The first reports on the phenomenon of bioelectromagnetism are to be found in early Greek and Roman texts. Plato and Aristotle, among other prominent scientists of that time, described the "shocking" impact that electric Torpedo fish had on human health. The first report describing the use of electric fish as a medical therapeutic modality appeared five hundred years later, during the first century. Prior to the Renaissance period, physicians were routinely employing electric fish in a form of electrotherapy to treat sleeping disorder, migraine, melancholy and epilepsy. The technical development of batteries and other devices producing electric energy at the end of the nineteenth century, resulted in the widespread use of electrotherapy in medical practice. Electromagnetic healing devices became a medical panacea in that they were reported to "cure" virtually every conceivable disease known to man. By 1894, over 10,000 US physicians were regularly using electrotherapy in their practice.

The excessive use of electrotherapy, especially by untrained practitioners and outright charlatans was one of the primary contributing factors that led to the Carnegie Foundation to establish a commission to study medical education and standards of medical practice. The conclusions of this commission, documented in the Flexner Report, led to an immediate revision of medical education and licensure of physicians. The report further stipulated that medical therapies must be based upon sound scientific principles. At that time, the lack of scientific knowledge concerning the nature and influence of electromagnetism on biological systems effectively eliminated electrotherapy as a medical modality. Since electromagnetism was not amenable to experimental investigation, the affects attributed to electromagnetic healing devices were not supportable and as a result, electrotherapy fell into disrepute.

The essence of these historical considerations lays the foundation for us to consider and establish the position in which the therapeutic aspects of the EM spectrum now find themselves, as we enter the last decade of the 20th century. Education is of paramount importance in encouraging a dialogue between the physicians and those who are developing the therapeutic opportunities of electromagnetic fields.

Currently in the medical sciences, the emphasis on pharmacology permeates the training of physicians and in fact, our entire society. This situation produces an additional difficulty for the introduction of electromagnetic technology since physicians are not likely to be as well versed in biophysics as they are in biochemistry. Since an understanding of biophysics, which includes an introduction to the basic mechanisms by which electromagnetic devices most probably function, is not part of current medical education, physicians have no practical knowledge of EM fields impact biological systems.

In recent years, the crosslinks between the basic sciences of physics and quantum mechanics, with the development of biophysics are becoming so strong and profound, that where the life scientists and in particular the physiologists, thought of themselves as in a completely different scientific discipline from physicists and electrical engineers, they now realize they are looking at different positions of the same continuum