Tesla’s Microbe Exterminator

The report that Nikola Tesla is engaged in perfecting an invention for removing by electricity microbes and various disease germs from the human body has very much excited a portion of the daily press. The tone in which it has been discussed may be seen from the following extract from The World (New York):

“So far as external appearance goes, there will be no more old men and old women if the use of this electric chair becomes general. Every one will go down to his grave retaining all the outward appearance of blooming youth. There will be no more wrinkles, no more sallow cheeks, no more hideous alpine valleys plowed in the surface of beauty’s brow. Every man and woman may at will enjoy the appearance of youth. It is like the fabled spring of Ponce de Leon.”

This is commented upon by Electricity as follows:

“Now this is another sample of the exaggerated nonsense a few of the daily papers are in the habit of printing whenever anything a little out of the ordinary is heard of in the electrical field.

“Mr. Tesla’s theory is, that as two bodies charged with the same kind of electricity repel one another, by charging the surface of the human body with static electricity the invisible microbes collected thereon will become similarly charged and will consequently be thrown off. He further proposes to supplement this treatment by bathing the body in some disinfectant and by a mild form of massage.”