Quote:
Originally Posted by J_Player
Hi goldfinder,
electreat?
I looked it up, and it seems to have an interesting history, similar to dowsing.
It seems the principle of using high voltage stimulation to treat nerve problems began back in ancient Mesopotamia to treat transient pain. Pain victims were exposed to torpedo fish (electric eels) to numb their nerves where it hurts. Then after batteries were invented, experimenters tried inducing currents under the skin to numb nerves. Up until this time, electricity was used as an anasthetic. But by the middle 1800s people were manufacturing electric stimulators which were claimed to cure all kinds of maladies. It was the beginning of the snake oil era. By 1919 the electreat version was patented by Charles Willie Kent and sold (estimated 250,000 units) for home remedy of a number of ailments. Following passage of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in 1938, Kent was the first individual prosecuted by the U.S. government for making unsubstantiated medical claims and the Electreat company was then forced to limit their claims to pain relief alone.
Today, the electrical stimulators are still being manufactured and used by private citizens as well as in hospitals. Apparently the medical community considers they have some anasthetic value. But these are also used by alternative medical practitioners which include acupuncturists who sometimes attach electrodes to their acupuncture needles. And home users often swear by the great theraputic results they see from using these electric stimulators. From what I can see, it looks like these electric stimulators have a history which runs parallel to the history of dowsing, and they have a similar controversy today, as they are still being used by small numbers as an alternative to mainstream medical treatments. And we also see similar opposing viewpoints about the medical value of these stimulators.
Sources:
http://www.burtonreport.com/infspine...ostimPartI.htm
http://shop.ebay.com/sis.html?_nkw=A...MEDICAL+DEVICE
http://nolindan.com/lindancollection...ctionmain.html
Best wishes, 
J_P |
Son of a gun, my grandfather used to have that very same machine, I have it now, it has that same black paper box, and I have those same instructions! He had 1943 EverReady batterys in it, they were run down, but for some reason they had not leaked out, so I saved those vintage interesting batterys. Never saw EverReady "D" batterys that had dates on them. He gave it to my mother, and she kept it until she moved into a skilled nursing home, as a memento of her day. So we do not know anything about it, or how he used it, or if it worked or not.
Melbeta