Electro-therapy got its start during the days of the Roman Empire when Greek physicians had their patients stand on electric torpedo fish as a step to improve health in the first century AD. Scribonius Largus wrote: “For any type of gout a live black torpedo should, when the pain begins, be placed under the feet … in this way Anteros, a freeman of Tiberius, was cured. … Headache even if it is chronic and unbearable is taken away and remedied forever by a live black torpedo placed on the spot which is in pain, until the pain ceases.” And Claudius Galen wrote: “Therefore I thought that the torpedo should be applied alive to the person who has the headache, … and could free the patient from pain … this I found to be so.”

Electricity was harnessed for healing as early as 1747. A professor of experimental philosophy and mathematics in Geneva restored life to the paralyzed arm of a blacksmith using an electric current. Electricity was soon recognized as being a natural part of the life force. It was used extensively for healing until the early part of the 20th Century and the advent of the pharmaceutical industry.

In the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis, there are several models of early devices used to bring about healing by applying electrical stimulation to the brain. In modern times, research started as early as 1903 to help with insomnia. This research was known first as “Electro-sleep” and later as more applications were discovered the term “Cranial Electrical Stimulation” or CES was used.

Bob Beck won the John Fetzer Foundation pioneering award for scientific achievement in 1990 for his brain research. Bob Beck’s first Brain Tuner was called the BT5. A later model was called the BT6.