Introduction To:
The Turn Of The Century Electrotherapy Museum
http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com
     

Click on the links below to view movie clips of the apparatus in operation...

 

Fully-Functioning Antique Tesla Coils and Electro-Medical Apparatus...
 


 

Campbell Model E Portable X-Ray Machine

The size of a small suitcase, these half-kilowatt Tesla Coils produce up to a 6" torrent of sparks
between the terminals sufficient to power an X-Ray tube.  The machines also provided circuits
for powering cautery knives and diagnostic lamps, and have an additional high frequency
winding for producing heating effects within the body.
 
ca. 1901 - 1904,
Campbell Electric Company,
Lynn, Massachusetts
Seeley Electric "Vulcan" Coil

The size of a medium suitcase, this powerful Tesla Coil consumes up to 15 amps.
On full power, a flaming arc hisses between the terminals, sufficiently powerful to
X-Ray any part of the body in just a few seconds using Victorian technology.

 
ca. 1905,
Seeley Electrical Laboratories,
Los Angeles, California

Peerless Violet Ray

A classic example of a compact, well-engineered Tesla Coil that  was originally
designed to treat skin conditions.  This concept was adopted initially by a few companies
in the early 1900s and grew to over 50 companies by the 1920s with fierce competition that
flooded the quackery markets across the United States, Europe, and Australia.
 
ca. 1910 - 1915

Reproductions of Historical Apparatus That No Longer Exist...

 

Reproduction Tesla Pancake Coils with Rotary Break

Two multi-layered flat spirals powered by low voltage and a rotary spark gap  yielding 10,000
breaks per second.  With a power consumption of only 100 watts, this unit produces
a rich variety of sparks up to 9" in length.

 
ca. 1897
Original concept of Nikola Tesla,
early machines being destroyed by fire.
 

Reproduction Oudin Resonator of Thomas Stanley Curtis

From the man who "wrote the book" on Tesla Coil construction techniques, young pioneer
Thomas Stanley Curtis was one of the foremost pioneers of Tesla Coil designs  for hobbyists.
He paved an experimental path for the construction of wireless telelgraphs, Tesla and Oudin
Coils, Induction Coils, Spark Gaps, Stage Apparatus, Electro-Horticulture Apparatus, and even
designed and created by hand a fully-working model of Tesla's Remote Control Submarine.
 
ca. 1915 - 1920
Original concept of Thomas Stanley Curtis
Curtis Electric Laboratories

Reproduction Strong-Ovington Apparatus

The pioneers of Tesla Coils for electrotherapeutics;   Dr. Frederick Finch Strong was inventor
of the glass vacuum electrode and noted physician, and Earle Ovington - then a student at MIT,
employee of Thomas Edison, and later the first US Air Mail Pilot.

Both men crossed all boundaries being  admired equally by Tesla, Edison, and Elihu Thomson.
 
ca. 1901 - 1908
Dr. Frederick Finch Strong and
Earle Lewis Ovington
Electro-Radiation Company

Resurrecting Forgotten Tesla Technologies For New Discoveries...
 

15kV 60mA Twin Pancake Coil System

A concept originally developed by Thomas Burton Kinraide and Howard Jackson,
this apparatus uses a thin spiral of wire heavily insulated with wax and rosin.
When operating the coils with very high voltages, a multitude of electrical effects
can be produced, some similar to those produced by a Static Electric Machine.
 
ca. 1904 - 1908
Swett & Lewis Company
Boston, Massachusetts

One Kilowatt Capacity Twin Pancake Coil System

Concept originally developed by the pioneer of Tesla Pancake Coils, Thomas
Burton Kinraide.  Kinraide's obscure research led to portable machines that approached
the efficiency of Tesla's designs.  He specialized in the creation of highly tuned circuit
breakers, special coil winding techniques, was the originator of the Telefunken style
Spark Gap, and Point-Plane Rectifiers for Tesla Coils.  His work included over 500
photographs and Electric Autographs of Tesla Coil discharges (Lichtenberg Figures),
the perfection of the Fluoroscope and the invention of Intensifying Screens for X-Rays, 
and  an elaborate theory of Fourth-Dimensional space.
 

ca. 1897 - 1902
Spring Park Laboratory,
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
    (C) Jeff Behary 2007, 2008