Auto-Conduction with High Frequency Solenoid
Like most books on electro-therapy, the tome by Dr. Gottschalk doesn’t go into how the electricity works on the body, at least in general terms. He supposes that it “corrects” wronged currents, and redirects incorrect electrical impulses.
Even when the electricity doesn’t contact the patient, as in this “High Frequency Solenoid” (an early Faraday cage), the electricity supposedly reduces asthmatic tendencies, tumors, and arthritis, in the more conservative writings.
When electricity was first widely available, the potential seemed limitless - indeed, its power to charge radiotherapy, respirometry, and heating pads, would eventually prove to be extremely helpful treatments, diagnostic devices, or cures for all three of the aforementioned conditions. But the electricity itself generally did nothing, in almost all cases. As far as pseudoscientific therapies go, it was one of the less harmful ones, at the very least.
Plus you got to stand in a Faraday cage! Wa-hey!
Practical Electro-Therapeutics. Dr. Franklin B. Gottschalk, 1908.