JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

This is the fourth in a new series of posts on interesting, early applications of electricity, most of which are taken from the archives of the U.S. Patent Office.

J(osephus) C. Chambers, the patentee of the apparatus below, was the owner of Chambers’ National Lightning Protection Company (Newport, Kentucky), and held a number of patents relating to lightning rods, electrical insulators, a telephone apparatus (1881), and a number of associated bits of techno. I’m not exactly sure what this device, below, did, except that it seems like a low-voltage quack-medical electric chair.

The first patent drawing, below, shows a view of the chair and at front, looking backwards towards the  “ornamented” wooden cabinet that contained the guts of the machine, with the seat (which would have a metallic, conductive surface) removed.  You would place your hands on the two capital “H” pads that seem to be just below the two drawers; your feet would go on the two “h” pads at bottom. 

The drawing below references how the various swinging arms and such can be maneuvered to reach any part of the body.  Mind you now the inventor doesn’t actually state what this electrical treatment “does”, only how you apply it and the technical stuff behind the machine. Also ir is not a solitary experience–there would be another person operating the controls on the top of the wooden case.

I wondered about the cup (“J”), and thought, well, maybe that’s not what I think it might be for…but it is, waiting there to treat “the depending organ”.

The U.S.  Patent Office report reads as follows: