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A startling image of a person who appears to be taking blows to the head has a caption that claims it is an old-school headache treatment. Headache treatments in 1890s known as vibration therapy, says the caption on the Feb. 19 post on Facebook. The photo shows a person kneeling, with their head inside a pot-shaped container positioned on top of an anvil. A man appears to be striking the container with a sledgehammer as two other people, who appear to be nurses, look on. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook .) Vibration therapy was a real headache treatment in the 1800s, according to a 2010 scholarly article in the journal Brain. But the therapy was vastly different from what is depicted in the photo. An 1883 book about vibration therapy describes it as using a brush which is applied very lightly on the scalp, and moved from below upwards and from before backwards, a few times in an orderly manner, according to the article. At that time, physicians knew that loud sounds could result in concussions, Stephen Casper, author of The Neurologists: A History of a Medical Specialty in Modern Britain, C.1789–2000, told Snopes . Doctors therefore would have understood that using a sledgehammer would cause headaches and not treat them, Casper said. The image used in the post has circulated widely and was even used for an album cover by a heavy metal band. We rate the claim that this photo shows vibration therapy to treat headaches False.
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