History of Reflexology
The origin of reflexology dates way back to ancient history, when pressure therapies were used as preventive and therapeutic medicine. Evidence of this has been documented on four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America. The most common theory is that the earliest form of reflexology originated in China. It is difficult to pin point when and where it all began. This therapy was only introduced to the West in the early 20th Century.
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4,000 BC
In China there is evidence of some form of foot and hand therapy being practiced.
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2500 – 2330 BC
The oldest documentation of Reflexology comes from a pictograph in the tomb of an Egyptian Physician Ankhmahor at Saqquara near Cairo.
Reflexology was passed on to the native Americans by the Incas. The use of reflex pressure on the feet as a healing therapy has been practiced by the North American people for generations.
The Cherokee Indians of North Carolina acknowledge the importance of feet for spiritual, mental and physical balance and would incorporate sticks, oil, stones, clay masks and even hands to practice these techniques.
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1915- 1930
Re-discovery of some form of systemized foot treatment, accredited to Dr William Fitzgerald, Calling it “Zone therapy”.
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1879- 1974
Eunice Ingham “The Mother of Modern Reflexology”. A Physiotherapist who worked in a Doctors practice and she used Dr Fitzgerald’s Zone Therapy method.After extensive research she evolved a map of the entire body on the feet. Hence the saying ‘The feet are a mirror of the body’
