electrotherapy machine

Electrotherapy apparatus, cased, owned by radiologist Russell John Reynolds (1880-1964), unknown maker

This device belonged to Russell Reynolds, an internationally renowned radiologist and specialist in the field of cineradiography (moving image X-ray films). While still at school, he – with the assistance of his GP father and physicist Sir William Crookes – constructed a fully functioning X-ray machine just months after German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen first described the ‘new type of ray’ in late 1895.

Qualifying as a doctor in 1907, Reynolds spent two years in general practice with his father before becoming a full-time radiologist. During World War I, he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in British military hospitals and, from 1917-1919, as electrical specialist to the Karachi Brigade in India.

Radiology and electrotherapy often occupied shared departments in late nineteenth and early twentieth century hospitals, and its possible this apparatus was used for electrodiagnosis of nerve injuries.