As regular readers of Doc Savage magazine will surely have noticed, in almost every new adventure. Doc Savage manages to introduce one or more surprises in the share of a scientific gadget. What readers of a scientific bent will also have noted is that it is the policy of the author of the Doc Savage material to have Doc employ only methods and devices which have been developed, or which other scientists have accomplished at least on a laboratory scale. Since the first Doc Savage novel appeared in 1933, many of the mechanical devices employed by Doc Savage. which seemed completely fantastic at the time, have been placed in every-day use. These range from simple devices, such as a generator-operated type of flashlight, which are now so common they can he bought in toy store for children or in expensive deluxe models for blackout use, to the method lately employed of introducing a gas into the fuel tasks of military pursuit planes to make the gasoline vapor nonexplosive when the tanks are hit by the incendiary' bullets from enemy guns. This, however, is the first time the device for trailing planes has been employed by Doc. - From a footnote in "The Talking Devil"

From "Birds of Death": (It has been the practice of the publisher of Doc Savage to eliminate the exact chemical formulae of gases, poisons, and other mixtures which Doc employs from time to time. This is
not done because the chemicals which the bronze man employs are fantastic, impossible, or non-existent. Rather, it is not the wish of the author to furnish aid to criminals or others
not entitled to it. Knowledge of many of these chemical formulae, in the wrong hands, would be dangerous. Hence the exact ingredients of a gas or a chemical concoction employed
by Doc are seldom published. We hope that this lack of exact information, in the few cases in which it is eliminated, does not detract from the interest of the Doc Savage adventures.)

In "The Man of Bronze": Doc told him. "Take my auto-gyro. Fly it down yourself. We'll join you at about nine this morning."

In "The Polar Treasure", Long Tom had installed a sonic Insect Repelent in a car "...a newly perfected gadget projecting rays of an extremely short wave length which were capable of killing mosquitoes and other insects that might annoy the driver."

In "The Ten Ton Snakes", Doc Savage had aparently invented the first Telephone Answering Machine, "There was no message from Monk. There was a gadget which would have recorded one, had Monk telephoned in. Doc liked gadgets, and he had developed this recorder affair, an automatic gimmick which told a caller, with a recorded voice, that no one was in the office, but that if the caller would speak his or her message, it would be put on record. The recording was done magnetically, on a wire." Also Renny had developed the Speakerphone: "Renny had cut in an amplifier-speaker gadget on the telephone, so that he and Powell had heard both ends of the conversation."

In "The Talking Devil", They squirmed and strained and unfastened the parachute harness snaps. These were 'chutes from Doc's plane, so they were equipped with a gadget which Renny Renwick had worked out for use by American parachute troopers, a gadget for releasing themselves quickly from the encumbrance of a parachute harness.

"The Man Who Fell Up": A pneumatic man-carrying tube of Doc's design - one gadget which would never become popular with the public; a ride in the tube was about as soothing as a trip through a forest on a skyrocket - led directly to headquarters.

"Fear Cay": Out of Doc's clothing came a tiny metal device, the principal gadget on which was a small reservoir filled with a liquid the color of coagulated blood. Doc held the paper pad over this and flicked a lever, causing the apparatus to give off a vapor. Out of Doc's clothing came a tiny metal device, the principal gadget on which was a small reservoir filled with a liquid the color of coagulated blood. Doc held the paper pad over this and flicked a lever, causing the apparatus to give off a vapor. After a moment, Doc examined the pad. The vapor had caused it to change color slightly. Vague, but clearly readable, writing had appeared. "This is the message which was written on the top leaf of the pad," he explained. Ham fumbled his sword cane and looked bewildered. "But how did you bring it out?" Doc returned his apparatus to a pocket in a special toolcarrying vest which he wore, a vest cleverly enough padded that its presence was not noticeable to the chance observer. "The application of iodine vapor to bring out impressions left by a pencil point is not exactly new," he said.

In "The Sea Angel": "This is a radio receiver tuned to a transmitter in Monk's penthouse laboratory," the bronze man explained quietly. "In various spots around Monk's laboratory are switches, secretly located, which put the transmitter in operation so that it will send out a steady buzzing. Monk was to throw one of these switches if any one came to seize him."

In "The Red Skull": On the scanning screen of the televisor appeared the interior of Monk's laboratory in a penthouse atop an office building near Wall Street

In "The Men Vanished": The bronze man removed one of the colored glass caps-the same type of a gadget as the so-called "invisible" eyeglasses obtained from opticians, and particularly popular with actors-with which he had disguised the flake-gold color of his eyes. The cap was irritating his eye slightly. He cleaned it carefully, and replaced it.

In "The All-White Elf": IT took Doc Savage another seven minutes to locate the guard. Because it was infinitely dark, he used a gadget to locate the guard. He pulled the cork out of a small vial, and tossed it away from him, toward the bugeye. The wind was also blowing toward the bugeye. The vial contained an irritant type of gas which, in extremely small quantities such as this, caused no effect except an inclination to sneeze. It was not even noticeable as an odor. In a closed room, however, or crushed in a handkerchief and held to a man's nostrils, it would cause violent agony and nausea.

In "The Midas Man": Doc's pockets were rather amply filled with various of his innumerable gadgets, and he now produced one of these somewhat the shape and size of a cigar case. He opened this. It proved to hold some apparatus and a small, watchcase receiver. He placed the receiver to an ear, then turned the apparatus slowly, as he would a searchlight. The thing was an amplifier and sound pick-up, tiny but remarkably sensitive. It could catch the buzzing of a fly, for instance, farther away than the fly could be seen with the naked eye.

In "The Midas Man": ...another device about three times the size of the little boxes which hold ordinary pocket matches. This container was of metal. The top had a saucerlike depression, and there were various dials on the sides.\par \par Doc Savage placed this contrivance in the shrubbery...Out of the brush behind them came a voice, shrill, distinctly metallic. It was not a calm or natural voice, but then no voice could be expected to be calm, under the circumstances. "Drop that shotgun!" ordered the voice...

In "Death In Silver": ...he (Doc Savage) dipped a hand into a pocket and brought out what might have been mistaken for a handful of black clover seed. He strewed some of this on the floor of the outer office. Then he went up the stairs... On the boards of the floor lay the numerous particles which resembled black clover seed, just as Doc had left them - except in four spots, where there were scorched spots. It looked as if firecrackers had gone off on the floor... The entrancing young woman got to her feet. In doing so she stepped on one of the clover seeds. There was a loud report as it exploded. She jumped and glared at Doc... "What are those things?" she snapped, and put a hand up to adjust her luxuriant brown hair. "Just a precaution to warn if any one was following me," Doc told her.

In "The Deadly Dwarf" : I heard him and that skinny guy with him talkin'. There was a gadget on the instrument board that showed the specific gravity and any foreign substance in the gasoline. The gasoline ran through a gadget on the dashboard that had some litmus papers of different kinds in it and...

In "The Pirate's Ghost": the directional radio gadget enabled the bronze man to trail his quarry while he himself followed entirely different streets.

In "The Pirate's Ghost": The contrivance was a portable projector of ultra-violet light. The ultra-violet rays, invisible to the unaided eye, struck the wall and caused a fluorescence of words written there with a chalk which Doc Savage had perfected. The chalk, like such common substances as aspirin and vaseline, fluoresced or glowed under ultra-violet light.

In "The Quest of Qui": There was a projector of infra-red light on the front of the car - it might have been mistaken for a black siren of large size. These goggles were far more intricate than they seemed, being electro-mechanical devices which rendered light that was ordinarily invisible, effective upon the optical nerves.

Doc pressed a round rubber disc in the corner of a window pane. This was a vacuum cup. Such cups are used to fasten ash trays to auto windshields. But this was a peculiar disc of Doc's own designing.\par \par The outside of the cup was of black metal. Within this was a powerful microphonic device. It was intended to record sound by the vibration through glass or thin metal. It would even work on some walls where the insulation did not deaden voices too much.\par \par Almost-invisible copper wires ran from the microphone. The small box these entered was a recording dictograph. (The Black Spot)

The undershirt-it had been devised by Doc Savage, and all of the bronze man's group wore them habitually-was of very light, special alloy chain-mesh fabrication, effective against anything less than a military rifle slug. (The Yellow Cloud)

In "Bequestof Evil": His fingers were working swiftly. Doc had a bunch of keys in his hand that he had removed from a hidden pocket of his special-equipment vest. He had already tried a dozen of the assorted types of keys.

In "Birds of Death" "Doc Savage switched on a recording device which was connected up with both the telephone and radio receiver. This somewhat complicated gimmick would record any call made to the headquarters in his absence." ...Monk watched the bronze man get out a portable microscope, the compact chemical laboratory which was part of their equipment when they had plenty of space for it, and go to
work.