The P.I.S.O.R. patent repository is a collection of unusual, archaic and truly bizarre patents. In combing through these patents, The Institute has been amazed by the combination of meticulous legal language and detailed (and often beautiful) patent diagrams. Language like “to prevent cannibalism and related vices” from an anti-pecking device for chickens is, to the Institute, a public poetry of the highest order. Images link back to the original patent for further reading and exploration.
“There is reason to believe that the impeding of the flow of the venous blood from the scalp caused by the tight sweat bands now in general use produces many of the headaches which afflict the male sex, and also that various other ailments of the head are caused by poisoning from the retarded venous blood. It, therefore, follows that men provided with hats constructed according to the principles of this invention will not be likely to suffer from these abnormal conditions.”
‘Another object of our invention is to produce a scalp-massage device which will be in the form of a spherical or spheroidal segment and so shaped and proportioned in relation to the human cranium that the latter will guide the movement of the same
backwardly and forwardly in an arcuate path and such movement will cause the simultaneous massaging of the skin covering the frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital portions of the cranium without contact with the ears of the ” person massaged.”‘
