How the Refrigerator Changed History

How the Refrigerator Changed History — page 3
THE ICE CUBE TRAY Although it is not known for sure who invented the first ice cube tray many historians credit Gorrie Documents show Gorrie used his refrigeration machine to freeze ice and provided iced drinks to his patients By the 1920s ice cube trays often came standard with refrigerators The basic design remained the same but inventors experimented with different materials in search of a tray that would provide the flexibility needed to allow users to twist the tray and pop out the ice The first patents were for a rubber tray By 1933 stainless steel trays were popular By the 1950s and 1960s the plastic tray emerged and is common today Gorrie a local physician tumed inventor had not created his ice maker to cool drinks for the wealthy Rather he wanted it to prevent yellow fever which had hit Apalachicola in 1841 Doctors had not yet discovered that yellow fever and malaria as well as other tropical diseases were spread by mosquitoes They believed warm air caused the diseases Gorrie noticed the fevers caused by these maladies stopped in cold weather To contain the spread of the disease and ease the suffering of patients Gorrie suspended a bucket of ice from the infirmary's ceiling Because cool air is heavier than warm air it drops lower than warm air pushing the warm air above it As a result placing the bucket near the ceiling helped to cool the room Some researchers say Gorrie added a fan to speed up the cooling process but no one is sure how he would have been able to add a fan Ice was essential to this early air conditioning system But finding ice was no easy feat Most of the ice available in the southern United States People in southern states relied on the work of ice harvesters in colder