By the turn of the 20th century, electricity was all the rage.
Newspapers were filled with stories about technical geniuses like Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse working to bring electricity into every home. Certainly, the prospect of new and improved labour-saving devices, all run by electricity, must have seemed miraculous enough. So was it any wonder that more and more medical hucksters began turning out health products promising to cure every ailment under the sun using the power of electricity? A full listing of the various "devices" being offered through newspaper ads and through mail order would likely fill a good-sized book. Still, he leading figure of 20th century electrical quackery had to be Albert Abrams., the dean of bogus electrotherapy, and likely the most famous name ever to be associated associated with electrotherapy. 
Born in San Francisco in 1863, Abrams was the son of aa prominent banker and distinguished himself from an early age due to his brilliant mind. By the time he turned nineteen, he had earned his medical doctorate from the University of Heidelberg (one of the world's foremost medical schools) and went on to become a professor of pathology at Cooper College (later absorbed into Stanford University Medical School) before he turned thirty. Along as serving as a consultant at numerous prominent hospitals, he also authored a slate of medical books and research papers that still stand up to medical scrutiny even today. Aside from making money with his private practice, he became independently wealthy through his marriage to two different heiresses, both of whom died young and who bequeathed their sizable estates to him.
Despite his eminent medical reputation, not to mention being a member of California's high society, Dr. Abrams' career eventually veered into a decidedly different direction by 1910. After developing a strong professional interest in orthopedic medicine, he published two books focusing on the role of spinal treatment in curing disease. Abrams also began training other doctors in Spondylotherapy, i.e., manipulating the spine to treat various medical conditions and had a strong influence on the chiropractic movement. But really, his foray into alternative medicine was just beginning...
For whatever reason, he soon gave up on spinal manipulation after developing what he called his Theory of Electronic Medical Analysis. According to this theory, every disease had a signature electronic vibration that could be measured using specialized instruments. This led to the invention of the dynamizer - a device developed by Abrams which became the cornerstone of his Electronic Reactions of Abrams diagnostic system (ERA for short).
In a nutshell, ERA worked by putting drops of the patient's blood onto blotting paper (the blood was first "cleansed" by treating it with a horseshoe magnet) and then placing it into the dynamizer. A wire was then attached to the forehead of a second, healthy person who stood on grounded plates (this second subject was known as a "reagent"). The reagent was stripped to the waist and placed facing westward. When the dynamizer passed the vibrational frequency of the blood sample to the reagent, Abrams or one of his disciples tapped the reagent's abdomen. Based on the tapping, Abrams claimed to be able to pinpoint the nature and location of any disease in the patient's body. On those few occasions when a dynamizer wasn't available, he was able to diagnose patients by using his hands to find "rough areas" of the skin to find the affected body part that he insisted was responsible for whatever symptoms they were experiencing.
Visitors seeking out Dr. Abrams could find him at the luxurious medical office he maintained at 2151 Sacramento Street in San Francisco. There the patient would be escorted to the reception area by Dr. Abrams' extremely androgynous assistant. Not even bothering with gathering a medical history, the assistant simply asked each patient what they "thought" was wrong with them. At this point, Dr. Abrams would come in and collect blood and saliva samples, not to mention a sample of the patient's handwriting, all of which would be placed in the dynamizer for a proper diagnosis. After calling in the reagent, usually a young man stripped to the waist, the good doctor would then recite a complex series of numbers based on what he learned by tapping the young reagent's abdomen and which his assistant would dutifully record. Once the diagnosis was made, Abrams then dismissed the reagent and proceeded with giving the patient a diagnosis and recommending the proper treatment.
Though Abrams often prescribed different medications to cure the supposed disease he had diagnosed in his patients, the treatment Abrams provided usually involved his other great invention, the oscilloclast. Basically a boxlike gadget with electrodes to be placed on the patient's body, Abrams claimed that his oscilloclast could be used to cure patients by "duplicating and neutralizing the signature vibration of disease". In extreme cases, he also rubbed his patients with assorted colored salves (the ingredients of which remained a proprietary secret).
Though he maintained his own busy practice, Abrams hardly stopped there. Through aggressive marketing, Abrams recruited and trained various "electronic practitioners", all of whom treated disease using machines leased from Abrams' company. Not only did Abrams collect a hefty sum from everyone undergoing his training, he also rented all necessary machines to his graduates, including their own dynamizer and oscillocast (Abrams maintained a strict legal license banning anyone else from producing them). All of this would become a factor in later lawsuits, bit we'll get to that later.
It was quite a lucrative business for a while. Not only did Abrams become a favourite of osteopaths and chiropractors of the time, but he also made numerous friends in the media. His supporters included novelist Upton Sinclair and Pearson's Magazine. A perennial showman, Abrams proudly boasted that his Electronic Medicine could cure a dizzying array of diseases, including hypertension, pneumonia, liver problems, cancer, skin problems, etc. He even claimed that the Soviet government had called him in to consult on the treatment that the dying Lenin was receiving in Moscow and that he could diagnose patients remotely by using "electronic waves" going through telephone wires. Not only did he insist that his machines allowed him to predict how long a patient might live by examining their vibrations, but he even used handwriting samples from people who were long dead to diagnose them as well. For example, he used autographs from writers such as Samuel Johnson and Samuel Pepys to conclude that they had both developed syphilis prior to their deaths (he said the same of Henry Longfellow and Edgar Allan Poe).
But that was hardly the full extent of the kind of "medical advice" that the good Dr. Abrams dispensed. He was a rabid anti-vaccine advocate who insisted that all white people were susceptible to syphilis due to the widespread use of vaccines, something that he insisted led to white people being prone to "vibratory" medical problems (no word on what it did to other races, though). He also insisted that all surgery was inherently dangerous and that people who have been operated on would inevitably develop cancer due to the damage that surgery did to the body's vibrations.
Though there have always been a plethora of medical hucksters dispensing questionable advice, the sad part was that people often listened to what Albert Abrams had to say. Not only did he have a widespread following but his appeal as a medical showman virtually guaranteed enormous publicity whenever he made a formal pronouncement about medicine. Even in the United Kingdom, visitors to the venerable Trafalgar Square in the heart of London could see an electric sign proclaiming the benefits of Electronic Medicine. The outcome of one famous paternity case in San Francisco actually hinged on the evidence that Abrams provided which determined (through electronic analysis alone) that the defendant was the father of the child in question.
Whatever the actual benefits of Abrams' miracle cures, there was no disputing that they made him a very wealthy man. Evidence of this wealth included a magnificent mansion in San Francisco, lavishly decorated with expensive furnishings and a stunning collection of Oriental art and rare books. He also maintained an enormous wardrobe, complete with expensive jewelry which he wore during his many lecture tours abroad. Though Abrams' fame as a medical huckster peaked in the years immediately following World War I, he even found a way to profit from Prohibition when it began in 1920 (he claimed that his devices could duplicate the vibrational frequency of alcohol to produce an "electrical high" without the hangover).
Still, it was only a matter of time before the backlash set in for Abrams' movement. More on that next week...
To be continued