Key information :
42 cm (h), brass, late 19th century – mid 20th century
Used for ascertaining the proportion of alcohol present in wines and other alcoholic liquors by comparison of their boiling points with the boiling points of different mixtures of alcohol and water in known proportions.
This instrument is called “the Malligand” named after French wine merchant Pierre Marie Edouard Malligrand, that has improved a pre-existing model with a few patents registered in the 1870s in France, England and overseas. Download the original patent from 1876 registered in America in PDF here.