text: History The first documented experiments dealing with EMG started with Francesco Redi's works in 1666. Redi discovered a highly specialized muscle of the electric ray fish (Electric Eel) generated electricity. By 1773, Walsh had been able to demonstrate that the eel fish's muscle tissue could generate a spark of electricity. In 1792, a publication entitled De Viribus Electricitatis in Motu Musculari Commentarius appeared, written by Luigi Galvani, in which the author demonstrated that electricity could initiate muscle contraction. Six decades later, in 1849, Emil du Bois-Reymond discovered that it was also possible to record electrical activity during a voluntary muscle contraction. The first actual recording of this activity was made by Marey in 1890, who also introduced the term electromyography. In 1922, Gasser and Erlanger used an oscilloscope to show the electrical signals from muscles. Because of the stochastic nature of the myoelectric signal, only rough information could be obtained from its observation. The capability of detecting electromyographic signals improved steadily from the 1930s through the 1950s, and researchers began to use improved electrodes more widely for the study of muscles. The AANEM was formed in 1953 as one of several currently active medical societies with a special interest in advancing the science and clinical use of the technique.  Clinical use of surface EMG (sEMG) for the treatment of more specific disorders began in the 1960s. Hardyck and his researchers were the first (1966) practitioners to use sEMG. In the early 1980s, Cram and Steger introduced a clinical method for scanning a variety of muscles using an EMG sensing device.
  Research began at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota under the guidance of Edward H. Lambert, MD, PhD (1915–2003) in the early 1950s. Lambert, known as the "Father of EMG," with the assistance of his Research Technician, Ervin L Schmidt, a self taught electrical engineer, developed a machine that could be moved from the EMG Lab, and was relatively easy to use. As oscilloscopes had no "store" or "print" features at the time, a Polaroid camera was affixed to the front on a hinge. It was synchronized to photo the scan. Fellows studying at Mayo soon learned that this was a tool they wanted, too. As Mayo has no interest in marketing their inventions, Schmidt went on to continue to develop them in his basement for decades, selling them under the name ErMel Inc.