In sf Terminology, one of the commonest of hand-held Weapons (> Rays), especially in Space Opera of the 1930s and 1940s. The device may have been a product of squeamishness – or perhaps just neatness – since it creates a maximum of destruction with a minimum of bleeding pieces left to sweep up afterwards. The term seems to have been introduced by Nictzin Dyalhis in "When the Green Star Waned" (April 1925 Weird Tales), as a synonym for Blaster (here spelt "Blastor"). The disintegrator first reached a wide audience with the Comic strip Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1935, as a result of which disintegrator Toys were very popular with kids in the late 1930s. A notable predecessor of the usual handgun is the much larger prototype device of Arthur Conan Doyle "The Disintegration Machine" (January 1929 Strand), which can also restore the disintegrated object. [PN/DRL]
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