zone-therapyhttp://www.oed.com/dictionary/zone-therapy_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_usezone therapy, n.
First published 1921; not fully revised

zone therapynoun

  1. 1915–
    A technique in which different parts of the feet (or palms) are massaged to relieve conditions in different parts of the body with which they are held to be associated.
    1. 1915
      Dr. James A. Lawton will attend a meeting of the New England Osteopathic Association in Boston today, and will conduct a clinic in ‘Zone Therapy’.
      Hartford (Connecticut) Courant 14 May 12/1
    2. 1917
      Dr. Roemer..examined him in a characteristic zone therapy way. He searched the patient's fingers with a metal comb to find out what was the matter with his teeth.
      W. H. FitzGerald, Zone Therapy xvi. 157
    3. 1971
      Zone Therapy is based on the premise that one zone of the body acts as a microcosm of the whole.
      N. Saunders, Alternative London (ed. 2) xv. 123
    4. 1979
      The origin of the reflex method is obscure. It is said that it came from China to the West... It is known to have been used by the natives of Kenya, and also by some American Indian tribes. At the beginning of this century it was called zone therapy by one Dr Fitzgerald [sic] in America who used it as a form of anaesthesia to render the patient insensible to pain when performing small operations, and to ease childbirth.
      D. E. Bayly in A. Hill, Visual Encycl. of Unconventional Medicine 61

Originally published as part of the entry for zone, n.

zone, n. was first published in 1921; not fully revised.