Gutta percha, its discovery, history, and manifold uses.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gutta percha, its discovery, history, and manifold uses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    entirely eaten away by the water, and the interior covered with a white poisonous crustr In each case the lead has been re¬ placed by Gutta Percba. At Claremont Palace, our readers will remember, bow thirteen of the household of Louis Philippe became dangerously affected, and the ex-king with his suite were compelled to remove to Richmond. The cause was ascertained to be the impregnation of the water with lead, at the rate of a grain to a gallon! It is impossible not to believe that there are many similar but unsuspected instances. Of the greatest importance is it, therefore, that a material so dangerous should be superseded And not in tubing alone; Gutta Percba is equally useful in the lining of cisterns. At first, indeed, some disagreeable flavour is slightly communicated to the water; but this speedily disappears. Baths might also be cased with it; indeed we have heard of a gentleman whose portmanteau, lined with Gutta Percha, was made to answer the double pur¬ pose of a splash-bath in the morning, and (speedily drying) of a receptacle of his clothes during the day ! For other purposes where tubing is required for the conveyance of water, as in watering gardens, sprinkling water in malting, washing windows and carriages, &c., Gutta Percha is found very serviceable. It is also used for the stowage, transmission, or spreading of liguid manure upon farms. As it is completely unaffected by animal salts, tanks lined with the material will contain the manure for any length of time. And from the strength and flexibility of the tubing, it is employed as hose to discharge the liquid over the field. Indeed, to use the words of the Ayr Advertiser^ “ before Gutta Percha came into use, a few years ago, such a plan could not have been adopted. It is the only substance known that combines the essential requisites.” In “ high farming,” therefore, it would seem indispensable ; not to mention its other agricultural uses, as in the form of light whips, traces, &c., wLich make it at least a candidate for the oft-claimed title of the “ Parmer’s Friend.”
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