Are historical products like eyeball massagers, spring shoes, and learning robots legitimate innovations or just clever scams?

Through systematic testing and investigation, these bizarre products from the past century reveal a mixed bag of innovation and deception. The Nuvita oculizer, marketed during the Great Depression as an eyeball massaging tool, has been debunked by medical professionals as ineffective despite its creative suction-based design. Similarly, many of these historical gadgets capitalized on people's hopes and financial desperation, promising miraculous results through questionable science. While some products may have contained kernels of legitimate innovation, most were ultimately clever marketing schemes that preyed on consumer vulnerability rather than delivering genuine solutions.