The Reactionary Lifter was sold by the Health-Lift Company of New York as a muscle exercise and strength-building device, suitable for men and women. A testimonial letter by Holmes appears in this marketing brochure: “My three months’ experience of the Health Lift has been entirely satisfactory. It furnishes a concentrated form of exercise which I have found salutary, agreeable and exhilarating. It calls the blood into the muscles and leaves them ready for further action, so that I have found myself more disposed to take a long walk after four or five lifts than before. I may add that the particular apparatus used at your rooms, ‘The Reactionary Lifter,’ is a most ingenious, convenient, compact and serviceable arrangement, by which the lifter’s own weight is made to do service, and by an easy and simple adjustment of leverage, to furnish a resistance to be overcome, all the way from 20 to 1000 pounds and more.” Advertising brochure for the Reactionary Lifter exercise machine, in which there is a testimonial letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
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