I always wanted to make a brand of chilli chutney and call it Chattanooga Chilli Chutney.
Cherr!
Because in my research I found that the world’s first patented mechanical vibrator was the Chattanooga.
It ran off steam, coal-powered, I think.
It was enormous and as noisy as a railway steam-engine.
The chutney would have boasted a graphic depicting said device in all its industrial era splendour and gloriously inventive impracticality.
It seems the steam-powered part was sheer invention, now that with my interest refreshed, I return to the subject.
It was electromechanical, stood about two metres tall and required two men to operate it.
It was considered a medical treatment to bring “hysterical” women to involuntary orgasm, so relieving them of the symptoms of their hysteria, or womb disease.
No, even this is not true.
It appears that opinion is divided over which of the two early models bore the name Chattanooga, either the steam-powered, coal-fired, or the electromechanical:
The Chattanooga is a particularly famous model; it stood nearly 2m tall and required a couple of men to operate it. Being steam-powered, the engine of the machine was located in a small room and two men shoveled coal into the furnace and monitored the steam temperature, pressure, and thrust required to drive the Chattanooga. The engine room was separated from the doctor’s room by a wall which had a hole in it. A mechanical arm extended from the engine through the wall and into the consulting room where the doctor controlled it and used the vibrating arm to administer the appropriate genital massage to the grateful patient.
– from here
George Taylor, who must be one of my predecessors, I will claim him as one, was the inventor.
See the attached images for the two models.
The table version is merely the ‘interface’ and not the engine itself.
The standard version is the electromechanical.
Housefires were not uncommon where the latter was deployed, since the gentle art of insulation had not yet been brought to any common level of acceptance, so that the wires powering the device were left dangerously bare.
– fig. 1, the electromechanical
– fig. 2, the interface to the steam-powered, coal-fired
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