Thomas Edison’s “Last Breath”

This image is of the actual test tube Charles Edison collected after his father, Thomas Edison, died in 1931. Test tubes were standing open on a rack in his father’s bedroom, and upon his father’s death, he sealed them with wax. Charles sent the one on the right to Henry Ford, his father’s good friend, who kept it with other Edison mementos at his home. According to Director Bowen, this test tube contains a different gas expelled from Thomas Edison’s body. His real breath, captured in other test tubes, is required to open the Sanctuary door, so we’re lucky the Clypeate has more than one sample.