Vibration therapy has been used to improve muscle performance and relieve pain since ancient Greece. Physicians used saws covered in cotton to transfer vibration from distal muscles to proximal ones, improving flexibility and relieving discomfort. In 1880, French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot observed surprising improvements in Parkinson’s patients after using a device to transfer vibration.
The hammer-and-anvil helmet
A sepia photograph of a man’s head inside a bucket-shaped metal helmet resting on an anvil with another man swinging a hammer around his head is making the rounds again on Instagram and Reddit, this time captioned as an 1890s headache cure. The photo is real, but the medical claim is false.
In the 1890s, doctors were experimenting with vibration therapy to improve muscle performance and relieve pain. They used hand-held saws covered in cotton to transfer vibration from the outside of the body to the muscles and joints, but these devices were unable to offer vibration at a rotary motion. Physicians later developed machines that could vibrate in both vertical and rotary directions, which they believed to be more effective than manual vibrations.
The hammer-and-brush method
A sepia photograph has been making the rounds on Instagram and Reddit lately, captioned as an 1890s headache cure. The premise is that physicians hit patients in the head with a sledgehammer and anvil to send vibrations through their skull. It’s nonsense, as PolitiFact rated False back in 2022 and Lead Stories debunked it in 2010. Vibration therapy did exist in the 1890s but involved soft brushes or small mechanical devices tapped lightly against the head.
The hammer-and-sledgehammer method
The sepia photograph of a man stuffed inside a bucket-shaped helmet resting on an anvil while a man winds up a sledgehammer has made the rounds on Instagram and Reddit, but it’s not a headache cure. The caption claims doctors used this contraption to send healing vibrations through the skull, a claim PolitiFact has rated False and Lead Stories debunked back in 2022. Vibration therapy did exist in the 1890s, but it involved soft brushes or small mechanical devices tapped lightly against the scalp—not hammering on the head.
French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot studied the surprising improvements in Parkinson’s disease patients and concluded that vibration was responsible. In the years that followed therapists experimented with electrically vibrating chairs to treat back pain and other ailments.
The hammer-and-sauna method
A sepia photograph that’s been floating around Instagram and Reddit for years, supposedly showing doctors in the 1890s using a hammer-and-anvil helmet to cure headaches, keeps making the rounds. PolitiFact rated it as False in 2022, and Lead Stories debunked it in 2010. The photo is real, but the caption—claiming that physicians hit the skull with a hammer to send vibrations through the brain—is fake. Physicians didn’t use hammers to treat headaches, and they knew that hitting the head caused concussions, not healing vibrations.
In 1880 French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot examined the surprising improvements in Parkinson’s patients caused by vibration from horse-drawn and railway carriages. This led him to develop a machine that created both vertical and circular vibrations and used it to treat Parkinson’s patients.