In 1940, Ferdinand Huneke observed his first lightning reaction. This led him to the therapeutically important conclusion that a state of neural irritation or an ‘interference field’ can cause and keep in being any kind of disorder outside the segment. He had discovered a way to eliminate pathogenic interference fields and thus to cure patients suffering from therapy-resistant disorders. We therefore use the term ‘Huneke phenomenon’ to describe such a lightning reaction.

The conditions for a lightning reaction are:

1. When a neural-therapeutic substance is injected into the interference field responsible for a disorder, all remote disturbances controlled by the interference field must disappear completely at the moment of the injection, as far as this is anatomically still possible.

2. The patient must remain completely symptom-free for at least 20 hours (8 hours in the case of teeth).

3. If the symptoms recur, the injection must be repeated at the same site; the patient must then remain completely symptom-free for at least as long and preferably longer than on the previous occasion.

Any of the following may act as interference fields: