Interesting. also, like how phrenology was discredited yet when
   recontextualized via neuroimaging it seems a similar paradigm, just
   different territory and cartography.
   noting for completeness: connection of TENS and other such electronic
   devices with kinky sex culture...
   Erotic electrostimulation
   [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_electrostimulation
   The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices is also in town here...
   [2]http://www.museumofquackery.com/
   all of this reminds me of Alvin Toffler, (perhaps book Futureshock) who
   advised taking company tours such as of manufacturing facilities to
   learn how industry ecosystems function as another route to education,
   literacy, learning. there is a quackery devices, Bakken, and also a
   broadcast museum in town, though the advice extends towards visiting
   old mines, e.g. (MINOS Detecter) [0] or other facilities. in Berkeley i
   had a tour of their participle accelerator, fascinating to learn that a
   particle can be suspended by magnets, held in a stationary position
   prior to being merged with the other accelerating beam, or perhaps for
   being smashed into, i forget. though in a security-paranoid environment
   even these basic pleasures of learning seem off-limits in terms of
   ideas, on lock-down potentially, perhaps most so the threat of
   reinterpretation challenging ruling ideology. like every observer is a
   security threat and social relations and ideas tunneling inside that.
   [0] [3]http://www.hep.umn.edu/minos/overview/
   On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 12:33 AM, Jim Bell <[4]jamesdbell8@yahoo.com>
   wrote:

   From: brian carroll <[5]electromagnetize@gmail.com>
   To: [6]cypherpunks@cpunks.org
   Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 10:01 PM
   Subject: dual-use (urls)
   >Shocking Medical Devices From Another Century (via digg)
   [7]>http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/bakken-museum/?viewall=tr
   ue
   >[&] The Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life
   [8]>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   [9]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

References

   1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_electrostimulation
   2. http://www.museumofquackery.com/
   3. http://www.hep.umn.edu/minos/overview/
   4. mailto:jamesdbell8@yahoo.com
   5. mailto:electromagnetize@gmail.com
   6. mailto:cypherpunks@cpunks.org
   7. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/bakken-museum/?viewall=true
   8. http://www.thebakken.org/
   9. http:///