Re: What is this ancient electrical apparatus?

Thanks for the update, I was getting "curiouser & curiouser" about
what the heck it was... And also thanks for posting Jeff Behary's
website URL, it is so *cool* !!! If I ever dispense with my
collection of old tech, I'll donate my two quack medical machines to
his museum.

-Pete
Graceful Exits Estate Liquidation Services
www.graceful-exits.com
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On Apr 9, 1:20 pm, johns...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Thanks for those suggestions Pete. I am a little further down the
track now.

Jeff Behary of The Turn of the Century Electrotherapy Museum tells me
that it is a Faradic Medical Battery but he has no clue as to the
manufacturer. He says these sorts of machines "were made left right
and centre from the 1870s - 1920s.

Jeff's site is well worth looking at:

http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com

After looking at other makes of this type of gadget I connected a 1.5
volt battery to the terminals top left. Then soldered wires to two
short lengths of copper tube and connected them to the scrw down brass
terminals on the left and below the battery connections.

The steel plate above the coils in the centre of the picture starts
vibrating and you get a mild electric shock through the hand held
copper tubes. Fortunately my son worked out that the red capped rod
top right controls the flux (I think that is the phrase he used) and
that for the mildest effect you keep it pulled up in its socket. BTW
this arrangement is a breach of OHS principles!

The strength of the shock varies with how tightly you grasp the copper
tubes, how sweaty your palms are and how far the rod is pushed down
into the hole.

SO BEWARE - if you have one of these machines, and (1) have a tight
and sweaty grip and (2) have the rod pushed fully home then your
muscles will so contract that you will be in great pain and unable to
let go of the copper tubes.

THEREFORE start with the rods resting in the palms of your hands and
the rod extracted from its socket.

The electric shock is a tingling of high frequency, not a jolt.

The chamois covered pads must have been used to localise the electric
current on particular parts of the body.

The only unexplained part of the gadget is the switch at bottom left.
It swivels so that it can contact each of four poles that are screwed
into the woodwork. It has no effect so far as I can see.

To see what's going on under the top panel you would have to remove
it. You can't see anything in the roof of the drawer compartment.

Moving on to identifying the country of manufacture, I notice that
some numbers written in pencil on the inside of the wooden cabinet and
a drawer put a line across the stem of the number 7. This is of course
a European way of writing a number.

Each of four brass terminals has a label in the form of a letter
stamped into the wood:

1. What is probably the positive battery terminal has the letter 'K'.

2. The other battery terminal has the letter 'Z'.

3. One pole of a switch (function unknown) has the letter 'P'.

4. The other pole has the letter 'S'.

Can somebody identify what words these represent? I have looked in
German and French dictionaries and cannot get any sense from
'positive', 'negative', 'on' and 'off'.

On 9 Apr 2007 10:03:37 -0700, "Graceful Exits"

<gracefulex...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I collect old technology as a hobby and have a couple of quack medical
devices, but this doesn't resemble any of them I've seen. The quack
med devices usually have a hand cranked generator and 2 metal handles
hooked up to it (often with a bizzare array of rheostats, switches,
and other electrical components to make them look "modern and
scientific" for the times.

The idea was for the patient to hold one of the handles and the
"doctor" to hold the other. When he turned the crank, the electrical
current would force the doctor's "healing properties" to run through
the patient, curing everything from baldness to asthma. In the case
of some practitioners, the patient would hold both handles while the
healer would turn the crank giving the patient a little jolt.

In this case, it would help to know what the red capped item is and
how it relates to the device itself. What I see is a rheostat, 2
terminals that probably hook up to a battery or a hand cranked
generator, an on/off switch, 3 padded "end tools", and that red
capped item, suggesting the padded end tools should be connected to
the red cap thingy. If the pads fit on the end of the red capped tool
and rotate, it is probably a polisher (suggesting the red capped tool
is an electric motor). If it doesn't rotate, it's probably a medical
device. If it doesn't hook up to other wires in the device, I don't
have a single clue as to what it may be.

-Pete
Graceful Exits Estate Liquidation Services
www.graceful-exits.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Apr 5, 10:06 pm, johns...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
What is this ancient electrical apparatus?

http://www.box.net/shared/static/bxzjgxc5kq.jpg

Here are some comments on the photo:

1. The wires at the top left are obviously modern. The unconnected
upper ends are soldered and were perhaps once connected to a battery.

2. The black vertical rod, capped with a red knob, slides up and down
in its socket and has a graduated scale on the paper stuck on to the
shaft.

3. In the opened lower drawer are three brass pieces with chamois
leather covers. They obviously screwed onto some gadget that is
missing.

Can somebody tell me the function of this type of apparatus and its
name?

My daughter says it is an apparatus for making Frankenstein's monster.
Maybe this is so. I can't think of any other explanation.


.

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