While searching for an image of the Boyd's Battery medal for the Vocabulary article in this issue, I came across this Wordcraft page on Magnetic Healing Batteries.
-Editor
The most famous of the medical batteries was the Boyds Battery. They are fairly easy to find and they polish up nicely. They were made with different metals that promised to create a healing electrical current when pressed against your skin. The galvanic properties were released by the different metals reacting to the moisture in your skin. Some people claimed that they tingled as they worked to draw out the bad energies from your body and replace them with good energy.
Boyds Battery came out in 1878 and was "improved" in 1879. He writes in his book "Boyds Battery", that two of his employees stole his idea and created the Sagendorph Battery which was a direct knockoff of Boyd's design. Boyd claimed that their battery was just a combination of metals that did not do anything as opposed to his battery that was a combination of metals that did cure ills.
Whatever the truth, others followed and produced their own batteries - Richardson and Downing were two that I have found. There were also magnetic belts, shoe inserts, and other products that used either magnetism or batteries to provide some relief to your ills.
The article illustrates several competing products. These were meant to be worn on a necklace against the skin.
-Editor
To read the complete article, see:
Magnetic Healing Batteries
Quack Medical Device or a True Cure?
(http://www.wordcraft.net/magneticbattery.html)
Wayne Homren, Editor
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