The labels 'American' and 'European' are highly misleading actually, but to use them in the vague and undifferentiated way which they customarily are, one could say that 'American Iridology' is associated with the teachings of Dr. Jensen, which represent a mixture of turn-of-the-century (and somewhat racially biased) notions of pigmentation and iris color published by Felke, Liljequist, Thiel, Lane, Kritzer, and other Germans, along with the toxemia-based interpretation and treatment of illness developed by Kellogg, Christopher, Collins, Shelton, and numerous others in the 'Natural Hygiene' schools of thought. By combining iris interpretation with dietary and detoxification approaches to health, and popularizing the natural pathways to health over the decades, Jensen has made iridology practical and useful as a clinical methodology. The big contribution from Jensen is the emphasis on cleansing and natural foods as the pathway to health, and the use of the iris as a symbol of one's health status. The main drawback to Jensen iris model was to include and emphasize the assertion (found among earlier writings) that the iris can change in a clinically observable way in response to therapeutic treatment, a notion that has not been supported by any evidence. Meanwhile the detailed and scientific observations of the German researchers has led to detailed topographic mappings and a taxonomy of features which include many correlations. The primary emphasis in the 'European' approach is not only the association of pigment formation with toxicity but the emphasis on classifying constitutional type from iris structure, and this is an essential starting point for remedy planning.

-- Jon (jon@milesresearch.com), March 30, 1999