The Health Jolting Chair – Michelle Lovric

Among my long wanderings in the quacklands of feminine health, finding this apparatus was a highlight.

Until the early 20th century, of course, there was no legislation in place to limit the grandiosity of advertisers to the truth. So The Health Jolting Chair Company of New York deployed all the pseudo-science of the age to persuade women that its product constituted ‘the most important Health Mechanism ever produced’.

The Health Jolting Chair was a kind of aggravated spring-enabled rocker, nothing more, nothing less. But it was sold as something far more magnificent.

Advertising in magazines such as Harper’s Weekly, in the 1880s, the manufacturers claimed that 'The Health Jolting Chair' could solve the problems of the ‘cripples, paralytics … the corpulent, the insane, the blind etc’, as well as being ‘indispensable to the health and happiness of millions of human beings who may be living sedentary lives through choice or necessity.’

 On a more practical level, it was claimed that the motion of the chair would dissolve ‘female congestion’, which may have signified anything from constipation or an unwanted foetus.

Applying classic quack formulas and cadences, the advertising lurched between enticing and reproving to the point of threatening, massaging the phobic pressure points of status anxiety and the shame of poor hygiene:

‘In the upper ranks of society, and especially of fashionable society, the fairer sex are particularly prone to neglect the taking of proper exercise …It is a requisition that cannot be dispensed with. It is a part of the constituted condition of existence, emphasized in holy writ …Nature has no use for the incorrigibly slothful. Many persons are too lazy to live; and they do not live. Their lives are shortened — disease fastening upon their ill-nourished bodies, sweeping them from mundane existence. The exercise of the most important parts of the body — the internal nutritive organs, comprising the heart, lungs, stomach, liver, etc. — naturally should receive the first consideration in hygienic living; yet these are the parts that are usually most neglected by the class of fair beings mentioned, as well as by most persons of sedentary habits and occupations.’

 The consequences are of course dire: ‘a deficient amount of excretion of the worn-out nutritive elements, which collect in the general system, producing, head, nausea, sick, creepy sensations, pain in the bones, bad breath …’ and all the usual litany of quackable disorders.

Of course the true target of the marketing, as shown by the illustrations, was the female who wished to have a taut posterior but was unable to find any decent way to exercise that part of her body if she did not have a horse.

For her, The Health Jolting Chair promised ‘THE MOST HIGHLY PRIZED Feminine Attractions … A Beautiful Rich Complexion; Bright, Sparkling eyes; A Sweet, Pure Breath; a Graceful, Well-Developed Figure; Vigorous Mental Action; and a Vivacious Manner.’

 Some writers have commented on the erotic potential of the Health Jolting Chair, suggesting that it might provide the same stimulation that horse riding may offer to the erogenous zones.

 Looking closely at the mechanism, one sees a handle beneath the seat. It looks as if the user would wind it up and release the motion, rather like a music box. To me, the two side-struts appear as gratuitous as the advertising copy, but perhaps they regulated the violence of the jolts in some way. After all, the manufacturers claim, ‘It can be regulated so as to give it any degree of severity desired.’

To help achieve the most effective rhythm, the manufacturers suggested a musical accompaniment … the Jolting Chair Gavotte, as advertised here.

The concept behind the chair has not died, as this video of Ellen Degeneres shows.

Various websites devoted to the history of medicine have featured the chair, to much acclaim.

But my favourite comment is this one: ‘I'm not buying one, it doesn't wash the dishes at the same time.’


 Michelle Lovric’s website

A mole on the belly - Michelle Lovric

Some years ago, I was lucky enough to spend a few days immersed in an old book at the British Library. This one was called THE Amorous Gallant's Tongue Tipp'd with GOLDEN EXPRESSIONS OR, THE Art of Courtship refined. It was published in 1741.

At the time, the only place to find a book like this was in the library, but now of course it exists as an Ebook too.

One of the things I liked about the Gallant was that it assumed a healthy interest in sex for both genders, reinforcing my private theory that the 18th century was a good time for women, a time when they were allowed to have a sense of humour and sensuality of their own. If you ask me (and don’t, unless you want hours of hectoring) it was Byron and the so-called Romantics who marginalised us as the bruised-flower victims or mothers of bad-boy heroes.

Because 18th century women could cope with laughing, the love advice in The Amorous Gallant was tailed with a bit of rough humour:- a Canting Academy Or the Pedlar's French Dictionary, a guide to unsavoury expressions.

Without googling, eighteenth century types bent on love had to find other ways to test the suitability, durability and sexual enthusiasms of their future partners. The Amorous Gallant suggested an examination of various physical attributes. Moles were a good place to start, although gaining access to all mole-sites must have entailed a certain amount of enterprise and an open mind, if not bodice and trouser.

According to our Gallant:

 A Mole on the lower Part of the tip of the Right Ear, threatens the party with drowning.

 A Mole on the Belly denotes Whoredom, Luxury and Gluttony.

 A Mole on the Lip signifies the Party to be much beloved and very amorous.

 A Mole on the left Buttock denotes a pleasing person and are very much delighted in the work of Generation.

 A Mole on the Eyebrow signifies speedy Marriage and a good Husband.

A Mole on the Ankle, in a Man, denotes Effeminacy; but in a Woman, a masculine Spirit, and that She shall wear the Breeches.

A Mole on the right Thigh foretells Riches and Advancement by Marriage; and on the private Parts it doth the like.
For further reading on this subject, the Wellcome Library holds a book by Richard Saunders, published in 1653: Physiognomie and chiromancie, metoposcopie, the symmetrical proportions and signal moles of the body, fully and accurately handled; with their natural-predictive-significations. The subject of dreams; divinative steganographical, and Lullian sciences. Whereunto is added the art of memorie. Below is an illustration from it. Perhaps our Gallant studied it before writing his own chapter.

The Gallant also suggested that the lover should pay attention to the Interpretation of Dreams:

To dream of long Hair, and being proud thereof, denotes Good to Women 

The hair of the Seven Sutherland Sisters, who marketed various quack preparations and
were the inspiration for my novel The True & Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters.
As it happened, long hair did not make any of the sisters, real or fictional, very happy.

This was certainly not true of the bearded lady Julia Pastrana, pictured above,
Julia's ruthless husband raised cash by sending her embalmed body
on tour with various circuses after she died.

 To dream you have Hair like Hog Bristles denotes great Affliction and Trouble, not without Danger of Violence.

 To dream of having many Ears, Signifies the Obedience of Wife, Children and Servants.

 To dream that the Eyebrows are hairy, and of a good Grace, signifies good to all, but more especially to Women.

 For a fair Woman to dream of having many Eyes is unfortunate, and betoken she shall have more Admirers than real Friends.

To dream of having a large Nose is generally very good to all; for it betokens Vivacity of Spirit and Prudence in Management of Affairs, and Familiary with Persons of Quality.

If a Woman dreams she hath a Beard it denotes she shall quickly have a kind Husband that will make much of her.

For a man to dream that his breasts are hairy denotes strength and good fortune, but for a woman to dream so betokens widowhood and loss.

The golden age of quack medicine, as I have written before, coincided with that of cheap printing. The purveyors of such products often produced booklets with useful advice about health, housekeeping and husband-hunting.
Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup was one such product. Its nominal function: ‘for tonic and alterative effect. Laxative and cathartic’. It advertised itself as the ‘supreme remedy’ for ‘colic, wind, spasms and every possible ailment of the stomach, liver and bowels’. Moreover, it claimed to tone and invigorate every organ of the body, enabling the system to resist disease and lay the foundation of a happy old age.
 A chemical analysis revealed that the syrup was largely composed of treacle and water with dilute hydrochloric acid, tincture of capsicum and aloes.

Wildly successful, Mother Seigel was marketed all over the world. I have seen one brochure on its virtues – printed in 17 languages.

But, like all quack medicines, it promised a world of cures – on the working principle that sometime somewhere someone who bought this syrup might get better anyway. It was marketed from the 1880s. In my collection of quack ephemera is a booklet of general advice and problem solving published by Mother Seigal. (Most problems could be cured by the syrup, of course).

But Mother Seigel, who also ran to plasters and pills, additionally had advice for lovers.

She told her readers to look at the eyes and the fingernails. (Now that we are into the Victorian period, that was about all that a lover might glimpse of a mate before marriage.)

Here are some of her tips.

A weak constitution is indicated by thin eye-brows and long, curving lashes.

 When the eyes are wide open and set well apart the person who has them will have a rash disposition.

 Blue eyes are taken as a sign of weakness – of will.

Eyes that are upturned are said to denote devotion and sincerity.

 The very red (finger)nail indicates a person with a hasty temper.

The short, broad nail denotes and extravagant disposition, but usually the ability to earn plenty of money.

 Ridges on all the nails of the finger, together with numerous white spots, indicate sadness and an unhealthy state of the system.

 If the nails are long, tapering, and white, the person who has them is at times inclined to be quarrelsome and at times selfish.

Stubbornness, sulkiness and also great determination are said to go with very small nails lying close to the flesh and flattish on top.

Personally, I’m sticking to the Amorous Gallant’s dream manual. Recently my nights have been enriched with (medical doses of ) morphine, and I’ve dreamt of many hairy things …

Michelle Lovric's website.
The True & Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters
 is published by Bloomsbury.