This “Wrist Ice Box” from a 1934 issue of Popular Science isn’t as goofy as it may first seem. Noah Shachtman reported in March about a similar project being developed by a Stanford biologist today that uses the same technique to chill soldiers and athletes. (It doesn’t use a lump of dry ice, however.)
From Noah’s article in Wired:
Grahn takes my hand and slips it into a clear, coffeepot-looking contraption he calls the Glove. Inside is a hemisphere of metal, cool to the touch. He tightens a seal around my wrist; a vacuum begins pulling blood to the surface of my hand, and the cold metal chills my blood before it travels through my veins back to my core. After five minutes, I feel rejuvenated. Never mind the hangover. Never mind Bon Jovi. I keep going for another half hour.
ICEBOX ON WRIST TO COOL THE WHOLE BODY (Sep, 1934) [ModernMechanix.com]
Pfft.
We have wrist ice boxes HALF that size now.
Dry ice!! I hope they had some insulation between it and your wrist; frostbite sucks.
Cute, though.