Gorrie, John

Name: John Gorrie

Achievements: Discovered cold-air principle of refrigeration

Born: October 3, 1802; either Charleston, South Carolina or Nevis, West Indies

Died: June 16, 1855; Apalachicola, Florida (Aged 52)

Field & Discipline: Medicine; Physician

Language: English

Father: Unknown

Mother: Unknown

Siblings: None

Spouse: Caroline Myrick Benam

Children: 2

Education: College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of the State of New York, Fairfield, Herkimer County

Major Work:

“Dr John Gorrie’s Apparatus for the Artificial Production of Ice, in Tropical Climates” (1854)

Life & Times:

The facts of Gorrie’s birth are obscure. In one account, his mother is said to have left Spain for the West Indies,  where Gorrie was born. When an infant, Gorrie was taken to Charleston, South Carolina by his mother who was accompanied by Captain Gorrie, a Scotsman who was serving in the Spanish navy. Other accounts allege that Gorrie was born in South Carolina.

Although the father soon left, he sent money for his son’s education. In 1827, Gorrie graduated from medical college and may have worked as a doctor in Abbeville, SC before arriving in the port of Apalachicola, FL in 1833. He set up his own medical practice and was appointed to several civic posts, including that of mayor. He was also involved in local business.

He founded the Marine Insurance Bank and was active in establishing a Masonic lodge. In 1838 he retired from his civic duties in order to focus on his medical practice. Malaria was rife in the sub-tropical climate of Florida and Gorrie treated malaria patients in the Marine hospital and in the hospital he had set up for the poor.

He was influenced by the [influenced by] miasma theory* and believed that malaria was a volatile oil which arose from organic matter as it putrefied in the moist heat. In an effort to prevent the spread of the disease he organised land-fill operations in low-lying areas on the waterfront and drainage operations in the wetlands on higher ground. He also set about finding a method to control the high temperatures that malarial fever caused in his patients.

He proposed to do this by lowering the room temperature and removing atmospheric moisture. Between 1838-45 he developed an air-cooling system for hospital wards and for the production of artificial ice. He wrote several articles on malaria for the local press and in 1840 wrote a series of papers for the “New York Lancet” on “Equilibrium of Temperature as a Cure of Pulmonary Consumption”. In 1845 he succeeded in making artificial ice and three years later a working model of his apparatus was built for him at the Cincinnati Iron Works.

Gorrie’s method involved using a pump to compress air in a cylinder from which it passed into a chamber kept cool by surrounding water. The air was then passed into another cylinder in which it was allowed to expand while being mixed with brine. The expanding air took heat from the brine. The air was then allowed to escape to the atmosphere and the brine – now cooled to about 20 degrees Fahrenheit – was directed to a container where it could be applied to ice-making or other purposes.  It was effectively a [developed] refrigerator*

Gorrie was able to demonstrate his method with his working machine and in 1850 he announced his invention at a dinner hosted by the French Consul in Florida, M. Rosan. He also wrote an article for the “American Journal of Science” entitled “On the Quantity of Heat Evolved from Atmospheric Air by Mechanical Compression”. He obtained British and American patents but he needed help with finance in order to build a bigger ice-making machine.

In Australia, [work related to] James Harrison* was developing the process by which he became the first to apply a refrigeration plant to the manufacturing process,  but Gorrie’s claims for the validity of his process were criticized by newspapers in the northeast, where the monopoly on the supply of natural ice was threatened. He eventually sold a half-share in his machine but the purchaser died before investing any money for its development.

Gorrie wrote a pamphlet  to publicize his machine: “Dr John Gorrie’s Apparatus for the Artificial Production of Ice in Tropical Climates” (1854) and continued to write articles for the medical press on malaria but he was unable to go into commercial production with his machine before he died in 1855.

Using data obtained from  M. Rosan, a Frenchman called Edmond Carre patented an ammonia-absorption refrigerator in 1860 but it was not until the 1870’s that the first successful compressed-ammonia refrigerator was produced by [work related to] von Linde* .  His machine was the first attempt at [made first attempt at] air-conditioning*.

Assessment: Gorrie was a pioneer in the environmental control of malaria and one of the first to apply the compressed air principle to produce refrigeration.

Oneliner:  John Gorrie,  early refrigeration and air conditioning pioneer

Bibliography:

• American National Biography.