An International System of Electro-Therapeutics, for Students, General Practitioners and Specialists by Dr. Horatio Bigelow (1901)
By Savannah Tryan
Dr. Horatio R. Bigelow’s An International System of Electro-Therapeutics, for Students, General Practitioners and Specialists (1901) is a comprehensive overview of the practice of electrotherapeutics at the turn of the twentieth century [1]. Electrotherapeutics is the practice of running electric currents through patients to alleviate the symptoms of various disorders. As suggested by the title, the book was written for people who were in a position to actually practice electro-therapeutics rather than the general populace. In the sections on various diseases, there were specific instructions regarding the use of electro-therapy, including recommended voltages and numbers of sessions. The theory of electro-therapeutics was briefly touched on in multiple places, but the ultimate conclusion was that the exact mechanism of such therapies is not known. The book was much more concerned with practical applications and practical effects. The information that the author gave was supported by case studies where the ailment, treatment, and effects were noted. Information about Bigelow beyond his creation of books on electrotherapeutics is not available, but he can still be placed in the context of wider discussions about electrotherapeutics in the late 1800s-early 1900s.
Bigelow’s book is organized according to which body part or system the text addresses, and its chapters include electro-physics and electro-physiology, gynaecology [sic] and obstetrics, diseases of the nervous system, disorders of the abdominal and thoracic viscera, diseases of childhood, and electro-surgery. A few of the specific diseases addressed include multiple kinds of cancer, uterine disease, neuroses, and diseases of the eye. It was the opinion of the author that electro-therapy was a viable option for an extremely wide range of medical issues, and he regarded the use of electricity in medicine as a treatment whose importance was not yet fully realized. Accordingly, the introduction of the book, written by J. Mount Bleyer, M.D., seems to regard electricity as the most profound advancement for all of society up to that point. This introduction began by noting the association of lightning with the Greek gods and as a sign of divinity before presenting a more grounded history of the study of electricity. This blending of the mythical and the practical spoke to the opinion of the author of the extreme importance of electrotherapy as well as the need for legitimacy in the scientific community.
Bigelow not only believed that electrotherapeutics were underutilized, but that other doctors were too cautious in their treatments. A more liberal use of electricity was typically advocated, albeit alongside a recommendation that a session of electrical treatment should last only about ten minutes. Though he believed in the unrealized potential of medical use of electricity, Bigelow did acknowledge some limitations. In the section on the treatment of psychosis, he claimed that cases which had caused the patient to be institutionalized in an asylum were usually beyond the help of electro-therapeutics. In the introduction to the section on the treatment of neuroses, he also acknowledged that some effects of electrotherapeutics were the product of the placebo effect (though he did not use that term, as it was not coined until 1955). He was careful to note that other treatments were likewise subject to this effect, stating that medical electricity suffered no loss of legitimacy because of this.
The book was published when electrotherapy was at its peak, and soon afterwards, electrotherapy fell out of mainstream practice. Medical practitioners who used electrotherapy made claims to scientific legitimacy via the creation of the American Electro-Therapeutic Association (for allopathic physicians, founded 1891) and the National Society of Electro-Therapeutists (for homeopathic physicians, founded 1893) [2]. Created in the eighteenth century, electrotherapy became popularized in the nineteenth century and reflected the larger trend in medicine of leaning away from “heroic” treatments [3]. An important part of electrotherapy was the lack of pain, and Bigelow was explicit that the treatments should not cause pain or significant discomfort. The painlessness of electrotherapy was one of the reasons why practitioners believed it to be so promising; another reason was the supposed universality of its applications.
During the nineteenth century, the efficacy of electrotherapy was largely uncontested, but in the 1890s and afterwards, many physicians questioned whether electrotherapy was useful [4]. The belief of dissenters was that the effects of electrotherapy, when they were found, were the result of the power of suggestion rather than a physiological effect. One of these dissenters who decried the usefulness of electrotherapy was Sigmund Freud, whose theories turned psychological medicine away from physiological treatments towards a preference for “the talking cure” [5]. Bigelow’s work was therefore not only a practical guide for electrotherapeutics, but also a statement that electrotherapy was still effective and would continue to be despite the growing undercurrent of disbelief in the medical community.
This post was written for the course HIST H364/H546 The History of Medicine and Public Health. Instructor: Elizabeth Nelson, School of Liberal Arts, Indiana University Indianapolis.
References
[1] Horatio R. Bigelow, An International System of Electro‑Therapeutics, for Students, General Practitioners and Specialists. 2nd ed. Edited by G. Betton Massey. Philadelphia: Davis, 1901.
[2] Lisa Rosner, “The Professional Context of Electrotherapeutics,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 43, no. 1 (1988): 68, http://www.jstor.org.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/stable/24632809.
[3] Rosner, “The Professional Context of Electrotherapeutics,” 70.
[4] Sander L. Gilman, “Electrotherapy and Mental Illness: Then and Now,” History of Psychiatry 19, no. 3 (2008): 345, https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X07082566.
[5] Gilman, “Electrotherapy and Mental Illness: Then and Now,” 344-346.
