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"...if you want to know what your future looks like, don't waste your time on Analog; read Time magazine. We are already saturated in the future. "
- Peter Watts

Vitalizer  
  Do you lack energy? This fixes your problem. Be careful.  

An ad caught Oona's eyes.

It ran: Do they call you LAZY? Do you lack energy, ouff, push? Henderson's Vitalizer was made for you. It floods the cells with radiant energy from the sub-molecular cosmic fountains. Not a chemical, not a drug. Harmless. Permanent. Cumulative. Recommended by Consumers' Institute. Ask to see it at your stereo dealer's.

HE stopped in at the stereo dealer's on her way back from mart.

"Henderson's Vitalizer?" he said. "Sure. We sell a lot of them."

He reached under the counter and brought up a small, square, silvery box. Its edges had a peculiar wavy, elusive quality. Oona's eyes had trouble in making them stay still.

"The Henderson people have done a sweet engineering job on this model," he said. "All the power and special features of the cabinet size, and it weighs less than a kilo."

"How does it work?"

"It taps the sub-molecular quanta of energy on the cosmic level and relays them directly to the nerve cells."

During the ride home, she studied the instruction booklet. All you had to do was to press the stud on the side-the Vitalizer was completely self-powered-and stand in front of the orifice from which, according to the booklet, the marvelous flood of truly cosmic energy was pouring forth. You shut it off when you were done.

Technovelgy from The Soma Racks, by Margaret St. Clair.
Published by Startling Stories in 1947
Additional resources -

What could possibly go wrong? Of course, Oona left it on for too long.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Soma Racks
  More Ideas and Technology by Margaret St. Clair
  Tech news articles related to The Soma Racks
  Tech news articles related to works by Margaret St. Clair

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