Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Electrical quackery
Electricity has long been thought to be an elemental life-force. Early experiments by Galvani showed that touching an electrically charged scalpel to an exposed nerve in the leg of a dead frog would cause the leg to kick as if the frog were still alive. While electricity is responsible for the transmission of signals along nerves, both the deluded and the outright fraudulent have attempted to exploit the belief that the presence of electricity and conductors will have a dramatic, disease-curing effect on living tissue. This belief is also reflected in the 1931 film adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein in which Dr. Frankenstein's patchwork monster is brought to life by electricity.
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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," even by the medical standards of the time. But the tractors proved popular, and even George Washington bought a set.
Elisha Perkins died of yellow fever in an epidemic in 1799. His son Benjamin Perkins amassed a fortune with the tractors, as well as 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, since animals tend to be more resistant to powers of suggestion than humans and have not the least faith in placebos. 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 World War I to 1924, Albert Abrams promoted "ERA", which stood for Electronic Reactions of Abrams. His theory was that electrons were the basic element of all life, and that he could diagnose, and later cure, diseases by analysis of blood. His work was debunked in 1923 and 1924, and after his death his machines were found to consist of nothing more than wires connected to lights and buzzers. (See also: Oberon).
Other forms of technological quackery
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
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