Oxypathor
From Kook Science
The Oxypathor, also known as the Oxygenator (with or without "OO" Duplex prefixed), is a gas-pipe device, formerly manufactured and sold by the Buffalo, New York-based Oxygenator Co. (1906-1911), renamed Oxypathor Co. from 1911. The device was promoted as an instrument for use in Oxypathy, "a new and complete system for the natural treatment of disease by blood aereation," and was described in press accounts as consisting of "two flexible cords attached to a piece of nickel-plated piping filled with an inert mixture of clay and coke dust."[1]
After nearly a decade of operations, in October 1914, Elvard Moses, general manager and vice-president of the Oxypathor Co., was brought to trial on charges of mail fraud, ultimately being convicted and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, this served at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. At trial, it came out that the company had sold some 45,451 units, these sales numbers having declined since their peak of 13,398 in 1912 down to 4001 in 1914.[A] Prior to his involvement in launching and managing Oxygenator Co., Moses had been a distributor (as Empire State Oxygenor Co.) of the Perfected Oxygenor King.
Following the incarceration of Moses and a government order to cease manufacture of the device, the Oxypathor corporation itself continued to operate in a limited capacity, which included bringing a lawsuit in Nebraska against a local distributor, Cassius C. Johnson, over unpaid debts in 1916. For his part, the aforementioned distributor continued to market the device as Johnson's "OO" Oxygenator into 1915, but, as with the Oxypathor, the advertising for the product disappeared from United States papers thereafter.
Selected Patents
- US990158A. Moses, Elvard L., assigned to Oxygenator Co. Contact Disk. 18 Apr. 1911, filed 23 Dec. 1909. "My invention relates to contact disks as used in connection with some appliances adapted for therapeutic treatments. My invention has for its object the production of a contact disk which shall be symmetrical and neat in appearance also one which can be easily and quickly attached to the body." https://patents.google.com/patent/US990158
Selected Publications
- Oxypathy: Nature's Royal Road To Health, a brochure that went through several editions
- OXYPATHY, A New and Complete System for the Natural Treatment of Disease by Blood Aeration with Full Instructions for the Care and Use of the OO Duplex Oxypathor, Calcutta: Institute of Oxypathy (India), 1912, https://archive.org/details/b28130923
Periodicals such as The Searchlight: The Journal of Oxypathy and Oxypathic Sparks were also irregularly published by Oxypath Co. at Buffalo, New York.
Press Coverage
- "MANUFACTURE OF OXYPATHORS IS STOPPED BY GOVERNMENT. Firm Putting Fake Cure-All On the Market Must Cease Operations.", Rutland Daily Herald (Rutland, VT): 7, 23 Mar. 1915, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/534078080/
- Anon. (September 1915), "CLOSING DOWN THE OXYPATHOR COMPANY", Journal of the Outdoor Life (New York) 12 (9): 289-294, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Journal_of_the_Outdoor_Life/4MmzAAAAIAAJ?pg=PA289
References
- ↑ "Nostrum Advertising in The Religious Press", Chariton Courier (Keytesville, MO): 4, 29 Mar. 1912, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88068010/1912-03-29/ed-1/seq-4/