Think the current claims that magnets will cure everything from a bad back to fallen arches are preposterous?
Obviously, you haven't seen the Holtz Electro Therapy Machine at work.But, then, neither has anyone else for the last century or so. Now, thanks to the folks planning to restore several old buildings on downtown Main Street, Holtz's "miracle machine" is once again available to work its magic.
Or at least induce a few laughs at the extent to which quack medicine held sway in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The elaborate device was constructed by the Frank S. Betz Co. of Chicago, and a historic photo exists showing a "patient" sitting next to the machine and another man, presumably the "doctor," waving a wand over his head that is connected to the machine by a wire.
The machine was found stashed in a dark, filthy corner on the second floor of the old Karrick Building, 238 S. Main. Research by Salt Lake firm MHTN Architects reveals that the owner, Lewis G. Karrick, operated a gambling hall on the second floor and a brothel on the third, remnants of which still remain. Karrick was also the president of National Bank of the Republic, which later became Continental Bank, and was renovated last year into the Hotel Monaco.
"He (Karrick) would apparently take the proceeds (from the casino and brothel) and just walk them next door to his bank," said Mark R. de Bry of MHTN, which is working on the restoration plans for the building.
Another tenant of the building, State Medical Company, also operated on the same level as the casino a century ago, and it was apparently this business that offered the Holtz treatment.
The machine, about five feet long and six feet high including its elaborate
wooden stand, resembles a large European music box or player piano (which is what the finders originally thought it was). It used large, circular copper plates, separated by glass insulators, that would revolve, creating high-voltage electricity.
Static electricity, really, with very low amperage that, mercifully, meant the patient would get a big shock but live to pay the doctor his bill.
"We did some research on it and found it was supposed to cure everything from baldness to infertility," said de Bry of MHTN, which also is restoring the Karrick Building's neighbor, the Lollin Building, for their new owners, Hamilton Partners, a Chicago development firm.
Hamilton bought all of the buildings between the Hotel Monaco on the corner of Main and 200 South and the David Keith Building to the south (see related story) and is doing preparatory work that will eventually result in their being restored and converted into residential condominiums.
This will take considerable investment. Someone years ago removed several supporting columns that caused the second and third floors to sag as much as four inches in the center. The floors were then "overbuilt" to level them out. The building currently is supported on the second floor by a framework of steel truss beams installed to keep the whole thing from collapsing.
To research the Holtz machine, MHTN contacted the proprietor of "The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices," also known as "The Quackery Hall of Fame," in Minneapolis. David G. Rickert, a representative of the "Quackatorium," has identified the machine as a Holtz and says they were popular between 1890 and 1910.
"At that time," he said, "electricity (especially high-voltage sparks) were seen as quite mysterious and magical, so people wanted to believe it was a miracle."
Rickert says the machine is quite a rare device because of its size and fragility.
The owners haven't yet decided what to do with the machine, but they've been talking to the quackery museum and also to the Utah State Historical Society, which is interested in acquiring it.