Quacks Pretend To Cure Other Men’s Disorders But Rarely Find A Cure For Their Own – Part Seventy
The health jolting chair
It is often said that one of the main ways to keep healthy is to indulge in exercise. For many, either through physical incapacity or inclination – I am firmly in the latter camp – this is a step too far. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could get all the benefits of exercise by sitting in a chair. This is what the Health Jolting Chair Company of 150 West 23rd Street, New York, claimed to be able to do in adverts that did the rounds in magazines such as Harper’s Weekly in the 1880s.
The claims for the chair were, as you would expect, fulsome. It was “the most important health mechanism ever produced” affording “a perfect means of giving efficient exercise to the essentially important nutritive organs of the body in the most direct, convenient, comfortable and inexpensive manner.” Judging by the illustration that accompanied by the text, it seemed, at least by modern standards, anything but comfortable, resembling a wooden, unpadded chair with a pair of levers which, presumably, controlled the movement of the chair and a handle beneath the seat which might have been used to adjust the height. How it actually operates is very unclear although the advert does say “it can be regulated so as to give it any degree of severity desired.”
Perhaps the manufacturers were more interested in flogging the things than in instructing the suckers who bought it how to use it. And their potential market was enormous. It was “suitable for all ages and most physical conditions” and “indispensable to the health and happiness of millions of human beings who may be living sedentary lives through choice or necessity.” Particularly targeted was the fairer sex who, if the copywriter was to be believed, did nothing all day but sit around, a habit which has either caused or will cause disease.
Gloriously, the advert concluded that “no dwelling-house is completely furnished without The Health Jolting Chair.”
If you weren’t convinced by any of this, it went on to list the specific health benefits that anyone sitting in the chair could expect to receive; a stronger heart, improved circulation, an increase in respiratory movement, exercise of the body’s nutritive organs, and muscle development, particularly of the arms, trunk and neck, “with the minimum strain on the heart and other muscles.” As well as being “a mechanical laxative, diuretic and tonic”, the chair specifically cured constipation, dyspepsia, the effects of a torpid liver and kidneys, nervous prostration, melancholia, anaemia, general debility, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, rheumatism, gout and neuralgia. It could also be used when it was too wet, hot or cold to take outdoor exercise.
What not to like?
I have been unable to ascertain the retail price to see whether it was really inexpensive – the manufacturers were surprisingly coy on that point. Anyone interested in purchasing the chair, could send off to the manufacturers and receive, by return of post, a pamphlet entitled Exercise of the Internal Organs of the Body Necessary to Health, which they claimed was “interesting.” The chair was sold by furniture and house-furnishing goods dealers under the trademark Vis Preservatrix – always good to have a Latin tag to boost your product’s credibility.
And the $64,000 question is; was it any good? Other than a placebo and giving the sitter the feeling that they were doing themselves some good by being shaken about a bit, probably not.
It is worth noting that the company that owned the Health Jolting Company also manufactured the electric chairs that sent malefactors to an early grave. When your chair arrived, it might just have been worth checking that you had got the right one!
