The Radio Disease Killer: William Hudgings And The RDK
Ken Raines
The Radio Disease Killer (photo from American Artifacts)
Some notes on the RDK
In 1926, The Golden Age printed a short article by William Hudgings that he was quitting his ERA medical practice to serve the Lord “unencumbered”:
FOR the information of readers of THE GOLDEN AGE who frequently write to me personally concerning the Abrams diagnosis and treatment, and about the electronic home treatment machine known as the RDK (“Radio Disease Killer”), I wish to explain that I have severed my relationship with the RDK Corporation of America and also with the Brooklyn Electronic Institute, in order to be entirely unencumbered in my service for the Lord and King…
(The Golden Age, November 17, 1926, p. 113.)
Hudgings was a director of the Peoples Pulpit Association, which was a Watchtower Society incorporation in New York that published such things as The Finished Mystery. (Proclaimers, p. 73) He was well known to “Bible Students” (now called Jehovah’s Witnesses) at the time. He had an electronic (E.R.A.) institute “a stone’s throw” from “Bethel” (Watchtower Society headquarters in Brooklyn, NY) according to Roy Goodrich. This apparently was the “Brooklyn Electronic Institute” mentioned by Hudgings above.
Hudgings was also called a “Physicist and Popular Scientific Writer” on the back cover of a pro-ERA booklet, The Abrams Way. I found a copy of this booklet in a copy of Albert Abrams’ book, New Concepts in Diagnosis and Treatment printed in 1924 by New Century. The Abrams Way booklet does not list an author. The only ads (also on the back cover) listed Hudgings’ two books, Dr. Abrams and the Electron Theory (on the ERA) and Introduction to Einstein and Relativity which were also offered by New Century. The Dr. Abrams booklet by Hudgings appears to be a combining of his The How and Why of Electronic Healing, parts 1 & 2 into one booklet with some changes. The text is very similar in both.
I have a copy of Hudgings’s Introduction to Einstein book by the title, Introduction to Einstein and Universal Relativity put out by Arrow Book Company of New York in 1922. New Century apparently obtained the rights to publish both of Hudgings’ books. I don’t know what further connections this company had to Hudgings. The Relativity book was printed by Hammond Press, W.B. Conkey Company which also printed Angels and Women for AB ABAC Company and Studies in the Scriptures for the Watchtower Society.
I don’t have any information on the RDK (Radio Disease Killer) or who invented it. It is apparently another E.R.A. machine like the Biola. It was apparently, like the Biola, invented by a Bible Student. My bet is on Hudgings since he used it and had a physics background. The fact that many Golden Age readers wrote to Hudgings about the RDK suggests that either The Golden Age had mentioned the RDK before or Jehovah’s Witnesses heard about it through the grape vine. So much so that The Golden Age felt it necessary to print the above by Hudgings. Perhaps The Golden Age mentioned the RDK in a previous issue, but I have not found it yet. At the moment I have scanned through each Golden Age issue through 1925 and taken notes, but haven’t found anything mentioning it.
Internet Resources on the RDK:
William Hudgings’ booklet on Abrams, Dr. Abrams and the Electron Theory is posted on the web at the Sypathetic Vibratory Physics web site.
American Artifacts, a company that sells antique medical and scientific instruments, has put up a couple articles by Richard Van Vleck (I believe) on Albert Abrams and the ERA and one on the RDK (with photos).
The Quackatorium website also has a good article on the RDK.
Radio Disease Killer Wayback machine article on the RDK. Don’t know who this was by.
A Radionics Bestiary, Part 1 Contains photos of Abrams’ ERA devices such as the oscillolclast and dynamizer.
I have a copy of Hudgings’ booklet, The How and Why of Electronic Healing, Part 1 published in 1923 by New Century. I haven’t seen Part 2, but the contents seems the same as his Dr. Abrams and the Electron Theory.
That’s all the info I have been able to track down on the RDK.
……….
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