Word: gadgets
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...pocket-sized, 2-lb. gadget that can serve as a resuscitator, inhalator or anesthesia machine was described by Western Reserve University's Dr. Robert A. Hingson. Already used in more than 7,000 cases for short-term (five to 15 min.) anesthesia, it delivers a nonexplosive mixture of cyclopropane, oxygen and helium. Patients thus anesthetized have had fractures set, babies delivered by high forceps, and kidneys removed. Dr. Hingson has made it work at 12,000 ft. in the Andes, and medical student volunteers have used it as an inhalator to escape noxious gases...
...inventory touched off another shuddering round of price competition among the survivors. In addition, the whole TV price level slid downhill with General Electric's introduction of portable sets priced substantially below table or console models. Though portables were hailed as opening a brand-new market for the gadget-minded and the second-set crowd, they actually grabbed off 40% of the first-set and replacement market for a time...
Nothing is funnier to practical Americans than a gadget that seems almost too practical to bear. Like the first model T, the Murphy In-A-Dor bed. which folded up into a closet, was laughed into fame, and so into the annals of genuine Americana. Millions who never owned a Murphy bed had seen Charlie Chaplin wrestling vainly with the contraption in One A.M., roared with glee when it finally flipped him into the closet. William L. Murphy, who invented the bed in the early 1900s, stoutly insisted that no such outrage ever happened in real life. But sales soared...
...introduced a new water-softener appliance by setting up giant faucets with running water outside assembly halls at eight regional sales conventions. Inside each darkened hall, a single spotlight fell on a stage curtain which parted dramatically with an explosion and cloud of smoke to reveal the new gadget. The shows cost $35,000. But they were worth it. They netted $1,000,000 in orders...
...ingenious solution: into the aortic channel he introduces an additional valve made of plastic, with a floating ball which stops the backflow when the heart relaxes. (Such valves used to tick like a clock inside the patient, are now silent because the ball is covered with silicone rubber.) The gadget does not prevent all backflow but stops enough to keep most patients' hearts from being overloaded...