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.