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by Paul J. Rosch September 19, 2004 from NewMediaExplorer Website Information sent by MJGdeA
BIOELECTROMAGNETIC MEDICINE - THE BOOK
The table of contents of the book 'BioElectromagnetic and Subtle Energy Medicine', demonstrates the incredible depth and breath of Bioelectromagnetic Medicine.
There is almost nothing that Biolelectromedicine can't do...
...are only the tip of
the iceberg....
In spite of the vast benefits of Electomedicine most think it as a non issue.
It just goes to show that regardless of efficacy and safety the profitable drugs still continue to take president, regardless of their known toxicity and in many cases ineffectiveness:
As if all the mechanisms of action of drugs are known - hardly the case.
This is just a self serving excuse to block competing modalities and nothing more.
Lodestones were ground up to make powders that could be applied as magnetic salves or ingested to provide energy and stop bleeding.
Such practices became very popular but were debunked in 1600 by William Gilbert in De Magnete.
By the middle 1700's, more powerful carbon-steel magnets had become available in Europe and there was heightened interest in their curative powers.
Franz Anton Mesmer quickly became famous for his miraculous cures of everything from deafness to paralysis.
In his 1775 report On the Medicinal Uses of the Magnet, he vividly described how he had restored health to a patient with uncontrollable seizures and numerous other nervous system complaints by feeding her iron filings and applying specially shaped magnets over affected organs.
He later claimed that the healing force actually resided in his own "animal magnetism" (magnetisomum animalem).
This was hailed as a new force analogous to Newton's gravity and people from all over Europe waited in long lines to be treated in his Paris salon. French physicians considered him to be a hoax and convinced Louis XVI to establish an unbiased commission consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier and Dr. J. I Guillotin to investigate Mesmer's claims.
They observed blindfolded patients who were exposed to very strong magnets and asked to describe their responses when fake objects were unknowingly substituted. The commission concluded in 1784 that magnetic healing was entirely due to the belief of the patient (placebo effect) and the power of suggestion (hypnosis).
We still refer to
hypnotism as "mesmerism".
Magnets, magnetic salves and liniments were dispensed by traveling magnetic healers and were readily available at food and grain stores.
By the turn of the century, mail order catalogues offered magnetic soles for boots (profitable at 18 cents a pair) as well as magnetic rings, belts, caps, girdles and apparel that could cure anything from menstrual cramps to baldness and impotence.
The king of magnetic healers was Dr. C.J. Thacher, whose Chicago's Magnetic Company in the 1920's promised,
His mail-order pamphlet explained that the energy responsible for life comes from the magnetic force of the sun, which is conducted through the rich iron content of the blood.
Disease resulted when stressful lifestyles and environmental factors interfered with these healing forces.
However,
The most efficient way to expedite this alleged ability of iron in the blood to transmit healing magnetic energy was by wearing magnetic clothing, and almost every conceivable garment was available.
A complete costume, which promised,
It is not clear when electricity was first used to treat illness but electric catfish native to the Nile are portrayed in Egyptian murals several thousand years old suggesting medical applications.
The Roman physician Scribonius Largus used a live torpedo fish to treat a patient with gout and wrote in 46 AD that headaches an d other pains could be cured by standing in shallow water near these electric fish.
The powerful South American electric eel was introduced to Europe in 1750 and people flocked to be treated with its "natural electricity".
Around the same time, the invention of the Leyden jar had dramatically demonstrated the ability of a stored electrical charge to produce muscle contractions and shocks.
The publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in 1818 stimulated interest in electricity as the source of life.
Since Galvani had shown that limbs or body parts would jump when electrical shocks were administered to animal and human cadavers it was believed that electricity could bring the dead to life.
Various "reanimation" chairs and devices were constructed; some of which may possibly have acted as pacemakers or defibrillators in the rare cases that responded.
An induction coil with sponge-tipped electrodes was used in 1853 to successfully treat abnormal heart rhythms and angina.
Over the next few
decades, as batteries were progressively improved and electricity
from generating stations became available, all sorts of "medical
coils" were developed with diverse curative claims.
Devices were devised to diagnose and treat,
Some were based on the proposition that each organ or individual was "tuned" to a specific electromagnetic wave length whose application could energize or rejuvenate them.
The most popular were the dynomizer and oscilloclast devised by Albert Abrams, a physician who was described by the American Medical Association in 1925 as the "dean of twentieth century charlatans".
A decade later, Wilhelm Reich claimed he had discovered a universal cosmic and biological energy called orgone that permeated the universe.
He constructed an orgone accumulator box he claimed could collect and accumulate orgone obtained from the atmosphere. Sitting in the accumulator would not only restore and promote health and vitality but was an effective treatment for cancer.
The FDA sued and convicted him for fraud and the court ordered his books and research burned and his equipment destroyed.
Although Abrams died in prison in 1957, he still has fervent followers who believe in his theories and devices judging from various web sites.
Other contraptions made similar extravagant but worthless claims so it is not surprising that all bioelectromagnetic approaches came to be regarded as fraudulent, A more detailed discussion of the above is available elsewhere.
Unfortunately, this included legitimate research and it is not unlikely that in some instances, the baby was thrown out with the bath water.
One example may be Harold Saxton Burr, whose theory of "L-fields" of life showed great potential for the diagnosis of cancer and the treatment of different disorders.
His research results using the comparatively crude devices that were available over a half century ago are now being intensively reinvestigated and confirmed with more sophisticated technology.
In recent years, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have emerged as superior diagnostic aids.
The FDA has also approved specific electromagnetic devices to promote the healing of bone fractures that have failed to unite despite other interventions and this procedure has proven successful and safe in hundreds of thousands of patients over the past few decades.
More recently, electromagnetic therapies for the treatment of.
...have also been approved.
Other approaches for the treatment of,
...have satisfied criteria for efficacy and safety that have led to their approval in European and other countries that may allow them to be available in the U.S. under the "globalization" and "harmonization" provisions of the 1997 FDA Modernization Act.
Unfortunately, charlatans, entrepreneurs and misguided zealots with worthless devices and unfounded claims still abound.
As a result, we have tried to separate the wheat from the chaff in this book (BioElectromagnetic and Subtle Energy Medicine) by restricting contributions to evidence based medicine supported by references in peer-reviewed publications and to provide the reader with tools and skills to evaluate the legitimacy of devices and claims.
In addition to a lengthy history of quackery and fraud, another criticism that has hampered wider acceptance of bioelectromagnetic approaches is the inability to identify the mechanisms of action responsible for any benefits.
We have therefore attempted to identify concepts and theories that attempt to explain the mechanisms responsible for mediating the diverse benefits of bioelectromagnetic therapies and in some instances, how they may relate to ancient concepts of subtle energies in the body that are also found in nature.
How weak environmental
electromagnetic energies as well as those generated internally can
produce non thermal biologic effects is not clear since the absence
of detectable heat exchange would appear to violate the laws of
thermodynamics.
Such physical structural matching that could only occur on a random collision basis cannot explain the myriad instantaneous and automatic reactions such as those that occur in "fight or flight" responses to severe stress.
As will be seen, there is an emerging paradigm of cellular communication at a physical/atomic level that may provide some answers and also provide insights into widely acknowledged but poorly understood phenomena such as,
Another issue that has caused wariness about bioelectromagnetic therapies are safety concerns about possible increased risk of certain malignancies and birth defects resulting from proximity to,
It is not surprising that electromagnetic fields, like many other therapies can be two-edged swords.
For example:
It is not likely that any clear conclusion about adverse electromagnetic effects can be reached until more information has been obtained from long term studies that focus on these factors.
For this reason, we have refrained from participating in this debate other than to devote a chapter on the importance of dosimetry and to emphasize that no such adverse effects have been observed or seem likely in the therapies presented in this book.
Indeed, those that have been proposed and implemented by Demetrio Sodi Pallares and Björn Nordenström confirmed by others have shown stunning success in treating various malignancies.
Many of the chapters in
this book are based on presentations at the annual
International Congress on Stress over the past decade or so and additional
information on these events can be obtained at
www.stress.org.
Kirk Jeffrey has contributed a similar chapter on the evolution of cardiac pacemakers.
We have made a concerted effort to include prominent scientists whose research may not be well known in the U.S.
When initially approached to serve as editor for this book, I explained that this was not my field of expertise and asked Marko Markov, a distinguished physicist to serve as co-editor.
He is also much more familiar with relevant advances in Eastern Europe, Russia and I am grateful for his careful review of all chapters and for those he has attracted from these countries as well as his own contributions.
I am also indebted to Russell Dekker for expediting this work by promising to publish it within six months of receipt of all approved manuscripts.
Multi-authored books of this nature often take two years or more before they are available, during which time some of the material may be out of date or important advances have been made that could not be included.
With regard to the latter, unlike many large publishing houses, Dekker is a family owned business and has been able to cut through the red tape by making space for late breaking developments that occurred well past the deadline for receipt of submissions, such as radiofrequency coblation nuceloplasty for disc disease.
I would also like to
thank all the authors for their cooperation in responding so
promptly to various time urgent requests for revisions that were
necessary to adhere to this very accelerated publication schedule.
I believe it is particularly appropriate to conclude with the following quotation:
Andy Bassett was one of the early advocates of the use of electromagnetic fields for uniting fractures that refused to heal.
Unfortunately, he died before he could see that his prophecy would come true well ahead of schedule.
In many respects, this book is a tribute to him and other pioneers like,
...who recognized the vast potential of bioelectromagnetic medicine and have helped to put it on a solid scientific footing.
I am particularly delighted that we were able to obtain contributions from most of these trailblazers.
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