Stray sparks from the induction coil: The volta prize and the page patent

In 1864, following the recommendation of a committee of eminent French scientists, Emperor Napoleon III awarded "Le Prix Volta," 50 000 francs, to a Paris instrument maker, Heimich D. Ruhmkorff, for "l\´invention de la bobine d\´induction." When news of this reached Washington, Charles G. Page, a patent examiner, claimed to have anticipated Ruhmkorff\´s first coils by 13 years. Page was subsequently able to secure a special Act of Congress authorizing an extraordinary patent for the coil. While this patent was ostensibly designed simply as a formal tribute and to "vindicate our own nationality in the paths of science," Page\´s attorney, in league with the Western Union Company, began to press charges of infringement. Even though there is no evidence that Page conspired to exploit his "honorific" patent-indeed, he died shortly after it issued-many of his one-time partisans denounced it as "an outrage on the public." Controversy eventually subsided, and most authorities conceded that Page\´s priority claim was valid. Nevertheless, Page was virtually forgotten, while historians of science have continued to treat Ruhmkorff as a noteworthy figure on the basis of the recognition accorded him for his work on the coil. Yet, by standard criteria such as publication Ruhmkorff was not a scientist at all, whereas Page was a bona fide experimental physicist, a worthy peer of Joseph Henry. The story of the Volta Prize and the Page Patent, then, reveals something about scientific chauvinism, and about the capricious basis of scientific repute.