History
History of Electron Therapy
Using electrostatic currents to modify brain activity is far more ancient than it might seem at first glance. For millennia, humans have used neurostimulation to treat different conditions, even when the mechanics of it were not completely understood. In this article, we are going to take a look back at the history of electrostatic treatment, from the ancient Egyptians to modern day techniques.
NILE CATFISH AND ROMAN PHYSICIANS
It is generally believed that Egyptians were the first civilization to understand the electrical properties of the Nile catfish. The first written proof of the use of animal-induced electrical currents to treat ailments dates from ancient Greece, where Plato and Aristotle described the use of torpedo fish discharges to cure ailments.
Scribonius Longus, The Roman Physician Who Used Electricity as a Treatment was a 1st century AD Roman physician who served at the court of Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD) and reportedly accompanied the Roman army in the conquest of Britain. He is famous for having written a pharmacopoeia (list of recipes) that was used in Europe until the 17th century, and also for being the first known to have used electricity as a remedy.
As for electric stimulation of the brain, Scribonius Largus who was in charge of the health of the Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar can be considered the pioneer of this technique, as he documented the pain relieving properties of electricity for headaches when a torpedo fish was applied over the scalp of a patient suffering from headache.
ISLAMIC PHYSICIAN IBN-SIDAH
Another great-grandfather of electric stimulation was the Islamic physician Ibn-Sidah, who in the 11th century proposed placing live torpedo fishes between the eyebrows of patients with epilepsy to treat them. Also in Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) locals were reported to use catfishes to “expel demons” off the human body. Although it is not clear how the effects were measured, or if the use of electricity as the brain’s signalling method was understood, over 10 centuries ago fish electricity was already being used as a popular type of electrical stimulation to treat different conditions.
ELECTROSTATIC MACHINES FOR THERAPEUTIC ELECTRIFICATION
After the Renaissance and with the arrival of the modern Scientific Revolution, animal produced electricity was replaced by human-made machines that could produce the same effects with a greater deal of control by their handlers.
The first “stimulation device” of sorts was the electrostatic machine invented by German scientist Otto von Guericke ,which consisted of a frictional crank-controlled machine. Such a machine and some further variations of it were used by other scientists and even hospitals (like the Middlesex Hospital in England) for research. The invention of the Leyden jar, the first capacitor in history that could store electric charge produced from an electrostatic generator, allowed the combination of electrostatic machines and capacitors for further research and therapeutic electrification.
However, neither fish electricity nor electrostatic electricity constituted forms of direct current. For a current to be considered direct (DC), it must consist of a flow of electrical charge that does not vary over time.
THE ERA OF ELECTROSTATIC STIMULATION
In the 18th century, Italian inventor Luigi Galvani invented a DC battery (called the Galvanic battery) which would be later used by his nephew to successfully treat a 27 year-old farmer of major depression. This could be considered the milestone marking the beginning of the therapeutic use of direct current stimulation to treat psychiatric and neurologic conditions.
During the 19th century, using neurostimulation therapies was particularly popular among German psychiatrists, who pioneered electrotherapy as an early form of tDCS. At the same time, several scientists pursued further research on the use of direct current for treating mental disorders but the great variety of methods, the lack of clarity in the descriptions and, in general, the misunderstanding of the effects and operating principles led to inconclusive or contradictory results. As a consequence, the use of direct current stimulation and research was abandoned by the 1930s in favor of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
It wasn’t until the decade of 1960 that the scientific community regained interest in direct current stimulation, particularly under the forms of electro-anesthesia and electro-sleep therapy, just to abandon it again in the 70s when the introduction of new psychiatric drugs captured the public interest and opened up a new era of mental illness treatments.
