Electricity and Pancakes

Posted on 3rd June 20243rd June 2024 by Lee Coppack | Leave a comment

Adrian Thomas describes how the poet William Cowper used electricity to treat a friend who suffered a stroke.

I had a significant birthday recently, and as a birthday treat, we decided to visit Olney in Buckinghamshire where the poet William Cowper (1731-1800) lived. In his day Cowper was arguably the most popular and influential poet in the English language with his poems celebrating the countryside and ordinary life. He was also committed to the abolition of slavery writing The Negro’s Complaint, which was much admired by US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968).

18th century man in formal dress with head covering

William Cowper (1731-1800), Published by Vernor & Hood, Poultry, 1 February 1801. (author’s collection)

We stayed at the excellent Bull Hotel in Olney where Cowper went in 1771 after his maid Molly contracted smallpox, and he was forced to leave his house. The fascinating Cowper & Newton Museum is located in the centre of Olney, and an electrical machine that Cowper used is displayed. Opposite the museum is the excellent Olney Pancake Parlour, and Olney has its world famous pancake race.

Although he had considerable personal problems, Cowper was immensely creative. He lived in Olney for many years with his friend Mary Unwin (1724–1796). In 1791, Mary had a minor stroke, with a second stroke in 1792. ‘Her speech has been almost unintelligible from the moment when she was struck’ and ‘the use of her right hand and arm, she has entirely lost them’, Cowper wrote in a letter of 24 May 1792 to his cousin ‘my Dearest Coz’ Harriett Cowper (Lady Hesketh).

18th century machine for generating electricity

William Cowper’s electrical machine at the Cowper & Newton Museum in Olney. (author’s photograph)

Cowper’s biographer William Hayley (1745-1820) had installed an electrical machine near Cowper, and the Oxford physician William Austin (1754-1793) had recommended its use. In the same letter, Cowper said that he had borrowed and used the machine on Mary’s paralysed arm ‘and we think that it has been of material service.’ By 3 June, Mary was improving, and Cowper reported to Hayley that she had ‘a better opinion of your spark eliciting faculties than of mine.’ Cowper noted on 4 June that he was ‘thankful that in so small a village as this that I should be able to furnish myself with a complete electrical apparatus.’

Mary made some recovery from her stroke following Cowper’s treatments, and in a letter of 28 June, Cowper describes the continuation of the treatment, believing that the treatments were responsible for the improvement. Mary lived for another four years.

Classic works

The classic book on electrotherapy is the 1855 De l’Électrisation localisée et de son application à la physiologie, à la pathologie et à la thérapeutique (Localised use of electricity in physiology, disease and therapy) by Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne (1806-1875), who promoted the science of electrophysiology. Duchenne illustrated the electrical treatment of muscles and recorded the changes following the electrical stimulation of paralytic muscular atrophy.

Cowper knew a local apothecary, who gave him a book by the Italian physicist, Tiberius Cavallo(s) (1749-1809), who ‘recommends gentle sparks and the fluid breathed from a wooden point, much rather than smarter sparks or shocks.’

Nineteenth century black & white line drawing of treatment using an electrical machine.

Electrical treatment using an electrical machine, from De l’Électrisation localisée (1855)

Paralysed and atrophic muscles may look more normal following electrical treatments; functional improvements are less likely to occur. However, the relationship between electricity and the body is complex, and previous generations, including Cowper and his group, were very impressed by the effects of electrotherapy.

During the 20^thcentury, electrotherapy gradually passed out of use. Many of the conditions formerly treated with electricity were seen as psychological with a functional component. However, we can ask – should the use of electrotherapy in selected conditions be reconsidered since it was certainly effective in many conditions?

Adrian Thomas is a Visiting Professor at Canterbury Christ Church University where he teaches clinical reporting to radiographers, and he has a deep interest in the history of the radiological sciences.

‘Wilson’s balls’: TB treatment in the 1940s-1950s

Posted on 23rd February 202323rd February 2023 by Lee Coppack | 1 Comment

A chance encounter with a jam jar of what appeared to be old ping pong balls in the (currently closed) Bakelite Museum in Somerset, set Christine Gowing on a fascinating journey to discover their link to pulmonary tuberculosis.

In 1945, someone died every ten minutes from pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in the United States. Nearly 50 years previously, French surgeon Théodore Tuffier had opined that not only collapsing the lung would help but that physically maintaining the collapse with a substance was crucial to resting the lung, so that it had a chance to recover from the tuberculous infection. The procedure became known as plombage.

In the intervening period, a range of procedures and cures was attempted, but a prolonged stay in a sanatorium became the best available therapy. Plombage experiments were performed with a variety of materials, but none really worked. That is, until plastics were introduced which coincided with the particularly enterprising spirit of a young American

Dr David A Wilson Kind permission of Dr Robert Wilson

David A Wilson was a member of the surgery house staff at Duke University Hospital, North Carolina in the 1940s. He had, himself, suffered with TB for a year during his medical training. Maybe that experience motivated him to persevere with researching ways to sustain the collapse of a TB-affected lung, following thoracotomy, in an attempt to treat the disease.

Lucite (polymethylmethacrylate) had recently been developed and, following trials with other materials, Wilson experimented with producing spheres made of the acrylic to pack into the patient’s chest cavity. As well as its strength, biocompatibility and resistance to water, Lucite’s ability to be shaped into complex curves made it an ideal material for plombage. Supporting Wilson’s pioneering procedure, the university laboratory technicians at Duke set to work developing one-inch spheres – and trials began.

The procedure was successful and its practice quickly spread, soon hitting the headlines as an effective TB treatment. A small firm in New Jersey, Nichols Products, which produced plastic novelties, took over production of the Lucite balls in 1946. Archived records show that the balls were despatched widely throughout the United States and overseas, as Lucite plombage became increasingly adopted worldwide as a treatment for TB, until it became eclipsed by the use of modern antibiotics.

This innovative and audacious procedure was not without occasional side effects, however, such as the migration of the Lucite balls. A BMJ report in 2011 described a 76-year old woman who ‘presented with axillary squeaking on moving her left arm which she noticed during a yoga class. Her chest radiograph showed multiple rounded left upper zone lucencies.’ One of the balls had escaped.

It may have been a short-lived therapeutic success, but many patients such as this lived into their old age, free of TB, with what had become known as ‘Wilson’s balls’ in their chests.

Moreover, the significance of this procedure is not only its focus on a mid-twentieth century intervention for tuberculosis, but an illustration of the intersection of healthcare, new plastic technology and industry as a feature of post-World War Two medicine.

A Nichols propelling pencil Author’s own photo

My research journey took me from Somerset to the United States where I met Dr Wilson’s son, visited Duke University and the site of the factory in Moorestown, NJ, where Edgar Nichols, an inventor and multiple patent-holder, mass produced the Lucite balls. The building is now derelict, but in the 1940s and 1950s the factory had produced a range of early plastic novelties, such as the one in the photo above: a propelling pencil with, curiously, a Lucite ball at one end for use as a magnifier and telephone dialling tool.

Christine Gowing has an MA and a PhD in the history of medicine. A full article with more detail of this pioneering procedure, Lucite plombage, was originally published in the journal of the Plastics Historical Society, ‘Plastiquarian’, December 2022.

Mystery object – Frimley Sanatorium

Posted on 9th July 202020th July 2020 by Edward Wawrzynczak | Leave a comment

Mystery object 1: an illustration by a patient in a letter sent to the Lady Almoner at Frimley Sanatorium in 1952. Image source: Royal London Hospital Archives & Museum: RLHBH/AL/3/27/9

Mystery object 2: an image from the Wellcome Trust library that is related to Mystery object 1. Image Source: Wellcome Image Library.

Both the illustration and above object performed the same function.

Can anyone name them?

Answer to be published on Friday 17th July.

*** Update. See below for the answer ***

Mystery object 1 is an illustration of an object written by patient WA, a recovered tuberculosis patient, to the Lady Almoner at Frimley Sanatorium. WA refers to it colloquially as a ‘Brompton Muzzle’ that ‘were in common use to ease restricted breathing’.

His illustration features an area for an absorbant sponge along the same lines as the absorbant sponge at the bottom of mystery object 2 which is an illustration of a Burney Yeo mask.

The Lady Almoner contacts the Dispensary in regards to the patient’s enquiry, and notes the following:

‘Dispensary say that they have a Burney Yeo’s improved inhaler which is a different shape but appears to fit over the mouth and nose and is on the same principle. Dispensary say that there should be no difficulty in obtaining this mask. It is in use in most hospitals’.

The Almoner replies, ‘I have made enquires in our Dispensary and I find that we have a small mask which serves the purpose that you describe. It is on the same principle, but is a square shape and much smaller.

The ‘Burney Yeo’ appears to be several iterations of a type mask used in the treatment of tuberculosis in which the patient inhaled an antiseptic liquid via an absorbant material.

If anyone knows of any other examples of the Burney Yeo mask or what the ‘solution’ that the patient inhaled might have been, please do comment below.

Images submitted by Dr Flora Malein.

Sources used:

The Royal London Hospital Archives and Museum

Wellcome Trust Library

The Humble Toothbrush

Posted on 5th August 20195th August 2019 by Edward Wawrzynczak | Leave a comment

This blog focuses on the humble toothbrush: that everyday object that we too easily take for granted. Although many may consider the toothbrush a fairly insignificant and disposable item, it actually has rather an interesting history…

Early forms of the toothbrush have been in existence since about 3000 BC. Some Egyptian tombs have been found to contain ‘toothsticks’ demonstrating that cleaning teeth was clearly considered an important activity thousands of years ago.

It wasn’t until 700 AD that bristle toothbrushes were invented in China. These toothbrushes comprised of handles made of bone or bamboo and while bristles were fashioned from the hairs from the back of a hog’s neck!

Image 1: Toothbrush with horsehair bristles, London, England,1870-1920. Credit: Science Museum, London, CC BY.

Image 1 shows two toothbrushes that are part of a collection from the Science Museum in London. Both are made by the firm Savory and Moore. Savory and Moore was actually a dispensing chemist, and was the only retail outlet allowed in the district of Belgravia at the time. It served the royal family so it would be reasonable to assume that the owner of these toothbrushes was fairly wealthy. The toothbrush handles are made of ivoride, whilst the bristles are horsehair.

Nylon bristles were first used for toothbrushes in 1938. This new form of toothbrush was rapidly adopted due to growing concerns about oral hygiene during the Second World War. Indeed, the first truly ‘electric’ toothbrush was invented at the end of the 1930s. However, it was deemed ineffective and so sales never really took off. 1954 saw the introduction of ‘Broxodent’, the first usable electric toothbrush. However, this toothbrush was fairly unsafe given its high voltage and the fact that it was typically used in the bathroom where the presence of water further enhanced its electrocution danger! It wasn’t until 1961 that a cordless and rechargeable model of electric toothbrush became available, manufactured by General Electric – this sold much better. The electric toothbrushes that we have today have come a long way: they run on a lower voltage, have improved battery life and are rechargeable.

And the history of toothpaste? Well that’s another story..!

Further reading

‘The History of the Electric Toothbrush,’ accessed 4/8/19. Available at: https://www.electricteeth.co.uk/the-history-of-the-electric-toothbrush/
‘Prison, Suicide, & the Cold-Climate Hog (the sordid history of the toothbrush,’ The Museum of Everyday Life, accessed 4/8/19. Available at: http://museumofeverydaylife.org/exhibitions-collections/previous-exhibitions/toothbrush-from-twig-to-bristle-in-all-its-expedient-beauty/a-visual-history-of-the-toothbrush

Lucy Havard

The Story of the Stethoscope

Posted on 12th March 201912th March 2019 by Edward Wawrzynczak | Leave a comment

One might not automatically recognise the image below as that of an early version of the medical stethoscope. It certainly looks very different today. This blog focuses on the invention of this instrument, synonymous with the medical profession, over 200 years ago.

Laennec-type monaural stethoscope, France, 1851-1900. Credit: Science Museum, London. CC BY.

Where did it all begin?

The story of the invention of the stethoscope begins with a young French physician in Paris, René Laennec. It was in 1816 that Laennec was called to see a rather fat and buxom young woman with a ‘diseased heart’. Feeling awkward, embarrassed and improper at putting his ear so close to this woman’s chest in an attempt to listen to her heart, Laennec sought to find an alternative method. He described his predicament and later actions in the medical text De l’Auscultation Médiate, published in August 1819:

I happened to recollect a simple and well-known fact in acoustics, … the great distinctness with which we hear the scratch of a pin at one end of a piece of wood on applying our ear to the other… I rolled a quire of paper into a kind of cylinder and applied one end of it to the region of the heart and the other to my ear, and was not a little surprised and pleased to find that I could thereby perceive the action of the heart in a manner much more clear and distinct than I had ever been able to do by the immediate application of my ear.’

Laennec modified this method of a rolled up piece of paper to make a wooden cylinder, measuring 25cm by 2.5cm. He called this piece of equipment a ‘stethoscope’, the name derived from the ancient Greek stethos meaning ‘chest’, and skopein meaning ‘look at’. The stethoscope became an essential item in Laennec’s medical bag and he utilised it to listen to both the heart and lungs of his patients.

Reception

Although a few physicians resisted the introduction of the stethoscope, maintaining that it was best to listen only with one’s ear, the vast majority of the medical profession embraced its use. The invention quickly spread over Europe in the early 1820s and the design was further developed and improved upon. By the end of the nineteenth century, this wooden instrument had morphed into something more akin to the modern-day stethoscope. Flexible tubing, first made out of rubber, and then plastic, made the stethoscope both easier to use and transport; whilst binaural earpieces improved the quality of the sound for the listener. The stethoscope works by transmitting acoustic pressure waves from the chest-piece through the hollow tubes to the listener’s ears. Today, there are even more advanced electronic stethoscopes which amplify body sounds improving further the sound transmitted.

A 19^thcentury stethoscope with a bell-shaped end. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY.

The meaning of the stethoscope

The significance of a stethoscope in the twenty-first century cannot be under-estimated. It confers identity and, to a certain degree, status. Its wearer is automatically assured to be a member of the medical profession. It implies trust, understanding and knowledge. In this way, Laennec’s stethoscope is incredibly valuable, both from a diagnostic and symbolic perspective.