Per­son­al­ized elec­tric stim­u­la­tion for epilep­sy, de­pres­sion? Morn­ing­side bets $17.5M on an idea dat­ing back to Ro­man Em­pire

In his 46 AD com­pendi­um of med­ical treat­ments, Scri­bo­nius Largus, the court physi­cian to the Ro­man em­per­or Claudius, de­scribed a pe­cu­liar way to re­lieve headache.

Place a live tor­pe­do fish — the black, flat, disc-look­ing fish al­so known as elec­tric ray — on the place which is in pain, he in­struct­ed, un­til the pain ceas­es and the part grows numb. The pur­port­ed ef­fect? It would “im­me­di­ate­ly re­move and per­ma­nent­ly cure a headache, how­ev­er long-last­ing and in­tol­er­a­ble.”

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