However, accepting the extreme position of some of our friends, and admitting that all eye strain is imagination—or an error of the mind—I would ask them to consider the pert, prominent, and resolutely determined stye—which is certainly not imaginary, nor merely suggested. Also inflammatory conditions of the conjunctiva—the membrane of the eye and lids—and that irritating and extremely annoying affliction known as granulated lids.
It might be considered a crucial test of imagination to dissipate and clear up these conditions, yet zone therapy does just this. For sties and such eye conditions as conjunctivitis and granulated lids are completely relieved by pressure exerted upon the joints of the first and second finger of the hand corresponding to the eye involved. In sties the relief is frequently complete in one or two treatments. In other inflammatory conditions of the mucous membranes of the eye it may be necessary to give treatments three times a week for several weeks. Also, a bandage fastened around the index fingers, and soaked with camphor water, frequently relieves itching and congestion of the eyes.
Favorable results are almost routine in these troubles, and usually without employing any other measures. For facilitating treatment, however—unless the results of the exclusive use of zone therapy are desired for experimental reasons,—it might be well to use hot boric acid compresses, or other indicated measures, in addition to the pressures.
To go still farther I might state a fact that every doctor will immediately admit. And this is, that inflammation of the optic nerve—optic neuritis—is most decidedly not imaginary, nor is it, so far as I know, cured by telling the patient that there is nothing the matter with him. As a usual thing, whether treated or not, one afflicted with optic neuritis goes on to complete blindness.
Yet we have cured optic neuritis by making pressures over the first and second fingers, and over the inferior dental nerve—where it enters the lower jaw bone.
One patient I have in mind, who had been treated without benefit by several competent medical men, using conventional and accepted methods, received no other form of treatment—no local applications, no antiseptics. Yet relief followed almost immediately after the pressures were made. The woman was treated twice the first day. That night she slept without taking an opiate—something she had not done before in several weeks.
A complete cure of her condition was brought about within a week, and now, after the expiration of six months, there has been no return of her symptoms.
For the benefit of physician readers I should like to add that in treating eye strain, conjunctivitis, sties, granulated lids, and eye conditions generally, pressures made with a blunt probe, (see E Fig. [11]) on the muco-cutaneous margins (where the skin joins the mucous membrane in the nostrils) affects the second division of the ophthalmic nerve, and assists materially in bringing about a favorable influence in eye troubles.