The Reis telephone, was an invention by Philipp Reis inspired by a French article in 1854 (by Bourseul) on how to create microphone-like devices. His first successful work was achieved in October 1861.
In 1862, Reis demonstrated his telephone to Wilhelm von Legat, Inspector of the Royal Prussian Telegraph Corps who produced an account of it (Legat, 1862), a translation of which was obtained by Thomas Edison in 1875 and was used in Edison's succes...
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The Reis telephone, was an invention by Philipp Reis inspired by a French article in 1854 (by Bourseul) on how to create microphone-like devices. His first successful work was achieved in October 1861.
In 1862, Reis demonstrated his telephone to Wilhelm von Legat, Inspector of the Royal Prussian Telegraph Corps who produced an account of it (Legat, 1862), a translation of which was obtained by Thomas Edison in 1875 and was used in Edison's successful development of the carbon microphone. (The Legat account included drawings that are different from the one below suggesting that it is of a later version). Edison acknowledged his debt to Reis thus:
The first inventor of a telephone was Phillip Reis of Germany only musical not articulating. The first person to publicly exhibit a telephone for transmission of articulate speech was A. G. Bell. The first practical commercial telephone for transmission of articulate speech was invented by myself. Telephones used throughout the world are mine...
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