Until the early centuries of the Middle Ages, fulling was done by beating the cloth with the feet. Later, as part of the general process of mechanization, fulling mills driven by a water wheel were introduced. A camshaft converted the continuous rotation of the water wheel into the desired movement of the pestles. It seems that fulling mills were among the first examples of mechanization. This may have been due to the particularly hard and unhealthy nature of the work. According to tradition, paper was invented in China at the beginning of the second century AD. From China, the invention slowly spread to the West. It arrived in Europe around the year one thousand. To beat the rags, hand mortars were soon replaced by hydraulic mills. This made it possible to increase production, reduce costs and improve quality. Rice hullers were like the simplest pestles. The pestles were raised vertically by cams and then released. This type was used until the twentieth century. Cam threshers for wheat are rare. Pestles are machines used to crush, pulverize, or break up solid materials to make them usable or, in some cases, to extract liquid substances. They usually consist of rods that are raised by cams and fall by weight into the chamber where the material to be treated is placed. The categories of pestles are very numerous. We can mention, for example, pestles for mining, but the applications range from the pulverization of spices to the pressing of seeds to obtain oil, from the beating of hemp and flax to the crushing of materials for the production of glass, and so on. In all the machines discussed in this chapter, a certain progress can be observed in their evolution over time, but it is limited to the improvement of what already existed: More and more refined machines made by specialized and experienced craftsmen. The general scheme, however, remains almost unchanged.

Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

   Umberto Meneghetti

Appendix: Theatra Machinarum

The Theatra Machinarum are richly illustrated printed texts published in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and particularly between the years 1570 and 1620. These books are important sources for the history of technology because they depict and describe machines of all kinds. However, they must be treated with caution. They contain many inaccuracies and ambiguities that have led to criticism (Dolza and Vérin2004). Since we are going to use a number of illustrations from some of these texts, it is appropriate to quote briefly the main points of this criticism.

The first remark concerns the invention of the machines illustrated, which each author seems to attribute to himself. However, we have to keep in mind that at that time, unlike today, the title of inventor could also be attributed to those who rediscovered a machine invented by others and made its description available both for direct use and for exploiting the idea in other applications. Since we don’t have a particular interest in the attribution of invention priorities in this work, this observation is not an obstacle to the use of Theatra’s contents.

The second and more technical objection concerns the possibility that the machines depicted can be constructed and, if so, whether they can function and be useful. Since these possibilities sometimes do not exist or are very doubtful, the Theatra do not certainly represent the state of the art. For the purposes of this work, however, this observation does not carry much weight. If a cam and possibly an application of it are shown, it means that they are known. And that is enough to mention it in the history of cams.

In conclusion, machines in Theatra Machinarum are usually described carefully and with dimensions. Very often, however, the structure, the functioning, and even the conception itself are approximate. All this belongs to theworld of approximation (Koyré1967; Marchis2010).

Although we have pointed out the limitations of the Theatra Machinarum, we use their illustrations—often very beautiful—because, as we have observed above, they are certainly significant in terms of the history of cams and mechanisms with cams.

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