Zone therapy; or, Relieving pain at home

by Wm. H. Fitzgerald; Edwin F. Bowers

Zone therapy has, in innumerable instances, restored speaking voices that were as lost as the Lost Hope. Indeed, it is of common occurrence to have a clergyman, a lawyer, or a business man who has become aphonic (voiceless) from long dictation, or some other vocal strain, come to the specialist in zone therapy, unable to speak above a whisper, and within a half hour go his way rejoicing—practically as “good as new”.

This, by application of the probe on the floor of the mouth, pressures on the tongue, and sometimes pressures on the thumb and fingers, any and all of which procedures can be successfully used by any intelligent man or woman in the relief of their own troubles, or in curing these troubles in their family.

Respecting the finger pressures, it must be borne in mind that it is necessary to work on the particular zone involved. For instance, it would be useless to make pressures over the thumb joints if the cause of the throat trouble should happen to be a congested tonsil. The third, fourth and fifth fingers would have to be invoked for relief in this zone.

It is, however, perfectly remarkable what these finger pressures alone will accomplish. One of the earlier experimental cases was a patient who had been speaking on and off all day at a Sunday School Convention held in a grove. This grove must have been an ideal spot for a nice open air meeting. But the leafy bowers, the sylvan glades, and the bossy dells were not built for acoustic purposes.

The consequence was that, when the shades of night were falling fast our hero was “all in”. He couldn’t speak above a whisper. He had such contraction of the muscles that he couldn’t even open his jaws—let alone communicate intelligent information through them.

This was his condition when he presented himself the following noon petitioning relief. He had had nothing to eat since late lunch the day before, although, whether he knew it or not, he had had enough then to last him a week.

Of course, as he could not open his mouth it was not possible to treat him by pressures on the floor of the mouth, and on the tongue. So he was provided with an aluminum comb, and shown how to make pressures on the back of his hand, extending up from the thumb to the wrist, and over to the fourth finger, and left to his own devices for twenty-five minutes.

At the expiration of this time he had relaxed the tension of his jaw muscles and relieved the irritation in his throat to such an extent that he went out and had a comfortable lunch. Returning to the specialist’s office, pressures were made with a padded probe (see Fig. [9]) on the wall of the pharynx—the probe being introduced through the nostril.

Also, he was given instrumentation on the floor of the mouth, underneath the tongue, and a conscientious treatment with a tongue depressor. This weapon he took home and used, carrying out also the combing of the back of the hands. Three days afterwards he sang in the choir as well as ever.

Deep massage with the fingers on the muscles of the throat, and a “plucking” of the voice box are also helpful procedures. Where the irritation or the inflammation is not extensive it might be well to include them as routine measures in most throat troubles. Where there is active congestion they are, of course, not only useless, but actually harmful.