It's always an exercise in amusement to look at media from the past and think how gullible we were back then. Believing cigarettes made us look cool? Bless hindsight! Enter this article from the August 1931 issued of Modern Mechanics, showcasing a "beauty machine" that promises to keep a woman's figure in vogue without exercise — exercise, which had that unfortunate side effect of developing muscle mass on a lady's body! Reads the copy:

FASHION moguls have decreed that the boyish figure is passe, and that graceful curves are to be the coming mode. So, anticipating a need among the women, a far-sighted inventor has devised an instrument which literally rolls these curves into the body, getting rid of excess flesh without developing unsightly bundles of muscles, which exercising gave.

An important feature of the new device, however, is that developing these curves requires no work, for milady can become stylish in this new machine while reading a book, smoking a cigarette, or even gossiping. Hips, the chief point of attack, are reduced by means of rollers which massage the flesh, as illustrated in the accompanying photo.

Looking back, it's a wonder anybody could actually believe such a claim. Right?

Surprising, then, to find some 77 years later and buried somewhere in the 798 pages of September Vogue, the exact same ploy:

In a not-online article titled "Inch By Inch," Marina Rust "discovers an arm-toning, waist-cinching, thigh-whittling machine that promises miracles in minutes." Unable to copy/paste, we're not going to type the whole thing out for you, but Vogue's claim goes like this: There's a $50,000 machine called the SX-4000 Pro, originally created for multiple sclerosis treatment, that attaches electricity-fueled pads to your trouble regions and then shocks your muscles into contracting, which burns fat and increases muscle. (Today, it's acceptable for women to be toned.)

There's no photo of the machine, available at some NYC spas, but Rust insists it the "not painful, exactly" treatment zapped "an inch off my waist, and 1 1/2 inches off my hips." But then she stopped using the machine, didn't exercise, and lo and behold the weight came back! A magic device indeed.