John Wesley, a founder of the Methodist Church, was very involved with "alternative" healing methods and also a proponent of electro therapy. A lot of his views on electro therapy comes from his personal experience as he used this to heal other people. See the excerpt below from the URL listed. Other information is available by searching...
Dan http://freespace.virgin.net/joseph.gadsby/page12.htm John Wesley conducted his enquiries into electricity with characteristically thorough and painstaking research. The first part 'The Desideratum' is concerned with setting out in forty-two numbered paragraphs all the information that he had been able to gather together. His own comprehensive and intriguing survey concludes with this: "To throw all the Light I can on the Subject, I subjoin a few Extracts from several other Writers" (Wesley 1759) The whole of it makes quaint and rather naive reading today. Having investigated the nature of this 'elementary fire' as he called it, Wesley went on to describe the uses to which it may be put and in particular its healing properties. Wesley proceeds to specify "several Disorders wherein Electrification has been found eminently useful" (Wesley 1759). The list of disorders is of great interest. Forty-three specific ailments are mentioned. Among them are blindness, chlorosis, contraction of the limbs, gout, sciatica, pain in the back, and in the stomach. We know that he found the treatment particularly efficacious in cases of melancholia and, what are sometimes loosely called today, nervous disorders. With his enthusiasm, Wesley cannot resist a timely word of caution: "In order to prevent any ill Effect, these two Cautions should always be remembered, First, let not the Shock be too violent; rather let several small Shocks be given. Secondly, do not give a Shock to the whole Body, when only a particular part is affected. If it be given to the Part affected only, little Harm can follow even from a violent shock" (Wesley 1759). >>> "Jonathan B. Britten" <[email protected]> 12/12/2005 12:45:36 AM >>> This is another first-rate reply; I wish we had more like this on our list. Thanks for all of this. I am not a medical researcher, but I will take the liberty of passing on a personal speculation that I think in time may be proved by someone, somewhere: electrical therapy, long known to be useful in treating depression, works because it kills or debilitates pathogens that cause the affective disorder. Some clinicians now, I read, have replaced the old, horrifyingly massive electro-convulsive methods with much milder and longer series of electro-shock. When I read this, Bob Beck's therapeutic regimen came to mind immediately, along with my little speculation, which of course is far below the standard of being called a hypothesis. Some members might want to keep the idea in mind and see whether it eventually come to correspond with any clinical experiments. If it does, it might turn out that techniques some of our list members use may have mental health benefits. JBB -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: [email protected] Address Off-Topic messages to: [email protected] The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
