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Babbage, Charles, 1792-1871

"On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures"

The public would gain
several advantages by this arrangement. In the first place, it
would be greatly for the interest of the medical practitioner to
have the best drugs; it would be in his interest also not to give
more physic than needful; and it would enable him, through some
of his more advanced pupils, to watch more frequently the changes
of any malady.
190. There are many articles of hardware which it is
impossible for the purchaser to verify at the time of purchase,
or even afterwards, without defacing them. Plated harness and
coach furniture may be adduced as examples: these are usually of
wrought iron covered with silver, owing their strength to the one
and a certain degree of permanent beauty to the other metal. Both
qualities are, occasionally, much impaired by substituting cast-
for wrought-iron, and by plating with soft solder (tin and lead)
instead of with hard solder (silver and brass). The loss of
strength is the greatest evil in this case; for cast iron, though
made for this purpose more tough than usual by careful annealing,
is still much weaker than wrought-iron, and serious accidents
often arise from harness giving way.


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