METHUSELAH ARCHIVE PRACTITIONERS / ALBERT ABRAMS
Black-and-white studio portrait of a bearded man in a dark suit wearing pince-nez glasses, seated with one hand raised to his temple.
PUBLIC DOMAIN source

Albert Abrams

individual · San Francisco, California, USA
lived:1863–1924
active:1910–1924
type:individual
role:promoter
location:San Francisco, California, USA
eventual status:publicly_disconfirmed
FINANCIAL CONFLICTS
Abrams was the originator of the Electronic Reactions of Abrams, the author of its doctrine, and the lessor of the sealed Oscilloclast treatment device. The American Medical Association's 1923 statement records that the Oscilloclast was 'not for sale' but leased to lessees who signed a contract not to open the sealed device, for a first payment of $200 (alternating current) or $250 (direct current) plus $5 per month, and that Abrams published a list of more than 130 lessees, headed by Sir James Barr. The lease-not-sale structure tied a recurring revenue stream to apparatus the lessee was contractually barred from inspecting. A 17 January 1925 newspaper report records that his will provided for the erection of a 'college of electronic healing.'
INTERVENTIONS PROMOTED
EXTERNAL REFERENCES
NOTES

Albert Abrams (1863-1924) practiced for many years as a physician in San Francisco. The 1925 Nature account states that he ‘graduated in medicine at Heidelberg at the age of nineteen years’ and that, after years of San Francisco practice, he founded the method he called ‘Spondylotherapy’ and then, in 1910, introduced a system of diagnosis and treatment he named ‘electronic vibrations,’ which became the Electronic Reactions of Abrams (ERA). He held the credibility of an established practitioner and lecturer; from that base he built ERA into a national commercial system, leasing the sealed Oscilloclast to practitioners under a contract forbidding its opening. By the time the Scientific American committee reported in 1923-1924 and Abrams died on 13 January 1924, the method was already under formal scrutiny by the organized medical profession in both the United States and Britain. His eventual status is publicly disconfirmed: the Scientific American committee concluded the claims of ERA ‘are not substantiated,’ and the consulting engineers found the apparatus essentially functionless.