A POSTLE OF ZONERY

Southland Times, Issue 19280, 26 June 1924, Page 6

A POSTLE OF ZONERY

THE SCIENCE OF NERVE CONTROL. AN INTERVIEW WITH PHARUS. A Southland Times reporter while in Dunedin was able to secure an interview with Pharus the Egyptian, who has been effecting some remarkable cures in the course of a tour of the Dominion. Although seventy-two years of age, Pharus is an alert, active man who looks at least twenty years younger. He is a spare man, upright and with remarkably effective eyes. He wears a short beard, which does not hide the fact that he is fairskinned. When the subject of his work was mentioned, he at once began to talk fluently. He made it clear in direct language that he does not claim to be possessed of any special powers of healing, but says that he merely teaches the people to help themselves in securing relief from pain and suffering by the application of pressure on certain nerves, and the exercise of ordinary common sense. He stated that he was born in Cairo, Egypt. He went to Canada, where he became a naturalised British subject, adding also that he is a graduate of three universities, and that he is fully qualified as a doctor of medicine, a chiropractor, and an osteopathist. He therefore claims to have a full knowledge of the organs of the body.

“I find that many people are sceptical because I am appearing in a theatre, but 1 find that this is one of the best ways to reach the people,” Pharus remarked when questioned on the subject. He added that he did not mind people being sceptic d—that was only natural—but he wished to be judged by results, and results only. To physicians who were sceptical of his methods he would issue this challenge: “I invite all physicians to come to the theatre, and to bring every case of whooping cough that they know of, and I will teach the physicians how to stop the strangulation and whooping in five minutes, and how to clean out the germs of whooping cough in two days. Further, I will say that they can bring as many cases of lumbago here as they like, and I will have the patients doing sitting-up exercises in one hour.” Regarding the newspapers, Pharus said that all he asked was that they should put him through a fair and honest test, and if they were satisfied with the result, to make it known to the public; and, if not, to have him “rooted out of the country as a fraud.”

Explaining his system, Pharus said that the basis of it was that there could be no pain without nerves. He was able to relieve pain by pressure on the nerves, and the system was so simple that he was able to teach anyone to practise it in a very little while. He did not claim to cure ailmonts that were not related to the nerves, but all nerve troubles he would, undertake to treat and cure. In 75 per cent of these eases he would relieve pain within one hour. He allowed for 25 per cent, of cases not being successful because in a number of cases the nerves were dead, and he could not do anything. The reporter was informed by the manager of the tour that Pharus was a very wealthy man, and that he has not engaged in the tour for private profit. All the treatment is absolutely free, except for the ordinary 7 charges of. admission to the theatre, which are not changed. The visual picture programme is screened, and the demonstration by Pharus occupies about half an hour each evening. Pharus does not use any mechanical aids, excepting combs and hair brushes, which, he says, enable the right degree of pressure to be made on the nerve centres. Pharus has a staff of nurses with him, and they look after the patients at the theatre. He is now in the fourth year of his world tour, New Zealand and Australia being the Isst countries he intends to visit.