![]() Waterproofing garments with rubber was an old idea and was practised in pre-Columbian times by the Aztecs, who impregnated fabric with latex. Syme did not propose the sandwich idea, and his paper did not mention waterproofing. The naphtha was distilled from coal tar, with the Bonnington Chemical Works being a major supplier. The essence of Macintosh's process was the sandwiching of an impermeable layer of a solution of rubber in naphtha between two layers of fabric. However, a detailed history of the invention of the Mackintosh was published by Schurer. It has been claimed that the material was invented by the surgeon James Syme, but then copied and patented by Charles Macintosh Syme's method of creating the solvent from coal tar was published in Thomson's Annals of Philosophy in 1818 this paper also describes the dissolution of natural rubber in naphtha. ![]() A gentleman's Macintosh, from an 1893 catalogue
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