Popular Science Monthly 



us now, the present day accomplish- 

 ment of electrical music is hardly less 

 astonishing. To an ordinary audience. 

 the fact of most striking- importance 

 would be the quality of the music. It 

 is quite possible to imitate the mellow- 

 est tones of a Stradivarius violin, but 

 more interesting still, it is possible to 

 create music of a tone and timbre that 

 no one in this world has ever heard 

 before. No less strange than the qual- 

 ity of the music is the means by which 

 it is obtained. The variations produced 

 in an electrical circuit by inserting a 

 lead pencil line drawn on paper will 

 cover not only the complete octave, but 

 will include the most infinite shadings 

 in tone. 



Dr. Lee DeForest, the discoverer of 

 this type of electrical music, claims 

 that with an arrangement of four or 

 five bulbs and suitable adjusting ap- 

 paratus and keys similar to those of a 

 piano keyboard, he can easily obtain 

 notes ranging in pitch through as many 

 octaves as are desired and a tone qual- 

 ity identical with that of all musical in- 

 struments now in use as well as qualities 

 never before produced. 



The volume of sound depends upon 

 the adjustment, the number of batter- 

 ies that are used and the size and num- 

 ber of electric horns which project the 

 sound. The horns can be distributed 

 in various parts of the room or grouped 

 together. 



The basic principle involved in cre- 

 ating music by a vacuum bulb. Dr. 

 DeForest does not attempt to explain. 

 Nor docs anyone else. Perhaps it is 

 due to the unbalancing action caused 

 by interference w^ith the flow of the 

 current. In this case, the tiny particles 

 of electricity loosened, bombard the 

 grid and the iron plate in musical 

 rhythm. At all events, the action is 

 probably highly complicated, and it 

 may involve some new principle of 

 electricity that we have not yet learned. 



A Walking Leg Bath 



AN interesting and unusual way of 

 using water as a curative measure 

 is represented by tlie "walking leg bath" 

 evolved by a Battle Creek sanitarium 

 and included in its list of helpful ap- 

 paratus. 



73 



Tingling streams of cold water bring the 

 blood rushing to impoverished muscles 

 as a patient walks through this leg bath 



The walking leg bath is a simply con- 

 structed frame, lined with a number of 

 woven wire springs and equipped with 

 two water pipes, perforated at inch 

 spaces to permit a horizontal shower. 

 This strikes the legs at " the moment 

 Avhen the muscles are in action and most 

 open to benefit. 



The patient is told to walk through the 

 bath briskly, and by the continued per- 

 formance of that act alone he improves 

 his condition, the wire springs against 

 which he must brush in passing, insur- 

 ing a brisker circulation. The needle- 

 like streams of water — at varying tem- 

 peratures — forced against his legs by 

 air pressure heighten the effect. It is 

 one of the most exhiliarating of the 

 modern "cures." 



The walking leg bath is recommended 

 in certain forms of rheumatism, vari- 

 cose veins and other maladies affecting 

 the lower extremities. 



