N
Nicholas O. Lindan
Kryten said:One old quack medical machine had loads of dials (some were not
even connected to anything!).
"The cure that doesn't work for the disease you don't have"
Invented by a Dr. Abram, the founder of the science of Radionics,
they go by Oscilloclast, Pathoclast, Radioclast and a host of
other 'clasts.
http://www.se-5.com/chap5.htm, for the believers.
Advanced models had a bank of 40 knobs to twiddle. They were
connected, if you looked in the back, but only to each other. You
twiddled the knobs while rubbing a metal plate ("Wish Cotton was
a water melon.") until the plate felt 'sticky' (or was it not
sticky?). You read the dials and looked up the diagnosis in the
book.
A Radioclast from the Bakken collection:
http://www.thebakken.org/artifacts/database/artifact.asp?type=category&category=
U1&id=2028
Radioncs was the hit of the year -- the alternatives from the legitimate
physicians including wet sheets, purgatives and mercury salts it is
not hard to understand why.
Dr. Abrams had patients overflowing his office, queuing to be treated
by this new (and painless) medical breakthrough. What to do?
Breakthrough: Dr. Abrams didn't need to see the patient, a lock
of hair placed in a cavity in the Radionics machine was enough for
diagnosis. Now sacks of mail arrived, each enclosing a $5 bill.
The next breakthrough. A switch was added to the machine
labeled "diagnose/treat". The good Dr. A. twiddled the knobs,
flipped the switch to 'treat' and billed the patient - $10
this time.
As most likely you didn't have the disease that was
diagnosed, curing it was assured.
It was soon found that a scrap of handwriting or a photograph
worked as well as a lock of hair. As did chicken blood ...
Send in a picture of the infested field and a farmer's troubles
were over.
My father was/is a collector of Abrams Radionics machines, and
at one time had the largest collection in the US (or so he said);
a lot of the collection is now sold off.
His reputation known, a practitioner of Radionics called one day
and said his machine wasn't working, could my father fix it? Why
of course, my father said, send me a picture of your machine and I will
put it in my machine and flip the knob to treat and it will be right
as rain in no time at all -- that will be $10 please.
Modern digital models of these machines are on ebay.
The more knobs the more expensive. Some with pyramids growing out
the top for extra potency.
Radionics is still used on Harley Street in the UK and (TTBOMK) considered a
legitimate treatment under the national health insurance. Also very
popular for treating horses.
But then, the Queen believes in Homeopathy. We can assume the Queen never
had a ruptured appendix.
It really annoys me that people are dumb enough to give these charlatans an
ear...
It's not the ears they are after ... can't make a dollar bill from
a pig's ear.