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Everyday things that no one would recognize today |
A recurrent Science Fiction theme is a man from the past coming to the present, where he’s totally baffled by our modern technology and its products. We tend to forget that this would work both ways… |
Look at the glass object to the right: any idea what it is? It is, in fact, a cup; that is, a glass vessel used for the ancient alternative medicine practice of Cupping. These would be placed over or around a flame to heat the air inside, then applied to the patient’s back where the partial vacuum created by the cooling air would suck at the skin to improve blood flow (and if you nicked the skin, you could get some bloodletting action to boot). In years past, this was a well known part of the arsenal of medicine in many countries, and anyone would recognize it… in fact, in my native Hebrew this practice survives in the old expression |
“beneficial like cups for a dead man”, used to denote utter uselessness. But the point I want to make is, today this is definitely not well known; apart from some adherents of Chinese medicine, no one would recognize this once common device. There are many other such objects to be found if you only look around in attics, bottom drawers and antique stores: items whose function no young person alive today would even be able to guess, though their grandparents still might. Here are a few more: [Click any photo to see a larger version] |
And lastly, next on the endangered list… Yes, a Typewriter. I was enjoying the Office equipment museum of Tom Russo in Wilmington, with its room after room of typewriters spanning a century only recently gone, and was amazed to learn that visiting groups of schoolchildren do express bewilderment at the function of this device! |
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