Vintage electrical box inherited, advice please

[Jonnyr84]

Morning,

My first post so apologies if it’s to the wrong group, but a friend recommend this forum for expert advice.

I have been given by my Grandfather an old box with electrical switches and wires inside.
I ran out of places to search to try and find out what it is.

No logos, marking or manual supplied.
Please find some pictures attached.

Thanks

[Station X]

It's a "Medical Coil" powered by a battery for giving yourself high voltage electric shocks. You should find tubular hand grips on the end of the green wires, one is just visible.

More knowledgeable forum members will be able to give you more info.

[AdrianH]

I would suggest it is a type of electrical shock machine. Where the bar scale goes down is in fact an armature going into a form of buzzer coil, the further in the more the shock!.

Have a look for vintage electrical shock machines in Google.

Adrian

Slow typing!

[Cobaltblue]

That's a really nice example of a shocking coil.

You will find lots of example using the search terms above but these are also known as Faradic Battery also the term Galvanic Battery

These are interesting bits of history

Cheers

Mike T

[Jonnyr84]

Thanks very much for the quick and helpful replies.

[rontech]

It looks like an early example. I had one as part of an "electrical set" when aged about 10.
Made by a Manchester Company S.E.L They made a variety of scientific goods for youngsters, I had a gyroscope and also a microscope.

The latter has vanished somewhere but was handy for examining stylus tips on pickup cartridges.

[David Simpson]

Jonny, possibly from the turn of the last century. Buzzer across the Primary winding of a Transformer, the Secondary going to the hand grips. The "plunger" is the adjustable core of the T/F. As the Actress said to the Bishop ' the more you plunge the bigger the wollop'. I.e. dont connect it up to a battery & play about with it. My smaller version exhibits random peaks of 1000V plus - across the hand grip terminals. I have a really diddy one which delivers about 300V to a selection of small plates & paddles(which can be dampened with water) - seemingly used locally on wrists & knees, etc., by old-timer physiotherapists.(Actresses & Bishops would have great fun with that).
A lovely well made piece of equipment.

Regards, David

[CambridgeWorks]

Fascinating piece of kit! I remember about 1979 going to an osteopath as a week or two earlier I had slipped and wrenched my knee. I could only walk with difficulty due to a limp. He rigged me up to something similar, but mains operated. The electrodes were wrapped inside towels soaked in saline solution then placed on my leg. It was absolute torture!
BUT, I walked out of his room with hardly a limp.
To this day, I am extremely sensitive to shocks. Before I retired we repaired ground radio transmitters that used 28v dc supply. I would often whip my arm off the chassis it was touching after feeling tingling if I accidentally touched the 28V with my hand.
For a similar reason, i was unable to complete an EMG nerve conductivity test in a neurology department investigation of nerve conductivity. I was shouting with pain and my wife in the waiting room the other side of the door, said the other waiting patients were all looking at each other looking rather worried!
The doctor explained an alternative test and said it could be quite unpleasant, but I said give it a go.
However, I was surprisingly ok with a needle stuck into my tongue and the other into the top of my foot, a very tender area. These leads were connected to an oscilloscope type instrument and showed a lot of random noise pulses.

I think the modern alternative to what you have there might be the TENS machine?
Rob

[Electronpusher0]

I have a similar machine that belonged to a great uncle. He used it regularly to treat his rheumatism.

Peter

[Graham G3ZVT]

My late father was a physiotherapist in the 50s and early 60s. His treatment room (our front lounge) had a large console electrotherapy machine, made by Electro-Medical Supplies Ltd. EMS is still in business.

As a child I was particularly fascinated by the means the current was rhythmically surged up and down. Behind a little glass door in the console was a flask of weak saline solution and an electrode was raised and lowered into the flask by a motor under control of a rheostat on the machine.

[dave walsh]

Very interesting accounts to go with this device, especially as some Forum members show an aversion to anything considered alternative. As David said, you have to be careful but that's the same with the more conventional approach as well. I had treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome twenty years ago. Same sort of "Tens" principle but nothing Victorian/Edwardian. It was Battery powered so some sort of 'chopped' DC supply as far as I could make out, with my limited knowledge!

Dave W

[Buzby123]

Hi Graham,

Was this something like your Dad's machine : https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=75056

Cheers,

Buzby

[Diabolical Artificer]

What a beautifull bit of kit, well worth restoring, the wood works a bit heavy handed but it should clean up a treat and the brass fittings should shine up though they look to be plated, careful before treating. Nice to have in the sitting room or parlour where I believe they were used in Victorian (Edwardian more probably) times as a type of risque' game to give your dinner guests a thrill.

Andy.

[David Simpson]

I'll echo Andy's views on restoration. Probably lovely old mahogany, which will, (for God's sake don't use sandpaper), clean & polish up a dream. Plenty of info via "Search" on careful cabinet restoration.
Don't be put off by mention of high voltages, the current should only be in the region of micro-amps, so quite safe if applied slowly from minimum "plunger" setting. Best though, to get a friendly Forum guy near you, who kens about these devices, to check it over electrically. The battery compartment might have only held a max of two large glass 2V cells. So don't go shoving in a small 12V motorbike battery or similar.
The pitch of the buzzer's buzzing can be altered, thus altering the frequency of the fundamental waveform. However, sparks, by their very nature contain an infinite number of EM (radio) frequencies & waveform shapes. "Hertzian waves" were a big fad in Victorian times by medical practitioners & a few quacks.

Regards, David

[D.Finney]

These medical coils were popular from Victorian times until the mid 20th Century, I would guess yours dates from around the early 1900's.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Buzby123

Hi Graham,

Was this something like your Dad's machine : https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=75056

Cheers,

Buzby

No, his was housed in a floor-standing steel cabinet, quite modern looking really, and at least the height of a 7 year old boy.

An older model was featured on one of the TV antiques programmes a few years ago.

I would love to find pictures of dads machine, I seem to remember something in the treatment room that had the word OUCH at maximum of one of the controls!

[rontech]

Back in the late 1940's there was a traditional Tea Garden at Raby Mere in the Wirral. To the side of the main entrance was a row of assorted slot machines. One of these looked very early 20th century and had two brass knobs on the front each about 2.5" diameter. Insert a coin and the knobs became "alive" presumably fed with a shock machine. People would join hands and the end persons each grab an electrode. All highly amusing but the "elf an safty" police would ban it today.



P.S Just tried keying "old amusement machine electro shock" into google and getting lots of examples.