Kyoichi Nakagawa, M. D.
Director, Isuzu Hospital
Tokyo, Jap

I. Advocation of the Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome

b) Research Abroad

Magneto-therapy has a long history abroad, and the titles with a brief explanation of literature from past days are listed in the Bibliography of the Biological Effects of Magnetic Fields(24).

In this publication, We find the thesis Eydam I. of 1843 on the application of a magnetic field to the human body for therapeutic purposes. I believe I can say that with the exception of Paracelas (25) or Gilbert(26) this is the oldest thesis on magneto-therapy. Following this in 1969, Maggiorani(27) reported that he gained effective and non-effective results in applying magnetism to the human body and that hysteria, ataxia and diabetes patients were most sensitive.

In 1878, Charot and Renard(27) wrote of the effects of magnetism on hysteria and in 1879 Mueller(27) wrote that itchiness and pain were noticed when a magnetic field was applied to the human body. Westphal(27) and Gangee(27) reported in 1878 of abnormal skin feeling returning to normal on the application of magnetism. In the same year, Waldmann(28) announced his thesis on "Der Magnetismus in der Heilkunde". This was probably the first thesis concerning the application of a magnetic field to the treatment of illnesses. In 1879, Benedict(27) and Drosdov (27) reported that the application of a magnetic field reduced pain stemming from various causes. A thesis forwarded by Benedict, M. (29) in 1885 used the word Magneto-therapie, and in 1886 Quinan, J.R. (24)(30) announced a general history of the application of magnetism in medical science.

As mentioned above, much interest was shown in the relationship between the magnetic field and the human body and it is thought that magnetism was actually used in clinical medicine as treatment.

However, the application of magnetic fields in medicine had gradually faded, probably because of reports such as that of Peterson, F. and A.E. Kennelly(31) of the then influential Edison Laboratory who advocated that magnetism had no effect on the human body, and that of Hermann, L.(31) who reported finding no change in experiments using human beings and frogs.

In 1902, Kurella, H.(24) published a report on treatment using magnetism, and Kuehn, W.(24) made public another on Heilmagnetismus. Also in 1902, Fere, C.(24) made public a report on the effect of magnetism on human physiological functions. Following that, under the title of "Heilmagnetismus", Moll, A.(24) forwarded his thesis on magneto-therapy. Payr, E.(24) in 1915 also wrote a thesis on the application of strong electromagnets in the medical field, and Kahame, M.(24) forwarded a thesis titled Magnetotherapie.

As the above mentioned theses from abroad are very old, they are difficult to get in Japan and we have never read the originals only knowing them indirectly. However, judging from the titles of the theses, I believe we can safely presume magneto-therapy was tried and that it had quite a long history.

Following this, during the 1920's, as far as I can ascertain only a few theses on magneto-therapy were forwarded. However, in 1928, Rosenberg(27) stated that "We must admit that until now no basis for acknowledging the effect of a constant magnetic field has been obtained." This appeared to become the established theory in western countries, and also appears to have been accepted in Japan. I believe it was because of this that research on magnetism in the medical and biological fields was deemed meaningless.

In 1938, Hansen, K.M.(32) reported that patients suffering from subjective symptoms of sciatica, lumbago, joint pains, etc. but showing no findings in an X-ray examination, found relief when the constant field from an electromagnet was applied. The report further stated that magnetism was also effective in treating acute inflammatory illnesses and chronic gingivitis. It does not give the strength of the field used, but we can assume it to be quite strong. With this therapy, the S-pole was applied to the body for periods of 10-40 minutes, this being repeated several or in some cases over 10 times.

Hansen, in 1944(33) and 1949(34) also forwarded her research on magnetic fields applied to the human body, but as this has no direct relationship to therapy I will not elaborate here. She states that from those studies it is found that magnetism applied to the human body functions mainly on the autonomic nervous system.

During the 1950's, research on the removal of strongly magnetic objects from the human body was made (35)(36), but as this also does not fall into the category of magneto-therapy I will not elaborate.

In 1960, Freeman, M.W.(37) forwarded his thesis on "Magnetism in Medicine", however this also does not deal with the therapeutic effects of magnetism. Sinkarera, L.F. et al.(38) reported in 1970 that a constant magnetic field was found effective in treating inflammatory illnesses of the female genital organs.

In 1972, Degan, I.L.(39) experimented with applying a constant magnetic field of 450-530 gauss to the hands of patients suffering from Dupuytren's contracture incurable by drugs. the treatment lasted for 15-40 minutes at a time, this being repeated from 5-40 times depending on the case. The treatment was found effective on first-degree symptoms, and also considerable improvement was noticed as well in cases with second degree symptoms.

c.) Deficiency of the Magnetic Field acting on the human body

The earth's magnetic field is of course a stationary magnetic field working constantly on the human body. For this reason, I wish to discuss here whether this field is actually in a deficient state or not. Kawai(40) stated that the strength of the earth's field has decreased a total of 50% during the last 500 years, decreasing 5% over the past 100 years. Furthermore, it is said(41) that the total moment of the earth's magnetic field has been decreasing at the rate of 0.05% per year. Along these lines, Rikitake(42) also states that the magnetic moment of the earth is decreasing quite rapidly, the rate of decrease having reached about 5% per one hundred years. He maintains that if this continues the earth's magnetic field will eventually reach zero in 200 years. Along with this decrease, the angles of the earth's magnetic field are also said to be changing.

It seems certain we can assume that the earth's magnetic field is decreasing in strength, and we can well imagine that this could be the cause of disorder in the human body.

Furthermore, we also consider that there are other factors as well, which could play a part in decreasing the effect of the earth's field acting on the human body.

Living or working in steel frame or steel structure buildings is one of these. Iron is several hundred to several thousand times more permeable than air(43), and so can absorb a large part of the magnetic lines of the earth's field thus sheltering people from such. Automobiles, electric trains, and ships are, to some extent, also sheltered places, the latter being especially so.

To confirm this point, it is necessary to actually measure the field strength on the spot, and we are at the moment preparing to do this. However, the actual process of measurement seems to be very difficult(42).

As the human race has long been under the influence of the earth's magnetic field I believe, as I mentioned before(7), that any change in this field could cause disorder in the human body. Kawai's book (40) is subtitled "The Earth's Magnetic Field Controls the Weather", and if this is really the situation, the human body will be influenced by this change in the weather. This can be shown as follows: Change in the earth's magnetic field leads to a change in the weather which leads to an influence on the human body and consequent disorder of some kind.

However, even if the disorder in the human body occurs along these lines, it does not fall into the category we claim to be the Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome. The reason for this is that such a disorder would be caused indirectly by the change in the weather, and there would be no change in such a disorder which could be gained by applying a magnetic field directly to the human body.

We are left with the question of how magnetic fields (including the earth's field) directly affect the human body, and I wish to take this up in the next article.

There is a difference between each human body, and one such case could be suffering from a magnetic field deficiency even if there was no decrease in the strength of the earth's field. However, the people with the stated above show improvement when a magnetic field is applied, and we believe that at least with these people, there is a magnetic field deficiency.

To summarize, the earth's magnetic field acting on the human body has, for various reasons, been decreasing and this is believed to cause some sort of disorder in the human body. Therefore, when by some method a magnetic field is applied to the human body it is clear that the symptoms can be improved (see referential literature quoted), and this is the basis for our advocating the presence of the magnetic field deficiency syndrome.

IV. The Relationship Between Magnetic Fields and the Human Body

Research on magnetic fields and the living body has become very active in recent years, much literature(57)(58)(67) having been published. In this article I wish, through items other than those concerning the treatment effects of magnetic fields which I discussed in article III, to discuss the relationship between magnetic fields and the human body. What I will take up here is concerned with the functional order of a magnetic field on the human body.

There has been some excellent research done on the objective effects of a magnetic field applied to the human body. One of these by Okai, et al.(44-47) confirmed by using animals that new electric current is generated by electromagnetic induction when a magnetic field is applied to the blood stream. Then, by putting the human chest between the poles of an electromagnet or by generating a pulse between two poles placed as such, they detected, by using electrodes fixed to the skin, electromotive force by the blood flow across the magnetic field. They named this Magnetoheography. It was the first time the electric change occurring when a magnetic field is applied to the human body had been confirmed.

Similar studies utilizing animals were made during 1964, 1966 and 1969 by Beischer, et al.(48)(49)(58) with squirrel monkeys. That using a 100 kilogauss field from a super-conductive electromagnet showed a similar electromotive force as in previous experiments on the human body. However, the experiment by Okai remains the first conducted on the human body.

From these experimental results, it is now clear that, in the case of both human beings and animals, electromotive force is generated by the external application of a magnetic field to the body. This phenomenon was first announced by Farbre, P. (1932)(50) and Kolin, A. (1936)(51) who studied the electromagnetic induction in living bodies by using the exposed blood vessels of animals. It is the phenomenon of a new electromagnetic flowmeter utilizing this phenomenon, this being applied in the fields of biology and experimental medicine to study circulation. The results of much research on this subject have been published, but as it is not the main theme of this thesis I will not quote details.

Since their time, the research of Farbre, P. and Kolin, A. has been adopted in the scope of physics, it being used to measure flow volume or flow speed in various fields(7). This branch of physics is called Magneto-hydrodynamics and publications by Alfven, H. (55) and cowling, T.G. (56) are available on the subject.

Barnothy, M.F.(57) states that the electromotive force generated by this method creates Polarization Current and Conduction Current, these causing Electrolytic dissociation of body fluid which acts on the human body as stress.

It is clear that an electric change will occur when a magnetic field is applied to the human body, but this is not an insertion of electrical energy into the it is only a conversion of a part of the motion energy of the body fluid into electrical energy through the medium of a magnetic field. Therefore, we cannot consider it as an insertion of energy as the energy of the magnetic field is much smaller than other physical phenomena used for therapy today. For this reason, the function of a magnetic field on the human (living) body is helping only from the angle that it converts one particular form of energy which the system contains. We(7) believe it is a "physical, catalyst-like function".

For these reasons, we(7) feel that if such an energy change is produced by applying a magnetic field constantly to the human body, some change will occur in the body. To this effect, we believe that the therapeutic syndrome explained in II.

If this is the case, we must consider the mal-effects on the human body as the result of the application of such a field. This point will be covered in article VI.

Other phenomena which we feel could occur to the living (human) body when a magnetic field is applied to it are the Thermomagnetic effect and the Hall effect. (For details please refer to books specializing in this field). Barnothy, M.F.(57) also maintains that these effects occur, but to what extent they are important as a cause of the influence of a magnetic field on the human body has not been proven.

Furthermore, we could of course think of the molecular biological function as an explanation of the relationship between magnetic fields and the human body(57)(58), however, we(7) think that with the strength of the magnetic fields used for therapy today, we need not consider this. For this reason, I will not include an explanation of this.

Next, I wish to discuss the question of a magnetic field emanating from the human body. Whether or not there is such a field has already been confirmed, its presence being found using Magnetocardiography and Magnetoencepholography. Much research has been conducted on this phenomenon, but Tanaka and Ushio(59) summarize the point well. I will explain here the contents of this phenomenon.

A magnetic field, although weak, is formed around the human body by the active current within the body, this field changing as the active current changes. The purpose of Magnetocardiography and Magnetoencepholography is to record the change of this field from outside the body, and to utilize these findings for diagnosis. This recording is very difficult to make as an instrument which is capable of measuring to at least 10^-7 gauss is necessary for external recording, and above this noise prevention is also a problem. We are still testing the possibility but so far without success.

On the other hand, the earth's magnetic field has about a 5X10^-1 gauss magnetic flux density, and is incomparably stronger than that emanating from the human body. Therefore, for even a small change in the earth's field that of the human body will be much affected. This may even affect the active current within the human body. Therefore, for even a small change in the earth's field that of the human body will be much affected. This may even affect the active current within the human body, and we can imagine that this could be the cause of disorder or change in the body.

When a magnetic field is applied externally to the human body, a field with a magnetic flux density of 10^2-10^3 gauss can be easily and continuously maintained. Further, we can imagine that the magnetic field emanating from the body could be affected considerably. There are some theses(64) which claim that the influence on the magnetic field emanating from the human (living) body by an outside field is the source of the function of fields on the body.

As the earth's magnetic field is to some extent always working on the body, and as the body fluid is always in motion even when the body is at rest, it must be that electromotive force is constantly being generated by electromagnetic induction. Also, when a man is in motion, he moves across the magnetic field and in the same way as a conductive material moving across a magnetic field it is also possible to consider that electromotive force could be generated.

For these reasons, the electromotive force generated when a man moves East-West and North-South will be different, the speed of motion also causing a difference.

Summarizing what I have stated in this article and the contents of II, III, we assume the function of a magnetic field on the human body follows the steps shown in Fig. 1&2. However, there are many things still not clarified, but we believe that an approach to the solution both following and opposite to the direction of the arrows in Fig. 2. will lead to clarification of the problem(14)(15). I will not elaborate on this here.

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