volume 7, page 780.

Another of Tesla's inventions or discoveries which excited greater popular interest was that which produced what were called "high frequency effects," first publicly shown in connection with a lecture at Columbia College, in the spring of 1890. "Mr. Tesla started with the idea of setting matter into vibration at a rate approximating that of light (some two and a half millions a second), with the expectation that under such violent molecular agitation it would emit light. He has not as yet succeeded in obtaining so high a rate, but a much lower one produced some very surprising luminous effects. … The dynamo method for getting very high frequencies was soon abandoned as inadequate, and the oscillatory discharge of a Leyden jar or plate condensers was substituted. … Perhaps the most surprising of the new facts elicited from his investigations is that the shock due to these very high voltage and high frequency currents can be supported by a person without any serious inconvenience. He passes a current of two hundred thousand volts through his body with perfect impunity."

_F. J. Patten, New Science Review,