• Stomach (Yang) paired with Spleen (Yin)
• Bladder (Yang) paired with Kidneys (Yin)
• Gall Bladder (Yang) paired with Liver (Yin).
It is important when treating always to balance these points, incorporating pressure points of both upper and lower limbs. This stabilizes the energy from the upper part of the body with that of the lower part of the body. The combination of such points is very forceful and effective, so working upper pressure points with lower pressure points or working on the paired organ becomes a powerful therapy.
The Chinese often utilize these combination points according to their forceful action or their compatibility. The meridian channels form a complete circuit and TCM principles state that these energies within each meridian are balanced; hence, on that account they have always been used in treatment. The points on the extremities are referred to as the fountain head or well points (figure 1.9), for instance those at the tips of the fingers and the tips of the toes, and KI-1 located at the centre of the ball of the foot. These are considered to be extremely powerful as they are barely skin deep at this terminal or starting point, so they are easy to stimulate by palpation as is done in reflexology. The spring points are extremely potent and forceful; these are found around the wrist and the ankles, with the feet points being more dynamic than those of the hands. At the sea points, which lie at the elbows or knees, the energy is more general and less active, achieving a slower response.
Recent history
When the People’s Republic of China was formed in 1949 TCM came under threat because of superstitions and ancient theories and was almost lost. It was Chairman Mao who came to the rescue. The story goes that he became very ill and orthodox medicine did not help him, so he turned to the traditional folk medicine, which saved him. Following this, he declared ‘Traditional Chinese Medicine is of immense value, it needs to be constantly explored and further developed’. Because of this, since 1950 work was encouraged on research and tests on TCM, and Western medicine and TCM were practised side by side. Research on TCM has continued in China and has been maintained over the last 40 years and more recently they have also researched treatment by reflexology. To date the China Reflexology Association have accumulated over 10,000 case histories on reflexology treatments. There are 31 provinces in China, half of which have set up a reflexology branch. Among 7,000 members of the national and the local associations, there are now over 1,500 medical doctors in China who practise reflexology in their hospitals, or clinics, sanatoriums, and other centres.
Figure 1.9 The most potent areas to work
The history of the zone concept
The founder of zone therapy
Zone therapy is a system discovered many years ago by an eminent American physician, William H Fitzgerald, who was born in 1872 and who died in Stamford, Connecticut on 21 October 1942. He was an MD in Hartford, Connecticut. Dr Fitzgerald graduated from the University of Vermont in 1895 and worked his first 21/2 years at the Boston City Hospital; he then went on to serve a further 2 years at the Central London Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Hospital in England (1902). This was followed by a further 2 years in Vienna’s ENT Hospital under Professor Politzer and Professor Otto Chiari, who were well known in the medical world at that time. All of this gives some indication of Dr Fitzgerald’s qualities as a doctor and surgeon. Dr Fitzgerald was senior nose and throat surgeon at St Francis Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut for several years. It was during that period that he made his findings of zone therapy, as it was called at this time, known to the medical world.
He developed this therapy because he observed, while working, that when applying pressure over certain points of the toes and hands, and other parts of the body, if the pressure was firm enough it caused a type of anaesthesia in a limited area. This enabled him to perform minor operations on the nose and throat without using cocaine and other local analgesics while the patient could be treated without pain. Fitzgerald stated in his book that pressure over any bony eminence, or upon the zones corresponding to the location of the injury, would tend to relieve pain, and that not only would it relieve pain but if pressures were firm enough it would produce an anaesthetic effect, often removing the cause of the pain.
Dr Fitzgerald published his first book in 1917 with Dr Edwin Bowers. The title read ‘Zone Therapy, or Relieving Pain at Home’. In this he related all his important findings on zone therapy. A zone is an area or part that is marked off, with stated qualities. Fitzgerald diagrammatically depicted this in his early drawings by dividing the human body into zones both anterior and posterior (figure 1.10) and he speculated that the body could be divided into ten such longitudinal (meaning vertical) zones, five each side of the median or middle line. The first ran from the medial edge of the great toe through the centre of the nose to the brain, and then out to the thumb or vice versa. He spoke of these zones as numbering one to five on the right side of the body and the same on the left side. He called them ‘ten invisible currents of energy through the body’ in line with the fingers and toes. (Note that the zones extended from the toe to the brain and out to the thumb or fingers or vice versa, not from the brain to the toe and brain to fingers, as stated in some books.) Fitzgerald also said that his five lines marked out and represented the centre of the respective zones. (Many books do not show this but instead depict four lines coming from each of the webs of the toes, showing the digits as the ten zones.) He then demonstrated the correlation between areas in distant parts of the body and how pressure of between 2 and 10 pounds on given fingers or toes would alleviate pain anywhere in a particular zone. He also stated that the upper and lower surfaces of the joint and side areas must all be pressed for good results (figure 1.11). Each zone could be worked on either hands or feet because the zones ran either way. The distance between the area treated and the organ was of no importance as the whole zone would be treated.
Fitzgerald outlined how pressure over the great toe or on the corresponding thumb helped the entire first zone; this first zone included the incisors and cuspid teeth, and an analgesic effect would often be felt throughout the zone. The second zone included the bicuspid and the third zone the two molars (knowing the zonal pathway enables you to work on the corresponding area for teeth problems). He stated that zones 4 and 5 usually merged in the head. The shoulder and axilla were in all five zones. Also he considered that in zone 4 was the middle ear. (My opinion is that the eustachian tube and middle ear combined are in zones 3 and 4.)
Figure 1.10 (a) The zones of the body according to Dr William Fitzgerald. (b) Corresponding longitudinal and lateral zones in the body and the foot.
Figure 1.11 Applying pressure to all surfaces of the finger
Zone therapy demonstrates the correlation and interdependence of all parts of the body. In his chapter ‘Zone therapy – for doctors only’, Fitzgerald commented: ‘six years ago I accidentally discovered that pressure with a cotton-tipped probe in the mucocutaneous margin of the nose gave an anaesthetic result’. He also went on to explain about how pressure on hands and feet and over joints reproduced the same characteristic results in pain relief. He stated that, when the pain was relieved, the condition that produced the pain was most generally relieved also, and that this led to the ‘mapping out’ of these various areas and associated connections and also to the conditions influenced through them.
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