Kilner jar The company was forced to close down to convert to gas furnaces and struggled along for a 66 years despite 3,000 people losing their jobs. In 1937, there was a bankruptcy sale, in which the patent rights to the "Kilner Jar" were sold to the United Glass Bottle company along with the rights to the very similar "Mason" jar that had also been made by Kilner. In 2003, The Rayware Group purchased the design, patent and trademark of the original Kilner jar and continues to produce them today in China. A more detailed history of the companies by the Society
Alain de Weck started investigating the occurrence and root causes of inflammation as well as contact dermatitis due to lymphocytes using the guinea pig nipple as a model for the human skin. This led to the first histopathological demonstration that contact dermatitis is due to sensitized lymphocytes. He then stayed - as the first U.S. Public Health Service funded foreign research fellow from Switzerland - at Barnes Hospital at Washington University in St. Louis from 1958 to 1960 under the guidance of Prof. Herman Eisen. During this time, Alain de Weck made initial contributions to what later became one of his signature research