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The history of reflexology
Massaging and touching the feet to help the body is a very ancient practice.
The tomb of Ankhamhor in Egypt was found in 1897 and is thought to date back to around 2330BC. Ankhamhor was a physician and on the wall of his tomb there is a series of pictures showing what seems to be a foot massage.
Feet have also always been important to American Indian tribes for whom
massaging the feet was considered a method of maintaining physical, mental and spiritual balance.
The Chinese have been using the application of pressure as a healing therapy for over 5000 years, such as acupressure and acupuncture. Reflexology has been thought that it was influenced from these therapies because they are all based on the principle that there is a relationship between the point where pressure is applied and the rest of the body.
DR. William Fitzgerald and Zone Therapy
Dr. William Fitzgerald was and is one of the most important people in the history of reflexology.
In the early twentieth century he noticed that be pressing on one part of the body another part would be anaesthetized.
He experimented with different ways to apply this pressure until eventually he started performing minor surgery using this technique.
Fitzgerald divided the body into ten longitudinal zones. These zones formed the basis for the development of reflexology and are still used today.
Everything in each zone is connected so pressure on a toe at one end will affect the head at the other end.
The connection between them is energy: every part of a zone is linked by energy and exists in the same energy zone. If the energy of one part is blocked, this will mean that the whole zone will also be blocked.
From Fitzgerald to Ingham
In 1915 Dr Edwin Bowers, one of Fitzgerald’s colleagues, brought zone therapy to the attention of the rest of the medical profession.
Most doctors were not enthusiastic but some like, Dr Joseph Riley and his wife Elizabeth Ann Riley became interested and developed it further.
At this point, Eunice Ingham also became very interested in zone therapy and in the early 1930s, after discussions with the Riley and work of her own, she developed foot reflexology.
Eunice Ingham and reflexology
She became aware that if the zones ran through the whole body, some areas would be not only more accessible but also more sensitive and more responsive.
She discovered that pressure on various points of the feet help relieve pain.
She had recognized that the feet are not only more accessible but also more sensitive, because unlike the hands, they are generally kept covered up.
Eunice Ingham mapped the zones of the body and their contents onto the feet and reflexology was born.
The Bayly School
Doreen Bayly brought reflexology to Britain in 1966. She had studied with Ingham in the US and on her return to Britain she set up her own school of reflexology.
Dwight Byers and Hannah Marquardt later divided the body/feet into what are know as Transverse Zones.
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