To: cypherpunks@cpunks.org
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:01 PM
Subject: dual-use (urls)
>Shocking Medical Devices From Another Century (via digg)
>http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/bakken-museum/?viewall=true
>[&] The Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life
>http://www.thebakken.org/
In 1978, I visited the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC for the first (and so far, only) time. They had a display of "quack medical devices", that included a high-voltage AC device attached to glowing neon-bulb-type tubes. The idea was that these tubes would be pressed against a person's flesh, thus capacitively coupled through the glass, including a glowing light within the tube, and inducing a mild electrical current. At the time, I accepted the idea that this was, indeed, an example of a "quack medical device".
In 1996, I began work at a Vancouver Washington contract-electronic-design/manufacturer firm. One of the major
products that this company made were "TENS" devices. (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulators http://www.tensunits.com/ ). They were/are intended to reduce chronic pain. They worked in pretty much the same way that those "quack" early 1900's devices worked: Cause a AC small current to flow within flesh. What was thought to be 'quack' in 1978, turned out to not be 'quack' at all! Jim Bell