In ancient Rome clepsydras were used to time the speeches of orators. The Roman general Julius Caesar is said to have used one to time the length of British summer nights. Medieval doctors used clepsydras to determine the pulse rate of their patients. They were used by 16th-century astronomers such as Tycho Brahe and Galileo in their respective fields of study. As late as the 20th century, clepsydras were used to time irrigational flow in Algeria.
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