Edwin F. Bowers

Edwin Frederick Bowers (1871) was an American alternative medicine proponent known for pioneering reflexology.

With William H. Fitzgerald, Bowers had invented "Zone therapy", a form of reflexology. In 1917, they collaborated on a book titled Zone Therapy.[1] It has been widely criticized as there is no evidence it is beneficial for any medical condition and has been dismissed as quackery.[2][3][4][5]

Bowers credentials were called into question. In 1929, the American Medical Association stated that:

Although for years he has termed himself a physician, in attempts to capitalize the deceit, our records show that Bowers is not a graduate in medicine, never attended any medical college as a student of medicine and is not licensed to practice medicine in any state in the Union... Bowers has written reams of quasi-scientific buncombe both in popular magazines and cheap medical journals. He has puffed nostrums, quackeries and commercialized fads, medical and others.[6]

Bernarr Macfadden had promoted Bowers as a doctor of medicine. However, Morris Fishbein has written that "Dr. Bowers is not a doctor of medicine, and the only M.D. he has is the one Macfadden gives him."[7]

Bowers was also a convinced spiritualist. He had defended the fraudulent medium Frank Decker. In his book Spiritualism's Challenge, Bowers had made incorrect statements about a magician and was threatened with a lawsuit from the Society of American Magicians. He later removed the incorrect statements from his book.[8]

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Gardner, Martin. (2012 edition, originally published in 1957). Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Dover Publications. p. 194. ISBN 0-486-20394-8
  2. ↑ Schaller, Warren Edward; Carroll, Charles Robert. (1976). Health, Quackery & the Consumer. Saunders. p. 131 ISBN 978-0721679495
  3. ↑ Corry, James M. (1983). Consumer Health: Facts, Skills, and Decisions. p. 85. ISBN 978-0534013554
  4. ↑ Butler, Kurt. (1992). A Consumer's Guide to "Alternative Medicine": A Close Look at Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Faith-healing, and Other Unconventional Treatments. Prometheus Books. p. 104. ISBN 0-87975-733-7
  5. ↑ Raso, Jack. (1993). Mystical Diets: Paranormal, Spiritual, and Occult Nutrition Practices. Prometheus Books. p. 273. ISBN 0-87975-761-2
  6. ↑ "Obesity Cures". American Medical Association. Bureau of Investigation, 1929. p. 3
  7. ↑ Fishbein, Morris. (1932). Fads and Quackery in Healing. New York: Covici Friede Publishers. p. 133
  8. ↑ Rinn, Joseph. (1950). Sixty Years of Psychical Research: Houdini and I Among the Spiritualists. Truth Seeker Company. pp. 556-560
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