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leehite.org, 2026-10-04 (Investigator, Step I, run 1)

Site: https://leehite.org (Chrome). Found via Google: Hite "Hieronymus Hoax" Pathoclast pdf. The PDF would not render as text in Chrome's viewer; the WebFetch fallback retrieved it (the tool cached a copy in the session's tool-results folder, not in research/files). Document read in full from its text layer; pp.33-41 (appendix "Random Notes") are images and were OCR'd.

Document: Leland L. Hite (K8CLI, retired electronics engineer), "The Hieronymus Hoax: Radionics, the Miraculous Pathoclast, and Deception", August 2014, revised 28 July 2020, 43 pp. URL: https://leehite.org/documents/The%20Hieronymus%20Hoax.pdf (9.6 MB). Cited by Wikipedia as note 1. Not downloaded to research/files (owner approval needed).

Stake: Hite is an independent critic (no commercial stake stated). His conclusions are his characterization. He calls the device examined a "Pathoclast" and links it to the patent; note that the instrument he tested is a Pathometric Laboratories Pathoclast Model 1X-C (a two-dial medical "rate" instrument with a stick-plate), not the prism-type element analyzer of US 2,482,773. He also calls the patent "the Pathoclast" patent, which the patent text does not support.

What he did (priority 2/4: an independent test, negative)

  • Prompted by a February 1979 Ham Radio Horizons article on the Hieronymus machine (editor Jim Gray, W1XU), he took up the question in 1995.
  • Borrowed a working Pathoclast Model 1X-C (desk console, 44 x 46.5 x 22 in.) from owners whose doctor relative had used it; traced the full schematic (appendix).
  • Two weeks with no stick sensation; in the third week he felt "stickiness" on the stick-plate at certain dial settings while analysing fingernail clippings. He says it felt like the vibration from touching 60 Hz AC.
  • Moving his feet or arm shifted the dial setting, e.g. from rate 29:68 (mumps, inner ear) to 24:72 (right-kidney ulceration). He found no correlation of the setting with the patient or sample.
  • With a pickup coil and a Tektronix oscilloscope near the plate he found an RF signal in the lower HF band, pulsed at 60 Hz.
  • Circuit: three-stage, untuned, 1:1 bifilar transformer-coupled amplifier with 24-A tetrodes; raw 60 Hz AC on the plates; long unshielded grid leads that, in his analysis, give in-phase feedback so the amplifier oscillates at certain dial settings; output connected directly to the plate; treatment mode puts up to 22 VAC (via pot R5) on the patient; an RF choke (L5) in the treatment line, which he reads as evidence the builder knew RF was present.
  • His conclusion: the stick sensation is the touch of 60 Hz-pulsed RF on a painted plate when the amplifier oscillates, and the treatment tingle is low-voltage AC; he calls it a "brilliant hoax". He also states, without a source in the text, that Hieronymus admitted wording the patent so it could not be used to build a working device.

Biographical and historical data he gives (priority 4)

  • Born 21 Nov 1895, Valparaiso, Indiana; father James F. Hieronymus, mother Louisa Matilda Stayton. Early licensed wireless operator; 117th Field Signal Battalion, Rainbow (42nd) Division, AEF, WWI; later officer candidate school. KDKA at age ~25. ~30 years at Kansas City Power & Light; represented KCP&L on a cathodic-protection subcommittee (he writes "IEEE", 1951-52; the body then would have been AIEE). Says Hieronymus was a senior member of the IRE and a fellow of AIEE/IEEE (not verified; a Google hit shows an AIEE membership listing "Hieronymus, T. G., pres., Radiation Laboratories, Inc., Kansas City, Mo.", https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6413714/6434038/06434067.pdf, blocked to WebFetch with HTTP 418).
  • Hite thinks the "Dr." was an honorary PhD and could not confirm an engineering degree.
  • Sales: about 200 desktop medical units at $1,500, about 10 optical substance-analysis units, 12+ consoles at $2,000. Some built by a company he calls "Radionics Incorporated"; Pathometric Laboratories (G. W. Will[s], president) built models 1X-C, 1X-P, 1X-T.
  • Advanced Sciences Research and Development Corporation registered in Florida and Georgia (he says 1975; Florida's registry shows 1967, see 2026-10-04-sunbiz.md), 436 East Broad Street, Sparta, Georgia; dissolved 1997 (Florida: admin dissolution 23 Aug 1996).
  • US patent expiry given as 29 Sept 1966; British patent "approved 2 January 1952" (Google Patents shows GB 663,978 published 2 Jan 1951; one of the two dates is wrong).

Appendix: "Random Notes, Tech Data from Conversations with T. G. Hieronymus", 1 September 1972 (priority 1: inventor's statements as recorded by an unnamed builder)

OCR of pp.33-34 (scanned typescript; author not named on the pages read). Points attributed to "T.G.H.": - He began building instruments actively in the 1930s; about 200 small and about 12 console instruments (~$2,000) with 6 x 10 in. reaction plates. - The instrument "positively" will not work with RC coupling or RF-choke-plus-capacitor coupling; coupling must be shielded air-core coils; an odd number of amplifier stages is essential (each inverts phase; the 180-degree output is said to neutralise the condition). - He uses raw AC on the plates, not rectified DC, saying the pulsed carrier carries the energy better (the note-writer wonders about superregeneration or slope amplification). - "Anomaly": with power disconnected, diagnosis on the stick plate works just as well; power is needed for "broadcast" (treatment). Shape/relationships of the parts and operator mental intent are said to be essential. - Light, magnetic lines and some conductors carry the energy and short it; black Bakelite is the best insulator found; Plexiglas conducts/transmits it; a black (opaque) Plexiglas prism refracted the energy just as clear glass did. - The "intensity" dial is a variable resistance between the tuning bank and ground; the amount of resistance is an index of intensity (compare patent claim 4/6, unit 40). Calibration drifted over the decades (normal tissue once ~15-20 on a 40 scale, later nearer 100), and the operator mentally adds a factor. - Reaction plate must be washed; floor wax "poisoned" it.

Bearing on the claims

  • Claim 5 (touch detector): Hite offers a conventional mechanism for the "drag" (RF/60 Hz electro-tactile sensation on a coated plate driven by an oscillating amplifier). The inventor's own 1972 notes and Campbell's 1956 report both say diagnosis works with power disconnected, which does not fit Hite's mechanism for that mode and also does not fit the patent's electrical model. Both stay in the record for the reviewers.
  • Claim 4 (resistance = quantity): the 1972 notes describe the same resistance-to-ground intensity method and its calibration drift.
  • Claim 2 (conduction/insulation by materials): the 1972 notes list the inventor's material rules (Bakelite insulates, Plexiglas transmits, light shorts).
  • Historical record: the device Hite tested is a related medical instrument, not the patented analyzer; no independent test of the prism analyzer itself has been found yet.