Comb
Comb names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Comb a well known instrument used in the care of the hair
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a well known instrument used in the care of the hair. A comb is a thin strip of any stiff, tough material, furnished with teeth. Several metal strips are set on a frame to make the curry comb used for animals. Toilet combs are straight. Curved combs of many shapes are used to hold a woman's hair in position. The combs of the ancients seem to have been made of wood, chiefly boxwood, and later of ivory. Modern combs are made in a variety of ways. Tortoise shell is heated until it is plastic, when the spaces between the teeth are punched out. Bone combs are first shaped. All the teeth are then cut at the same time by a number of circular saws running side on the same axis. Celluloid and metal combs are cast. Rubber combs are pressed into molds while soft and are afterwards hardened by vulcanization. In stamping out combs material is saved by having the teeth interlock. According to the latest statistics 34 American comb factories employ 1,399 people, and pay them $572,467 a year. The annual output is worth nearly $2,000,000. We also import many combs from abroad where they are made cheaply. See Hair; Barber
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a toothed implement used in every age and by all peoples for dressing and keeping clean the hair. Combs are also used for fastening the hair when dressed, and as head ornaments. Combs are made of horn, tortoise shell, ivory, wood, bone, metal, india-rubber, celluloid, and composition. Saw-cutting is the only process available for bone, ivory, and wooden combs, and it is used for the finer kinds of horn combs also. Indiarubber combs, now so extensively used, are manufactured by pressing the caoutchouc to the required form in molds, and "vulcanizing" or combining it with sulphur afterward.
Comb the wax cavities in which bees lodge their honey
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the wax cavities in which bees lodge their honey. The comb of a bee is composed of hexagonal cells, of which there are two tiers, the cells in which are placed end to end, so that the three plates of wax, which serve as the bottom of the cell in the one tier, constitute also that of the corresponding one in the other.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The object itself is exactly what Aiton's described in 1910 and Collier's in 1921: a strip of stiff material with teeth, still used for the same purposes, and the honeycomb entry is as accurate now as then. What has gone is the materials list. Tortoise shell, horn, bone and ivory have all but vanished from combs, tortoise shell chiefly because trade in hawksbill turtle shell was outlawed under the international wildlife trade convention, and celluloid, dangerously flammable, gave way to injection-moulded cellulose acetate and modern plastics. The American industry Aiton's counted at 34 factories was clustered in Leominster, Massachusetts, then known as Comb City, whose comb trade is now gone, though its successor plastics firms remain.
Written for this edition, 2026.