The body's ability to maintain the internal environment stable (temperature, concentration of various components, etc.) despite external factors is called Homeostasis. One of the characteristic examples of the homeostatic mechanism in man is the body temperature control mechanism at 36.6 ⁰C - so-called thermoregulation. Any disturbances in the body's homeostasis mechanism, and especially in the process of thermoregulation, can be due to pathogenic micro-organisms in extreme changes of environmental conditions (temperature, radiation, oxygen availability), and often result from lifestyle (smoking, alcohol etc.) Every disorder in maintenance of the body's temperature (Maintaining Temperature System) can cause various psychosomatic illnesses, even death.

It cannot be denied that problems and illnesses presented by people in their sixties and seventies in the past decades (such as strokes, advanced degenerative arthritis, cancers)now two to three decades later their children present them in today’s fifty and sometimes even forty year olds. On the other hand, the origin of those illnesses began to appear in the children of children's seventy year olds, in other words of today's twenty or thirty year olds, many of whom will certainly find themselves in an orthopaedic or pathology surgery or even on a surgical bed for problems such as herniated discs, hernias of the abdominal wall, often without ever having, worked, labouredor even taken part in some type of sport. The most tragic thing is that children between the ages of 10 to 15 years old visit doctors and physiotherapist surgeries with conditions such as back pain, neck pain, etc., living with them from the early years of their lives, many of them with inhalers of various types, or insulin users.

In the end, something is not quite right.

The practical physician Irini Iatridou, as a beacon of experience in the treatment of man as a whole, describing the state of the Thermo-Regulatory Mechanism disorder, said “look at people most are frozen, like they are dead”. And literally and metaphorically, we are frozen, like moving psychosomatic refrigerators.

The chilling of a person is a term you meet in the theory of the Asia Minor Trapezounta Therapy, but also in our everyday conversation when we want to describe someone's exposure to the cold. It is the condition that leads to the blockage and destruction of the microcirculation of the capillaries that carry 80% of the arterial blood and transport oxygen to the cells, but also to the lymph and venous networks, leading to body fluid imbalance disorders, the so-called Eucharist according to Hippocrates.

The result of that is the gradual disruption of the Temperature maintenance system (MTS) and the drop in temperature of the tissue or organ that leads to the appearance of the disease to the progressive stage of its necrosis.

The cold currents considered by the traditional Chinese medicine and the Hippocratic philosophy are the greatest enemies of man. The systematic exposure of humans to them kills sensory skin temperature receptors and deactivates the sweat glands by affecting the body's natural thermostat, the hypothalamus which stops transmitting the appropriate stimuli both to the vasometric centre to increase body temperature as much as to the sweat glands themselves for their stabilization. Thus, maintaining both skin temperature and body core temperature at low levels.

So these people end up having no sense of feeling in their environment, wearing summer clothes even in the winter, showing discomfort and increased perspiration even at temperatures of 23 ⁰C, in other words much lower than 36.6 ⁰C, which theoretically their body has.

The Swiss doctor Vince in his book wrote that heat plays a similar role in the diet. Heat often replaces the diet. Thermal energy is a type of energy through which the body's energy storage can produce beneficial changes. All nutrients - albumin, carbohydrates, fats - give people heat (calories). The heat of thermal baths also offers us similar calories.

The philosophy of MTS as a genuine alloy of ancient Greek philosophy and orthodox patristic philosophy proclaims reheating of modern man as a strict pre-requisite for recovering his lost health. In ancient Greek philosophy, temperature is indicated as the maximum principle of healing, for example the word Doctor comes from the verb Iaino which means heat, soften from the heat. At the same time, the word Iaomai means I heal. Words that come from the Ia: arrows - rays of the sun Apollonas which warm up man. As a genuine spokesman of Orthodox patristic theology Saint Gregory of Nissis in his book 'About the creation of Man' in 379 AD, mentions: “To those who cease to live with the extinction of heat that exists in nature, what dies, cools off, so we attribute the cause of life to heat, because when this disappears, necrosis follows”.

So, in the context of the MTS Philosophy, the system of temperature maintenance (Maintaining Temperature System) becomes more than necessary, having as its main axes its restoration: I. The Manual Therapy System and II. Body Wool (MTS).

The Manual Therapy System

Through the Manual Therapy System, with the central axis of the Asia Minor Trapezounta Treatment (MTS), to increase the inner body temperature of the cold body and the accumulation of sterilized heat, a life-saving fact for man, as its cells and organs are being sterilized it reinforces the burning of metabolites in cells and tissues, opens closed cell membranes, accelerates the metabolic rate, restoring its normal function. Artificial hyperthermia helps the body dissolve toxic substances. Manual Therapy burns organic waste and dust that pollute the body as well as cleansing the lymphomas and blood capillary vessels.

The French scientist Louis Pasteur first showed that all infectious diseases can be cured with hyperthermia. He infected the experimental chickens with Bacilli Carbon and treated them with hyperthermia, including water baths.

Hyperthermia, which is achieved through manual therapy: with the Hippocratic Trapezounta pummeling, with the internal use of suitable thermo-balancing herbs, correct nutrition, warm colon cleansing via hydrotherapy, appropriate therapeutic exercise and activity, restoration of body temperature, with warm mud from the Dead sea, and finally the obligatory wearing of a woolen vest on a cold body.

BODY WOOL (MTS)

“The nakedness of the body made man take care of and feed the sheep, because with the annual production of wool he is replenishing his lack of nature”
(St. Gregory of Nyssa, 37AD, About the Creation of Man)

Saint Gregory simply describes the universal and timeless need of replenishing the nakedness of man with woolen garments. Man wore woolen garments during all seasons of the year, even in the summer months. Even today, in many parts of Greece, we come across, especially older people, mostly wearing woolen vests, thus preserving this ancient habit. A habit that has started to lessen, especially since the middle of the last century, and then, youth movements that supported the general liberation of man from anything old, brought new fashion and nudism as a modern attitude to life.

The generations that followed discarded the habit of woolen garments as outdated and 'old-fashioned', and adopted the cotton and synthetic garments imposed by the new trend as supposedly healthy and fashionable. Thus, the modern Greek, who had for centuries programmed his genetic material (DNA) to protect the first layers of his body with a base layer of a woolen garment, basically found himself naked against the new challenges and dangers of cotton and synthetic garments. So this universal human experiment, which isstill in progress today, confronts us with facts and illnesses which we cannot ignore.

Why did our ancestors wear wool and especially woolen vests?
Today we can say that it was not a simple habit, but a conscious choice in trying to protect the body from the weather conditions of each season, because according to Hippocrates “diseases are mainly caused by changes in the weather”.

Wool is perhaps the only material that maintains our body's internal temperature, because despite the fact that it warms usup in the winter, it is cool and pleasant in the summer. The pores of its rich texture are in harmony with the pores of the skin so that they do not prevent, but at the same time facilitate its excretory and detoxifying potential during perspiration. It has the capacity to hold moisture so that the skin can breathe at all times. Exactly for that reason when wearing woolen garments we do not feel sweaty and we can continue to work for hours without running the risk of a chill inthe winter or feeling discomfort during the summer.

From a hygienic point of view, sweat removal prevents body odour, particularly in the underarm area. The fact that it has a thick texture and absorbs a large amount of moisture it does not make it difficult to dry, but just the opposite as it pushes the moisture outwards.

The flesh-like contact of the wool with the skin maintains but also enhances the transdermal circulation of the capillary vessels and prevents them from blocking from exposure to cold. Whilst maintaining body temperature, it strengthens lymphatic circulation, as its immune activity is mainly suppressed by exposure to cold.

According to Professor Larissa Tsernisova of Moscow University, who specialised in Bioresonance research, the use of woolen garments contributes to the preservation of electromagnetic energy in man. Especially today as modern man is permanently exposed to all kinds of radiation (mobile telephones, computers, etc.) that absorb a significant part of his energy by altering the electromagnetic frequencies of his cells, thus contributing to the occurrence of unknown causes of disease.

While Professor Goranova Zoia of Sofia University, who works in Chinese traditional medicine, reports that woolen garments increase body temperature andprevent the entry of pathogenic micro-organisms into the body.

From our practical experience in the field of manual therapy the woolen vest is not only an ally for the restoration of any illness but also a prerequisite for maintaining the effects of our therapeutic intervention. Its dynamics are such that in many cases with regular use, it can reduce pain levels of up to 20% in both acute and chronic diseases.

Over the years we've seen patients admit that old experienced doctors urged them to wear a woolen vest to treat conditions such as back pain and pneumonia. A prime example of this is of a well-known paediatrician in Agia Sophia’s Children’s hospital where a mother's query about why her son kept having continuous lung infections, she said: “Madam, put a woolen vest on your child and walk out of here.” And indeed, the vast majority of children who received treatment and wore woolen vests at our request or their parents, have overcome chronic respiratory conditions, improved their health condition to a point that when their school friends were affected by infectious diseases, and even those that were ill, had much milder symptoms and a shorter recovery time.

A recent research at Harvard showed that the number one cause of uterine cancer is the exposure of the lower abdominal region imposed by the latest trend of fashion to wear low waisted jeans and short T-shirts. Never in world history did women expose their abdomen to the cold, since the symbol of fertility was particularly protected by women wearing woolen vests. Gynaecologists now encourage women to change their swimsuit immediately after swimming because the swimsuit fabric in combination with the dampness which they hold can lead to various gynaecological conditions from vaginitis to menstrual disorders and infertility.

Apart from a few people who are allergic to wool, the itchy sensation that some patients may feel when first worn lasts for at least a few hours or until the first time the woolen vest is washed and should not be a reason not to wear it. In addition, there is a large variety of different designs and colours of woolen vests available to suit all tastes, especially for women.

There are different types of vests available according to the patient's tolerance associated with their state of health. There are 3 types of woolen vest:

• Half-wool (50% wool, 50% cotton) which is worn when the patient is still “frozen” according to Asia Minor Trapezounta therapy and cannot tolerate anything on his body.
• Finely woven woolen vest (100%) which is worn in the early stages of thawing a patient.
• Densely woven woolen vest (“grandfathers’ type”) which is worn when the homeostasis mechanism has been restored.

Long term use of the woolen vest balances the body's thermoregulatory mechanism, resulting in the use of an increasingly dense woolen vest.

Cotton vests - The myth busters
Most of us, from young children, are accustomed to wearing a cotton or synthetic t-shirt next to our skin, which although it is claimed by various health care providers to be healthy and body- friendly, it is actually the opposite.

The cotton vest in contrast to wool, acts as a sponge which absorbs and holds the body sweat. Starting from one point to the pores of the skin closing, making the elimination of toxic substances difficult. These toxins remain both on the surface of the skin and inside the body. They contribute to the swelling of the underlying organ fluid, e.g. Lungs, kidneys, facilitating the disease in combination mainly from draughts that cool the area. The feeling of wearing perspiration - soaked vest makes us immobile in every job, requiring it to be changed immediately.

From a hygienic point of view, the non-excretion of toxins contributes to body odour and skin diseases such as fungal infections and eczema.

From a physiological point of view, by enhancing the “freezing” of the patient, it helps to block the microcirculation of the capillary and the lymphatic vessels by reducing tissue oxygenation, displaying inflammation and a weakening of the immune system.

Conclusively, the woolen vest is not only more evidence of the wisdom of our ancestors in terms of well-being, but also an ongoing challenge of awakening of our fellow humans in the effort to acquire and maintain good health.

Sotiris Antonopoulos
Osteopath/ Physiotherapist