20 Electromagnetic Fields in Biology and Medicine
Ancient physicians in China, Japan, and Europe successfully applied natural magnetic materials in
their daily practice. One of the earliest scientic records could be found in the book De Magnete,
written in 1600 by William Gilbert, a nature philosopher known in physics and mathematics and
as a personal physician of the British Queen (Gilbert, 1600).
The contemporary magnetotherapy began immediately after World War II by introducing both
MFs and EMFs generated by various wave shapes of the supplying systems. Starting in Japan, this
modality quickly moved to Europe, rst in Romania and the former Soviet Union. By 1985, nearly
all European countries had designed and manufactured their own magnetother ...