ZONE THERAPY OR RELIEVING PAIN AT HOME
BY
WM. H. FITZGERALD, M. D.
AND
EDWIN F. BOWERS, M. D.
Author of “Side Stepping Ill Health”
“Alcohol—Its Influence on Mind and Body,” etc.
Thousands of lives are lost annually from diseases which could have been prevented. Hundreds of thousands, because of some preventable ailment, which partially or totally incapacitates them, are today living only a small part of their lives. Millions of dollars yearly are squandered on medicines, doctors and undertakers—much of which might have been saved by a right knowledge of the laws of health and hygiene.
Even among the comfortably situated, or even well-to-do, robust, vigorous health is the rarest of possessions. The most rugged-looking, on being closely and sympathetically catechised, will admit to a “touch of rheumatism”; a chronic stomach, liver, or kidney trouble; nervousness, headaches, neuralgia, constipation, or something that tends to prevent his attaining completest physical power and mental efficiency. And the weaker sex more than justify their descriptive adjective. For 80% of those not directly under a physician’s care, or taking some medicine or form of treatment for something, should be.
Conditions are improving, however. There is a dawn of hope for humanity. For good health is being made a fetish. It is becoming a gospel—a gospel preached in schools, newspapers, magazines, churches and theatres. Accurate knowledge concerning sanitation, sexology, food, clothing, exercise, sleeping, resting, and all hygienic measures, is becoming more and more widely disseminated.
Humanity is awakening to the fact that sickness, in a large percentage of cases, is an error—of body and mind. Ignorance of the injurious effects of wrong foods, drinks, habits and methods is gradually being overcome.
Foremost among those engaged in educating the public away from paths of ignorance, and the disastrous consequences of this ignorance, is the medical fraternity. The noblest and most self-sacrificing profession on earth is the one most industriously engaged in sawing the branch between itself and the tree of Financial Gain. The doctor is the philanthropist most impressively employed in killing the geese that lay his golden eggs with one hand, while he cuts his pocket-book’s jugular vein with the other.
For he catches and segregates—constructing prisons for them, if necessary—all cases,—or even suspected cases—of contagious disease,—disease which, if permitted to spread broadcast, would net him a horde of ducats.
He sees to it that no infectious disorders are imported into the country—the spreading of which would give him much practice. He traces every typhoid case to its ultimate dirty barn, or infected water supply, and counts that day well spent whose low declining sun has seen him stamp out a possible typhoid epidemic at its source.
He vaccinates all—willing and unwilling—lest he be kept horribly busy attending a huge army of small-pox patients.
He instructs gluttons, and others, as to the grave dangers of overeating, or of eating the right food at the wrong time.
He teaches mothers to sterilize their babies’ bottles, and thereby keep the bugs of war at bay.
He thunders against exposure, against spitting in or on public places; he has Health Ordinances passed, covering every conceivable method whereby disease might develop.
Untiringly and without intermission—except during a few of the worst blizzards—he inculcates the doctrines of flies, in their relation to fingers and filth, and hurls Phillipics against mosquitoes, ticks, and the insect world generally—not forgetting bed-bugs, lice, and other disease-breeding vermin.
He extols the benefits of bathing, the rich rewards of fresh air, exercise, and the relief of constipation.
In fact, he takes pride in doing all that within him lies, in order to teach the world to do without him.
Thanks to doctors, we are learning about plumbing and posture, mastication and measles, outdoors, deep breathing, poisons and poise. We are finding out what bad teeth do to good health, how to work, play and sleep so as to get the greatest physical good from each.
We are warned against overweight, alcohol, common colds and tobacco, and the evil possibilities in marrying one’s cousin—or some one else’s cousin who has, or has had, syphilis, feeble-mindedness, a drunken ancestry, epilepsy, or some tendency to “hark back” and “revert to type”—as did Mendel’s beans, or the black Andalusian pullets.
The subject of life and health conservation is “in the air.” Only recently a president of the American Medical Association made this theme the subject of his inaugural address. Hardly a medical journal but has one or more articles devoted to it in each issue. We are being specifically instructed in how to avoid disease.
Now, however, we are to learn how, in many instances, diseases, many of them most grave and life-shortening, may be cured. This, by measures which conflict with no other form of treatment, and so simple as almost to appear ridiculous. For Dr. William H. FitzGerald, the discoverer of zone therapy, is to tell us how he instructs his patients, under his guidance and direction, to cure themselves.
Dr. FitzGerald’s position is one that commands respect. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont, and spent two and a half years in the Boston City Hospital. He served two years in the Central London Nose and Throat Hospital. For a like period he was in Vienna, where he was assistant to Professor Politzer and Professor Otto Chiari, who are known wherever medical text-books are read.
For several years Dr. FitzGerald has been the senior nose and throat surgeon of St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, and is an active member of most of the American medical societies.
I have known Dr. FitzGerald for many years. He is able and honest, a skillful and competent surgeon, and a student. No matter how foolish, how ridiculous his methods may seem, they are most decidedly not the vaporings of a dreamer or a charlatan. They are the calmly digested findings of a trained scientific mind.
And so Dr. FitzGerald is to give us specific details of one of the most wonderful and perplexing things connected with the art of medicine. This, because a physician’s premise is to teach—as well as heal. Because publicity concerning the prevention and cure of disease is a duty he owes mankind: not as an altruist, but as a human being.
Edwin F. Bowers, M. D.
Sept. 1, 1916.
The chapters comprising this book were first published as special articles in the “Associated Sunday Magazines”, and “Every Week”. Accompanying the introductory article was this comment by Mr. Bruce Barton, the able and critical editor of these Magazines. It explains itself:
“For almost a year Dr. Bowers has been urging me to publish this article on Dr. FitzGerald’s remarkable system of healing, known as zone therapy. Frankly, I could not believe what was claimed for zone therapy, nor did I think that we could get magazine readers to believe it. Finally, a few months ago, I went to Hartford unannounced, and spent a day in Dr. FitzGerald’s offices. I saw patients who had been cured of goiter; I saw throat and ear troubles immediately relieved by zone therapy; I saw a nasal operation performed without any anesthetic whatever; and—in a dentist’s office—teeth extracted without any anesthetic except the analgesic influence of zone therapy. Afterward I wrote to about fifty practising physicians in various parts of the country who have heard of zone therapy and are using it for the relief of all kinds of cases, even to allay the pains of childbirth. Their letters are on file in my office.
This first article will be followed by a number of others in which Dr. Bowers will explain the application of zone therapy to the various common ailments. I anticipate criticism regarding these articles from two sources: first, from a small percentage of physicians; second, from people who will attempt to use zone therapy without success. We have considered this criticism in advance, and are prepared to disregard it. If the articles serve to reduce the sufferings of people in dentists’ chairs even ten per cent., if they will help in even the slightest way to relieve the common pains of every-day life, they will be amply justified.
We do not know the full explanation of zone therapy; but we do know that a great many people have been helped by it, and that nobody can possibly be harmed.”
The Editor.
Diagram of Anterior Zones on one side of the body.
Both right and left sides of the body are the same.
Each numbered line represents the center of its respective zone on the anterior part of the body.
The tongue, hard and soft palate, posterior wall of the nasopharynx and oropharynx, and the generative organs are in ten zones, five on each side of the median line.
The middle ear is in Zone 4.
The eustachian tube and middle ear combined are in Zones 3 and 4.
The upper surface of the tongue is in the anterior zones.
The teeth are in the respective zones as indicated by passing a line antero-posteriorly thru the respective zones.
The viscera are in the zones as represented by a line passed antero-posteriorly thru the respective zones.
Fig. 1.
Diagram of Posterior Zones on one side of the body.
Both right and left sides of the body are the same.
Each numbered line represents the center of its respective zone on the posterior part of the body.
The under surface of the tongue is in the posterior zone.
Fig. 2.—Posterior view, illustrating individual zones. It will be observed that what is commonly called the back of the hand is really the front of that member, whereas the palm of the hand corresponds to the sole of the foot.
RELIEVING PAIN BY PRESSURE.
No illustrator would ever think of drawing a picture of a boy with a green-apple colic, unless he represented that boy with both hands clasped fervently over the seat of war. Nor would he picture a pain anywhere else, without showing the attempts made to relieve this pain. For no one would believe his illustrations, if he omitted these details.
Now, while we know the fact of pain relief, through laying on of the hands, or by kindred measures, we know only a part of its reason for operation. There are several of these. They are, first, the soothing influence of animal magnetism, experienced when we tenderly, if not lovingly, rub the bump, accumulated in the dark of the moon, by collision with a tall brunette side-board, or a door carelessly left ajar. It does soothe. This we know.
Next, the manipulation of the hand over the injured place tends to prevent a condition of venous stasis—a state in which the injured surface veins dam back the flow of blood, and produce that lurid discoloration known euphoneously as “black and blue.”
Also, pressure applied over the seat of injury produces what Dr. George W. Crile, of Cleveland, calls “blocked shock,” or “nerve block,” which means that by pressing on the nerves running from the injured part to the brain area we inhibit or prevent the transmission to the brain the knowledge of injury. In other words, the hurt place can’t tell the central telegraph station anything about the accident, because the wires are down.
Dr. Crile, and surgeons generally, now utilize this knowledge to prevent shock during operations, by injecting cocain, or some anesthetic solution around the course of the nerve trunk leading from the place to be operated upon to the brain.
But there is yet another reason, which we have found out only yesterday. And this is zone analgesia. Pressure over any bony eminence injured, or pressure applied upon the zones corresponding to the location of the injury, will tend to relieve pain.
And not only will it relieve pain, but if the pressure is strong enough and long enough it will frequently produce an analgesia, or insensibility to pain, or even a condition of anesthesia—in which minor surgical operations may be successfully done.
This, of course, is not an infallible or invariable result. Specialists in zone therapy have found pressure effective in obliterating sensation in about 65% of cases; while it will deaden pain, or make it more bearable, in about 80%.
In the hands of many who have tried these methods the percentage often is much lower—because they haven’t learned how to apply it. For if the operator doesn’t “hit” the proper areas or focal points he misses them completely—and also misses results.
In attempting the relief of pain by “working” from the fingers it should also be emphasized that it makes a difference, too, whether the upper and lower or the side surfaces of the joint are pressed. A physician experimenting with the method was ready to condemn it because he was unable to relieve a patient who complained of rheumatic pains which centered on the outer side of the ankle-bone. The doctor grasped the second joint of the patient’s right little finger and pressed firmly for a minute on the top and bottom of the joint. (See Fig. 3.) The pain persisted, and the doctor jeered at the method.
Fig. 3.—Illustrating method of applying anterior and posterior pressure to the finger joint.
A disciple of zone therapy smiled, and suggested that while the doctor had the right finger, he had the right finger in the wrong grip. The doctor was advised to press the sides of the finger (See Fig. 4), instead of the top and bottom. This was done, and the pain disappeared in two minutes.
Fig. 4. Illustrating method of applying lateral pressure to the finger joint.
This pressure therapy has an advantage over any other method of pain relief, inasmuch as it has been proved that, in contradistinction to opiates, when zone pressure relieves pain it likewise tends to remove the cause of the pain, no matter where this cause originates. And this in conditions where seemingly one would not expect to secure any therapeutic, or curative, results.
For instance, I recall a case of breast tumor, with two fairly good-sized nodes, as large as horse chestnuts. This lady had made arrangements to be operated upon by a prominent surgeon in Hartford, but had postponed her operation a few weeks on account of the holidays.
Meantime she had been instructed to make pressures with a tongue depressor and with elastic bands (See Figures 17 and 5), for the relief of the breast pain—which relief, by the way, was quite complete. After a few weeks, this lady returned to her surgeon for further examination and to complete arrangements for operation. Upon examining, however, the surgeon found the growth so reduced in size that he expressed himself as unwilling to operate, as he saw no necessity for operating. The tumor has since completely disappeared—under these tongue pressure treatments. This patient, and the name of the surgeon who saw her “before and after,” are at the disposal of any physician who may regard this plain unvarnished tale as an old wives’ chronicle.
A small uterine fibroid made a similar happy exit, as a result of pressures made on the floor of the mouth, directly under the center of the tongue. This patient next made a regular practice of squeezing the joints of her thumb, first and second finger, whenever she had nothing else important to do. And the result infinitely more than justified the means.
Lymphatic enlargements, as painful glands in the neck, arm-pits, or groin, yield even more rapidly to this zone pressure than do tumors. And while no claims are made to the effect that cancer can be cured by zone therapy, yet there are many cases in which pain has been completely relieved, and the patients freed from the further necessity of resorting to opiates. And in a few cases the growths have also entirely disappeared.
Fig 5.—Showing method of “rubber-banding” the fingers for trouble in the first, second and third zones.
The growth of interest in this work is most encouraging. Dr. FitzGerald and other physicians using zone therapy in their practice, have had scores of letters from patients they have never even seen, but who have written, expressing their appreciation for the relief secured through instructions from some of their patients, or through following out some suggestion from my articles in the magazines.
I have reason to believe that there are now upwards of two hundred physicians, osteopaths and dentists, using these methods every day, with complete satisfaction to themselves and to their patients.
And the number of laymen, and especially lay-women, who are preaching the doctrine in their own households, and among their circle of friends, must be legion. The adoption of the method is attended with absolutely no danger or disagreeable results, and may be the means of lengthening short lives and making good health catching. I, for one, hope that the numbers of those who may be inclined to learn and practice these methods upon themselves and upon the members of their families may ever increase and multiply. For this is a big idea, and a helpful one. Therefore, the more who make it their own the better for the human race. We shall now let Dr. FitzGerald continue the argument.
THAT ACHING HEAD.
The next time you have a headache, instead of attempting to paralyze the nerves of sensation with an opiate, or a coal tar “pain-deadener,” push the headache out through the top of the head. It’s surprisingly easy.
Fig. 6.—Palate-pressor Electrode may be used with or without electricity.
It merely requires that you press your thumb—or, better still, some smooth, broad metal surface (See Fig. 6), as the end of a knife-handle—firmly against the roof of the mouth, as nearly as possible under the battleground—and hold it there for from three to five minutes—by the watch. It may be necessary, if the ache is extensive, to shift the position of the thumb or metal “applicator” so as to “cover” completely the area that aches.
Headaches and neuralgias, of purely nervous origin, not due to poison from toxic absorption from the bowels, or to constipation, or alcoholism, tumors, eye-strain, or some specific organic cause, usually subside under this pressure within a few minutes.