Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

Macaura’s Pulsocon, blood circulator (late 1910s)

This device is a “Macaura’s Pulsocon”, also known as “Macaura Pulsocon hand vibrator” or “Doctor Macaura's blood circulator”. The instrument is engraved with “PULSOCON, PATENT 13932” and should be dated to the late 1910s. The cardboard box containing the device also contains the inscriptions “PATENT 13932”, “MACAURA’S PULSOCON” and “The Appliances Manufacturing Company”. The Pulsocon was invented by “Doctor” Gerald Joseph Macaura (Figure 1) and is a vibrating massage device that enjoyed great success at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th centuries and was sold in several countries including England and France (where the device was renamed “Pulsoconn”). There were two different versions of the device with the same name Pulsocon. One is considered to date from the 1890s, was probably made in the United States and bears the patent number 1289 (Figure 2A). The second version was the subject of British patent number 13932 of 1905 (Figure 2B), corresponding to this item. This Pulsocon consists of two chrome-plated half-casings, violin-shaped, fitted one inside the other. These casings are topped with a vertical handle of black-painted wood, underneath is a crown-shaped tray. In the central opening of the crown is fixed a rubber crusher chosen by the operator, and the device was sold with three rubber crushers: the pear-shaped "Rubber plunger", the "Bell plunger", and "Surger", a sort of brush (Figure 3). Inside the casing, there is a mechanism consisting of a large-diameter toothed wheel that drives a small-diameter gear and a flywheel. Between the gear and the flywheel is a square-section part with blunt edges (Figure 4). A wheel attached to a vertical axle is held in contact with this part by a spring. This simple system transforms the rotational movements of the crank into a rapid, straight, vertical back and forth movement of the crusher. According to Macaura, the device could deliver up to 6000 vibrations per minute and, when placed against an afflicted body part, the vibrations could improve circulation and cure a wide variety of diseases such as infantile paralysis, gonorrhoea, deafness, early stages of cancer, tuberculosis, rheumatism, gout, asthma, impotence, and haemorrhoids, among others (but none of these claims have ever been substantiated by rigorous clinical studies). A user manual that accompanied these devices can be consulted HERE. Macaura was born in Ireland and later emigrated to the United States but returned to England in the early 1910s. He submitted several patents for medical devices, including a blood circulator in 1902 in the USA, and the British patent number 13932 in 1905, also for a blood circulator (the number which is on the Pulsocon). In 1911, Macaura entered a cooperation with the British Appliances Manufacturing Company, in Leeds (England), which then produced the Pulsocon. Macaura was eventually exposed as a charlatan, in 1914 he was sentenced to three years in a French jail for fraud and was revealed he was not even a real doctor. Still, he continued to sell vast numbers of vibrating machines well into the 20^th century.

Figure 1. Cover of a Pulsocon booklet from the early 20^th century, showing a portrait of Gerald Macaura.

Figure 2. Cover of a Macaura’s Pulsocon user manual for the 1890s device bearing the patent number 1289 (left), and back cover of the user manual for the same device that was the subject of British patent number 13932 of 1905 (right).

Figure 3. Three types of rubber crushers that could be used with Macaura’s Pulsocon: the pear-shaped "Rubber plunger" (left), the "Bell plunger" (centre), and the brush-like "Surger" crusher (right).

Figure 4. Detail of the internal mechanism of the Pulsocon.

References

Petitdant B. 2018, Le Docteur Macaura et son Pulsoconn, appareil de massage vibratoire. Kinésithérapie, la Revue. 18: 36 – 42