Spirometers (lung testers)

gameswat · Post by **gameswat** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 5:40 pm

And to think I once admired your taste in machines PM.

That's a pretty damn awful homemade copy of Caille Rubber Neck. The real machines are quite superb in comparison, and have the previously talked about Alfred E Newman marquee casting on them.

pennymachines · Post by **pennymachines** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 5:57 pm

Yep, that does look kind of spectacular by comparison - I only really focus on the European stuff.

Favourite has to be the Hill Climber. This image from Wenn der Groschen fällt appears to be a patent drawing. Can't find the patent though.

A special form of strength tester are the machines for testing the lung force, in which the player blows with all his might through a hose. The air pressure of the blowing is measured and, as with the other devices, recorded on a scale. However, these devices soon went out of fashion as it was generally considered unhygienic to use the same mouthpiece over and over again.

pennymachines · Post by **pennymachines** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:23 pm

Found it: GB190201196 John Jofeh, 1902

gameswat · Post by **gameswat** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:37 pm

The photos are of John Gresham's former machine now in the US. I got to look it over many years ago and sadly someone removed the figure and other parts to make it just a single player instead. Nothing that can't be restored one day as the patent shows you everything.

pennymachines · Post by **pennymachines** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:47 pm

Gameswat wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:37 pm The photos are of John Gresham's former machine now in the US.

Yes, taken by Sweetmeats when it was in John's Pocklington museum (a year or two after I visited same).

pennymachines · Post by **pennymachines** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 5:56 pm

These wonderful spirometers were in the Smith Collection sale of 1994:

13rebel · Post by **13rebel** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 7:32 pm

Some stunning items there. Any ideas as to how the 'How many lamps can you light' machine would work? You can make a lamp go out by attaching electrodes to a bulb, immersing them in calcium hydroxide and blowing into a tube/straw submerged into the liquid, but that would be the wrong way round.

pennymachines · Post by **pennymachines** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 10:15 pm

I should think it works much like the others - blowing into the tube moves a gauge with a contact which moves over terminals to progressively light the bulbs.

The one below (attributed to The National Spirometer Co. in the OP's link) dispenses electricity too.