The Farador Quack Medical Device

Over the centuries there have been an incredible number of purported medical devices released onto the market, with some having more outrageous claims than others. Released in the 1910s and …. The Farador Quack Medical Device.

Released in the 1910s and produced into the 1920s, the Farador electrotherapeutic device claimed to be a thermoelectric device that would cure all disease conditions. In a recent video over at the [Our Own Devices] channel we get an in-depth look at this device and its usage instructions. (Credit: Our Own Devices, YouTube) On the Smithsonian’s website you can see the version they’ve got.

It’s not identical, but the working principle remains the same — after bypassing the whole ‘is this the right treatment’ questionnaire because it’s a cure-all device, you take the main metal device and its connected electrodes out of the box. Unlike similar devices of the era that applied an actual electrical current using batteries or similar, this Farador purportedly uses thermoelectric power generation, but there’s no clear hot or cold side to what would be the generator. Despite this, about 20-30 mV can be measured across the electrodes, so surely it’s working.

As it turns out, the Farador is just one of many fake medical devices that cloned the original Electropoise.