Format: Pair of advertising leaflets in chromolithograph and letterpress or lineblock and letterpress, 22.1 x 14.2cm.

1). Harness’ Electropathic Belt. It exhilarates, it invigorates, it restores impaired vitality, it imparts new life & vigour. Four-page pamphlet. Text includes “All who suffer from rheumatism, gout, nervous exhaustion, internal weakness, sleeplessness, nervous dyspepsia, hysteria, or any form of nervous weakness should stop taking poisonous drugs and quack medicines and try the healing, strengthening, exhilarating effect of mild continuous currents of electricity, imperceptibly and conveniently applied to the system by simply wearing Harness’ Electropathic Belt. The Medical Battery Company Limited, 52 Oxford St, London, W.” Includes a small ad for ‘Rupture’ – Mr Harness’ new “hernia appliance.” Small missing portion to centre fold.

2). Harness’ Magnetic Corsets. The very thing for ladies for an elegant figure & good health. For women of all ages. Printer’s line “Thomas Foulter & Sons, Ltd, London” in text lower left.

As Edison’s electric light stations were being installed in large cities and the thrall of electricity was in the air, the use of “electropathy” by scandalous inventors was being promoted as a miracle for healing all ailments. “One of the most popular and scandalous inventions of the Electric Era was the electropathic belt—a contraption of silver-coated zinc, copper coils, and wires that surged the body with small dosages of electricity.”

Cornelius Bennett Harness, a former jeweller and furniture salesman, founded the Medical Battery Company in 1885 after developing a business in electric hairbrushes. He claimed that his electropathic belt and corset was a cure-all for both men and women, and printed ads such as these with fictional testimonies throughout. However, a combination of “disreputable retail practices and the fact that their electropathic belts did not work, increasingly embroiled the Company in litigation until a compulsory winding up order was handed to them in 1894.” The Medical Battery Company went bankrupt in 1895. It remains a prime example of Victorian quackery and fringe medicine. Ref: Wellcome Collection; Atlas Obscura.