Spherical Sanitarium: What can a 900 ton steel sphere teach us about bad medicine

In 1928, the residents of Cleveland, Ohio watched in wonder as a unique structure was erected along the shores of Lake Erie. Over months a huge steel ball took shape, some 64 feet in diameter containing five stories. When it was completed it held 38 rooms, 350 portholes to provide natural light, an elevator, and an ornate recreation room replete with crystal chandeliers. This strange spherical building was the first - and only - of its kind in the world: a hospital pressurized to 60 PSI that promised a panacea for its patients, able to cure a broad range of ailments ranging from diabetes to pernicious anemia to cancer. This was Dr. Orval Cunningham's Sanatorium, or “Timken's Tank,” after its benefactor, the “Baron of bearings” tycoon Henry H. Timken who bankrolled the $1,000,000 to build it. This unusual sphere was both an early hyperbaric hospital and a 900 ton monument to the dangers of unscientific medicine.