Autoclave
name: label: maker
content: Eimer and Amend
notes: label: Description
content: Denis Papin, a French scientist working with Robert Boyle in England, designed a high pressure cooker in 1679. Charles Chamberland, a microbiologist who worked with Louis Pasteur in Paris, introduced a similar device for medical and scientific purposes in 1879. Both forms (the pressure cooker and the autoclave) were in widespread use by the early years of the twentieth century.
label: Description
content: This seems to be a National High Pressure Sterilizer made by the Northwestern Steel and Iron Works, a firm in Eau Claire, Wisc., that was formed in 1905. The pressure gauge reads “Eimer & Amend / New York. / Manometer / No. 305878.” According to trade literature, this “National High Pressure Sterilizer [was] used by the American Red Cross, the U.S. Army, and by over 2000 Doctors, Hospitals. and Laboratories.”
label: Description
content: Ref: Eimer & Amend, <i>Chemical and Metallurgical Laboratory Supplies and Assayers’ Materials</i> (New York, 1920), p. 10.
label: Description
content: Arthur H. Thomas Co., <i>Laboratory Apparatus and Reagents</i> (Philadelphia, 1914), p. 20.
label: Description
content: Northwestern Steel and Iron Works ad in <i>Modern Hospital</i> 12 (Jan. 1919): 36.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Chemistry
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Lafayette College, Department of Physics and Chemistry
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1981.0826.4
label: catalog number
content: 1981.0826.4
label: accession number
content: 1981.0826
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Autoclave
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: inside: 23 cm x 10 cm; 9 1/16 in x 3 15/16 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 57 cm x 28 cm x 23.5 cm; 22 7/16 in x 11 in x 9 1/4 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 22 3/4 in x 10 in x 10 1/4 in; 57.785 cm x 25.4 cm x 26.035 cm