The Diseases Of Electrical Machinery

PREFACE. EVER since the year 1887, when a paper of mine on the Diseases of Dynamos appeared in The Electrician, the topic of the causes of failures and break-downs of electric machinery, and of their prevention and cure, has been a familiar one with me. As the subjects of pathology and morbid anatomy never lie far away from the attention of the physiologist, so the study of the ailments and defects to which dynamo-electric machin.es of all classes are liable comes continually within the purview of the student of dynamo design. Diseases, to borrow the language of the medical pro- fession, may be either congenital—I had almost said hereditary—or acquired. Some diseases affect par- ticular races, others are special to particular climates. Some are incident to youth; others are a prerogative of old age. Some are sporadic, some epidemic ; some transient, some chronic, some curable, some incurable. And, to continue the metaphor, while some require a species of surgical treatment, others are bctter handled by careful attention to a strict regimen of daily ex- ercise or by the administration of drugs. The constitutional diseases of dynamos may arise either from defective design or from imperfect con-