Would you believe it?

I do enjoy Victorian adverts. I like the artwork and very formal English. I also like the sense of excitement an progress that the adverts are saturated with. They exude confidence by the bucket load. I have chosen some which I'd like to talk about.

The top illustration is for an American device called The Lambert Snyder Health Vibrator. If the advert is to be believed rather than deplored, the Lambert Snyder could cure a wide variety of conditions including rheumatism, indigestion, deafness and pain. A modern miracle! I wonder why it is no longer manufactured.

The second advert is for Wilsonia Magnetic Corsets. The advert claims that the garment is recommended by physicians (but doesn't day which physicians). It also claims therapeutic benefits to the wearer, for such conditions as nervousness, indigestion and paralysis. Another miracle of the modern age! Far from it. In the real world, corsets distorted the wearer's insides quite grotesquely. They were also a means of subjugating women through lack of mobility.

Do you have a weight problem? Then look no further than the bottom advert. It's simple; you don't have to bathe, you don't have to exercise, you don't even have to diet. Unbelievable! No it must be true, because the advert says so. All you have to do is swallow a handful of medicinal tapeworm (or probably their eggs). YUGH!!! So with this particular natural marvel it was possible to continue overeating, and refrain from both exercise and bathing, whilst maintaining the perfect hourglass figure. I can't see anything about anaemia or malnourishment as a result of ingesting these parasites. I expect it must be somewhere in the small print.

Now for a really useful invention. The third illustration shows The "Demon" Hill Climber, a penny-farthing tricycle. Again wild claims are made for it; it is 'generally accepted to be the best form of tricycle' (handy, you don't have to say by whom). There is also a testimonial by the Vice President of Midland Union of Scientific and Natural History Societies. Who's he? Is he a professor of something, or just a lay person? Did he work for the manufacturer, or was he paid for the testimonial? The picture of a well-dressed gentleman climbing a staircase on the contraption is hilarious.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.