Part I

Theory and Practice of Neural Therapy According to Huneke

Introduction

Facts to Remember

1. Neural therapy according to Huneke is a regulating therapy, i.e., a holistic therapy. The healing stimulus produced by means of a correctly placed neural-therapeutic substance produces a response from the whole of the neurovegetative system whose pathways are those taken by both illness and recovery.

2. Segmental therapy according to Huneke refers to the selective use of procaine or lidocaine in the area of the disease process. Always examine first, then test! The improvement achieved with segmental treatment increases with repetition up to complete cure. If segmental treatment fails to produce an improvement, look for the interference field.

3. Any chronic ailment can be due to an interference field.

4. Any part of the body can become an interference field.

5. The injection of procaine or lidocaine, repeated as necessary, into the responsible interference field will cure the disorder caused by it, as far as this is anatomically still possible, by means of a lightning reaction (Huneke phenomenon). The conditions for a lightning reaction are:

a. All disturbances remote-controlled from the interference field must disappear completely, as far as this is anatomically still possible, at the moment of the injection.

b. Freedom from all symptoms must continue for at least 20 hours (8 hours in the case of teeth).

c. If the disorder recurs, the injection (s) must be repeated, and the period of freedom from symptoms must clearly increase with every subsequent treatment. A Huneke phenomenon has been produced only if this criterion has been met.

6. If injection into the segment produces no substantial improvement, or injection into a suspected interference field does not produce a 100% lightning reaction, further injections at these sites are pointless.

7. Always try simple injections with small quantities of local anesthetic first, with few but well-placed injections. Injections into the sympathetic chain and the ganglia are our last resort. A doctor who wants to help his or her patient must also be familiar with these. Do not stop treatment until you have tried everything.

8. All suspect teeth must be tested in a single session, similarly all scars. All scars in the same segment must always be injected as part of any segmental treatment.

9. NOTE: Intra-arterial injections into a vessel leading to the brain or into the subarachnoid space can have serious consequences. Always protect your patient and yourself by prior aspiration.

Symbols Used in the Text

denotes that the key word following this sign is listed in the Alphabetical List of Conditions and Indications in Part II;

(T) denotes the key word following this sign is listed in alphabetical order in Part III, Techniques, where the technique for the injection may be found.

A
Teachings, Theories, Experiments, Terms, and Definitions

1 Chronological Survey

The intelligent use of the neurovegetative system will one day constitute the most important part of the art of medicine.

Von Hering, 1925

ca. 6000 BC-2000 BC If we can rely on tradition, those skilled in healing during neolithic times, at whose skull trepannings we are filled with admiration, are supposed to have jabbed sharp stone splinters into the skin of the sick in order to exert an influence upon the internal organs. Doubtless their activities were originally intended to enable the demon Pain to leave the body by the hole in the head or in the skin. We may assume that their unsophisticated senses also enabled them to observe genuine possibilities of cures, the knowledge of which they passed on.

ca. 3000 BC The beginnings of acupuncture are usually placed in this period, combining the empirical experiences of many generations into a formal body of teachings. Acupuncture recognizes skin channels and points that have special relationships to specific organs and systems.

1664 The British anatomist, Thomas Willis, was the first to describe the sympathetic chain.

1801 M. F. X. Bichat introduced the term "neurovegetative system."

1851 Claude Bernard described the neural regulation of the vasomotion.

1869 The Zurich ophthalmologist, J. F. Horner, described a symptom complex that was later named after him.

1883 The great Russian physiologist, Pavlov, laid the foundation of the teaching of "nervosism." He recognized the coordinating influence of the nervous system upon all organic functions. Incidentally, it was Pavlov who first used the term "holistic medicine."

1884 Koller demonstrated the anesthetizing effect of cocaine on the eye.

1886 Frank reported on the possibility of temporarily paralyzing the ganglia by means of cocaine.

1886 The German homeopath, Weihe, discovered, without any knowledge of acupuncture, that different diseases were accompanied by 195 constantly recurring painful skin areas and he assigned to each of these its specifically indicated homeopathic medicine. In fact, 135 of these points lie on Chinese acupuncture channels, and 105 of them coincide both as regards position and symptoms with traditional acupuncture points.

1892 Schleich propounded his "infiltration anesthesia" to a surgical congress, based on using a 0.1% to 0.2% cocaine solution. He ended by stating: "I therefore consider, with this harmless means available to us, that from any idealistic, moral, or penal point of view, it is no longer permissible to make use of general anesthesia with all its risks, where this means will in fact suffice." This produced a storm of indignation, no discussion was allowed. Instead, a vote was taken to determine who amongst the 800 surgeons present was convinced of the truth of Schleich's report. Not one of them voted in favor! Only 10 years later, Mikulicz obtained recognition for his method. Schleich infiltrated his solutions also for lumbago, rheumatic shoulder, and intercostal neuralgia, and was convinced "that multiple injections of my infiltration solutions are the best anti-neuralgic method that is available to us." But he was unable to convince the doctors of his time.

1898 Head published his Sensory Disturbances of the Skin in Visceral Disease.

1902 Spiess published The Therapeutic Effect of Anesthetics (Die Heilwirkung der Anaesthetika).

1903 Cathelin reported on epidural anesthesia with cocaine solutions.

1905 Einhorn discovered Novocaine (procaine).

1906 Spiess discovered that wounds and inflammatory processes subside more quickly and with fewer complications after anesthesia. From this he concluded that pain acts as a cause in enabling an inflammation to become established. Despite the fact that his observations are of great therapeutic importance and that they are repeatable, his work failed to receive the recognition it deserved. As a result, Spiess became resigned in the face of the then current theories, which refused to recognize any neural influence on the inflammatory reaction. In Germany his work was forgotten, although it continued to exert its influence on Russian medicine (Speransky, Vishnevski).

1906 Vishnevski confirmed the effect of locally applied Novocaine in reducing inflammation.

1909 Sellheim and Laeven introduced paravertebral anesthesia.

1909 Cornelius published his Massage of Nerve Points (Nervenpunkt-Massage).

1910 Braun recommended procaine injections into the nerve-exit points in trigeminal neuralgia.

1912 Haertel described the techniques for injections to the Gasserian ganglion and into the sciatic nerve.

1913 Leriche first removed the stellate ganglion from a patient suffering from Raynaud disease.

1913 Paessler introduced the term "focal disorder." Gutzeit and Parade later defined a focus as a "seat of an inflammatory reaction containing bacteria and filled with toxic products, whose contents are more or less shut off by a living and thus reactive wall from the normal environment and which, as a result, sometimes have no connection with the organism and at other times are capable of passing out into the tissue planes." An attempt was made to explain the pathogenic action of such a sealed-off focus by the spread of living bacteria and the emission of toxins via the bloodstream causing an antigen-antibody reaction.

1917 Mackenzie reported on hypertonus and hyperalgesia in subcutaneous tissue and muscles in visceral disease.

1920 Leriche for the first time successfully treated migraine by Novocaine irrigation of the temporal artery.

1924 Ricker published Pathology as a Science; Pathology of Related Structures (Pathologie als Naturwissenschaft. Relationspathologie).

1925 The brothers Ferdinand and Walter Huneke re-discovered the therapeutic effect of local anesthetics, without any knowledge of...