What's going on here?

I couldn't vote - thinking too hard about it. If it's for migraines, someone dressed like a doctor would be doing it so they could charge for it. 

It's apparently important for the two ladies to see this, too. 

I would otherwise not have been surprised to find out that someone needing a mental reset would have something done to them that would be sensorily drastic.

I'm thinking he's custom fitting a helmet.

Jason

Some memes have always been inscrutable.

@John in NM,

>Some memes have always been inscrutable.

Bingo! I can't fool you guys.

In the 1800s, “vibration therapy” (sometimes called percussion or vibratory massage) was part of a wave of experimental treatments in neurology and general medicine. Physicians of that era often believed many ailments — including headaches, “nervous disorders,” hysteria, and melancholia — could be treated by mechanically stimulating the body.

Real vibration therapy in the 1800s used small hand-held or motorized devices, not blacksmith tools or anvils.

The photo is satirical or staged — likely meant to poke fun at contemporary “modern medicine” or to serve as dark humor about headache cures. Similar novelty photos circulated in the late 19th / early 20th century as postcards or jokes. So while vibration therapy was real, this image is parody — a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration of how “violent” some early medical treatments seemed.

In other words: we laugh at “weird internet memes” today, but humor has always had this surreal, confusing side — we’ve just lost the inside jokes that made old ones obvious at the time.

I would have voted for "Addiction treatment for pot-heads".