SCRATCHING THE HAND FOR SICK STOMACH.
Many of us know that if we are threatened with sneezing and we press
the upper lip tightly against the teeth with the fingers, that we can
usually stop the sneeze. Also, that if we drop a cold piece of metal
down the back, or press a piece of ice against the back of the neck, it
will frequently check nosebleed.
But not many of us know that the reason these things are thus is
because, by these actions, we are stimulating normal function in the
first zone.
Were we to press our cheek over the wisdom tooth--which is in the
fourth zone--or, rub the ice on our third zone ear, the sneeze and the
nose bleed would pursue uninterruptedly the even tenor of their ways.
If you never had heard of these things, you would probably say “pish,”
and look around with some trepidation for your informant’s keeper. Yet,
in all earnestness and sincerity, I would, if you are one of those
whose stomach is easily upset, urge that the next time you board a
train or boat you arm yourself with a wire hair brush and a metal comb.
When the first faint qualms, premonitory of an eruption or some other
seismic disturbance in your interior are felt, get busy with the comb
and brush--not on your head--but on your hands.
For sickness of the stomach is quite generally relieved by steady
pressure made over the first and second zone on the backs of the hands
with the teeth of a metal comb. The comb should be pressed firmly
over the areas running from the thumb and first finger of both hands,
including the web between the thumb and first finger--which seems to
have a very intimate connection with the stomach. If there is no comb
handy, the finger nails will do good substitute work, but the metal is
best, as it seems to stimulate an electrical contact that helps the
“impulse.”
This procedure is to be used only where the stomach is irritated
and threatens convulsive contractures, or where there is pain, or
distention from gas. Relief of these conditions may generally be
expected in from five to ten minutes.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--When I first saw this patient (January 9,
1913), the enlargement in the neck, pronounced cancer, and inoperable,
by some of our best men in New England, was stony hard and exceedingly
painful to the touch. She had not been able to lie down for nine
months, and had not taken any solid food for three months; could open
the mouth only slightly, and with great difficulty. We induced speedy
relaxation of the neck (it was absolutely relaxed in four treatments)
through pressure with a dry cotton-wound applicator and also with
a pencil moistened with trichloracetic acid in varied strengths
from twenty-five per cent to a saturated solution, throughout the
appropriate zones in the mouth, nose and epipharynx. This patient
responds quickly to pressure, and accurately traces sensations of glow
or numbness from the mouth to the extremities and vice versa. These
sensations are almost immediately followed by lines of anesthesia.
Note the neck of this patient (see Fig. 22) fourteen months later.
Patient through pressure on fingers of zones involved keeps side of
neck constantly anesthetized, and therefore free from irritation, with
constant absorption of growth.]
If, however, the stomach is “dead”--the doctors call it “atonic”--when
it lies inert and unambitious after a heavy meal--or even a small
meal that is heavy for that stomach at that particular time--the best
results are found in gentle stroking or scratching with a wire hair
brush, or with the teeth of the comb. If these are not available
scratch with the finger nails, but, as with the pressures, the most
favorable results follow the use of metal.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Photograph of patient in Fig. 21 seventeen
months after her first treatment. After three years improvement still
continues.]
Remember that scratching stimulates, while deep pressure with the teeth
of the comb, finger nails or wires of the hair brush relaxes.
Also the next time the baby is restless and inclined to double up and
yell murder, instead of doing a slippered constitutional up and down
the room with him, scratch the backs of his hands. If he’s had too
much to eat this may quiet him. If, however, his little “tummy” is
“working,” try some pressures on his hands or feet, and see how soon
the “tummy” will knock off work.
And, for the same sufficient reasons, try the same thing on yourself
and the family, instead of “banging” the stomach over the head with a
dose of dope.
The morning sickness of pregnancy yields quite uniformly to deep
pressures on the backs of the hands, and it is much safer to try and
control this nausea from the hands than it would be to resort to the
severe pressures on the tongue. For these latter, if too drastic, might
produce a miscarriage.
Also, while it isn’t exactly zone therapy, it might be interesting
here to note that eating salted popcorn has a tendency to help correct
the nausea of pregnancy, car sickness, and indigestion. Many patients
of mine keep a bowl of it on a chair right alongside their beds, and
commence to eat it so soon as they awake in the morning. A handful
of popcorn, thoroughly chewed, seems to help pacify the otherwise
rebellious stomach.
Zone therapy pressures are valuable not only in nausea and vomiting,
but also in indigestion, gastric catarrh and all forms of stomach
disorders. It has even been successfully employed in gastric ulcer,
with dangerous hemorrhages and the other distressing symptoms of this
painful malady. Dr. Reid Kellogg has cured three of these cases, one
in ten treatments, the others in two or three months. Two of these
patients had had an acute condition for two months--no food whatsoever
passing through the pylorus (the exit of the stomach). They had been,
of course, fed by the rectum.
Dr. Kellogg used the probe (Fig. 9), low down on the posterior (back)
wall of the pharynx, and used pressures over the thumb, first and
second fingers of both hands with the aluminum comb.
In less than a dozen treatments these patients were able to retain
food taken into the stomach, and practically conduct the entire
subsequent course of their own cure.
To disabuse the minds of any who may evolve the idea that zone therapy
is of value only in conditions that “don’t matter anyhow,” I want to
emphasize that these cases were most grave, and that they had received
skilled medical attention for many weeks--without apparent benefit.
It has been current knowledge--even before those halcyon days when the
banqueter retired to have his throat tickled by a dutiful slave--that
by touching definite areas in the throat and at the base of the
tongue--vomiting could be induced.
And now we have discovered how to put the reverse English on the
tickle, and keep it down when it wants to come up. Which discovery
should also help increase the sum total of the world’s health and
happiness.