In both passages, Victor Lustig and Dr. Albert Abrams were able to deceive people for many years through a combination of cunning, manipulation, and exploiting the gullibility of their targets. Let's explore the main topics in each passage and how these individuals were able to carry out their fraudulent activities.
In the case of Victor Lustig, he utilized various techniques to deceive people and amass financial gain. In the first passage, Lustig took advantage of the dilemma regarding the Eiffel Tower in 1925. He pretended to be the Deputy Director General of the Ministère des Postes et Télégraphes and sent bid requests to scrap metal dealers. Lustig offered them the opportunity to destroy the tower and obtain 7,000 tons of metal. By impersonating a high-ranking official and playing on the dealers' desire for profit, Lustig was able to convince one dealer to pay him a $20,000 bribe and an additional $50,000 to secure the contract. Once he received the money, Lustig disappeared, leaving the dealer empty-handed.
Continuing his fraudulent activities, Lustig later sold a Rumanian money box in the following year. He convinced customers that the handcrafted mahogany box had the power to duplicate money. Lustig would insert a $100 bill and a piece of paper into the box, manipulate levers, and after six hours, turn a crank. Miraculously, a second $100 bill would supposedly emerge from the box. Eager to benefit from this seemingly magical device, customers paid between $10,000 to $30,000 for it. However, in reality, the box was merely a cleverly designed contraption that employed sleight of hand and deception.
Lustig's greed ultimately led to his downfall when he began a counterfeiting operation in the United States. Distributing over $100,000 in counterfeit bills per month, he attracted the attention of the Secret Service. His previous swindling of a Texas sheriff with the Rumanian money box provided authorities with a description of Lustig, which aided their investigation. In 1935, he was captured in New York City, and counterfeit bills and printing plates were found in his subway station locker.
Despite being captured and held in a cell, Lustig managed to escape by cutting the bars of his window and using bed sheets to create a rope. Pretending to be a window washer, he climbed down the rope. However, his freedom was short-lived, as he was captured a month later in Pittsburgh and sentenced to 20 years in Alcatraz.
In the case of Dr. Albert Abrams, his fraudulent activities revolved around his supposed invention, the oscilloclast, and the concept of radionics. Abrams claimed that the oscilloclast could diagnose and treat diseases by detecting and matching their vibratory rates. However, his claims were met with skepticism and criticism from the medical community.
One piece of evidence highlighting Abrams' involvement in quack medicine is his book titled "New Concepts in Diagnosis and Treatment," published in 1916. The text describes Abrams' enthusiastic foray into quackery, indicating that his ideas and methods lacked scientific grounding.
Another example of Abrams' deceptive practices was his method of diagnosing diseases using the oscilloclast device. According to the passage, a drop of blood, saliva, or a strand of hair was placed on electrodes, while another electrode was attached to the forehead of a healthy person acting as a proxy. The proxy would stand on a rubber mat, facing west. By tapping the proxy's stomach, Abrams would claim to detect certain tones that allowed him to diagnose the medical condition of the blood donor. Abrams even went as far as stating that his technique could reveal a person's religion, a highly improbable claim.
Despite skepticism, the oscilloclast device gained popularity, with over 3,000 medical experts leasing it by 1923. However, physicians refuted the technique, as demonstrated by an article in The Lancet from January 26, 1924. The article described experiments where doctors sent blood samples to radionics experts, leading to reports of various human diseases being identified. However, doubts arose when it was discovered that some of the blood samples came from animals like guinea pigs and roosters, casting doubt on the accuracy of the diagnoses.
The lack of scientific credibility attributed to Abrams' invention is further highlighted by a quote from Robert A. Millikan, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Millikan referred to the oscilloclast as a contraption that could have been assembled by a ten-year-old boy to mystify an eight-year-old with little knowledge about electricity.
Even the Scientific American published a series of reports between 1923 and 1924, concluding that Abrams' radionics technique did not deserve serious attention. Austin C. Lescarboura, a member of the magazine's Abrams Investigation Committee, stated that at best, it was an illusion, and at worst, a colossal fraud.
Despite the skepticism and criticism, Abrams died as a millionaire in January 1924, leaving behind a will that directed millions of dollars to the Electronic Medical Foundation for the continuation of radionics. This indicates that his medical practices, although discredited, achieved significant financial success.
In summary, both Victor Lustig and Dr. Albert Abrams were able to deceive people for many years through their respective fraudulent activities. Lustig utilized various schemes, posing as a high-ranking official and employing ingenious devices to trick his victims. Abrams, on the other hand, propagated false medical claims with his oscilloclast device and the concept of radionics, taking advantage of people's desire for alternative and unconventional remedies. Despite facing skepticism and opposition from experts, both individuals managed to amass wealth before eventually being caught and held accountable for their deceitful actions.
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