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A toy balloon is a small balloon mostly used for child play, birthday party decoration, 〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/balloon.aspx )〕 and advertising.Toy balloons are usually made of rubber or aluminized plastic, and inflated with air or helium. They come in a great variety of sizes and shapes, but are most commonly 10 to 30 centimetres in diameter.Toy balloons are not considered to include "sky lanterns" (hot-air paper balloons), although these too are or were used as child toys in some parts of the world. According to The Journal of the American Medical Association, out of 373 children who died between 1972 and 1992 after choking on children's products, nearly a third choked on latex balloons. The Consumer Products Safety Commission found that children had inhaled latex balloons whole (often while trying to inflate them) or choked on fragments of broken balloons. Parents a monthly magazine about raising children advised parents to buy Mylar balloons instead of latex balloons. ==History== Early balloons were made from pig bladders and animal intestines.〔( All you need to know about balloons )〕〔(Rubber Balloon Evolution )〕 The Aztecs created the first balloon sculptures using cat intestines, which were then presented to the gods as a sacrifice.〔Jean Merlin, Kaufman and Greenberg, ''Great Balloons! The Complete Book of Balloon Sculpting,'' 1994.〕 There are references to balloons made of whale intestine in ''Swiss Family Robinson'' (1813) and in ''Moby Dick'' (1851).〔(The History of Balloons )〕 The first rubber balloons were made by Professor Michael Faraday in 1824 for use in his experiments with hydrogen at the Royal Institution in London. "The caoutchouc is exceedingly elastic", he wrote in the Quarterly Journal of Science the same year. "Bags made of it...have been expanded by having air forced into them, until the caoutchouc was quite transparent, and when expanded by hydrogen they were so light as to form balloons with considerable ascending power...." Faraday made his balloons by cutting round two sheets of rubber laid together and pressing the edges together. The tacky rubber welded automatically, and the inside of the balloon was rubbed with flour to prevent the opposing surfaces joining together.〔(''Mechanics' Magazine and Journal of Science, Arts, and Manufactures,'' Vol. 2, Knight and Lacey, 1824; p. 327 )〕 Toy balloons were introduced by pioneer rubber manufacturer Thomas Hancock the following year in the form of a do-it-yourself kit consisting of a bottle of rubber solution and a condensing syringe. Vulcanized toy balloons, which unlike the earlier kind were unaffected by changes in temperature, were first manufactured by J.G. Ingram of London in 1847 and can be regarded as the prototype of modern toy balloons.〔Patrick Robertson, ''The Book of Firsts,'' Bramhall House, NY, 1978.〕 In the 1920s Neil Tillotson designed and produced a latex balloon with a cat's face and ears from a cardboard form which he cut by hand with a pair of scissors. He managed to make his first sale of these balloons with an order of 15 gross to be delivered for the annual Patriots Day Parade on April 19, 1931. The first colored balloons were sold at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair.〔Arnold E. Grummer, ''The Great Balloon Game Book and More Balloon Activities,'' Greg Markim, Inc., Appleton, Wisconsin, 1987 ISBN 0-938251-00-7〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Toy balloon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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