Accession No
4067
Brief Description
Electrite electrocardiograph (ECG), the first English Electrite made from the U.S.A. design, by Cambridge Instrument Company, English, 1950 (c)
Origin
England
Maker
Cambridge Instrument Company Ltd.
Class
medical
Earliest Date
1948
Latest Date
1950
Inscription Date
Material
wood; metal (3 types of white metal, steel, brass); plastic (bakelite, perspex, and at least 3 others); paper (card); hide (leather); rubber
Dimensions
breadth 265mm; depth 270mm; height 291mm
Special Collection
Cambridge Instrument Company Collection
Provenance
Donated by the Cambridge Instrument Company.
Inscription
‘CAMBRIDGE ELECTRITE
CARDIOGRAPH
THE PROPERTY OF
[space]
Cambridge Instrument Co. Ltd. England’ (brass plaque on lid of case)
‘Cambridge Instrument Co. Ltd.
London and Cambridge’ (brass plaque on instruments)
Description Notes
Electrite electrocardiograph (ECG), by Cambridge Instrument Co., c. 1950.
Wooden case with leather carrying handle, white metal hinges and clip fastener. 2 power sockets on right hand side of case. Whole instrument set on 4 rubber feet with ventilation grilles on underside. Main instrument covered by black-painted metal plate with recording apparatus with glazed window, mounted on left-hand side. Switches for ‘Stylus Heat’, ‘Sensitivity’, ‘Position’, ‘Record’, and ‘Standardize 1MV’. Also dial divided ‘0’, ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘aVr’, ‘aVl’, ‘aVf’, ‘V’, ‘CR’, ‘CL’, and ‘CF’ and marked ‘Leads’. Lid divided into two sections; left hand compartment contains four arm electrodes and one other accessory; right hand compartment has sliding perspex door and contains coils of wire and a set of belts for the electrodes.
Condition good; complete
References
Events
Description
An electrocardiograph is a medical instrument that records the electrical activity of the heart. Physiologists discovered the electrical wave that accompanies the human heart beat at the end of the 19th Century and Dr Willem Einthoven designed an electrocardiograph using a string galvanometer to practically and precisely record it in 1903. It would eventually revolutionise the study of the heart and massively improve the treatment of heart disease. However, the original design was large and awkward - filling a room, weighing over 650lbs, and requiring patients to immerse their limbs in saltwater baths to transmit the heart's electrical current.
Dr Einthoven approached Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company to manufacture a marketable electrocardiograph and the Company proceeded with the redesign of the instrument. It completed its first full electrocardiograph in 1908. The Company continued to improve the electrocardiograph and make it smaller, but its design remained fundamentally unchanged for decades.
Cambridge Instrument Company released the Electrite model in the 1950s. It was the first valve-operated electrocardiograph in Britain. It was also the Company's first direct-writing instrument, with a heated stylus replacing the camera, making results instantly available. The Electrite was a better model than most other valve-operated electrocardiographs and it sold well.
26/03/2020
Created by: Morgan Bell on 26/03/2020
Description
Electrocardiographs are medical instruments that measure the rhythm of heart contractions and the relative strength of different parts of the heart muscle. Described at the ‘first English Electrite made from the USA design’, this instrument produced a cardiogram from direct writing technology. Being more advantageous than older British designs that used film records and required processing, the Electrite made records available immediately. The Electrite had a heated stylus that recorded heart activity on wax paper by evaporating wax on the recording paper to reveal a dark line where the hot stylus had travelled. The Transrite superseded the Electrite. It utilized the same heated stylus, but replaced the valve apparatus with a transistor-based amplifier. The Whipple Museum has an example of the Transrite and the Transrite III in its collection.
06/11/2013
Created by: Allison Ksiazkiewicz on 06/11/2013
FM:43963
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