Edison's right to his patent has been
contested on this very ground. It has been said that the mere introduction
of so small a difference as the replacement of a thin rod by a fine
filament was so slight an item that it could not be patented. The
improvements by Swan, Lane Fox, and others, though so important as a
whole, have been made step by step.
Or take again the discovery of anaesthetics. At the beginning of the
century Sir Humphrey discovered laughing gas, as it was then called. He
found that it produced complete insensibility to pain and yet did not
injure health. A tooth was actually taken out under its influence, and of
course without suffering. These facts were known to our chemists, they
were explained to the students in our great hospitals, and yet for half a
century the obvious application occurred to no one. Operations continued
to be performed as before, patients suffered the same horrible tortures,
and yet the beneficent element was in our hands, its divine properties
were known, but it never occurred to any one to make use of it.
Pages:
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335