Gerard wrote me with an interesting question. Gerald was trying to find out the name of an item used before the modern wooden
golf tee. Homemade tees were made of water, sand, and a small cup. Gerald wanted to know the name of the small cup. If anybody knows please leave a comment. Illustration: Patent Drawing provided by USPTO
The Miracle of Penicillin
Mark wrote me with the following first hand experience; Mark's wife Judith was prescribed penicillin in 1951, just three years after the mass production of penicilian became available in 1948. Mark commented that my article on Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin did not mention what year Hodgkin's contribution of the X-ray structural analysis of penicillin took place. Mark on May 25, 1948, Andrew Moyer was granted a patent for a method of the mass production of penicillin, that gives us the 1948 date. I did not mention the dates of Hodgkin's work which would have aided Moyer's invention. However, I did link to several external articles. One states that "her discovery happened during World War II." And another states, "Hodgkin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947 after publishing the structure of penicillin." That gives us a good ballpark date.
Early Jetliner
Jason I agree with you and thanks for the correction about James Floyd. He did not invent the first jetliner, he designed the first commercial jetliner to fly in North America. And he was born in the U.K. and later became a Canadian citizen. Thanks for the heads up.
Mary — don’t be silly. The Name of the PRE Tee — was called (cymbals crash, drums roll) A “TEE CUP!”
Cute column.
George
The Ryder Cup, founded on prestige, used a, “Tea Cup” in 1927, which wasn’t at all hard to look up on Google.
Dear Mary:
Interesting to reada about the usual nowadays origin of the plumb invention:
But remember that many humans body of that time have a lot of lead. in their composition- you know…I understand the reason.