Wow .. my very own Haldane haemoglobinometer!

"I've won I've won!" I yelled, then realized I'd better adjust expectations of the household. I hadn't won the lottery or the Nobel Prize after all. "Don't get excited, it's just an ebay thing. But I've won it!"

I've quietly scoffed at ebay's suggestions that successful bids are victories, but I had clearly engaged with the concept deepdown. 'Haldane' is one of my few curious search terms on the site. Suddenly a Haldane haemoglobinometer was up for sale. I bid, entered a modest bidding contest (these things are usually snatched from me in the last seconds of bidding), and the apparatus duly arrived in this morning's mail.

The last haemoglobinometer I saw was in a display case at London's Science Museum. Shamefully it was the only reference to Haldane in the whole place, but the little thing thrilled me. It was my biographical subject J.S.Haldane's first invention to go commercial, a way of identifying the extent of excess carbon monoxide in the bloodstream ... 'Attach gas connection to jet and allow coal gas to play on the the blood solution' says the instruction leaflet.

I see the contraption heading out with me on any Haldane book tour. Whether or not I go by train or car depends on whether ebay offers up the much bigger Haldane gas apparatus over the next few months. Here's hoping.