Device Watch | Quackwatch
INTRODUCTION In 1796, the first U.S. patent for a medical device of dubious distinction was issued to Dr. Elisha Perkins for his Metallic Tractors, a set of metal prods attached to a Galvanic cell (battery). It was and, in some circles, still is, commonly believed that good health is equilibrium of magnetic and electrical charges. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, magnets and electrical devices have been applied to the ailing body in an effort to "restore" this balance. Even before
The golden age of quackery took advantage of a receptive, unsophisticated public, awed by a barrage of legitimate discoveries by scientific luminaries like Edison, Bell, Marconi, Curie, Becquerel, and Tesla. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, a number of radium cures were unleashed on a credulous public unaware that, and Madame Curie's fingers had fallen off before her death. This radioactive patent medicine period ended about 1930 when steel magnate Eben MacBurney Byers, who boas
The vast majority of patent medicines were alcohol-based, many containing opium or morphine as well. Virtually none contained the ingredients they claimed to have, and none could heal. Vital Sparks, promising to revitalize masculine virility, was made by rolling rock candy in powdered aloe. Tiger Fat, a cure-all balm touted to be rendered from Royal Bengal tigers' backbones, was concocted of Vaseline, camphor, menthol, eucalyptus oil, turpentine, wintergreen oil, and paraffin. Liver pads, promoted as c
Device Watch | Quackwatch