Howard's End: 20-50 Hertz Of Happiness
A three thousand year old mystery has been solved after scientists discovered that the purring of cats is a natural healing frequency which has helped dispel the myth that a cat has nine lives and that they are simply contented. Maree Howard writes.
For decades scientists have pondered why cats are able to survive falls from high buildings and why they were said to have nine lives. They also wanted to know why cats healed quickly.
They have now discovered that exposure to frequencies in the 20-50 hertz range was the answer to natural healing in cats.
The scientists, from the Fauna Communications Research Institute in North Carolina, found that between 27 and 44 hertz was the dominant frequency for healing for a house cat and between 20 and 50 hertz for the puma, ocelot, serval, cheetah and lion, though not tigers.
Wounded cats - wild and domestic - purr because it helps their bones and organs to grow stronger, say the scientists who have analysed the purring of different feline species.
The research seems to confirm that exposure to frequencies of 20-50 hertz at 300 picoamps can also strengthen human bones and help them to grow. It also reinforces studies which show that humans are not merely chemical beings but electrical frequencies and direct currents, as opposed to alternating currents, also play a major part in human development, regrowth and healing as well.
President of the institute, Dr Elizabeth von Muggenthaler said: "Old wives tales usually have a grain of truth in them and cats do heal very quickly."
Cats' ability to survive and recover quickly after falling from tall buildings is well documented. One recent study, published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Association, found that out of 132 cats that fell an average of 5.5 storeys, 90 per cent survived, including one which fell 45 storeys.
Scientists from other research labs are now trying to discover whether sound treatment could be used to halt osteoporosis and renew bone growth in post-menopausal women.
Dr David Purdie from Hull University centre for metabolic bone disease said, "The human skeleton needs stimulation or it begins to weaken."
"Purring at these frequencies seems be the cat's way of providing the stimulation for its own bones," he said.
I have seen 1985 studies of humans which revealed that far from being a simple chemical animal worth a few cents of metal, our growth and healing processes are aided by a direct current of electrons travelling from our toe to our head hundreds of thousands of times each day.
Salamanders and newts are known to regrow limbs and tails and check laboratory-induced growth of cancer cells through internal electrical stimulation. The currents are so small, picoamps and nanoamps, that they cannot be felt by humans when placed on a sensitive area such as our tongue.
And tomato plants are known to produce a direct "current of injury" which helps regrowth when a human picks a lateral from between the branches.
So is the electrical environment in which we all live that important? U.S. studies have shown that admissions to psychiatric hospitals increase when there is sun-spot activity.
And scientists are starting to wonder whether whales which unexplainedly beach themselves, might do so because of confusing man-made electro-magnetic fields which are so strong on earth today that they can now be sensed from space.
As one scientist recently said to me " We humans think we're so intelligent but we can't even properly explain such basics as pain or sleep or the electrical environment which is part of our very being."