This week we are displaying a rarely seen item from our collections, the Veedee Massager from c1903. The Massager comes in a purple velvet-lined box, with attachments (including cup and ball), polishing cloth and oil.

Veedee Massager and polishing cloth, c1903 (RCPSG)

There is a handy instruction booklet – The Veedee and How To Use It which gives detailed guidance on how the instrument can cure or relieve a wide range of conditions, from cold and headache, to digestion problems and hysteria. The booklet informs us that it can be used for “curative vibration, vibratory massage, nerve stimulation and blood circulation.”

The Veedee and How to Use It (RCPSG)

There are also chapters that claim it can be used to enhance beauty, treating baldness, double chins and wrinkles.

From The Veedee and How to Use It (RCPSG)

The Veedee was widely advertised between 1900 and 1915, during which time there was a craze for vibration therapies and circulation stimulators. We also have in our collections an example of Dr Macaura’s Blood Circulator (also known as Macaura’s Pulsocon), from the early 1900s. It was claimed to cure a range of conditions, for example heart disease, deafness, paralysis and polio.

The Veedee Massager pop-up display in RCPSG Library

Our Veedee Massager was manufactured in Germany and distributed by The Veedee Co., 96 Southwark Street, London. It was originally purchased from J. C. Pottage, photographic chemist and optician, Edinburgh, as an early treatment for multiple sclerosis.