A historical perspective of the popular use of electric and magnetic therapy

Objectives: To review the history of the therapeutic use of static electric and magnetic fields and to understand its implications for current popular and medical acceptance of these and other alternative and complementary th erapies. Data Sources: Comprehensive MEDLINE (1960-2000) and CINAHL (1982-2000) comp uter literature searches by using key words such as electricity, magnetism, electromagnetic, therapy, medicine, EMF, history of medicine, and fields. Additional references were obtained from the bibliographies of the selected articles. In addition, discussions were held with curators of medical hist ory museums and supplemental searches were made of Internet sources through various search engines. Study Selection: Primary references were used whenever possible. In a few i nstances, secondary references, particularly those requiring translations o f early texts, were used. Data Synthesis: The use of electric and magnetic forces to treat disease ha s intrigued the general public and the scientific community since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. The popularity of these therapies has waxed and waned over the millennia, but at all times the popular imagination, of ten spurred by dynamic and colorful practitioners of pseudoscience, has bee n more excited than the medical or political establishment. In fact, a patt ern seems to reappear. In each era, unsophisticated public acceptance is me t first with medical disdain, then with investigation, and, finally, with a failure to find objective evidence of efficacy. This pattern continues tod ay with the public acceptance of magnetic therapy (and alternative and comp lementary medicine in general) far outstripping acceptance by the medical c ommunity. Conclusion: The therapeutic implications of applying electrical and magneti c fields to heal disease have continually captured the popular imagination. Approaches thousands of years apart can be remarkably similar, but, in eac h era, proof has been lacking and the prevailing medical establishment has remained unconvinced, Interest persists today. Although these agents may ha ve a future role in the healing of human disease, their history and a minim al scientific rationale makes it unlikely that the dichotomy between the ho pes of the public and the medical skepticism will disappear.