Robert O. Becker

Funk asks why electric fields as a carrier of information were ignored in biology for so long. One reason given is the lack of suitable methods. At first only single electrode measurements were possible, and Funk names DuBois-Reymond, Burr, Becker and Nordenström as working this way¹. Funk says the next step was small vibrating, self-calibrating electrodes, developed by Jaffe and Nuccitelli in 1974. These could measure fields and currents at sub-millimetre scale.

Tyler lists Becker (1972) among reports that fields in the physiological range led to regeneration of limb tissue in animals that do not normally regenerate, here rats². Leppik and colleagues later repeated the Becker experiments. In treated rat stumps the bone marrow cavity stayed open. Tyler reports that this possibly let bone marrow progenitor cells form vascularized bone and cartilage centres³. O'Hara-Wright and colleagues cite Becker 1961 and Becker and Spadaro 1972 for the early in vivo regeneration studies⁴.