Amulet, a circular electric plaque, comprised of concentric bands of different types of metal, with a cross in the centre and an inscription. [RB 04/04/2012]

Collection type: Object
Description: Amulet, a circular electric plaque, comprised of concentric bands of different types of metal, with a cross in the centre and an inscription. [RB 04/04/2012]
Long description: Amulet, a circular electric plaque, comprised of concentric bands of different types of metal, with a cross in the centre and an inscription. The inscription reads: 'BTE S.G.D.G [breveté Sans Garantie Du Gouvernement ?] & DEPOSE FERD. DE BOYÈRES'. The combination of different metals was intended to produce an electric current. [RB 04/04/2012]
Geographical reference: France
Europe > Western Europe > France
Person: Field collector Unknown Collector; PRM source Wellcome Institute; PRM source Wellcome Historical Medical Museum
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1931
Date collected: By 1931
Acquisition information: Transferred: 1985
Materials and processes: Material Iron Metal, Material Copper Metal, Material Zinc Metal, Material Brass Metal, Process Inscribed, Process Incised, Process Cast
Dimensions: Diameter: max 41 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1985.52.777 Other numbers: 1494 A 665674 R 14328/ 1936
Associated publications: This amulet was selected for the Small Blessings project website [http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/amulets], online text as follows: This circular galvanic battery is composed of concentric bands of different types of metal, with a cross in the centre. The inscription ʻBTE S.G.D.Gʼ stands for Breveté Sans Garantie Du Gouvernement (ʻpatented without government guaranteeʼ), while ʻFERD. DE BOYÈRESʼ refers to Ferdinand de Boyères, the inventor of the device. Galvanic batteries (known as médailles électriques in French), were marketed in France, England and America in the late 19th century, when electricity was still a novelty and medical quackery was rife. In London, J.C. Boyd claimed that his battery could cure nearly all diseases, and in New York A.M. Richardson urged men, women and children to wear the device. In France, galvanic batteries could be purchased from Ferdinand de Boyères for the price of 5 Francs. According to these inventors, the battery should be worn on a cord around the neck so as to allow the device to hang on the chest, next to the skin. The combination of different metals (usually copper, brass and nickel) in contact with the natural humidity of the skin was said to produce a beneficial electric current that would purify the blood and safely cure any number of conditions, including headaches, rheumatism and toothache. [CB 29/08/2012] Illustrated in colour in the pamphlet accompanying the Reading Room displays at the Welcome Collection with the caption “Galvanic battery Metals France RRa0149/1985.52.777 Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Collector Walter Hildburgh described how shaping his electromagnetic amulet into a cross gave it ‘an atmosphere of piety’.” Illustrated in colour on page 205 in ‘Reading Room Companion consisting of a rare and valuable collection of diverse curiosities acquired by and for Henry Wellcome with a great variety of books’ Written and compiled by Anna Faherty published in 2014 by the Wellcome collection, alongside 1985.50.1215 with the caption “Christian themes Galvanic battery France RRa0149/1985.52.777 Pitt Rivers Museum By shaping this electromagnetic amulet into a cross, it has been given what Hildburgh described as ‘an atmosphere of piety’. Writing in 1955, Hildburgh reported that the church in Spain had deliberately tried to ‘wean the persons in their care from the use of secular amulets’, with the intention of attributing amulets’ preservative or curative virtues to small crosses instead. ‘…amulets, through fundamentally magical, tend to take religion as an aid and ally, just as the converse is often true: and wherever amulets are made with the help of the graphic and plastic arts, they are likely to invoke, by their design and inscriptions, the support of local divinities, and to absorb into themselves local religious ideas…’ Campbell Bonner, an American scholar of Greek, writing in the Harvard Theological Review, 1946.”

Search terms: Religion, Writing, Ornament, Medicine, Amulet, Inscription, Plaque, Medical Accessory