On a frostbitten early February evening, I found myself in the northern Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, searching for a bar I’d never been to – let alone heard of – until an intriguing promotional email landed in my inbox only two weeks before. From the Obscura Society, an organization dedicated to “seeking out the secret histories” that surround us, the email promised that a 20-dollar ticket would provide me with an evening of “quack medicine and pseudoscience, exploring a bizarre assortment of antiquated instruments and ideas used over the ages in the pursuit of health and pleasure.”

This magical ticket also came with drinks. I bought two, and invited my spouse along for a pre-Valentine’s day adventure into the world of "Medical Love." 

Our presenter for the evening, Denny Daniels, had brought to this shabby-yet-cozy watering hole a selection of items from his traveling Museum of Interesting Things, pertaining chiefly to medical and personal care items designed to render the body either more attractive or more sexually responsive (or in some cases, both).

After first showing off his phonograph complete with original wax cylinder, which he had no qualms about actually playing for us, he launched into some of the more common but less-sexy items: an empty phial of cocaine, an empty bottle that had held irradiated water, a third bottle of actual snake oil that still had the oil and a tiny preserved snake inside it. This last item was really pretty cool - I'd never seen an actual snake oil phial. 

Other items were less medial more more erotic: picture post cards with risque images of women in bathing suits (shocking!), rude jokes, and even a picture box that would, for a quarter, play a moving image of a belly dancer for you.

The objects in which the medical and the erotic most seamlessly blended were, of course, in the mechanical department. There were electrical devices with different attachments that, with the proper usage of the several attachments, could stimulate hair growth, promote weight loss, and cure female frigidity. Our host even had the temerity to plug one such device in, which promptly shorted out and sent literal sparks flying.

Another such device, which Mr. Daniel dated to the 1920s, a Violetta Machine, was also sold through Sears & Roebuck, with the aim of stimulating hair growth, alleviating arthritis, and stimulating the blood. It was a sort of glass tube wand that plugged into an outlet and, when turned on, looked like one of those static-electric balls they used to sell in mall stores. The audience was invited to line up and hold their hand up to the device; with some hesitation, I queued up. When my turn came, I nervously waved my hand within an inch of the device, and though I flinched in anticipation, I received a jolt less severe than a static shock you might get from rubbing your feet on a carpet and touching a metal doorknob.

The Museum of Interesting Things is a curious institution. It is owned, curated, and presided over by its founder, Mr. Daniel, who seems to have built the collection based around whatever objects he finds, well, interesting. So it is not entirely medical in nature. Nor does Mr Daniel seem to have much specialized knowledge about the history of medicine, but what he lacks in academic training he more than makes up for with enthusiasm, a willingness to read whatever material is available on the items he finds – and to corroborate his findings with other catalogs – and a passion for understanding an object on its own terms.

 This last bit is what resonated most with me: while Mr. Daniel did not always provide a great amount of either the medical or historical context for the objects he displayed, he vehemently urged the audience to understand that some of these so-called quack remedies, while not capable of doing everything they were advertised to do, nonetheless could be effective in some applications. Though there is much to be said for preservation, the opportunity to get up close to an object, to touch it, observe how it might work on the body, to experience the physical reality of what some therapeutics could mean, to me, shed light on important aspects of the therapeutic experience that we, as academic historians of medicine, can only guess at at times through our research and writing.