ABSTRACT
“Medical electricity” enjoyed widespread popularity in America roughly between 1865–1900. The forces behind its rise included:
the more traditional “heroic” school of physicians were unable to counter the public tide of disbelief and anger with their methods, due in part to the continuing rancor within their own profession (homeopathic and, to a lesser extent, botanic physicians continued to thrive in the late nineteenth century, and a public intoxicated by new scientific discoveries interpreted the profession's internal disagreement as weakness)
the newly identified diseases of the era–in particular neurasthenia–seemed particularly unresponsive to traditional treatments
the small group of informed and semi-informed scientists of the pre-Civil War era who considered the human body electrical or magnetic in nature became much larger as chemists, physicists, and biologists progressively defined the essence of electricity.
