Electronics and medicine: When electroquackery thrived: The mystery and glamor of electricity were exploited by charlatans who bilked the public with promises to cure any ill

Electroquackery has a history all its own that is as long and colorful as that of legitimate electromedicine. But then, the difference between serious research and outright fraud has often been a little unclear. At a time when electricity was only beginning to be understood, fakers proposed devices that seemed no stranger to the general public than the proposed devices of legitimate researchers, and the theories of even the most extravagant charlatan could gain a ready following because they hardly seemed less believable than the phenomena they were supposed to explain.