Walther Gyssling, the chief engineer of the BDRV, was pleased when he presented his report about fiscal year 1877 to themembers. In the last five years, none of the more than 1,000 boilers inspectedby the association had exploded.
Deployed at the same time as the BDRV inspectors,government inspectors are nowhere near to achieving such success rates.
In Württemberg, where a boiler inspectionassociation was founded in 1875, the independent technical inspection agencyreports impressive results: In his first annual report in 1877, theStuttgart-based association engineer Heinrich Bellmer reported that in the last12 months, he remedied no less than 172 deficiencies directly linked to explosionhazards.
