Breakthrough of Electrotherapy
FRANKLIN'S ELECTROSTATIC MACHINE
How Franklin’s machine generated high-voltage electricity.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was an American scientist, author, and diplomat who had many interests in medicine. Franklin’s electrostatic machine is a high-voltage static electricity-generating device used by Benjamin Franklin in the mid-18th century for research into electrical phenomena. Its key components are a glass globe which turned on an axis via a crank, a cloth pad in contact with the spinning globe, a set of metal needles to conduct away the charge developed on the globe by its friction with the pad, and a Leyden jar – a high-voltage capacitor – to accumulate the charge. Franklin’s experiments with the machine eventually led to new theories about electricity and inventing the lightning rod.
Benjamin Franklin was involved not only with the nature of electricity but with its possible medical utility. He conducted electrical experiments on people with palsies, notably those caused by stroke, to see if electricity from machines could restore movement. He experimented with medical electricity, promoted smallpox inoculation, and treated a variety of conditions. Franklin also experimented with treating paralysis, deafness, and hysteria using electricity. Franklin could also be applied locally to a wound or specific patch of skin with a hand-held array of needle electrodes.
Several 18th-century electric terms were derived from his name. For example, static electricity was known as “Franklin current”,[37] and “Franklinization” is a form of electrotherapy where Franklin shocked patients with strong static charges, to treat patients with various illnesses. An electric bath is a 19th-century medical treatment in which high-voltage electrical apparatus was used for electrifying patients by causing an electric charge to build up on their bodies. In the US this process was known as Franklinization after Benjamin Franklin. The process became widely known after Franklin described it in the mid-18th century, but after that it was mostly practiced by quacks. Golding Bird brought it into the mainstream at Guy’s Hospital in the mid-19th century.
The electric bath treatment was painless, but it caused the patient to warm and sweat, and the heart rate to increase. It also caused the hair to stand on end. The electric bath could form a treatment in itself. It could also be the first stage in further treatment. A common procedure was to draw sparks from the patient after charging, especially from the spine. Electricity had been starting in use for medical treatment since the mid-18th century.
Invention of Eleckiteru
The Eleckiteru (エレキテル, Erekiteru, derived from Dutch elektriciteit, for electricity) is the Japanese name for a type of generator of static electricity used for electric experiments in the 18th century. In Japan, Hiraga Gennai presented his own Eleckiteru in 1776, derived from an Eleckiteru from Holland. The Eleckiteru consists of a small box that uses the power of friction to generate electricity and store it.
The Eleckiteru relied on the various Western experiments with static electricity during the 18th century, which depended on the discovery that electricity could be generated through friction, and on the invention of the Leyden jar in the 1740s, as a convenient means to store static electricity in rather large quantities.[1] Hiraga Gennai acquired an Eleckiteru from the Netherlands during his second trip to Nagasaki in 1770, and made a formal demonstration of his Eleckiteru in 1776.
A curio shop demonstrating and selling an Eleckiteru. The sign at the entrance says “Newest curiosities from foreign countries”. “The development of experiments with electricity, relied on the creation of powerful static electricity through the friction of a glass cylinder, and the invention of the Leyden jar in the 1740s” Suzuki, p.68
Firstly, He used it mainly for show. The electric sparks and shock to the hands were an unprecedented experience, and the Eleckiteru caused a huge boom. Then, Gennai also tried to use it for electrical therapy that use electrostatic current flow into human body to cure diseases.
THE ORIGIN OF ELECTRO THERAPY IN JAPAN
The Eleckiteru continued to exist even after Hiraga Gennai’s death. In 1787, Gennai’s disciple Morishima Churyo, a doctor, Dutch scholar, comic writer, and kyoka poet, explained the Eleckiteru in detail in his “Komo Zatsuwa,” and the method of making the Eleckiteru became widely known. Then, about 30 years after Gennai’s death, in 1811, Osaka-based Dutch medicine doctor and scholar Hashimoto Sokichi published Japan’s first book on electrical experiments, Oranda Shisei Eleckiteru Kyurigen. This was a translation of the electrical science section of an encyclopedia compiled by the Dutchman Johan Beuys, and Sokichi performed various experiments with an electrophorus and other instruments, verifying the contents of the encyclopedia while also compiling the book. One of his famous experiments was the “Hyakunin Obie” (100 people being shocked at the same time by an electric shock), in which many people were asked to connect their hands in series and were electrocuted by an electric shocker. He also carried out other experiments, such as setting shochu on fire with an electric shocker and making paper dolls dance with static electricity. Muneyoshi used the Eleckiteru as the subject of his experiments and conducted serious research into electricity, and is therefore considered the “father of electrical science in Japan.” Electricity in Japan began with Gennai’s Eleckiteru, and is still used in people’s lives today.