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|  File Name      : LASERACP.ASC     |  Online Date     :  03/10/95          |
|  Contributed by : John McCabe      |  Dir Category    :  BIOLOGY           |
|  From           : KeelyNet BBS     |  DataLine        :  (214) 324-3501    |
|           KeelyNet * PO BOX 870716 * Mesquite, Texas * USA * 75187         |
|        A FREE Alternative Sciences BBS sponsored by Vanguard Sciences      |
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Actinotherapy (Greek "aktis" a ray; "therapeia",service) is the area of
medical therapy that deals with the healing effects of light. Light therapy
has been used throughout history.

Some of the earliest recorded examples of treatment date back to 4000 BC. The
sacred books of India, describe, among other remedies, the healing power of
the Sun god Sanitir. The favorable effects of sunrays on certain disorders
were also known to Hippocrates and other ancient Greek physicians who
practiced heliotherpy in specially designed roofless buildings facing the sun.

Throughout the middle ages, red light was used to treat smallpox.  The sick
were placed in a room in which sunlight, filtered through thick red curtain,
produced a relatively dim red light.

In the 16th century, John Godestone cured the smallpox of the son of King
Edward I by wrapping him in bright red sheets in a room with red curtains.

Niel Ryberg Finsen (1860-1904), a Danish physician and Nobel Prize winner used
red light to treat the suppuration and scarring of smallpox.

Over the past several years lasers of several types and power have been used
in medicine in areas ranging from surgery to therapy. It has been determined
that there is a window of light transmission in tissue. This window of
non-absorption is notable for the following characteristics:

   1.  It is relatively narrow: Between 600-800nm wavelengths. (Red!)
   2.  Absorption by water is virtually nil.
   3.  Absorption by hemoglobin, myoglobin, and reduced myoglobin is, for all
       practical purposes, not a factor.
   4.  Absorption by melanin is very low.

This means that, within this 600-800nm window, a laser will penetrate tissue
easily and not cause coagulation or destruction (disintegration) of tissue.

Furthermore it will allow elements of cells to respond to the frequency of the
laser light and produce biological effects dependent upon that frequency.

A fair amount of research has been done that indicates that low power (3-5mw)
670nm diode lasers are capable of producing rather amazing results in the area
of pain relief. One researcher (Ericsson) documents 1572 cases where such a
laser was used at pain trigger points.

Treatment was for headache, arthritis, peripheral nerve pain, cancer pain and
radicular pain syndromes. He claims that relief (partial or total) was noted
in over 85% of the cases.

The pain trigger points referred to above, appear to be directly related to
the classic acupuncture points (which is not surprising). It is said that over
the past 10 years, Chinese researchers have had considerable success utilizing
such lasers instead of acupuncture needles.

Acupuncture is far more widely accepted in Europe than in the US. As a result,
the majority of research papers on laser acupuncture are of European origin,
in particular Russia, and Germany. For those readers that can handle German,
there is an excellent book entitled "Laser in der Akupunktur" published by the
Hippokrates Verlag in Stuttgart Germany.

As further food for thought (and experimentation), one might ask if the laser
diode, pulse modulated with the appropriate Rife frequencies, might not make
an excellent transducer to couple the Rife frequencies to the body.

Such lasers are, for all practical purposes, identical to the widely used
laser pointers. They are relatively inexpensive and can be powered by standard
AAA batteries. Laser diode modules, outputting 660-685 nm at 1-5mw are
available from Edmund Scientific.

These laser devices are (or were) being marketed by a few US companies.
Despite being careful to avoid medical claims, at least one (in Houston) that
is known to the writer, was very recently forbidden to sell them by the FDA.
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