Odd pair of scissors.

[Branson]

A friend's wife came home from garage sales with this older pair of scissors.  They cut well, seem to be well made.  Other than the really fancy "Magnetic" on the blade, there's no manufacturers name.  Does anybody know anything about these?   

[rusty]

There are patents for magnitized scissors back as far as the 1870's. The idea was two fold, first, you could pick up needles with them. But more important to the inventors, it was a widely held quack theory that magnetic fields soothed cramped knuckles....

Acme Shear co was one maker, probably others, it is hard to find ads for them.

[Branson]

There are patents for magnitized scissors back as far as the 1870's. The idea was two fold, first, you could pick up needles with them. But more important to the inventors, it was a widely held quack theory that magnetic fields soothed cramped knuckles....
Acme Shear co was one maker, probably others, it is hard to find ads for them.

Thanks, Rusty!  They didn't seem to be magnetic, but maybe my friend's wife tried something too heavy.   I was wondering about the presumed qualities of magnetism, but hadn't known about soothing cramped knuckles and such.

[rusty]

>They didn't seem to be magnetic..

They may not be , anymore. they were (at least the ones described in patents) just mild steel, rubbed along a magnet to magnitize them. Such magnets are weak to start with, and easily demagnitized, by heating, or dropping on a hard surface, or just age...(since there is no 'keeper' , they will, over time, try to align themselves with the earth's field, which isn't oriented the same way as the scissors, unless you just happened to store them opened up and pointing north for the last 30 years)

However they are easily remagnitized by the same method...
(one pole on each blade tip, draw along the magnet a few dozen times)

Of course, you can do this to ordinary scissors as well, something the folks selling magnetic scissors probably didn't mention very often. (Stainless scissors will not, however, magnetize)

I was not able to find ones with the neat stylized engraving on them like yours,
most of the ads I have seen look like ordinary scissors.

[rusty]

Here is another device designed to use magnetism to reduce pain...
"No smarting after shaving"

[scottg]

 The story of medicine on planet earth is the story of quack cures and devises.
Over 1/2 of what we are using today, will eventually be deemed quack medicine by future generations. It has always been so.
  While many of the makers were just in it for the quick buck (same as today), many more were consciously trying to ease the suffering of mankind. 

  There was an English king in the 1500's, who came down with a sniffle.  On came the surgeons, the most famous and respected in the nation.
  Well they shaved his head and applied a caustic poltice that seared all the skin off his head.  They applied burning hot stones to the bottom of his feet until they blistered the skin off the soles. They gave him massive doses of calomel, the most violent laxative known to man, until he literally s--t his teeth loose.  They bled him of over a pint a day in the "best" medical manner.
   In 3 days, he was stone dead.

I own a bottle of Lords Opodeldoc from as late as the 1870's.  It pictures a man on the front jumping up and down on his crutches. No quack or fake, this was the best cure for infection available for many generations.
The magic ingredient?   Soap!!
People simply did not bathe and even a minor wound could infect and kill you.

I also own some bottles of Gold Sodium Thiosulphate.  This was a cure being sold in the 1960's for up to $1000 a vial.
It was said to cure cancer. 

Last month they drilled a hole in my mothers skull. Yup got out the old Black and Decker and had at it.
Not only that, but it has made a massive improvement in her quality of life.
Nobody knows why she was accumulating water on the brain causing tremendous pressure and a whole host of terrible effects, or what to do to stop it forming.
But the fact is, they have dug up the skeletons of cavemen with holes drilled in their heads too. 

Magnets, electricity and radium have all been tried for cures of one sort or other. I think they still sell "magic" bracelets on late night TV that makes you into a world class tennis player don't they? 

Hurry hurry hurry, step right up, don't be shy!
Friends, I hold here in my hand the very miracle of the age! Yessirree, this magic elixer, handed down through the secretive Kickapoo Indians for thousands of years, will absolutely cure neuritis, neuralgia, gleet, gravel, torpid liver, complaints of the bowels, ague, dyspepsia, and consumption. 
One dollar a bottle! Yes just one dollar for blessed relief of all that ails you....
    yours Scott

[Papaw]

Great response, and an entertaining post, Scott!

[Branson]

The story of medicine on planet earth is the story of quack cures and devises.

Last month they drilled a hole in my mothers skull. Yup got out the old Black and Decker and had at it.
Not only that, but it has made a massive improvement in her quality of life.
Nobody knows why she was accumulating water on the brain causing tremendous pressure and a whole host of terrible effects, or what to do to stop it forming.
But the fact is, they have dug up the skeletons of cavemen with holes drilled in their heads too. 
yours Scott

Actually, it probably *was* a Black & Decker.  Black & Decker makes surgical tools, and at least on local hospital uses their tools for brain surgery.  I was surprised ...

The procedure you describe is called "trepanning."  It does have a long history.  Yes, there are examples of the procedure having been done with stone tools.  Most notably in South America.  We know that the surgeries were successful because those holes in the skulls have fully healed for the most part. 

Its use is for relieving pressure on the brain, as in your mother's case.  You can watch such an operation, early 19th Century style, in the movie, Master and Commander, where it is used to relieve the pressure caused by a depressed skull fracture.

Now out to magnetize all my wrenches...

[scottg]

Now here was an old time remedy worth having.....
Its from about 1885 or so.

Greers Constitution Water

Cures all female complaints!

   yours Scott

[Papaw]

Cures all female complaints!

Impossible! As soon as it worked, women would complain that they had nothing to complain about! (No offense intended to the women who are members here!)

[rusty]

It cures GLEET!....ehhh....what the heck is gleet????

[1930]

quote.......what the heck is gleet.........Are you sure you want to know.....when it comes to the femanaties the least I know the better

[rusty]

hmm, ok, you are right , I didn't want to know.

Oddly, it is also a bird disease...LOL

[scottg]

Gleet is the clap.
Its gravel nobody remembers. :)
Diabetes was newly named as far as I know,  but I am not sure they really knew what it was yet.
It cured bed wetting? That would be a trick.

Most tonics, bitters and cure all's, had the big three in them.
Each had their own "secret" blend of herbs and spices. (The nasty tasting never sold as much as the delicious.)
But alcohol, opium and laxative were the big three.

Constipation was widespread to the point of death.
  People ate meat, I mean -a lot- of meat.
Old recipes recommended 6 pounds of pork roast per person, for instance.
So laxative was always popular and practically everything had some.
The alcohol (strictly as a 90 proof preservative, don't ya know) and opium (it was dirt cheap, use plenty)
  kept the sucker quiet while you made your getaway out of town.
Off to the next town and a fresh batch of uh patients.

  The stories of old time medicine are legion.
Around 1830 a guy named Swaim brewed up some crap and decided to try a little upscale marketing.
   In the days when most popular remedies were 25 to 50 cents a bottle, Swaim demanded 3 dollars.
He ordered some very attractive brightly colored bottles (you could have any color you wanted, except clear. Clear glass was scandalously expensive before 1890)  and had bright and beautiful labels printed to go on them. Hardly anybody could actually read but in an unusual bottle and a bright label, nobody overlooked it.
3 dollars was more then a skilled tradesman made in a month.
People saved their pennies and invested everything they had to get some.
Swaim's Panacea,
I kid you not.

And you thought Guggi, Prada, Chanel and Hillfinger buyers invented stupid !?!

     yours Scott
 

[rusty]

I dug up this thread because I found this little tidbit in the patent archives.
A nice little Patent Medicine to make you stop telling people about your cough.
Would you tell anyone you weren't miraculously cured if you had to swallow another teaspoon of SKUNK cabbage?
  -------
United States Patent Office.
SAMUEL R. WHITLOW, OF ROSEFIELD, ILLINOIS.
Letters Patent No. 81,446, dated August 25, 1868.
IMPROVED COUGH-MIXTURE.
Zip 2tipbule referr6 to in apse seam Vatent an malting part of tip same.
TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
Be it known that I, SAMUEL R. WHITLOW, of Rosefield, in the county of Peoria, and State of Illinois, have
invented a new and useful compound, which I denominate the Golden-Age Cough-Mixture; and I do hereby
declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the ingredients forming the compound;

the quantities of each, and the manner of compounding, making, and using the same, viz:

The ingredients and their respective quantities :

Bayberry-bark, one ounce.
Solomon-Seed root, one ounce.
Sarsaparilla, one ounce.
Seneca snake-root, one ounce.
Red bark, (Peruvian,) one ounce.
Black-cherry bark, one ounce.
Prickly-ash bark, one ounce.
Spikenard-root, two (2) ounces.
Maidenhair-root, one ounce.
Blackberry-root, one ounce.
Oil of wintergreen, one drachm. (This, viz, the wintergreen, is to be added and mixed after the other ingre-
dients have been boiled.)
Pine-tar; one dessert-spoonful.
Skunk-cabbage, one-half ounce.
Lobelia, one-half ounce.
Ginseng-root, one ounce.
Comfrey-root, one ounce.
Elecampane-root, one ounce.
Hoarhound-leaves, one ounce.
Wafer-ash bark, one ounce.

White sugar, three (3) pounds; and
Clear water, one and one-balf gallon.

Mix the foregoing-described ingredients and boil down to three (3) quarts, and after boiling and straining
add one pint of Jamaica rum. When cold, it is ready to bottle.

Directions for Use.
For an adult: Dose,,one tablespoonful to be taken three (3) times each day, half an hour before meals and
on retiring to bed at night.

For a child six months old: Dose, fifteen (15) drops, three times each day, the last on going to bed, or
oftener, if the case be severe.

For a child one year old: Dose, two-thirds (i) of a teaspoonful three times each day, and older children in
proportion.

No water to be taken in any case for twenty (20) minutes after the mixture is taken.

Claim.
Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is—
The compound cough-mixture, prepared and compounded, and to be used substantially as described.
SAMUEL R. WHITLOW.