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.

A Galvanic Battery

The estate settlement of Belinda/Melinda Newman in rural Linn County, Iowa, in the 1860s lists an item that I do not normally see during this time period:

a galvanic battery

Sale Bill from Belinda Newman Estate, Linn County Iowa, probate case files 570; digital image obtained on FamilySearch.

I'm going to show my ignorance and ask what would a nearly seventy year old widow living by herself need with a galvanic battern in 1869?