RESULTS OF SHORT WAVE AND ULTRASHORT WAVE THERAPY (RADIATHERMY)
David H. Kling, M.D. · 1935
Early medical use of RF therapy in 1934 preceded our modern understanding of electromagnetic field health effects.
Plain English Summary
This 1934 study by Dr. Kling examined the therapeutic results of shortwave and ultrashort wave therapy, also known as radiathermy or diathermy. The research focused on evaluating the medical applications of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields for physical therapy treatments. This represents early documentation of deliberate human exposure to RF energy for therapeutic purposes.
Why This Matters
What makes this 1934 research particularly significant is that it documents therapeutic use of radiofrequency energy nearly a century ago, when our understanding of EMF health effects was virtually nonexistent. Medical diathermy devices from this era exposed patients to RF fields that were often orders of magnitude stronger than today's wireless device emissions. The reality is that this early therapeutic work helped establish precedents for RF exposure that regulatory agencies still reference today, despite our vastly improved understanding of biological effects. Put simply, we've been using electromagnetic fields medically for decades while simultaneously discovering their potential for unintended biological impacts. The science demonstrates that therapeutic EMF applications require careful risk-benefit analysis, especially given what we now know about non-thermal biological effects that weren't recognized in the 1930s.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
To present a survey of the clinical experience with short wave and ultrashort wave therapy, analyzing results from published cases and the author's own material to evaluate the effectiveness of this new therapy.
The study compiled 1144 cases from twelve different sources and included 60 cases from the author's ...
The 1144 cases tabulated showed extremely high improvement rates amounting to 897 per cent. Even aft...
Short wave therapy was tried in a wide range of diseases, with two predominant groups comprising 1016, or 81.9% of the 1144 cases compiled. The infectious conditions of pyogenic origin, which includes 695 cases, or 60.1% of the whole material, showed different results. Schliephake's conception of short wave therapy, as being of equal efficiency with x-ray therapy, stands and falls with its worth in this group of pyogenic infections where alone it could be without competition. The treatment cannot yet be considered superior to other modalities, but the results in infectious conditions are promising. The therapy is only justified by indisputable results which cannot be paralleled by simpler or less expensive modalities.
Show BibTeX
@article{results_of_short_wave_and_ultrashort_wave_therapy_radiathermy__g7045,
author = {David H. Kling and M.D.},
title = {RESULTS OF SHORT WAVE AND ULTRASHORT WAVE THERAPY (RADIATHERMY)},
year = {1935},
}