Alter, David (1807–1881)
Physician and electrician and discoverer of the principles of the prism in spectrum analysis, David Alter was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in the locality now embraced by Allegheny Township, not far from Freeport. His father was a Swiss from near Lucerne, his mother of German nationality.
At the age of eight or nine he read the life of Benjamin Franklin, and was strongly drawn to the study of electricity. Independently of the labors of Morse and Wheatstone he perfected an electric telegraph in 1836 which consisted of seven wires, the electricity deflecting a needle on a disc at the extremity of each wire. So perfect was his system that he was enabled to transmit messages from his workshop to the members of his family in the house. In 1837 Dr. Alter invented a small machine which was run by electricity and on June 29, 1837, published in the Kittanning (Pennsylvania) Gazette an elaborate article on the use of electricity as a motive power under the title of "Facts Relating to Electro Magnetism." This article was widely read and was referred to in Silliman's "Principles of Physics." In 1845 Dr. Alter, in association with Dr. Edward Gillespie and James Gillespie of Freeport entered into the manufacturing of bromine from the mother liquid of salt wells, by a process which he and his partners invented and patented. A large jar of this then rare substance was exhibited at the World's Fair in New York in 1853, where it excited much wonder. Before the discovery of petroleum he had invented a rotating retort for the extraction of oil from cannel coal. This discovery bid fair to become a profitable industry until the discovery of the natural oil rendered the operation superfluous.
The greatest legacy, however, which Dr. Alter left to posterity was the result of his discovery and application of the principles of the prism in spectrum analysis. The data regarding this discovery are taken from an article published in the Pittsburg Dispatch in January, 1882, by Dr. Frank Cowan. That Dr. Alter's discovery antedates that of Kirchoff is proven by the fact that some five years before the latter published his discovery, Dr. Alter's paper appeared in the American Journal of Sciences and Arts (Silliman's Journal), second series, volume xviii, November, 1854. It was entitled, "On Certain Physical Properties of Light, Produced by the Combustion of Different Metals in the Electric Spark Refracted by a Prism."
A second article by Dr. Alter appeared in the same journal, May, 1855, entitled: "On Certain Physical Properties of the Light of the Electric Spark within Gases, as seen through a Prism."
A brief abstract of the first article appeared in Europe in the Chemic Jahresberichte in 1845 and the second was reproduced in its entirety in the Paris Journal L'Institute for the year 1856 and in the "Archives of the Physical and Natural Sciences, of Geneva." It would thus seem proven beyond any doubt that to Dr. Alter belongs the credit of the discovery of the principles underlying spectrum analysis. Dr. Cowan states that the prism with which he made the first experiments was obtained by Dr. Alter from a fragment of a large mass of very brilliant glass found in the pot of a glass-house destroyed in the great fire of Pittsburg, April 10, 1845.
Dr. Alter's early educational opportunities appear to have been very meager, so much so that he was largely self taught. His medical education was obtained in New York where he graduated at the Reformed Medical College of the United States in 1831, an institution of the eclectic or botanic school. Definite information regarding his medical education is lacking because of the destruction of the records by fire.
Dr. Cowan says of him: "In his life he was a plain and simple man, gentle and modest in manner, temperate in his habits and careful and patient in his work."
He was twice married: to Laura Rowley by whom he had three children, and to Amanda B. Rowley who bore him eight children, four sons and four daughters. One son, Myron Hale Alter, graduated in medicine at the Baltimore Medical College and rose to prominence as a practitioner of medicine.
Dr. Alter died in Freeport, Pennsylvania, September 18, 1881, aged seventy-four. The exact cause of death is unknown but appears to have been a gradual weakening of the vital powers incident to old age.