What Was This Strange Vintage Device Really Used For?
September 16, 2024
Source: Reddit
Can you recall a time when every home had a box of a “miracle cure” which was an electric belt or a vibrating device? Perhaps your grandparents stored one in the attic, or you once discovered an ad in a magazine which claimed to make you a new man and cure all diseases from headaches to fatigue. These contraptions were considered as the state of the art technology in those days, being marketed with much confidence and the spirit of advancement. Let’s go back a few decades though and peek way back into the past when physicians of the day were using electrified cabinets such as the Thompson-Plaster to treat the most puzzling of diseases.
In the early part of the 20th century electricity was the material of the future that everyone was raving about. This was transforming the daily life; be it for lighting streets and houses or running factories, it was also transforming the medical industry. Electrotherapy, the process of using electricity in the treatment of different diseases became the new trend as the new way of healing. Not only were devices like the Thompson-Plaster Electrical Cabinet useful for doctors, they were also symbols of relief, asserting to heal neuralgias, asthma and many other ailments.
Today, it is possible to smirk at the foolish ideas presented in some of these inventions, but one should try to envision the world in which electricity was still an unfamiliar and unexplained phenomenon. It had to be occasioned by the realization that one could tap it and use it on the human body – and this was no fiction. Thus, physicians and other people thought that these machines could influence the so-called ‘ electric currents’ of the body and heal, stimulate and even rejuvenate it.
Electrotherapy cabinets such as the one that Thompson-Plaster produced were used in doctors’ offices, spas, and even in the homes of people. It contained many complicated systems of glass tubes, brass dials, gauges, and hoses that could be attached to almost any part of the body. The treatments could be as mild as tingling sensation to as severe as electric shock like sensations. What were these devices cure for? As it seems, everything under the sun is allowed. From pains in the abdomen to pains in the head, the cabinets claimed to cure diseases which we are yet to find proper cure for today.
However, what is not well understood today is that these devices had a rather important cultural function at the time. Electricity was the future and anyone who was using it, be it for lighting, transport or for health, was considered as being progressive. The Thompson-Plaster Electrical Cabinet spoke to this notion of advancement; it gave promise to those patients in need of a cure and prestige to the physicians who could purchase one for their practice.
Today these are antique cabinets, fascinating relics of the past when science as well as medicine were still babies. In an antique store, it is almost like an accidental discovery of an artifact of a time when the difference between a medical product and a placebo was rather blurred, and the public eagerly expected the next miracle invention that would make their lives so much better. Although these machines may not have brought about a lot of positive change, they most definitely injected a lot of electricity into the minds of the people who operated them.
The next time you are in a position to encounter one of these cabinets or even an electric belt then think about the fact that this symbol was once a source of hope. This was a rather ambitious notion that technology in all its advanced glory could unveil the workings of the human body, one electrical impulse at a time. And perhaps, that’s something we can still relate to today: the belief that technology will only get better and will change our lives in ways that are hard to comprehend.