The 1870s and 1880s saw a new medical device that promised wonderful cures for almost anything that ailed you. This was just before the electrical revolution that began in the 1880s to 1890s when the new "wonder product" electricity was being applied to everything.

The most famous of the medical batteries was the Boyds Battery. They are fairly easy to find and they polish up nicely. They were made with different metals that promised to create a healing electrical current when pressed against your skin. The galvanic properties were released by the different metals reacting to the moisture in your skin. Some people claimed that they tingled as they worked to draw out the bad energies from your body and replace them with good energy.

Boyds Battery came out in 1878 and was "improved" in 1879. He writes in his book "Boyds Battery", that two of his employees stole his idea and created the Sagendorph Battery which was a direct knockoff of Boyd's design. Boyd claimed that their battery was just a combination of metals that did not do anything as opposed to his battery that was a combination of metals that did cure ills.

Whatever the truth, others followed and produced their own batteries - Richardson and Downing were two that I have found. There were also magnetic belts, shoe inserts, and other products that used either magnetism or batteries to provide some relief to your ills.

An interesting 1870s CDV photograph and advertisement for a doctor who did magnetic healing.

G. A. Sagendorph,
MANUFACTURER AND SOLE PROPRIETOR OF
Sagendorphs Minature Medical Galvanic Battery
OFFICE AND SALESROOM, 57 WEST THIRD ST.
Cincinnati, Ohio, May 22nd , 1882

Mr. AE Tilden - Dear Sir, You will observe I have removed to Cincinnati and have also reduced my price. I am determined that the publick shall be induced to try my goods & when they do they will buy them I know from my own experience what they are and are far superior to any in market should be pleased to receive an order from you I give my agents the choice to retail at 25 or 50 cents each Most of them sell at 50 cents they are cheap enough at that. And when I have an agent I dont sell to any one in his vicinity
Respt Yours
Geo A. Sagendorph
57. West Third street