The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (31 page)

98
. “Oxydonor in the Home,” Dr. H. Sanchez and Company (Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Montreal), advertisement in
Cosmopolitan
34, no. 1 (1902), unpaged advertising section.

99
. Western Merchandise and Supply Company, “Beauty for you Electric Massage,” Home Electronic Massage Battery, advertisement, 1913, reproduced in Those
Were the Good Old Days
, ed. Edgar R. Jones (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959), 186.

100
. Master Electric Company,
The Master Violet Ray
(Chicago: Master Electric, n.d.), 2. The Bakken Library and Museum of Electricity in Life has some excellent examples of violet ray devices and their electrodes.

101
. “Stop that Pain! with Violet Ray. Vibration Ozone Medical Electricity,” Elco Electric Health Generators, Lindstrom and Company (Chicago), advertisement in
Popular Mechanics
, December 1928, advertising section, 4b.

102
. Edward Ely Van de Warker, “Effects of Railroad Travel upon the Health of Women,”
Georgia Medical Companion
2 (1892): 192–206.

103
. Soranus of Ephesus,
Gynecology
, trans. Owsei Temkin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), 140–41; Paré,
Workes
, 639, 948; Thomas Sydenham,
The Works of Thomas Sydenham
, trans. R. G. Latham (London: Sydenham Society, 1848), 2:116, 235; see also Ilsa Veith,
Hysteria: The History of a Disease
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 118.

104
. Charles Delucena Meigs,
Woman: Her Diseases and Remedies
, 3d ed. (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1854), 437.

105
. Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis
, 260–61, 466; George M. Beard,
Sexual Neurasthenia
(New York: E. B. Treat, 1884), 100; and John S. Haller and Robin M. Haller,
The Physician and Sexuality in Victorian America
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974), 185.

106
. Somewhat paradoxically, there were also conditions allegedly caused by railroad travel called “railroad brain” and “railroad spine,” which gave rise to numerous lawsuits in the nineteenth century. See Charles K. Mills, “Hysteria,” in A
System of Practical Medicine
, vol. 5,
Diseases of the Nervous System
, ed. William Pepper and Louis Starr (Philadelphia: Lea Brothers, 1886), 225.

107
. Charles William Malchow,
The Sexual Life: A Scientific Treatise Designed for Advanced Students and the Professions, Embracing the Natural Sexual Impulse, Normal Sexual Habits and Propagation, Together with Sexual Physiology and Hygiene
, 6th ed. (St. Louis: C. V. Mosby, 1923), 56–57.

108
. A. K. Gardner, “The Hygiene of the Sewing Machine,”
American Medical Times 1
(1860): 420–21, 435–37; “Influence of Sewing Machine on Female Health,”
New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal
20 (November 1867): 359–60; J. Langdon H. Down, “On the Influence of the Sewing Machine on Female Health,”
British Medical Journal
1 (1867): 26–27; Charles H. Hendricks, “The Sewing Machine Problem as Seen through the Pages of the
American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children
, 1868–1873,”
Obstetrics and Gynecology
26 (1965): 453–54; Goodell,
Lessons in Gynecology
, 548; Horatio Robinson Storer,
Female Hygiene: A Lecture Delivered at Sacramento and San Francisco, by Request of the State Board of Health of California
(Boston: James Campbell, 1872); and Karen Offen, “Towered by a Woman’s Foot’: A Documentary Introduction to the Sexual Politics of the Sewing Machine in Nineteenth-Century France,”
Women’s Studies International Forum
11, no. 2 (1988): 93–101.

109
. Robert Latou Dickinson, “Bicycling for Women from the Standpoint of the Gynecologist,”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children
31, no. 1 (1895): 24–37.

110
. W. E. Fitch, “Bicycle Riding: Its Moral Effect upon Young Girls and Its Relation to Diseases of Women,”
Georgia Journal of Medicine and Surgery
4 (1899): 156; quoted in Haller and Haller,
Physician and Sexuality in Victorian America
, 185.

111
. Robert William Taylor, A
Practical Treatise on Sexual Disorders of the Male and Female
, 3d ed. (Philadelphia: Lea Brothers, 1905), 413.

112
. Russell Thacher Trail,
Pathology of the Reproductive Organs: Embracing All Forms of Sexual Disorder
(Boston: B. Emerson, 1863), 139, 144.

113
. Alphonso David Rockwell,
The Medical and Surgical Uses of Electricity
, new ed. (New York: E. B. Treat, 1903), 635; see also Keystone Electric Company,
Illustrated Catalogue
, 63. On vibratory helmets, “Vibratory Therapeutics,”
Scientific American
67 (October 22, 1892): 265, shows a helmet invented by Gilles de la Tourette at the Salpêtrière. One of John Harvey Kellogg’s biographers credits his subject with inventing the jolting chair as well as Taylor’s “Manipulator,” but the indefatigable Kellogg was in fact a John-Harvey-Come-Lately where therapeutic shaking of patients was concerned; see Richard W. Schwarz,
John Harvey Kelbgg, MD
(Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, [ca. 1970]), 124.

114
. “An Electrical Rocking Chair,”
Scientific American
68 (May 6, 1893): 276. On the rocking chair as sex gadget, see Bernard Rudofsky,
Now I Lay Me Down to Eat: Notes and Footnotes on the Lost Art of Living
(Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1980, 86–91).

115
. Good Health Publishing Company,
Twentieth Century Therapeutic Appliances
(Battle Creek, Mich.: Good Health, 1909), 64–73.

116
. Joseph Mortimer Granville,
Nerve-Vibration and Excitation as
Agents in
the Treatment of Functional Disorders and Organic Disease
(London: J. and A. Churchill, 1883), 38, 57.

117
. Friedrich Eduard Bilz,
The New Natural Method of Healing
(London: A. Bilz, 1898), 1816.

118
. Mary Lydia Hastings Arnold Snow,
Mechanical Vibration and Its Therapeutic Application
(New York: Scientific Authors, 1904); Schall and Son,
Electro-medical Instruments and Their Management
, 17th ed. (London: Schall and Son, 1925), 100.

119
. Alfred Levertin,
Dr. G. Zander’s Medico-mechanical Gymnastics: Its Method, Importance and Applications
(Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt, 1893); see also Hartvig Nissen,
Swedish Movement and Massage Treatment
(Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1890).

120
. U.S. Patent Office,
Subject Matter Index of Patents for Inventions Issued by the United States Patent Office from 1790 to 1873
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1874; reprint New York: Arno, 1976), 2:912, patents 86,604 and 122,500; George H. Taylor, “Improvement in Medical Rubbing Apparatus,” U.S. Patent 175, 202, dated March 21, 1876, application filed May 17, 1875; and “Movement Cure,” U.S. Patent 263, 625, dated August 29, 1882, application filed June 19, 1882.

121
. George Henry Taylor,
Pelvic and Hernial Therapeutics
(New York: J. B. Alden, 1885), 118–33, and Taylor,
Mechanical Aids in the Treatment of Chronic Forms of Disease
(New York: Rodgers, 1893), 75.

122
. George Henry Taylor,
Health for Women
(New York: John B. Alden, 1883), 198.

123
. Rockwell,
Medical and Surgical Uses of Electricity
, 635, 641.

124
. Mortimer Granville,
Nerve-Vibration
, 57.

125
. The Bakken Library and Museum of Electricity in Life has a Weiss vibrator (accession no. 82.100) tentatively dated ca. 1925, which somewhat resembles Mortimer Granville’s 1886 illustration. The Bakken artifact has a vibrating coil with bar and probe accessories operating on internal dry cell batteries; the older model shown in Mortimer Granville’s book has a separate and apparently larger battery.

126
. Snow,
Mechanical Vibration
, 1904 and 1912 editions; see also Monell,
System of Instruction in X-Ray Methods
, 589–99.

127
. Melanchthon R. Waggoner,
The Note Book of an Electro-therapist
(Chicago: McIntosh Electrical, 1923), 127; Maurice Fiescher Pilgrim,
Mechanical Vibratory Stimulation; Its Theory and Application in the Treatments of Disease
(New York: Lawrence Press, [ca. 1903]), 139–40; Edward B. Lent,
Being Done Good: Comments on the Advance Made by Medical Science during the Past 5,500 Years in the Treatment of Rheumatism
(Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn Eagle Press, 1904), 225; Mary Cushman Rice,
Electricity in Gynecology
(Chicago: Laing, 1909), 137–38; and Franklin Benjamin Gottschalk,
Static Electricity, X-Ray and Electro-vibration: Their Therapeutic Application
(Chicago: Eisele, 1903), 137–40.

128
. Monica Krippner,
The Quality of Mercy: Women at War, Serbia 1915–1918
(London: David and Charles, 1980), 182. The Shelton vibrator was “chosen by the British Commission for use in Allied Hospitals.” See also Shelton Electric Company,
The Relief of Pain and the Treatment of Disease by Vibration: Shelton Electric Vibrator
(New York: Shelton Electric, 1917; facsimile reprint San Francisco: Down There Press, 1981), 17.

129
. Wallian,
Rhythmotherapy
, 84–85, 185. For fluid-cushion vibratodes, see Sam J. Gorman Company (Chicago),
The Physician’s Vibragenitant
(Chicago: Sam J. Gorman, 1905), and the same company’s
Electro Therapeutic Apparatus
(Chicago: Sam J. Gorman, [ca. 1912]).

130
. Alfred Dale Covey,
Profitable Office Specialities
(Detroit: Physicians Supply Company, 1912), 18.

131
. Wappler Electric Manufacturing Company,
Wappler Cautery and Light Apparatus and Accessories
(New York: Wappler Electric Manufacturing, 1914), 7, 42–43, and Manhattan Electrical Supply Company,
Catalogue Twenty-six: Something Electrical for Everybody
(New York: MESCO, n.d.).

132
. Vibrator Instrument Company,
The Chattanooga Vibrator
(Chattanooga, Tenn.: Vibrator Instrument, [ca. 1904]), 3, 26. See also Vibrator Instrument Company, A
Treatise on Vibration and Mechanical Stimulation
(Chattanooga, Tenn.: Vibrator Instrument, 1902).

133
. Vibrator Instrument Company, Clinical Department, A
Course on Mechanical Vibratory
Stimulation (New York: Vibrator Instrument, 1903), 8, 22.

134
. Franklin Benjamin Gottschalk,
Practical Electro-therapeutics, with a Special Section on Vibratory Stimulation
(Hammond, Ind.: F. S. Betz, 1903), 45, 118.

135
. Anthony Matijaca,
Principles of Electro-medicine, Electro-surgery and Radiology
(Tangerine, Fla.: Benedict Lust, 1917), 134. As tempting as it is to speculate, I doubt there is any significance to the name of the publisher, a reputable producer of medical works at the turn of this century.

136
. Samuel Spencer Wallian, “The Undulatory Theory in Therapeutics … First Paper,”
Medical Brief
, May 1905.

137
. Samuel Spencer Wallian, “The Undulatory Theory in Therapeutics … Second Paper,”
Medical Brief
, June 1905.

138
. D. T. Smith,
Vibration and Life
(Boston: Richard G. Badger, Gorham Press, 1912).

139
. Mortimer Granville,
Nerve-Vibration
, 14, 20.

140
. Golden Manufacturing Company,
Vibration: Nature’s Great Underlying Force for Health, Strength and Beauty
(Detroit, Mich.: Golden Manufacturing, 1914), unpaged; see also Professor Rohrer’s Institute of Beauty Culture,
Rohrer’s Illustrated Book on Scientific Modern Beauty Culture
(New York: Professor Rohrer’s Institute, 1924), 39–41, and [William Meyer],
The Cosmetiste
, 9th ed. (Chicago: William Meyer, 1936), 179–91. For the vibrator in European beauty salons, see Magnus Hirschfeld and Richard Linsert,
Liebes Mittel
(Berlin: Man, 1930), 554, and “Kosmetik,” in
Bilder-Lexikon Kulturgeschichte
, vol. 1 (Vienna: Verlag für Kulturforschung, 1928), 553–54.

141
. Good Health,
Twentieth Century Therapeutic Appliances
, 64.

142
. Sigvard Strandh, A
History of the Machine
(New York: A. and W., 1979), 225–26; Malcolm MacLaren,
The Rise of the Electrical Industry during the Nineteenth Century
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), 91, 96; Earl Lif-shey,
The Housewares Story
(Chicago: National Housewares Manufacturers Association, 1973), 281; Helen Lamborn, “Electricity for Domestic Uses,”
Harper’s Bazaar
44 (April 1910): 285; and “White Magic: Facts You Want to Know about It,”
Modern Priscilla
, February 1923, 55–57. On fans and irons, see Siegfried Giedion,
Mechanization Takes Command
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1948), 558–59, 572–73.