Development of reflexotherapy of the feet (RTF) from its earliest beginnings to today probably followed a path similar to many other forms of treatment which are now generally accepted. There have always been people with special abilities whose instinct and intuition have told them what is needed for particular illnesses, because they are far more in touch with natural connections and cosmic laws.

Over the centuries ancient knowledge regarding the healing powers of herbs, for example, developed into phytotherapy, while piercing certain points on the body with simple, pointed objects (already historically documented in ancient times) became acupuncture, and sharpened stones and metals used to perform internal procedures on people in earlier times marked the beginnings of surgery.

Since the last century evidence has also emerged from the Western world that the indigenous peoples of Central and North America treated their sick using points on the foot. Christine Issel (USA) researched the topic in depth, and in 1990 she compiled interesting evidence in her book Reflexology: Art, Science and History. The Cherokee Indians appear to be the only tribe for which there is evidence that they have continued using foot therapy until modern times. It is supposed that they acquired their knowledge from the Incas of South America.

According to ancient sources, various physicians in Europe were already performing a kind of zone therapy in the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the last century, in a book Henry B. Bressler refers to a document in which around 1,582 physicians described treatment of areas of the hand and foot and the astonishing results they obtained in people who were sick.

All this goes to show that from time immemorial the feet have been ascribed a major, multidimensional significance in many human cultures.

In the first instance, anyone performing foot treatments today refers to Dr. William FitzGerald, an American ENT physician (1872–1942), who in 1917 published the book Zone Therapy with Dr. Edwin Bowers. No explicit reference is made, either in his literature or in former colleagues’ accounts, to the sources from which he developed his most important “tool,” viz. the division of the human body into 10 longitudinal zones. As FitzGerald also worked in London, Paris, and Vienna for several years, it is supposed that there he came across old European literature that accorded with this view. Another assumption is that he acquainted himself with the general principles of acupuncture while living in Europe and possibly stylized the 12 familiar main meridians to form 10 longitudinal zones.

In 1958, as a 25-year-old nurse and therapeutic masseuse, I first read about foot treatment in E. Ingham’s book (see above). Since I had trained as a State Registered Nurse in England, the subject was of interest to me, not least because of the language, although its content initially seemed very strange. Above all, I found it implausible that improvements in a person’s condition could be achieved at far removed locations just by “applying pressure” to special points on the foot. However, therapeutic curiosity impelled me to examine the specified areas corresponding respectively to the patient’s symptoms. To my surprise, not only were they painful but treating them resulted in significant alleviation of the patient’s symptoms.

Soon I was employing this new method almost exclusively. Owing to the fact that from the outset I was working with patients—and not, as occurs in the United States and other countries, with clients—the transition from well-being and prevention to therapy occurred almost of its own accord.

In 1967 I began offering courses for specialists and regarded this training as supplementary for medical therapists with an interest in this area. Not until later did I realize that distinguishing RTF from the lay method made it relatively easy to employ RTF professionally in physical therapy practices, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers.