...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7300457 | Self-supporting metallic implantable grafts, compliant implantable medical devices and methods of making same Implantable medical grafts fabricated of metallic or pseudometallic films of biocompatible materials having a plurality of microperforations passing through the film in a pattern that imparts fabric-like qualities to the graft or permits the geometric deformation of... | 11/27/2007 |
| 7273411 | Polishing apparatus A chemical-mechanical polishing apparatus is provided with a downstream device for conditioning a web-shaped polishing pad. The device may be used to condition a glazed portion of the pad, and then the conditioned pad portion may be used again for polishing. The con... | 09/25/2007 |
| 7195641 | Valvular prostheses having metal or pseudometallic construction and methods of manufacture This invention relates to improvements in prosthetic cardiac and venous valves and implantable medical devices having moveable septa. The inventive prosthetic cardiac and venous valves have metallic or pseudometallic valves coupled to metallic or pseudometallic sten... | 03/27/2007 |
| 6110009 | Grinding machine for grinding frictional surface of pad and method of grinding the pad The grinding machine for grinding a frictional surface of a pad of the present invention comprises: a grooving cutter to be rotated; a cylindrical grinding wheel arranged at a position distant from the grooving cutter; a pad chucking portion for holding a... | 08/29/2000 |
| 5271185 | Apparatus for chamfering notch of wafer A notch of a semiconductor wafer is accurately and efficiently chamfered by the use of an apparatus which comprises a rotary disk grindstone, a wafer retaining mechanism for disposing the surface of a wafer so as to intersect the surface of the grindstone... | 12/21/1993 |
| 4924632 | Circular grinding machine A circular grinding machine wherein the upper side of the base for the reciprocable tool supporting unit slopes upwardly from the front side toward the rear side of the base. The headstock and a reciprocable tailstock are mounted at the front side of the ... | 05/15/1990 |
| 4850760 | Method of finishing gears A workpiece gear to be finished is held in mesh with a gear finishing tool with substantially no backlash therebetween. The gear finishing tool is then driven in mesh with the workpiece gear, and the workpiece gear is rotated in synchronism with the drive... | 07/25/1989 |