PARADYSMORPHISMS

We tend to associate people who have morphologically hollow feet with people who do not have their feet on the ground. A hollow foot suggests a limited, relatively unstable support. Not resting the central part of the foot on the ground, in other words discharging the weight of the body mostly on the anterior and posterior areas of the sole, conjures up the image of a person who does not go in for half measures. With a single word his mood will soar, while another word is enough for him to plummet. These people are either emotionally unstable or highly controlled.

Morphologically flat feet, on the other hand, are characteristic of people who are tendentially immobile or stagnant. While the “hollows” lack half measures, these individuals instead seem to have half measures only; they are subjects who do not experience emotional extremes, who neither rejoice nor suffer in an extreme way.

The drawings clearly illustrate how the shape of the foot, when considered both laterally and plantarly, is related to the structure of the spinal column. A pelvis that tilts antero-superiorly or postero-inferiorly causes the accentuation or flattening of the kyphotic or lordotic curve, thus producing either a hollow or flat foot.

In a morphologically hollow foot that starts to become pathologically hollow, that is, with the progressive stiffening of the tarsometatarsal articulation, an upward shifting of the distal crest of the second cuneiform bone becomes increasingly evident, causing irritation when ankle-snug shoes are worn. I have verified no problems related to the morphological manifestation. The symptom is exclusively local.

Another bony protrusion that may cause problems when certain types of shoe are worn is the lateral protuberance of the first cuneiform bone caused by the collapse of the plantar arch, therefore characteristic of individuals with flat feet.

Another condition of the foot is the so-called talipes equinus, a name that reminds us of the shape of a horse’s hoof. As with the preceding descriptions, these feet may be either morphologically or pathologically equine. The appearance is one of accentuated extension, similar to the position of the feet when a waltz is danced, on “tiptoe”. This condition involves an excessive extension of both the anterior tibial muscle and the long extensor muscle of the toes.

These muscles are affected by the route of the zu yang ming (stomach meridian), of which 45 Lidui is the jing point, situated on the external ungual corner of the second toe. In these subjects the stomach, understood as an organ, due to causes of an energetic origin, tends to elongate or prolapse. These people have a long, slow digestion, and suffer particularly in the dojo period, those eighteen days and six hours of the period of transition between one season and another.

We know from the physiology of muscular activity that when a muscle extends, its complementary and antagonistic muscle flexes, a concept that brings us to the following line of interpretation: if the muscle in question is extending and is traversed by the stomach meridian, its complementary antagonist, situated on the opposite side, contracts. In this case the bladder meridian is involved. In its terminal course this meridian traverses the gastrocnemius centrally and the Achilles tendon laterally.

This interpretative scheme should be used for most cases where muscular activity is involved. In this case the problem lies not in the extension of the anterior muscles of the leg, even though they seem to be responsible for the equine condition, since the anterior tibial and toe extensor muscles are in fact yielding to the greater force and activity of the leg’s antagonistic posterior muscles.

From an energetic point of view therefore, we have a Yang manifestation of the Yang stomach meridian, at both an organic and energetic level, and a Yin manifestation of the Yang bladder meridian. In this case there are two different symptomatic manifestations: the stomach elongates and causes a long, slow digestion, and the bladder contracts and causes the need to urinate frequently.

When babies cry desperately they contract the anterior muscles of their body and compensate by contracting the posterior ones. This causes the shortening of the back muscles and the consequent retraction of the Achilles tendon; therefore when babies cry they press down with the tips of their feet. If you have ever been greeted by someone who for some reason feels embarrassed or overawed towards you, you may have noticed that in making their gesture of greeting they raise themselves up on their toes. They certainly do not do it to make themselves feel superior, on the contrary, this body language is characteristic of people who do not feel up to your level; their awkwardness and tension therefore cause them to compensate by contracting their posterior muscles and raising themselves up on the tips of their toes.

It is not unusual to meet people, especially women, who are unable to live without wearing high-heeled shoes. What happens here is that the heel fills the virtual space that has been produced between the calcaneus and the ground. The high heel therefore fills a void and causes the person not to feel the retraction of the gastrocnemius. These people cannot walk without high heels for more than a few minutes without feeling pain in their calf muscles. Conversely, in people who occasionally wear high-heeled shoes when they are not accustomed to them, the long extensor muscle of the toes and the anterior tibial muscle are forced to stretch and this causes pain in the anterior part of the leg.

The opposite condition, produced by the contraction of the anterior muscles of the leg, causes the front of the foot to point upwards with a movement called dorsiflexion. In this case the calcaneus has most of the weight on it and it is difficult to press down on the front of the foot. This is known as a morphologically or pathologically calcaneus foot. In this type of foot the course of the stomach meridian is shortened and the bladder meridian is lengthened. This is one of the least frequently encountered conditions.

Male and female feet

Theoretically the way the feet are positioned in relation to a medial axis should be identical. The pulling of the foot away from the medial axis is called abduction, the drawing of the foot towards the medial axis adduction. If the right foot is normally relaxed and the left foot adducted, we may interpret the configuration of the two feet together as parallelly inclined to the right in relation to the medial axis represented by the spinal column. Considering the axial inclinations of the feet no longer individually but as a single unit, the feet are therefore inclined either parallelly or towards the left or towards the right. Relating these data to the ideal axis of the spinal column we encounter a variety of postural tendencies.

If the feet are inclined towards the left side, like the head, it means that the spinal column is convex on the right side, causing a compression of the spinal nerves originating on the left side. If the compression is intense it will cause the squeezing of the spinal nerves by the vertebrae, which depending on seriousness and chronicity may develop into a hernial syndrome (herniated intervertebral disc).

The compression or squeezing of the spinal nerves, in addition to the pain produced in that specific area, will cause a generalized, less obvious and symptomatically not always serious suffering in the organs they reach. Many of the pains felt at the thoracic or abdominal level are caused by a dysfunction of the spinal column. Therefore a person whose head and feet are inclined towards the left suffers from muscular rigidity which generates a reduction of osteoarticular activity in a more evident way on the left, and consequently almost all pains will manifest on this side. These subjects have difficulty in communicating with their body; they feel awkward, for example, when they have to embrace someone.

If the curve of the spinal column is convex on the left side, in other words there is compression on the right side, it means that the prime difficulties of the person in question are caused by a dysfunction whose origin lies in the rational sphere, in the realm of work, in the person’s relationship with repetitive, everyday, practical affairs. We often meet people whose feet are parallelly inclined towards the left and whose shoulders and head are inclined towards the right, or vice versa. These people have a scoliotic posture, since the upper half of their body is contracted on one side and the lower half is contracted on the other.

A scoliotic posture denotes a tendency towards a double personality, a dystonic rapport with the surrounding environment. These people think one thing and do another, or say things they don’t think. They give us the feeling and the sensation of falsity; it is in fact our unconscious mind that decodifies those attitudes which are perceived by our rational brain as uneasiness.

A characteristic phrase used to describe this might be: “there’s something about him that doesn’t quite convince me!”. The explanation which the person has given us may be logical, but our unconscious mind decodifies a conflictual, dystonic state that is communicated physically with a scoliotic posture.

The function of the vertebral column, like the column of a building, is to support the structure. Let us repeat once again that bones do not move by themselves but are moved by muscles, which are affected in turn by the underlying organs. When a person is lying down, his spine, being in a state of rest, is no longer performing its prime function of support for the body structure; the muscles therefore can assume that state of relaxation which is most consonant to them.

If a person is contracted on the right side, when lying down, it means that the muscles on the right side of the body are more rigid and therefore shortened, due perhaps to the suffering of the liver below them. When this person stands up he will not retain the posture he had when lying down, otherwise he would walk inclined to one side; instead he will forcibly decontract the muscles on the right side and tonify those on the left side.

These movements do not occur on one plane only, but affect a three-dimensional structure; this means there is a twisting of the spinal column, or rather a scoliotic posture. The X-rays these people bring you have a completely opposite reading to the view we have of them when they are lying down. Thus, if the patient looks to you as if he had a right-convex spinal column or a left-convex spinal column, the X-rays will give a completely opposite reading.

There are various types of scoliotic posture with characteristics in common: each has a primary contraction and another of compensation. Originating from the trunk, we can categorize the various areas into: high-low, right-left, front-back. In each individual case, however, several muscles are involved. The possible combinations are therefore multiple (low-back-right, high-back-right, low-back-left, high-front-left, low-front-right, high-back-left, etc.), though in reality we find that 80% of people manifest a primary contraction low, back and right and a compensation high, front and left.

The various postures determining a torsion of the spinal column have in common the fact that they generate a compression or squashing at the point where the vertebral column hinges, that is at the level of the twelfth dorsal and first lumbar vertebral articulation (D12-L1).

From here depart that group of ganglia which innervate the stomach. For example, when a mother pats her baby’s back to make it burp, she is in fact exercizing a form of vertebrotherapy. In stimulating the nerve roots that innervate the stomach the patting becomes a vertebral reflex stimulus.

This situation leads us to a partial conclusion: in all scoliotic forms there is a suffering of the stomach of reflex origin.

The stomach consists of three muscular tunics one inside the other. Pathologies are not always verifiable with X-rays or gastroscopy because the imbalance is not necessarily caused by diet, which in turn may be a medicine or a poison, but may be caused by a problem of innervation from the outside. The disturbance which these subjects are affected by cannot therefore be observed with X-rays.

If a person crosses his legs as soon as he lies down it is a symptom of insecurity and stress. The patient is worried, is uncertain about what you will say or do and so closes his legs. Closed postures can be manifested essentially in two ways: if the fear or resistance is primarily mental he will fold his arms, while if he has problems related to his sexuality he will cross his legs. In both cases it is a good rule, if the patient is a woman and is wearing a skirt, whatever her age, to cover her legs with a white towel.

At our centre therapists dress in white and wear an akama. The colour white is recognized as being asexual, it arouses no particular emotion, it guarantees cleanliness and hygiene because even the tiniest mark on it is at once noticeable. An akama is a pair of baggy black Japanese pants, the same kind that is used in aikido (Japanese martial art). The word akama means “desireless”; this is very important in the context of respectfulness towards the patient.

In order to cure well, it is essential to maintain a respectful emotional detachment and to present oneself as a professionally prepared technician, not a healer. We are not dealing out anything particular, we are not dispensers of energies, fluids or other strange things. What we offer is our professionality.

Depending on the degree of tension, the feet of a patient may sweat. This is caused by the entry into circulation of an excessive amount of adrenalin, which being vaso-dilating at a central level causes vaso-constricting at a peripheral level.

We may encounter patients who seem impossible to touch, others instead who when touched, squeezed and manipulated show no particular reaction. If a patient seems untouchable due to his extreme sensitivity, the approach should be gentle, profound, firm and soft. We would describe these people as being “on edge”. Their most external, superficial defence system, that which the Chinese call Wei energy or defensive energy, is activated.

A patient may be dismayed at his extreme sensitivity and the large number of hypersensitive reflex areas he has; he may be worried that he is seriously ill. But his reactions to external stimuli are in fact only slightly excessive. It is as if such individuals breathed their emotions. Hands, eyes, nose, ears, feet, everything that is peripheral, being highly innervated parts of the body, allow us to perceive changes occurring in the surrounding environment ahead of time. If a subject is physically or psychologically fragile his peripheral defenses become particularly sensitive and this results in manifestations of pain that may seem excessive in proportion to the pressure we are exerting. These people heal with an incredible ease and rapidity because their manifestations, being very superficial, and therefore Yang, attack the Yang meridians corresponding to the fu (empty) organs, those situated nearer the surface of the body, as opposed to the Yin organs which are full and situated more internally.

The completely opposite condition is characteristic of those subjects who show no signs of pain when we exert pressure on the reflex areas relative to the disturbances declared. Usually they have rather large, hard feet, callosities are not always present and their feet appear to be harmonious. Compared with the previously mentioned subjects, these are introverted people who tend to withhold the pain they experience. They are protected within a muscular defence system which often becomes their prison. When we touch them they show no signs of pain, but this may emerge as a result of massaging them and softening them, thereby disactivating their defences.

HOW TO MASSAGE

By touching the feet of a patient we receive various sensations that give us directions and orient us towards an increasingly precise diagnosis. In order to store information in our brain-computer in an efficient way, we need to elaborate interpretative schemes. The more methodically we store information in our mind, organized into compartments, the easier and simpler it will be to go and find it again. Every thing in its rightful place, a place for every thing. There are hard feet and soft feet, stiff and elastic feet, hot and cold feet, feet with dry skin and feet with sweaty skin. Feet may be hard outside or hard inside or hard both outside and inside; the same applies to soft feet. We therefore have mixed types. Schematizing, feet may be:

hard outside and hard inside

hard outside and soft inside

soft outside and soft inside

soft outside and hard inside

Feet which are hard outside and hard inside are characteristic of strong-minded people, people who are rigid with themselves and with others. These feet, which are like a single block and which even when subjected to strong compression feel no pain, belong to that category of people about whom we would say: «they are never ill». Then one day they die unexpectedly and we say «how strange, he seemed so well!». Evidently they were previously “so well” only apparently. Their tendency is desperately to control their emotions, their symptoms, their most unpleasant experiences.

Feet which are hard outside and soft inside are those which on first impact are hard because they are tense, but when they are squeezed we feel that they are soft inside. The plantar aponeurosis is hard-elastic and the flexor tendons are resistant only on first impact. The sensation we have is rather like that of squeezing an egg, i.e. initial resistance, then sudden yielding. These feet are characteristic of people who are really yielding and docile, but who wear a mask, who make themselves out to be something they are not. Outwardly they appear to be hard, but they are not like this inside. They create a muscular defence armour which with the passing of time becomes a double personality.

Feet which are soft outside and soft inside are typical of slow, flaccid people who seem to lack the energy necessary for living, people who are desperately yielding. These are accommodating people, always in agreement with everyone. When we hold these usually cold feet in our hands, it is as if we were touching something inanimate. They arouse no vital emotion. They seem to belong to people without any energy. This may be a symptom of “nervous breakdown”.

Feet which are soft outside and hard inside we call “managers’ feet”. These feet are typical of that category of people who never say no... initially. They are apparently amiable and willing, just like their feet, but inside they are hard and resistant. They have a character which makes them hard with themselves and with others, even though the first approach is soft for strategic reasons.

Each subject must of course be treated differently according to his typology. When touching feet we produce various sensations that can be summed up schematically as follows:

Pain

Pleasure

Indifference

Pain-pleasure

When we cause pain the patient contracts, and this is counterproductive. As far as possible we should avoid making the patient suffer, unless this approach is adopted intentionally to obtain a specific therapeutic result. In general, however, inducing pain should be avoided.

If a patient feels pleasure as a result of the delicacy of the massage he is receiving, this sensation should not be prolonged for more than those few minutes we intend to devote to producing pleasure, since this massage has in fact no therapeutic value unless used specifically to obtain a desired result.

The feeling of indifference is fairly uncommon, and is aroused when the therapist fails to comply with the patient’s usually unmanifested needs. If the massage is executed superficially the patient will not even emotionally register its therapeutic value, and will not be in the least emotionally involved with the work being done on him. With this type of massage the patient fails to register that desire for modification which we hope he feels.

The massage which produces that characteristic pain-pleasure sensation is the most desirable, and should be sought after for most of the time possible. The pain you generate means that you are working on a sensitive area, and if the pain is acceptable the patient will perceive it as a therapeutically effective pain.

That characteristic pain-pleasure sensation is liberating. It reminds us of our childhood, when the syrups had to be bitter and unpleasant to be efficacious. Bitter medicine carries with it a sense of the expiation of guilt, rather like purgatory, which comes from “purge”, that which cleanses and purifies and restores us to a state of originality.

These various emotions or sensations can all be perceived and experienced by treating different areas of the same foot, since a foot will never be completely soft, hard, stiff or elastic in its entirety. The various sensations should be related to the type of foot, to the condition of the area we are massaging and to the type of massage we are practising. Thus, schematizing the various types of massage we can use various techniques, as follows:

Rapid and light

Rapid and heavy

Slow and light

Slow and heavy

Light hold and release

Heavy hold and release

As a rule, speed is inversely proportional to depth, therefore the more rapid the massage is the lighter it should be, the heavier it is the slower it should be. How should we adopt the above-mentioned massages in relation to the condition of the foot and to the attainment of the above-stated reactions?

The aim, we have said, is to execute a massage that generates a pain-pleasure sensation, a pain which is experienced emotionally in a therapeutic way. In fact, when we ask a patient if the massage we are doing is too strong he usually answers no and asks us to continue in the same way because he feels that we are doing him good, in spite of the pain we are inducing. If an area of the foot is hard and tense the massage should be rapid and light; if mistakenly we practise a slow, heavy massage, we will at once realize that we are provoking intolerable pain.

The same type of massage should be carried out a little more quickly and lightly for subjects who have morphologically or pathologically hollow feet that are hard outside and soft inside. Hollowness of the foot is proportionate to the arch produced by the lordotic curve. When we press into the plantar aponeurosis with our fingertips, using a claw grip, and the joints of our fingers become the fulcrum of the pressure we are exerting, the result is an acute pain which for a few moments will cause the patient to arch even further, but which will then produce an almost immediate relaxation of the lordotic curve and of the arch of the foot.

Let us consider a lordotic curve to which we give the numerical value 5. At the precise moment we generate an acute pain with a compression on the sole of the foot the curve will be accentuated up to a value of10, while with the easing of this compression an immediate relaxation will be produced equivalent to a value of 2.

In the context of these schematizations there is of course a middle way. If you begin to treat a person with a rapid and light massage, because his foot is hard outside and soft inside, when the foot starts to become soft outside, and this can happen either in a few minutes or over the course of several sessions, you should change the type of massage, passing to a slow, deep massage. The transformation always takes place from deep inside towards the surface and not vice versa.

If a person wants to be caressed rather than massaged, what he really needs is “cuddling” more than therapeutic massage. While it is true that the caresses in this instance give an answer to a need that may be felt in an impelling way and they are certainly gratifying, it is equally certain that the result will be very limited in time. We cannot be substitutes for patients’ mothers.

The function of the massage we offer is to induce a metamorphosis in the individual who subjects himself to our therapies so that he is freed of his emotional and physical blockages and attains a highly personal independence. Massage of the feet, acting reflexologically on the whole person, considers the individual as a whole, even though that individual is circumscribed and interpreted through the feet. The changes we aim for must always be generated from within. When we massage a foot slowly and deeply, breathing at the same time as the patient, we are walking along the same path together.

Tonification, therefore filling, must happen from the inside outwards, from the interior towards the surface. There will be times when your now keen sensitivity makes you practise a heavy, rapid massage for which strength, gentleness and endurance are necessary.

ODOURS

Other important information about the general condition of a patient is provided by our sense of smell. Every person has his own characteristic odour. The odours we emanate are part of the elimination of anthropotoxins. What we eliminate through the nine orifices, as the Chinese call them, plus the skin, is the product of the metabolization of what we have ingested, breathed and introduced into our organism both physically and emotionally. The sweat that often moistens the hands and feet of patients has a characteristic odour which we must learn to memorize.

I once wondered how wine-tasters managed to recognize wines by their smell, colour and taste alone. Wine-tasters are in fact only able to recognize and identify a wine they have tasted previously, owing to that subtle ability and predisposition in memorizing taste, smell and colour. We are more accustomed to remembering a musical melody, but the process of memorization is identical. Feet have odours that we shall classify in relation to the Five Movements. These odours give us important information about the patient’s condition, which is related to what he is eliminating through sweating. The odours we shall be considering are:

 

Rancid  -  Wood

Scorched  -  Fire

Fragrant  -  Earth

Rotten  -  Metal

Putrid  -  Water

 

Rancid

A person who gives off a rancid odour will invariably have a more or less accentuated form of maceration between and under the toes. This maceration is generated by the ph value of the sweat, which has become more acid than is physiologically normal. This acid-alkali imbalance is probably determined by a consumption of meat that exceeds the liver’s metabolization capacity. There may of course be other reasons for the high acidity in circulation: the stomach may be hyperproducing acidity as a result of hypersecretion of gastric juices, which are in themselves acid; or the stomach may be producing a normal quantity of gastric juices but there is a pyloric stenosis, possibly of psychosomatic origin, and the normal acidity becomes excessive and stagnant in the stomach due to an obstructed process of evacuation; or the acidity may have increased due to a non-control of the Wood Movement (grandfather) over the Earth Movement (grandson) in the system of the Ke Cycle, which manifests in the non-entry into circulation of bile, which being alkaline would neutralize the excess acidity; or the liver may be producing an adequate quantity of bile but the gall bladder has a reduced peristaltic capacity and withholds the bile being produced by the liver.

If a person eats large quantities of sweet things, or milk and dairy products, especially fresh ones, the acidity of the contents of the intestine increases due to a normal process of fermentation. This is another factor determining an acid-alkali imbalance in favour of acidity.

Scorched

Feet which are bright red and in certain areas almost purple are unmistakable signs of subjects with problems of circulation. These people give off a characteristic scorched odour. On several occasions during courses we have held this odour has been associated with and identified as the odour of leather or coffee; coffee especially, being a roasted product, can plausibly be associated with the scorched odour of the Fire Movement.

Fragrant

I have a particularly vivid memory of a young man who was a follower of the Hare Krishna movement. The palms of his hands and the soles of his feet were literally orange in colour, a colour which gradually faded during the course of the sessions. His feet gave off a fragrant odour that was so intense that it was like being in a sweet-shop. It should be noted that the devotees of Krishna are particularly extravagant with sugary foods.

The feet of this young man seemed to be made of marzipan. I associate this particular memory with that of a diabetic old spinster I once knew who used to use Arar tobacco as a perfume. When, after a year’s absence, she returned to resume a therapeutic cycle, I realized that she was wearing a different perfume. Astonished by my olfactory memory, she admitted that she had in fact changed perfume and now used Trussardi.

When I recount this singular anecdote during courses it usually provokes a certain amount of mirth, since it is certainly uncommon to encounter a middle-aged woman who uses a perfume for men. However, if we interpret the episode through a Taoist filter we realize that the contradiction is only apparent. A diabetic person gives off a particularly sweet odour, and will therefore feel the need to compensate by using a sharp, dry scent, even if it is masculine. From tobacco nicotinic acid is extracted; in the Ke Cycle, the grandfather-grandson relationship, sweet taste is controlled by sour taste, just as earth is controlled by wood (tree roots prevent subsidence and landslides).

The soured old spinster, on the other hand, will desire the perfume of violets to compensate for her excessive acidity, in an attempt to restore the right equilibrium between grandfather and grandson, reinforcing the deficient, sweet taste Earth Movement.

Rotten

The smelly feet odour par excellence is fairly common, and is particularly characteristic of people who emotionally refuse contact with them or simply avoid talking about them. That characteristic odour, which we might more appropriately call a stench, is rotten or cheesy smelling. Together with rancid, it is certainly the most penetrating and unpleasant odour to have to put up with, quite independently of personal hygiene.

The causes of this particularly vexing condition are to be identified in so-called pulmonary subjects. The rotten odour is caused by the excessive consumption of dairy products which the organism is no longer able to metabolize due to the lack of the enzyme which digests casein in the stomach. It is enough to cite the example of newborn babies, who in spite of being nourished exclusively with milk do not smell rotten, but smell of milk, because their stomachs contain the enzyme for its metabolization.

The so-called oro-colic (mouth-colon) reflex makes a newborn baby eliminate faeces whenever he is suckled by the mother. In the first months of life a baby is suckled five or six times a day; later he is gradually weaned. As the consumption of milk reduces, different enzymes develop in the stomach for the metabolization of the various foods which are administered.

Between the second and third year of life a child usually refuses milk instinctively. Unfortunately, due to the erroneous dietary considerations of a certain type of system, he is administered it in any case and excessively, its taste and colour often being masked by the addition of cocoa. An aside: the prime ingredient of these products is neither milk nor cocoa, but sugar.

All efforts are made to administer milk to the child because it is “good” for him. In nature no adult animal drinks milk after being weaned. Milk and sugar do not remain in our organism for three or four hours only, but for at least twenty or twenty-four hours. During this period of time these substances undergo a process of fermentation which will be assimilated by the small and large intestines, thus generating an insidious and permanent poisoning.

The assumption of substances that generate processes of fermentation in the body is reflected in symptoms like the dilation of the abdomen, swollen legs caused by the compression generated in the groin, flatulence, etc. The Indians have the saying: “Cow’s milk is excellent, for calves!...”. But we are not calves. A mother gives milk to her baby, the mare to her foal, the lioness to her cub. In nature there are no normal cases of the mixing of races.

Putrid

Another odour you might encounter is putrid and corresponds to the Water Movement. This characteristic odour, reminding us of the stench of drains, depending on its intensity gives us an indication of the extent of the suffering of the individual who emanates it. It is an easily recognizable odour and is particularly nauseating when extremely strong. It is associated with people who suffer from kidney problems in a chronic way. Their colour is grey or leaden, We may find it in people who have eaten poisonous mushrooms. It is more frequently encountered in very old, debilitated people; we will immediately notice also the black onychogryphotic nails.

NOTES ON DIAGNOSTIC AND THERAPEUTIC PRACTICE

In order to formulate a reliable diagnosis we need to know which part of the feet to concentrate on with the aim of obtaining an interpretable response. I shall attempt, therefore, to make a synthesis that may serve as a guide, carefully avoiding the elaboration of specific therapeutic schemes for each case for the simple reason that they do not exist.

We have at our disposal various therapeutic approaches, of varying efficaciousness and durability. The simplest and most familiar is that of massaging the area corresponding to the suffering organ. This technique is only partially valid, since it acts on the symptom only and for a limited period of time, particularly in the case of chronic pathologies. The use of this technique produces more satisfactory results in cases of acute disorders. If we are treating a subject suffering from pain, the disappearance of his pain will make the technique seem miraculous. The clearest results are always obtained for pathologies that affect apparatuses, articulations or organs situated in the lower part of the body. The lungs, heart, small intestine and large intestine, when primarily affected, do not in fact react in any relevant way to reflexological stimuli; these areas are marked in red and white and belong to the Fire and Metal Movements.

Another simple method consists of massaging by colours. The colours used have precise meanings; thus, having identified a suffering organ or apparatus and identified it in the context of the Five Movements, we can proceed by massaging everything associated with that colour. If a person has muscular problems, for example, we will note that muscles belong to the Wood Movement, that its colour is green, and that green is also used for the reflex areas of the liver, the gall bladder, the trapezius, the sternocleidomastoid, the abdominal muscles and the eyes. The aim of this book is to open a window on the world of reflexology, a window that enables us to scrutinize new horizons. What use would it have been to write another book like the many others without adding anything to what has already been written about Foot Reflexology? At this point we are almost at the end of our treatise on the subject and you should begin to draw your own conclusions. I must repeat that I have no pre-packed formulas to give you, I hope only to have given you a new start. The previous chapters contain a large amount of information; they are like a dictionary, but a dictionary is neither a novel nor an essay. In the dictionary, however, there are all the elements necessary to compose a work. The are only seven musical notes, but how much music can be composed with them.

Let us return to feet from a more technical viewpoint. Whether you want to become Taoist reflexologists, or you simply want to lay your hands on the feet of people dear to you who are suffering, you can start by establishing whether the feet you are examining are male or female; with this we immediately identify which half of the body, right or left, is more rigid. Remember that muscular contractions are related to the suffering of underlying organs or articulations. Already we have an initial selection of suffering organs, made by considering those anatomically situated on the right side of the body — liver, right lung, right kidney — and those situated on the left side — heart, spleen, left kidney.

Let us proceed now to a further division of the body, this time in three parts: the high part, from the diaphragm upwards (Heaven), the middle part, from the diaphragm to the navel (Man), and the low part, from the navel downwards (Earth).

Anatomically, these three parts of the foot are called phalanges, metatarsus and tarsus respectively, which in a further classification we may divide into the tarsal bones and the calcaneus. In this scheme we should identify which part of the foot and which foot (right or left) least corresponds to an ideal foot.

The high part may appear to be suffering more because the toes are irregular, deformed, have corns or have thick or ingrown nails, or because there are callosities caused by the collapse of the ligaments of the metatarsal arch, and so on.

Irregularities of the middle part of the foot, more frequently found, are caused by distortions associated with flat feet or hollow feet. In a hollow foot the second cuneiform bone, given its characteristic shape, is pushed upwards and protrudes dorsally. Constant rubbing against the inside of the shoe causes a defensive reaction which manifests as a callosity. These feet usually show a reduced mobility of Lisfranc’s articulation (tarsometatarsal articulation).

In a flat foot the most common distortion is a soft swelling in the reflex area of the stomach, situated in the cavity of the first metatarsal bone; this indicates a prolapsed stomach. With the flattening of the normal plantar arch the foot tends to pronation, therefore the scaphoid bone protrudes. The skin above it, in defending itself, produces a callosity, which in relation to problems of this imbalance may become inflamed, causing pain.

The low part of the foot, understood as such when a person is lying on his back, is represented by the tarsus. Here there are numerous possible distortions. The most important, especially for women, is a characteristic retromalleolar swelling, the reflex area of the ovaries. Other characteristic and fairly common swellings are those relating to the abdominal muscles, an indication of processes of fermentation in the intestines, and evident swellings relating to the reflex areas of the abdominal and inguinal lymphatic circulation. Calcaneal callosities, previously described as problems caused by limitations which the mother imposed in the development of the personality of the subject, can also be added. There may also be grooves in the reflex area of the rectum, concomitant with a stretch of the course of the kidney meridian, and a general rigidity of the talotibial articulation and Chopart’s articulation (mediotarsal).

Another important tripartite division distinguishes the origin of the various problems, which may be either organic, psychosomatic or energetic. Problems of organic origin are identified by changes in the sole of the foot and the presence of corns and callosities, warts, grooves or depressions, swellings or stiffness, excluding the toes from this schematization, though taking into consideration possible interdigital maceration caused by the excessive acidity of sweat, this too being of organic origin.

Problems of psychosomatic origin are identified by the distortion of the toes. These may appear arthrosized, elongated or squashed, with nails that are either onychogryphotic or tending to koilonychia, overlapping or underlying, hook or hammer.

Problems of energetic origin, which in western language are those called meteoropathic, are identified through a dorsal reading of the foot. The identification will be determined by the interpretation of the contraction of the extensor tendons of the toes, which will appear to protrude. When we stimulate one of these tendons, in the direction of the course of the corresponding meridian, the patient will realize he has an extremely painful area in an unexpectedly sensitive area of the foot, and he will be amazed when we demonstrate that by stimulating the same area with the same intensity, but in the opposite direction, the pain will more than double without plausible justification from a local pathological point of view.

Callosities corresponding to limits which the mother and father have generated in an individual (localized on the big toe and on the calcaneus of the left foot), give an indication of considerable importance as regards their existence on the right foot or their diversified location. If the callosity is more accentuated on the big toe of the right foot, it indicates that the subject’s problems are located in the high part of his body, e.g. suffering of the cervical vertebrae and related problems: blockage of the shoulder joint, suffering of the cervicobrachial plexus, squeezing of the cranial nerves. If the callosity, again on the right foot, is on the heel, it provides information relative to suffering caused by the squeezing of the intervertebral spaces of the lumbosacral area and the consequences of it: pains of sciatic origin, innervation of the genital organs, muscular, circulatory and articular problems connected with the lower limbs.

Independently of the symptoms that the patient reports, by looking at his feet we must develop criteria which by exclusion lead us to the cause of the problem. We can proceed by asking ourselves: by observing the callosities, the grooves, the swellings, the planes of inclination of the feet, and everything previously stated, does the left foot or the right foot appear less harmonious? On the more suffering foot, which is the most irregular part, the high, middle or low part? Which bodily layers are most affected by the suffering, the bones, the muscles, the blood circulation, the lymphatic circulation or the skin? By exclusion we arrive at the cause of the problem. Your ability in foot reflexological diagnosis is, since it is your guide, of paramount importance.

Daily you will meet patients who complain of problems that seemingly are completely at variance with your own interpretation. For example, they will come to you with cervicalgia and you will discover that the origin is lumbar, or vice versa.

I shall now proceed with some examples of how to approach therapies, and shall deliberately avoid going into detail, whose presence in many cases can be decisive in obtaining good results, but whose omission can also be equally decisive. What I propose should be interpreted more as a mental attitude to adopt, rather than as a therapeutic schema to apply indiscriminately with all similar symptomatic forms.

As a first example let us take a fairly common ailment: cervicalgia, a pathology caused by the closing of the cervical vertebrae and the consequent squeezing of the nerve roots situated along this stretch of the spinal column. To get back to what in homeopathy is called the unicum, that is the origin of the problem, we must pose a series of questions which by exclusion lead us to reduce the possibility of error and the wasting of time, and as a result reduce the patient’s suffering and hasten his more rapid healing.

If you want to become really professional therapists these questions must enter into your mind, you must breathe them in together with air around you. Naturally in the text it is impossible to describe the emotions experienced in studying this subject during our learning courses. It is possible, however, to excite in you the virus of curiosity and research, the virus that will eat away at your brain with an incessant stream of whys for every thing surrounding you, then to search for the solution with criteria that follow the logic of the body. Faced with a problem like cervicalgia, for example, the first classifications to make result from the following questions. Is it a problem of the high or low part of our body. Obviously the high part. Let us therefore exclude for a moment the low part. Is the pain on the right or on the left? Let us say it is on the left. This makes us exclude for a moment the right side. I say for a moment because what the patient complains of may be only the symptomatic manifestation, whereas the origin of the problem could be elsewhere. This is precisely where the professionality of the Taoist reflexologist in determining the primary cause makes the difference.

Let us continue: is the stiffness anterior or posterior? Of the seven cervical vertebrae which ones are most seriously affected? The first or the last? Does the pain tend to increase or diminish with movement? Does the patient wake up with the pain, which then diminishes during the day, or does he get up in the morning without pain, which then manifests in the course of the day with maximum intensity in the evening? Is the pain acute? Therefore stinging, hot, not limiting functionality? Or is it chronic? Dull, diffused, cold, limiting functionality? Another fundamental step is to establish whether the pain is primary or compensatory. Is the centre of equilibrium affected, with resulting dizziness or nausea?

Involving the cervicobrachial plexus, which of the six basic movements of the shoulder joint are limited? Adduction, abduction, external rotation, internal rotation, backward torsion, forward torsion? Possible paraesthesias, or loss of strength, in some fingers, through the reading of metameric parameters can indicate the cause of the problem.

The shape of the fingers, their possible arthrosization, and the many possible alterations in the shape of the nails, also become an important source of information, depending on whether they have developed longitudinally or transversally, depending on which finger of which hand, whether they are tubular, tending to koilonychia or onychogryphosis, whether the distal phalanges are becoming Hippocratic, etc... I could go on at length, but with time you will be able to dispense with these questions, and with experience a glance will be enough to determine the cause of the problem and at that point your “clinical eye” will naturally guide your hands to the reflex areas of the foot associated with the specific problem.

Let me reiterate what was written at the beginning of this book in connection with the TAO: the Tao is not what you see, but in what you see. Pupils who come to study my work at the beginning try with admirable diligence to grasp the secrets of the technique, but alas fail to grasp its essence, which is not in the hands that move, but in what there is in the hands that move. In fact it is the patient, more than anyone else, who feels the extraordinary thing happening to him as a result of the manipulation of his feet. In fact, the people I esteem most highly and consider excellent therapists are those who first came as patients, then become pupils and later excellent colleagues. As you can see, I have no therapeutic schemes or magical formulas to offer, but I am more than willing to accompany you in responding to the above-stated queries.

Let us return to the cervical vertebrae, which being bones bring us back to the Water Movement. Bones, like nails, hair and teeth, do not hurt; they are amorphous structures that we can drill, cut or file, without inducing pain. Pain is due instead to the stimulation of roots or nerve endings, and more specifically to radicular compression. In the case of the cervical vertebrae, the pain is not determined by the bones directly, but rather by the squeezing of the nerve roots of the cervicobrachial plexus, caused by the vertebrae being pulled closer together.

Bones, as we know, do not move by themselves, but are moved by muscles. We have long and short muscles, smooth and striated muscles, muscles situated anteriorly and posteriorly, on the left side and on the right, muscles of the high part of the body and muscles of the low part of the body. Every muscle and every muscle group has its complementary antagonist. But why does one group of muscles move and not another? Muscular suffering can manifest through excessive contraction or excessive decontraction. Muscles suffer in relation to the suffering of the underlying organ or articulation.

Let us consider a person who tends to carry his head inside his trunk with that characteristic “I don’t know” shrugging gesture. This instinctive and habitual gesture in the life of the subject is caused by a defensive action of the neck. The head, or the cranium, is a structure that defends and protects what is contained within it. The thorax, or the rib-cage, is also a structure of defence and protection. The neck is situated between these two safe areas, but it has no form of protection; Therefore it is instinctive, in circumstances experienced as relatively negative, to assume an attitude of self-defence, like tortoises: the head withdraws into the thorax, thus reducing the exposure of the neck, which is the most vulnerable part.

The main muscles involved in this posture are the trapezius and the sternocleidomastoid. The suffering caused by the squeezing of the cervical vertebrae, like any other analogous condition, can be a primary action or a compensatory action. We can establish this by the presence of a callosity on the big toe or the calcaneus. If the callosity is on the big toe the problem is primary; if the callosity is more evident on the calcaneus it is compensatory. If the origin is primary we stimulate the reflex muscles of the neck and shoulders; if it is compensatory we stimulate the reflex muscles of the dorsolumbar area. Without this consideration the result would be exclusively symptomatic, since we would not have arrived at the origin of the problem in the stimulation (aiming at decontraction) of the muscles principally involved.

As well as causing pain and a limitation of the functionality of the neck, a cervicalgia usually involves a limitation of the movements of the shoulder joint, with possible paraesthesias in the upper arm, forearm and fingers. Considering these factors and their location opens up a range of increasingly specific therapeutic possibilities, possibilities therefore which are not exclusively symptomatic, but resolutive. A therapeutic plan for a primary cervicalgia might be:

- kidneys

- trapezius muscle

- sternocleidomastoid muscle

- stimulation of the reflex area of the cervical vertebrae with the stylomass (a metal instrument specially adapted for generating a specific and measurable compression on reflex areas, also used in Chinese micromassage)

- distal part of the meridian most specifically affected, in this case the bladder or gall bladder meridian.

You will discover that if there is greater sensitivity along the stretch of the gall bladder meridian, on the right (GB40, GB41, GB42, GB43, GB44), there will be greater sensitivity along the contra-lateral stretch of the bladder meridian on the left (B62, B63, B64, B65, B66, B67).

An analogous situation emerges for the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles. If there is greater sensitivity in the reflex area of the sternocleidomastoid muscle on the right, there will be greater sensitivity in the reflex area of the trapezius muscle on the left.

Going even further into detail, and comparing the reactions produced by the stimulation of the two sternocleidomastoid muscles reflected on the dorsum of the feet, we will discover that if on the left there is more sensitivity in the proximal portion, relative to the sternal area (proximal third), on the right there will be greater sensitivity in the distal portion, corresponding to the mastoid area.

Professionality is always a decisive element in the resolution of any case. When there is a problem associated with an organ or an articulation the solution is relatively simple since we massage the reflex area of that organ or articulation. The worst thing that can happen is that we resolve the problem only partially or only symptomatically. The soundness of the reflexologist’s ability is manifest when, confronted by a number of widespread symptoms, he succeeds in identifying the cause of the problem and removing it.

I will cite another therapeutic approach to a problem common to millions of people that at first sight has no specific reflex area to be treated: allergies. When we talk of the various allergic manifestations — epidermic, alimentary, respiratory — the words allergen or antigen, histamine, RAST, ELISA, pomphus, etc. fill the speeches of those who talk of them and apologize for the use of these little-known terms. Specialists of the various branches of medicine are all in agreement about the causes provoking allergic reactions, but the results unfortunately are not always satisfactory.

Some people are for many years administered vaccines aimed at resolving the causes of the different allergies, allergies which have been identified with sophisticated laboratory analyses. When no satisfactory results are obtained they turn to the various techniques of so-called “alternative medicine”.

Why do vaccines not always work? Why are people with clear allergic manifestations not allergic to the most varied laboratory tests? In front of a forty year-old patient with clear allergic manifestations should we not ask ourselves: «Why did he get it at this precise time in his life and not previously?» «Why is it of dietary origin and not pollenosis or from skin contact?». Characteristic are allergies to cat fur even in people who do not normally come into contact with cats.

I wish to draw our attention not to the accidental or contingent causes, which may be pollen, hay, carpet mites, house dust, grasses, etc, but to why. A person may have lived in the same house all his life, breathing its air, so why does he manifest an allergy to house dust only now? What has happened in his relationship with the house and with its archetypal meanings? The microscope, of course, is unable to respond to these questions. Every day we live with the causes that may provoke allergies. From our Taoist reflexologists viewpoint, therefore with our psychosomatistic orientation, the cause provoking the allergy is the lowering of immunity defences.

Funguses and parassites on our skin live in symbiosis with our defences, but when the latter become insufficient to repel an attack, the balance of forces is compromised and this leads to common allergic manifestations. In our long experience, now consolidated with time, statistics on the subject point to an unequivocal conclusion: allergies are determined by changes that are not accepted. There are of course many types of unaccepted change: a change of town, a change of job, a child changes teacher or school, a brother is born, a mother-in-law comes to live at home, a death, a marriage.

An unaccepted, non-verbalized change produces emotional control, the so-called “withholding of anger”. Repressed, unexpressed anger is manifested as a gradual wasting away with a consequent lowering of immunity defences. The respiratory apparatus, which we shall consider as the maxillary sinuses, frontal sinuses, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi and lungs, from a Chinese energetic point of view (there is considerable correspondence with contemporary medicine), is related to the skin and the colon. Therefore the respiratory apparatus, the skin and the colon are considered as Metal Movement.

The most significant emotion in Metal people, characterized by their kyphotic posture, pale skin, susceptibility to ailments of various components of the respiratory apparatus, is sadness (Po energy for the Chinese). When we go into details in order to classify the type of pathology and to deduce the best therapy for it, we make selective classifications that lead us to the origin of the problem, from which we draw conclusions for the therapy.

The Chinese interpretation, and reality confirms it, is that even so-called permanent allergies, therefore not only seasonal or intermittent ones, were originally sporadic and limited in time. Their repetition and prolongation have made them become permanent, therefore chronic.

At this point it becomes important and indeed fundamental to arrive not only at the psychosomatic causes but also at the original location of the allergy in seasonal manifestations. The initial symptoms of an allergy are always manifested in the season following the one in which it originated. If an allergy has its greatest manifestation in autumn, the symptoms will be felt for the “first time” in winter; if the symptoms are recurrent in spring, the first manifestation will be in summer.

Autumn is the period of the Metal Movement’s greatest energetic activity; in autumn the lungs, the skin and the colon, at a symptomatic level, will experience their period of greatest activity. In this period the symptoms of relapsing patients will surface and be manifested in conditions of thoracic fullness: there will be an increase in catarrh and hollow coughing, asthma will have an expiratory character, and the skin will react with rashes, blisters and abundant flakiness, etc. This is of course a general picture, but one in which different manifestations have in common a “throwing out” type of reaction, that is, a kind of extravagant defence mechanism, as in the classic symptomatology of allergy.

If the allergic manifestations are in spring, this is the season opposed to autumn. Autumn is considered to be the season of the lesser Yin; we go from lesser cold to greater cold, which is winter. The leaves fall, migratory birds return to warmer climes, the days shorten, nature proceeds towards a slowing down of its activities. Spring is the season of the lesser Yang; we go from lesser heat to greater heat, which is summer. In nature there is a reawakening: birds nest, the trees are in blossom, everything prepares itself again for great activity and the days get longer.

Being the opposite season to autumn, Metal Movement (lungs, skin, colon), spring will no longer experience its maximum energetic activity, but rather its minimum. Therefore the manifestations of the organs associated with this movement will no longer be of fullness and therefore excretory, but the contrary. Asthma, for example, becomes inspiratory in a condition of energetic deficiency. The patient has that classic shortage of air symptom called “air hunger”, caused by dry bronchial constriction. In a condition of fullness, therefore, asthma is determined by an obstruction of the bronchioles due to the excessive presence of catarrh, whereas in a condition of shortage a dry bronchial constriction is our organism’s way of defending itself. On the skin there will not be eruptive symptoms, indicative of excess, the defences being lowered; instead there are cracks, chapping and sometimes bleeding cuts.

With a differentiated pathological origin the therapy must be similarly differentiated. The meridians of the lungs and colon are two shou (hand) meridians. This explains why the reflex areas of the lungs and colon are not as sensitive on the foot as other areas relative to zu (foot) meridians. Theoretically, in order to accelerate the therapy, we should practise Reflexology of the Hand, the Shou method, but this lies outside the realm of the present subject, which is allergy seen from the point of view of Foot Reflexology. The optimal way of interpreting and curing that we have deduced from the millennary study of Chinese practice, is based primarily on acting on the reflex areas of the feet which are in relation to the organs served by zu meridians.

To satisfy the needs of those practising Foot Reflexology, we can sum up with this type of therapeutic scheme. If the manifestations of the skin and of the respiratory apparatus are considered in a context that we have called fullness (abundant catarrh, cutaneous eruptions, expiratory asthma), then in the mother-son relationship of the Five Movements, Sheng Cycle, we massage the son in order to drain the mother. In a condition of pulmonary fullness, for example, to create a form of drainage we must massage the son, which in this case is the kidney. With the opposite condition, deficiency in the lungs, we must massage the mother to strengthen the son, in this case spleen-pancreas.

If the liver is affected, due to an allergy of dietary origin, in this case too we can find the liver full or empty, morphologically verifiable from the reflex area. If the reflex area appears swollen, hard and callous, with the skin showing symptoms of hyperhidrosis, it is full; therefore drain by working on the son, in this case the heart (shou meridian). If the reflex area of the liver appears empty, soft, lacking in tone, the liver is empty, therefore it needs strength which will be given to it by the mother, in this case the kidney.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FOOT REFLEXOLOGY

1872

William H. Fitzgerald was born in Middletown (U.S.A.).

1895

After completing his studies at the University of Vermont he began to travel to widen his experience. He studied in America and Europe, and in London worked for two years on the staff of the Central London Ears, Nose and Throat Hospital. He also worked in Paris and Vienna

In Vienna, where he practised at the studio of Dr. Harry Bond Bressler, Fitzgerald started exploring the concept of reflex areas. Fitzgerald was an otorhinolaryngologist and it was quite by chance that he discovered that with the application of pressure in the labial vestibule, on the hard palate, on the soft palate and on the gums, he could produce analgesia or even short-term anaesthesia for minor interventions in the oral cavity. It should be remembered that at this time, early in the 20th century, dental extractions were executed without anaesthesia and not always by doctors.

The results were encouraging and the enthusiasm considerable. Because Doctor Bressler was also greatly interested in the history of medicine, the young Fitzgerald had access to information on little-known therapeutic techniques that were known about only in restricted geographical areas, techniques that had not been codified by the medical establishment but were used with success by empirical medicine.

1902

On his return to the United States Fitzgerald brought his work to the attention of colleagues and friends and invited them to verify the theory for themselves.

It was in 1902, when chief physician of the Ears, Nose and Throat Department at the St. Francis Hospital of Hartford, Connecticut, that Fitzgerald began with a certain perseverance and dedication to experiment with a range of compression techniques, especially on the hands. He applied clothes pegs to the tips of the fingers and wrapped elastic bands around the fingers until they became almost blue. He also had patients squeeze a comb into their hands, a technique which the Red Indian women of North America would use to alleviate birthing pains.

Most of the compression techniques were used on the hands and fingers, but they were also tested on the elbows, knees, wrists, ankles and toes.

From simple empiricism in the search for new areas that might bring about benefit he theorized the concept that the body was traversed by ten parallel areas. He then drew the outline of a person traversed by ten parallel lines which departed from the toes and fingers and joined up at the head.

Questioning and listening to his patients Fitzgerald succeeded in correlating the disturbances which these patients reported in an ideal line. For example, a person may have had an eye problem or a migraine, complained of problems in the gall bladder, suffered periodically in the hip or knees, and complained of a painful corn on the fourth toe.

When these various symptoms were mapped out on the body, an ideal link between them was seen to exist, that is, the symptoms were found to belong to a single corridor. Fitzgerald made no mention of this, but those familiar with Chinese acupuncture will identify the above-mentioned points as situated on the Zu Shao Yang (gall bladder meridian), even though in acupuncture it has a more articulate route.

1916

The first article on the technique appeared only in 1916, written by Fitzgerald’s friend, doctor and journalist, Edwin F. Bower, who for the first time gave it the name “Zone therapy”.

1917

The following year, William Fitzgerald and Edwin Bower published their first work together: Zone Therapy, or Relieving Pain At Home.

Doctors George Starr White of Los Angeles, Joe Shelby Riley and his wife Elizabeth, who published their own works on the subject, were followers, enthusiasts and promoters of the technique.

Doctor Riley was the first to talk of compression techniques that could be made with the fingers “hooked” so as to “manipulate” the joints and tissues.

A therapist named Eunice Ingham, who worked in Riley’s studio, became very interested in the technique. Encouraged by Riley, Ingham carried out further research into Fitzgerald’s work. Her female intuition led her to concentrate particularly on the hands and feet, and it was the feet, unexpectedly, which proved to be markedly more sensitive than the hands.

By concentrating the areas of greatest sensitivity and giving them a logical distribution, Ingham produced a first, admittedly approximate chart showing the arrangement of organs reflected on the foot.

We are now at the beginning of the 1930s.

1934

In April 1934 a newspaper article appeared with the title Mystery of Zone Therapy Revealed. The article talked about Fitzgerald as the discoverer of Zone Therapy and about how he had succeeded in proving the validity of the technique which he had developed. A famous opera-singer, present at a dinner held in his honour, confided that over the years her voice had gradually got lower in pitch. After examining her fingers and toes Fitzgerald concluded that the drop in her voice was caused by the presence of a corn on her big toe. After making various compressions he asked the woman to sing, and to both her amazement and that of the other guests present, she succeeded in reaching notes that were two tones higher than her usual limit.

1938

Eunice Ingham published her first work entitled Stories the Feet Can Tell, followed by Stories the Feet Have Told, thus promoting and popularizing the Ingham Method of compression massage, where the language and definition of the name were changed. The original Zone Therapy became Massage by compression on the foot, later Foot Reflexology, and the soft “hooked hands” method became reflex areas to be pressed as if we wanted to crumble grains of salt in the palm of the hand.

1942

William Fitzgerald died in Stanford.

1948

Dwight C. Byers and Eusebia Massenger, the nephew and niece of Eunice Ingham, started to give their full-time support, holding seminars with their aunt. They later founded the National Institute of Reflexology and the International Institute of Reflexology to spread the Original Ingham Method.

1967

Foot Reflexology took root in Europe through two of Ingham’s direct pupils: Hanne Marquardt in Germany and Doreen Bayly in England. Hanne Marquardt began to practice in 1958 and in 1967 founded a school in the Black Forest.

In England Doreen E. Bayly devolved the funds obtained from the sale of her small book and related charts to the Crusade Against All Cruelty to Animals Limited.

The sponsoring of the manufacture of instruments used for stimulating the feet began, and Edy Masafret’s book Sani nel Domani spread from Switzerland throughout Europe.

1974

After devoting her entire life to the diffusion of her method, and teaching until into her eighties, Ingham died in December 1974 at the age of 85.

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