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THE WAY I SEE IT
By NEVILLE WILLIAMS
Feeling really crook? You may
need an electron transfer!
If you're curious about the above heading, move
over. After reading a brochure referred to me by a
NSW reader, so am I! "Biological electron
transfer" might herald a whole new concept in
medical treatment - or it may simply be a further
debatable example of a century-long pursuit of the
supposedly therapeutic properties of electricity.
It seems likely that the reader
who forwarded the brochure was
reacting to discussion of another
health matter in the September
issue under the heading"Could We
End Up Drinking Nickel-Cadmium
Cocktails?"
It had to do with an interview,
brought to my notice by T. A. of Par- .·
ramatta, NSW. Visiting Canadian
environmentalist, Dr David Suzuki,
had claimed that used nickelcadmium batteries should be
recycled, to prevent their contents
from becoming an environmental
health hazard via council garbage
tips.
While not necessarily rejecting
Dr Suzuki's warning, I said that I
could find no support for his concern in technical literature, or by
academics : or the battery companies themselves. Nor have any
readers, since then, taken up my invitation to shed further light on the
subject.
I wonder whether they/you will
be more forthcoming on the supposed therapeutic benefits of electricity?
This time around, I am indebted
to I. H. of Port Macquarie, on the
north coast of NSW. To a letter,
62
SILICON CHIP
directed principally to Leo Simpson, he adds the following footnote:
Enclosed is a pamphlet from a
supplier of vitamins, etc, detailing
their latest wonder material germanium.
I think you or Neville Williams
could write a very good article on the
claims made for this substance.
On receipt of the above, my first
reaction was to look out another
"medical" pamphlet which had
come my way recently, via the letterbox. Reading and comparing the
two, I began to wonder how old the
apparent interest might be in the
supposed benefits of electrical.
therapy.
Seeking a possible clue, I searched through a century-old article by
Andrew Wilson PhD, FRPS, &c
(Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities) entitled "Nerves or No
Nerves, or the Art of Feeling". Andrews admits to being at a complete
loss in trying to explain nerve action, attributing it only to some as
yet unknown mechanism which he
thereafter refers to as ''nerve
force". I quote:
" ... a mechanism so subtle and incomprehensible, that the greatest
authorities of our day own their in-
ability to solve its depths, and admit
their helplessness with the best
possible grace."
Overlooked or ignored?
There is no hint in the article that
"nerve force" could have anything
to do with electrical phenomena or
that nerves and/or muscles could
respond in any way to electrical
stimulation.
I found this intriguing, to say the
least, because in 1791 Luigi
Galavini, Professor of Anatomy in
Bologna, Italy, had published his
paper "Animal Electricity or
Galvanism", detailing his memorable experiments with frogs legs.
Five years later (1796), Allessandro
Volta had suggested an apparent
link between Galvanic electricity
and that produced by chemical
means.
How or when academics like Andrew Wilson and/or neo-medical
entrepreneurs caught up with these
century-old observations I'm not
sure. But I do know that, in the early 1920s, my grandfather showed
me a do-it-yourself medical gadget
that he'd bought some years
previously to treat rheumatism,
gout, lumbago, sciatica, arthritis or
whatever else, of that nature, people suffered from in those days.
I can recall it only as a clinical
looking black box, complete with
knobs, switches, fabric-covered
leads, nickel plated pads and hand
grips. When connected to a battery,
it buzzed audibly and produced
high voltage electricity which could
be applied to the body or between
the hands, as per the instructions.
ponded with a writ for one million
dollars in damages, returnable in
the state of Texas. When he had not
proceeded with the action twelve
months later, RADIO NEWS repeated
the allegations and backed them up
with a detailed technical report on
a Kiro-Vox, which they had managed to acquire in the meantime, complete with the maker's official
instructions.
A "squegging" oscillator
The circuit of the "Kiro-Vox", as published by "Radio News" in
December 1925. While it contains two variable capacitors and
two variable inductors (variometers) it is basically very similar
to a 1-valve regenerative receiver.
One could feel it doing its job (it
produced a tingling sensation,
anyway) but whether it was more
beneficial than other contemporary
treatments seemed to be open to
argument. I refer to patent
medicines, patent liniments and
that incredible procedure of exposing one's bared rump/hip/thigh to
"injections" by a jar full of angry
bees.
Yes, my grandfather resorted to
this on a number of occasions, but
· whether apis mellifera (bee)
therapy cured the original pain or
merely masked it was equally open
to question!
A "pure swindle"
While there have been doubts
about the therapeutic merit of beestings, potions and old-time electric
shocking coils, there was certainly
no indecision on the part of the
(American) RADIO NEWS staff, in
December 1924, when they
reported on two "wonderful" new
diagnostic instruments: the "Neurophonometer" and its electrically
identical twin called. the ''KiroVox" - apparently derived from
"Chiro".
According to RADIO NEWS, both
were being "foisted on the public"
by a so-called Doctor Rogers and
both, they said, were "pure
swindles".
Their opinion was based mainly
on pretentious claims and explana-
tions, presumably intended to attract the public and self-styled
practitioners, but which made no
technical sense either to RADIO NEWS laboratory staff or to
qualified physicians and surgeons,
from whom they had sought
medical opinion.
The purported role of the new instruments was to help physicians
locate "impingements and sublaxations" - the latter (according to
Webster's dictionary) signifying a
partial or incomplete dislocation.
They were said to achieve this by
measuring the resistance of the
nerves and so locating the point at
which there was a constriction of
the "life flow" - whatever that
meant.
Apart from anything else, the
idea of being able to isolate and
measure nerve resistance by way of
external pads and contact probes
defied common sense. Any indication so obtained would depend
primarily on contact/skin resistance and on the total body
resistance between the contact
areas.
RADIO NEWS rounded off the first
article with an offer of $1000 (a
substantial sum in those days) plus
all expenses if the builder of the
device(s) could demonstrate to a
panel of qualified scientific and
medical authorities that his equipment had a genuine therapeutic
value.
To this, "Doctor" Rogers res-
As indicated by the accompanying circuit, it appeared to have
been contrived from a contemporary 1-valve (UV-201A) regenerative receiver, with enough bits
and pieces added to account for
four 0-100 panel dials, plus a meter
showing battery voltage, a filament
rheostat, binding posts, &c.
Assembled on a panel, mounted in a
black carrying case with removeable lid, and plugging into a separate power supply (battery) box, it
looked sufficiently convincing to
boost the standing of a practicioner
lacking more formal qualifications.
A larger than normal grid
capacitor (.005µF instead of
.00025µF) ensured that it would be
prone to grid blocking or squegging,
and the multiplicity of controls provided the opportunity for any
amount of pretentious fiddling to
set the audible squegging tone to
the desired frequency.
Setting up involved clamping a
pad to the patient's forehead, placing the search electrode on the skin
under the occipital protuberance
and adjusting the oscillation tone to
a "singing" sound, like a "high pitched tone from a horn", not
"coarse like a foghorn". This procedure was described in the instructions as "tuning the patient
in".
This done, the diagnostic procedure involved searching down
the spine until the oscillation stopped and drawing conclusions about
the impingements and sublaxations
by noting this position and also doing some calculations based on the
0-100 dial readings.
Pure buncombe
RADIO NEWS described all this as
"the purest buncombe, just simply
JANUARY 1989
63
THE WAY I SEE IT - CTD
bait for the gullible .. . if the
ludicrousness of it all does not
strike you, we give up!"
Whether the Kiro-Vox and
Neurophonometer survived the
acrid criticism by the late Hugo
Gernsback and his team we have no
way of knowing but we have not
heard of any more such devices
since then.
On the other hand, high voltage
shocking coils or pulsers are still
with us in a variety of forms, mostly
transistorised, and recommended
in sales brochures for the treatment of lumbago, sciatica and arthritis; head, neck and back pains;
tendonitis, muscle and joint pains;
sporting injuries and post operative and amputation "phantom"
pains.
Some are supposed to be used in
conjunction with acupuncture
points - and at that point I give up.
If the medical fraternity itself is at
odds about acupuncture generally,
how is a mere layman to decide
whether it makes sense or otherwise to stimulate acupuncture
points with a needle, a digital
wavetrain, or the field from some
gismo containing a powerful
magnet?
It so happened that, while
writing this, I met up with a friend
who was wearing an electronic
pulsing device on his belt. After explaining what is was, he confided:
"The physio suggested I try it but
whether it's doing me any good, I
wouldn't have a clue" . Shades of
the 1920s!
Technical jargon
If the story of the Kiro-Vox emphasises nothing else, it certainly
does draw attention to the use of
pretentious technical jargon,
capable of impressing a layman but
making little sense to a technically
informed reader. That brings me
back to the pamphlet forwarded to
me by I. H. and the notion of
biological electron transfer whatever that signifies.
The bold heading reads: "Germanium - one of the most exciting
health-giving substances ever
discovered". The pamphlet goes on
the say that it was used in the USA
in 1922 to treat anaemia, and
subsequently by the Russians for its
"unique" rejuvenative properties.
This, despite the fact that germanium is normally regarded as being highly toxic.
Nothing daunted, and allegedly
funded by the Japanese Government, an "inquisitive engineer" , Dr
Kusuhiko Asai, was intrigued to
find traces of germanium in coal, in
living plants, and in many natural
food products. But the richest
sources of all, says the pamphlet,
were healing substances such as
Ginseng, Shitake mushrooms, aloevera, comfrey, garlic, and shelf
fungus - the last-named said to
have been valued for centuries by
the Russians as a treatment for
cancer.
Where have I heard those words
before? Oh yes, I almost forgot, and
I quote: "not surprisingly, analysis
of the healing waters at Lourdes,
France, also revealed a high germanium content". (What, no miracles?)
Admittedly, all this is outside my
area of expertise but I find the inferences and the logic distinctly
tenuous. I wonder how many other
elements might prove to be common
to those same sources, if one really
went looking for them.
As it is, Dr Asai is said to have
climaxed ten years of research
with the development of a safe, nontoxic compound which he called
Ge-132 (biscarboxyethyl germanium sesquioxide). With a name as
long as that, it ought to be able to
kill or cure just about anything!
Nor was the good doctor troubled
either by doubts or modesty. According to the pamphlet:
"Dr Asai hailed Ge-132 as a
miracle cure for everything from
headaches to life threatening
conditions".
Lest the reader still entertain any
lingering reservations, the pamphlet seeks to reinforce the
therapeutic claims by associating
them with germanium the "powerful semiconductor", which provide
ed the basis of the first transistor in
1948. This on the basis of "germanium's electron transfer properties as an agent of human health" .
The way I see it
Here I'm on more familiar ground
and I fail completely to see any
logical connection between the two
disciplines. As mentioned in recent
articles, nickel, cadmium and mercury are all very useful in electronics for promoting and supporting the movement (transfer?) of
electrons but that doesn't imply
potential curative properties; on
the contrary, they've all been
nominated as potential health
hazards.
Even as a semiconductor, germanium is only one of many such
materials and none of them is particularly adept at "transferring"
electrons. Copper does it ever so
much better, with its inherently low
resistance to current. (Oops - I
nearly said current flow)! In
Australia alone, there must be
countless millions of kilometres of
copper wire, "transferring" electrons endlessly hither and yon.
Then again, if a semiconductor is
necessary for whatever it is supposed to do as an "agent in human
health", why not an organic compound of silicon, which has proved
to be far more useful electronically
than germanium?
But no, the pamphlet is adamant:
" Teamed with oxygen, germanium hones our natural defences,
So if you're feeling really crook, don't sit around hopefully
nibbling OC44 transistors. Take the advice of the TV pill
adverts & "see your doctor"
64
SILICON CHIP
helping the body protect itself.
Through its specialised electron
transfer ability, germanium works
with oxygen to maximise cell
energy. And when the work is done,
the unique structure of organic germanium enables it to help oxygen
clear out the debris: spent electrons".
Debris? Spent electrons? What
on earth are spent electrons?
The mind boggles. I've been involved in electronics for sixty odd
years and never as much as heard
of them. What's more, when I mentioned the term to some technical
friends, they just guffawed.
If I'm not careful, one of them
will end up trying to convince me
that spent electrons are the ones
left behind in low-emission TV picture tubes: worn-out, tired, listless
electrons that can't quite make the
distance to the phosphor screen!
I. H. 's pamphlet, I'm afraid,
presents much the same sort of
credulity barrier that faced Hugo
Gernsback back in 1924/25.
So if you're feeling really crook,
don't sit around hopefully nibbling
OC44s (a once popular Germanium
transistor). Take the advice of the
TV pill adverts and "see your
doctor"!
Mains supply radiation
To change the subject, the same
letter in the September issue (T. A.,
Parramatta, p.22} made passing
reference to "alleged radiation"
from 50Hz power wiring and from
such things as domestic electric
blankets. I tended not to take his
remarks too seriously, on the
grounds that no ill effects have
been positively identified in the
home, while arguably hazardous industrial and medical situations are
subject, these days, to fairly close
supervision.
It was with interest, therefore,
that I came across a paper on the
general subject in the latest issue of
the IREE/IE Aust. Proceedings. I
quote the full title for those who
may be able to gain access to it and,
as well, to the many references
listed by the author:
Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Australia;
Volume 8, Number 3, September
1988: "Power Lines and the Environment - The Electrical Impact" by K. J. Callaghan. The
author is a senior engineer with the
Queensland Electricity Commission, responsible for power line projects in the southern sector of that
state.
By way of preamble, he makes
some interesting points, at least one
of which may have puzzled readers
of the September article.
(1). Discussion of this general
subject involves both magnetic and
electric fields but because they exist simultaneously, they are normally grouped for convenience under
the one heading; hence electromagnetic interference (EMI), .
electromagnetic compatibility
(EMC), &c.
(2). Because overhead power
lines and street wiring are so visible and unavoidable, they tend to
attract the more attention from environmentalists. In fact, higher
magnetic fields are common in
homes, and in industrial and
medical situations.
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TICK ONE □ Basic Electronics
D Digital Electronics
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□ Industrial Electronics
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D Complete Electronics Technician
JANUARY
1989
65
· THE WAY I SEE IT- CTD
(3). Applied to power lines and
equipment, the term "radiation"
has connotations of an implicit
hazard by association with nuclear
and high-power RF energy. In fact,
50Hz energy has a wavelength of
around 6000km, and any "radiation" detectable within several
hundred metres of the source is a
near-field phenomenon and should
be regarded as such.
The author quantifies the magnetic and electric fields at ground
level under typical high voltage
transmission lines, pointing out that
they tend to cancel down with proper design and phase balance. They
are normally small compared with
the Earth's static field and the electric fields present in thunderstorm
conditions.
In private homes, the 50Hz
magnetic field can be greater than
under power lines, especially near
certain appliances and neutral/
earth links. A high, though not
necessarily hazardous, electric
field exists close to some electric
blankets, according with our advice
in the September issue to avoid
leaving them switched on for long
periods while you sleep.
Nature, man-made and us
On the subject of "Field Effects
on Natural Ecosystems", Callaghan
acknowledges some critical reports
but suggests that they are mostly
flawed.
Serviceman's Log -
SILICON CHIP
It has been claimed, for example,
that the growth rate of certain
species of trees adjacent to high
voltage lines is accelerated but this
could be the result of opening up
the easement area. Equally, a conflicting observation that the growth
rate is sometimes retarded could be
due simply to residual corona
damage to the tips of the foliage.
Bird migratory patterns do not
appear to be affected by the field.
Small animals are partially shielded from the electric field by the
ground cover; for large animals, the
changed forage conditions appear
to be more significant than field effects. The performance of honeybees appears to be diminished
somewhat by high electric fields
but this can be mitigated by
shielding the actual hive. And so on.
His conclusion: "There is currently no scientific evidence of any
environmental effect of 50Hz electric and magnetic fields on nature,
above the negligible level".
In the area of interference with
man-made systems, the power line
engineer has an admitted responsibility to minimise arcing and corona effects, which could affect communications systems. As well, due
attention must be paid to possible
magnetic and electric induction,
earth current loops, &c.
The latter section of the paper
deals extensively with "Field Ef-
ctd from page 59
So far, so good. At this point it appeared that with only a few components likely to be involved, a
check of each component in turn
might be the best approach.
Remembering the faulty resistors
in the CX-1480, I began by checking
the resistors. R710 (along with
diode 709) was disconnected first,
then R709, R705 and 706. All checked OK.
The next suspects were the electrolytic capacitors. I lifted C713
(100µ.F) and it checked OK. Then I
lifted and measured C711 which
connects to pin 4 of IC701. Supposedly 3.3µ.F, it measured only
66
.
about 0.1µ.F. Eureka!
Yes, that was it. A new 3.3µ.F
capacitor was fitted and at first
switch-on, the set came good immediately. And it continued to do so
for a large number of switch-on
cycles. I considered the point proved. In fact, I can now reveal that
that particular capacitor is not
even shown on the explanatory circuit mentioned earlier.
Dare to hope
So, one down, one to go. Dare I
hope? Naturally I went straight to
that capacitor. I unsoldered one
pigtail from the board and as I
fects on Biological Systems" and it
is clear from the references that
the author has taken due account of
available literature. While a great
deal of research has been undertaken since the 1960s, the findings
again tend to be inconclusive.
This despite the fact that, after
3-4 generations of exposure to
power line fields, possible acute effects should have become selfevident. No long-term effects have
ever been confirmed and no
mechanism has been suggested
whereby such long-term exposure
could induce problems .
Callaghan's overall summary:
"Currently, the overwhelming opinion of the world's scientific/
medical fraternity is that long-term
exposure to power line fields has
not been shown to constitute a
biological hazard to man".
All this may be reassuring but is
it the final word on the subject?
Can we rest assured that she really
will be right mate?
I don't think so. If I'm conservative about miracle cures - Kira
Voxes, shocking coils, organic germanium, &c - I feel much the same
way about the environment. Even
with the best of intentions our
understanding of the environment
is never quite unbiased or complete.
The way I see it, in the pursuit of
scientific achievement and technological progress, it's not a bad
philosophy to always err on the side
of caution.
~
lifted that end, the capacitor came
clean away; the other pigtail was
corroded where it entered the body
and had obviously been making intermittent contact for some time.
A new capacitor restored the set
to normal operation, all in a matter
of minutes. You don't get many
breaks like that; Murphy will have
a heart attack if he finds out.
But as I commented earlier, the
two faults were the same only different; the same capacitor but faulty for different reasons. The first
capacitor had simply died of old age
- a common fault with low value
types - while the second one might
well have retained its capacitance
but suffered a broken lead.
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