Most of the time the inventors develop new products that make our lives easier, or so they say. But there are times when the inventor's good intention collides head-on with the utility of the invention, causing the invention to be useless in the best case that accumulates dust in a storage room.
Today I bring you some examples of unfortunate inventions for children of the early twentieth century, all created with good intention, although I suppose with the idea of helping parents more than the small sufferers of such "junk".
The Baby Walker: September 1939
Most parents teach their children to walk by holding them by the arms or with the help of a walker. The problem is that the first option usually ends with the back of the parent threatening to be in the form of "L" for the rest of the days and this is directly aggravated proportional to the difference in height between son and teacher. A Swiss engineer (whom history has preferred to remain anonymous) thought it would be a good idea to attach his son's feet to his by means of wooden boards with rings. In this way he could direct the steps of the infant. To maintain the balance of the little one he designed a kind of harness to which a rope was attached and thus control the verticality.
U.V. to mark babies: December 1938
One of the most common fears in maternity hospitals around the world, is that we leave them with a baby that is not ours and so parents, as hospital staff strive to ensure that this does not happen, as a result of this effort they have developed different systems, but of course none as unfortunate as the ultra violet ray lamp which marked (or rather, it should be said, burned) the parents' initials on the baby's skin. These marks were leaving a few days later, but you see, the baby came out with his first sunburn. I guess parents would wonder why their son cried so much.
Baby Holder: October 1917
Do not believe that it is something new that there are companies with child-free areas and that there are those who protest having to travel with babies, and in the last century we had this "class" of people.
In 1917 the managers of a railway company (the news does not say what company it is, but I hope that its owners received a payment according to their moral tasting) answered the questions of journalists after the "baby holder" :
"We have been waiting for years for some intelligent inventor to appear with some device to solve the problem of scandalous children during the night. We suggest a system tightly sealed and soundproofed (Yes, they have read correctly).But Caleb M. Prather, from Evanston, Illinois, (who is the inventor of the "tube" they see in the illustration), has ignored us in a couple of details. "
Unfortunately for these individuals and Fortunately for babies, the Prather design it had ventilation holes permanent so that the baby could continue with that unpleasant vice of breathing oxygen. It had an opening that allowed to leave the baby inside during the day and close it while he was sleeping.
"Despite their convenience," the managers continued, "we must convey the few benefits for the personnel in the surroundings of the baby, because not being soundproofed they should continue listening to their crying. If the inventor had kept the proposals we made we know a few singles who would be willing to buy a few. "
These have been some examples of unfortunate inventions for children of the early twentieth century, Forgive them because they didn't know what they were doing.
