L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2014 www.italoamericano.com 16 Dear Readers, Bits from my bookcase. Here are a few Italian connec- tions I recently found amidst my light-hearted summer reading: They All Laughed... (Ira Flatow) is a book about inven- tions that changed our lives and the stories behind them. We Italo-Americans know that it was Antonio Meucci who invented the telephone and not Alexander Graham Bell as we learned in school, however, Meucci was not the only person to run afoul of Bell. An experienced inventor of Bell's era charged that he, Elisha Gray, not Bell, was the inventor of the telephone. Elisha Gray took Bell to court in the 1870's, suing for patent rights to the talking machine. Of course Gray did not win the patent fight; Bell is credited with the invention. But Gray's claim can hardly be ignored. Sketches of his tele- phone, produced weeks before Bell's patent, are remarkably similar. And history might have recorded Gray as the inventor if Bell had not beaten him to the patent office by a few hours. *** Giovanni Caselli, an Italian priest, invented the telefax machine in 1843, thirty years before Bell's telephone. The terms fax or telefax, short for facsimile, became accepted tech- nical jargon only in 1980. The first commercial fax sys- tem was invented by an Italian. Giovanni Caselli was consid- ered by his neighbors as "some kind of nut". With scientific "junk" strewn about the furni- ture, the Italian priest's small home looked more like a mad scientist's workshop than the residence of a man of the cloth. Born 1815 in Siena, Caselli had simultaneously pur- sued both theological and scien- tific studies. Soon Caselli found himself immersed in politics, and before long, his political leadings forced him into exile in Florence in 1849. The tele- graph had opened the world to the convenience of send- ing messages by code. And now inventors turned their attention to a bigger prob- lem: sending pictures by wire was the talk of the electrical community of the day. And Caselli could not resist jumping in with an idea of his own: the "pan- telegraph". Caselli resur- rected an idea first thought up by Alexander Bain of Scotland in 1840. Shortly after the invention of the telegraph, Bain invented a crude method of send- ing pictures over tele- graph wire. Bain was an expert clockmaker, so his fax machine natural- ly involved swinging pendulums connected at each end of a telegraph line. The machine was never de- veloped (alth- ough patents for the fac- simile mach- ine date back to the 1840s), but the kernel of an idea was planted that would later lead to a commercially successful fax machine. Instead of using a flat plate with an awkward pen- dulum, English inventor Frederick Bakewell hit upon the idea of a rotating drum. The message was written on the drum with a non-conducting "ink". The metal sheet was wrapped around a revolving cylinder and a screw mechanism kept the stylus moving along at a uniform rate. Unfortunately, this design also suffered from a finicky synchronization problem. Hiding in Florence from his political enemies, Caselli had found a comfortable teaching position at the University. Caselli also tried his hand at pub- lishing. He founded a crude scientific journal called La Ricreazione, which allowed his novel ideas to fall under the gaze of Florence's elite and educated. Caselli resurrected Bain's clock-driven pendulum idea but, lacking the skills to make a working prototype, he set off to Paris to find one of the world's leading builders of sci- entific equipment, Gustav Froment. Caselli and Froment labored for seven long years, refining and improving the fax machine. Finally in 1863, Caselli could laugh at the skeptics. He had finally triumphed. The receiver of a U.S. patent for his "telegraphic apparatus", Caselli made major improvements to the fax design: His fax did not require the original to be scratched in metal or written in special ink. Ordinary ink suf- ficed. Originals could be repro- duced in the same size or reduced. Different messages could simultaneously be trans- mitted through a single wire. Also among the improve- ments was Caselli's very high quality recording paper. It was soaked in potassium cyanide, which changed color each time electricity passed through it. The result was a fax machine stand- ing more than six feet tall, com- posed of swinging pendulums, batteries, and wires. But this ugly duckling produced faxes of outstanding quality. The gov- ernment of Emperor Napoleon III liked what it saw and decid- ed to embrace the pantelegraph as its own. The French legisla- ture passed a law calling for ser- vice between Paris and Lyons. In 1861 the government authorized tests of a fax system using tele- graph lines between Paris and Lille and Paris and Marseilles. By 1863 a Paris-Lyons line was tested with great success. Transmitting at fifteen words per minute, the fax could send forty telegrams of twenty words each hour. In 1865 the French govern- ment decided to take the system public. Officially inaugurated on May 16, 1865, the pantele- graph was set up on the existing Paris-Lyons telegraph line. The French must have been exhilarat- ed because two years later, the Marseilles leg was added. By 1867 four Caselli machines ser- viced the Paris-Lyons lines. Service was so improved that by 1868, some 110 telegrams could be sent each hour. The fax caught the eye of the press (per- haps because they could see its benefits to their industry). Newspapers and magazines praised the new invention for its public service. The problem with early fax machines was that an owner had to buy the send- ing and receiving machines from the same maker. Competing brands couldn't talk to one another. All that changed in 1974, when the first inter- national fax standard was invented by the United Nations. In 1980, modern office fax machines came into being with the advent of Group 3- a fax standard that allowed digital signals to be sent over regular telephone lines in one minute or less. *** T h e G o o d D e e d G u i d e... (James and Lisa Grace) is a slim volume about simple ways to make the world a better place. We all wish people would be nicer to one another and this little handbook pro- vides clear directions for becoming a better neighbor, a better friend, or the kind of per- son who tries to put a smile on the face of people they encounter. One suggested good deed gives directions for mak- ing "chicken soup for a sick friend". My mother always had "brodo di gallina" in the ready whenever "un raffreddore" was near. Scientists have con- firmed what our mothers and "nonnas" have known for cen- turies: Chicken soup is good for colds. Chicken soup con- tains ingredients that affect the body's immune system, espe- cially due to its anti-inflamma- tory properties. This might explain why it soothes sore throats and makes you feel bet- ter when you have a cold or the flu. Researchers have found that chicken soup helps stop the movement of neutrophils, white blood cells that eat bacterial and cell debris and that are released in great numbers by viral infections like colds. Neutrophils stimulate the release of mucus, so stopping their movement is a good thing. In addition to all these amazing things, researchers suggest that the TLC associated with home- made chicken soup can also have a positive effect on the recipient's health. *** We empty-nesters all know how to open up a can of chick- en broth, heat it and throw in a handful of "pastina", but for those times when we want to start from scratch, here is a "How to Make Chicken Soup for a Sick Friend" basic recipe: 1. ASSEMBLE YOUR INGREDIENTS. You will need: 2 quarts of water 1 whole 3-pound chicken, washed and quartered 1 large onion, peeled and cut into wedges 4 peeled carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces 2 stalks celery, cut into 1-inch pieces 2. COMBINE THE WATER AND CHICKEN PARTS IN A LARGE SOUP POT. 3. BRING TO JUST UNDER A BOIL, THEN LOWER HEAT. Simmer slow- ly for approximately 40-60 minutes, skimming as needed. 4. WHEN THE CHICKEN IS COOKED THOROUGHLY, REMOVE IT FROM THE POT. Set the pieces aside to cool. You'll know it is cooked thoroughly when the meat has no traces of pink. 5. ADD THE VEGETA- BLES TO THE BROTH. This recipe serves four to six people, and it takes about two hours to prepare... *** L e t M e T e l l Y o u Something...(Caroline Manzo). This book by a real housewife and street-smart business- woman is a fun read. A few of Caroline's "words to live by" are also fine to heed: On life Tell the truth. Lies will always come back to bite you. • You only have one life. Take that stage and own it. On family • Be a parent now. You can't press "rewind" later. • Overprotective parents raise underprepared kids. On relationships • Picking a man is like pick- ing a racehorse. • My husband may not be perfect, but he's perfect for me. • Marriage is a marathon. You gotta stay in shape! *** Caselli's pantelegraph patented in 1861

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