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Wood, Jethro

(Encyclopedia)Wood, Jethro, 1774–1834, American inventor, b. either in Dartmouth, Mass., or in Washington co., N.Y. In 1814, while a farmer in Cayuga co., N.Y., he patented a cast-iron plow in which he later embo...

Loomis, Mahlon

(Encyclopedia)Loomis, Mahlon, 1826–86, American inventor, b. Oppenheim, N.Y. He was a dentist by profession but spent much of his time pioneering in wireless communication. Using aerials borne by kites, he succes...

generic drug

(Encyclopedia)generic drug, a drug sold or prescribed under the nonproprietary name of its active ingredients or under a generally descriptive name rather than under a brand or trade name. The name of the active in...

Dwight, John

(Encyclopedia)Dwight, John, fl. 1671–98, English potter, reputed founder of the Chelsea porcelain factory. The registration in 1671 of his patent for the “Mistery of transparent earthenware …” is the firs...

Newcomen, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Newcomen, Thomas nyo͞oˈkəmən, nyo͞okŭmˈən [key], 1663–1729, English inventor of an early atmospheric steam engine (c.1711). It was an improvement over an earlier engine patented (1698) by Th...

Carlson, Chester Floyd

(Encyclopedia)Carlson, Chester Floyd, 1906–68, American inventor; b. Seattle, Wash. A patent lawyer, he invented (1938) xerography, a method of electrostatic printing. For the next two decades he struggled to fin...

Toyama

(Encyclopedia)Toyama tōyäˈmä [key], city (1990 pop. 321,254), capital of Toyama prefecture, W central Honshu, Japan, on Toyama Bay. It is the main center of Japan's patent medicine industry and also has industr...

Whitney, Eli

(Encyclopedia)Whitney, Eli, 1765–1825, American inventor of the cotton gin, b. Westboro, Mass., grad. Yale, 1792. When he was staying as tutor at Mulberry Grove, the plantation of Mrs. Nathanael Greene, Whitney w...

John of Speyer

(Encyclopedia)John of Speyer spīˈər [key], d. 1470, first printer in Venice, b. Bavaria. He designed and patented the first type purely roman in character. It appears in Cicero's Epistulae ad familiares and Plin...

Petrucci, Ottaviano dei

(Encyclopedia)Petrucci, Ottaviano dei ōtˌtävyäˈnō dāˈē pātro͞otˈchē [key], 1466–1539, Venetian printer. Petrucci was the inventor of printing music by movable metal type. His patent for the process w...