Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1889 — PROGRESS OF INFECTIONS SINCE 1845. [ARTICLE]

PROGRESS OF INFECTIONS SINCE 1845.

Thomas A. Edison has returned from Europe, where he has been the recipient of the ..highest-, honors. If asked to vote on who is the greatest of living Americans, Tele Republican would put in one for the “Wizard es Menlo Park.”

So far as the practical, everyday uses of electricity are concerned, there has been greater development during the last dozen years than in ull the previous ages of the earth’s history. Yet notwithstanding this amazing progress we are thought to be only in “the morning of the times” in the development of this wonderful and mysterious agent. As a single evidence of the wonderful things the near future has in store for this force, the fact is cited that A company of colid business men has notified the committees of the New York World’s Fair that an electrical railway will be ready to eonvey visitors to and from the ground at a speed of five miles a minute. “The pioposition is not made upon the theory that electrical development yet remains to he accomplished in order that the promised rssult may be attained, •but on the assurance that the .company making the offer is already prepared tn show its faith by its works. The statement that such speed may be attained is rather startling, but not so very surprising to those who have Carefully noted the wonderful advancement of electrical science daring the last ten years.” —■ra, aTff •**>.' - " i, - n- ■ —.——

In the year 1845 the present owners of the Scientific American newspaper commenced its publication, and soon after established a bureau for procuring patents for inventions at home and in foreign countries. During the year 1845 there was only 5041 patents issued from the U. 8. Patent Office, and the total issue from the establishment of the Patent Office, up to the end of that year, numbered only 4,847. Up to the first of July this year there have been granted 406,413. Showing that since the commencement of the publication of the Scientific American there have been issued from the U. S. Patent office 403,166 patents, and about one third more applications have been made than have been granted, showing the ingenuity of our people to be phenomenal, and much greater than the enormous number of patents issued indicates. Probably a good many of our readers have had business transacted through the offices of the Scientific American, in New York or Washington, and are familiar with Munn & Co.’s mode of doing business, but those who have not will be interested in knowing something about this, the oldest patent soliciting firm in this country, probably in the world. Persons visiting the offices of the Scientific American, 361 Broadway, N. Y., for the first time will be surprised, on entering the main office, to find such an extensive and elegantly equipped establishment, with its walnut counters, desks and chairs to correspond, and its enormous safes, and such a large number of drauglitmen, specification writers, and clerks, all as busy as bees, reminding one of a large banking or insurance office, with its hundred employes. In conversation with one of the firm, who had commenced the business of soliciting patents in connection with the publication of the Scientific American, more than forty years ago, 1 learned that this firm had made application for patents for upward of one hundred thousand inventions in the United States, and several thousands in different foreign countries, and had filed as many cases in the Patent Office in a single month as there were patents issued during the entire first year of their business career. This gentleman has seen the Patent Office grow from a sapling to a sturdy oak, and he modestly hinted that many thought the Scientific American, with its large circulation, had performed no mean share in stimulating inventions and advancing the interests of the Patent Office. But it is not alone the patent soliciting that occupies the attention of the one hundred persons employed by Munn & Co., but a large number are engaged on the four publications issued weekly and monthly from their office, 361 Broadway, N. Y., viz.: The Scientific American, the Scientific American Supplement, the Export edition of the Scientific American, and the Architects and Builders Edition of the Scientific American. The first two publications are issued every week, and the latter two, the first of every month.