Galvanic Battery Will Cure You

Until I read through estate settlement of Melinda/Belinda Newman in Linn County, Iowa, I had never seen a galvanic battery in an estate inventory.

This advertisement, located on Genealogybank.com, indicated (as one of our blog respondents mentioned) that the battery was probably used as a "cure" for that which ailed a person.

Date: Monday, August 12, 1850  

Paper: Springfield Republican (Springfield, MA)   

Page: 2  obtained on 

Genealogybank.com

A blog reader even posted a link to pictures of these devices.

It's not often we get proof of our ancestors trying to use "cure-alls." Just goes to show that one never knows what one will discover.