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Bioelectromagnetism

sail from Cochin to Tonquin. Te frst Western written document is by Alexander Neckam (1157–1217),

a monk in England. In 1186, he described frst how the working of a compass “showed mariners their

courses when the Polar Star is hidden” (Mottelay, 1922). In 1254, Roger Bacon (1220–1292), a philosopher

and a Franciscan monk in England, dealt with a magnet and described its properties in his Opus Minus.

In 1497, Vasco da Gama (1469–1524), a Portuguese navigator, used the compass for his trip to the Indies.

In 1581, Robert Norman (f. 1560), a maker of compass needles, mariner, at Wapping of England, redis­

covered the dip or inclination to the earth magnetic needle and was the frst to measure them (Sarkar

et al., 2006). Magnetic inclination and variations were known before Norman’s work. As we mentioned

above, magnetic phenomena were well known before the seventeenth century even in antiquity and the

Middle Ages. Many scientists including natural philosophers, physicians, physicists, etc. shared their

interest with magnets, iron, and compasses, which led to the study of electricity, magnetism, electro­

magnetism, and further to bioelectromagnetism.

Te Swiss doctor Philippus Aureolus Teophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus

(1493–1541), physician, alchemist, a lay theologian, used magnets to treat various diseases such as diar­

rhea, hernia, jaundice, and bleeding. He considered magnets to be vital stones. His explanation was that

the invisible fuid from the earth and the stars acts on the human body, and like a magnet, the human

body attracts efuvia of both, health or disease. Under the condition in which a magnet is placed onto

the pain point of the patients, the baneful qualities of astral and terrestrial fuids are drawn out from

the human body, and are returned to their original point with swirling through the atmosphere (Tatar,

1978). Paracelsus traveled widely through Europe including England, Ireland, and Russia, and wandered

Egypt and Arabia. Trough traveling worldwide, he got encyclopedic knowledge. Once he was appointed

as a licensed physician, to lecture medicine at the University of Basel, he contacted with Desiderius

Erasmus (1466–1536), Dutch philosopher and Christian scholar, Rotterdam. Paracelsus means “greater

than Celsus.” Aulus Cornelius Celsus (25 BC–50 AD) was a famous Roman encyclopedist and doctor. It

is frequently said that Paracelsus was a pioneer of the medical revolution of the Renaissance.

Giambattista della Porta (1535–1615) was born at Vico Equense, Kingdom of Naples (now Italy), and

became an Italian natural philosopher. In 1558, he published works with his frst edition entitled Magiae

Naturalis (Natural Magic). He became historically famous because of this work. His work discussed

many subjects including demonology and magnetism. In 1589, he published the second edition with 20

books in Naples (Della Porta, 1589). In particular, chapter 56 in the seventh book of this second edition

was entitled Te Wonders of the Loadstone, which dealt with magnetism. Te content of this seventh

book included the learnings of Plinius, with many observations made by him. For Della Porta, magne­

tism was still a mysterious and magical learning. Interestingly, the content of this seventh book gave the

infuence to Gilbert’s book, De Magnete. Gilbert made references to this seventh book when he wrote his

famous book. Te frst and second chapters were referred to works of Aristotle, Galen, Plinius, Epicurus,

Lucretius et al. In chapter 56, Della Porta talked about loadstone as follows:

Our ancestors attribute to iron and loadstone “an understanding of venerious actions, and that they

are one in love with the other, and when they turn their backs, they hate one the other, and drive one the

other of, and that they contain in them also the principles of hatred” (Della Porta, 1589).

It is well known that the science of electricity, magnetism, and electromagnetism started from the time

when Sir William Gilbert (1544–1603), a British physician to Queen Elizabeth I of England, published

the famous book De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure; Physiologia,

Noca, Pluribus et Argumentes et Experimentis Demonstrata in Latin in 1600. Tis title is now shortened

into De Magnete (Mottelay, 1893). In Figure 2.1, the workman is directed to the north and there he ham­

mers the hot iron so that it will expand or elongate in a north direction (Benjamin 1898; Mottelay, 1893).

Gilbert was the eldest of the fve sons of Jerome Gilbert of the prestigious post of Recorder, in Colchester,

northeastern of London with 75,000 residents. Today, Sir William Gilbert is regarded as the founder of

modern science. Gilbert discovered the Earth is a giant magnet. He collected well-known knowledge

about magnetism in his time. De Magnete is subdivided into six books. In the frst book, it starts with

a historical survey of loadstone and ended with the announcement that loadstone and iron ore are the