CHAPTER 14.

HOW A PHANTOM TUMOR WAS DISSIPATED.

Last June the New Hampshire Dental Society held a convention at Weirs, on Lake Winnepesaukee. One of the residents of the summer colony was brought before the convention on the evening of June 23d. Her serious condition baffled the local physicians. It was hoped that among the two hundred scientific men, gathered there from all parts of the East, some might be found who could help her.

She was a woman about thirty-five years old, well nourished and apparently healthy, apart from a large swelling in the front of the neck. Manifestly the thyroid and other glands had become enlarged through some unknown inflammatory cause. She was suffering great pain. The slightest touch caused agony. Swallowing was impossible. Not even a drop of water had passed down her throat since the preceding Friday night. This was Wednesday night.

A healthy human being can exist from seven to ten days without water. This woman had been without water for five days, suffering mental and physical torture. Her physician insisted, as the only means of saving her life, that an operation be performed at once. The half dozen or more physicians who had been called in consultation concurred in this. There was nothing left but to perform an intubation--the insertion of a tube in the gullet, through which water and food might be passed, pending some possible measure of relief.

The heart was racing along at one hundred and fifty beats a minute, and there were all the peculiar symptoms usually associated with thyroid disturbances. Inasmuch as the whole trouble had developed in a week, it was most unlikely that the condition was goitrous.

As it was probable that the trouble was associated with the thyroid, a physician present decided to try zone therapy, because it could be applied instantly, and promised immediate results if successful.

Calling one of the dentists to make strong pressure over the first joint of one thumb, the doctor grasped the other thumb. This simple, apparently foolish, treatment was maintained for three minutes. The patient began to show signs of relief. The drawn lines on her face softened. She could bear without shrinking the touch on her neck.

The doctor sent for a glass of water, and held it to the patient’s lips. She took a sip of water, which she swallowed with much difficulty and pain--the first drop in five days.

“It is the most delicious thing I ever tasted,” she whispered.

She was able to swallow about a third of a glass upon her first attempt. The pressures were continued intermittently for about an hour, and within that time she was able to drink four glasses of water and a glass of malted milk. A light rubber band was placed over her thumb joints, as shown in Fig. 5, and she enjoyed her first night’s sleep since the inflammation had developed.

The next morning she reported that she was almost entirely relieved. The swelling was hardly perceptible, and she could bear reasonable pressure over the glands without discomfort. She had no difficulty in swallowing. In a few days she was fully recovered, and has had no return of the trouble.

With the relief of nerve tension--consciously or unconsciously exerted--there necessarily follows a relief in either the constricted or the congested condition of the lymphatic glands or ducts, the thyroid and other ductless glands, and also of the vasomotor nerves, which control the flow of blood through the blood vessels.

This action, no doubt, accounts for the marvelous results which zone therapy has produced in the treatment of glandular and circulatory diseases--whether due to nervous, or physical causes.

In the famous “globus hystericus”--that big lump comes up in the throat of an hysteric--there is no speedier or more effective treatment than zone therapy. Merely take the hands of the hysterical individual, squeeze them as hard as she can bear the pressure, and maintain this pressure for several minutes. Almost immediate relaxation of all the zones will follow, and with this relaxation a disappearance of the great lump in the throat.

The combs or the wire hair brush may be used, if preferred. Or, if none of these are available, merely scratch the back of the hands with the finger nails. It will help materially, of course, if suggestion be employed, using the voice in a soothing manner.

But the results are quite as effective--although not as rapid--if the patient has no idea concerning what is being attempted.