---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 18:12:10 EDT
Cc: triangle@psicorps.org
Subject: Re: [TMG] A cookie to the person who knows...
In a message dated 8/18/99 5:22:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
cdale@home.isolnet.com writes:
>
> Okay, girl research wizard, who is credited with the invention of the
first
> vibrator? And why isn't he/she a household name, like Thomas Edison?
>
Never fear Rachael - I was just digging this up and typing it in... it took a
while because I had to clean the stickiness off the keyboard first!
(No, no, I spilled a glass of Coke, silly.)
>From "Good Vibrations: The Complete Guide to Vibrators" by Joani Blank:
Historian Rachel "Maines credits George Taylor, an American physician, with a
primary role in the development of the modern vibrator in this country. In
1869 and 1872 he patented a steam-powered massage and vibratory apparatus for
treatment of female disorders..."
There aren't any names listed for any previous developments...in summary from
this book and what I had read elsewhere: medical & midwifery texts going back
to the 1600s describe manual manipulation of the vagina & external gentialia
to achieve what they called "hysterical paroxysm" (orgasms) as a way to treat
"hysteria" (defined as "disturbances of the womb"). Jets of water and other
methods were tried over time because the doctor's hands often got tired! :-)
In the 1880s, vibrators became a labor saving device for doctors and then
were sold for home use beginning around 1900. Bty that time, there were a
wide range of devices available and articles in physician's journals touted
them for treatment of all types of medical problems in both sexes, with an
emphasis on genital massage. Until the late 1920s, Sears and other
respectable catalogues and women's magazines marketed them to women but in
the ads they were held near the face or in other non-sexual ways with
ambiguous descriptions. They did not become considered a "sexual" item until
the emergance of the early stag films "exposed" them and their uses.
What gets me is that in those days doctors were paid to masturbate woman and
now any doctor who tried it would be charged with malpractice.
Moon