Handbook of Nature Cure Volume One: Nature Cure vs. Medical Science
by John L. Fielder
Dr Fielder eschews the use of all forms of medication whether they be
so-called 'natural' or otherwise, including supplementation. He
believes solely in the self-reparative nature of the organism and its
ability to heal itself given the necessary care, attention and
environment. The only exception being in the case of major trauma where
reparative surgery is necessary.
Title Handbook of Nature Cure Volume One: Nature Cure vs. Medical
Science
Author John L. Fielder
Publisher Academy of Natural Living
Year 2001
Copyright John L. Fielder
ISBN 0 9586611 4 6
DISCLAIMER: The information in this book is not intended as medical
advice. The author does not recommend standard medical practices. The
authors, publishers and/or distributors will not assume responsibility
for any adverse consequences resulting from adopting the lifestyle
described herein.
Part I: Chapter 1
Chapter One: That Fallacious Germ Theory
by Harry Benjamin ...
The Unity of Disease
The reader will now be fully ready for acceptance of the cardinal
principle of Nature Cure, which is, that although, thanks to the
pedantry and misconceptions of the leaders of medical science, ...
Nature Cure and Medical Science
It is because they understand this fundamental oneness and unity of all
disease that practitioners of Nature Cure are enabled to secure such
seemingly miraculous results in the treatment of ...
Disease a Self-Healing Process
What the medical profession calls a cure is merely the suppression of
superficial symptoms, to cause further and more serious trouble later
on! What the medical profession never understands is ...
Two Completely Divergent Philosophies
All too often the great surgeon or physician, and even the general
practitioner, vainly imagines that he or she can cure disease by
suppressing symptoms and thwarting Natures work. The ...
The "Fruits" of the Old Philosophy of Disease
Every tree is known by his own fruit, said Christ to his disciples. Let
the men and women of today see for themselves the fruits of orthodox
medical philosophy! They are before our eyes! ...
Part II: Chapter 2
Chapter Two: What is Fever?
by Louis Kuhne ...
Fever Is Fermentation Going On In The System
We shall best comprehend the symptoms exhibited by fever by forming a
correct picture of the processes of fermentation, as they may
frequently be observed outside of the human body. For instance, ...
Part III: Chapter 3
Chapter Three: How Does Disease Arise?
by Louis Kuhne ...
Disease Is The Presence of Foreign Matter In The System
For the correctness of this definition there is an infallible test. If
after that which we have designated as morbid matter has in a suitable
manner been removed from the system, the disease ...
Part IV: Chapter 4
Chapter Four: Racial Memory
by James C. ...
Symbiosis
Now let us look at symbiosis. Probably most of you have heard that more
honey can be obtained in an area where there are many old maids? The
argument runs that unmarried ladies keep cats, and cats ...
Fallacy of "Cures"
Leaving the directly harmful effects of drugs aside for the moment, we
do not believe in the possibility of a cure in the ordinary acceptance
of the word. You can no more undergo a ...
Learn From Your Dog
To see how essentially unnatural is that teaching, watch your dog. When
he is sick he goes away by himself into a corner, and refuses to look
at food. Leave him to himself for some hours, or even ...
Safety Valves
Now let us look into a common statement made by mildly ailing people. I
am very well, except for my rheumatism, or My health is very good
except for my cough, or I am in splendid form except ...
How Chronic Disease is Initiated
According to our idea, if during an illness, the impurities stirred
into the circulation are not allowed free exit from the system, the
usual result is that they become deposited somewhere in the ...
And How To Clear Chronic Disease Up
So, if you are determined to build high level health so that you can go
through almost anything and still remain vigorous and alert, wholesome,
undamaged and healthy, you must learn to cooperate ...
Tilden’s Rule Number One
If, for example, you go weak at the knees from missing a cup of tea or
a meal, it means that you should omit several more cups of tea or
meals. It means that you have been overloading your ...
The Nature Cure "Crisis"
Health is not quite what people think it is. It is vastly more than a
mere absence of symptoms and discomforts. Like your garden, your body
calls for a degree of intelligent attention and ...
To Build Serious Disease
Now a few words more from Dr Tilden: Years ago when I gave salicylates
with the superstitious idea of curing rheumatism, I succeeded in
establishing a heart involvement in nearly every ...
Miracle Drugs
It is not by accident that all medicines are poisonous. Only that way
can they be made to work. But there is also the patients imagination.
During the war we were told that a marvellous new ...
Illness for All
People who equate everything in terms of cash should be satisfied with
health service. It is decidedly expensive. But money costs do not tell
everything. In this case not only the means but the ...
An Experiment
One of my good friends died just a few weeks ago as a result of what he
intended to be an amusing experiment. A month ago he sent for me to
visit him at an Edinburgh hospital, and he explained, ...
Arthritis
I have at the moment at least a dozen patients in Edinburgh with
arthritic rheumatism. In each case, before we saw them they had had
medical treatment over a long period of years, during which ...
Self Responsibility
For real health attainment you must take the responsibility upon
yourself. Practically any ailing person who is willing to do the right
thing can get well, but instead most patients ask, Can you ...
The Stupefied Invalid
How many of you have read or known about someone in a hospital who has
been burned with a hot water bottle? Could you imagine any healthy
child or grown up person lying still long enough for real ...
Somatic Sense
For example, here is an inadvertent experiment I am in the process of
completing. About two months ago I drove a spike of wood under my nail.
The splinter of wood went down under the nail to ...
Body Wholeness
Disease is never only local. Your body is either all healthy, or all
unhealthy. It mayindeed it usually doesexhibit its distress more in one
part than in another, but quite often ...
Your Daily Bread
Now let us see why such deposits arise even in people who have become
health-conscious and who are doing their utmost to live simply and
naturally. Take our staff of life. How many people make a ...
Bread and Convulsions
When dogs ate agenised bread they became dizzy, they staggered about,
and before they died they went into convulsions. Human bodies stand up
to a great deal more abuse than do the bodies of dogs. ...
Part V: Chapter 5
Chapter Five: Questions and Answers
by James C. ...
Can you cure rheumatism by diet alone, or must one also have treatment?
I can cure my rheumatism if I do the right things. The whole idea of
Nature Cure is self-help and wholesomeness. That contains the real
meaning of cure and it is a very good technique; but you ...
If Nature by itself, cures the body, why do you wear glasses?
I am not a perfect specimen. I make no such claim, but I am not the
weakling I was fifty years ago. Eyesight, to be perfect, would call for
Nature Cure living over about three generations, as the ...
Can a person cure himself of tuberculosis?
James Thomson referred to his own experience, having been discharged
from the Navy as a young man, with this complaint. He mentioned that
the doctor came to his bed in hospital and informed him ...
Do you disbelieve in all forms of inoculation, including the
vaccination infants which is compulsory in Northern Ireland?
Dont do it. Far fewer people are vaccinated today than are
unvaccinated. The unvaccinated are greatly the majority. Vaccination
was initiated by a man called Jenner who was a rogue and a ...
Do you think well of raw molasses?
I believe in honey and in some hundreds of other honest food stuffs,
but the question smacks of remedies, which we do not advocate. I
believe in wholeness of diet rather than in single items.<...
Is it possible to cure bowel obstruction without operation?
If it cannot be cured without operation, it cannot be cured. With few
exceptions bowel obstruction arises from hysteria, panic, intense
jitters. Certainly a diseased organ may be cut away, and a ...
Will you please give a cure for depression?
First thing, begin full deep breathing as soon as you awake. Most
civilised people are unhealthy in one way or another, and a high
proportion are suffering from a lack of fresh air. When you awake ...
Have you anything to say on the question of heart trouble?
The heart is the central organ of the body, and if it begins to
manifest distress, there is trouble for the whole body. A great deal of
what passes for heart trouble is actually mental distress. A ...
Is alcohol good or bad for a person?
Your body manufactures approximately 2gs of alcohol daily and it is not
wise to add to that quantity. ...
Is there a point at which hardened arteries cannot be cured?
Unquestionably, there is. Had I been forty years older, instead of
still in my teens when I developed tuberculosis so seriously, I do not
believe anything could have saved me. Similarly there ...
Diabetes is on the increase. Can anyone cure himself by taking insulin?
Diabetes, like all other degenerative diseasehigh blood pressure,
Brights disease, cancer, arthritis, disseminated sclerosis and the
restis on the increase throughout the ...
Part VI: Chapter 6
Chapter Six: Light And Air
by Adolf Just <...
Light-And-Air Huts and Cottages
One great benefit to health comes from sleeping in huts and cottages
situated entirely in the open, and which at all times offer free access
to light and air. We call them light-and-air ...
Part VII: Chapter 7
Chapter Seven: The Earth-Power
by Adolf Just <...
Chapter Seven: The Earth-Power: Part 2
Following the lead of Nature, man lived originally in perfect
sinlessness in the enjoyment of purest happiness, in a state of
unclouded bliss, such as the myths of paradise current among all ...
Part VIII: Chapter 8
Chapter Eight: Vital Economy
by K. Lakshmana ...
Chapter Eight: Vital Economy: Part 2
Now we come to the true principle, namely Vital Economy. That which
maintains health, and restores it when lost, is life. The fivefold
food-medicine furnishes only the needed repair ...
Part IX: Chapter 9
Chapter Nine: But Is It Nature Cure?
by C. Leslie ...
Forward
Many of our longer-established adherents will recognise this as an
augmented revisal of the statement first published eight years ago. The
need for its message has not diminished in that time. ...
Words Out of Place
Very few of those who resort to Nature Cure have any previous
understanding of the principles involved. It is therefore not
surprising that the average layman is unable to distinguish between ...
True Treatment Is Training
That reference to mere hard cash is not so smug as it may sound. We are
up against the essential deceit of the great majority of orthodox and
unorthodox treatmentsthat the patient can be ...
Carefully Hidden Help
Many of the more intelligent vendors do make some attempt to show the
patient a better way of living. It may be camouflaged as a condition
for producing the best effects of the remedy; ...
Different Standards
In this country today we find two groups of people, with different
motives, persuading the public that all unorthodox healers, their
philosophies and their practices, must sink or swim together. ...
How the Press Is Tied
The topical press does not assist the layman to distinguish between the
various unorthodox systems. Now and then some newspaper columnist,
knowing that most readers mildly question current medical ...
Homeopathy
Let us now consider, individually, a few of the therapies most commonly
confused with Nature Cure. The following is typical of many enquiries:
I should be much obliged if you would ...
Behind the Drug
The philosophy of homeopathy is probably its own worst enemy, so we
need waste no further time on that aspect. The important thing is that
people treated by homeopathy mostly fare better than they ...
Unorganised Minerals
Tissue Salts are in a way related to the homeopathic method. The
general idea is that the more finely a substance is divided the more
likely it is to affect or be of use to the cells of the body....
Solutions Are Finer
The manufacturer of tissue salts claims that the only difference
between inert minerals and organised salts is in the fineness of the
particles: that and nothing else. So he grinds up the material&...
Herbalism
Both homeopathy and tissue salts have the negative virtue of being
practically incapable of real harmalmost a positive virtue by
comparison with orthodox medication! But the same cannot ...
Patients Have Duties
The ethics of being a patient are rarely emphasised, but they are
almost as important as those of the practitioner. For example, a new
Nature Cure patient may be required to produce a medical ...
Extracts and Irritants
Health Foods appear to many people to be in the same category as herbs
but, although there are some borderline cases, in the main there is a
clear distinction. Herbs are plant tissues which have ...
For Beginners
Many so called health foods are, of course, simply attractive and
palatable concoctions of perfectly wholesome and natural foodstuffs.
There can be very little objection to these, so long as ...
A Warning
An extract or concentrate is always to be treated with suspicionit can
so easily upset the balance of an otherwise reasonable dietand it may
be a concentrate of the wrong part of the ...
Electronic Magic
Black Boxes are scarcely in the same category as the products discussed
so far, but they also are often wrongly attributed to Nature Cure. A Dr
Abrams of California started the ball rolling in ...
A Federal Inquiry
Within recent years there have been further attempts in the States to
make capital out of the popular respect for, and ignorance of,
electronic apparatus. The first of these was exposed by a ...
"Urine Therapy"… An Ancient Fallacy
Emotional perversions are strange. They seem to give the unfortunate
victim an uncanny power to influence others who may be hovering on the
brink, and drag them down into the pit. To any healthy ...
Pro Tem "Cures"
Again, such treatments brings results. It would take a very bovine
constitution not to react violently to such an affront. The symptoms of
the original disease may ...
Brutalising the Body
Glandular extracts, although a source of much excellent ammunition for
the opponents of vivisectional experiments, do not appear to the layman
as very dangerous substances. They are, after all, ...
Insulin
A very different sequence occurs if a glandular extractin this case,
insulinis administered. (Particularly if the orthodox dietetic changes
are made, since these increase enormously ...
False Promises
Insulin is only one of a large variety of glandular extracts, but the
effects are typical. They seem to produce wonderful results, but these
are only obtained by a sort of chemical hypnotism&...
How to Destroy Nature Cure
A final word about the risks, from the practitioners point of view, of
dabbling in near-medicine. This can probably best be exemplified by
what has happened in the USA, where true Nature ...
Nature Cure or Not Nature Cure?
Summarising this catalogue of disclaimers, it may be said that the true
Nature Cure Practitioner does not make use of any poisons to produce
physiological reactions: neither poisons which are ...
Vital Reserve
But what about the man so ill that all his confidence is lost? Surely
it is right to start him on the road to health by stimulant or other
reassuring means? If the means is genuine and ...
Dr J H Kellogg MD, Battle Creek Sanatorium:
There is healing power in obedience, just as there is destruction in
disobedience. When the evil-doer ceases to sin and enters upon a life
of obedience to the natural laws, the curative forces ...
Part X: Chapter 10
Chapter Ten: The Divine Science of Health
by K. Lakshmana ...
Chapter Ten: The Divine Science of Health: Part 2
One of the reasons for this state of things is that medicos as a rule
are not interested in our health, but only in our ill-health. The
average medical man, when driven into a corner in private ...
Chapter Ten: The Divine Science of Health: Part 3
One of the grievous shortcomings of medicine is the one to be mentioned
here. If a patient, suspecting that he has some disease, such as
gastric ulcer, goes to a doctor, the latter makes a ...
Part XI: Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven: What is the Cause of Disease?
by Kenneth S. ...
Chapter Eleven: What is the Cause of Disease? Part 2
All organs and consequently all functions are under the control of the
nervous system. The efficiency of our organs is dependent upon the
supply of nerve force, so it is essential that the nervous ...
Part XII: Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve: What is Nature Cure?
by Kenneth S. ...
Dietetics
This subject covers everything which is consumed by the mouth. Nothing
but food should ever pass the lips. There is never a time when a poison
or non-food has any value. Dietetics is the ...
Light
This subject covers sunlight, chromotherapy, infra-red, ultra-violet
and other forms of light radiation. It is very doubtful if any of these
methods, except sunbathing, has any value beyond what ...
Air
Air bathing, breathing, hot-air baths, ozone and oxygen therapy have
all been used. Air bathing is most beneficial in that it tones up the
muscles and develops efficient skin reaction. Breathing ...
Exercise
Under this heading we find physical culture, weight lifting, sports and
gymnastics. Running, Jogging, Swimming and all non-violent sports are
the ideal form of exercise. Violent movements should ...
Physical Therapies
Under this heading we can group all of the mechanical treatments, those
which study and treat the body as a mechanical contrivance. The
philosophy behind all of these treatments can be stated as ...
Massage
Under this heading we have manual rubbing, stroking, kneading and
vibration, as well as ultra-sonic, electrical vibration and concussion
of the spine. Massage and vibration can best be described ...
Electrotherapy
This includes Diathermy, Short-wave, Galvanic, Faradic and all other
methods of applying electricity to the body. Except for the slight
psychological help they may give some suggestible people, ...
Psychology
Under this heading we have many schools of thought. All claim to teach
the patient how to correct his mental faults and to give him the right
approach to the problems of life. The system which has ...
Hydrotherapy
This is the use of water. Many modern Naturopaths have now discarded
the use of water and so in recent years this cheap, efficient and safe
health aid has been neglected. Some people claim that ...
Semi-Medical Treatments
Herbal remedies, Biochemic tissue salts, Homoeopathic drugs, and the
thousands of remedies sold as natural remedies are all almost
valueless. They have no place in a natural system of healing. ...
Fasting
I have left the most important and least understand subject until the
last. Fasting can be described as Natures own method of healing. Not
that there is any healing power in the act of ...
Part XIII: Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen: Everybody’s Guide to Nature Cure
by Harry
The Three Fundamental Principles
The philosophy and practice of Nature Cure is built upon three
fundamental principles. It must be fully understood that these
principles are not the outcome of mere theorising into the nature and
...
Part XIV: Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen: Mental Therapeutics
by Henry
Positive Affirmations
The foregoing explains why affirmations of health are justified in the
face of disease. The health conditions must be first established in the
mind before they can be conveyed to and impressed ...
On Rules for Maintaining Health and Prolonging Life
by Luigi
Man May By Dint of Art Mend His Infirm Constitution and Live to Old Age
My treatise on a sober life has begun to answer my desire in being of
service to many persons born with a weak constitution, who, every time
they committed the least excess, found themselves ...
Man May, by Taking Thought of His Diet and Habits, Change His
Disposition and Better His Temper
For man, it is not to be doubted, may by art exempt himself in part
from the influence of the heavens, it being the common opinion that the
heavens give an inclination by do not impel us, for ...
Less Food Is Required As Man Grows Older
This retrenchment is necessary, nor can it be avoided, since it is
impossible for an to live foreve; and as he draws near this end, he is
reduced so low as to be no longer able to take any ...
Two Mistakes Many People Make When Assessing Longevity
Some allege that many, without leading such a life, have lived to be a
hundred, and that in constant health, and though they ate a great deal
and used indiscriminately every kind of viands and ...
Part XV: In Closing
The Two Rules For Maintaining Health and Prolonging Life
This sobriety is reduced to two things, quality and quantity. The
first, namely quality, consists in nothing but not eating food or
drinking wines prejudicial to the stomach. The second, which is ...
On Positive Affirmations
The foregoing explains why affirmations of health are justified in the
face of disease. The health conditions must be first established in the
mind before they can be conveyed to and impressed ...
Bibliography
Benjamin, Harry. 1967. Everybodys Guide to Nature Cure. 16th ...
Chapter One: That Fallacious Germ Theory
by Harry Benjamin†
By ignoring the part played by the individual himself in the setting up
of disease within his own body, and throwing all the emphasis on purely
erroneous factors, such as germs, our medical scientists have succeeded
in giving the word "germ" a significance and dread power, ludicrously
all out of proportion to the part these organisms actually play in the
life processes of the individual human being.
It is time the public realised what germs really are, and the part they
really do play, if any, in the setting up and development of disease.
One would imagine, from the way the medical professions speak, that one
tiny germ or bacillus (countless thousands of which would scarcely
cover the head of a pin) has only to enter the body of a "healthy"
individual for that individual to be stricken with some foul disease or
other. Perhaps typhoid! Perhaps tuberculosis! And modern man goes
around terrified out of his life because of the existence of these tiny
creatures which he believes are always threatening him, and which only
the most powerful microscope can reveal to his shuddering gaze.
What nonsense it all is! Our bodies are always full of germs: they play
a most important part in the working of the body, especially in the
destructive process—for constructive and destructive processes are
always going on within the body, night and day, sleep or awake, whether
we know it or not.
Where any living matter dies, it immediately begins to disintegrate
into the simple chemical elements of which it is composed. It is in
breaking down dead organic matter into its elemental constituents that
bacteria are always employed by Nature.
We all know that a dead animal left lying about unburied will soon
begin to rot. It is precisely in this rotting process—which is simply
the reduction of the once living organic matter back into the elements
of which it is composed—that germs are active. They are just as much a
part of natural phenomena as anything else in Nature, and are brought
into existence to do their allotted task by that omnipresent Power
which, forever invisible, rules the workings of the universe.
All living matter must die and be reduced to dust again, and bacteria
are the appointed agents! They are the agents of disintegration!
Now, the germs which help in the breakdown of dead organic matter—
whether it be of dead bodies or of cell waste and other effete matter
thrown off by the organism—are not very different in kind from the germ
hysterically supposed, by medical science, to be the cause of disease
in the human body. It is simply because they lamentably misunderstand
the work these tiny creatures do, that the medical world attaches so
much significance to germ action inside the body, when seeking for the
solution of the problem of disease.
Germs take part in all disease phenomena because these are processes
requiring the breaking down or disintegration of accumulated refuse and
toxic matter within the body, which the system is endeavouring to throw
off. But to assume, as our medical scientists do, that merely because
germs are present and active in all disease phenomena, they are
therefore the cause of the same diseases, is just as wrong as it would
be to assume that because germs are present and active in the
decomposition processes connected with all dead organic matter, they
are the cause of the death of the organic matter in question. The
analogy is absolutely just and fair! And equally ridiculous!
But no one would say that because the decaying body of a dead dog is
full of bacteria, the bacteria are the cause of the dog’s death. We
know they are there as a part of the natural disintegration process
taking place as a result of the death of the dog. And so it is with
germs and disease. Germs are a part of the results of disease, not its
cause.
Germs are present in disease not as causes, but as superficial helpers
brought there by Nature to rid the body of disease. They are the
"scavengers" employed by Mother Nature to break up and "bring to a
head" the accumulated internal filth of years of unhygienic and
unwholesome living, which are clogging the tissues of the body and
preventing proper functioning.
It is the elimination of this toxic accumulation of internal filth and
waste material which is required if the treatment of disease is to be
effective—not tinkering with germs. They will automatically disappear
when the body filth and refuse have been disposed of, upon exactly the
same analogy as that of flies and household filth, instead of bodily
filth. Nature Cure practice proves this beyond doubt every day!
(Treatment which is directed merely towards the end of killing germs is
treatment that can never be really effective, because it ignores the
real cause of disease.)
Thus, although germs are the very bugbear of orthodox medical science,
they are of little account to Nature Cure, because the Nature Curist
realises they are part of the effects of disease, and not its cause,
and that they will disappear when the real cause has been disposed of.
But that does not mean to say that disease may not be contracted
through germ contact.
Germs may be the apparent cause of disease in certain instances, and
people may "catch" diseases from each other, but only because they have
within their systems the soil for the propagation of these diseases—in
the shape of accumulated toxins and bodily refuse. No one who is clean
and healthy inside can be affected by germs, or become the victim of
germ infection.
When people understand this, they will be freed at last from the dread
germ-bogey which medical science has created for them out of its
imperfect and superficial knowledge of the real action and affect of
germs within the body! It is the outcome of medical inability to
distinguish between the real causes of disease and its superficial
effects and manifestations.
In the face of the question, "What proof have you actually that the
germ theory of disease is wrong?"—it may be said that even in the case
of acute infectious diseases (where the germ theory seems to explain
the facts most fully) it can be said that people in ordinary health
contain within their bodies the same germs that are said to be the
cause of the same infectious diseases in others. This proves quite
clearly that there must be some predisposing factor present in the body
before an attack of any acute disease is possible. Given this
predisposing factor, the germs become active; without them they are
harmless. This predisposing factor is in every case a lowered vitality
and a body clogged with waste materials and impurities.
Members of the medical profession have themselves refuted the theory
upon which practically the whole of present day medicine is based.
In an address on "The Falsity of the Germ Theory and Its Evil Results"
given by M Beddow-Bayly, MD, at the annual meeting of the Anti-
Vaccination League in 1928, Dr Beddow-Bayly said:
"I am prepared to maintain quite definitely that in no single instance
has it been proved that an organism or germ is the primal cause of a
disease. I would go further, and say that I have abundant evidence that
the use of sera has resulted in incalculable harm and even death in
man; that the discovery, manufacture, and testing of these sera are
responsible for untold suffering among our younger brethren, the
animals; and that the obsession of the minds of the medical fraternity
with the clumsy and illogical germ theory has greatly retarded the
progress of medical science by obscuring the real causes of disease."
During the course of the same address, Dr Beddow-Bayly quoted numerous
extracts from records of investigations made by medical investigators
and research workers, all showing the untenability of the germ theory,
of which the following is a fair example:
"Dr Hamer, the late Medical Officer of Health for the County of London,
in his report for 1915, dealing with the investigation of Dr Houston,
the Water Examiner to the Metropolitan Water Boards, finds that the
evidence supports the theory "that it is typhoid fever which leads to
the development of the bacillus", and not vice versa, and "that the
bacillus should be looked upon as the effect rather than the cause".
Perhaps the most striking illustration of all, given by Dr Beddow-Bayly
in support of his contentions as to the unsoundness of the germ theory,
is the following:
"The celebrated Professor Pettenkofer, to show his disbelief in the
then recently mooted germ theory, swallowed a test-tubeful of cholera
germs—supposed to be sufficient to kill a whole regiment of soldiers!—
before a class of gaping students. Nothing happened! As Pettenkofer
maintained, in support of his amazing act: "Germs are of no account in
cholera. The important thing is the disposition of the individual."
These quotations and illustrations from authoritative medical sources
themselves, regarding the instability of the germ theory, can be
multiplied ad lib if anyone has the mind to. But why go further? Surely
the reader has here sufficient proof of the inadequacies of that theory
of disease upon which the noble fabric of modern medication is built.
To seek for the cause of disease in merely extraneous factors, such as
germs and other outside agents, is to turn one’s mind, once and for
all, away from the possibility of an understanding of the true nature
and cause of disease. That is what the whole medical world is doing
today. With what result? The state of our hospitals and general health
of the nation are ample witness!
† Extracted from: Benjamin, Harry. 1967. Everybody’s Guide to Nature
Cure. 16th Impression. Croydon, UK: Health For All Publishing Co.
The Unity of Disease
The reader will now be fully ready for acceptance of the cardinal
principle of Nature Cure, which is, that although, thanks to the
pedantry and misconceptions of the leaders of medical science, the
names of diseases are legion, in reality their basic and fundamental
causes are the same in every case, viz, a body clogged with waste
materials and impurities; and that no matter what the particular
disease might be called, apart from shock, or direct injury, or medical
interference with the blood and nerve supply, its causes can always be
found in disturbance of function due to three main factors:
1. wrong feeding
2. improper care of the body
3. habits of living tending to set up enervation and nervous
exhaustion, such as worry, fear, overwork, excesses of all kinds,
sexual abuse, temperamental and environmental difficulties, etc.
It is these three main factors coupled with hereditary and predisposing
influences, such as physique, personal peculiarities, and the like
(aided by previous medical interference with drug and knife), which
decide exactly what form disease will take in any given individual—
whether it will be rheumatism or eczema, typhoid or pneumonia, cataract
or deafness. So, what one always has to remember is that no matter what
any disease may be described as in medical terminology, in essence:
"Disease is the same in every case, because the underlying causes which
determine the condition in the first place are identical, although the
superficial symptoms and manifestations appear in so many different
guises."
Nature Cure and Medical Science
It is because they understand this fundamental oneness and unity of all
disease that practitioners of Nature Cure are enabled to secure such
seemingly miraculous results in the treatment of disease. For instead
of being appalled by the intricacy, vastness, and hopeless complexity
of the spectacle of disease, opened up to the mind by the study of
pathology along orthodox medical lines, and spending time in vainly
endeavouring to grasp the significance of these merely superficial and
extraneous manifestations of disease, which through a total lack of
understanding of the matter, the medical profession calls disease—a
thousand different symptoms—the Nature Cure practitioner gets directly
to the root of the trouble (the fundamental causes of which are the
same in every case), and by rectifying these, is enabled to effect a
permanent cure. Whereas, medical confreres aimlessly flutter about the
surface of the matter, attempting to patch up or get rid of symptoms,
which are really the superficial effects of disease, and not the real
trouble at all!
The Nature Cure practitioner deals with fundamental, unchanging causes,
and pays very little heed to symptoms, except as they may guide him in
locating the actual seat of the trouble (which is always very deep
within the system). The medical practitioner deals merely with the
symptoms themselves, looks to externals for causes, and remains
blissfully unconscious as to the very existence of the real underlying
factors involved. The result is that under orthodox medical methods of
treatment, not only is such a thing as real cure impossible in any
given case, because of the neglect of the chief factors concerned, but
the underlying disease-condition is yet further intensified and
aggravated by this tampering with symptoms. For, not only does medical
science mistake symptoms for diseases, but these self-same superficial
symptoms and manifestations—which the Nature Cure practitioner uses
only as guides to locating disease, and which he leaves quietly alone
because he realises that they are not harmful in themselves, but really
Nature’s attempts at self-healing and self-cleansing—are suppressively
treated with drugs and surgery, and irreparable harm is thus done to
the system by this "thwarting" of the body’s natural attempt at healing
itself.
Disease a Self-Healing Process
What the medical profession calls a "cure" is merely the suppression of
superficial symptoms, to cause further and more serious trouble later
on! What the medical profession never understands is that in every case
disease itself, with all its varied multiplicity of expression, is
merely Nature’s attempt at self-healing, and must never be thwarted,
fought against, checked, or suppressed, but helped (as it were) out of
the system by an understanding of the real causes at work, and by
active or passive collaboration, as the case may be.
"The Nation’s Fighters Against Disease"—that is the proud title of the
medical profession, and in it is expressed all their failure to
understand the real essential nature of disease!
Disease is not inimical to the system, something to be fought against;
but it is a self-healing crisis brought about by factors, already
described, which the system finds a hindrance and impediment to proper
functioning!
Disease, in short, is the result of man’s own follies and mistakes,
which Nature is doing her best to rectify for him!
In effect, therefore—and if the reader can follow this clearly, he or
she would be forever emancipated from the universal besetting fear of
disease—disease is nothing more or less than Nature’s blind attempts at
cure. [Editor’ Note: As a whole, I do not believe that most Nature Cure
practitioners would agree with the author’s expression, "blind
attempts", but would consider them as manifestations of "right action"
on the part of the organism as it heals itself.] It is the system’s
attempt to deal as effectively as it can under given conditions which,
through man’s ignorance, folly, and self-indulgence, are causing
impediment of function!
Two Completely Divergent Philosophies
All too often the great surgeon or physician, and even the general
practitioner, vainly imagines that "he" or "she" can cure disease by
suppressing symptoms and thwarting Nature’s work. The practitioner of
natural methods of treatment, knowing full well their own feebleness
within the mighty, all-embracing powers and forces of Nature, bows
their head with humility, and says, "Not I, but Nature, cures. All I
can do is help Nature do her work by all means within my power." Herein
lies the failure of orthodox medicine and the triumph of natural
methods of treatment.
One is based on a philosophy which looks upon disease as something
which "happens" to man quite by ill luck, accident, or chance;
something which enters the body from without—germs or microbes—and has
to be fought against and defeated. The other is based upon a philosophy
which realises that all disease emanates from within the body, is self
-generated as a result of individual mistakes and errors of living, and
is Nature’s blind [?] attempt at self-healing. Two completely
antithetical and contradictory philosophies of disease!
The one exonerates man from all blame with regard to all the ills that
befall them, allowing them to pity themselves as much-injured martyrs,
always at the mercy of a wayward and malign Providence, never knowing
when they may be attacked by some awful microbe or prowling germ, and
by means of outside agents attempts to "cure" them; and the other
states definitely and conclusively that man’s ills are in every case
the outcome of their own mistakes and misdeeds—"as a man sows, so shall
he also reap"—and that only by rectifying these same mistakes will
their troubles be finally overcome and a definite cure effected.
The medical profession claims that it can cure disease by means of
drugs, surgery, inoculations, etc; Nature Cure says that man must cure
themselves of disease, but with the aid of help and advice from those
qualified by training and experience to give it!
The "Fruits" of the Old Philosophy of Disease
"Every tree is known by his own fruit," said Christ to his disciples.
Let the men and women of today see for themselves the fruits of
orthodox medical philosophy! They are before our eyes!
New diseases, such as neurasthenia and pernicious anemia, arising every
few years, an appalling advancement in chronic diseases such as cancer,
rheumatism, diabetes, kidney disease, asthma, bronchitis, heart
disease, etc, every year; devastating plagues of "flu"; nervous
disorders triumphantly ascending; indigestion, constipation, colds,
coughs, catarrh, and such like "home" ailments more prevalent than ever
before—is it not time for the new to supersede the old?
Away with the effete and worn-out philosophy, which sees no connection
between man’s food follies and maltreatment of their bodies and bodily
functions and the disease they suffer from; which attempts to "fight"
disease yet cringes before it in fear and hopeless inconfidence! Let us
inaugurate a new era in world history—an era in which man will accept
the full responsibility for the diseases from which they suffer as
being the results of their own follies and mistakes (either knowing or
unknowing), and not inequities and tortures devised for and thrust upon
them by malign Providence.
Chapter Two: What is Fever?
by Louis Kuhne†
Warmth is always generated by fermentation; the more violent the
fermentation, the greater the increase in temperature. This warmth is
produced by the friction of the masses against each other and against
the body, and likewise by the process of fermentation itself, and the
changes in the fermentation accompanying it.
Under proper conditions, every process of fermentation can be caused to
retrogress upon its own course; and this applies to all the changes in
form caused by such fermentation. This is a fact which has hitherto
never been properly understood. But I need merely remind you how Nature
melts ice into water, how the latter is transformed by great warmth and
wind into vapour, and how this, vaporised and invisible, then again
condenses and appears to the eye as cloud, pouring down as rain, snow,
or hail to refill the rivers and streams, and by severe cold to be
again congealed to ice. And all this has been brought about by
differences in temperature. Constantly increasing warmth has brought
about the changes in the state of the water, and increasing cold has
caused a retrogression of the process. A similar thing takes place in
the development of foreign substances in the body, and similar
conditions produce a retrogressive metamorphosis and expel them from
the system.
What the exact nature of the little vegetable organisms, the ferments,
is, is of but secondary interest for us; but it is important to know
that they can develop only where there is suitable soil, that is, where
substances are present which are ready to pass into decomposition.
Where such are present, only the right kind of weather or some other
exciting cause is needed to give rise to fermentation. Such
fermentation is also set up in the human system at the first
instigation, as there is soon as sufficient foreign matter ready to
pass into decay or decompose. Such chance exciting cause is a change of
weather (hence what are popularly known as colds); the consumption of
food especially apt to ferment, which remains longer than it should in
the digestive canal; anger, fright, strong emotion, a shock, etc.
My observations show that fermentation always commences in the abdomen.
Often it only causes diarrhea and is got rid of; but frequently,
particularly where there is constipation, the system does not succeed
in its attempt at speedy self-help and fermentation continues,
especially in those parts where foreign matter has accumulated.
The case is like that of a bottle where the bottom admits of no outlet,
and the fermenting matter pushes its way upwards to the mouth. Thus we
feel the first effects in the upper part of the body—we get a headache.
The fermentation produces warmth and we are soon conscious of the rise
in the temperature of the blood. This is what we call fever. Fever can
therefore only occur where foreign matter is present and the natural
exits are stopped; that is (1) where there is no regular motion of the
bowels; (2) where the urination is deficient; (3) where the pores are
obstructed; (4) where the respiration is weak.
From this we get a very simple explanation of fever, which long years
of observation and experience prove to be true.
† Extracted from: Kuhne, Louis. 1899. The New Science of Healing.
Leipzig: Kuhne.
Fever Is Fermentation Going On In The System
We shall best comprehend the symptoms exhibited by fever by forming a
correct picture of the processes of fermentation, as they may
frequently be observed outside of the human body. For instance, if a
bottle of freshly brewed beer be allowed to stand a few days, an
alteration will be noticed in the fluid, which is generally designated
by the term fermentation. This much we know of the process of
fermentation: it is a decomposition, a sort of decay, during which, as
already mentioned, little vegetable organisms called bacilli not only,
as is often assumed, propagate themselves by reaching the fermenting
mass from without and then spreading further; they are also regenerated
by the transformation of the mass, thus being themselves only
transformed matter, or a product of fermentation. Through the process
of fermentation, or decomposition, the original mass is altered in
form. Thus living bodies are produced from food and drink, transformed
by the fermentative process of digestion. In this manner we naturally
arrive at the conclusion—that all life is only a continual change under
given conditions and that without the processes which I term
fermentation, it could not be imagined at all.
The outward manifestations of fermentation are the following: first,
the fermenting matter separating from the fluid is deposited on the
bottom of the bottle. Now if the bottle is shaken, or a change in the
temperature occurs, the deposit at the bottom begins to move and
exhibits a tendency to spread. In spreading it moves upwards, and
always in proportion to the amount of fermented matter deposited at the
bottom and the temperature.
Let us look more closely into the cause of fermentation. Everybody
knows that wine and beer are bottled and put in a cellar to prevent
fermentation as far as possible. The cellar temperature is pretty much
the same both in winter and in summer; no sudden changes of temperature
occur, so that the chief cause of a quick fermentation is wanting.
Likewise in the human organism fermentation takes place more quickly in
warm weather.
We perceive how in the south and the tropics various acute fevers are
always breaking out, whereas in our cooler climes we find chronic
diseases prevailing. This is particularly on account of the more rapid
and greater changes of temperature in the hotter climates, where by day
the thermometer stands at 100°F and at night at 40°F; whereas in our
northern countries the difference between the day and night
temperatures seldom exceeds 22°F and is often less. Fevers often occur
with us in spring, the reason being that then we find the greatest
differences in temperature. Some may find it strange that children
especially should be subject to acute illnesses, the familiar
children’s diseases, while later in life chronic forms of disease
mainly prevail. The above-mentioned change of temperature is here aided
by the greater vigour of the youthful organism, which is still so great
that it needs but little or no exciting cause to stimulate the organism
to make the vehement struggle for health, ie, by an acute disease to
rid itself of the foreign matter.
Now the same phenomena which take place in the bottle are observable in
the human body. Here, too, the fermenting matter accumulates in the
lower part of the trunk, and is then set in motion by some change in
the weather, external shock, or mental excitement. Here, too, the
movement is upwards; the fermenting substances have a tendency to
spread and press against the skin covering the body. As long as the
skin remains impervious, the pressure meets with resistance. Thus
friction arises and consequently heat is developed. This is the
explanation of the well-known fever-heat.
In the same way, it is easy to explain why a person in a feverish state
has a somewhat greater circumference of body than usual—for the skin,
being elastic, yields to the pressure of the fermenting matter, and the
greater the pressure, the greater the tension of the skin. When the
skin has reached its extreme tension, so that it can yield no further,
the fever is at its height and the danger the greatest. For as the
fermenting masses still have a tendency to expand and are unable to
escape to the outside, they make room for themselves inside. The body
may be said to inwardly burn and death is the unavoidable result—of
course, only if the skin remains impervious. If we succeed in opening
the outlets, the danger is removed, for then the fermenting matters
find an exit, leaving the body in the form of perspiration. The
interior of the body is now relieved and the heat and tension of the
skin immediately subside.
No words are needed to show that the comparison between the human body
encumbered with fermenting matter and a bottle filled with such, does
not accord in every point. In the bottle, fermentation has free vent,
the matter can expand in all directions without resistance, until it
reaches the surrounding sides. In the human body, it meets with
impediments everywhere. Every organ opposes its progress and hinders
its course. Then it presses, pushes, and rubs against the obstructive
organ, thus producing heat in it and even destroying it; if no outlet
be made, or its course diverted. According to the part principally
affected, the disease is said to be one of stomach, lungs, liver,
heart, etc. But the part affected in each individual case depends upon
the course taken by the fermenting matter, and this course again, upon
the place and manner of the deposits.
Before the heat begins, we always notice, for days, weeks, or even
months previously, a symptom, apparently the exact opposite of that
described—there is a feeling of chilliness. The explanation of this is
very simple. It arises as soon as the deposits have grown so
considerable, that the blood can no longer circulate properly in the
extremes of the body, but it, so to say, compressed all the more in the
inner parts, so that great heat arises there.
Matter continues to be deposited—the time varying according to the
particular patient—until one of the causes already mentioned occurs,
thus causing fermentation to set in. The deposited matter causes
disturbance in the circulation and alimentation. The blood vessels
become partially obstructed, especially in their minutest branches, so
that the blood can no longer reach the outer skin. This is the cause of
cold feet and hands and of a chilly feeling all over. Chilliness is
therefore a precursor of fever and we should make a grave mistake were
we to leave it unnoticed. If proper treatment be immediately applied
the fever cannot fully develop, but is, so to say, nipped in the bud.
When speaking before of the nature of fermentation, I remarked that in
all fermentation little vegetable organisms, called bacilli, develop
spontaneously. This is the case with fever, and thus the much debated
bacillus question finds a simple solution. Whenever the matter which
has settled in the abdomen begins to ferment, bacilli develop of
themselves in the system; they are the product of fermentation, and
likewise disappear of themselves when fermentation ceases and the
system is restored to health, ie, when the process of fermentation
retrogresses.
It is therefore idle to speak of infection through bacilli in some
mysterious manner without the presence of foreign matter in the system.
The question is how not to kill the bacilli, but rather how to remove
the cause of fermentation, the foreign matter. This done, these little
monsters which have caused terror to so many timid minds, vanish as a
matter of course.
A few simple examples will more clearly illustrate my statements.
Imagine a room left unswept and uncleaned for weeks, notwithstanding
the much dirt that collects daily. Very soon vermin of all descriptions
will take possession of the room and prove so troublesome to the
inmates that every means will be tried to extirpate them. Now, if we
attempt to destroy the vermin in the old-fashioned way by poison, we
shall doubtless kill a large number, but by no means affect an
alteration in the state of affairs; for the dirt itself is the actual
producer and promoter of the vermin and will continually breed fresh
swarms. But we shall attain quite a different result if we immediately
cleanse the room of all filth; and by continuing this process we shall
deprive the vermin of their proper elements and get rid of them for
good and all.
Another example: imagine the swampy edge of a forest in summer. You all
know what an annoyance the mosquitoes are in such a place. It will be
evident to you all that it would be no good using poison to destroy
them. True, hundreds of thousands would be killed, but millions upon
millions would constantly issue from the swamp. The swamp itself is the
breeding ground of the little ferments, consequently one must do away
with it before the mosquitoes can be annihilated. We know that on dry
heights hardly any mosquitoes exist. Were one to collect a great amount
of them and carry them up such a mountain, with the intention of
keeping them there, one would soon perceive these insects so
laboriously transported, flying back to their native swamps, the dry
mountain height being no suitable place for them.
A third example will render another matter still clearer. You are all
well aware that the tropics, where by reason of the greater heat, there
is a far greater diversification and development to be found in the
animal kingdom than in the temperate and frigid zones, Nature gives
birth to the most important and largest number of carnivora and carrion
feeding animals. Whatever pains might be taken to exterminate them, new
generations will always arise to take the place of those killed. Thus
you see that these animals flourish only where, by reason of the
greater development of life, there is also more putrefaction. If no
relief were at hand, the dead animals would quickly poison the air with
their putrescence, and render it unfit for the living ones. It is now
plain why the principal animals which live upon flesh and carrion have
their home in the tropics and not the extreme north, where the reindeer
which live on grass and moss can hardly exist.
If therefore we should want to exterminate the carnivora and carrion
feeders of the tropics, we should succeed only by removing the
conditions of their existence, that is, the swarms of other animals
there present; the beasts of prey would then disappear of themselves.
All other means would be useless. But the smaller the animals are, the
more difficult is their extermination; and of this the bacilli off the
most striking example. In order to exterminate them it is of no avail
to employ medicaments to poison them; we can only attain their end by
removing the cause of their existence, that is, by expelling foreign
matter from the body.
In these examples I have shown how Nature acts on a large scale, for
all her laws are uniform. Nor does she admit exceptions in the case of
disease. Precisely as do the vermin, mosquitoes, carnivora, and carrion
feeders appear, live, and thrive only where they can find favourable
conditions, so can fever not exist without such conditions, that is it
cannot exist unless the system is encumbered with foreign matter. It is
only when such matter is present, as we have seen, that by some cause
fermentation can arise, which process we call fever.
But when we once know what fever is, it is not difficult to find a
remedy. The closed up pores of the skin, against which the fermenting
masses press, must be opened, and this can only be done by making the
body perspire.
The instant the sweat breaks out, the fermenting masses gain a vent,
and the tension of the skin and febrile heat both abate.
But with perspiration, the cause of the disease has not yet been
removed. For the fermentation in any given case affects only a part of
the matter deposited in the body; the rest remaining undisturbed is
continually being increased by new accumulations, and thus forms an
aver-present source of fever, which merely awaits a suitable occasion
to break out afresh. Our aim must therefore be to bring about the
expulsion of the matter still lying quiescent in the body. For this
purpose I have introduced the friction hip and sitz baths by the aid of
which the system is excited to expel the morbid matter from the body.
At the same time everything must be avoided which may disturb the body
in its work. The patient must have ample rest, eg, he must not be
excited by being read to or by conversation. Even the noise of the
traffic on the street is injurious, and the chamber should be kept
somewhat darkened; also at night, it should not be illuminated. There
must be free access of air, however.
Not until there has been sufficient expulsion of foreign matter is the
cause of the fever removed and thus the illness itself cured.
Let us now briefly review the foregoing, in order to deduce some
important final conclusions.
In the case of all sick persons, alterations in the shape of the body
are perceptible. These alterations are produced by foreign matter. The
presence of such foreign matter in the body is disease. This matter
consists of substances of which the body has no need, and which remain
in it because of defective digestion. The foreign matter is first
deposited in the neighbourhood of the secretory organs, but gradually
spreads, especially where fermentation sets in, over the whole body. As
long as the organs of secretion continue to expel a part of the foreign
matter, the physical condition is endurable, but whenever their
activity becomes lessened, the greater disturbances arise. The
accumulation of foreign matter is not painful, being, so to speak, a
latent or chronic process, which goes on unnoticed for a considerable
period.
We can best designate the forms of disease resulting from such
accumulation as painless and hidden; they are essentially the same as
those generally called chronic or lingering.
The foreign matter is liable to decomposition; it is the real cause of
fermentation and forms the soil on which bacilli can develop.
Fermentation begins in the abdomen, where most foreign matter lies, but
rapidly spreads upwards. The patient’s condition changes, pain is felt
and fever sets in. These forms of disease we may term painful
inflammatory diseases; they are otherwise termed as acute.
From the foregoing exposition we must now draw the momentous
conclusion: there is only one cause of disease, and there is only one
disease, which shows itself under different forms. We therefore ought
not, strictly speaking, to distinguish between different forms of
disease. It may be remarked in passing that different injuries, which
are not really diseases in the above sense, are not here included.
It is therefore the doctrine of the Unity of Disease which I teach and
defend, on the basis of the observations laid down in the foregoing.
I have now indicated the way in which I arrived at the conviction—a
bold one, as many may think—that there is only one disease.
Through observation and inference, we have thus arrived at a statement
which is of fundamental importance for the treatment of the sick. But I
am able to prove its correctness by facts.
In modern science there is one kind of proof which is preferred to all
others, and regarded as almost the only convincing one, and that is
experimental. In the case in question, the experiment could be carried
out only by the similar treatment of all kinds of diseases, when, if
our statement is correct, uniformly successful cures must be the
result. This proof I have given and continue to give. In the reports of
cures, contained in the Appendix to my book, The New Science of
Healing, you will find the results summarised.
Chapter Three: How Does Disease Arise?
by Louis Kuhne†
What is disease? How does it arise? How does it show itself?
The answers to the above questions are important not only from a
theoretical but even from a more practical point of view, for it is not
until we have gained a clear insight into the nature of disease that we
are in a position to arrive at once at the real method of cure, and so
obviate all empirical groping about in the dark.
The way which we pursue is that in which all natural laws are
discovered. We start from observations, draw our inferences from these,
and finally prove the correctness of our inferences by experiment.
First of all, our observations must be extended to all symptoms which
constantly re-appear and which occur in the case of every patient.
These symptoms are essential ones, and must be taken from a starting
point in our inquiry into the nature of disease.
In certain diseases striking alterations occur in the form of the body;
and it is these circumstances which caused me to observe further
whether such alterations did not occur in the case of all patients.
And this, as observation has proved again and again, is in fact the
case; the face and the neck are especially affected by such changes
which can therefore be most easily traced in these parts.
For years I have made it my study to find out whether with the
alteration of the outward form, the state of the health also changed in
every case; thus it has been invariably.
Thus I came to the firm conviction that there must be a particular
normal form for every body, which is always to be seen in health, and
that every change from this normal form is the result of disease. It
became clear to me from the changes of form in the neck and face a
trustworthy idea of the state of health of the individual could be
gained.
The alterations which we perceive in the neck and face take place in
the corresponding parts of the abdomen and rump in a still greater
degree, because as we shall see, they originate in the abdomen itself;
so that merely by examining the neck and face of the patient we gain an
exact idea of the condition of his bodily condition as a whole. These
external alterations in the neck and face are perceptible, firstly,
when the morbid matter has penetrated in between the muscular tissues,
whereby the body, which is as elastic as india-rubber, becomes
distended (this condition is the less dangerous); secondly, through
increased tension, caused by the induration of the separate tissues.
You will be most readily able to form an idea of this state if you
think of a sausage. Filled as it usually is, it can be bent in every
direction. If it be stuffed fuller and fuller, as long as the skin will
hold, the sausage will become so tense and hard that it can no longer
be bent at all, except by bursting the skin. Similarly, the body can
expand only up to a certain limit, when tension of the tissues takes
place. Such tension is very distinctly remarked when the patient turns
his head and neck. This stage is worse.
If now the room between the tissues no longer suffices to receive
deposits of foreign matter, the latter is deposited in lumps beside the
muscular tissues under the skin, being then distinctly visible on the
neck. Where we find such lumps on the head and neck we do err in
concluding from these indications that there is a far greater number of
such lumps in the corresponding parts of the trunk. On the abdominal
covering these lumps may in such cases be easily felt and seen in all
sizes. For the lumps in the neck are not formed until after lumps are
deposited in the abdomen.
On the other hand, we see in lean patients how the normal tissues of
the body are actually displaced by morbid matter, so that only the
remains of the former, shrivelled together as it were, are still to be
seen amongst the foreign matter.
The various discolourations of the skin also form a sure aid in the
recognition of diseases, and in certain illnesses are never wanting.
What do these alterations in the form of the body teach us in regard to
the nature of disease? In the first place, there is no doubt that
elevations and swellings result from the deposit of matter of one kind
or another. At first, one does not know if this is matter the system
can utilise, and which has simply been deposited in the wrong place; or
whether it is matter which does not belong in the body at all. Nor do
we know at first whether it is the matter that causes the disease, or
whether the latter is the cause of the deposit. Further observation,
however, brings us nearer the truth, for the deposits almost always
begin on one side of the body, and are much more abundant there than on
the other; and this is invariably the side on which we are accustomed
to sleep. We thus see that the morbid matter obeys the law of
gravitation, settling, as it were, on the bottom. But this side always
being the more diseased, it follows that the matter is the cause of the
sickness; otherwise the disease would assuredly sometimes begin on the
other side. Further on, more proof will be given in support of this.
We may also conclude from this that the said matter must be foreign
matter, that is, such as does not belong to the body, at all event not
in its present form. For we cannot assume that nutritive material
follows the law of gravitation in the body, otherwise deposits on one
side only would take place in the healthy body as well, if the person
were in the habit of sleeping regularly on the same side.
Besides, the system itself evidently endeavours to throw off the
matter. Ulcers or open sores are formed, or there is violent
perspiration, or eruptions break out, these being the means whereby the
system tries to rid itself of the morbid matter. Should it succeed, a
pleasant feeling of relief follows that of sickness, provided, of
course, that enough matter has been expelled.
† Extracted from: Kuhne, Louis. 1899. The New Science of Healing.
Leipzig: Kuhne.
Disease Is The Presence of Foreign Matter In The System
For the correctness of this definition there is an infallible test. If
after that which we have designated as morbid matter has in a suitable
manner been removed from the system, the disease itself disappears, and
the body at the same time regains its normal form, the truth of our
definition has been established.
But now let us approach the question as to what may be the nature of
this foreign matter, and how it gets into the system.
There are two passages through which matter can be introduced into the
body—by the nose into the lungs, and by the mouth into the stomach.
Each of these passages is guarded by sentinels, who are not, however,
thoroughly incorruptible, and sometimes they let things pass which do
not belong to the body. These sentinels are the nose and the tongue—the
one for air, and the other for food. As soon as we fail to promptly
obey the sense of smell and taste, they grow more lax in the fulfilment
of their duty, and gradually allow harmful matter to pass unchallenged
into the body. You are aware how one can become used to sitting in
dense clouds of tobacco smoke and inhaling it just as if it were
healthy fresh air. The tongue has been still further corrupted, and we
know that it can gradually be habituated to most unnatural food. Need I
remind you of the different dishes and beverages which we now think
indispensable, all of which were unknown some centuries ago? To these
the present generation has grown so accustomed that it would rather
renounce a natural diet than give them up.
Our lung-diet is, on the whole, not so degenerate as our stomach-diet,
as the former admits of no luxurious outlay. As a rule, the purest air,
even today, still suits us best, whereas a hearty dish of porridge, for
example, such as furnished our ancestors with blood and strength, is
really relished by very few.
In order to illustrate still more plainly how the digestive organs are
slowly undernourished by the unnatural demands put upon them, I will
adduce the following example. A dray horse that can draw 50 cwt with
ease, may be made temporarily, with the aid of a whip, to drag a much
greater load, say 80 cwt. If his master, however, having seen that the
horse could draw the 80 cwt, were to give him this load daily, the
animal might be able to draw this increased load for a short time, but
the over-exertion would soon prove injurious. He would drag the load
with increasing difficulty, until finally he could no longer draw even
50 cwt. The animal has been overworked, which would outwardly be
apparent from his sprained legs and other symptoms. It is exactly the
same with the human organs of digestion. For a very long time they will
perform work far exceeding their natural functions, continually spurred
on by the stimulants of our times. But their natural powers are
gradually undermined and then they can only partially perform the work
allotted to them. The transition from health to disease goes on so
imperceptibly (often ten or twenty years or more) that the patient does
not notice the alteration for a long time.
It is very hard to say what amount of food forms the limit which may be
borne by a diseased stomach. Often for instance one apple will benefit
a weakly patient, whilst two would be injurious. One apple the
debilitated stomach can digest, two would be too much. All excess is
poison for the body. We must never forget that everything we put into
the stomach has to be digested. Even a healthy stomach can really
digest only a certain quantity of food. Anything beyond this is poison
for it, and if not excreted goes to form foreign matter in the body.
Moderation in eating and drinking is therefore the basis of lasting
health.
Now what becomes of such foreign matter? I call it foreign matter
because it is foreign to the system. The system attempts to expel it,
and this in the ways designed by Nature for the purpose. From the lungs
it is again expelled directly by exhalation into the surrounding air.
From the stomach, the bowels conduct it to the outside; or it first
enters the blood and is then secreted by perspiration, urine, and
expired air, that is through the skin, the kidneys, and the lungs.
Thus the system takes care in the most obliging manner that our sins
have no evil effect. Of course we must not require too much. If we
overburden the system with much secretory work, it becomes unable fully
to perform its functions and must find room for the foreign matter in
its own interior. But such matter is useless for renewing the waste of
the body, and is in fact positively harmful as it impedes the
circulation and hence digestion. The foreign matter is gradually
deposited in various places, especially in the neighbourhood of the
secretory organs, that being the direction it takes.
The beginning once made, the deposits accumulate rapidly, unless the
manner of living be at once changed.
Alterations in the form of the body now commence, but are at first
visible only to the practiced eye. The body in this state is already
diseased, though its disease is chronic, or latent, and unaccompanied
by pain. The disease develops so slowly that the person affected does
not notice it; only after a considerable period does he become
conscious of a disagreeable change in his condition. He no longer has
the same appetite, he is incapable of the same amount of physical
exertion, he cannot do so much continuous brain work, and so on. His
condition is still supportable, so long as the secretory organs
continue to perform their work, that is, so long as the bowels,
kidneys, and lungs are active and the skin exudes warm perspiration.
But whenever these functions relax, he at once feels sadly dissatisfied
with his physical condition.
The deposits themselves begin, as we have seen, near the organs of
secretion, but soon accumulate in remoter parts, especially in the
upper portions of the body. This is most distinctly perceptible in the
neck. There in the passageway, the alterations may at once be seen, and
at the same time the tension observed when the neck is turned from
which we can find out from which side the matter has forced its way up.
Before speaking further of the consequences of the accumulation of this
matter, I must remark that nowadays the entire evolution of disease can
but rarely be watched from the beginning, for most human beings enter
the world laden with morbid matter. This is the reason why hardly any
child enjoys immunity from so-called children’s diseases. These are, in
reality, a sort of cleansing process, this being the way in which the
system endeavours to rid itself of the foreign matter.
The foreign substances which at first are chiefly deposited in the
abdomen, finally spread through the whole body and hinder the normal
development of the organs.
Even should the organs respond sometimes by increasing in size, they
can nevertheless attain to no perfect development, for wherever foreign
matter is present, space is lost for nutritive material. Besides, as
the circulation also is impeded, the process of alimentation is
checked, and the organs become smaller, despite, or rather by reason
of, the foreign matter deposited in them.
This matter may for a long time remain perfectly quiescent or
chronically latent; but under favourable conditions can also suddenly
change in form. This foreign matter consists exclusively of substances
which are soluble and decomposable; substances which are subject to
disintegration, breaking up to yield new formations under the right
conditions; substances which are subject to fermentation.
Now fermentation often really occurs in the body and is of the highest
significance.
In all such fermentation microscopic fungi are active, and a striking
change takes place in the fermenting matter; it increases markedly in
bulk.
Chapter Four: Racial Memory
by James C. Thomson†
Racial memory touches upon a peculiarity of humankind. We continue to
be gravely upset by the frightening events which occurred repeatedly to
our numerous ancestors. These racial impressions are a powerful factor
in determining the behaviour and well-being of large groups of people.
Some individuals panic and become hysterical to the point of death at
the mere suggestion that smallpox is in their vicinity. Such
overpowering fear is dangerous in many ways. For one thing it makes
some otherwise sane people undergo operations or have inoculations, and
all other kinds of irrational treatments which are disturbing and
dangerous to their health. So, directly, or indirectly, these
unreasoning residual panics hurt or kill great numbers of people when
they become hysterical about natural activities, which, if more
carefully studied they should welcome as constructive efforts to
safeguard and improve health. Only when we oppose and thwart these
"house cleaning" efforts are we damaged, or even killed—not by the
house cleaning, but by the means used to oppose it.
For health attainment a simpler and greater trust in natural phenomena
is what matters. For example, consider Mahatma Gandhi, who went about
with a sheet around him, lived on the simplest of foods, and otherwise
lived in a biologically-honest, Nature Cure way. His simplicity and
singleness of purpose enabled him to do a magnificent job of work for
his people. But work of that nature and living in that way are no
longer easy under any circumstances, and for the modern town-dweller,
the simple life, if not impossible, is certainly not readily carried
out. Symbiosis breaks down in the circumstances of a large city.
† Extracted from: Thomson, James C. 1950. The Belfast Lecture.
Edinburgh: Thorson’s.
Symbiosis
Now let us look at symbiosis. Probably most of you have heard that more
honey can be obtained in an area where there are many old maids? The
argument runs that unmarried ladies keep cats, and cats keep down field
mice and birds. Field mice and birds kill bees. So if there are too
many field mice and birds you do not get much honey, and where there
are more cats, more honey bees survive and there is more honey. That is
a simple illustration of symbiosis, where one kind of animal helps
other kinds of animals. We are inclined to forget that every living
thing effects all other living things in its vicinity. That rule
applies to humans at least as much as to other animals.
If you care to analyse your own body you will find that it is made up
of what may be considered as billions of microscopic animals (cells)
all joined together and working together to bring the best possible
health for you. Not only is every organ of the body symbiotic with all
the other organs, but each of these organs is, in itself, a whole
universe of untold millions of single-purposed cooperative cells, each
doing its work in its own way. It is one-for-all and all working for
one end—your very good health, stable and sustained.
So, when your whole body decides upon a "spring cleaning", instead of
becoming emotional and afraid, you should be thankful to your body for
making such an excellent effort on your behalf, always a successful
effort if—and it is a big "if"—you would but leave it alone to do its
job in its own way.
Something very different occurs if—when a bodily house cleaning (any
"acute disease") begins to bring out into the open the held up debris
and acids of past months or years—you call in a doctor to have the
activity stopped.
Usually in the early simpler forms of this effort the doctor succeeds.
The activity dies down and, if you live, he claims (and you think) that
he "cured" you. We do not concede that credit. We consider that his
procedures gradually turn simple situations into unspeakably complex
ones; complicating the issue so that, whether you know it or not, you
are going to die much sooner for having had your body’s regenerative
efforts suppressed—"cured"—with poisons or mutilations.
Fallacy of "Cures"
Leaving the directly harmful effects of drugs aside for the moment, we
do not believe in the possibility of a "cure" in the ordinary
acceptance of the word.
You can no more undergo a cure that will keep you cured without
continued care, than you can take a bath that will keep you clean
without further effort for the rest of your life. Any cure to be
lasting must be kept up all the time if we are to remain healthy.
The plain fact of being alive means that all the time body cells are
breaking down and so manufacturing acids and other debris. Even so, the
body happily keeps itself wholesome and clean if honestly cared for—
cured, in the correct sense of the word, if you live reasonably.
Probably it is "The Angel at the Gate", that is why some people dislike
our philosophy. They hate the idea that in the end, they alone, with
their own daily habits of living, decide their good health, or lack of
it. But whether you like it or not, that, within limits, is the almost
universal fact. Exceptions do occur because of accidents, and to some
extent, your present health stems from how your father and mother lived
for years before you were born, and even from the habits of their
fathers and mother, back to the third and fourth generations.
If their and your own margins of safety allowed for a full disposal of
the body’s day-by-day production of acids and broken down cell debris,
then physically, you are set for the maintenance of good health into a
vigorous old age. But you cannot possibly remain healthy if you are
unable to eject your daily accumulations of debris quickly. It is that
difficulty which produces so many serious problems for the city
dweller. A body which does not succeed in keeping itself clean,
gradually builds up deposits of rubbish until it crowds the vital
machinery. That is why, and when, a "house cleaning" is called for.
What is referred to by Nature Cure as a "health crisis" means that this
rubbish, by an extraordinary effort, is being worked out of the body in
one or the other of many forms—boils, pimples, rashes, discharges,
scurf, colds, diarrhea, fluxes, and fevers. All these are useful house
cleaning efforts as we understand them—the natural way for the body to
throw off any excess impurities. But the medical doctor, instead of
seeing these efforts as something to be thankful for, something to
leave alone, convinces himself, and many of us, that the body’s actions
must be opposed.
Learn From Your Dog
To see how essentially unnatural is that teaching, watch your dog. When
he is sick he goes away by himself into a corner, and refuses to look
at food. Leave him to himself for some hours, or even two or three
days, and he will come bouncing back stronger and fitter that ever.
That is always presuming that you have not insisted upon feeding him
"health foods", taking him for walks, or giving him medicines.
If he lives in your home and eats the same kind of food as you do, he
will probably take on your kind of ailments, so keep your eyes open and
learn how to apply the correct treatment. Watch the splendid results he
obtains if you leave him alone. Note how frisky he is after his
illness—his "house cleaning".
Safety Valves
Now let us look into a common statement made by mildly ailing people.
"I am very well, except for my rheumatism", or "My health is very good
except for my cough", or "I am in splendid form except for this boil".
They are mistaken; their health may be satisfactory according to their
own standards, but if so, they are using the wrong words. Not "except
for", but "because of" their rheumatism, "because of" their boils,
"because of" their cough. Through these unusual efforts their bodily
forces are able to keep them well despite the unwholesomeness of their
day-by-day living.
The greatest obstacle to a clear understanding of health attainment is
a mental kink. It arises from what children are taught at their
mother’s knee, or when they go to school—and what school teachers have
to answer for! One way or another the child is led to believe that if
there is anything wrong anywhere in the body, the doctor alone can put
it right. But there are several things wrong with that teaching. I have
had excellent opportunities to test out this matter, and this is my
present belief.
It is no more possible for a human being to cure another human being
than it is for one person to breathe for another. Only the inherent
intelligence of your own tissues can cure you, and they do it
thoroughly and quickly if you foster them and leave them alone. Health
is not merchandise. It cannot be passed from one having it to one not
having it.
Take note next time you have a cold. Your food suddenly becomes
tasteless. A good cold with acid mouth and sore throat makes it
thoroughly unpleasant to swallow. But bravely you force yourself. You
say, "I must eat to keep up my strength, otherwise I may die". But that
is not a true estimate. On the contrary, you should recover much more
quickly and wake up next morning or the morning after that feeling
fitter than you have for years. So I suggest that next time you have a
cold, do what your cold is telling you to do—avoid food, curl up in bed
and keep warm, the chances are that within 24 hours you will begin to
sense an internal awareness of well-being that has been lost for at
least some months or years. If you have never given your body this kind
of opportunity to do a thorough house cleaning you have missed a
wonderful experience. As the crises passes you rediscover many
forgotten pleasures.
Try it. In practice it works. I give you my word for it. Over the past
forty years I have seen it happen many thousands of times, and it is
so.
How Chronic Disease is Initiated
According to our idea, if during an illness, the impurities stirred
into the circulation are not allowed free exit from the system, the
usual result is that they become deposited somewhere in the body. Some
part or organ is chosen where the dumped materials won’t kill the
person—but that means future trouble. The best way would be to spit
them out, cough them out, or otherwise get them quickly into the open
air. So, if some time in the future impurities begin seeking their way
out of your body, you should encourage their effort, not "do something"
or "take something" to prevent their elimination. Otherwise, some
months later, a joint or other part of the body is likely to manifest
stiffness or develop pain where the impurities have been stored away.
After that disability becomes established you become aware of an aching
back or a rash on the skin, or a stiff knee joint, but in every other
way you feel better.
That is what we mean when we say that people feel better because of
their rheumatism, or their coughs and their boils.
The next point to note is that no matter how small and insignificant
any lesion may be, always the whole body is involved; nothing is ever a
local condition only. As people lose their rheumatism, back come the
coughs, or the headaches they had previous to the rheumatism, but
always in a more intense form, if for a shorter time.
And How To Clear Chronic Disease Up
So, if you are determined to build high level health so that you can go
through almost anything and still remain vigorous and alert, wholesome,
undamaged and healthy, you must learn to cooperate with your body. Do
what it wants you to do. Give it a rest when it wants a rest. If you
have an acid irritation in your mouth and find all food distasteful, do
not say, "I must take something to neutralise the acid". Rather stop,
think about it for a moment, and say, "I have been doing too much of
this or that. I must stop it for a bit".
Real cure calls for honest care and intense curiosity as to causes.
With such interest and cooperation your body very surely catches up.
But for reasonably quick results do not start off with doubts. Do not
trouble to tell us "I get so weak if I go without my and
" (favourite vices). We know you do, and we know why.
Tilden’s Rule Number One
If, for example, you go weak at the knees from missing a cup of tea or
a meal, it means that you should omit several more cups of tea or
meals. It means that you have been overloading your nutrition. You have
been having too many cups of tea and too many meals. Here is a good
piece of advice from Tilden, the famous American doctor, the man who
has probably done more than any other single individual for genuine
Nature Cure: "If you felt uncomfortable between the last mealtime and
the next one, omit the next meal and carry on that line from mealtime
to mealtime".
Well, at first hearing, I wonder how many are now ready and willing to
follow that advice? Yet it is very sensible: while you fast your body
begins to use any small or large stores of rubbish as nutrient to keep
you alive. If you have a tumour for instance, a great lump somewhere in
your body, just stop eating and your body will feed on that tumour,
reducing it, during the fasting period. Temporarily you will be living
on stale meals, so you are unlikely to keep in a good temper. However,
the important point is that in the process you will use up the stale
meat, and soon the tumour will not be there any more. That is the only
genuine kind of cure. Not only does it make you feel better, you have a
better figure, you feel younger, and you will be a more completely
symbiotic animal. In other words you have begun to achieve a state of
high level health.
The Nature Cure "Crisis"
Health is not quite what people think it is. It is vastly more than a
mere absence of symptoms and discomforts. Like your garden, your body
calls for a degree of intelligent attention and understanding. The road
to high level health is a difficult one for any long-medicated patient,
but even more so for the practitioner who is trying to train such a
person to travel the right road. One of the most common statements I
hear from long-established invalids, who are in the process of getting
well, runs something like this: "I am told that I am looking better,
but I am really very much worse". We ask in what way they are worse,
and as a rule they admit quite freely that the pain or disability they
began with has diminished or even that it is quite gone, but now they
have developed a new trouble. More questioning discloses that the new
trouble is usually an old friend: "Oh, yes, I do remember now, I used
to have those headaches 20 years ago".
They came to us lame, sometimes not able to mover under their own
power, but now they are walking fairly freely. Yet they complain they
are worse, they have developed a backache. Within a week or two the
"new" backache disappears and then becomes neuritis around an eye. A
few days later an arm won’t move—yes, 25 years ago the arm would not
move. Over the next few months, or years they go over all their old
symptoms; a series of farewell visits as it were, and meanwhile between
the regenerative bouts they begin to feel fitter and fitter. So
gradually they clean out all the cobwebs from the neglected corners of
their bodies until they have achieved something that the average
civilised person knows nothing about: real, pulsating, radiant health.
And then, believe it or not, they begin to tell their neighbours how
they enjoyed every minute of their Nature Cure experience!
To Build Serious Disease
Now a few words more from Dr Tilden:
"Years ago when I gave salicylates with the superstitious idea of
curing rheumatism, I succeeded in establishing a heart involvement in
nearly every case. Since I gave up the use of drugs and injections, I
have seen heart diseases only in new patients who have come to me after
being medicated and improperly nursed".
These words explain where to look for the real beginnings of chronic,
degenerative disease.
Almost any acute condition can be reduced or stopped by taking some
poison that is more deadly than the systemic poisons that the body is
in the process of eliminating.
People living in Ireland will remember "the trouble" at the beginning
of the 1914-18 war. It was just on the point of breaking out. Suddenly,
Germany or Britain declared war and a much worse set of circumstances
than had previously existed faced the whole country, and just as
suddenly all internal trouble apparently faded away. But the key word
is "apparently". It seemed to stop only until the bigger trouble began
to diminish, and then what happened? Afterwards it was discovered that
the earlier trouble had been fermenting out of sight. It broke out
worse than ever and went on and on breaking out in different places
more and more.
Approximately, that is what happens when drugs are used to suppress a
symptom. The pain may stop but beneath the surface the real trouble
grows in seriousness and intensity until it becomes far more menacing
than it was before the drug.
In order to "cure" you with a drug, the poison which the doctor
introduces into your body must be so disturbing to your vital forces
that the trouble from your own systemic poisons becomes relatively
unimportant.
On that insecure foundation you claim you are "cured". But have you
considered how much trouble has been laid aside for future reference?
Your simple hopes of having it cleared up in a few days, weeks, months
or even years are in vain. Each time you drug yourself you have added
to your difficulties so that you are left with a worse set of
symptoms—if you remain alive.
Miracle Drugs
It is not by accident that all medicines are poisonous. Only that way
can they be made to work. But there is also the patient’s imagination.
During the war we were told that a marvellous new drug had come into
use costing ten thousand pounds per dose, and it was being given to our
wounded soldiers. Nearly everyone wants a drug like that. The rush was
unprecedented and it still goes on, but a change is on the way. It was
announced that penicillin was going to be made cheaper. As soon as it
becomes cheap it will be discovered that the whole idea was a complete
blunder. Then like many thousands of its predecessors, it will go into
the graveyard of past medical "cures"—useless, discarded, forgotten or
replaced.
Illness for All
People who equate everything in terms of cash should be satisfied with
health service. It is decidedly expensive. But money costs do not tell
everything. In this case not only the means but the end is wrong. The
essential short-sightedness of the scheme has been neatly caught by
Hermoine Gingold in these words: "The national health service has
brought illness within the reach of even the poorest people. It is a
service that makes disease easy while penalising the healthy. It speaks
much of drugs and disease, but gives no directives toward care and self
support for lasting health."
An Experiment
One of my good friends died just a few weeks ago as a result of what he
intended to be an amusing experiment. A month ago he sent for me to
visit him at an Edinburgh hospital, and he explained, "Look, Jim, don’t
think of my coming in here as a reflection on your theories. I believe
in Nature Cure as much as you do, but for eighteen months, I have been
paying into the insurance scheme for nothing. So when I got this
illness I said to myself, I’ll see what it’s like in one of their
hospitals before I go out to Kingston; I had to get something out of
it, even if it was only a good laugh. In two weeks, I’m coming to your
place".
But he was cremated before the two weeks had elapsed. In the meanwhile,
however, he had his good laugh. He had been greatly amused by one of
their procedures. He told me how they were actually waking him every
midnight to give him an injection. Like myself, he believed there is
nothing better for a sick man than normal healthy rest and sleep, but
this patient had to be given his financially and vitally expensive
"miracle drug" injections.
I do not believe such deaths are unavoidable or accidental. I believe
they are directly due to the fundamentally mistaken drug treatment
aimed at reducing symptoms in place of removing causes.
Sometimes we are asked, "If you do away with drugs, what can you put in
their place?" This implies that there is some benefit in drugs, instead
of that all drugs are poisonous or destructive. Surely if we get rid of
a bad thing it is unnecessary to put anything in its place. It is
always better to allow your own body to do its work in the way it
prefers, and is equipped to do, without interference from outside.
Arthritis
I have at the moment at least a dozen patients in Edinburgh with
arthritic rheumatism. In each case, before we saw them they had had
medical treatment over a long period of years, during which time their
condition became steadily worse. Nearly all of them have had tonsils
out, or their teeth out, or both—as well as the usual drugs, and any
number of gold injections along with some of the newer treatments. One
interesting aspect of these different "cures" is that nearly all these
patients had felt better during the first week or two of treatment;
then their rheumatism recurred and became steadily worse. Their painful
discovery was that after each spell of medicinal relief the pain became
more continuous and more intense.
Self Responsibility
For real health attainment you must take the responsibility upon
yourself. Practically any ailing person who is willing to do the right
thing can get well, but instead most patients ask, "Can you cure me?"
We are powerless to do that. The cells in each human body are organised
to work together for just that end. After all, they built the body, and
they should be able to keep it in good repair. The moment we accept
responsibility for our illness we can get well. Despite all extensive
publicity to the contrary, nobody else, and nothing else can do this
for you. No one person can cure another person.
But relief in arthritic conditions is a slow and trying business. It is
never quick, nor is it easy. For the patient it is painful because the
crystalline formations in the tissues tear the tissues apart and cause
even more intense pain as they work out. Another awkward side is that
as you become healthier you notice things more. This means that you
tend to feel more pain from the same amount of cause.
The essential difference between a healthy and an unhealthy person is
the degree of awareness. Because of more immediate knowledge the
healthy person’s defences promptly take action against anything that
goes wrong.
The unhealthy person has a slower and less intense awareness and
response. These slow-reacting people are "accident prone"; they keep on
having accidents of all kinds. It is a most unhealthy condition wherein
the person waits until it is too late, and with him it becomes routine
for accidents to occur. The insurance companies are beginning to
realise that there are such people; they are reluctant to accept them
as risks.
The Stupefied Invalid
How many of you have read or known about someone in a hospital who has
been burned with a hot water bottle? Could you imagine any healthy
child or grown up person lying still long enough for real damage to be
done from contact with an hot water bottle? Within a fraction of a
second the healthy person would have become fully cognisant of the
situation and would have taken the appropriate action. But a person who
is drugged is not a healthy person. His fire and burglar alarms have
been put out of action, and he remains unaware of the damage. That is
why his motor mechanisms do not make the necessary immediate
adjustments to meet the danger.
After all, that is the basis of our charge against medicating. Proper
response occurs only if the body is fully alert to what is wrong. Drugs
of the sedative group induce a nervous and mental sluggishness and
numbness, so that all reactions are slowed down and the best result
that can be hoped for is comparative unawareness of anything wrong—what
we call low-grade health. Health in the ordinary acceptance represents
merely this numbness along with a fair degree of stability. In other
words the medicated person is so stupefied that he puts up with almost
anything without resentment. In good health his bodily forces would
take brilliantly correct and instantaneous actions to meet any and
every kind of emergency.
Somatic Sense
For example, here is an inadvertent experiment I am in the process of
completing. About two months ago I drove a spike of wood under my nail.
The splinter of wood went down under the nail to within one fifth of an
inch of the matrix. It had broken off well under the nail and I could
think of no way of getting it out. But my somatic sense did all that
was necessary, without my help. I had thought it over and after a week
or ten days, and decided to cut it out through the front of the nail.
But before I had dug down very far I realised that the splinter was
already on its way out. It had become attached to the nail, so I left
it alone and, slowly but surely as the nail has grown, the spike has
been carried with it.
But my intellect did not solve the problem. My thinking apparatus was
not clever enough to do it. The humbling fact that the conscious part
of my mind must acknowledge is that my bodily sense is more clever than
my intellect, not only in one or two things, but in everything to do
with the emergencies of life and health.
The same situation exists between you and your body. In emergencies it
does precisely the right thing; much better than you can do it. When it
comes to any of the body’s health activities—classified as acute
diseases—my advice is, "Trust and leave it alone".
Indeed the point must be emphasised. Without question, under the
direction of what is called somatic sense, the body solves with a
remarkable degree of smoothness and efficiency all its health problems.
But on this aspect of our lives, intellectually we are almost
completely at sea. When any health emergency arises we follow false
gods and are readily misled by large and confusing words. We stop using
our heads when professional men "explain" with such a phrase as,
"antibiotics defeat the staphylococci and the streptococci along with
their secondaries the pyogenic staphylostreptococci".
Apart from their ability to get away with it, that bad language is no
proof of any special gifts. Commonly such words become current among
those who are more or less conscious of their lack of real
understanding. There are those, of course, the stealthy ones, who
consider it clever by this means to silence the non-technical critics.
Body Wholeness
Disease is never only local. Your body is either all healthy, or all
unhealthy. It may—indeed it usually does—exhibit its distress more in
one part than in another, but quite often that one part is putting in
overtime to help some overworked or weaker organ. If you have a boil on
your neck it is not due to the work of the wicked germs with big names
nor is it your neck that is at fault. Ordinarily the body cells in and
around the lesion are busy with a cleansing effort for the good of the
whole body.
Inadvertently, one amusing point about boils is that the sufferer
always remarks, "If it had just been somewhere else!" But so far as its
effect upon the health of the body is concerned, its position is
unimportant. Almost always, wherever it occurs, a boil arises directly
from its owner’s day-by-day habits placing too much strain upon his
depurative organs. Boils are painful, but they are a most efficient way
of releasing dangerous accumulations of poisonous matter. The Swedes
are aware of their usefulness: they call them "health buds".
It is similar with a running sore or discharge. These too are "release
valves" which save the body from complete breakdown. With boils and
running sores it is advisable to discontinue all unsuitable foods and
drinks until the organs discharge their overload of stale refuse.
Above all don’t worry about the harmless little germs with the big
names. Their lot is worse than yours. At least you are getting rid of
the filthy matter—they have to live in the horrid mess. Altogether they
have been maliciously slandered; they too, if not attacked, are happily
symbiotic with your own cells.
Your Daily Bread
Now let us see why such deposits arise even in people who have become
health-conscious and who are doing their utmost to live simply and
naturally. Take our staff of life. How many people make a habit of
eating wholesome, clean, fresh bread? May I give you an estimate? Very
few indeed. Genuine bread is expensive because the government does not
pay the substantial subsidy for bread unless it has been adulterated.
This is the situation as it is at the moment (1950). The ministry of
food insists that 14 lbs of chalk be added to each bag (280 lbs) of
flour. If their subsidy is to be collected that chalk must go in. When
a member asked a question about this requirement last year, he was told
that it was not chalk, it was creta preparata. Having said that the
(then) Minister of Health sat down and everybody seemed satisfied. But
creta preparata simply means prepared chalk.
Chalk in flour makes the dough absorb a great deal more water. As one
baker put it, it makes water stand up on end. In that way you are
induced to buy water and chalk and you believe you are buying bread.
But that is not all.
Agene has been discontinued, but in its place millers are permitted to
employ the adage process—chlorine dioxide. [Editor’s note: the baking
industry now in 1996 generally legally includes a number of new
unhealthful artificial ingredients.] According to the manufacturers,
this preparation is approximately three times more powerful than agene.
It is recommended especially for bleaching the colouring matter of
bran, "which makes it particularly valuable for bleaching very low
grade flours".
Bread and Convulsions
When dogs ate agenised bread they became dizzy, they staggered about,
and before they died they went into convulsions. Human bodies stand up
to a great deal more abuse than do the bodies of dogs. I have seen
horses and dogs die from snake bites, and I have seen humans who have
been bitten by the same kind of snakes, and they did not die. In
general terms, humans are far more resistant to poisons than are dogs
and horses.
When agene was still being used, I read that an illness deprived three
Doncaster people of their physical sense of balance. One newspaper
reported, "They could not stand or walk properly, and they could not
keep on their feet without staggering. After six weeks treatment the
local doctors said it was difficult to determine the cause of the
staggering".
Perhaps so, but I find a certain similarity between what was happening
to the humans, and what happens to agenised dogs.
How did that happen in Doncaster? About three years ago the question
was asked in Parliament. It ran something like this. "Was it true that
several tons of bad fish paste has been mixed with good fish paste and
sold to the general public?" The answer was, "Yes", and it was
explained that by mixing it in a certain way the poisonous content had
been brought below the level that was considered unsafe and it was put
in the shops and sold. A little later I had as a patient an analytical
chemist who had been working for the Ministry of Food. To him I
remarked about this strange idea and asked, "Does mixing bad stuff with
good make the whole good?"
He looked a little self-conscious and said: "You know, until I read
your comments in a recent article, it never struck me as being in any
way wrong. The problem as set to me was "How could this consignment be
treated to reduce its toxicity to a level that would make it fit for
consumption and release to the public?" After working it out I decided
that if it was mixed with five times its weight of sound stuff it would
be all right. We work by trial and error. We send a trial amount to a
restricted area and our scouts are sent to report if there has been any
illness among the customers. Only if there are no complaints is it
given general release".
Such a scientist takes into consideration only the one particular
problem set for his solution at that moment. He figures his answer out
to so many decimal points. But if he omits some vital factor, his
findings are liable to have an adverse effect upon you and your
neighbours.
Unfortunately, there is big money in keeping the public bemused on
health matters. The following statement I take from an American
publication:
"One of the firms manufacturing ‘miracle drugs’ in a single year made
over forty two million dollars out of an investment on plant and
machinery of only seven million dollars, their income for one year some
six times their capital investment".
In this country (England) much larger firms are training our farmers to
use chemicals on the soil, so that they are ruining their land instead
of farming it. When it was claimed that composted soil grew altogether
better-quality crops than soil treated with artificial manures, one
firm of large manufacturing chemists admitted that this was so, but
reported that the crops would not be so large without chemicals.
I suggest that honest reliable foods are more important than mere bulk.
Chemists are dangerous mentors to accept as guides toward normal
health. All their twisted ways from sprays on fruit, to chemicalised
bread, are directly opposed to everything we stand for, and understand
by high level health. For that we must return to symbiosis and
simplicity.
As we have seen, the real advance in general health in this country,
over the past century or so has been due to improved sanitation,
housing, and an understanding of dietetics. Although medicine often
claims credit for the improved life expectancy, in plain fact the
medical men have often opposed genuine enlightenment. They have also
often retarded improved health in the most direct way by introducing
poisonous drugs and deadly injections into their patients.
The only way to become healthy and remains so, is to make our lives fit
for the natural scheme of things. We must play fair with other living
things, be they plant or animal, and regard our bodies as intelligent
mechanisms capable of self-repair and self-cleansing.
Most of the really crippling diseases are the result of attempting to
obstruct or suppress the body’s self-healing process—each of which the
medically-minded person sees as a "disease". The self-cleansing
processes are sometimes uncomfortable, but they have a positively
constructive function. They are the only means whereby the body can be
truly "cured". No human being can "heal" another; healing is an
intrinsic power of each of us. Very often the most helpful treatment we
can apply during an active phase of self-healing is non-interference;
simply keeping the body warm and desisting from embarrassing it with
food.
Miracle drugs always turn out to be misfires; it may take a few years
for this discovery to be made, but it always occurs. It cannot be
otherwise, because drugs function by poisoning or disrupting the body’s
working. Stopping a symptom is relatively easy; the real task is to
improve the entire state of the living body, and as a rule that calls
for patience, understanding, and a determined effort.
At all times the health seeker must be on the alert to avoid damaging
factors such as the adulterants added to many every day foodstuffs. The
fact that food manipulation takes place with the full sanction of
government departments is no safeguard to the consumer. The follower of
Nature Cure must be prepared to accept responsibility for his own
course of action, and if necessary steer contrary to orthodox
influences when these conflict with his own reasoning.
There are many groups interested in persuading the individual to abuse
their system and to load it with damaging preparations. The real
safeguard is an intelligent understanding and a realisation that no one
has a greater interest in ones well being than ones self.