Inventory no. 70367 - Former Display Label
English MEDICAL FRICTIONAL GENERATOR
c.1770
Read's pattern
Unsigned
Mahogany folding base, large pulley wheel. Tinned conductor with serrated edges (the collector), supported on Leyden jar. Lane electrometer at side consisting of a turned mahogany support, with brass ball pierced by the discharging rod (electrode) ending in balls, the gap between the conductor and outer ball being controlled by a micrometer divided into twenty-fourths of an inch.
According to J. Priestley (1769), this generator designed by the London instrument maker Read 'is peculiarly useful to physicians and apothecaries'. According to the non-contemporary label on the generator this is Read's own machine which was formerly in the possession of Mr Lane and fitted with his discharger in 1765, but there is no documentary evidence for this.
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