Reinhold Voll—Inventor of Electroacupuncture According to Voll (EAV)

Reinhold Voll (1909–1989) was born in Berlin. He set out to study architecture but soon changed to medicine and graduated in Tübingen in 1941. As a junior doctor, he developed an interest in alternative methods like homeopathy and acupuncture. He added electrical current to needle acupuncture and sought to identify correlations between various diseases and changes in the electrical conductivity of acupuncture points. He claimed that his EAV enabled him to identify the allergen of patients suffering from allergies and even the optimal homeopathic remedy for any given patient. He also claimed that teeth are energetically connected to organs, and EAV became a method used by many ‘holistic’ dentists. Voll and others developed and marketed electronic instruments that could easily be used in clinical routine. Voll’s ideas were widely accepted and he received several honours for his work.