In the late 1940s, after his service in World War II, Harry Van Gelder, an osteopath and naturopath trained in England and Australia bought a small private osteopathic practice in Vancouver BC that came with one of these early electromedical machines and a list of frequencies. He taught himself to use the machine and apply the frequencies, and achieved a degree of notoriety as a successful healer. Using the machine, the frequencies, osteopathic manipulation, homeopathy and nutrition he treated patients from all over Canada and the US for ailments ranging from back pain to cancer and his fame grew along with his success. In 1955 he moved his practice and his family back to Australia, returning in 1972, to practice in Ojai, California. Using the same tools and achieving the same level of success, his notoriety grew and patients once again found him from all over the US and Canada.

In 1980 a chiropractic student named George Douglas heard about Dr. Van Gelder’s practice in Ojai and spent three months working with him to learn his methods. Dr. Douglas came home with the list of frequencies and put them in a drawer as a memento. After graduating from Western States Chiropractic College in Portland Oregon in 1983, he began teaching in the student health center where I met him in 1991 when I was a third year chiropractic student. In 1992 Dr. Douglas purchased a Precision Microcurrent instrument because it had two channels, as did Dr. Van Gelder’s antiquated machine, and he had the idea that it might be useful as a way of delivering the frequencies.

The frequencies we used to treat our friends and family were written on the back of a business card stored in the top of the machine. The frequencies were set on the machine, it was turned on, the gloves were moistened to allow proper conduction of the imperceptible current and the gloves were placed on the patient’s neck. The treatment had the immediate and totally unexpected effect of making the muscles go completely soft or “smooshy”. It was as if the tissue changed state from a solid to a gel. The taut bands disappeared instantly, as did the patient’s pain, and the treatment was complete in 30 minutes. In five years of training and practice doing manual massage and trigger point therapy no tissue had ever changed the way this tissue did. Surprise and disbelief were replaced by curiosity when the effects proved to be permanent and the symptoms resolved completely in one additional treatment.