John was not a quack. His goal was to provide good health care for people who were desperately poor. He electrified at his three free health clinics and while he traveled. All the profits from the sales of his texts were plowed back into caring for the poor. He also kept empiric records of the illnesses that responded to electrical treatment, and propounded one could call electricity "the Desideratum, the general and rarely failing remedy, in nervous cases of every kind (palsies excepted)." (Wesley, Preface, Desideratum, 7, p. vi, quoted in Schwab, 181.) He noted that paralytic cases often relapsed, while rheumatic cases showed lasting improvement after initial deterioration (Schwab, 181).
According to Dr. Gordon Gadsby, a specialist in electrotherapy from Leicester, England:
"For if we examine the following list of conditions which are treatable by electricity, especially in the form of electroacupuncture, as we enter the twenty-first century, we then find that many of the conditions listed are the same as Wesley's, with the exception of infectious conditions [remember, they did not know about the transmission of infections in the 18th century], e.g. agues [fevers] and consumption (tuberculosis) etc.
"Implications Today
"a. acne vulgaris, acutely painful conditions; anxiety states and panic attacks; alcohol addiction; amenorrhoea; anal fissure, analgesia during childbirth; angina pectoris; ankle joint pain; arthrosis of jaw joint; asthma - bronchial;
b. biliary colic and dyskinesia; bronchitis - chronic;
c. cardiac neurosis; cardiovascular disorders; cholangitis; collapse; conjunctivitis - chronic; constipation; coxarthritis; coxarthrosis.
d. deafness; depression; diarrhoea; dizziness; drug addiction; Dupuytren's contraction; dysmenorrhea; dysphagia;
e. eczema; enuresis; epicondylitis; exhaustion states.
f. facial paralysis; fainting; fertility - male; frozen shoulder.
g. gastric and duodenal ulcer; gastritis; gastroenterological disorders; gonarthrosis; gynaecological disorders;
h. hand pain; headache; haemorrhoids; hemiparesis; herpes; hyperemesis gravidarum; hypertension; hypotension.
i. impotence; intercostal neuralgia; irritable bowel disease;
k. knee joint pain.
l. labyrinthitis; lactation deficiency; leg ulcers; locomotor disorders; lumbar pain.
m. musculo-skeletal disorders - all; mental disturbances and illnesses; Meniere's syndrome; migraine; motion sickness; ME; MS;
n. neurodermatitis; neurological disorders; nicotine addiction;
p. periarthritis humeroscapularis; peripheral blood supply disturbances; prostatitis; pruritis vulvae; post herpetic neuralgia.
r. renal colic; respiratory disorders; rheumatoid arthritis.
s. salpingitis; sciatica; sense organ disturbances; sexual disturbances; skin disorders; spondylosis - alkylosing; spondylosis -cervical; sinusitis - frontal and maxillary; stress management;
t. tennis elbow; thorax trauma; tinnitus; torticollis, trigeminal neuralgia and other facial pains including TMJ.
u. urological disorders, symptoms and psychogenic problems;
w. wound healing deficiency; wrist pain/carpal tunnel syndrome.
This late twentieth-century [1998] listing is even longer and more comprehensive than Wesley's (1759) list[.]" (Gadsby, 3.3.3.7, np.)
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