Ancient Egyptian and Greek electric therapy

[archaeologist]

Fish was an important part of the ancient Egyptians life. It was caught for food but had also different symbolic, mythological and religious meanings. For example did king Narmers name include the glyph for catfish. Besides their symbolic meaning fishes could also be used for medical purpose. Thus, for example, you could use the catfishes against gout, hedache and other illnesses. A very specific area of ​​use that is at mentioned in some sources is the use of electric fish (mainly the electric catfish, Malapterurus electricus) for a kind of electrotherapy. I remember I first heard about this many years ago in a radio program about medicine in ancient Egypt. Unfortunately the program makers did not dwell on which sources they used for the information about the therapeutic properties of electric fish (electric catfish and torpedo rays). Later I read some hints about it in other books but even there it was difficult to find out the sources. In any case, it was said that the method may also have been used by the ancient Greeks who learned it from the Egyptians.

In the radio program it was said that the doctor handled the electric fishes with the help of wooden sticks, so that he did not get a shock himself, and applied the fish to the patient. The electric shocks alleviated the patient's pain.

Over time, I have found more literature on the phenomenon. Now even Wikipedia mentions some older sources

"The electrogenic properties of electric rays have been known since antiquity, although their nature was not understood. The ancient Greeks used electric rays to numb the pain of childbirth and operations. In his dialogue Meno, Plato has the character Meno accuse Socrates of "stunning" people with his puzzling questions, in a manner similar to the way the torpedo fish stuns with electricity. Scribonius Largus, a Roman physician, recorded the use of torpedo fish for treatment of headaches and gout in his Compositiones Medicae of 46 AD."

Electric ray

A while ago I also found an article that tells more about the use of electric fishes in the ancient world:

Abstract

There are several remedies in the medical papyri which refer to the use of 'Nar' fish - the Egyptian catfish. The place of fish, and in particular the Nile electric catfish, in art and iconography will be discussed. The diagnosis and treatment of headache as an example - both in the Egyptian and the subsequent Greek and Latin literature - is explored. The tantalising question of whether some unique forms of ichthyotherapy might actually have constituted an early form of electrotherapy is speculated upon.

Conclusion

One and a half thousand years before the birth of Hippocrates and those who followed in his tradition, the ancient Egyptians recorded in the Ebers papyrus the Nile "nar" fish for the treatment of that most difficult to manage headache viz. migraine, and a toe-swelling ailment (most probably gout). In the first and second centuries AD, Greco-Roman medical writers described the use of the Mediterranean "nar-key'' fish for headache and gout, which I find to be too much of a coincidence. Modern scholars presume the therapeutic catfish indicated in the Ebers papyrus to have been dead. But, like Galen, I suspect King Narmer's fiery fish worked better on intractable medical conditions whilst it was still alive.

Ancient Egyptian Headaches: ichthyo - or electrotherapy?

Electrotherapy is still used to relieve pain in patients even if more modern equipment than fishes is used nowadays.

Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS or TNS)

Electric catfish

[archaeologist]

Here is an extract from another article with some more information about the use of electric fishes to relieve pain. It mentions some ancient sources which tell about the practice.

Anteros, a freed slave of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus, had decided it was a good day for a walk on the beach. Damp sand stuck to his bare feet as he walked, probably deep in great thoughts about matters that continue to remain a mystery, when he felt shock travel from his foot to the rest of his body, knocking him out of breath. The source of the shock, upon close inspection, was a live torpedo ray.

“Although he initially suffered an excruciating cramp, the pain he had long endured from what might have been gout miraculously disappeared,” writes historian of neuroscience Stanley Finger in his book Doctor Franklin’s Medicine.

As painful as it was, the jolt felt by Anteros would lead to the discovery of a treatment for countless diseases such as gout, arthritis, chronic headache, and more.

Long before man had discovered the scientific principles behind electricity, ancient physicians worked with electric current to treat physical and mental disorders such as epilepsy, vertigo and depression. The ancient world depended on nature for many needs now provided by technology, including sourcing electric current. Prior to the discovery of electricity, humans utilized electric fishes for all their ‘shocking’ needs.

Ancient Egyptians were familiar with one such shock generating fish, the Malapterurus electricus or the Nile catfish. Indigenous to the Nile, the first known depiction of the catfish can be found as a mural inscribed in 2750 BC on the tomb of the architect Ti in Saqqara, Egypt. Egyptians were not the only Mediterranean culture to depict the catfish in their art; a thousand miles north and 3000 years after the Saqqara mural , similar murals could also be found in the Roman city of Pompeii. While these murals fail to reveal whether the natives of the two lands used the electric fishes for any medical purposes, ancient Egyptian writings on papyri record the use of the electric fish to relieve pain 4700 years ago. Later records by Pliny and Plutarch also report the Egyptians' use of electric eel to treat joint pain, migraines, melancholy, and epilepsy.

Read the full article here:

The Shocking Medical History of Electric Fish -How a piscine biomedical tradition stretching from Ancient Egypt to Colonial Guyana helped create the first batteries

[anansi]

WOw!! wasn't expecting that.