Necessity is the mother of many inventions is so true for this one! Although named as a safety device, it has been a bane for Surgeons all over the world who have removed it from lungs, throat and stomach!
When in need though it is so useful!
A simple cost effective device which every mother used to have hanging from her chain! Or in her purse!
Button is broken!? or you want to clip something together albeit temporarily!? You can use this!
To think that this was invented only to settle a small debt and though it went on to earn millions, the inventor was happy with some!
The design is so perfect that it has not undergone much modification for more than two hundred years!
This when even the mobile phone you bought yesterday is already outdated today!
This device is the humble but useful SAFETY PIN!
It also comes with an interesting story!
Born on July 29, 1796, in Martinsburg, New York, Walter Hunt achieved moderate success in life and invented many items, including a repeating rifle, a flax spinner, a fountain pen, a knife sharpener, an ice plough and one of the world’s first sewing machines with an eye-pointed needle!
But he is best known as the official inventor of Safety pin! Official since he filed the patent and since similar device was used before by jewelers!
Hunt came up with the idea when he owed someone a $15 debt, and he scrambled to invent something that would earn him some money!
He twisted a piece of metal wire and turned it into what he called a “dress pin,” which had a spring at one end that forced the other end into a clasp. Now as mentioned above Hunt’s invention wasn’t completely new, as ancient Romans used something similar for jewelry; his was though a big improvement!
After being issued U.S. patent #6,281 on April 10, 1849, Hunt sold the patent to W.R. Grace and Company for $400 (roughly $15,000 in 2024 dollars! Which is still a good amount!).
Using that money, Hunt then paid the $15 owed to a friend and kept the remaining amount of $385 for himself.
In the years to follow, W.R. Grace and Company would make millions of dollars in profits from his invention!
His safety pin remains one of the simplest yet most enduring inventions in everyday use.
Of course if used properly it was a safe device but still when open it was a dangerous one!
The laryngologist Dr. Chevalier Jackson devised special instruments for removing swallowed safety pins. Because small children often swallowed them and open pins could be lodged dangerously in their throats, Jackson called them “danger pins” and sometimes displayed arrangements of those he had extracted! Every otolaryngologist including the writer of this blog has a safety pin story! Of course it is scary only if the pin is open! We have often tried to either close the pin or turn it upside down so that the removal is less traumatic.
Still, to stand the test of time and come shining is a testimonial to Safety pin!
Just use them safely like water or jal!
Which reminds me of ganga jal!
Which reminds me of Prakash Jha!
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