Charles Grafton Page was an American electrical experimenter and inventor, physician, patent examiner, patent advocate, and professor of chemistry.
Side view of Page's 1837 spiral, showing connector cups spaced across its length.
Charles Grafton Page's double helix coil, as marketed in 1848 for $8.00 by Boston instrument maker Daniel Davis Jr.
Charles Grafton Page's electromagnetic locomotive.
An induction coil or "spark coil" is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage direct current (DC) supply. To create the flux changes necessary to induce voltage in the secondary coil, the direct current in the primary coil is repeatedly interrupted by a vibrating mechanical contact called an interrupter. Invented in 1836 by the Irish-Catholic priest Nicholas Callan, with additional research by Charles Grafton Page and others, the induction coil was the first type of transformer. It was widely used in x-ray machines, spark-gap radio transmitters, arc lighting and quack medical electrotherapy devices from the 1880s to the 1920s. Today its only common use is as the ignition coils in internal combustion engines and in physics education to demonstrate induction.
Antique induction coil used in schools, from around 1900, Bremerhaven, Germany
Induction coil showing construction, from 1920.
Early coil by Charles G. Page, 1838, had one of the first automatic interrupters. The cup was filled with mercury. The magnetic field attracted the iron piece on the arm (left), lifting the wire out of the cup, breaking the primary circuit.
The first induction coil, built by Nicholas Callan, 1836.