Electrotherapy History

 Pain is the symptom which most often causes one to seek out medical care.

Acute pain is pain usually caused by a recent injury or illness, be it physical or psychosomatic. Typically, it helps to alert us when something is wrong. This type of pain usually lasts a few days to months, until the problem which first caused it is resolved. Chronic pain is pain that persists or recurs for a prolonged period of time. This is the type of pain which stems from ailments such as arthritis and other joint problems, certain back conditions, injuries and accidents, and many other problems concerning the nerves, muscles, and bones but also including psychosomatic disturbances. The experience of pain varies widely between individuals, making its exact definition unclear to this day.

The treatment of pain, naturally, was the first interest in electrotherapy and electromedical research. For centuries electricity has been a challenge to scientists. They have long known that it exists, and have discovered how to generate it on a large scale, but found it difficult to explain exactly what electricity is. That remains even to this day in the orthodox, scientific fields. Around 600 BC, the Greeks found that by rubbing an 'electron' (a hard Fossilized resin that today is known as Amber) against a fur cloth, it would attract particles of straw. This strange effect remained a mystery for over 2000 years, until, around AD 1600, when Dr William Gilbert investigated the reactions of amber and magnets and first recorded the word 'Electric' in a report on the theory of magnetism. Gilbert's experiments led to a number of investigations by many pioneers in the development of electricity technology over the next 350 years.

The earliest references to the use of electricity in medicine was the use of the Mediterranean torpedo fish, a variety of electric ray. Aristotle and the historian Pliny both referred to the effect of this fish. Dioscorides, the famous physician who founded the Western Materia Medica, Galen, and Paul of Aegina advised treatment by electric shock from this fish for the treatment of pain.

   
Electromedicine, or the use of electricity to treat physical ailments, is considered one of the oldest and most documented sciences known.  Medical professionals of ancient Greece learned that the electrical impulses emitted from electric eels in clinical foot baths relieved pain and produced a favorable influence on the blood circulation.  Doctors Largus and Dioscorides (cc 46 AD) documented substantial therapeutic results with electrical currents in circulatory disorders and in the management of pain from neuralgia, headache and arthritis and gout.

In the 1700's, European physicians used controlled electrical currents from electrostatic generators almost exclusively for numerous medical problems involving pain and circulatory dysfunction,  During that period, Benjamin Franklin also documented pain relief by using electrical currents for "frozen shoulder".

In fact in the early 1900's, approximately 50% of all U.S. physicians used electro medicine in their practice daily.  Unfortunately for the science, an incorrect and unfair report emerged at this time.,  This report, produced by powerful special interest groups, discredited the value of both electro medicine and nutrition in medical practice.  With fear of condemnation from certain medical institutions, (that were funded by these special interest groups), almost all American physicians abandoned electro medicine and nutrition from their practices.

Although nutrition has re-established itself as a credible medical discipline in the U.S., electro medicine is just now starting to emerge and is becoming more widespread and accepted for treatment of Pain.

Due to the unique technology, people are seeing the fastest and longest lasting results using the Wellness Pro electrotherapy system.  In summary, electro medicine is fast becoming recognized as a very safe, efficacious and certainly one of the most cost effective treatments treatments of choice in 21st Century that has ZERO side effects,  Time will show other great benefits of electro medicine and its affects in restoring and maintaining functional homeostasis.

Nikola Tesla, Benjamin Franklin, Abrams, Crile, Lakkovsky and Royal Rife are all part of the history of Electrotherapy.