Source: Popular Mechanics, November 1911, page 635

Electricity in the Air Blamed for Ills

A theory promulgated by a European physician, that there is altogether too much electricity of
artificial generation for wireless purposes at large in the atmosphere, and that its presence is
having a baneful effect on the human race, is discussed in American Medicine. The writer states:

`A new cause for toothache and certain nervous diseases has been found by a European physician
in the high-tension electrical currents that are produced in the course of wireless telegraphy. This
same savant is quoted as predicting a general increase of nervous ailments traceable to this same
cause. He believes that the neuronic elements are so affected that a low-grade neuritis is
produced, which progresses according to each patient's general physical condition, hygienic
surroundings, occupation, habits, etc.

At first thought, this theory of atmospheric electricity exerting pathogenic action on the nerves
or any other tissue seems unreasonable, but like many another new and original premise, the more
it is considered the more reasonable it becomes. The insidious effect of the X-ray on the skin and
other tissues, the neuroses or neurotic tendencies frequently observed in those whose occupation
forces them to spend considerable periods in rooms where powerful dynamos are constantly
running, and the tropho-neurotic affections so often encountered in physicians who use, day in
and day out, the ultraviolet, high-tension, and other forms of electricity, are all more or less
common, and lend color to the possibility that electricity has pathogenic as well as other
properties about which practically nothing is known.