Richardson's Magneto-Galvanic Battery



Richardson's Magneto-Galvanic Battery is an electrotherapeutic medical medallion, based on the patented design of Edward P. Caldwell. It was sold by A.M. Richardson & Co., for whom it is named, through local agents beginning in 1880.

Designs
The Richardson batteries came in different sizes for adults and children, each one composed of 15 individual disks of various metals, surrounding either a heart piece or a cross piece, the complete medallion encircled by another double band.

Effects
According to the advertising copy, a Richardson's Battery "develop[s] agreeable, curative currents throughout the body, the intensity of the currents being demonstrable by galvanometer. The Batteries are excited through mere contact with the body by the moisture of the skin, aided by the natural body heat. Immediate relief is afforded in all cases of impaired or impeded nerve action, as in bronchitis, rheumatism and neuralgia, and in all cases of sluggish and dormant organic action, as in general debility, biliousness and constipation."