The 19th century was filled with quackery and patent-medicine schemes, tonics, cures and devices. Dr. George A. Scott, a businessman with no medical training, was the inventor of electric brushes and devices. In 1872, he received a U.S. patent for a molded hairbrush handle. In the 1880s he introduced to America and England his line of “electric” brushes. The brushes did not function with electricity but with magnetism. Slightly magnetized iron rods were embedded in the thermoplastic handle of each brush. Magnetism is what provided the cure for a wide variety of ailments. To use the brush, one simply rubbed the bristles on hair or clothing to create a static charge, then hold the brush over the painful body part. An 1882 advertisement for Dr. Scott’s flesh brush claimed that it “cured rheumatism, sciatica, gout, nervous debility, lumbago, neuralgia, toothache, malarial lameness, aches and pains from colds, impure blood and impaired circulation. It acts quickly in stomach, liver and kidney troubles, and is a valuable assistant in their treatment. It quickly removes those ‘backaches’ peculiar to ladies.” Other conditions the electric brushes supposedly cured include baldness, constipation and paralysis. Dr. Scott also marketed electric curry combs for horses, electric corsets for women, body belts, wristlets, nerve and lung invigorators and other electric devices.
A small compass came with each brush so that the power of the brush could be tested. The compass, when placed on a thick book or table, moved the brush in circled beneath the book or table, causing the compass needle to rapidly spin. The brush handles were molded with an elaborate heraldic design with the slogan “The germ of all life is electricity.” Printed on the boxes, the brushes came with a warning to not share the brush with other family members, otherwise it would not retain it curative powers. By the 1890s the public’s interest in cures delivered by magnetism gave way to galvanic cures; cures using batteries.