"How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?"
Author unknown
The development of the safety match in 1844 by the Swedish chemistry professor Gustaf Erik Pasch (1788- 1862) followed the invention of the friction match. Pasch replaced the dangerous white phosphorus in the flammable mixture coating the match head with nontoxic red phosphorus, which was far. Less flammable. He also removed the phosphorus from the mixture at the head of the match and added it to a specially prepared striking surface. The striking surface was made from red phosphorus and powdered glass, leaving a composition of antimony(lll) sulfide and potassium chlorate on the match head. Some of the red phosphorus was converted to white by friction heat as the match was struck. The small amount of white phosphorus then ignites, starting the combustion of the match. These matches were considered very safe, as they would ignite only when struck against the striking surface.
After obtaining a patent for the new safety match, Pasch manufactured them in a factory in Stockholm, but was eventually deterred by high costs. Another Swede, John Edvard Lundstrom, improved Pasch's safety match by placing the red phosphorus on sandpaper on the .outer edge of the box, and in 1855 he obtained a patent for his new safety match. This model was manufactured on a large scale and Lundstrom, a-long with his bother Carl Frans, created a virtual global monopoly on safety matches. Although these matches -were much safer than those used previously, they still contained poisonous material. The Diamond, Match Company was the first to patent a nonpoisonous match in the United States in 1910.
