Long, long before Iron Man's Arc Reactor, R. P. Hall's Galvano-Electric Plaster was made to recharge worn-out bodies
It doesn’t happen often.
After 40 years of collecting Victorian advertising, it has to be something really special to catch my eye; something so different that it makes me do a double-take, causes my finger to slip off the mouse button, my head to lean forward so my face gets really close to the screen, and my eyes to go into microscopic-focus mode to make sure I’m not seeing things. My brain goes into overdrive, checking the virtual collection in my mind to make sure I don’t already have one; it studies the subject for possible subliminal messages, cultural vividness, and historical significance; it soaks in the richness of the colors, the allure of the graphics, the brilliance of the design. On those rare occasions that the image before me exceeds my wildest expectations, the little boy in me pronounces the official response of my experienced, high-level analysis:
“Cooooool!”
Click. Somewhere out there, I’ve made a seller happy. Okay, calm down, adrenaline, it’s mine.
I recently had such an experience and I’d like to share it with you. It actually happened about a month ago, when I saw the Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster trade card for the first time ever. I’ve spent so much time examining this card and researching the backstory of the product and its advertising, it has taken me until now to be ready to report my findings. In fact, I found out far more about the product and the man behind it than I had expected to learn, so I’ve been in a quandary about how to present it in a blog post. I’ve decided to do it a different way: this post will be exclusively about this one advertising trade card, but the next post will be the whole story – the inventor of this product, his life story, how he came to make this particular medical item, and what happened to both of them – the man and his invention.
So for today, let’s focus on the curious medical device that bamboozled the patient and the inventor alike: Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster.
Mustard and Frogs’ Legs
The inventor of this device was Reuben P. Hall, a former peddler with no formal medical education, but what he lacked in knowledge he made up for with a vivid imagination, meticulous ingenuity, and keen perception. He saw two medical treatments – ancient plasters and modern electricity – being used for the same aches, pains, and diseases, and in 1874 he figured out a way for the two methods to be brought together into one new and improved solution.
For centuries, wives and mothers were making a home remedy called plasters from ingredients they had in the house. Mustard plasters were the most common form, made by mixing mustard powder, flour, and water into a paste, then spreading the gloopy mess on one side of a piece of fabric and applying it wherever on the body it was needed, such as on the chest for colds and congestion or on the back for arthritis, muscle pain, and backache. The mixture gave a penetrating warmth to the area beneath. Today’s more modern-sounding and medicinally improved “pain relief patches” are the evolved descendants of this time-honored practice.
In 1874 electricity was still more mystery than science when Reuben claimed he had harnessed the stuff in his plaster. Almost a century earlier, the Italian physician Luigi Galvani applied an electrical spark to a dead frog causing its legs to twitch with animation. That result was widely interpreted by lay people to mean that if electricity could bring life to part of a dead frog, then it could help revive and restore humans’ pained and diseased bodies. Hence, all sorts of medical devices promising to rejuvenate an anxious public were created on the basis of shock-producing electricity; it was usually referred to as magnetic or galvanic electricity. People bought hand-cranked magneto-electric units to cure ailing family members at home, sometimes combining low-voltage shocks with steam cabinets and baths; others bought belts lined with various configurations of metal discs or cylinders to be worn under their clothing, next to the skin, to generate an electric current through the body; often men’s belts included a scrotal sack feature hanging below to bring some zip-a-dee back to the doo-dah.
Patented Magic
In his patent application, Reuben Hall provided a detailed review of the ever-expanding array of electrical appliances being foisted on the public and also pointed out their shortcomings, the worst of which was the lack of traditional medicine being passed into the body; unlike the age-old mustard plasters, electricity was the only medicine being served up by the new medical shock equipment:
Electric currents have long been used by the medical profession in the treatment of many diseases. They have been applied in many ways. Currents from batteries, induction apparatus, or frictional apparatus have been used, by means of wires and electrodes placed on designated parts of the body. In other cases, they have been applied through the medium of baths, and in still other[s], by Voltaic belts, to be worn upon the body, the current being there both generated and applied. Their use has not been as extensive as it might have been, for the reason that while they were used the ordinary exterior local applications of medicine could not be used, as was often desirable.
In electric baths, this has been remedied to some extent by inclosing the bath, and supplying medicated air or vapor to the patient while under treatment. This involves a cumbersome and expensive apparatus, and can be used only for limited periods, and at intervals. [emphases added]
Reuben then presented the patent examiners with his alternative – a unique invention in the medical electricity marketplace: a medicinal plaster with electrical components embedded in the fabric. On his detailed illustration below, two “electrically-dissimilar galvanic elements” (like copper and zinc), labeled “P” and “N,” were heart-shaped metal plates, connected to each other by a wire underneath. Human perspiration then completed the electrical circuit started by the two hearts and wire, producing a current. The latent electrical energy in the human body was thus triggered into action much like the frog legs.
Figures 1 and 2 were the standard plaster; Figures 3 and 4 were alternative forms that inventor Hall proposed, with two three multiples metallic disks. Figure 5 was another variation that allowed for charges to be set on opposite sides of the body, like wrapping over the shoulder.
The key difference between Reuben’s invention and all the other electrical devices then in existence was the combination of electricity generation and simultaneous medicinal application; yet ironically, his patent drawing downplayed what medicine should be used:
E is any suitable base or fabric, upon which is spread any suitable medical compound, A. To the composition of this compound I make no claim as it may be varied to suit various conditions or diagnoses. [emphasis added]
Customers or their pharmacists could apply whatever medication to the plaster they chose. It wasn’t so much that Reuben was ambivalent about the medicine, but he wasn’t trying to create a new old-fashioned plaster – he was focused on developing the next generation of electrical medicine. That, apparently, was where the real money was.
Miracle Born in the Storm Clouds
I’ve only seen this one advertising trade card for his product – I doubt there were any more. This trade card design captured the curative magic of Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plasters, showing the dramatic transformation from sickness to health. Under decorative arches, the archetypal before-and-after combination of a sick man and his healthy counterpart clearly displayed the benefit of the plasters. There could be nothing better than the visual of a man tossing his crutches and doing a jig to demonstrate the miracle of Hall’s plaster. Before-and-after visuals were a popular and often-used convention for medical advertising; Parker’s Ginger Tonic and Buckingham’s Dye for Whiskers were two such products with several equally effective variations on the theme. Tossing one’s crutches and doing a silly dance was a powerful way of showing off the cure’s effectiveness and the joy it brought.
To keep the customer focused on the product even longer, a poem followed the illustration. Written in contrived quatrains of butchered iambic pentameter, the point was not to present a timeless sonnet but to amuse and vividly praise Hall’s plaster for capturing the power of the gods: lightning –
Deep in the storm cloud’s womb I have my birth,
Thence flashed by Angel’s wings from Heaven to Earth,
Under the magic of my touch, old Pain
Wages his fiercest warfare all in vain
What Heaven-borne power slays disease’s demons in an hour?
… the mighty master –
… Hall’s Galvano-electric plaster!
The card displayed first-rate creativity but second-rate execution. The artwork was nice but not refined, the color palette was minimal, and the poetry was hackneyed, but the message was crystal clear: Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster cured the hopeless and miserable. An 1878 advertisement in the Boston Globe said in words what the trade card said in pictures: “STOP PAIN AS IF BY MAGIC. THEY REALLY PERFORM MIRACLES.”
The trade card’s reverse side has a few variants. The version shown here is the trademark registered in January 1877 (see evolution of the trademark design further below). The advertisement describes the “Galvanic Battery” embedded in the plaster that produces “a constant but mild current of Electricity, which is most exhilarating” when the electrical circuit is completed by being put in contact with the body. Twenty-five medical miseries, ranging from weak eyes and constipation to lung and heart disease would be speedily cured by the electricity, “those subtle and mysterious elements of nature,” produced by Hall’s plaster. The last promotional line summarizes the benefits illustrated on the card front, once again promising nothing short of miracles: “They cause the Lame to leap with joy and the Halt to take up their beds and walk,” subliminally reminding the reader of the same miracle performed by none other than Jesus himself. (John 5:8-9; also see Isaiah 35:6)
Professor of Nothing
It wasn’t just lightning that was in the clouds; doom was in the air as well.
Hall’s plaster advertising ran across nine states in 1874, but the number of states kept diminishing each year thereafter. Just a few short years into the sales of Hall’s Galvano Electric Plaster, a lightning storm of new-fangled electrical medical devices made their appearance across the land – and on people’s upper chests.
They were also described as galvano-electrical batteries but without any medicinal plaster component. These were distinctly designed to be stylish, even fashionable jewelry-like medical devices: small and shiny, suspended most often by a silk band, worn at the top of the cleavage, even though the instructions generally recommended they be worn “as close to the heart as possible.” They were pretty items, with a pleasing arrangement of disks of different metals, like bronze, copper, nickel, and zinc, arranged in a circular pattern around a central object, which could be a flower, hexagon, cross, heart, or other design, each the creation of a different manufacturer. Most were enclosed in a circular band of bronze or white metal; one was edged in a horseshoe pattern, and the Scott’s Galvanic Generator was extra-fancy, with a sculpted winged cherub holding bundles of lightning bolts on one side while the reverse side had a zinc fist similarly clutching lightning bolts all embedded in a copper shield. Hall’s Galvanic-Electric Plaster was expected to be hidden under the clothing; Boyd’s Battery, Scott's Galvanic Generator, and the rest of the batteries put out from 1878-1886 were designed to be the center of attention and in the public eye.
London Galvanic Generator, Pall Mall Electric Association, ca. 1881. (left) front side - winged cherub sculpted in Lionite, holding bunches of lightning bolts; (right) reverse side - copper plate with embedded zinc in the shape of a fist holding lightning bolts. (collection of author.)
While their public exposure surely increased their popularity, it also brought them into condemnation by critics who insisted they weren’t giving any medical benefit at all. Calling electric batteries “toys”, the faultfinders guffawed that “a wooden button worn upon the breast would be quite as effective as the so-called ‘batteries’ which have hitherto been sold as curative to an over credulous public”; wearing a slice from an ear of corn would do as much good (and look pretty much like) as one of the batteries. To the critics, the popular belief in the curative power of electric batteries fell into the same realm of superstition as those “otherwise intelligent persons [who] believe that carrying a Horse Chestnut in the pocket will keep off rheumatism.”
The detractors also came after the “before-and-after” illustrations that Hall’s plaster and other electric battery companies used to promise amazing results. The critic’s sarcasm was as vicious as it was humorous:
There is a picture of a man without any battery, labelled “Before Using,” and another picture of a man with a battery, and this is labelled “After Using.” Now if these pictures are accurate representations of the man before and after, we protest against its use. One has only to wear one of these things, and his own mother would not know him. A rogue has hereafter no need to go to Canada to escape justice. All he has to do is to wear one of these batteries, and if these pictures are true, he becomes another man altogether. [emphases added]
Electrical batteries like Hall’s and all the rest were facing stiff headwinds at the same time as they were being warmly received by the public. They didn’t last long, probably from a combination of significant critical opinion as well as the fact that they just didn’t work.
There is no more development of electrical action between these bits of metal than there is between the coins in one’s pocket – and we pronounce the thing to be an UTTER BARE-FACED FRAUD.
People still suffered from weak eyes, constipation, and heart disease even though electrical batteries dangled from their neck or Hall’s Galvano-Electric Plaster stuck to their backs. If there was any improvement, it was more likely the result of time and nature providing their own remedy or, in the case of constipation, time and nature might be aided by a heaping plate of beans.
During an intense courtroom cross-examination in 1882, one of the leading electric battery manufacturers, Professor John C. Boyd, was asked, “Professor of what? Responding under oath, his telling reply was, “Professor of nothing.” His credential, like his product, was a ruse, good for nothing. The only thing shocking about Hall’s plaster and the subsequent wearable electrical batteries was that they didn’t work; they didn’t generate electricity and they didn’t cure or remedy disease. They do make great patent medicine antiques though!
Just like Iron Man's Arc Reactor, Hall's Galvano-Electric Plaster and all the small body batteries that followed should have stayed in the world of fiction; maybe they can be included in the next Iron Man movie!
(left) Lowder's Magneto-Electric Battery (center design: two circles within a hexagon), ~1886 (courtesy of the Wellcome Collection; public domain); (right) Richardson's Magneto-Galvanic Battery (center design: heart), Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN, 25 MAR 1881).
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