5
The 1930s and 1940s
By this time, the general population had become more familiar with electricity and the
novelty for medical uses of electricity declined. Device promoters had to dream up more
sophisticated machines some used radio, while others were forced to claim the generation
of unknown forces. This was no impediment to the new breed of charlatans.
In 1938, Congress included authority over all devices used in diagnosis or treatment
of disease in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The principal concern related to the
truthfulness of labeling claims. Most of the legal actions taken against devices follow-
ing enactment of the new law were based on the misbranding provision. The law had its
drawbacks. It required considerable effort for FDA to stop marketing of bogus products.
Many gadgeteers took advantage of the agency’s limited authority, and some of the most
notorious medical swindles of all time occurred after 1938.
Ferguson’s Zerret Applicator is one example. This device was shaped like a plastic
dumbbell, with each ball containing a plastic tube of zerret water. Zerret water was a
liquid that produced the Z-ray, a force unknown to science. Thousands of Midwesterners
paid $50 for the gadget in the hope that it would expand the atoms of the body and so
restore perfect health. Chemists, testifying for FDA, reported the strong similarity between
zerret water and Chicago tap water. W.R. Ferguson, the inventor and manufacturer, was
sentenced to two years in prison.14
One of the most interesting and sadly humorous pseudoscientific devices was the
creation of Colonel Dishah P. Ghadiali, MSC (honorary), MD, ME, DC, PhD, LLD, ND,
D Opt, DFS, DHT, DMT, DST, etc., metaphysician and psychologist. This modest gentleman
was a Parsee Zoroastrian who immigrated to the US from Bombay in 1911. Despite having
had no formal education after the age of eight, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish
himself as a physician. For many years, he promoted a series of inventions and business
schemes that failed. Finally, he hit upon the Spectro-chrome, a device for projecting light
through a series of colored filters like a theatrical spotlight.15 Mystifyingly, the device
became the mainstay of a band of more than 10,000 devoted followers of his healing cult.
By 1940, Ghadiali had earned well over $1 million from his discovery. He founded
the Spectro-chrome Institute and published his own periodicals. The Spectro-chrome was
supplied with five “attuned” color slides: red, green, violet, yellow and blue. By judicious
combination of these colors, all of the required 12 Spectro-chrome attuned waves could be
produced. While the device may have been simple (a wood or aluminum cabinet, a 1000-
watt bulb whose rays passed through a glass tank of water, focused by a crude lens), the
instructions were complicated. His guide for home use described “affinity waves” as “those
waves which have Attributes or Qualities of a Chemico-Physiological character. Green and
magenta are the Head and Sex attuned color waves, which are not Affinity Waves, but are
Dual Polarities of the same oscillatory frequency, spirillating in opposite gyrations.”
Directions required the user to face the south if seated, or to place the feet to the south
and the top of the head to the north if lying down. Spectro-chrome use was restricted to
a darkened room with those areas of the body to be irradiated left uncovered. Irradiation
had to be started at the exact time period (“tonation”) prescribed by the Favorscope,
initially supplied free with each cabinet purchase. Ghadiali computed the tonation
Favorscope according to the longitude and latitude of the home office in Malaga, NJ, and
the Favorscope showed tonations for each day of the current year for a specific geographic
location. Most important, no tonation was permitted at sunset or during an eclipse. His
home guide warned that a second tonation should not commence until at least two hours
and 54 minutes had elapsed since the first. This gave vital organs time to regain their
equilibrium.
Interestingly, Ghadiali proclaimed that “Syphilis, the scourge of civilization, has its
conqueror in Spectro-chrome.” He was quick to add this warning: “When Spectro-chrome
completes its final victory over the dreadful affliction, watch your step and commit no
similar transgression, by taking the past experience as a lesson in life.”
A History of Quack Medical Devices
The 1930s and 1940s
By this time, the general population had become more familiar with electricity and the
novelty for medical uses of electricity declined. Device promoters had to dream up more
sophisticated machines some used radio, while others were forced to claim the generation
of unknown forces. This was no impediment to the new breed of charlatans.
In 1938, Congress included authority over all devices used in diagnosis or treatment
of disease in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The principal concern related to the
truthfulness of labeling claims. Most of the legal actions taken against devices follow-
ing enactment of the new law were based on the misbranding provision. The law had its
drawbacks. It required considerable effort for FDA to stop marketing of bogus products.
Many gadgeteers took advantage of the agency’s limited authority, and some of the most
notorious medical swindles of all time occurred after 1938.
Ferguson’s Zerret Applicator is one example. This device was shaped like a plastic
dumbbell, with each ball containing a plastic tube of zerret water. Zerret water was a
liquid that produced the Z-ray, a force unknown to science. Thousands of Midwesterners
paid $50 for the gadget in the hope that it would expand the atoms of the body and so
restore perfect health. Chemists, testifying for FDA, reported the strong similarity between
zerret water and Chicago tap water. W.R. Ferguson, the inventor and manufacturer, was
sentenced to two years in prison.14
One of the most interesting and sadly humorous pseudoscientific devices was the
creation of Colonel Dishah P. Ghadiali, MSC (honorary), MD, ME, DC, PhD, LLD, ND,
D Opt, DFS, DHT, DMT, DST, etc., metaphysician and psychologist. This modest gentleman
was a Parsee Zoroastrian who immigrated to the US from Bombay in 1911. Despite having
had no formal education after the age of eight, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish
himself as a physician. For many years, he promoted a series of inventions and business
schemes that failed. Finally, he hit upon the Spectro-chrome, a device for projecting light
through a series of colored filters like a theatrical spotlight.15 Mystifyingly, the device
became the mainstay of a band of more than 10,000 devoted followers of his healing cult.
By 1940, Ghadiali had earned well over $1 million from his discovery. He founded
the Spectro-chrome Institute and published his own periodicals. The Spectro-chrome was
supplied with five “attuned” color slides: red, green, violet, yellow and blue. By judicious
combination of these colors, all of the required 12 Spectro-chrome attuned waves could be
produced. While the device may have been simple (a wood or aluminum cabinet, a 1000-
watt bulb whose rays passed through a glass tank of water, focused by a crude lens), the
instructions were complicated. His guide for home use described “affinity waves” as “those
waves which have Attributes or Qualities of a Chemico-Physiological character. Green and
magenta are the Head and Sex attuned color waves, which are not Affinity Waves, but are
Dual Polarities of the same oscillatory frequency, spirillating in opposite gyrations.”
Directions required the user to face the south if seated, or to place the feet to the south
and the top of the head to the north if lying down. Spectro-chrome use was restricted to
a darkened room with those areas of the body to be irradiated left uncovered. Irradiation
had to be started at the exact time period (“tonation”) prescribed by the Favorscope,
initially supplied free with each cabinet purchase. Ghadiali computed the tonation
Favorscope according to the longitude and latitude of the home office in Malaga, NJ, and
the Favorscope showed tonations for each day of the current year for a specific geographic
location. Most important, no tonation was permitted at sunset or during an eclipse. His
home guide warned that a second tonation should not commence until at least two hours
and 54 minutes had elapsed since the first. This gave vital organs time to regain their
equilibrium.
Interestingly, Ghadiali proclaimed that “Syphilis, the scourge of civilization, has its
conqueror in Spectro-chrome.” He was quick to add this warning: “When Spectro-chrome
completes its final victory over the dreadful affliction, watch your step and commit no
similar transgression, by taking the past experience as a lesson in life.”
A History of Quack Medical Devices