The steam digester or bone digester (also known as Papin’s digester) is a high-pressure cooker invented by French physicist Denis Papin in 1679. It is a device for extracting fats from bones in a high-pressure steam environment, which also renders them brittle enough to be easily ground into bone meal. It is the forerunner of the autoclave and the domestic pressure cooker.[1]
The steam-release valve, which was invented for Papin's digester following various explosions of the earlier models, inspired the development of the piston-and-cylinder steam engine.[2]
- ^ Papin’s steam digester, Science and Society – Picture Library.
- ^ Diamond, Jared (1997). Guns, Germs and Steel. London: Chatto & Windus.