10/13/51 Los Angeles Times article (Saturday):
SCHOOL BOARD HEAD BACKED "RAY" CLAIM
Mrs. Allen's Testimony on Behalf of Inventor Discloses Belief
in Remote Control Doctoring
Mrs. Eleanor B. Allen, president of the Los Angeles City
Board of Education, is a firm and long-time believer in a
disproved "radio therapy" machine whose manufacturer faces a
Federal sentence for falsely claiming it can treat cancer by
remote control across the continent.
Mrs. Allen's testimony in U.S. Court on behalf of the
machine and its originator, Dr. Ruth B. Drown, was disclosed
yesterday as sentencing of the defendant was continued until
Oct. 22.
A voluntary, unsubpoenaed witness for Dr. Ruth B. Drown, Mrs.
Allen told a jury in U.S. Judge Harry C. Westover's court
recently of her faith in the gadget that Dr. Drown claimed
could diagnose and treat literally thousands of ailments by
tuning in on a drop of blood and broadcasting healing rays.
OPINION OF PANEL
She and her husband, Dr. Walter W. Allen, a Drown student,
insisted the machine is a scientific marvel, although
a scientific panel at the University of Chicago last
January branded it "worthless."
Under cross-examination by Asst. U.S. Atty. Tobias G.
Klinger, Mrs. Allen said the Hollywood chiropractor's device
once cured her of pneumonia when she was in Atlantic City,
N.J., and the machine was in Los Angeles.
Mrs. Allen said she had known Dr. Drown for 18 or 19 years
and had given her a sample of her blood, which Dr. Drown kept
on file. All that was needed to cure her of any ailment, the
board president testified, was to have the machine broadcast
treatments to her wherever she was.
INVESTIGATION BY FCC
An investigation of the machine by engineers of the Federal
Communications Commission in 1947, according to Klinger,
brought out how one male patient was subjected to "rays" from
two plates that were found to be connected to the antenna and
loudspeaker of a radio dialed to a local station.
Dr. Drown only requires a single drop of blood, Klinger
said, because she contends the crystal formation of the
blood remains the same always, like the crystals in radios.
These crystals are supposed to activate the machine with
the correct healing rays or, tuned in differently, to
accomplish "absent diagnosis."
Klinger emphasized the trial and conviction of Dr. Drown was
not intended as a slur on the chiropractic profession.
BOARD'S CONCLUSION
Dr. Willard W. Percy, secretary of the State Board of
Chiropractic Examiners, testified as a prosecution witness
that in 1947 the board branded Dr. Drown's invention as
"without therapeutic value."
Other expert witnesses described the machine as simply an
"inefficient battery tester" which wiggles the needles of
its dials better when used with a glass of water instead of
a human.
The needles are activated, the experts testified, because
human bodies - as well as an assortment of inorganic objects
- act an natural conductors for the passage of current
between two pieces of dissimilar metals.
The University of Chicago conducted its tests with Dr.
Drown's consent and at the request of a Chicago society
leader, formerly one of Dr. Drown's patients. The mother of
Actor Tyrone Power was present at the first sessions at the
university, being at that time an ardent follower of Dr.
Drown.
Dr. Drown at that time described her machine as "an apparatus
which I claim utilizes the crystals in the drop of blood held
together by a blotter which is in resonance with the energy
that is tuned in from the body or other substance."
Her claims, the investigative scientific panel concluded
then, "appear to be totally unworthy of serious
consideration by anyone, least of all by the university."
HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION
Klinger, the transcript of Dr. Drown's trial disclosed, asked
Mrs. Allen a hypothetical question which in substance was
this:
"Assume you were riding in an automobile in Moscow and Dr.
Drown and her device were in Hollywood. You had an accident
and received a broken leg, a fractured skull and were
hemorrhaging. By telephone, Dr. Drown was informed you
had been in an accident - nothing more.
"Using your blood sample on file, Dr. Drown would tune in the
machine, which would diagnose your condition. Then she would
tune in the treatment device. Is it, then, your contention
that this would cure your broken leg and fractured skull and
stop your hemorrhage."
"Yes, yes," Mrs. Allen testified. "The way you state it,
Mr. Klinger, sounds like black magic, but it isn't. It's
science."
MACHINES IN HOME
Asked if she would seek a surgeon instead of the machine if
she required surgery, Mrs. Allen said that use of the machine
would preclude any need for surgery. The board president
said she has two of Dr. Drown's machines in her home, but
is not versed in their operation.
Asked why, if the machine is so effective, her husband has
been ill for five years, Mrs. Allen replied:
"That machine has kept him alive."
The board president also testified that use of the "broadcast
treatment" cured a rash that appeared on the hands of her son
Tommy. Dr. Drown called the healing power of her invention
"the invisible life force."
"ATLAS" QUOTED
Dr. Allen, according to Klinger, is a former chiropractor
who studied Dr. Drown's "radio therapy" methods and often
collaborated with Dr. Drown in the treatment of Mrs. Allen.
During the trial attention was called to the "Drown Atlas,"
a sort of instruction book for doctors employing the machine.
It is prefaced with a warning, a portion of which reads:
"Let us say here, for the benefit of those who do not know,
that any patient who is weak and depleted should never take
shower baths and stand in the water over the drain, because
the patient's magnetism is washed down with the water through
the drain, leaving him depleted.
DOWN THE DRAIN
"Also a week patient after having a tub bath should leave
the tub and have someone else drain the water and clean the
tub... Too many people sit in the tub and drain the water
before finishing the bath and their own magnetism is drained
through the drain pipes to the ground, leaving the patient
with much less reserve."
Asked his opinion of this advice, Dr. Allen said he always
took tub baths when possible.
"I usually let the cold water run into the tub before I get
out because that is your source of pure energy coming right
from the springs and the source," he told the jury.
"I get out of the tub before letting the water out and I
clean the tub with a long-handled brush. I don't get down
and rub it with a rag."
7/03/72 Virginia Beach Ledger-Star (Monday) article:
HOSPITAL HEAT MACHINES ARE CONFISCATED BY FDA
NORFOLK - Federal Food and Drug Administration officials
have seized two heat treatment machines owned by Norfolk
General Hospital in the first step of a planned nationwide
confiscation.
The machines, manufactured by the Diapulse Corp. of America,
were claimed to be useful in treating some 300 diseases,
and wounds, including arthritis, bursitis, fractures and
infections - a claim labeled as "nothing less than sheer
quackery" by a federal judge.
Robert Case, and agent for the food and drug administration
in Baltimore, said today some 4,000 of the machines are in
use by hospitals, clinics, chiropractors and other
practitioners.
Norfolk General was singled out as the first target because
federal court action "is faster" here than in Washington or
Maryland.
The FDA had picked up samples of the machine in 1969, Case
said, but the firm has been fighting action in the courts
since then. An injunction against manufacture has now been
obtained, he said.
The devices have been sold since the late 1950s at prices
ranging from $2400 to $4000 each.
Although the machine itself is not harmful, Case said,
harmful effects could result if someone suffering from a
serious disease used it in lieu of appropriate treatment.
[
7/05/72 GD's note: I added above clipping to 5138-1 Reports
because the preceding pages contain clipping of previous
court fights over a mysterious 'magic cure' machine used
by chiropractors.
Case 5138-1 on
5/19/44 called for the use of a short wave
iconoclast machine, followed in 3 weeks with the Wet Cell
Appliance carrying gold. The patient [female, 51 yrs. old]
had cholecystitis, pellagra and pelvic disorders.]


Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation