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Abstract:
Charles A. Tyrrell was a masseur who obtained his MD degree at age 57 in 1900. In addition to his private practice he was editor of several pseudomedical magazines. He also owned two proprietary ventures that he conducted on a mail order basis. One of these involved production and sale of the The Ideal Sight Restorer, a U-shaped device consisting of a rubber bulb at the base, from which on both sides arose an arm of rubber tubing capped by an ivory eye piece. The eye cups were applied to the closed eyelids and the intermittent suction produced by squeezing the rubber bulb was claimed to provide a form of ocular massage capable of curing serious eye diseases (eg. cataract and glaucoma), as well as doing away with the need for spectacles. Although his fraudulent activities and deceptive advertising practices were described on several occasions in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Tyrrell persisted in his enterprises until he died in 1918.