| Electrical Quackery |
Article Index for Electrical |
Website Links For Electrical |
Information AboutElectrical Quackery |
|
PERKINS PATENT TRACTORS In 1795 , an American doctor from Connecticut named Elisha Perkins developed the ''Perkins Patent Tractors'' — a pair of rods, one made of iron and one made of brass, that purportedly drew out disease and pain by passing them over one's body. The Connecticut Medical Society loudly condemned the tractors as "delusive quackery". Despite the device's failure to meet the conventional medical standards of the time, the tractors proved popular, and even George Washington bought a set. Perkins died of yellow fever in 1799 and his son, Benjamin Perkins , amassed a fortune with the tractors, as well as with more conventional business ventures, before he died in 1810 . The practice of "tractoration," as it was known, did not live much longer than Benjamin Perkins. Attempts to use tractors in veterinary medicine failed. Two medical practitioners named Hygarth and Falconer administered the lethal blow to the practice by building duplicates made out of wood that proved every bit as effective. ELECTRIC BELTS AND CORSETS The Perkins tractors were only faintly electrical in nature, but they led to further interesting medical technologies, such as electric belts and corsets, which incorporated batteries and were marketed as being able to cure a wide range of ills. They were used through the 19th century and into the 20th. As late as 1927 a California man named Gaylord Wilshire was using an AC-powered belt named the I-ON-A-CO. ELECTRONIC REACTIONS OF ABRAMS ''Main article:'' Albert Abrams In the years from ). OTHER THEORIES OF ELECTRICAL MEDICINE New developments in science are often adapted into questionable therapies. Magnets were, and still are, used as elements in cure-all devices. The plausibility of electrical cures was enhanced by the fact that electrical machinery was being put into practical use in Medicine at this time. Electrocautery machines proved much more effective than hot irons and other primitive cauterization tools, for example. The 20th Century saw development of many other genuine medical electronic instruments. SEE ALSO
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|