McCoy, 2000  Title: The Tricho System
Author: McCoy, Bob
Publisher: Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
Online
Note: available online at the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices)
The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
201 Main St. S.E., Minneapolis, Minnesota
612-379-4046 (museum) 763-545-1113 (office) 763-540-9999 (fax)
Hours: Tues-Thurs: 5-9 PM, Fri - Sat: Noon-9:00 PM, Sun: Noon
to 5:00 PM
Admission Free
The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices maintains an online
collection of ephemera, including original promotional material
for The Tricho System, a popular x-ray depilatory system now banned
for causing cancer, disfigurement and death. I have excerpted
passages, but you should go there just to see the Pictures.
Some of the passages (especially the summary) read as if they
were taken from electric tweezer promotional literature today.
(bold passages - emphasis mine).
Background
"By 1925 there were over 75 installations of the Tricho
machines in beauty shops across the country including Minneapolis
and Duluth. These 'studios' used direct x-rays focused on th
cheek and upper lip of the woman who wanted to permanently remove
superfluous hair. Women had an average of 20 treatments each.
A single large dose or smaller doses repeated over long periods
of time could cause damage to tissues that were not noticeable
at the time but often came to light years after the administration
of the Roentgen rays. This injury often became manifest as pigmentation,
wrinkling atrophy, keratoses, ulcerations, carcinoma, and death.
In 1929, the AMA alerted its members to Tricho injuries and
collected dozens of case studies - most of the victims were
young women, ages 18-30. Reports of women injured by Tricho
treatments appeared in the medical journals into the 1940's."
Excerpts from Tricho Literature (circa 1920)
"All normal women desire to be beautiful, or at least
to attain the highest degree of beauty that can be achieved
by any practical means. Impelled by this desire, great
numbers of women have resorted to futile, dangerous and injurious
means of removing disfiguring superfluous hair. It
was the existence of such conditions that impelled Albert C.
Geyser, M.D., to devote his knowledge and ability to the perfecting
of a practically safe and thoroughly effective method of removing
superfluous hair hair. That he was entirely successful in this
is shown by the fact that in the course of the past six years,
in New York City alone, 20,000 areas of superfluous hair have
been cleared permanently, and without a single failure. Equal
success has been achieved in thousands of cases throughout the
country, by means of this Tricho System of Treatment."
ALBERT C. GEYSER, M.D.,
Medical Director of the Tricho System, Formerly Professor of
Physiological Therapy and Chief of Clinic at Fordham University;
Lecturer and Chief of Electro and Roentgenray Clinic at Cornell
College; Lecturer and Chief of the Electro and Radio Therapy
Clinic at the New York Polyclinic, Etc.
Everybody knows that success and happiness in life have been
denied to multitudes of otherwise lovely women through growths
of disfiguring hair, and that mental distress suffered in consequence
has served to break the health of many. It is generally
known, also, that various treatments with chemicals, wax, electricity
and other methods frequently have produced effects worse than
those they were intended to correct.
Many years ago the discovery was made that the X-ray would
destroy hair roots, preventing further growth. It was found,
however, that serious injury might be cause by S-ray treatment
for this purpose. Albert C. Geyser, M.D., internationally famous
X-ray expert and lecturer on radiology in various universities,
devoted himself to the perfecting of means to make the X-Ray
treatment as safe and harmless as it was effective, and in this
he was brilliantly successful. The Tricho System of Treatment
is the result. This dries up the hair roots in a manner similar
to that of gradually getting bald, instead of attempting their
sudden and violent destruction.
Tricho System Endorsed by the Medical Profession
The apparatus of the TRICHO SYSTEM and the technic of its operation
have been examined by many leading physicians, all of whom have
endorsed the method. The attitude of the medical profession
is well illustrated by the fact that Tricho treatments have
been given to the wives, daughters and sisters of physicians.
SUMMARY
- TRICHO SYSTEM removes superfluous hair permanently.
- No scars or other injury to the most delicate skin.
- No pain-no inconvenience. Treatments are void of any sensation
whatever.
- All treatments given by operators trained under personal
supervision of Albert C. Geyser, M.D.
- Treatments last but a few minutes.
- Endorsed by physicians and beauty experts.
- Treatments given not oftener than every two weeks.
- Scientific-safe-sure.
- Fifteen treatments sufficient in the great majority of cases.
- Permanent removal of superfluous hair guaranteed.
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hair removal
facts
for consumers
