CHAPTER 15.

DR. WHITE’S EXPERIENCE.

One of the most thoro and able diagnosticians in America, if not in the world, is George Starr White, M. D., of Los Angeles, Cal., discoverer of the bio-dynamic method of diagnosis. I reproduce a small portion of his experiences in zone therapy and zone anesthesia--as detailed in his Lecture Course.

“A few years ago, while experimenting on the anesthetic effect of the Tesla current, I observed that by giving a current that produced a severe shock to the fingers, I was able to pierce them with needles and not feel pain. I did not realize why these results were obtained. But experiments on animals gave me a hint. For one of my horses backed into a window, and got a large piece of glass into the sacral region (near the tail). We tried, without success, to put her into a narrow stall and tie her legs so we could operate, as a large incision had to be made to extract the foreign body. Finally one of our men suggested that we tie a slipper-noose, which he called a ‘twitch’, around the horse’s nose. He made this ‘twitch’ out of a piece of thin rope, put it on the horse’s nose, and we started to operate. The result was a collision between the horse’s hind legs and my abdomen. I told the man to put the ‘twitch’ on again, tie it tightly, and hold it for two or three minutes. Then, altho I made a deep incision to take out the glass, the horse did not flinch.

“I realize now that we used zone anesthesia, as the sacral region and the nose are in the same zone. At other times we have had occasion to do minor operations on cows and pigs on my experiment farm, and have noticed that, by putting a ‘twitch’ on the nose, the animals did not seem to experience any pain.

“Also, before anesthesia was so well known, I remember seeing surgeons do minor operations on individuals who would take no chloroform. Almost always the patients closed their teeth, or clinched their hands on some rough substance. Then ‘they could stand anything.’

“Later I heard Dr. William H. Fitzgerald explain zone therapy. Then I realized that we have always used zone therapy, although we did not know it.

“After spending a few days with Dr. Fitzgerald, I met at a dinner party, a lady who had a severe frontal headache. Obtaining her permission to try a new ‘cure’, I exerted pressure upon the thumb, first and second fingers, and within five minutes the headache had disappeared. I had similar success in treating a toothache.

“I shortly afterwards called on a New York physician who had previously been one of my pupils, and asked him if he knew anything about zone therapy. He said he did not, but had read about it in some of the journals, and thought ‘it must be all imagination.’ I then held his fingers, pretending I was trying to see how much resistance there was in his muscles. Within three minutes I laid a button hook on his eyeball without his flinching. I took a stickpin from his cravat, and pushed it into his cheek, and put several pins into his face, without his feeling them. He could not bear the touch of a pin in any other zone. He called his wife, and she was horrified when she saw him so ‘stuck up.’ I withdrew the pins and sterilized his face. He is now a staunch believer in zone anesthesia.

“At several of our lecture courses in Chicago and elsewhere, I had an opportunity to show these methods, and made some very interesting observations. We found that light would not contract the pupil of the eye that had been attacked through the finger zones to the same degree as the pupil of the eye that had not been so attacked.

“One of the doctors in a Chicago class, on hearing of zone anesthesia, told me that about two years previous he was suffering from inguinal hernia (rupture) and a radical operation was advised. He went to the hospital, and the anesthetist began to prepare him for the anesthesia. He told them that he wanted no anesthesia, as he was going to have the operation done without taking anything. The surgeon was loath to operate without some kind of general or local anesthetic, but he told him he wanted nothing, as he thought he could control himself. The surgeon consented, but had ready chloroform and a hypodermic with cocaine. The Doctor clinched his teeth and hands with all his might, and put himself into as powerful a tension as possible for about three minutes before lying on the table. He then laid down, relaxed, and said ‘go ahead.’ From the beginning to the end of the operation all he noticed, he said, was that there was something going on, but he felt absolutely no pain. I looked at his teeth, and saw that the occluding (biting) surfaces were very good indeed, which accounts in a great measure for the efficacy of the zone anesthesia.

“Dr. Fitzgerald has treated many cases of cancer and tumor, and has had some extraordinary successes with some of them. He carefully avoids any reference to the value of zone therapy in these conditions, but, to my mind, the results achieved warrant mention. I saw two most interesting cases in his practice. One, a lady, about 55 years of age, had a growth on the side of her neck, diagnosed as cancer. By the bio-dynamic method, I confirmed this diagnosis. This growth was as large as an ordinary sized orange, and very hard and unyielding. The lady told us that, until she began being treated by means of zone therapy and zone analgesia, she had not slept for months without some opiate. For more than two years now she said she had taken no opiates, and had rested without any pain when zone pressure anesthesia was used.

“When I saw this lady the size of the growth had diminished from this treatment, until it would not be recognized except by palpation (feeling with the fingers). I also saw her photograph, taken before she began treatment, and the improvement was certainly remarkable. I do not know whether zone therapy will ever cure this case, but we do know that it is making life endurable to the unfortunate victim.

“Several of my pupils have used the Fitzgerald method for operation on turbinate and other nasal obstructions, as well as upon obstetric (childbirth) cases, with most gratifying results in all of them.

“Two or three cases out of ten will not, it seems, respond to zone therapy. But the majority will. There is no doubt a good reason for the failures, such as blocking of the ‘zone paths’ in some manner--as by a tumor, growth, pus condition, or obstruction. Or again, failure may be due to faulty technic. Better results will no doubt come with more experience. It only requires that the method be tried out on a huge scale, and by a large number of competent observers. Then the collated results will furnish us a basis for accurate application of these most wonderful and helpful principles.”