Electrical Cure for Skin Disease

Nikola Tesla is now in the midst of intricate electrical experiments which promise most valuable hygienic results, so soon as he declares himself ready to put his recently acquired knowledge into practical operation, for the ridding of the human skin of all extraneous matter, including parasites of every nature, whether they are virulent disease germs or not.

These experiments have been conducted by Mr. Tesla for some time within the secret precincts of his laboratory, and all of the matters involved, from the first inception to the last experiment, have received most careful consideration, and a number of times in his published writings he has hinted at what he believed and what he expected to accomplish, but only incidentally, and in a manner that has made his readers anxious to know just what it is he expects to do and how he intends to accomplish it.

Mr. Tesla was found in his laboratory yesterday, with head and hands full of matters electrical, as usual, and when spoken to of the interest his hints and suggestions of what he was doing had aroused he hesitated for a moment before answering.

Then, as a foundation, the electrician explained that it is a fundamental electrical law, well known that two bodies charged with the same kind of electricity, either positive or negative, repel each other; that if a body be charged with electricity from a static machine the electricity accumulates on its surface.

"Now," continued Mr. Tesla, "if there are small bodies of the minutest weight on that electrically charged surface; and if they are conductors capable of taking electricity, they will also become charged with the same kind of electricity that the surface has received. What is the result under the law of repulsion? There is a force at work between them and the surface, which strongly tends to part the two, and the particles are thrown off, frequently with great force. In fact, this force can be increased to pressure of any desired magnitude. Just the form of apparatus I am using and which accomplishes this thing, I must keep secret for a time yet.

"This repulsion under the pressure I have referred to is increased the more under the law that governs it, for if a given electrical pressure is doubled the repulsion is increased fourfold, and even more than this, on account of another law, because electricity preferably accumulates on points, and an extremely small body is practically a point. So the normal accumulation on the surface referred to — say it is of brass — is exceeded by the accumulation on the small bodies that may be on that surface.

"I have found ways of producing all degrees of pressure, even to a degree that approaches more or less to that of lightning; and the repulsion exerted on the small particles — when a body is charged with such a tremendous pressure — is so great as to actually tear asunder not only the firmly adhering small objects, but the very particles of the metal on which they rest. Now, for an illustration, if a brass ball is painted with bronze paint — which is conducting — the whole of the paint is almost thrown away when the pressure is turned.

"But further. You know how firmly bronze paint adheres when it has dried. It requires great force to tear it away, but under the pressure I refer to not only is the bronze torn from the brass surface, but the hard brass itself is subjected to such a pressure that its particles are torn asunder, scattered with great force and thrown away, not only to distances measured by feet, but measured by miles. Keep up the action, and finally the entire solid brass ball would be carried away, but ages would be required to accomplish this result with the present apparatus because of the smallness of the particles. Still, if the pressure was sufficiently great — as in the case of a lightning stroke — the brass ball could be destroyed in an infinitesimal period of time.

"Now we will see what all of this leads up to. I know that the scientific fact of the result described is accomplished, and we will consider its application to the human body in cases of skin disorders or any disorders that may arise from the skin being attacked by disease germs or parasites of any sort. Since small particles on a body can be thrown from it by the means I have told you of, it is thinkable or even very probable that a human body may in this way rid itself of any extraneous particles that may be on it, and as the disease germs, if any, would be among these particles, the possibility and practicability of such treatment naturally suggests itself.

"I have tried experiments in line with this suggestion and have reached most remark- able and startling results, that impress me as being of great value. They will be continued and their actual value positively ascertained before the method is unqualifiedly recommended.

"By means of my apparatus I have applied an electrical current from a static machine so as to agitate the air surrounding a human subject in a most extreme and remarkable manner. The startling effect was to make the person when operated on in a darkened room appear to be clouded in a haze of luminous mist.

"The electrical pressure not only violently agitated the air around the body, but the repelling force threw off all particles with such violence that their extremely rapid motion through the atmosphere caused a friction that consumed them, and for the fraction of a second making them luminous, so much so as to cause them to appear like myriads of infinitesimal meteors shooting in all directions away from the repelling body.

"I have gone far enough with these experiments to suggest the possibility of completely enveloping the human body in an actual sheet of flame, without injury to either the skin or the nerves.