Medicine: Electric Healing

Batteries for bone breaks

When Emanuel Brachfield's broken tibia failed to heal after six months in a cast and several operations, even his doctors began to worry. Reason: if fractured bones do not knit, the affected limb may eventually have to be amputated. Brachfield, 70, a retired New York City office worker, had heard from his physician that doctors at Manhattan's Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center were experimenting with a treatment that uses electricity to mend broken bones. He tried it. After eight weeks of electrotherapy, Brachfield has shed cast and crutches and is walking...