For my thesis I am looking for available online resources from the period around 1900. Does someone have an extensive overview of available newspapers. I for instance found Austrian newspapers online.  Now I am looking for an ad in the Neuer Zürcher Zeitung about an elektromagnetic therapeutic machine.  It appeared between 1899 and 1900. But I am also interested in other online resources with information around 1900.  It would be great if all the information would be available online.

Dr Shock speculates that I am busy with Twitter. But that is not the case. I am busy with my historical research on electrotherapy with a focus on magnetic stimulation and psychiatry. Now I am working on the period around 1900.  I found a lot of documents about German magnetotherapy. An electrotechnical engineer Eugen Konrad Müller produced a apparatus that produced an alternating magnetic field with an alternating current.  He claims he saw phosphenes in 1883 when he placed his head near an alternating magnetic field. Around 1900, he founded an institute in Zürich to investigate the effects of the magnetic waves produced by his apparatus. Physicians also got involved. They claimed that the apparatus was able to heal 70% of all conditions caused by an irritated nervous system (for instance neurasthenia) and  vasomotoric problems.  But Müller was not the only one who made an electromagnetic apparatus. The firm Trüb also produced an electromagnetic therapeutic machine. This machine worked with a rotating simple magnet. There was a lot of debate which machine worked and if the machines worked at all.

This is a just a little insight in the research I am doing right now. I want to extend the period to  nowadays and investigate how it came about that magnetic brain stimulation is al around.  I am still looking for interesting articles about magnetotherapy in the UK, France and US around 1900. So if someone has some clues or some interesting links please let me know. The research is not confined the scientific articles. Everything (photos, populair articles, newspaper articles) is interesting.

I would love to go to the exhibition about mental illness and visual arts in Vienna 1900. This would be a nice addition to the things I allready know about this period.

• Buy an E-ticket for the train in the Netherlands http://tinyurl.com/ctx8qr. Hopefully it will be back online soon. #

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I am a big fan of Mythbusters. So I was pleasantly surprised to read that Adam Savage talked about his obsessions at Ted  He is as energetic as in the television show. A must see.

Would you do this to your friends?

Off-topic: google has added Street View for the Netherlands. For now only 010 and 020.

• As a test I developed a Twitter account http://tinyurl.com/bsjexa for ambulance calls. It does not update regularly but in the future maybe #

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Acutezorg wonders what health people would be able to do with it. One thing that would be cool is to project peoples organs on the outside of their body. I do not yet know what good will come out of that, but it would be fun.

• I’ll be at Zorg&ICT http://tinyurl.com/abf5et on Thurday March, 19th. You can find me the site of De Heer Software. Who is also there? #

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Lees ook: Health2.0 Unconference|| Lifehacks voor artsen|| Rondje langs de medblogs [17]|| Twitter Updates for 2009-03-10|| Medical mistake, complication or tragedy?||

• test #
• @klutser Wet van de remmende voorsprong in reply to klutser #

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For my thesis on TMS I am looking for a list of  publications of the french scientist d’Arsonval. The most famous publication on TMS by d’Arsonval in 1896¹ I already have in my possession. If someone has a list, please send me an e-mail or leave the list in the comment. Or if someone has an easy way to obtain the list, let me know!

1) d’Arsonval, J. A. (1896). “Dispotifs pour la mesure des courants alternatifs de toutes fréquences.” Comptes rendus des séances et mémoires de la Société de biologie et de ses filiales et associés: 450-451.

My Twitter now should automatically update whenever I publish a new post.

Do you want an easy adaptable transcranial magnetic stimulator? It might be possible in the (near) future. At OpenStim you can read about an open source rTMS stimulator. The WIKI has two goals:

1. Create a community that designs the core technology for a safe, highly functional, inexpensive, efficacious noninvasive transcranial magnetic stimulator (TMS) device for stimulating the central nervous system.

2. Facilitate experimentation and exchange of ideas, on the topic of modulation of brain function in a variety of people and contexts, so that we can learn more about the neural circuits mediating our subjective experiences, and improve mental functions (aka hacking your brain).

Another question that came to my mind about (r)TMS was whether you need to be a physician (MD) in the Netherlands to apply (r)TMS.  You need to be a physician to apply electroconvulsive therapy (dutch). But does (r)TMS belong to that category? And how about Magnetic Seizure Therapy?

Unfortunatelly we (Dr Shock and I) were not able to get a lot of input from other medbloggers for our grand rounds. Of course there were exceptions such as Laika. As a result of this Dr Shock started his monthly rounds of dutch medblogs.

The Dutch grand round had a short live. Nevertheless some medbloggers in The Netherlands produce interesting posts. Had lost track of most of them. Decided to produce a monthly selection as a kind of grand round. Choices are very biased and made by myself. If you feel left out, unappreciated or anything else please contact me [dr Shock].

I started my own weekly grand rounds (in dutch) in 2007, but it took me too much time to continue.