Introduction The first telephone was invented by the Italian inventor, Antonio Meucci in 1862, not Alexander Graham Bell, who filed his patent 14 years later in 1876. The most important contribution in attempting to prove Meucci’s priority was from the Italian American historian Giovanni Schiavo who amply demonstrated that the decision in the trial between Meucci and Bell was “unquestionably one of the most glaring miscarriages in the annals of American justice” as well as “one of the most dishonest legal decisions,” as it was “not only dishonest, but also outrageously offensive”.1 Meucci, in addition to inventing the telephone was the first to discover the transfer of the human voice in 1849; the first to develop some basic techniques for the telephone line, between 1862 and 1870 and the first to file a caveat on the telephone in 1871. Early Life in Florence Antonio Meucci was born in Florence on 13 April 1808, being the eldest of 9 sons to a civil servant to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.2 Meucci was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts at age 13 where he remained for six years. The academy had undergone a major change in its organization during the French occupancy of Tuscany between 1799 and 1814, which led to the introduction of scientific subjects along with the traditional ones. Meucci took two of these scientific subjects: Chemistry and Mechanics. At this time Electrostatics was the newest branch of physics, including electrostatics and Galvanism following the discoveries of Galvani and Volta.3 During his attendance of the academy, Meucci worked as a civil servant at the gates of Florence as well as part time technical jobs in various theatres in the city. In October 1833 he was hired as an assistant of the chief engineer at Florence’s Teatro della Pergola. Meucci learned a lot from his job at Pergola and left behind a relic: an acoustic pipe, with a speaker at one end and an ear trumpet at the other end, used to transmit orders from the floor of the back stage to the stage hands working above the stage to change sets. This tube is still in existence today as well as his first miniature laboratory in the backstage of the theatre.4 His involvement in Risorgimento (Italian reunification) led to his imprisonment for a time after which he married stage costumer Esther Mochi. They left Florence in 1835 with the Italian Opera Company troupe bound for Havana’s Teatro de Tacón where Antonio became the principal technician.5 Havana, Cuba At this time in Havana, Meucci lived in an annex building of the Gran Teatro de Tacón. He also had a large laboratory that he could use in the main building of the theatre. Therefore, from 1844 to 1848, under a four year contract with Governor Leopoldo O’Donnell he employed a dozen men and set up a factory for electroplating swords, helmets and other military equipment. He then purchased more than 60 Bunsen batteries from the New York based company Negretti & Zambra.6 During his holidays, Meucci would spend a lot of time researching the latest advances in electricity, especially electro therapy. After his four year contract expired, Meucci started experimenting with electrotherapy along with some local physicians to determine to what extent recent theories on animal electricity and magnetism could be applied to medicine. Usin