Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 221, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1915 — RUBS NOSE TO CURE PATIENTS [ARTICLE]

RUBS NOSE TO CURE PATIENTS

SURGEON REACHES PARTS BY NASAL STIMULATION. Noted Medical Men Working Along Many Similar Lines Ho Avers. Dr. Pierre Bonnier, a distinguished Paris physician, has published an account of a novel method of treating disease. He calls this method “centrotherapy, ’’ meaning the cure of disease through the treatment of the central nervous system. In practice the method consists of applying a slight stimulation to certain areas in the nasal cavaties, which are in close relation to the nervous centers that control every part of the body. The stimulation is a slight cauterization ordinarily used by throat and nose specialists.

Dr. Bonnier reports that in the last six years he has treated 200,000 cases by cauterization at the great Hotel Dleu hospital in Paris, at the Polyclinic mantained by Baron Henri de Rothchlld and in private practice. In his book he gives a record of about 2,000 cases, in all of which he claims to have obtained complete cures or great improvement. The ailments rteated range from headache to cancer.

It is interesting to note that other medical men are working along closely related lines. Dr. William H. Fitzgerald, a nose and throat specialist, of St Francis’ hospital, Hartford, Ct, recently reported a remarkable system of treatment through sensitive spott in the nose Dr. Fitzgerald produces complete anesthesia of certain parts of the body by pressing down a related area in the nose. By this method he can remove a foot without using an anesthetic, the patient feeling no pain. By simply massaging the area in the nose Dr. Fitzgerald can cure diseases in the related area in the body. Others have discovered a vlose connection between the nasal cavity and diseases apparently far removed. While studying Infantile paralysis at the Rockefeller institute Dr. Simor Flexner and his colleagues found that the germ of this terrible disease entered the body first through the nose, then made its way along the olfactory nerve to the brain and thence to the spinal marrow, where It does most of its damage. The essential feature of the Bonnier method consists in applying the cautery close to the centers of nerve control. These centers, he tells us, are in the medulla oblongata, the bulb which forms the top of the spinal column, and Is located within the skull. In this bulb there is a center that controls every area of the body. Its activity and vigilance are necessary to tho life and health of each part. If disease gains an entrance at any part of the body, whether it be an Inflamed toe or an appendix, It means that the functions of the nervous centers in the medulla have been overcome in some way.

The reason why the nervous centers in the medulla can be reached through the nasal cavity is that this Is the nearest surface in direct nerve communication with the medulla. All the other surfaces are related to the nerve centers, but they are much further away. All the remedies we now use, according to Dr. Bonnier, operate through their effect on the nerve centers. For Instance, when the doctor puts an ice pack on the abdomen to reduce an inflamed appendix, it does not operate by directly freezing the appendix, but sends a stimulation to the appropriate nerve center that makes it try to do its work of keeping the appendix in normal condition. Just under the surface of the nasal cavity runs a branch of the great trigerminal ; nerve which supplies the face and lain dose relation to the me* dulla. According to the theory of Dr. Bonnier, a certain spot in the nasal cavity leads back through the trigerminal nerve to the center In the medulla that controls some other part of the body. “The medulla is the wise guardian of our physiology by which our'life is continued from second to second. Every Illness is a deviation from this physiology. The medulla of every sick man knows infinitely more than any doctor; it is the great physician whom we must consult It Is the conductor of the medicine; when it goes wrong it is because the medulla is out of order or asleep. Instead of pushing on the wheels of the automobile, regulate the source of power. Wake it up and it will work," says Dr. Bonnier.

The relation of one nervous center to another explains the extraordinary manner in which one disease changes Into another or cures another. Thus, according to Dr. Bonnier, a case of asthma may cure Inflammation of the Intestines; an eczema will cure asthma, and then change into a headache, which win give way to hemorrhoids, which will be followed by vertigo, which win change into nervous prostration. V

In such cases the asthma may stir up the nervous center which should have resisted tha Intestinal inflammation, but which has fallen out of activity. The new disease may answer the same purpose as Dr. Bonnier's cautery. In many cases wo find that an affection of the skin, like dSscfaM, cures seme disease of * deep seated -