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‘A Damnable Villain’ part 2 – a free pony for your wife!
In the second part of his guest article, Robert K. Waits – author of The Medical Electricians – reveals Byron H Robb’s change of career from electro-magnetic entrepreneur to Texas rancher. Read Part 1 here. . Even as a Farmington, Ohio, teenager in 1854, Robb was honing his skill as a mail-order fraudster, advertising […]
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‘A Damnable Villain’ – Byron H. Robb and the Electro-Magnetic Brush Co.
The Quack Doctor is delighted to welcome guest blogger Robert K. Waits, author of The Medical Electricians: George A. Scott and His Victorian Cohorts in Quackery. In this two-part article, Robert discusses the colourful career of 19th-century fraudster Byron H Robb. . In 1878 George Augustus Scott gained fame in London and New York for […]
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Ramey’s Medicator: an inventor’s survival
Advertisements for Ramey’s Medicator claimed that it would overcome ‘death dealing disease.’ What most customers didn’t know, however, was that the inhaler would never have existed at all if its inventor had not survived a gruesome surgical ordeal. The Medicator was patented by Alfred H Ramey and Frank D Rollins on 3 June 1890. Its […]
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