1911 Knowledge

Los Angeles Herald, January 1, 1911, page 9.

A topic that I am interested in exploring for this year is the state of technological and scientific knowledge. As noted in my previous post about the deadly airplane crashes that made the front page of every newspaper on the first day of the year, this was a period of numerous notable advances in technology and science. What I especially appreciate about this idea is that it deflates the notion that we are only now living in some period of “unprecedented” advances in knowledge and this can thus make the past more relatable (which is a very major intention of mine with this project). Yes, so-called “artificial intelligence” and mRNA vaccines and the Artemis II are remarkable, unprecedented achievements, but it’s helpful to have some relative perspective on the excitement and leaps we are experiencing by imagining those same sentiments more than a century earlier.

Even some of the more outlandish or hilariously wrong assertions of knowledge in 1911 have their counterparts in 2026. Take, for example, these two sources from the first week of the year:

MEN! Try San Francisco-based Electro-Thermo Dilators, “Nature’s Home Cure for Constipation, Piles, Hemorrhoids, Insomnia, Nervous Debility, Sexual and Prostatic Troubles.” This amazing device, which you insert in your anus, combines “electricity and dilation” for a guaranteed to the aforesaid afflictions. According to one source, “Rectal dilators were popular in the early 20th century, and were sold as a home device to treat any number of medical and neurological complaints, the theory being that the use of this product stimulated nerve pathways that controlled metabolic functions in various organ systems.”[1] Of course, little compares the absurdity of current “wellness influencers” and, even grotesquely worse, the current state of health advice coming from U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Sacramento Union, January 2, 1911, page 1.

VENUS INHABITED SAYS PROFESSOR. This one baffles me a little bit because I had thought the state of telescope technology and astronomy knowledge was too advanced to have found this article. “That there is life on the planet Venus is being generally accepted by the scientific world, according to Prof. T. J. J. See, director of the United States naval observatory at Mare Island.” It is hardly more absurd of an assertion than humans will colonize Mars in the next several years.

[1] https://collectmedicalantiques.com/galleries/miscellaneous-theories