The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (30 page)

40
. Edward C. Atwater and Lawrence A. Kohn, “Rochester and the Water Cure,”
Rochester History
32, no. 4 (1970): 6.

41
. Predictably, these physicians left a wealth of bibliographic evidence of their activities. See Walter S. McClellan, “Collections on the History of Balneology in Saratoga Springs, NY,”
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
20, no. 4 (1946): 571–98.

42
. Atwater, “Rochester and the Water Cure,” 9–21.

43
. Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English,
Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness
(Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1973), 42. See also illustrations of this technique in Buckley,
Recollections of the late John Smedley and the Water Cure
, unpaged illustrations, and Baruch,
Principles and Practice of Hydrotherapy
, 101.

44
. Kathryn Kish Sklar, “All Hail to Pure Cold Water,” in
Women and Health in America: Historical Readings
, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), 252.

45
. Abigail May,
Journal at Ballstown Springs, 1800
, transcribed from the original at the New York State Historical Association by Field Home (Ballston Spa, N.Y.: Saratoga County Historical Society, 1982), 16–17.

46
. May,
Journal
, 38.

47
. Baruch,
Principles and Practice of Hydrotherapy
, 211–12, 366, 376–78.

48
. Edward Johnson,
The Domestic Practice of Hydropathy
(New York: John Wiley, 1849), 76–77, 261–68.

49
. Mary Louise Shew,
Water-Cure for Ladies
(New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1844), 135–36.

50
. Mary Gove Nichols,
Experience in Water-Cure
(New York: Fowler and Wells, 1850), 15, 44, 61–62, and her
Lectures to Women on Anatomy and Physiology
(New York: Harper, 1846), 181, 244–48.

51
. Thomas Low Nichols, An
Introduction to the Water-Cure
(New York: Fowler and Wells, 1850), 40–45.

52
. James Manby Gully,
The Water-Cure in Chronic Diseases: An Exposition
(New York: Fowler and Wells, 1854), 185–87, 353.

53
. William H. Dieffenbach,
Hydrotherapy
(New York: Rebman, 1909), 58, 238, 245.

54
. Curran Pope,
Practical Hydrotherapy: A Manual for Students and Practitioners
(Cincinnati: Lancet-Clinic, 1909), 510–12.

55
. Pope,
Practical Hydrotherapy
, 181, 185, 192.

56
. Guy Hinsdale,
Hydrotherapy
(Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1910), 224.

57
. Shere Hite,
The Hite Report on Female Sexuality
(New York: Macmillan, 1976), 21, 53–55.

58
. Linda Wolfe,
The Cosmo Report
(New York: Arbor House, 1981), 171.

59
. For example, “Get this $1200 next month,” Allen Portable Bath Apparatus advertisement,
Bohemian
, insert to 1909 volume, unpaged, and similar advertisement “10 Pennies Lead Ten People to get $32,000.00!” also for the Allen Portable Bath, Men
and Women
, May 1910, 80. A later incarnation of this technology appears in “New Amazing Portable Wall Shower,”
Workbasket
17, no. 11 (1952): 70.

60
. Donald E. Greydanus, “Masturbation; Historic Perspective,”
New York State Journal of Medicine
80, no. 12 (1980): 1893–94; W. R. Miller and H. I. Lief, “Masturbatory Attitudes, Knowledge, and Experience: Data from the Sex Knowledge and Attitude Test (SKAT),”
Archives of Sexual Behavior
5 (1976): 447.

61
. J. Aphrodite [pseud.],
To Turn You On: Thirty-nine Sex Fantasies for
Women (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1975), 90.

62
. Eugene Halpert, “On a Particular Form of Masturbation in Women: Masturbation with Water,”
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
21 (1973): 526.

63
. Two accounts of this method of masturbation are Jane Wallace,
Masturbation: A Woman’s Handbook
(Bloomfield, N.J.: R. J. Williams, 1975), 23, and Boston Women’s Health Book Collective,
The New Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 168.

64
. N. A. Cambridge, “Electrical Apparatus Used in Medicine before 1900,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine
70, no. 9 (1977): 635–41. For an examples of electrets, see “The Only Electric Massage Roller,” Dr. John Wilson Gibbs Company (New York), advertisement in
Cosmopolitan
34, no. 1 (1902).

65
. I owe this explanation of electrets to Al Kuhfeld, curator of the Bakken Library and Museum of Electricity in Life, which has a collection of these devices. For an example of an electric hairbrush, see “Free Christmas Offer … Dr. Scott’s Electric Hair Brushes,” Pall Mall Electric Company (New York), advertisement in
Needlecraft
, November 1924, 41.

66
. Kevin Kane and Arthur Taub, “A History of Local Electrical Analgesia,”
Pain
1, no. 2 (1975): 127–34.

67
. Audrey B. Davis,
Medicine and Its Technology: An Introduction to the History of Medical Instrumentation
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), 22.

68
. For examples, see Auguste Vigouroux,
Étude sur la resistance élaectrique chez les mélncoliques
(Paris: J. Rueff, 1890); “Electricity the Renewer of Youth,”
American Review of Reviews
37 (June 1908): 732–33; T. Shueler, “Electricity and Light in Modern Medicine,”
Scientific American
, suppl., 69 (April 2, 1910): 212–13; William John McRoberts,
Vibratory Rates Anatomical, Physiological, Pathological, Psychological and Dietetic as Worked out through “Streborcam” for “Streborcam” Technique in Detecting the Human Emanations in Diagnosing and Treating Diseases Utilizing Only the Ether
… (Hot Springs, S.D.: W. J. McRoberts, 1928); and George Lakhovsky,
La science et la bonheur, longevité, et immortalité par les vibrations
(Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1930).

69
. Albert Laquerrière, “Éxercise électriquement provoqué,” paper presented at III
^e
Congrès Internationale de Physiotherapie, 27 March–2 April 1910, 21–24.

70
. Matthew J. Grier, “The Treatment of Some Forms of Sexual Debility by Electricity,” paper presented at first annual meeting of the American Electro-therapeutic Association, Philadelphia, September 1891; reprinted from the
Times and Register
, November 21, 1891.

71
. T. Robert Horton, To
Both Sexes of All Ages
… Dr.
Horton Cures Diseases of a Private Nature in an Incredibly Short Space of Time
(Sydney: McCarron, Stewart, n.d.), and “An Improved Electric Belt,”
Scientific American
68 (May 6, 1893): 277. For examples of the types of batteries sold to consumers, see T. Eaton and Company, “Electrical Sundries,”
Catalogues for Spring and Summer; Fall and Winter
(1901; reprint Toronto: Musson, 1970), 118; Montgomery Ward and Company, “Electrical Goods,”
Catalogue and Buyer’s Guide
No. 57 (spring and summer 1895; reprint New York: Dover, 1969), 214; and Sears, Roebuck and Company, “Department of Electric Belts,”
Catalogue
No. 111 (1902; reprint New York: Bounty Books, Crown, 1969), 475–76.

72
. Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis: a Medico-forensic Study
(1886; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965), 114.

73
. David V. Reynolds, “A Brief History of Electrotherapeutics,” in
Neuroelectric Research: Electroneuroprosthesis, Electroanesthesia, and Nonconvulsive Electrotherapy
, ed. David V. Reynolds and Anita E. Sjoberg (Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1971), 6.

74
. William Snowdon Hedley,
The Hydro-electric Methods in Medicine
(London: H. K. Lewis, 1892), 41–49.

75
. International Correspondence Schools, A
System of Electrotherapeutics
(Scranton, Pa.: International Textbook, 1903), 4:40, 120–21; 5–7:113–19.

76
. “Motor-Operated Therapeutic Machine,”
Electrical World
71 (March 2, 1918): 490.

77
. George J. Engelmann, “The Use of Electricity in Gynecological Practice,”
Gynecological Transactions
11 (1886): 134.

78
. Richard J. Cowen,
Electricity in Gynecology
(London: Baillière, Tindall and Cox, 1900), 74.

79
. Herman E. Hoyd, “Electricity in Gynecological Practice,”
Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal
, May 1890, 5.

80
. A. Lapthorn Smith, “Disorders of Menstruation,” in An
International System of Electro-therapeutics
, ed. Horatio Bigelow (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1894), G-159.

81
. Franklin H. Martin,
Electricity in Diseases of Women and Obstetrics
(Chicago: W. T. Keener, 1892), 221.

82
. Martin,
Electricity in Diseases of Women
, 232.

83
. Havelock Ellis, “Auto-erotism,” in
Studies in the Psychology of Sex
, vol. 1 (1910; New York: Random House, 1940), 168.

84
. John Harvey Kellogg, “Electrotherapeutics in Chronic Maladies,” paper presented at the International Electrical Congress, St. Louis, Mo., September 22, 1904; reprinted in
Modern Medicine
, October-November 1904, 8, 16.

85
. John Butler,
Dr. John Butler’s Electro-massage Machine for Curing Disease at Home. Glad Tidings for All, Men and Women. The Greatest Medical Discovery Ever Known
(New York: Butler Electro-massage, 1888), 19, 22, 34.

86
. William Goodell also reported this desire to sleep after massage and electricity had been used to “promote the secretions.” See Goodell,
Lessons in Gynecology
(Philadelphia: Davis, 1890), 539–40.

87
. John Butler,
Electro-massage
(Philadelphia: Globe, 1880), 7–8, 14.

88
. Health-Beauty Publishing Company,
Health-Beauty, or Common Sense Instead of Drugs
(New York: Health-Beauty, [ca. 1900]).

89
. World’s Columbian Exposition,
World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U.S. A
, 1893;
Classification and Rules, Department of Electricity
(Chicago: World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893), 23.

90
. John H. Girdner, “Healing by Electricity,”
Munsey’s Magazine
29 (April 1903): 85.

91
. John V. Shoemaker, “Electricity in the Treatment of Disease,”
Scientific American
, suppl., 63 (January 5, 1907): 25924.

92
. William H. Armstrong and Company,
[Catalogue of Medical Instruments]
(Indianapolis: Armstrong, 1901), 610–11.

93
. For example, see Edward Trevert Bubier,
Electro-therapeutic Handbook
(New York: Manhattan Electrical Supply, [1900]), and Keystone Electric Company,
Illustrated Catalogue and Price List of Electrotherapeutic Appliances
(Philadelphia: Keystone Electric, [ca. 1903]). Wappler was another example; see Davis,
Medicine and Its Technology
, 22.

94
. U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Census of Manufactures
, 1905, part 4,
Special Reports on Selected Industries
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1908), 216–17.

95
. U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Census of Manufactures, 1914
, vol. 2,
Special Reports for Selected Industries and Detail Statistics for Industries, by States
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1919), 203.

96
. U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Census of Manufactures, 1947
, vol. 2,
Statistics by Industry
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1949), 748. See John Liston, “Developments in the Electrical Industry during 1933: Electromedical Apparatus,”
General Electric Review
37 (January 1934): 40–41.

97
. “All Physicians Agree that every family should have an Electric Battery in their house,” United States Battery Agency (Brooklyn, N.Y.), advertisement in
Dorcas Magazine
7, no. 1 (1889): v; and the same advertisement on the front flyleaf of
Conemaugh: A Graphic Story of the Johnstown Flood, from the Pens of the Journalists Who Were in the Valley
(New York: American News Company, 1889). See also electrotherapeutic devices in “Credit 18 months, installments, health, beauty, fine figure & complexions, drugs fail, new electricity succeeds. Home batteries. Free trial,” Woman’s Institute (Los Angeles), advertisement in
Ladies’ World
, February 1898, 23, and “The only electric massage roller,” Dr. John Wilson Gibb’s Obesity Cure (New York), advertisement in
Cosmopolitan
34, no. 1 (1902), unpaged advertising section.