THE SHORT WAVE OSCILLOCLAST
 Putting the Radio in Radionics


Item #18: The Portable Short Wave Oscilloclast: Manufactured by the Electronic Medical Foundation, San Francisco, c. 1950; Brown leatherette covered wood box 16" x 12" x 8"; Two 'Depolarizer' chrome electrodes with extension wires; Excellent condition.

Dr. Abram's left money in his will to found the "College of Electronic Medicine" in San Francisco to carry on his work. The College later changed its name to the "Electronic Medical Foundation". Remnants of the organization survive as the "National Health Federation", a lobbying organization for "alternative medicine." If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

According to its instruction booklet the device produces a very low power signal of around 40MHz. What this signal has to do with Abram's original methods - that all had to do with resistance - can only be left to the imagination. One can be sure, though, that Dr. Abram's original black boxes would have not have impressed anyone in 1950. The floor model of this machine had an oscilloscope that displayed patterns from the "Twilight Zone" to further impress the gullible.

$250 SOLD Other unit available - please email

The 10 pushbuttons across the top allegedly set the frequency broadcast by the oscilloclast. When compared to the ranks of dials available for diagnosis the writer of the instruction booklet felt it necessary to explain away the paucity of treatment options and promise that a tuning device with many more knobs was under development.

The timer turned the unit off after the treatment time was over, lest the patient relieve an overdose of Radionic nothingness. When giving a placebo treatment it is necessary to stress the power of the medicine the patient is about to receive.

The interior view, showing the two tube oscillator. This is an early model, as later Oscilloclasts were provided with multiple fuses to keep the poorly designed circuitry from catching fire.

In use.

There are only so many different things one can do with a box and a couple of paddles - luckily cancer and bad milk both respond well to such similar treatment. Notice how the optimum treatment is always in convenient hourly intervals.

For those who like to peruse such things, here is the schematic. The designer didn't even bother to provide a proper plate supply, the tubes just had to do as well as they could on the positive cycle of the AC power. According the to the description in the March 1948 issue of the Electrical Medical Digest the first oscillator works at 1.5Hz - a trick as power is only on for 8 mSec at a time - and the second at 43MHz.