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Paula: You have also caused quite a stir with your research on the cat's purr. In the past, I noticed that having my cats near me was very healing, but I didn't know that purring might actually be their way of healing themselves.
Elizabeth: That's the research where I've received a great deal of support from many sources, including veterinarians. Thankfully, I've also received support from a professor emeritus in England who is known as the "grandfather of bones." He is the foremost authority on bone density. I won't give his name since I don't have his permission, but he writes that optimal frequency for bone stimulation is 50 Herz. The dominant and fundamental frequency for three species of cats' purrs is exactly 25 to 50 Herz: the best frequencies for bone growth and fracture healing.
The cat's purr falls well within the 20 — 50 Herz anabolic range, and extends up to 140 Herz. All members of the cat family except cheetahs have a dominant or strong harmonic at 50 Herz. The harmonics of three cat species fall exactly on or within 2 points of 120 Herz, a frequency which has been found to repair tendons.
A few veterinarians have said that the purr is only a vocalization of contentment, and most people believe that. But my analysis shows it's not true. Cats will purr when they are injured and in pain as well as when they are content. In one case, a cat had broken its femur and the femur was sticking out. But it was purring, so we can assume that purring is not always a sign of contentment.
A funny thing is that some people claim that cats purr when they're injured because they're humming to make themselves feel better. Well, that makes absolutely no sense. When I've just broken my leg and I'm in the emergency room, I'm not whistling.
Purring takes a lot of energy. It's created by both the diaphragm and the larynx. Getting a diaphragm to move for something other than breathing is difficult, it takes energy. When there is pain and suffering, our bodies are traumatized and they shut down non-essential activity. Since cats purr when they are severely injured and dying, it has to be survival-related.
Paula: I've seen the statement made by veterinarians that if you put a cat in a room with a bunch of broken bones, the bones will heal.
Elizabeth: Yes. That is an old veterinarian's adage and it's still taught in veterinary schools to this day. That's the first thing I came across when I started out with this research. But no one has done any studies on it.
Paula: What other conditions can benefit from the type of frequencies that are found in the cat's purr?
Elizabeth: They are good for healing muscle, tendon, and ligament injuries, as well as for muscle strengthening and toning. They are good for any type of joint injury, wound healing, reduction of infection and swelling, pain relief, and relief of chronic pulmonary disease.
I've corresponded with the authors of the veterinarians' surgery manual, and what it basically comes down to is that, compared to other animals, cats simply don't get chronic pulmonary disease, muscle and tendon injuries, bone diseases, and a lot of other things that dogs get. The purr seems to be a constant strengthener and toner for the muscles.
Interestingly enough, as far as several experts are concerned, the bone density of domestic cats has never been measured. Therefore, we don't whether the bones are heavily remodeled — which means growth on growth — or not.
The average health of cats is considered to be greater than that of dogs. An actual case study was done where they took 52,000 animals and found that lameness in dogs occurred 3.6 percent and in cats only .26 percent. In another study, arthritis in dogs was listed as 2.4 percent of the population, and was not reported at all in cats. The prevalence of lameness in dogs occurred 3.1 percent of the time, and again, in cats it was not even mentioned. The overall incidence of primary lung tumors in the dog is 1.24 percent, and in the cat, .38 percent. This basically says that cats are in fact healthier than dogs are.
People like to say, "Oh, that's just coincidence," but it can't be. The odds of its being coincidence are like three billion to one.
Any veterinary orthopedic surgeon will tell you how relatively easy it is to mend broken cat bones compared with dog bones. Dog bones take much more effort to fix and longer to heal.
There is excellent documentation of cats' quick recovery from such things as high-rise syndrome, which was first mentioned by Dr. Gordon Robinson and later studied and reported in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. They documented 132 cases of cats' plummeting an average of 5.5 stories from high-rise apartments, with some of them suffering severe injuries. But interestingly, 90 percent of these cats survived. Most cats that fell from seven stories or more managed to live. The record for survival from heights is 45 stories!
Paula: Have you been able to register the difference between a cat's purr of contentment and the purr of a cat that's been injured?
Elizabeth: There is no difference. It's machine-like. The purr is nearly the same across species: The ocelot, chervil, and domestic cat are all create an identical sound.
I showed this data to an architectural engineer who measures building vibration, and he asked if I were into mechanics, since the signal appeared to be so regular. He was greatly surprised when I told him he was looking at the analysis of a cat's purr. It's totally unlike any other animal's vocalization.
Paula: How did you first come to discover this?
Elizabeth: I had been working with tigers at a facility where there were also many other wild cats. It seemed odd to me, while passing by a chervil one day, that it was purring.
Later on, I read in National Geographic about this researcher who had put chickens on a vibrating plank for twenty minutes a day and their bones grew. And I thought, Well, that's weird. So I called him and asked what the anabolic frequencies for bones were. He said that they were anywhere between 20 and 90 Herz, but that there is evidence suggesting that 25 Herz and 50 Herz are the best frequencies.
I slept on it, and the next day, I got up, went into the living room, grabbed my big tomcat, Spot, started petting him, and put the microphone there. Then I ran the recording through the computer. And guess what? Oh, my God.
After that, I started doing a search in the literature, and found that 25 Herz is the fundamental frequency. In other words, it's the first, or primal, frequency. After the first frequency, there is something called harmonics. Harmonics are always a multiple of the fundamental, meaning that if the fundamental is 25 Herz, the first harmonic is 50, then the second harmonic is 75, the third harmonic is 100, and so forth.
I started recording the wild cats. Then I grabbed every domestic cat from my friends and other people. "Excuse me. Can I record your cat?"
Then we took accelerometers and started measuring cats — accelerometers measure vibrations — to find out where on the body the sound is the strongest and weakest. We discovered that the vibrational signal is at its weakest at the extremities. Interestingly, it's rare for cats to get bone cancer, but when they do, it's most often in the distal end of the extremities — the paw — and that's also where the vibrational signal is the weakest.
At the time, I remember wondering, What are the odds that in six out of seven species of cat, their purrs are identical in frequency and amplitude? All of these cats come from a geological evolution that is different — South America, Africa, Asia. Yet the sounds they make match exactly, in both amplitude and frequency, to the frequencies that have been found to be healing, and not just for healing of bones.
Paula: I've had healing experiences with my own cats. I had one cat that slept with me every night, and it always felt so good and peaceful to have her next to me. And of course, she purred loud and long until we both fell asleep. So, for health benefits, do you think it's helpful for people to hold their purring cat close to their bodies?
Elizabeth: From a scientific standpoint? I would have to say I don't know. For something to be scientifically therapeutic, it has to be exactly the right strength, loudness, and amplitude. But speaking as a healer, I would say yes, absolutely.
I've had a lot of requests for purr CDs. You may have noticed that when you're not feeling well, cats will often come up to the part of your body that's aching and start to knead you with their paws, purring and getting that meditative look in their eyes. I have no doubt in my mind that they're trying to help.
But is the cat on your chest able to ease your asthma? Scientifically, I don't know. It will depend on observation.
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