1/14/70 San Francisco Chronicle article:
LEGACY OF A QUACK
By Millie Robbins
Dr. Albert Abrams, originator of a so-called electronic
system of diagnosis and cure whom you met here yesterday,
left one of the longest wills ever filed in San Francisco.
A number of relatives and a couple of philanthropic
institutions were named as legatees, but a goodly portion of
his fortune was earmarked for a medical college and hospital
("where the poor would be treated without charge"), which at
the time of his death on January 13, 1924, already was under
construction.
This was a ten-story building at Sutter and Hyde Streets. It
was to be known as the Blanche (Bachman Schwabacker) and
Jeanne (Rath) Abrams College of Electronic Medicine in memory
of his two deceased wives. Both had left him considerable
money.
But the project soon had to be abandoned, and the building
subsequently was transformed into a hotel.
Although his estate was estimated by those acquainted with
the doctor's affairs to have been in the neighborhood of
$2.5 million, this proved to be far from correct. It
amounted to around $771,000 including, presumable, his
handsome home in Sea Cliff, complete with fine pipe organ.
For one thing, when the assets were collected and appraised,
it was found that many patents, copyrights, formulas and the
like were of dubious value. The inventory numbered such
items as a patent for a pants presser and stock in a scheme
to harness power from ocean waves.
The rental from medical devices that had brought in a
substantial income during his lifetime, decreased almost to
nothing after his death. Disciples had paid him large fees
for courses of instruction in either his clinic on Sacramento
Street or in one of a dozen other schools that had been
founded around the Nation.
Each pupil had to lease an "oscilloclast", paying $200 or
more down and $5 a month rent. (The cost of manufacturing
these was believed to have been about $30.) Neither that
instrument nor any of the other pieces of paraphernalia (one
purporting to induce an electric jag!) could be bought
outright. Moreover, the oscilloclast lessee had to sign an
agreement never to open the sealed box.
Incidentally, while so many of the doctor's inventions
appear to have been completely absurd, a few approached the
legitimate mark. He claimed, for instance, to be able not
only to diagnose diseases but nationality by testing the
vibrations of blood. In fact, in 1922 Judge Thomas Graham
admitted as evidence in an alimony suit an electronic blood
analysis ostensibly showing that the defendant was the father
of the plaintiff's child.
In 1923 he demonstrated a new "truth detector" for renowned
Chief August Vollmer of the Berkeley Police Department. It
was so attuned, he said, that it reacted to life and death,
could distinguish falsehood from fact, locate missing persons
and determine whether a signature was genuine or a forgery.
When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited here around the same
time, he gave Dr. Abrams a photograph to test. It showed a
living man supposedly surrounded by spirits. The contraption
gave a reaction indicating that the central figure was a
living being and all of the others were negative.
For diverse reasons his estate was involved in litigation
for five years, and by the time a settlement was reached it
had dwindled to around $100,000.
Exponents of Dr. Abrams' electronic system still were
carrying on to some extent here as recently as 1953 when
the U.S. District court secured a permanent injunction to
half the distribution of the medical devices.


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