Allen's Battery

The Allen's Battery (or Professor Allen's Miniature Galvanic Battery) is an electro-therapeutic medical medallion, promising to generate a healing electric current in the wearer, produced by the reaction of the varying metals constituting the battery with the wearer's skin (as a galvanic response). It is identical in design to Boyd's Battery and the Sagendorph Battery, with "Allen" stamped on it in place of "Boyd" or "Sagendorph", and was sold primarily in Australia and New Zealand by Allen (and local agents).

Resources

 * Watson, Lindsay S. "Tom Tiddler’s Ground: Irregular Medical Practitioners and Male Sexual Problems in New Zealand, 1858–1908." Med Hist. 2013 Oct; 57(4): 537–558. &mdash; includes brief reference to "Professor" Allen being "associated with Smith & Co., Medical Galvanists of Melbourne", his sales tour for his galvanic belt, and his battery.
 * &mdash; sold by Josiah Rogers, "sole agent for Professor Allen in New Zealand"