US Patent 202094, year 1878: a cane with an embedded battery capable of projecting a current to the hand. Merely, you know, for health reasons. Like a magnetic bracelet.
Of course, if you wish...
Quote:
My improved cane is made with a head as large as is allowable for convenient use as a cane, the thick part extending down a little way on the body of the cane. I make this, by the introduction of proper parts, a dry battery, with the negative pole in the center of the top, and the positive pole connected to the rim. ...
Modifications may be made7 especially by increasing or diminishing the number of the plates. This construction makes the battery peculiarly efficient within the limited space available, and allows it to be very: easily taken apart and cleaned, or otherwise attended to....
The cane A may be the rod of an umbrella or parasol, or handle of any portable tool or Weapon, as a policemans club or the like, if desired. ...
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I'm sure there is
no circumstance under which a gentleman or an honorable policeman might find himself in need of a cane or club which can surreptitiously, by means of a peculiarly efficient battery, be engaged as a device to deliver a sudden, perhaps dangerously incapacitating electric current.