In
1844, the first U.S. patent was issued for a printing press with different colors of ink applied in one impression (No. 3,744). The inventor, Thomas F.
Adams of Philadelphia, Pa., called it "polychrome printing." The
process used several ink fountains feeding different color rollers which
operated in parallel on the same axle, to produce stripes of different colors to ink corresponding lines of type.
 Biology
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In
1884, cocaine was first used as a local anaesthetic to immobilize a patient's
eye for eye surgery by Carl Koller. His success initiated the modern era
of local anesthesia, with cocaine also quickly adopted for nose and throat
surgery and for dentistry. For Koller, a Czech-born American ophthalmologist,
the clue for this use was when he noticed that cocaine had a numbing effect
on the tongue. He made many experiments on animals before introducing its use
on humans. Cocaine was isolated in 1859 and was synthesized in 1885. It was
later found with high doses or repeated use, it caused erosion of the corneal
epithelium in high doses and it was replaced by less toxic, synthetic local
anesthetics such as tetracaine and proparacaine.
Chemistry
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In
1885, a U.S. patent was issued for saccharine, the artificial sweetener
discover by Constantin Fahlberg (No. 326,281). He had alreaday
patented the substance "benzoic sulfinide" which he had found
to be exceptionally sweet tasting (No. 319,082, 2 Jun 1885). In his new
patent, his invention was to mix a small quantity of this compound with a
large amount of grape or starch sugar, which he then called
"dextro-saccharine." In this form, the mixture had, he
claimed, "the sweetening property of cane sugar, or saccharose, so as to
be successfully used in the preparation of candies, preserves, cordials,
&c." He described mixing 2-lb of the chemical compound with
1-ton of grape sugar, by solution and evaporation. Taking advantage of the
lower cost of grape sugar, this was cheaper than cane-sugar.
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Physics
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In
1898, in a paper dated 1 Sep, Ernest Rutherford coined the
terms alpha and beta "for two distinct types of
radiation,.one that is very readily absorbed, which will be termed for
convenience the α radiation, and the other of a more penetrative character,
which will be termed the β radiation." His paper, Uranium Radiation
and the Electrical Conduction Produced by It, gave tables of the amount of
radiation that passed through successive layers of metal leaf (or aluminium
foil). He measured it using the rate at which charge leaked off a zinc plate
due to the ionizing influence of the uranium radiation that reached it, as
detected by the needle of an electrometer connected to it. He also compared
the radiation emitted by different uranium compounds; and transparency to the
radiation of different filter substances.
Earth
Science
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In
1854, the first observation made in North America of a previously unknown
asteroid was recorded by Scottish-born American James Ferguson of
the U.S. Naval Observatory. This was the thirty-first of the series and is
now known as 31 Euphrosyne, named after one of the Charites in Greek
mythology. It is one of the largest of the main belt asteroids, between Mars
and Jupiter. Ferguson subsequently discovered two more asteroids: 50 Virginia
(4 Oct 1857) and 60 Echo (14 Sep 1860). Within the next two decades, more
asteroids were discovered by American astronomers: one by Searle, two by
Tuttle (1861-62), 16 by Watson (1863-74), and 22 by Peters (1861-1875),
making a total of 44 discovered in a period of about 20 years.
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Quote
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The significant problems we
have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created
them. - Albert Einstein
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