Jazz Causes Cancer

There is some real entertainment value in old hokum medicine. At the end of the snake-oil medicine wagon era, early radio technology became just another bit of voodoo for the scam artists. It seems like ancient history now, but "alternative medicine" has even crept into the morning news segments. It's hard to decide if it's more disheartening that there are still scam artists shilling this kind of quackery, or that there are still rubes naive and eager enough for their dog and pony show to survive.

Ruth B. Drown was neither a DJ, nor doctor.. not even a therapist actually. Born in 1891 in Greely, CO to a professional photographer she odd jobbed in her early career before turning to Chiropractory. She attended the Pasadena Chiropractic College and earned a DC, and while this does stand for "Doctor of Chiropractic", the course material is heavy on the "subluxation" pseudo-science and very light on the doctoring. Even a certified chiropractor would need to go back to school to become a nurse. [Insert eye-roll emoji here.]  She had two primary devices. The Homo-Vibra-Ray, and her Radio-Vision camera. See images above and below:

She was granted her British patent in 1938 and it gives her address as 4708 Oakwood Avenue, Los Angeles. Her apparatus was granted a British patent (515,866) in 1939 but declared "fraudulent" by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the 1940s. You can read that patent here.  But the title says it all "Method and Means For Obtaining Photographis [sic] Images of Living and Other Objects." Honestly the gri-gri is so strong here it's difficult to discern if "photographis" is a typo or an intended faux-scientific terminology. Without an antenna can't really discern from where the the Homo-Vibra-Ray "broadcast" it's "healing" radiations toward the patient. More here.

NUMBER	COMPONENT
1	Battery
2	Contact
3	Alternate connection
4	Series of Inductors
5	Air void
6	Selector Switch for #2
7	Diode
8	Multi-point switch
9	Auxiliary contact
10	Auxiliary contact
11	N/A
12	N/A
13	N/A
14	N/A
15	Multi-point switch
16	Multi-point switch
17	selector switch
18	N/A
19	control panel surface
20	?
21	vacuum tube
22	?
23	?
24	Exterior wood chassis

While circuit component symbols have changed over time, the figure one patent image shows a relatively simple circuit with contemporary symbols.  I see a series of 3 inductors, a battery, a selector switch, and a peculiar series of multi-point switches. The component marked with a 7 is a diode, which in the 1940s could have been some kind of crystal diode. In this design it might be there for reverse voltage protection.There are some unlabeled diagonal lines between the #8 and #16 selector switches. I'm honestly not sure what those are. As they are not numbered they are probably nothing.

The underlined inductors indicate iron cores, the one without has an air core. The series of inductors could of course have been one inductor. In this circuit with the battery providing DC voltage they would generate a magnetic field. When inductors are connected in series, the total inductance is the sum of the individual inductors values.  However, some higher values do not work well at high frequencies due to the core, so a low value air core may be in series to cover a broad frequency range.

The multi-point switches appear to be decorative. They would normally be used to connect to secondary circuits, but there is no further circuitry to select.  Components 9 and 10 are parallel lines indicate no contact or an auxiliary contact. If they were not labeled separately I would have assumed it was a capacitor.  At low current you could bridge that with your own hands for effect I suppose. It looks like a diagram of a prop... which it basically is. You can read more here.

She also practices "radionic photography."  In that process the unexposed photographic plate would be connected by a wire to a "radionics instrument". She would place a blood sample on a metal plate and take a picture. I have not found a circuit diagram, but there are descriptions and images of this device. The device included an antenna, cathode tube, nine radio dials, micro-ammeter, a metal plate, a light bulb and a foot pedal. She claimed that the apparatus used no electricity at all. Some descriptions allow that the light bulb was powered, but only to warm that mysterious metal plate. Realistically that may have been true of the camera component, but not the radio. (Unless of course it did nothing.)

Dr. Moses A. Greenfield, from the UCLA School of Medicine disassembled one of her radionic cameras in court. From that account we have a little more description of the device. It was a length of copper wire linking the German silver of the foot pads and the lead of the electrode, two dissimilar metals. The patient merely connected the circuit. That poor connection made the ammeter move.Only two wires were even connected to the series of dials. Their settings were irrelevant. It's about what I'd expect from someone that claimed that jazz music caused cancer.

The American Medical Association (AMA) investigated Drown's devices in 1950 at the University of Chicago. Drown participated in a test of the equipment.  The AMA committee stated that the devices were quackery and concluded "...her alleged successes rest solely on the noncritical attitude of her followers". A contemporary account by writer Martin Gardner stated that 

"Drown was given blood specimens from ten patients. Her diagnoses of the first three were so erroneous that she did not even attempt the remaining seven."

In 1951 Doctor Drown was tried on federal charges of introducing a "misbranded" device into interstate commerce. She was found guilty by the jury and fined $1,000.  She stopped shipping her devices across state lines to reduce her legal exposure but otherwise continued on. It is estimated that she "treated" over 35,000 people.

In 1963 the California State Department of Public Health conducted a sting operation. They sent Ruth Drown blood samples from a turkey, a sheep, and a pig. Ruth sent back a diagnosis that the children had chicken pox and mumps. Los Angeles deputy district attorney John W. Miner sent a police and public health inspectors to shut down Drown's office at LaBrea Avenue. Drown and another practitioner Cynthia Chatfield and their assistant Margaret Lunness were all arrested. Drown died before the case came to trial.  

The quack devices that Drown designed were heavily influenced by the quack devices of Albert Abrams. You can read about his own quackery here.  Similar quack radio cameras were later used by Semyon Kirlian in 1939 and George and Marjorie DeLaWarr in 1958. Delwars devices in particular are very similar. More here and here.