Collection Item Feature: Violet Ray Machine

 By Vickie Wendel

This article originally ran in the Anoka County Historical Society newsletter, March/April 2014

This device was a high frequency generator that claimed to “counteract the causes” of illnesses by use of the “violet ray” the generator produced. It is believed Minnie Foster Goodrich purchased this machine in the 1920s. Minnie was born in Anoka County in 1865 and lived in the area her entire life, most of it in what was then called Anoka Township, today’s Coon Rapids. Family members remember her loaning the Violet Ray machine to friends and neighbors in the 1930s.

According to the manual, “All human ailments…can be traced to faulty circulation and impure blood.” It stated that when activity was low, the body’s circulation decreased, allowing impurities to collect in the “stagnant” blood, preventing richly nourished blood from reaching all parts of the body. The Violet Ray machine promised to bring to “every home, at a reasonable price, a method whereby every vital process can be quickened and the blood made to course through the body with renewed vigor.”  The treatment was advertised to be so gentle and safe that it could be applied to even the most tender nerve, muscle, or organ. The manual even claimed health benefits for babies since the treatment was so gentle.

The device worked by producing heat and vibration in a glass encased “electrode” held against the skin. The skin may “become slightly reddened by the blood that is sent in response to the stimulation.” The rays from later-models were said to work, depending on how they were applied, as a sedative, a stimulant and tonic, an internal antiseptic for beauty, dandruff, headaches, rheumatism, and “Brain Fog”, as well as many other ailments. The original devices were legitimate medical tools for treating minor pain and some skin conditions and used electricity based on Tesla Coils. 

Tesla Coils were invented by Nikola Tesla in 1891. These coils could step up electrical current to create a very powerful electrical field. The heat produced by controlled discharges of this energy was considered beneficial in some treatments, just as applying a heat pack is today. These devices were huge machines that required electrical power, which limited their use to a doctor’s office. When designing the portable machines, the developers specifically intended them to be small enough to take to a patient’s home—this is the era of house calls—and run off either AC or DC current. That, however, was before the wild wave of “quack medicine” that rushed through America in the early years of the 1900s. As many as 30 companies began manufacturing some type of home use violet ray machine with a frightening array of attachments, claiming to provide relief for everything from impotence to hay fever.  It could even remove wrinkles in the skin!

The FDA got involved in the late 1940s when it filed a series of lawsuits against the manufacturers of these machines. The suit said the claims made by the operator manuals of the violet ray machines were untrue, and in some cases, even hazardous since proper instruction was not provided for using the machine in sensitive treatments such as in the ear, throat, or eye. The FDA won since the medical benefits could not be proven and violet ray machines not in private hands were ordered destroyed.

While it is great fun to look back with laughter at these questionable medical devices, take time to consider what people of the future will think of our state-of-the-art medical devices. It’s a fair bet they will be laughing at some of our techniques and tools as well.

Come visit the machine and its instruction manual at the museum! Items such as these are preserved for the public good and education.