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ABC News
4 days ago
- Science
- ABC News
The Australian brothers who made everything from EVs to humidicribs
Belinda Smith: An electric scooter doesn't have all that much in common with a humid crib or a fax machine. And you wouldn't expect someone who made heart monitors to be your first pause of call when you wanted an Olympic scoreboard, right? Yet, all of these inventions and around a hundred more were built by a pair of Australian brothers, Edward and Donald both, or Ted and Don, as they were mostly called science reports are Ellen Phiddian and tracked down their family to find out what compelled these brothers from Caltowie in country South Australia Kaylene Kranz: In those those days, those early days, and now to a certain degree if. Yeah, you do it yourself. You make it work. And particularly if you're in the country, you know, you haven't got the luxury of picking up the phone and say, Hey, come and help, um, you sort it yourself and get on with it. And if you need something, will you adapt? And you make. Ellen Phiddian: That's Kaylene Krantz. Her mother was a cousin of the both brothers. Kaylene Kranz: Well, my mother was 18 when Dawn was born, and he was the last child of, of that family group. So, and she was the one that did the babysitting around the families. And she used to babysit Dawn as a, as a little tacker. Ellen Phiddian: Ted and Don came from a family of German immigrants who worked on farms throughout South Australia. Ted started tinkering when he was a kid, making things like electric bells. Apparently he burned holes in the carpet with his experiments. Don Kaylene Kranz: and Ted invented things. That's what they did. It was, yeah, they, they were respected and respected for their innovations and inventions, but it wasn't something that you. Sort of went around bragging about it was just part of what was happening in, in our lives. Ellen Phiddian: Kaylene fondly remembers visiting the younger, both brother Don and his wife at their home in Kensington when she was young. Kaylene Kranz: Always exciting for me as a, as a small child because they had a lovely house and we always fed cups of tea, our beautiful cups in the sitting room. And Don was a, Don was a jolly fella. Um. I, I remember particularly his happy, happy smile and round cheeks, and he was a nice man. Yeah, as a kid, he Ellen Phiddian: made me feel welcome. Beyond the Broths relatives, someone else has taken an interest in the brothers. This is Kelly Branson and she's a curator at the SA Health Museum. Kellie Branson: The oldest brother Ted, um, he was at the mentor. He had a physics degree and he was a. Brains behind the operation, and Don did the tinkering and the fixings. Ellen Phiddian: The brother's real talent was to take an existing invention and make it better. Like during the Second World War, when there was petrol rationing, they designed a three wheeled electric truck. Kellie Branson: They could only go 30 ks an hour. So it wasn't very fast, but it was fast enough to do like food deliveries and stuff during the war. But yeah, imagine the site back in the 1940s or fifties when you see an electric vehicle. You wouldn't have known what to do. Ellen Phiddian: They also dropped up a ton of different devices from uniform cloth cutters to machine gun recorders. Kellie Branson: They also had, um, a background in scoreboards as well that designed the first electronic scoreboard. Ellen Phiddian: These scoreboards were used in tennis matches, and they made a giant one for the Melbourne cricket ground for the 1956 Olympics. They also invented an early fax machine. In fact, according to Kaylene, they might have accomplished something even more impressive. Kaylene Kranz: this is hearsay, of course, but my mother used to talk about the fact that the, the boys, as she called them, the boys had got television sorted and then they would, Australia would've had the first television, but the war came and that was all put to put to rest. So it, um, started in England instead. Ellen Phiddian: That's great. So they, they had the war not happened, they might have been the Kaylene Kranz: correct Yes. Of the television. And my mother used to love telling that story. You know, well, you know, the cousins, they had the television sorted, Ellen Phiddian: but the brothers made a real difference with their medical inventions. Kellie Branson: When people see online, their eyes light Up. Ellen Phiddian: In the 1930s, polio was on the rise. Thousands of people were paralyzed by the disease. Many permanently. There was a lifesaving piece of equipment called the Iron lung. It was a big metal tank, which patients lay inside while it pumped and breathed for them, the baths, as they did, could see a way to improve it. Kellie Branson: There was an American version, but it was very heavy, cumbersome, and expensive to make and produce. So Tedd thought, let's see if we can do it for cheaper. They managed to do one Ellen Phiddian: made of plywood. The boss's wooden lung was just a fraction of the cost of the iron lung. They ended up producing them for hospitals in Australia and the UK treating thousands of patients as the polio epidemic surged, and it's a good thing. It was so cheap because Ted spent his honeymoon funds on the project. His new wife, Eileen, suggested the idea, Kellie Branson: I dunno if they've ever made it to a honeymoon in the end. I'm not sure. Ellen Phiddian: The brothers also made humid cribs, heart monitors, nerve stimulators. There wasn't a section of the hospital where you couldn't find a both logo. Kellie Branson: A lot of people would not be here without some of their inventions, like the ECG iron lung, for example. Don also designed the humid crib as well. Ellen Phiddian: He actually designed the first humid, Kellie Branson: uh, one of the first portable ones. Yes, Ellen Phiddian: Kaylene, Kranz even ended up working with her cousin's equipment Kaylene Kranz: I worked in, in neurology. And, um, one of my functions. Was to measure Electroencephalograph, and of course that was a, a machine that they had an interest in. Ellen Phiddian: When you picture medical equipment, you might imagine high tech, scary alien tools, but the bots paid a lot of attention, not only to the function of their equipment, but the form. Kellie Branson: This didn't look like a machine per se, it just looked like a ra, a radio. Those old fashioned 1940s radios. So I think it might put the patients at ease and it wouldn't, didn't seem like they were getting a procedure or a reading. It just looked like the radio was next to their beds. Ellen Phiddian: Kelly thinks this aesthetic appeal would've made it easier for patients. Kellie Branson: I think putting patients at ease was a major factor in some of these designs and interventions. Ellen Phiddian: Some of the Both brothers most impressive medical equipment is currently on display at South Australia's Parliamentary Library. John Weste: Uh, a lot of what we got on display are early forms of portable ECG, and they were the first to create and invent a portable ECG. And it was done here in South Australia. And I love it because it's a first and it's the kind of thing you take for granted. You see it on, you know, television programs, films, things like that. A little machine with Ziggy Zaggy lines on it going beep all the time. And here they are, invented here as the portable version. Ellen Phiddian: This is John Westie, he's the librarian at Parliament House. John Weste: One of the things I have to say I loved the most was a member of the public heard about the display and asked if he could come in and see. And, and he did as a young man, he was an apprentice and he worked for the two, both brothers. And he came in and he looked at the pieces and he said, that one's wrong. It's got a white sheet of paper in it. It should be black. And I said, how do you know? And he said, well, I created that. Ellen Phiddian: One thing that John has learned while this display has been open to the public is that the brothers didn't invent in isolation. They had help from their wives, their family, and teams of apprentices and employees. John Weste: It was one of those situations where the portable ECGs in 19 50 60 South Australia, the GP would stick it in the boot of the car, drive off. And bumpy roads and everything. It would knock about, bounce about. And the ink inside would spill. So you couldn't actually get a decent recording by the time you got to the farmhouse or the distant property. Uh, 'cause your ink was knocked about. So either the paper had ink all over it and you couldn't be used, or the ink vessel was empty and still it couldn't be used. So the broth brother said, this is a problem, fix it. And so he fixed it. And it's one of those things where the simplicity is such genius. So what he did was instead of having ink, he took the ink out, he replaced the white paper with black and he coated it with wax. And then the nib, instead of squirting ink, had a, a electrical current running through it, and it would heat up and then melt the wax as it traced across the paper. So you could hold up the black sheet c the melted wax, and you could see the shape of the electronic current running through your heart, recorded on the paper and no link. All of those problems disappeared, and it's such an ingenious solution to the problem. But it was really good because you would never have known that if this hadn't gone on display. Remember, the public heard about it, came in and lit up with, I was a younger man and I did this, and this was the big achievement I made. And it is a huge achievement. Ellen Phiddian: But that apprentice is the exception for most people going through the library. The both story is new. John Weste: Nobody's surprised 'cause no one's heard of them. And that's the great tragedy of it. Uh, they obviously the ECG, but also the encephalopathy. They created the humidity crib in 1954. Again, our South Australian first, all of these things, and we've not heard of them. Ellen Phiddian: So I asked Kelly what happened to the brothers and all their inventions. Kellie Branson: In the late 1960s, they sold the business, the Drug House, Australia, and it continued on for a few years, and then Drug House Australia, the company dis dissolved and the name was lost. Ellen Phiddian: The brothers kept tinkering well into retirement, but once they'd sold the business, their names disappeared from equipment. Then in 1987, Ted died two decades later. His younger brother Don, also passed away. Kellie Branson: I've studied them, researched them for over seven years, and I've known what, when they passed, I've just never been able to ate the grave. So while I was away on holidays, I managed to convince a relative to take me there to, um, Ted's grave is a little humble little plaque no mention of, of his inventions. It just says, Ted Both OB. And, and his dates. That's it. So it's very humbling for such an important man in history. Ellen Phiddian: And Kaylene would also like more people to know about her clever cousins. Kaylene Kranz: I think it's something that, that should be included in school curriculums. Tell them the story of this, this great place that we live in. Um, I think we played too much of a part on new things without looking at, Hey, how did this come about? Where, where did the idea start from? Ellen Phiddian: For now, the Both memory is being preserved by a few dedicated curators. Kellie Branson: Where would we be without these two brothers from Kaui? Just think and thank them for what they've done for the medical history in Australia. Belinda Smith: That was Kelly Branson, curator of the Health Museum of South Australia. Speaking with science reporter Ellen Phiddian.
ABC News
28-06-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Australian inventor brothers Edward and Donald Both changed lives, but 'no-one's heard of them'
An electric scooter doesn't have that much in common with a humidicrib. Or a fax machine. You wouldn't expect someone who made heart monitors to be your first port of call when you wanted an Olympic scoreboard. Yet all of these inventions — and around a hundred more — once came out of the same Australian factory. They were all the creations of a pair of brothers, Edward and Donald Both. Across the middle of the 20th century, the Both brothers built things to meet the challenges of the times — war machinery in the Second World War, electric vans to beat post-war rationing, sports technology for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, and a lifesaving polio treatment to counter the devastating epidemic. But where their name was once emblazoned on tools around the world, it's now filtered out of sight. Even in their home state of South Australia, the brothers' work isn't common knowledge — although their memory is preserved by a few dedicated museum curators and family members. "Ted" and "Don" hailed from Caltowie near Port Pirie in South Australia and were the eldest and youngest, respectively, of five siblings. Kaylene Kranz, a relative of the brothers, says their regional roots were a source of their inventiveness. "If you're in the country, you haven't got the luxury of picking up the phone and say, 'Hey, come and help,'" she says. Ms Kranz knew both Ted and Don as a young woman — particularly Don, who she recalls as a jolly fellow. "Ted was the put-together man and Don had ideas and ran the business side of it. But together, they were a formidable team," Ms Kranz says. Kellie Branson, a curator at the SA Health Museum, said the brothers' genius came from their ability to work in tandem. "Their brains were opposites, but they still work together to come up with these amazing inventions." The duo didn't tend to invent brand new things, so much as dramatically improve existing tools. Ted once said he didn't even like the term "inventor" – it implied their ideas had come from nowhere. "People who imagine a person dreaming up an entire invention and making it work have the wrong idea," he said in a 1950 interview. "It is a painstaking process, checking each step." This reticence didn't stop people labelling Ted "Australia's Edison", particularly after his work in the 1940s. During World War II, Ted worked on devices that measured machine gun fire, transmitted drawings and diagrams over phone lines, dried blood that could be reconstituted for field transfusions, and helped guided torpedoes. The brothers' electric vehicles were a response to petrol rationing. The scooter never made it to market, but Ted also developed electric vans, which were used to deliver bread until the late 1940s. The drawing-transmitting device, a kind of early fax machine dubbed the Visitel, found uses in confirming horse racing results. There were more sporting innovations, first with tennis scoreboards for the Davis Cup, then the 14,000-light globe Olympic scoreboard at the MCG. Ms Kranz says there's even a family story that they "had television sorted" before anyone else in the 1930s, only to have their plans disrupted by the war. But the brothers' biggest success was in healthcare. The iron lung worked better when it wasn't made from iron. The respirator, first developed in the 1920s, was a lifesaver for people paralysed by polio. "It was very heavy, cumbersome and expensive to make and produce," Ms Branson says. At his new wife Eileen's coaxing, Ted decided to spend their honeymoon funds on making a cheaper version in 1937. "They managed to do one made of plywood," Ms Branson says. The lighter, cheaper, "iron" lung was a twentieth of the cost of commercial iron lungs. Ted took the invention to London, and within a few years, there were hundreds of wooden respirators being distributed across the Commonwealth, helping surging numbers of polio patients. He was awarded an Order of the British Empire for his work. Humidicribs, similarly, already existed in the early 1950s, when Don turned his hand to one. But his portable version could more quickly and safely encase premature babies with the right temperatures and humidity. Then, there are the electrocardiograph (ECG) machines. Doctors had known since the 19th century that placing electrodes over a patient's heart, and recording the signals it emitted, could give vital information about a patient's heart health. By the 1930s, ECGs were accurate enough to diagnose patients — but getting the graphs required an arduous film-developing process, which could take weeks. The Both brothers figured out how to make instant readers: first with glass discs, then with paper and ink-dipped styluses marking out tiny graphs. "You could use the microscope on top of the machine to view the results instantly," Ms Branson says. They could also be transported to hospital bedsides, or even over bumpy roads to the patients' homes. The brothers also worked on electroencephalographs (EEGs) for measuring brain activity. Ms Kranz, who worked in neurology, found herself using EEG equipment designed by the Both brothers years later — alongside a family cousin who'd stayed with the business. From the polished wooden frames to the delicately printed labels, much of the Both equipment is aesthetically pleasing to look at. It's a world away from the bright, boxy plastic of modern medical equipment. The ECGs fit right in to the halls of the library at the South Australia Parliament, where librarian John Weste has put some of the Both equipment on display. "I love the design," Dr Weste says. "It's so beautifully executed — even the carrying cases with the herring bone wood patterns." Packed into their cases, the early ECGs look less like doctors' tools and more like vintage sewing machines. Ms Branson suspects this is deliberate. "I think they did design it on the look of some old sewing machines," she says. For patients who'd never seen an ECG before, a more familiar piece of equipment might be less foreboding. Other pieces might be mistaken for old radios. "It wouldn't seem like they were getting a procedure or a reading. It just looked like the radio was next to their beds," Ms Branson says. Ms Kranz finds this suggestion likely, remembering the beauty of Don and his wife Yvonne's Kensington home on her visits. "They had a lovely house, and we were always given tea out of beautiful cups in the sitting room," she says. "So yes, I think so that it wasn't just 'OK, let's sort this', [it was] 'let's make people comfortable while we're making them well.'" The brothers sold their company to Drug Houses of Australia in the 1960s, but they kept tinkering well into retirement. Ted died in 1987 and Don died in 2005. Ms Branson, who's been collecting Both equipment for the health museum for years, recently travelled out to Ted's grave in Victoria. "It's a humble little plaque. No mention of his inventions. It just says: 'Ted Both, OBE, and his dates.'" Eventually, more company acquisitions and the pace of medical research took the Both name off equipment. Dr Weste, who's been showing the Both equipment to visitors to the South Australia Parliament, says people are surprised to learn the inventions originated in the state. "No-one's heard of them. And that's the great tragedy of it," he says. This is partly why the health museum loans some of the Both equipment out. "Otherwise, these stories will be hidden away," Ms Branson says. "We want these people to be out in the light." Ms Kranz has told her grandchildren about her clever cousins, and she wants them to be more widely known too — but not just them. She says South Australia has a host of other under-recognised inventors. Ms Kranz hopes the Both equipment on display will show people how much medicine has changed in the span of less than a lifetime. "We have our MRIs and our CTs, and our big, whiz-bang machines that twiddle around and go ping, but they managed to diagnose without that in the early days, with very basic stuff."
