1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



701 



I shall be glad to answer questions in regard 

 to any point omitted in my description, and I 

 think it would pay in dollars and cents, many 

 times over, to any one who is building expen- 

 sive glass structures, to visit the Dale estab- 

 lishment. 



ELECTRIC BELTS, ELECTROPOISE, "ABSENT 

 TREATMENT," ETC. 



In the Practical Farmer of Aug. 15, friend 

 T. B. Terry takes your humble servant to task 

 as follows: 



My good friend A. I. Root has been particularly 

 down on the above ways of treating the ills that people 

 have. In regard to a certain kind of electric belt, for 

 example, if 1 remember correctly he told us in Glean- 

 ings that the best scientific authorities said they could 

 not by any possibility do any good*, and then they 

 were sold at an exorbitant price, many times what it 

 cost to make one. Thus the poor sick man who got 

 one was both humbugged and swindled. But now 

 really, good friends, there must be another side to this 

 question. To illustrate: At the very time when friend 

 Root was condemning this ■ elt in the strongest terms, 

 the writer happened in the home of a man and his 

 wife in a distant State. They were readers of Glean- 

 ings, and thus knew me and invited me to their home 

 when I was attending an institute in their town. 

 They were people of more th in ordinary intelligence, 

 and some 50 years old. They informed me that our 

 mutual friend Root was all wrong; that the husband 

 had been a great sufferer for years until he used one of 

 these belts; that he was then well and all right. They 

 showed lue the belt, and were very enthusiastic in 

 their praise of it. Do vou think I said one word against 

 the belt? Do you think 1 told them ihere was no 

 electricity about it, and that they paid ten times more 

 than they should? Not much, and I'll tell you why. I 

 believe in accepting good from whatever source it 

 comes. Now, what cured this man (for he was cured 

 beyond a doubt)? His faith in that belt. The mind 

 has a wonderful power over the bodv, probably many 

 times more power than mo^t people think for. And 

 now. truly, don't you think one would have more 

 faith in a belt if he paid $.'5.00 for it than he would 

 if it cost only 82.00? Paying a large price impresses 

 the mind of the buyer with its concentrated and mar- 

 velous powerl Now, I am not upholding any hum- 

 bug or swindle; but don't you .see there is another side 

 to the matter? 



Mr. Terr}^ and I can agree very well right 

 here unless he recoinmends this method of 

 curing people. These rascals have often urg- 

 ed that, if they did not charge a big price, the 

 patient would have no faith and would not 

 get well. Very likely they, and Mr. Terry 

 too, are about right; but how about the man 

 who pays $2.00 for an article and sells it for 

 $25.00? If he is all right and doing good, 

 why should not all of us go into the business ? 

 and, in fact, a great lot of people are trying to 

 get into it all the while, especially when they 

 see the palatial residences of such men as 

 Francis Truth, and Weltmer, of Nevada, Mo., 

 and others. Electropoise, however, goes awaj' 

 beyond this. They charge $25.00 for a thing 

 that could be made for 25 cts., and they per- 

 form wonderful cures, just such as friend Terry 

 describes; therefore A. I. Root is wrong. He 

 sliotild not object to a thing that is relieving 

 suffering and helping humanity. Better not 

 tell the poor man there is no electricity about 

 the trap, even if you recognize it at once. 

 But, hold on a bit. What has become of 

 Electropoise that a host of people defended 

 with such vehemence only a few months ago? 



*I said they could not do any good unless it came 

 through the imagination. 



So far as I can learn, the thing is not now 

 advertised in any periodical; and I venttire to 

 say that the people who claim to have been cur- 

 ed of a long list of diseases by the senseless trap 

 have now laid it aside and are trying to forget 

 it. What is the matter with it now ? 



But here is something else from Mr. Terry: 



This brings to mind an amusing instance of being 

 too smart in looking out for humbugs. Some fifteen 

 years ago a man came along selling tin pails. In the 

 bottom of each one, two .strips of zinc in the form of a 

 cross were soldered. He informed me that water 

 could stand in one of those pails for years, and the 

 bottom would not rust, and he laid it all to electricity, 

 and made a very learned address on the .subject. I 

 promptly told him to go right along— that he couldn't 

 humbug me that way. W th pity for my ignorance 

 and sorrow for his pocketbook he departed. About 

 that time our tinner did a large job for us; and when 

 1 gave him a check he felt a little liberal, and,, know- 

 ing that I did not smoke, he gave me one of these 

 pails with a zinc cross in the bottom, in,stead of a cigar. 

 I laughed, but took it. Now, we always have a tin., 

 pail standing under our pump-spout in the kitchen. 

 We used tin because it was light, but the best pail I 

 could get would rust out in a year or two. The new 

 pail was put in use at once; and, friends, although it 

 is a little tough to tell such a joke on one's self, that 

 pail is still in use, and good yet after fifteen years. 



This zinc-bottom tin pail is another thing 

 entirely. Pieces of zinc have been soldered 

 in the bottom of watering-pots for years past 

 to prevent rusting. I first saw it in the Scien- 

 tific American years ago, and it has been a 

 long time in use. The zinc and the tin, with 

 the water in the pail, make a weak battery, 

 and as a rule the zinc will all be rusted out be- 

 fore the tin rusts very much. About ten years 

 ago we sold such pails by the hundred. They 

 were extensively advertised. We had one for 

 two or three years under our kitchen pump. 

 I have just asked Mrs. Root about it, and she 

 says that, while it helped the matter of rust- 

 ing, she would not put it as strongly as friend 

 Terry. We prefer now a very light pail made 

 of paper or some such material. It is varnish- 

 ed or enameled so that it is easier cleaned 

 than any metal pail, and is, I think, lighter. 

 Although the pails Mr. Terry describes were 

 sold generally by hardware men and tinners 

 ten years ago, there does not seem to be the 

 demand for them now that there was when 

 they were first introduced. 



Permit me to copy a little more of what Mr. 

 Terry has to say about absent treatment: 



We hear a great deal nowadaysabout " absent treat- 

 ment." That is, a man in a distant place proposes to 

 cure you, without giving any medicine, of any disease, 

 no matter if you have been given up by the doctors. 

 The writer will have to .=ay that he has investigated 

 cases where this seems to have been done. And it is 

 not particularlv hard to believe and understand it. If 

 one man's implicit faith in a belt he is wearing causes 

 his cure, why will not as strong a faith in what a man a 

 thousand miles away says he can do have a like result? 

 There are rascals, of course, who carry on this absent 

 treatment; but after all there is a great principle of 

 truth back of it which the world is getting some little 

 hold of. Patent medicines owe their success lirgely 

 to the faith people have in them They are advertised 

 in strong language You are told that they are sure 

 cures, and any amount of wonderful te.stiraonials are 

 given. 



I heartily agree with friend Terry that a 

 great principle of truth is back of all these 

 things; and I do believe that we are on the 

 verge of a great reformation in this matter of 

 curing disease; but I do 7iot believe tremen- 

 dous lies (I think this is what Mr. T. means 

 when he says " strong language " ) and whole- 



