The origins of reflexology are believed to have stemmed all the way back to ancient Egyptian times as seen in hieroglyphics found in a physician's tomb in Saqqara, Egypt(Top Photo). It clearly shows the practitioners are working on the hands and feet of their patients. However, reflexology as we know it today was researched and developed by Eunice Ingham(Bottom Photo) who was a physical therapist working with Dr. Joe Shelby Riley in the early 1930's. Dr. Riley had been working with Dr. William Fitzgerald who had developed "Zone Theory" in 1917. This theory was based on applying pressure to "zones" in the feet to relieve pain and often the cause of the pain in corresponding "zones" of the body. Eunice Ingham picked up where the doctors had left off to develop zone theory further. Eunice treated many patients with what she called "Reflex Therapy" and later named "Reflexology". She had much success discovering reflex areas in the feet which had an affect on a certain part of the body. As a matter of fact the body's "map" on the feet(as seen below) is an exact copy of the body itself! Finding and working the body's reflexes in the feet helped to relieve an abundance of health problems through a natural reflex action that improved life giving blood flow to vital organs and parts of the body. Eunice wrote two books on all her findings and what started out as short book reviews, over time with the help of her niece and nephew, turned into training workshops. Eunice helped raise her niece and nephew from an early age. Her nephew, Dwight C. Byers, taught reflexology at the workshops as well, helped to develop reflexology even further, and went on to establish the National Institute of Reflexology in the early 1950's. In 1980, the workshops had gone worldwide and became the International Institute of Reflexology. To this day these workshops, all over the world, are being taught to keep Eunice's dream alive and that was simply using reflexology to ease the suffering of mankind.