Percival Marshall (1870–1948)

A fascinating piece of social history dating from the early years of the 20th. C., this is one of many workshop manuals written for amateurs who made and repaired things with their hands in small workshops, garden sheds or even on the kitchen table. 'Health and safety' was unheard of and the author assumes that the reader will be able to acquire a wide range of noxious chemicals, concentrated acids, antimony, arsenic, mercury and the like for the various recipes. You can clean mercury by stirring it up with concentrated sulphuric acid, make a silvering paste for brass by cooking up silver with concentrated nitric acid in a hot water bath - you are warned that very poisonous brown fumes will be generated - or if you need to whiten brass, mix a quarter-pound of cyanide of potassium and 2 oz. oxide of mercury in 2 gallons of rainwater, let it stand for 24 hours then dip your brass articles into the solution: the list goes on and on. I was trapped into the purchase by the tip for mending broken filaments in incandescent light bulbs (now themselves virtually unobtainable in the UK) by switching on the current and shaking the bulb until the broken ends touch and fuse together - just too easy!

A recent book called The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr warns of the deskilling of developed societies by advancing automation and computerisation. This process obviously began long ago with technical advances which complicated devices and procedures beyond the skills of ordinary people. Fifty years ago I could happily do most of my car repair and maintenance myself. Today I haven't a clue as to what is going on under the bonnet, nor, I fear, have the mechanics at my local garage, at least not until they have plugged the vehicle into their diagnostic computer. Perhaps I will bury this little book in a time capsule for survivors to find after the Apocalypse.… (más)