Tech History Made on January 14, 1890

On this day in 1890 the inventor of the Drunkometer was born. Rolla Neil Harger was 30 years old when prohibition began and 44 when it was lifted. Since the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol was outlawed in the U.S. there was a need to measure the amount of alcohol in someone's system. The Drunkometer worked by a person blowing into a balloon. The air from that balloon was then released into a chemical solution to see if there was a color change. The intensity of the color change could be used to find the blood alcohol level of the person. To increase the demand for his machine, Harger worked to make drunk driving illegal and to make the results from his Drunkometer admissible as legal evidence. Harger lived to the ripe-old age of 93, dying in 1983.