Albert Abrams (December 8, 1863 – January 13, 1924) was a fraudulent American physician, well known during his life for inventing machines, such as the "Oscilloclast" and the "Radioclast", which he falsely claimed could diagnose and cure almost any disease.

Inferior", by comparing their looks to typhoid and other germs, and by making fun of various abstruse therapies that at the time were considered "scientific" by the medical establishment.

The basic principle is the stimulation of nerves originating from the spinal cord, which can trigger reflex actions on viscera or inner organs.

The stimulation is performed by controlled concussion with a plexor / pleximeter combination directly on the spinous processes, by sinusoidal electric currents or by application of ice.

The Dynomizer looked something like a radio, and Abrams claimed it could diagnose any known disease from a single drop of blood or alternatively the subject's handwriting.

The Dynomizer was big business; by 1918, courses in spondylotherapy and ERA cost $200 (about the same purchasing power as $3,150 in 2014); equipment was leased at about $200 with a monthly $5 charge thereafter.

Dynomizer operators tended to give alarming diagnoses, involving combinations of such maladies as cancer, diabetes and syphilis.

[18] When people opened Abrams's boxes, they found "simple wiring, a few resistors, a small motor that only made a humming noise, and nothing that could in any way perform a diagnosis or 'broadcast' or even produce radio waves.

Defenders included American radical author Upton Sinclair[21] and the famously credulous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Scientific American was interested in the matter as readers were writing letters to the editor saying that Abrams' revolutionary machines were one of the greatest inventions of the century and so needed to be discussed in the pages of the magazine.

It seems likely that Doctor X honestly believed in his Abrams machines; in fact, he allowed the Scientific American investigators to observe his procedure.

[24] An AMA member sent a blood sample to an Abrams practitioner, and got back a diagnosis that the patient had malaria, diabetes, cancer and syphilis.

In a case in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Abrams was called to be a witness, but he died of pneumonia at age 60 shortly before the trial began in January 1924.

[27] Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe claimed that Abrams' devices had no scientific validity but his successors had "founded a good many special clinics in the United States and their number has by no means diminished in the ensuing years.