METHUSELAH ARCHIVE INTERVENTIONS / I-ON-A-CO

I-ON-A-CO

device · 1925–1927
category:device
delivery:A flat coil of insulated wire (a primary coil energized from the household alternating current through a connection to an electric-light socket, inducing a field in a second coil) worn around the neck or body, over the clothing, for short sessions. Some units carried a small indicator light. The device delivered only a weak induced field; the user wore it at home or received a demonstration treatment at a company office.
price tier:premium
era:1925–1927
current status:historical
regulatory:unregulated
SHORT PITCH (AS SOLD)
An electro-magnetic belt that, worn around the body and plugged into a light socket, was said to magnetize the iron in the body and increase the oxygen carried to the tissues, purifying the blood and restoring the wearer to perfect health while ridding him of any chronic disorder.
THE ACTUAL EVIDENCE
No controlled outcome data were ever produced; the evidence offered was user testimonial assembled for advertising. The mechanism has no physiological basis: the iron in the blood is organically combined within haemoglobin, not free metallic iron, and is not meaningfully magnetizable, and a weak induced magnetic field neither increases tissue oxygenation nor cures chronic disease. Morris Fishbein's 1932 Fads and Quackery in Healing records the contemporary verdict of organized medicine, that the apparatus was a coil of wire incapable of the advertised effects and that the American Medical Association's Bureau of Investigation director Arthur J. Cramp called it the 'magic horse collar.' J.R. Basford's 2001 review in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation surveys the long history of such electric and magnetic appliances and the absence of a sound physical basis for their health claims. The magnetic-cure and perfect-health claims are refuted.
PRACTITIONERS
CASES
CLAIMS
SOURCES
  1. Fads and Quackery in Healing (Wilshire's Ionaco, pp. 153-154) (1932)
  2. A historical perspective of the popular use of electric and magnetic therapy (2001)
  3. Advertisement for Wilshire's I-ON-A-CO (c. 1924-1927) (1926)
NOTES

The I-ON-A-CO was an electromagnetic appliance marketed in the United States in the mid-1920s by Gaylord Wilshire, the real-estate developer and socialist publisher for whom Wilshire Boulevard is named. Physically it was a coil of insulated wire connected to the household current through an electric-light socket; the buyer wore it around the body over the clothing. It was sold as a general restorer of health rather than a treatment for any single ailment: its advertising told readers that it magnetized the iron in the body, increased the oxygen brought to the tissue cells, and so purified the blood and restored the user to perfect health, with no bathing, dieting, drugging, or exercising required. Distribution was direct to the public through company offices in San Francisco and Oakland, free demonstration treatments, weekly public lectures by Wilshire, radio talks over station KTAB, and a mail-order booklet. Morris Fishbein’s 1932 Fads and Quackery in Healing records that the belts sold for $55 cash or $65 on time payments and that thousands were sold. The proposed mechanism has no physiological basis, no controlled evidence of benefit was ever produced, and the American Medical Association dismissed the device as quackery. Fishbein records that Wilshire died in 1927 and that imitators brought out similar belts following his death.