When a major new technological advance little understood by the general public is coupled with human maladies for which there are no known remedies, charlatans have a field day. Thus it was with the phenomenon that gave rise to “electric belts.” Those nostrums were among the most popular consumer medical products sold in the late 19th Century. Fascinated by their merchandising, I am featuring here nine electric belt ads.
The exhibit begins with an ad from Dr. M.A. McLaughlin who peddled his “curative electricity” from his offices at Market & Kearney Streets in San Francisco and Spring & 2nd Streets in Los Angeles. From the accompanying illustration, it would appear that Doc M. also was capable of generating electricity through his fingertips as well as his belts. “You will find my application of electricity is the most intelligent and perfect of the age, the grandest invigorator of the age for weakness, the best tonic for your nerves…” His belt was to be worn even at night until “your system becomes charged with reviving voltage.”
Dr. Scott, whose offices were on Broadway at 13th Street claimed that 17,000 New Yorkers were wearing them daily to cure complaints ranging from “male and female weakness” (read sexual problems) to “kidney, liver and heart” disease. Scott’ ad was filled with testimonials, including one from “Albert Krug” of Peoria Illinois: “My father, 70 years old, could not walk 100 yards; after wearing the Belt one month, he walked nine miles without resting.” Dr. Scott’s belt was cheap at $3.00 and likely generated no electricity at all, just pain from the hot pepper with which it likely was lined.
A man who clearly was in need of a barber was Dr. A. Owen, proprietor of The Owen Electric Belt and Appliance Co. But then if your face is your trademark, cutting it short might invalidate the registration. Dr. Owen’s belt is shown emitting lots of electric buzz from the silver-coated disks that are around the periphery of the belt. As one observer has written: “The intimacy with which they came in contact with the body and the sophistication of their design and advertising materials made belts particularly influential objects for consumers with little electrical knowledge and great electrical enthusiasm.”
The Heidelberg Alternating Current Electric Belts came in a variety of styles, selling anywhere from $4.00 to $18.00 (equiv. to almost $400 today). The expensive model was billed as Heidelberg’s “Giant Electric Power Belt.” Note that it in addition to the discs common to most of these devices, this one has a feature designed to hold the male genitalia and give it a jolt of 80-gauge current. In addition to regulating the liver, this belt is for “Chronic Nervous Diseases, Weaknesses.” Wearing the belt brings “immediate relief and rapid improvement.”
My guess is that most electric belts were bought by men with erectile disfunction and the hucksters knew it. Dr. Sanden in his ad makes no medical claims other than “It Cures When All Else Fails.” Dr. Sanden claims: “Therefore, when a man is broken down by the results of hard usage—when his vitality is low—Electricity poured into his nerves will build him up.” Note the hanging gizmo pictured here designed to generate current to a vital organ.
The Dr. Bell Electro Belt used a dry cell battery to generate its electricity, an advance from the earlier wet cell batteries, an advance followed by plugs for wall sockets. Like Dr. Sanden, Dr. Bell unabashedly advertised his belt as for men lacking “vitality.” It also featured a hanging loop called a “suspensory” meant to jingle suspended male parts. Looking at this belt somehow reminds me of Darth Vader’s helmet from “Star Wars.”
American suckers were not the only customers for electric belts. In England, however, one did not need a “Dr.” name to market the item. Mr. C.B. Harness of London’s Oxford Street offered his “Electropathic Belt” as president of an outfit called The Electropathic and Zander Institute. Harness, a former jeweler and furniture salesman, billed himself as a “medical electrician.” In 1892, a man sued him for fraud. He had used the belt to cure his hernia but it worsen the more he used the device. He won the case, and soon after Harness was bombarded with investigations and prosecutions. One court case drew some 400 witnesses testifying against him.
Professor P. L. Pulvermacher, also a resident of London, was credited in company literature with inventing Electro-Galvanic Chains, that then were fashioned into belts and bands. Based in San Francisco, the firm using his name advertised that electricity was “nature’s chief restorer” and denigrated traditional medicine as being “generally of no avail.” This belt even got a word of approval from the British medical journal, Lancet. It wrote: “In these days of medico-galvanic quackery, it is a relief to observe the plain and straightforward way in which Pulvermacher’s apparatus is recommended to the profession.”
As a final look at electric belts consider the Howard Electric Shield. Although it has every appearance of a belt (but no “suspensory”), its ad asserts that the device can be worn on any part of the body, not just the waist. It emphasizes the ability of electricity to purify the blood proclaiming: “Electricity is the Life of the Blood! The Blood is the Life of the Body!” Maladies like nervous debility, kidney disease, and male and female weakness are no match for the pure blood cleansed by Howard Galvanic Shield, offering speedy and positive cures. Or so they said.
Today electric belts and their claims to cure a wide range of maladies seem ludicrous to the point of utter madness. One must remember, however, that modern medicine was just in its infancy. Although little understood, electricity was exciting the populace. The hucksters could hardly help but take notice. Taken altogether, the birth of the electric belt might seem virtually inevitable.Similarly inevitable was its decline and demise in the 20th Century, leaving us with only these imaginative ads to contemplate past chicanery.
Note: Information and images for this post was gathered from multiple sources. Chief among them were “The Great American Medicine Show” by David and Elizabeth Armstrong, Prentice Hall, 1991,” and “The Victorian Tool for Everything From Hernias to Sex—a Vibrating Electric Belt” by Lauren Young, July 12, 2016, online.
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