Monday, October 29, 2007
Don't dismiss power of Violet Ray
Tom Angleberger
The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?
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As usual my readers are full of surprises when I seek help for my Ask the Readers feature.
Last week when I asked about the weird and wacky home "health" device called the Violet Ray, I never would have guessed that so many of you actually had or still have one. And I certainly wouldn't have guessed that there would be one reader who seems to still be getting use out of his.
But first let's hear from a medical expert, Dr. Michael Ridenhour:
"I have had one from the late 1890s which a friend and I used to use to scare children on Halloween," writes Ridenhour, a Roanoke-based audiologist, who may also be known by his Halloween alias: Dr. Death and his Death Ray machine.
"It was a quack medical device from the 19th century. It is basically a static electricity generator, which uses neon-like tubing to deliver mild shocks to various body parts. It was used as a hair growing device and was claimed to promote a feeling of well-being on the areas upon which it was applied."
That's just the tip of the violet iceberg for this wonder device.
The product also claimed to work for kidney trouble, pain, goiter, backache, anemia, alcoholism and drug addiction, acne, breast development, cancer, cataracts, colds, constipation, earache, female troubles, flabby breast, freckles, gray hair, mumps, obesity, paralysis and sore throat, reports Jason Hartman, who has a ray machine with the original instructions.
Sounds crazy, right? Not to everybody.
"My grandmother's lumbago was helped by this instrument, but my favorite attachment was shaped like a rake, and Mother used it to treat my dad's bald spot," recalls Carter Elliott. "When in use, all radio reception in the neighborhood ceased, which may have contributed to its demise. But my, it was a dramatic device. It consisted of a large transformer with wires leading to fantastic attachments. They all were made of neon-like tubes, and when in operation, filled with dancing violet streams of electrons. When placed against the skin, it caused a sharp, but pleasant tingle, but if care was not taken when removing it, a painful spark would jump."
But as I suggested, not every reader has to stroll down memory lane quite so far.
Bill Kopcial says he has one that belonged to his mother.
"Still works perfectly to this day," he reports. "It has done wonders for everything -- warts, moles, stuff, it's just unbelievable. It's a super little machine."
Does this sound like something you need? Well, reader Revelle Hamilton tipped me off that the Violet Ray is still on the market. The Heritage Store of Virginia Beach, which notes that psychic Edgar Cayce mentioned the Violet Ray more than 800 times in his writings, sells the device for $349.95. The little scalp rake costs an extra $29.95.
The Heritage Store's Web site offers this excerpt from Cayce's writings: "This will give the 'pick up' or the stimulation that is needed for what might be called the recharging of the centers along the cerebrospinal system, so that there is coordination between the ganglia of the cerebrospinal and the sympathetic nerve system."
Or, as reader Gary Abbott recalled, "it would shock the $*&# out of ya."
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A few words about the Monkey Man.
Halloween is about stuff that is fun-scary, like ghosts, skeletons and perhaps Violet Ray machines. But some things are too scary to be a laughing matter.
A reader asked about a man who used a monkey to lure local children in the 1960s. It sounded like a particularly effective cautionary tale that a parent had dreamed up to keep her kids from talking to strangers.
But readers tell me that he was indeed real, in which case I have no wish to make light of the matter.
"This man scared me to death," said a woman who didn't want to leave her name.
"He really was a real person," said Joan Sheppard, who was raising four boys in Roanoke during the late 1960s. Her 9-year-old son would come home saying he had seen a man in a pink Cadillac with a monkey and a lot of candy. The man was asking children to go for a ride with him.
Sheppard told her son that if he ever got in that car she would "beat your little butt." It was an effective warning.
She herself saw the man and his car, but never the monkey and wonders if it wasn't a fake.
Deborah Duvall tells a very similar story, but she was just a child at the time.
"He drove an old car, and had a monkey on his lap or shoulder. He would frequent our neighborhood driving very slowly, and would pull up beside children, asking them if they wanted a closer look at his monkey," she recalled. "The neighborhood parents would call the police but I don't know whatever happened to him."
Neither do I, unfortunately. Roanoke Times researcher Belinda Harris has tried to track him down in old news articles, but nothing has turned up.
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We've got lots more answers coming next week regarding pecan pie, Vegemite and more. But some questions still haven't been fully answered. Who was John Brady, the Roanoke-based whiskey shipper? Where did the name "Shingle Block" come from?
If you have an answer -- or another question -- e-mail tomangleberger@yahoo.com or call 777-6476 and be sure to speak clearly. Leave your name, location, phone number and all the pertinent information.
Look for Tom Angleberger's column on Mondays.
