Читать книгу The Art of Cupping - Hedwig Manz - Страница 12

Blood is a very special juice.

Goethe, Faust

When Goethe had Mephisto utter this sentence in Faust, he wanted to suggest that blood is a metaphor for life. This poetic image has also been fully validated from the perspective of modern science. Blood as the carrier of numerous active substances not only contributes to the management of many bodily functions but also has great diagnostic and therapeutic significance in medicine.

The therapeutic effect of blood has long been recognized. We can find theories about the way in which autohemotherapy acts on the human body in the experimental research of different physicians like Nourney, Bier, Jablonska (resistance-increasing effect), Pfeiffer (formation of antibodies), Haferkampf (summary of autohemotherapy), Hoffheinz, Petri (proteolytic ferments for resolving pneumonia), and Höveler (allergy, geriatrics, skin disorders), to name just a few.

While opinions on autohemotherapy differ, one thing is certain: autohemotherapy—and therefore also cupping—acts primarily in the sense of a regulation therapy.

Note

Regulation therapy is a naturopathic method in which a stimulus is applied to increase the organism’s power of resistance. Alternatively—as the name of the therapy suggests—it serves to retune disturbed self-regulatory mechanisms of the body to enable the body to resist pathogenic influences.

The term “regulation” includes any influence that has been caused by the use of medicinal drugs or by dietetic, climatic, or even psychological measures. In general, however, regulation therapy is understood to mean the intake of substances (stimulants), primarily proteins, that have an effect on the human organism, by bypassing the gastrointestinal tract.

The most common methods with a regulating effect are autohemotherapy, cupping, and autourotherapy. Regulating substances include injections of human and animal serum (as, for example, in immunizations), blood, urine, and also boiled milk.

Autohemotherapy refers to the reinjection of small (0.1–5 mL) amounts of blood that have been drawn from the patient’s vein, back into the gluteal muscles or subcutaneous tissue.

Note

In cupping, by contrast, an extravasate is produced by the principle of suction. The resulting hematoma does not disappear immediately. The enduring process or resorption lasts over several days and provokes an increased reaction in the tissue.

The regulating effect occurs due to the fact that the blood acts like a “foreign body” in this “foreign” environment, that is, in the soft tissue and interstitial space, and thereby has an irritating effect, which the organism tries hard to eliminate. Before the blood that has accumulated in the tissue can be removed, it must be broken down into its constituents. The disintegration of the blood in the tissue induces certain processes in the organism like the increase in antibodies—this in turn stimulates the body’s defense; the blood-catabolizing agents that leak out promote the formation of new blood corpuscles and an increase of proteolytic ferments, which play a role in resolving an inflammation. This process also releases substances that stimulate the vegetative nervous system, as a result of which the blood vessels dilate and blood flow is increased. Elevated gland activity causes increased elimination, for example, of sweat, and therefore flushing of foreign substances. With these processes, the organism initiates a comprehensive therapeutic process.