, and within which opening the sieve basket is retained by
a supporting ledge, or by being furnished with a male screw round its
outer circumference, and a female screw to receive it within the opening in
the stage between the chambers for maceration and for air. Figure 7 is a
representation of a view of the basket of sieves without the cloth strainer (9)
to form a second filtering medium. Figure 8 is a representation of the section
perpendicularly made of the spout or cap (i), to cover it air-tight by means of
a washer lining the same.
Having described the mechanical parts of my Invention, I now explain the
mode of using it in the making of an infusion or air decoction. The water
being heated to the desired temperature in any vessel, or in the kettle, as
represented in Figures 1, 2, and 8, for that purpose a cloth strainer is to be
affixed on the basket sieve, either by an india-rubber band, cord, or other
fastener, and placed in the hole in the stage c; the cap i is then to be secured
air-tight on to the spout of the air chamber. The ingredients to be extracted
are then in the proportion required to be put into the extracting chamber, and
the hot water or other fluid is to be poured on to the ingredients therein, the
lid of the vessel being placed over it, and heat applied under the air chamber
by a spirit lamp, hot hob, iron heater, or other heating medium, in proportion
to the quantity of infusion to be refined, or to the duration of the maceration,
which can be prolonged by letting air into the air chamber as often as the air
may have been driven out by the heat causing it to pass up through the ingre-
dients in the extracting chamber to agitate them; but for ordinary purposes, as
in making coffee, tea, or other infusions of small vegetable particles, one
charge of air in the chamber is sufficient. On the air nearly ceasing to
bubble up through the ingredients, the heating medium is to be removed, and
the vessel may be placed on a cold plate, or other source of cold. The
infusion will then quickly percolate through the sieves or filtering medium
down into the air chamber, possessing more of the delicate fragrance and
virtues of the ingredients than could have been otherwise obtained by any
method hitherto practised. When it shall not be desirable to agitate the

page_text: ingredients, the cap of the spout may be loosened, and the air within the air
chamber allowed to escape thereby, but closing the cap before removing the
heating source, so that a tendency to vacuum shall be generated, and cause
the filtration of the fluid into the macerating chamber perfected.
Having explained the nature of my Invention, and the mode of using it, I
may add, that I do not confine myself to any particular dimensions or materials,
and that the apparatus or vessels, filtering basket, sieves, cap, &c., may bo
made of different materials, and varied in shape and size, according to taste
and the capacity required; but I claim the apparatus for heating water expe-
ditiously, and the mode of agitating infusions and air decoctions by warm air,
and causing a current among them to promote evaporation, if there be need of
it, as well as the mode of combining and retaining sieves within a frame or
basket, and of the mode of dividing a vessel by filtering apparatus into two
chambers, thereby preventing fluids in the upper chamber descending into the
lower chamber without improved filtration and increased evaporation, if
required, till expulsion of air in the lower chamber has made room for the
fluid.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Robert Skene, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-first day of September, One