Word: spike
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...early 20s, Nelson started packaging a pinch of vrilium inside an ordinary two-inch-long brass cylinder. Popularly called "The Magic Spike," the cartridge was sold to people suffering from a variety of painful diseases. Nelson was always happy to explain how it worked: when the cylinder was attached to the lapel (or hung around the neck), there were "emanations" into the atmosphere for a distance of 20 feet, discouraging all sorts of disease germs. Meanwhile, the vrilium was supposed to "emanate" inward, restoring the buyer's sick body cells to normal...
...Markup. So many ailing people in & around Chicago flocked to buy that in 1944 the Vrilium Products Co. was formed to manufacture and sell more Magic Spikes. Former Mayor Ed Kelly wore one to the 1948 Democratic National Convention, and credited the healing of a bone abscess to its power. Other wearers included Municipal Court Bailiff Al Horan and Illinois State Senator William J. Connors. Exact sales figures on the Magic Spike are unknown. Osteopath Raymond Kistler of Wyandotte, Mich, admitted that he bought 150 at around $150 apiece, resold them...
Sometimes their clatterbang treatment sounds a little like Spike Jones. But it doesn't worry the Firehousers. The band is still a hobby. Says Kimball: "If we turned pro it might cease to be fun and the band might not have that good-time sound anymore...
Admiral William ("Spike") Blandy, a top candidate for Chief of Naval Operations until Admiral Forrest Sherman was tapped for the job last fall, retired from the Navy after 40 years of service, and took on a civilian job: president of the newborn Health Information Foundation, a nonprofit medical news and research service supported by the drug and medical supply industries...