Submitted by Steve Solomon
Nature Cure
Philosophy & Practice Based on the Unity of Disease & Cure
Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
“Ho, ye who suffer! Know ye suffer from vowselves. None else compels–no other holds ye that ye live or die. “~–Siddartha~
TO THE PROGRESSIVE PHYSICIANS OF THE AGE
There are two principal methods of treating disease. One is the combative, the other the preventive. The trend of modern medical research and practice in our great colleges and endowed research institutes is almost entirely along combative lines, while the individual, progressive physician learns to work more and more along preventive lines. The slogan of modern medical science is, “Kill the germ and cure the disease.” The usual procedure is to wait until acute or chronic diseases have fully developed, and then, if possible, to subdue them by means of drugs, surgical operations, and by means of the morbid products of disease, in the form of serums, antitoxins, vaccines, etc. The combative method fights disease with disease, poison with poison, and germs with germs and germ products. In the language of the Good Book, it is “Beelzebub against the Devil.”
The preventive method does not wait until diseases have fully developed and gained the ascendancy in the body, but concentrates its best endeavors on preventing, by hygienic living and by natural methods of treatment, the development of diseases. By these it endeavors to put the human body in such a normal, healthy condition that it is practically proof against infection or contagion by disease taints and miasms, and against the inroads of germs, bacteria and parasites.
The question is, which method is the most practical, the most successful and most popular? Which will stand the test of “the survival of the fittest” in the great struggle for existence?
The medical profession has good reason to be alarmed by the inroads made in its work by irregular, unorthodox systems, schools and cults of treating human ailments; but instead of raging at the audacious presumption of these interlopers, would it not be better to inquire if there is not some reason for the astonishing spread and popularity of these therapeutic innovations?
Their success undoubtedly is based on the fact that they concentrate their best efforts on preventive instead of combative methods of treating disease. People are beginning to realize that it is cheaper and more advantageous to prevent disease than to cure it. To create and maintain continuous, buoyant good health means greater efficiency for mental and physical work; greater capacity for the true enjoyment of life, and the best insurance against failure and poverty. Therefore, he who builds health is of greater value to humanity than he who allows people to drift into disease through ignorance of Nature’s laws, and then attempts to cure them by doubtful and uncertain combative methods.
It is said that in China the physician is hired and paid by the year; that he receives a certain stipend as long as the members of the family are in good health, but that the salary is suspended as long as one of his charges is ill. If some similar method of engaging and paying for medical services were in vogue in this country the trend of medical research and practice would soon undergo a radical change.
The diet expert, the hydropath, the physical culturist, the adjuster of the spine, the mental healer, and Christian scientist, do not pay much attention to the pathological conditions or to the symptoms of disease. They regulate the diet and habits of living on a natural basis, promote elimination, teach correct breathing and wholesome exercise, correct the mechanical lesions of the spine, establish the right mental and emotional attitude and, in so far as they succeed in doing this, they build health and diminish the possibility of disease. The successful doctor of the future will have to fall in line with the procession and do more teaching than prescribing.
I realize that many of the statements and claims made in this volume will seem radical and irrational to my colleagues of the regular school of medicine. They win say that most of my teachings are contrary to the firmly established theories of medical science. All I ask, of them is not to judge too hastily; to observe, to think and to test, and I am certain that they will find verified in actual experience many of the teachings of the Nature Cure Philosophy. Medical science has had to abandon innumerable theories and practices which at one time were as firmly established as some of the pet theories of today.
By none of the statements made in this book do I mean to deny the necessity of combative methods under certain circumstances. What I wish to emphasize is that the regular school of medicine is spending too much of its effort along combative lines and not enough along preventive. It would be foolish to deny the necessity of surgery in traumatism, and in abnormal conditions which require mechanical means of adjustment or treatment.
Such necessity, for instance, will exist in certain obstetrical cases, as long as women have not learned, or are not willing to live in such a way as to make surgical intervention unnecessary in child-birth. The same is true with regard to the treatment of germ diseases. As long as people persist in violating the laws of their being, and thereby making their bodies prolific breeding grounds for disease taints, germs and parasites which are bound to provoke inflammatory, feverish processes (Nature’s cleansing and healing efforts), combative measures will have to be resorted to by the physician, and precautionary measures against infection will have to be observed, but these should be in harmony with Nature’s endeavors, not contrary and suppressive; they should tend to conserve and not to destroy.
Natural dietetics, fasting, hydropathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, and mental therapeutics, are combative as well as preventive, but if properly applied they do not in any way injure the organism or interfere with Nature’s intent and Nature’s methods. This cannot be said for much of the surgical and medical treatment of the old school of medicine. We criticize and condemn only those methods which are suppressive and destructive instead of curative.
In many instances already the warnings and teachings of Nature Cure Philosophy have been verified, and had to be heeded and accepted by medical science. The exponents of Nature Cure protested against the barbarous practice of withholding water from patients burning in fever heat, and against the exclusion of fresh air from the sickroom by order of the doctor. The cold water and no drug treatment of typhoid fever, the water treatment for other acute diseases, as well as the open air treatment for tuberculosis, were forced upon the medical profession by the Nature Cure people. For more than half a century the latter have been curing all inflammaory, feverish diseases, from simple colds to scarlet fever, diphtheria, cerebro-spinal meningitis, smallpox, appendicitis, etc., etc., by hydropathy, fasting, and other natural methods, without resorting at all to the use of poisonous drugs, antitoxins and surgical operations.
For many years before the terrible after-effects of X-Ray treatment, of extirpation of the ovaries, the womb, and of other vital organs, became so patent that the physicians of the regular school could not ignore them any longer, Nature Cure physicians had strongly warned against these unnatural practices, and called attention to their destructive after-effects.
As far back as ten years ago, when the X-Rays were in high favor for the treatment of cancer, lupus, and other diseases, I warned against the use of these rays, claiming that their vibratory velocity was too high and powerful, and therefore destructive to the tissues of the human body. Since the failure of the X-Rays and the discovery of Radio-activity, the rays and emanations of radium and other radio-active substances are widely advertised and exploited as therapeutic agents, but these rays also are far beyond the vibratory ranges of the physical body in velocity and power. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether their injurious by and after-effects do not out-weigh in the long run their beneficial effects.
The destructive action of these high power rays, as well as of inorganic minerals, is very slow and insidious, manifesting only in the course of many years. This new field of therapeutics, therefore, has not yet passed the stage of dangerous experimentation.
Inorganic minerals prove injurious and destructive to the tissues of the human body because they are too slow in vibratory velocity, and too coarse in molecular structure.
It is the intent and purpose of this volume to warn against the exploitation of destructive combative methods to the neglect of preventive constructive and conservative methods. If these teachings contribute something toward this end they will fulfil their mission.
The Author
Chicago, Nov., 1913.
INTRODUCTION
It was the following letter from Mr. William Louden to the editor of ~”Health Culture”~ which prompted the author to issue the”Nature Cure Magazine”~ (published from November, 1907, to October, 1909). In the series of books of which this is the first volume, he will endeavor to collect and systematize all his former writings in the~ “Nature Cure Magazine,” “Health Culture,” “Life and Action,”~ the ~”Naturopath,”~ the”Volksrath,”~ and other publications, and to amplify these by new material obtained through further research and wider experience.
Mr. Albert Turner,
Editor of”Health Culture.”~
DEAR SIR–I write to ask what you consider the best book or pamphlet to put into the hands of people generally, in regard to the preservation of health. I know ther e are a number of very excellent publications, but as a rule they deal with certain details or phases of the question, and do not begin with the great underlying principles in such a way as to attract and hold the attention of the masses. One advocates one plan, and another an entirely different, and sometimes a directly opposite plan–such as uncooked vs. thoroughly cooked food; a strictly vegetarian diet, and mental culture in place of attention to either, etc. Such a state of affairs makes it confusing to average people and gets them to believe that health reformers are all at sea, and what is good for one is not good for another, or, in common language, “what is one man’s meat is another’s poison.”
Now, I know it is natural, and doubtless best, that there should be a difference of opinion on any question, but at the same time, if any movement is to be crowned with great success, there should be some underlying principles upon which all should agree, and these should be pressed to the forefront, so as to attract and hold the attention of the people, in place of the divergent details upon which they disagree. If these fundamental laws and principles are thoroughly studied and well defined, it may be found that they would explain the discrepancies between the different theories, and that under certain conditions, one plan is best, and that under different conditions another plan is more applicable, etc. The pushing of these fundamental principles to the front would also tend to correct errors into which the different theorists have fallen, and would certainly tend to make the different theories more homogeneous and more easily understood by people in general, than at present.
In my opinion, the general fundamental principles of life and health are what people need to understand more than anything else. Without this, most of the details will be meaningless or at least confusing dogmas. I don’t mean by these fundamental principles the details of anatomy, or, for that matter, the details of anything else, but the general rules governing life and death, so that people may know which way they, are tending, and may understand the many illusions with which life and death, as well as all else in nature are beset.
Yours truly,
WILLIAM LOUDEN
Louden Mfg. Co.,
Fairfield, Iowa.
The present volume and others of the “Nature Cure Series” which are to follow are an attempt to answer Mr. Louden’s inquiry and to formulate and elucidate the fundamental laws of health, disease and cure for which he and many others have been vainly seeking. Who among you at some time or another, has not thought and felt like Mr. Louden and in doubt and perplexity voiced Pilate’s query,
What Is Truth?
The exact information and rational method of teaching which Mr. Louden is seeking, has heretofore been wanting in health-culture literature.
Many, indeed, stand ready and willing to show the way to physical, mental and moral perfection. Hundreds, yes, thousands, of different cults, isms, teachers, books and periodicals treat of these subjects, but their teachings are so manifold, so contradictory and confusing, that one becomes bewildered amid the ever increasing testimony. As is often the case in the study of complicated subjects, the more one reads and the more one hears, the less one knows. I believe that no one has described more strikingly this state of general perplexity than Mr. Louden in his excellent letter.
Nevertheless, these simple fundamental laws and principles really exist. They must exist, because everything in Nature, including the processes of health, of disease and cure, of birth, of life and death, are subject to law and order.
Allopathy, or Old School Medical Science, admits that it does not know these fundamental principles; that it reasons, not from underlying causes, but from external symptoms and personal experiences. It is, therefore, self-confessedly full of doubts, errors and confusion; in short, empirical–and necessarily, a failure.
Many teachers of Nature Cure, Hygiene and Health cults have stumbled accidentally upon some of the natural laws and true methods of healing, but have failed to grasp and to formulate the broad underlying principles. For this reason they are often partly right and partly wrong and very apt to overdo certain methods to the neglect of others just as effective and essential, or even more so.
I shall endeavor in these volumes to formulate and elucidate some of the fundamental laws and principles underlying the phenomena of life and death, health, disease and cure, and shall try to ascertain in the light of these laws how much of truth and how much of error, how much of usefulness and how much of harmfulness there may be contained in the various theories and systems of living and of healing.
Nature Owe an Exact Science
One of the reasons why Nature Cure is not more popular with the medical profession and the public is that it is too simple. The average mind is more impressed by the involved and mysterious than by the simple and common-sense.
However, it remains a fact that “exact science” reduces complexity and confusion to simplicity and clearness. Science becomes exact science only when the underlying laws which correlate and unify its scattered facts and theories have been discovered.
These simple laws rightly understood and applied will do for medical science what the law of gravitation has done for physics and astronomy, and what the laws of chemical affinity have done for chemistry, they will place medical science in the ranks of exact sciences. The understanding and proper application of these truths will explain every fact and phenomenon in the processes of health, disease and cure, and will enable the student to reason from simple, natural laws and principles to their logical effects. The “Regular” school of medicine, so far, has endeavored to build a medical science on the observation of “effects” and “experiences,” but since one fundamental law of nature may produce a million seemingly differing effects it becomes self-evident that it is utterly impossible to found an exact science on such uncertain and conflicting evidence.
The primary laws and principles once understood, it becomes easy to reason from and to explain through them, the various phenomena which they produce. Herein lie the merit and achievement of the Nature Cure philosophy.
THE UPAS TREE OF DISEASE
EVIL IS NOT AN ACCIDENT, NOT AN ARBITRARY PUNISHMENT, NOT ALWAYS AN “ERROR OF MORTAL MIND.” IT IS THE NATURAL AND INEVITABLE RESULT OF VIOLATIONS OF NATURE’S LAWS. IT IS INSTRUCTIVE AND CORRECTIVE IN PURPOSE, AND WILL REMAIN WITH US ONLY AS LONG AS WE NEED ITS SALUTARY LESSONS.
Chapter I
What ~Is~ Nature Cure?
It is vastly more than a system of curing aches and pains; it is a complete revolution in the art and science of living. It is the practical realization and application of all that is good in natural science, philosophy and religion. Like many another world-wide revolution and reformation, it had its inception in Germany, the land of thinkers and philosophers.
About seventy years ago this greatest and most beneficent of reformation movements was inaugurated by Priessnitz in Grafenberg, a small village in the Silesian mountains. The originator of Nature Cure was a simple farmer, but he had a natural genius for the art of healing.
His pharmacopeia consisted not in poisonous pills and potions but in plenty of exercise, fresh mountain air, water treatments in the cool, sparkling brooks, and simple, wholesome country fare, consisting largely of black bread, vegetables, and milk fresh from cows fed on nutritious mountain grasses.
The results accomplished by these simple means were wonderful. Before he died, a large sanitarium, filled with patients from all over the world and from all stations of life, had grown up around his forest home.
Among those who made the pilgrimage to Grafenberg to become patients and students of this genial healer, the simple-minded farmer-physician, were wealthy merchants, princes and doctors from all parts of the world.
Rapidly the idea of drugless healing spread over Germany and over the civilized world. In the Fatherland, Hahn the apothecary, Kuhne the weaver, Rikli the manufacturer, Father Kneipp the priest, Lahmann the doctor, and Turnvater Jahn, the founder of physical culture, became enthusiastic pupils and followers of Priessnitz.
Each one of these men enlarged and enriched some special field of the great realm of natural healing. Some elaborated the water cure and natural dietetics, others invented various systems of manipulative treatment, earth, air and light cures, magnetic healing, mental therapeutics, curative gymnastics, etc., etc. Von Peckzely added the Diagnosis from the Eye, which reveals not only the innermost secrets of the human organism, but also Nature’s ways and means of cure, and the changes for better or for worse continually occurring in the body.
In this country, Dr. Trall of New York, Dr. Jackson of Danville, Dr. Kellogg of Battle Creek, and others caught the infection and crossed the ocean to become students of Priessnitz. The achievements of these men in their respective fields of endeavor will stand as enduring monuments to the eternal truths revealed by the genius of Nature Cure.
Quimby, the itinerant spiritualist and healer, became successful and renowned by the application of the natural methods of cure. At first his favorite methods were water, massage, magnetic and mental treatment. Gradually he concentrated his efforts on metaphysical methods of cure, and before he died, he evolved a complete system of magnetic and mental therapeutics.
Quimby’s teachings and methods were adopted by Mrs. Eddy, his most enthusiastic pupil, and by her elaborated into Christian Science, the latest and most successful of modern mental-healing cults.
Dr. Still of Kirksville, Missouri, made a valuable addition to natural methods of treatment by the invention of Osteopathy, a system of scientific manipulation of the bony structures, nerves and nerve centers, muscles and ligaments. A later development of manipulative science is Chiropractic, originated by Dr. Palmer of Davenport, Iowa. Thus the simple pioneers of German Nature Cure, every one of them gifted by Nature with the instinct and genius of the true healer, who is born, not made, laid the foundation for the worldwide modern healthculture movement.
They were not blinded or confused by the conflicting theories of books and authorities, or by the action of a thousand different drugs on a legion of different symptoms, but applied common-sense reasoning to the solution of the problems of health, disease and cure.
They went for inspiration to field and forest rather than to the murky atmosphere of the dissecting and vivisection rooms. They studied the whole and not only the parts, causes as well as effects and symptoms. Realizing that man had lost his natural instinct and strayed far from Nature’s ways, they studied and imitated the natural habits of the animal creation rather than the confusing doctrines of the schools.
Thus they proclaimed the “return to Nature” and the “new gospel of health,” which are destined to free humanity from the destructive influences of alcoholism, red meat overeating, the dope and tobacco habit, and of drug poisoning, vaccination, surgical mutilation, vivisection and a thousand other abuses practiced in the name of science.
When parents learn how to create children in accord with natural law, how to mold their bodies and their characters into harmony and beauty before the new life sees the light of day, when they learn to rear their offspring in health of body and purity of mind in harmony with the laws of their being, then we shall have true types of beautiful manhood and womanhood, then children will no longer be a curse and a burden to themselves and to those who bring them into the world or to society at large.
These thoughts are not the mere dreams of a visionary. When we see the wonderful changes wrought in a human being by a few months or years of rational living and treatment, it seems not impossible or improbable that these ideals may be realized within a few generations.
Children thus born and reared in harmony with the law will be the future masters of the earth. They will need neither gold nor influence to win in the race of life–their innate powers of body and soul will make them victors over every circumstance. The offspring of alcoholism, drug poisoning and sexual perversity will cut but sorry figures in comparison with the manhood and womanhood of a true and noble aristocracy of health.
Chapter II
Catechism of Nature Cure
The philosophy of Nature Cure is based on sciences dealing with newly discovered or rediscovered natural laws and principles, and with their application to the phenomena of life and death, health, disease and cure.
Every new science embodying new modes of thought requires exact modes of expression and new definitions of already well-known words and phrases.
Therefore, we have endeavored to define, as precisely as possible, certain words and phrases which convey meanings and ideas peculiar to the teachings of Nature Cure.
The student of Nature Cure and kindred subjects will do well to study these definitions and formulated principles closely, as they contain the pith and marrow of our philosophy and greatly facilitate its understanding.
(1) What Is Nature Cure?
Nature Cure is a system of building the entire being in harmony with the constructive principle in Nature on the physical, mental, moral and spiritual planes of being.
(2) What Is the Constructive Principle in Nature?
The constructive principle in Nature is that principle which builds up, improves and repairs, which always makes for the perfect type, whose activity in Nature is designated as evolutionary and constructive and which is opposed to the destructive principle in Nature
(3) What Is the Destructive Principle in Nature?
The destructive principle in Nature is that principle which disintegrates and destroys existing forms and types, and whose activity in Nature is designated as devolutionary and destructive.
(4) What Is Normal or Natural?
That is normal or natural which is in harmonic relation with the life purposes of the individual and the constructive principle in Nature.
(5) What Is Health?
Health is normal and harmonious vibration of the elements and forces composing the human entity on the physical, mental, moral and spiritual planes of being, in conformity with the constructive principle of Nature applied to individual life.
(6) What Is Disease?
Disease is abnormal or inharmonious vibration of the elements and forces composing the human entity on one or more planes of being, in conformity with the destructive principle of Nature applied to individual life.
(7) What Is the Primary Cause of Disease?
The primary cause of disease, barring accidental or surgical injury to the human organism and surroundings hostile to human life, is violation of Nature’s Laws.
(8) What Is the Effect of Violation of Nature’s Laws on the Physical Human Organism?
The effect of violation of Nature’s Laws on the physical human organism are:
Lowered vitality. Abnormal composition of blood and lymph. Accumulation of waste matter, morbid materials and poisons.
These conditions are identical with disease, because they tend to lower, hinder or inhibit normal function (harmonious vibration) and because they engender and promote destruction of living tissues.
(9) What Is Acute Disease?
What is commonly called acute disease is in reality the result of Nature’s efforts to eliminate from the organism waste matter, foreign matter and poisons, and to repair injury to living tissues. In other words, every so-called acute disease is the result of a cleansing and healing effort of Nature. The real disease is lowered vitality, abnormal composition of the vital fluids (blood and lymph) and the resulting accumulation of waste materials and poisons.
(10) What Is Chronic Disease?
Chronic disease is a condition of the organism in which lowered vibration (lowered vitality), due to the accumulation of waste matter and poisons, with the consequent destruction of vital parts and organs, has progressed to such an extent that Nature’s constructive and healing forces are no longer able to react against the disease conditions by acute corrective efforts (healing crises). Chronic disease is a condition of the organismin which the morbid encumbrances have gained the ascendancy and prevent acute reaction (healing crises) on the part of the constructive forces of Nature. Chronic disease is the inability of the organism to react by acute efforts or healing crises against constitutional disease conditions.
(11) What Is a Healing Crisis?
A healing crisis is an acute reaction, resulting from the ascendancy of Nature’s healing forces over disease conditions. Its tendency is toward recovery, and it is, therefore, in conformity with Nature’s constructive principle.
(12) Are All Acute Reactions Healing Crises?
No, there are healing crises and disease crises.
(13) What Is a Disease Crisis?
A disease crisis is an acute reaction resulting from the ascendancy of disease conditions over the healing forces of the organism. Its tendency is toward fatal termination, and it is, therefore, in conformity with Nature’s destructive principle
(14) What Is Cure?
Cure is the readjustment of the human organism from abnormal to normal conditions and functions.
(15) What Methods of Cure Are in Conformity with the Constructive Principle in Nature?
Those methods which:
Establish normal surroundings and natural habits of life in accord with Nature’s Laws. Economize vital force. Build up the blood on a natural basis, that is, supply the blood with its natural constituents in right proportions. Promote the elimination of waste matter and poisons without in any way injuring the human body. Arouse the individual in the highest possible degree to the consciousness of personal accountability and the necessity of intelligent personal effort and self-help.
(16) Are Medicines in Conformity with the Constructive Principle in Nature?
Medicines are in conformity with the constructive principle in Nature insofar as they, in themselves, are not injurious and destructive to the human organism and insofar as they act as tissue foods and promote the neutralization and elimination of morbid matter and poisons.
(17) Are Poisonous Drugs and Promiscuous Surgical Operations in Conformity with the Constructive Principle in Nature?
Poisonous drugs and promiscuous operations are not usually in conformity with the constructive principle in Nature, because:
They suppress acute diseases or reactions (crises), the cleaning and healing efforts of Nature. They are in themselves harmful and destructive to human life. Such treatment fosters the belief that drugs and surgical operations can be substituted for obedience to Nature’s Laws and for personal effort and self-help.
(18) Is Metaphysical Healing in Conformity with the Constructive Principle in Nature?
Metaphysical systems of healing are in conformity with the constructive principle in Nature insofar as:
They do not interfere with or suppress Nature’s healing efforts. They awaken hope and confidence (therapeutic faith) and increase the inflow of vital force into the organism.
They are not in conformity with the constructive principle in Nature in so far as:
They fail to assist Nature’s healing efforts. They ignore, obscure and deny the laws of Nature and defy the dictates of reason and common sense. They substitute, in the treatment of disease, a blind, dogmatic belief in the wonder-working power of metaphysical formulas and prayer for intelligent cooperation with Nature’s constructive forces for personal effort and self-help. They weaken the consciousness of personal responsibility.
(19) Is Nature Cure in Conformity with the Constructive Principle in Nature?
Nature Cure is in conformity with the constructive principle in Nature because:
It teaches that the primary cause of weakness and disease is disobedience to the laws of Nature. It arouses the individual to the study of natural laws and demonstrates the necessity of strict compliance with these laws. It strengthens the consciousness of personal responsibility of the individual for his own status of health and for the hereditary conditions, traits and tendencies of his off-spring. It encourages personal effort and self-help. It adapts surroundings and habits of life to natural laws. It assists Nature’s cleansing and healing efforts by simple natural means and methods of treatment which are in no wise harmful or destructive to health and life, and which are within the reach of everyone.
(20) What Are the Natural Methods of Living and of Treatment?
Return to Nature by the regulation of eating, drinking, breathing, bathing, dressing, working, resting, thinking, the moral life, sexual and social activities, etc., on a normal and natural basis. Elementary remedies, such as water, air, light, earth cures, magnetism, electricity, etc. Chemical remedies, such as scientific food selection and combination, specific nutritional augmentation with natural food concentrates, homeopathic medicines, simple herb extracts and the vitochemical remedies. Mechanical remedies, such as corrective gymnastics, massage, magnetic treatment, chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation and, when indicated, surgery. Mental and spiritual remedies, such as scientific relaxation, normal suggestion, constructive thought, the prayer of faith, etc.
Chapter III
What Is Life?
In our study of the cause and character of disease we must endeavor to begin at the beginning, and that is with LIFE itself, for the processes of health, disease and cure are manifestations of that which we call life, vitality, life elements, etc.
While endeavoring to fathom the mystery of life we soon realize, however, that we are dealing with an ultimate which no human mind is capable of solving or explaining. We can study and understand life only in its manifestations, not in its origin and real essence.
There are two prevalent, but widely differing, conceptions of the nature of life or vital force: the material and the vital.
The former looks upon life or vital force with all its physical, mental and psychical phenomena as manifestations of the electric, magnetic and chemical activities of the physical-material elements composing the human organism. From this viewpoint, life is a sort of spontaneous combustion, or, as one scientist expressed it, a succession of fermentations.
This materialistic conception of life, however, has already become obsolete among the more advanced biologists as a result of the wonderful discoveries of modern science, which are fast bridging the chasm between the material and the spiritual realms of being.
But medical science, as taught in the regular schools, is still dominated by the old, crude, mechanical conception of vital force and this, as we shall see, accounts for some of its gravest errors of theory and of practice.
The vital conception of life, on the other hand, regards it as the primary force of all forces, coming from the great central source of all power.
This force, which permeates, heats and animates the entire created universe, is the expression of the divine will, the “logos,” the “word” of the great creative intelligence. It is this divine energy which sets in motion the whirls in the ether, the electric corpuscles and ions that make up the different atoms and elements of matter.
These corpuscles and ions are positive and negative forms of electricity. Electricity is a form of energy. It is intelligent energy; otherwise it could not move with that same wonderful precision in the electrons of the atoms as in the suns and planets of the sidereal universe.
This intelligent energy can have but one source: the will and the intelligence of the Creator; as Swedenborg expresses it, “the great central sun of the universe.”
If this supreme intelligence should withdraw its energy, the electrical charges (forms of energy) and with it the atoms, elements, and the entire material universe would disappear in the flash of a moment.
From this it appears that crude matter, instead of being the source of life and of all its complicated mental and spiritual phenomena (which assumption, on the face of it, is absurd), is only an expression of the Life Force, itself a manifestation of the great creative intelligence which some call God, others Nature, the Oversoul, Brahma, Prana, etc., each one according to his best understanding.
It is this supreme power and intelligence, acting in and through every atom, molecule and cell in the human body, which is the true healer, the vis medicatrix nature, which always endeavors to repair, to heal and to restore the perfect type. All that the physician can do is to remove obstructions and to establish normal conditions within and around the patient, so that the healer within can do his work to the best advantage.
Here the Christian Scientist will say: “That is exactly what we claim. All is God, all is mind! There is no matter! Our attitude toward disease is based on these facts.”
Well, what of it, Brother Scientist? Suppose, in the final analysis, matter is nothing but vibration, an expression of Divine Mind and Will. That, for all practical purposes, does not justify me to deny and to ignore its reality. Because I have an “all-mind” body, is it advisable for me to place myself in the way of an “all-mind” locomotive moving at the rate of sixty miles an hour?
The question is not what matter is in the final analysis, but how matter affects us. We have to take it and treat it as we find it. We must be as obedient to the laws of matter as to those of the higher planes of being.
Life Is Vibratory
In the final analysis, all things in Nature, from a fleeti g thought or emotion to the hardest piece of diamond or platinum, are modes of motion or vibration. A few years ago physical science assumed that an atom was the smallest imaginable part of a given element of matter; that although infinitesimally small, it still represented solid matter. Now, in the light of better evidence, we have good reason to believe that there is no such thing as solid matter: that every atom is made up of charges of negative and positive electricity acting in and upon an omnipresent ether; that the difference between an atom of iron and of hydrogen or any other element consists solely in the number of electrical charges or corpuscles it contains, and on the velocity with which these vibrate around one another.
Thus the atom, which was thought to be the ultimate particle of solid matter, is found to be a little universe in itself in which corpuscles of electricity rotate or vibrate around one another like the suns and planets in the sidereal universe. This explains what we mean when we say life and matter are vibratory.
As early as 1863 John Newlands discovered that when he arranged the elements of matter in the order of their atomic weight, they displayed the same relationship to one another as do the tones in the musical scale. Thus modern chemistry demonstrates the verity of the music of the spheres–another visionary concept of ancient mysticism. The individual atoms in themselves, as well as all the atoms of matter in their relationship to one another, are constructed and arranged in exact correspondence with the laws of harmony. Therefore the entire sidereal universe is built on the laws of music.
That which is orderly, lawful, good, beautiful, natural, healthy, vibrates in unison with the harmonics of this great “Diapason of Nature”; in other words, it is in alignment with the constructive principle in Nature.
That which is disorderly, abnormal, ugly, unnatural, unhealthy, vibrates in discord with Nature’s harmonics. It is in alignment with the destructive principle in Nature.
What we call “Inanimate Nature” is beautiful and orderly because it plays in tune with the score of the Symphony of Life. Man alone can play out of tune. This is his privilege, if he so chooses, by virtue of his freedom of choice and action.
We can now better understand the definitions of health and of disease, given in Chapter Two, “Catechism of Nature Cure” as follows:
“Health is normal and harmonious vibration of the elements and forces composing the human entity on the physical, mental, moral and spiritual planes of being, in conformity with the constructive principle of Nature applied to individual life.”
“Disease is abnormal or inharmonious vibration of the elements and forces composing the human entity on one or more planes of being, in conformity with the destructive principle of Nature applied to individual life.”
The question naturally arising here is, “Normal or abnormal vibration with what?” The answer is that the vibratory conditions of the organism must be in harmony with Nature’s established harmonic relations in the physical, mental, moral, spiritual and psychical realms of human life and action.
What Is an Established Harmonic Relation?
Let us see whether we cannot make this clear by a simile. If a watch is in good condition, in harmonious vibration, its movement is so adjusted that it coincides exactly, in point of time, with the rotations of our earth around its axis. The established, regular movement of the earth forms the basis of the established harmonic relationship between the vibrations of a normal, healthy timepiece and the revolutions of our planet. The watch has to vibrate in unison with the harmonics of the planetary universe in order to be normal, or in harmony.
In like manner, everything that is normal, natural, healthy, good, beautiful must vibrate in unison with its correlated harmonics in Nature.
Obedience the Only Salvation
Orthodox medical science attributes disease largely to accidental causes: to chance infection by disease taints, germs or parasites; to drafts, chills, wet feet, etc.
The religiously inclined frequently attribute disease and other tribulations to the arbitrary rulings of an inscrutable Providence.
Christian Scientists tell us that sin, suffering, disease and all other kinds of evil are only errors of mortal mind, or the products of diseased imagination (though this in itself admits the existence of something abnormal or diseased).
Nature Cure philosophy presents a rational concept of evil, its cause and purpose, namely: that it is brought on by violation of Nature’s Laws; that it is corrective in its purpose; that it can be overcome only by compliance with the law. There is no suffering, disease or evil of any kind anywhere unless the law has been transgressed somewhere by someone.
These transgressions of the law may be due to ignorance, to indifference or to wilfulness and viciousness. The effects will always be commensurate with the causes.
The science of natural living and healing shows clearly that what we call disease is primarily Nature’s effort to eliminate morbid matter and to restore the normal functions of the body; that the processes of disease are just as orderly in their way as everything else in Nature; that we must not check or suppress them, but cooperate with them. Thus we learn, slowly and laboriously, the all-important lesson that “obedience to the law” is the only means of prevention of disease, and the only cure.
The Fundamental Law of Cure, the Law of Action and Reaction, and the Law of Crises, as revealed by the Nature Cure philosophy, impress upon us the truth that there is nothing accidental or arbitrary in the processes of health, disease and cure; that every changing condition is either in harmony or in discord with the laws of our being; that only by complete surrender and obedience to the law can we attain and maintain perfect physical health.
Self-Control, the Master’s Key
Thus Nature Cure brings home to us constantly and forcibly the inexorable facts of natural law and the necessity of compliance with the law. Herein lies its great educational value to the individual and to the race. The man who has learned to master his habits and his appetites so as to conform to Nature’s Laws on the physical plane, and who has thereby regained his bodily health, realizes that personal effort and self-control are the Master’s Key to all further development on the mental and spiritual planes of being as well; that self-mastery and unremitting and unselfish personal effort are the only means of self-completion, of individual and social salvation.
The naturist who has regained health and strength through obedience to the laws of his being, enjoys a measure of self-content, gladness of soul and enthusiasm which cannot be explained by the mere possession of physical health. These highest and purest attainments of the human soul are not the results of mere physical well-being, but of the peace and harmony which come only from obedience to the law. Such is the peace which passeth understanding.
Chapter IV
The Unity of Disease and Treatment
There exists a close resemblance between the mechanism and the functions of a watch and of the human body. Their well-being is subject to similar underlying laws and principles. Both a watch and a human body may function abnormally as a result of accidental injury or unfavorable external conditions, such as extreme heat or cold, etc. However, in our present study of the causes of disease we shall not consider accidental injury and hostile environment, but confine ourselves to causes arising within the organism itself.
The watch may cease to vibrate in accord with the harmonics of our planetary universe for several reasons. It may lose time or stand still because (1) the wound spring has spent its force, or (2) its parts are not made up of the right constituents, or (3) foreign matter clogs or corrodes its mechanism.
Similarly, there exist three primary causes of disease and of premature death of the physical body. These are:
Lowered vitality. Abnormal composition of blood and lymph. Accumulation of morbid matter and poisons.
In the ultimate, disease and everything else that we designate as evil are the result of transgressions of natural laws in thinking, breathing, eating, dressing, working, resting, as well as in moral, sexual and social conduct.
In Tables I and II, I have endeavored to present in concise and comprehensive form the primary and the secondary causes or manifestations of disease and the corresponding natural methods of treatment.
TABLE I
~THE UNITY OF DISEASE AND TREATMENT~
Barring trauma (injury), advancing age and surroundings uncongenial to human life, all causes of disease may be classified as given below.
Violations of Nature’s Laws in thinking, breathing, eating, drinking, dressing, working, resting and in moral, sexual and social conduct result in the following:
Primary and Secondary Causes of Disease
Primary Causes
Lowered vitality due to overwork, nightwork, excesses, overstimulation, poisonous drugs and ill-advised surgical operations. Abnormal composition of blood and lymph due to the improper selection and combination of food, and especially the lack of organic mineral salts and other essential nutritional elements. Accumulation of waste matter, morbid matter and poisons due to the first two causes, as well as to faulty diet, overeating, the use of alcoholic and narcotic stimulants, drugs [both street and prescription], vaccines, accidental poisoning and, last but not least, to the suppression of acute diseases (Nature’s cleansing and healing efforts) by poisonous drugs and surgical operations.
Secondary Causes
Hereditary and constitutional taints of sycosis, scrofula, psora, syphilis; mercurianism, cinchonism, iodism and many other forms of chronic poisoning. Fevers, inflammations, skin eruptions, chronic sinus discharges, ulcers, abscesses, germs, bacteria, parasites, etc. Mechanical subluxations, distortions and displacements of bony structures, muscles and ligaments; weakening and loss of reason, will, and self-control resulting in negative, sensitive and subjective conditions which open the way to nervous prostration, control by other personalities (hypnotic influence, obsession, possession); the different forms of insanity, epilepsy, petit mal, etc.
Table II
~THE UNITY OF DISEASE AND TREATMENT~
In correspondence with the three primary causes of disease, Nature Cure recognizes the following:
Natural Methods of Treatment
1. Return to Nature, or the establishment of normal habits and surroundings, which necessitates:
Extension of consciousness by popular general and individual education. The constant exercise of reason, will and self-control. A return to natural habits of life in thinking, breathing, eating, dressing, working, resting and in moral, sexual and social conduct. Correction of mechanical defects and injuries by means of massage, chiropractic or osteopathy, surgery and other mechanical methods of treatment.
2. Economy of Vital Force, which necessitates:
Prevention of waste of vital force by the stoppage of all leaks. Scientific relaxation, proper rest and sleep. Proper food selection, magnetic treatment, etc. The right mental attitude.
3. Elimination, which necessitates:
Scientific selection and combination of food and drink. Judicious fasting. Hydrotherapy (water cure). Light and air baths, friction. Chiropratic or osteopathy, massage, and other manipulative treatment. Correct breathing, curative gymnastics. Such medicinal remedies as will build up the blood on a normal basis and supply the system with the all-important mineral salts in organic form.
In the following chapters I shall endeavor to show that all the different forms, phases and phenomena of disease arising within the human organism, provided they are not caused by accident or external conditions unfavorable to the existence of human life, can be attributed to one or more of three primary causes (as outlined in Tables I and II). When we succeed in proving that all disease originates from a few simple causes, it will not seem so strange and improbable that all disease can be cured by a few simple, natural methods of living and of treatment. If Nature Cure can accomplish this, it establishes its right to be classed with the exact sciences.
The Three Primary Causes of Disease
We shall now consider the three primary causes of disease one by one.
Lowered Vitality
There is a well-defined limit to the running of a watch. When the wound spring has spent its force, the mechanism stops.
So also the living forms of vegetable, animal and human life seem to be wound by Nature to run a certain length of time, in accordance with the laws governing their growth and development. Even the healthiest of animals living in the most congenial surroundings in the freedom of Nature do not much exceed their allotted span of life, nor do they fall much below it. As a rule, the longer the period between birth and maturity, the longer the life of the animal.
All the different families of mammalia, when living in freedom, live closely up to the life period allotted to them by Nature. Man is the only exception. It is claimed that according to the laws of longevity his average length of life should be considerably over one hundred years, while according to life insurance statistics, the average is at present [1913] thirty-seven years. This shows an immense discrepancy between the possible and the actual longevity of man.
Even this brief span of life means little else than weakness, physical and mental suffering and degeneracy for the majority of mankind. Visiting physicians of the public schools in our large cities report that seventy-five percent of all school children show defective health in some way. Diagnosis from the Eye proves that the remaining twenty-five percent are also more or less affected by hereditary and acquired disease conditions. Christian Science says, “There is no disease.” Nature’s records in the iris of the eye say there is no perfect health.
These established facts of greatly impaired longevity and universal abnormality of the human race would of themselves indicate that there is something radically wrong somewhere in the life habits of man, and that there is ample reason for the great health-reform movement which was started about the middle of the last century by the pioneers of Nature Cure in Germany, and which has since swept, under many different forms and guises, all portions of the civilized world.
When people in general grow better acquainted with the laws underlying prenatal and postnatal child culture, natural living and the natural treatment of diseases, human beings will approach much more closely the normal in health, strength, beauty and longevity. Then will arise a true aristocracy, not of morbid, venous blue blood, but pulsating with the rich red blood of health.
However, to reach this ideal of perfect physical, mental and moral health, succeeding generations will have to adhere to the natural ways of living and of treating their ailments. It cannot be attained by the present generation. The enthusiasts who claim that they can, by their particular methods, achieve perfect health and live the full term of human life, are destined to disappointment. We are so handicapped by the mistakes of the past that the best which most of us adults can do is to patch up, to attain a reasonable measure of health and to approach somewhat nearer Nature’s full allotment of life.
Wild animals living in freedom retain their full vigor unimpaired almost to the end of life. Hunters report that among the great herds of buffalo, elk and deer, the oldest bucks are the rulers and maintain their sovereignty over the younger males of the herd solely by reason of their superior strength and prowess. Premature old age, among human beings, as indicated by the early decay of physical and mental powers, is brought on solely by their violation of Nature’s Laws in almost all the ordinary habits of life.
Health Positive–Disease Negative
The freer the inflow of life force into the organism, the greater the vitality, the more there is of strength, of positive resisting and recuperating power.
In the book~ Harmonics of Evolution~ we are told that at the very foundation of the manifestation of life lies the principle of polarity, which expresses itself in the duality and unity of positive and negative affinity. The swaying to and fro of the positive and the negative, the desire to balance incomplete polarity, constitutes the very ebb and flow of life.
Disease is disturbed polarity. Exaggerated positive or negative conditions, whether physical, mental, moral or spiritual, tend to disease on the respective planes of being. Foods, medicines, suggestion and all the other different methods of therapeutic treatment exert on the individual subjected to them either a positive or a negative influence. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance that the physician and every one who wishes to live and work in harmony with Nature’s Laws should understand this all-important question of magnetic polarity.
Lowered vitality means lowered, slower and coarser vibration, and this results in lowered resistance to the accumulation of morbid matter, poisons, disease taints, germs and parasites. This is what we designate ordinarily as the negative condition.
Let us see whether we can explain this more fully by a homely but practical illustration: A great many of my readers have probably seen in operation in the summer amusement parks the “human roulette.” This contrivance consists of a large wheel, board-covered, somewhat raised in the center, and sloping towards the circumference. The wheel rotates horizontally, evenly with the floor or ground. The merrymakers pay their nickels for the privilege of throwing themselves flat down on the wheel and attempting to cling to it while it rotates with increasing swiftness. While the wheel moves slowly, it is easy enough to cling to it; but the faster it revolves, the more strongly the centrifugal force tends to throw off the human flies who try to stick to it.
The increasing repelling power of the accelerated motion of the wheel may serve as an illustration of that which we call vigorous vibration, good vitality, natural immunity or recuperative power. This is the positive condition.
The more intense the action of the life force, the more rapid and vigorous are the vibratory activities of the atoms and molecules in the cells, and of the cells in the organs and tissues of the body. The more rapid and vigorous this vibratory activity, the more powerful is the repulsion and expulsion of morbid matter, poisons and germs of disease which try to encumber or destroy the organism.
Health and Disease Resident in the Cell
We must not forget that health or disease, in the final analysis, is resident in the cell. Though a minute, microscopic organism, the cell is an independent living being, which is born, grows, eats, drinks, throws off waste matter, multiplies, ages and dies, just like man, the large cell. If the individual cell is well, man, the complex cell, is well also, and vice versa. From this it is apparent that in all our considerations of the processes of health, disease and cure, we have to deal primarily with the individual cell.
The vibratory activity of the cell may be lowered through the decline of vitality brought about in a natural way by advancing age, or in an artificial way through wrong habits of living, wrong thinking and feeling, overwork, unnatural stimulation and excesses of various kinds.
On the other hand, the inflow of vital force into the cells may be obstructed and their vibratory activity lowered by the accumulation of waste and morbid matter in the tissues, blood vessels and nerve channels of the body. Such clogging will interfere with the inflow of life force and with the free and harmonious vibration of the cells and organs of the body as surely as dust in a watch will interfere with the normal action and vibration of its wheels and balances.
From this it is evident that negative conditions may be brought about not only by hyperrefinement of the physical organism, but also by clogging it with waste and morbid matter which interfere with the inflow and distribution of the vital force. It also becomes apparent that in such cases the Nature Cure methods of eliminative treatment, such as pure food diet, hydrotherapy, massage, chiropractic, osteopathy, etc., are valuable means of removing these obstructions and promoting the inflow and free circulation of the positive electric and magnetic life currents
Abnormal Composition of Blood and Lymph
As one of the primary causes of disease, we cited abnormal composition of blood and lymph. The human organism is made up of a certain number of elements in well-defined proportions. Chem-istry has discovered, so far, about seventeen of these elements in appreciable quantities and has ascertained their functions in the economy of the body. These seventeen elements must be present in the right proportions in order to insure normal texture, structure and functioning of the component parts and organs of the body.
The cells and organs receive their nourishment from the blood and lymph currents. Therefore, these must contain all the elements needed by the organism in the right proportions, and this, of course, depends upon the character and the combination of the food supply.
Every disease arising in the human organism from internal causes is accompanied by a deficiency in blood and tissues of certain important mineral elements [organic salts]. Undoubtedly, the majority of these diseases are caused by an unbalanced diet, or by food and drink poisoning. Wrong food combinations, on the one hand, create an overabundance of waste and morbid matter in the system and, on the other hand, fail to supply the positive mineral elements or organic salts on which depends the elimination of waste and systemic poisons from the body.
The great problem of natural dietetics and of natural medical treatment is, therefore, how to restore and maintain the positivity of the blood and of the organism as a whole through providing in food, drink and medicine an abundant supply of the positive mineral salts in organic form.
Accumulation of Morbid Matter and Poisons
This is the third of the primary causes of disease. We have learned how lowered vitality and the abnormal composition of thevital fluids favor the retention of systemic poisons in the body. If, in addition to this, food and drink contain too much of the waste-producing carbohydrates, hydrocarbons and proteins, and not enough of the eliminating positive mineral salts then waste and morbid materials are bound to accumulate in the system and this results in the clogging of the tissues with acid precipitates and earthy deposits.
Such accumulation of waste and morbid matter in blood and tissues creates the great majority of all diseases arising within the human organism. This will be explained fully in the following chapters which deal with the causation of acute and chronic disease.
More harmful and dangerous, and more difficult to eliminate than the different kinds of systemic poisons, that is, those which have originated within the body, are the drug poisons, especially when they are administered in the inorganic mineral form. Health is dependent upon an abundant supply of life force, upon the unobstructed, normal circulation of the vital fluids and upon perfect oxygenation and combustion. Anything that interferes with these essentials causes disease; anything that promotes them establishes health. Nothing so interferes with the inflow of the life force, with free and normal circulation of blood and lymph and with the oxygenation and combustion of food materials and systemic waste as the accumulation of morbid matter and poisons in the tissues of the body.
This I have endeavored to explain more fully in connection with lowered vitality. Let us now see how disease and health are affected by mental and emotional conditions.
Mental and Emotional Influences
Our mental and emotional conditions exert a most powerful influence upon the inflow and distribution of vital force. The author of The Great Work [~The Great Work: The Constructive Principle of Nature in Individual Life, ~by John Emmett Richardson {1853-1935}, Indio-American Book Company, Chicago, IL. 1907.] has described most graphically in the chapter on Self-Control how fear, worry, anxiety and all kindred emotions create in the system conditions similar to those of freezing; how these destructive vibrations congeal the tissues, clog the channels of life and paralyze the vital functions. He shows how the emotional conditions of impatience, irritability, anger, etc., have a heating, corroding effect upon the tissues of the body.
In like manner, all other destructive emotional vibrations ob-struct the inflow and normal distribution of the life forces in and through the organism, while on the other hand the constructive emotions of faith, hope, cheerfulness, happiness and love exert a relaxing, harmonizing influence upon the tissues, blood vessels and nerve channels of the body, thus opening wide the floodgates of the life forces, and raising the discords of weakness, disease and discontent to the harmonics of buoyant health and happiness.
Let us see just how mind controls matter and how it affects the changing conditions of the physical body. Life manifests through vibration. It acts on the mass by acting through its minutest par-ticles. Changes in the physical body are wrought by vibratory changes in atoms, molecules and cells. Health is satisfied polarity, that is, the balancing of the positive and negative elements in harmonious vibration. Anything that interferes with the free, vigor-ous and harmonious vibration of the minute parts and particles composing the human organism tends to disturb polarity and natural affinity, thus causing discord or disease.
When we fully realize these facts we shall not stand so much in awe of our physical bodies. In the past we have been thinking of the body as a solid and imponderable mass difficult to control and to change. This conception left us in a condition of utter helplessness and hopelessness in the presence of weakness and disease.
We now think of the body as composed of minute corpuscles rotating around one another within the atom at relatively immense distances. We know that in similar manner the atoms vibrate in the molecule, the molecules in the cell, the cells in the organ and the organs in the body; the whole capable of being changed by a change in the vibrations of its particles.
Thus the erstwhile solid physical mass appears plastic and fluidic, readily swayed and changed by the vibratory harmonies or discords of thoughts and emotions as well as by foods, medicines and therapeutic treatment.
Under the old conception the mind fell readily under the control of the body and became the abject slave of its physical conditions, swayed by fear and apprehension under every sensation of physical weakness, discomfort or pain. The servants lorded it with a high hand over the master of the house, and the result was chaos. Under the new conception, control is placed where it belongs. It is assumed by the real master of the house, the Soul-Man, and the servants, the physical members of the body, remain obedient to his bidding.
This is the new man, the ideal progeny of a new and higher philosophy. Understanding the structure of the body, the laws of its being and the operation of the life elements within it, the superman retains perfect poise and confidence under the most trying circumstances. Animated by an abounding faith in the supremacy of the healing forces within him and sustained by the power of his sovereign will, he governs his body as perfectly as the artist controls his violin and attunes its vibrations to Nature’s harmonies of health and happiness.
Chapter V
The Unity of Acute Diseases
In the last chapter I endeavored to explain the three primary causes of disease, namely: (1) Lowered Vitality, (2) Abnormal Composition of Blood and Lymph, (3) Accumulation of Waste, Morbid Matter, and Poisons in the System.
We shall now consider some of the secondary manifestations resulting from these primary causes. Consulting the table on page 18 (Chapter 2, internet version), we find mentioned as the first one of the secondary causes or manifestations of disease, “Hereditary and Constitutional Taints.”
On first impression, it might be thought that heredity is a primary cause of disease; but on further consideration it becomes apparent that it is an effect and not a primary cause. If the parents possess good vitality and pure, normal blood and tissues, and if they apply in the prenatal and postnatal treatment of the child the necessary insight and foresight, there cannot be disease heredity. In order to create abnormal hereditary tendencies, the parents, or earlier ancestors, must have ignorantly or wantonly violated Nature’s Laws, such violation resulting in lowered vitality and in deterioration of blood and tissues.
The female and male germinal cells unite and form the primitive reproductive cell–the prototype of marriage. The human body with its millions of cells and cell colonies is developed by the multiplication, with gradual differentiation, of the reproductive cell. Its abnormalities of structure, of cell materials and of functional tendencies are reproduced just as surely as its normal constituents. Herein lies the simple explanation of heredity which is proved to be an actual fact, not only by common experience and scientific observation but also in a more definite way by Nature’s records in the iris of the eye.
The iris of the newborn child reveals in its diagnostic details not only, in a general way, hereditary taints, lowered resistance, and deterioration of vital fluids, but frequently special weakness and deterioration in those organs which were weak or diseased in the parents. Under the conventional (unnatural) management of the infant, these hereditary tendencies to weakness and disease and their corresponding signs in the iris become more and more pronounced, proceeding through the various stages of incumbrance from acute, infantile diseases through chronic catarrhal conditions to the final destructive stages.
In the face of the well-established facts of disease heredity we have, however, this consolation: If the child be treated in accordance with the teachings of Nature Cure philosophy, the abnormal hereditary encumbrances and tendencies can be overcome and eliminated within a few years. If we place the infant organism under the right conditions of living and of treatment, in harmony with the laws of its being, the Life Principle within will approach ever nearer to the establishment of the perfect type. Hundreds of “Nature Cure” babies all over this country are living proofs of this gladsome message to all those who have assumed or intend to assume the responsibilities of parenthood.
Natural Immunity
Under Division II of “Secondary Causes or Manifestations of Disease” we find mentioned germs, bacteria, parasites, inflammations, fevers, skin eruptions, chronic sinus discharges, ulcers, etc.
Modern medical science is built up upon the germ theory of disease and treatment. Since the microscope has revealed the presence and seemingly entirely pernicious activity of certain microorganisms in connection with certain diseases, it has been assumed that bacteria are the direct, primary causes of most diseases. Therefore, the slogan now is: “Kill the bacteria (by poisonous antiseptics, serums and antitoxins) and you will cure the disease.”
The Nature Cure philosophy takes a different view of the problem. Germs cannot be the cause of disease, because disease germs are also found in healthy bodies. The real cause must be something else. We claim that it is the waste and morbid matter in the system which afford the microorganisms of disease the opportunity to breed and multiply.
We regard microorganisms as secondary manifestations of disease, and maintain that bacteria and parasites live, thrive and multiply to the danger point in a weakened and diseased organism only. If it were not so, the human family would be extinct within a few months’ time.
The fear instilled by the bacterial theory of disease is frequently more destructive than the microorganisms themselves. We have had under observation and treatment a number of insane patients whose peculiar delusion or monomania was an exaggerated fear of germs, a genuine bacteriophobia.
Keep yourself clean and vigorous from within, and you cannot be affected by disease taints and germs from without.
Bacteria are practically omnipresent. We absorb them in food and drink, we inhale them in the air we breathe. Our bodies are literally alive with them. The last stages of the digestive processes depend upon the activity of millions of bacteria in the intestinal tract.
The proper thing to do, therefore, is not to try and kill the germs, but to remove the morbid matter and disease taints in which they live.
Instead of concentrating its energies upon killing the germs, whose presence we cannot escape, Nature Cure endeavors to in-vigorate the system, to build up blood and lymph on a normal basis and to purify the tissues of their morbid encumbrances in such a way as to establish natural immunity to destructive germ activity. Everything that tends to accomplish this without injuring the system by poisonous drugs or surgical operations is good Nature Cure treatment.
To adopt the germ-killing process without purifying and invigorating the organism would be like trying to keep a house free from fungi and vermin by sprinkling it daily with carbolic acid and other germ killers, instead of keeping it pure and sweet by flooding it with fresh air and sunshine and applying freely and vigorously broom, brush and plenty of soap and water. Instead of purifying it, the antiseptics and germ killers would only add to the filth in the house.
All bacteriologists are unanimous in declaring that the various disease germs are found not only in the bodies of the sick, but also in seemingly healthy persons.
A celebrated French bacteriologist reports that in the mouth of a healthy infant, two months old, he found almost all the disease germs known to medical science. Only lately, a celebrated physician, appointed by the French government to investigate the causes of tuberculosis, declared before a meeting of the International Tuberculosis Congress in Rome that he found the bacilli of tuberculosis in ninety-five percent of all the school children he had examined.
Dr. Osler, one of the greatest living medical authorities, mentions repeatedly in his works that the bacilli of diphtheria, pneumonia and of many other virulent diseases are found in the bodies of healthy persons.
The inability of bacteria, by themselves, to create diseases is further confirmed by the well-known facts of natural immunity to specific infection or contagion. All mankind is more or less affected by hereditary and acquired disease taints, morbid encumbrances and drug poisoning, resulting from age-long violation of Nature’s Laws and from the suppression of acute diseases; but even under the almost universal present conditions of lowered vitality, morbid heredity and physical and mental degeneration it is found that under identical conditions of exposure to drafts or infection, a certain percentage of individuals only will take the cold or catch the disease. The fact of natural immunity is constantly confirmed by common experience as well as in the clinics and laboratories of our medical schools and research institutes. Of a specific number of mice or rabbits inoculated with particles of cancer, only a small percentage develops the malignant growth and succumbs to its ravages.
The development of infectious and contagious diseases necessitates a certain predisposition, or, as medical science calls it, “disease diathesis.” This predisposition to infection and contagion consists in the primary causes of disease, which we have designated as lowered vitality, abnormal composition of blood and lymph, and the accumulation of waste, morbid matter and poisons in the system.
Bacteria: Secondary, Not Primary,
Manifestations of Disease
In a previous chapter we learned how lowered vitality weakens the resistance of the system to the attacks and inroads of disease germs and poisons. The growth and multiplication of microorganisms depend furthermore upon a congenial, morbid soil. Just as the ordinary yeast germ multiplies in a sugar solution only, so the various microorganisms of disease thrive and multiply to the danger point only in their own peculiar and congenial kind of morbid matter. Thus, the typhoid fever bacillus thrives in a certain kind of effete matter which accumulates in the intestines; the pneumonia bacilli flourish best in the catarrhal secretions of the lungs, and meningitis bacilli in the diseased meninges of the brain and spinal cord.
Dr. Pettenkofer, a celebrated physician and professor of the University of Vienna, also arrived at the conclusion that bacteria, by themselves, cannot create disease, and for years he defended his opinion from the lecture platform and in his writings against the practically solid phalanx of the medical profession. One day he backed his theory by a practical test. While instructing his class in the bacteriological laboratory of the university, he picked up a glass which contained millions of live cholera germs and swallowed its contents before the eyes of the students. The seemingly dangerous experiment was followed only by a slight nausea. Lately I have heard repeatedly of persons in this country who subjected themselves in similar manner to infection, inoculation and contagion with the most virulent kinds of bacteria and disease taints without developing the corresponding diseases.
A few years ago Dr. Rodermund, a physician in the State of Wisconsin, created a sensation all over this country when he smeared his body with the exudate of smallpox sores in order to demonstrate to his medical colleagues that a healthy body could not be infected with the disease. He was arrested and quarantined in jail, but not before he had come in contact with many people. Neither he nor anyone else exposed by him developed smallpox.
During the ten years that I have been connected with sanitarium work, my workers and myself, in giving the various forms of manipulative treatment, have handled intimately thousands of cases of infectious and contagious diseases, and I do not remember a single instance where any one of us was in the least affected by such contact. Ordinary cleanliness, good vitality, clean blood and tissues, the organs of elimination in good, active condition and, last but not least, a positive, fearless attitude of mind will practically establish natural immunity to the inroads and ravages of bacteria and disease taints. If infection takes place, the organism reacts to it through inflammatory processes, and by means of these endeavors to overcome and eliminate microorganisms and poisons from the system.
In this connection it is of interest to learn that the danger to life from bites and stings of poisonous reptiles and insects has been greatly exaggerated. According to popular opinion, anyone bitten by a rattlesnake, gila monster or tarantula is doomed to die, while as a matter of fact the statistics show that only from two to seven per-cent succumb to the effects of the wounds inflicted by the bites of poisonous reptiles.
In this, as in many other instances, popular opinion should rather be called “popular superstition.”
In the open discussions following my public lectures, I am often asked: “What is the right thing to do in case of snakebite? Would you not give plenty of whiskey to save the victim’s life?”
It is my belief that of the seven percent who die after being bitten by rattlesnakes or other poisonous snakes, a goodly proportion give up the ghost because of the effects of the enormous doses of strong whiskey that are poured into them under the mistaken idea that the whiskey is an efficient antidote to the snake poison.
People do not know that the death rate from snakebite is so very low, and therefore they attribute the recoveries to the whiskey, just as recoveries from other diseases under medical or metaphysical treatment are attributed to the virtues of the particular medicine or method of treatment instead of to the real healer, the~ vis medicatrix nature,~ the healing power of Nature, which in ninety-three cases in a hundred eliminates the rattlesnake venom without injury to the organism.
To recapitulate: Just as yeast cells are not only the cause but also the product of sugar fermentation, so disease germs are not only a cause (secondary) but also a product of morbid fermentation in the system. Furthermore, just as yeast germs live on and decompose sugar, so disease germs live on and decompose morbid matter and systemic poisons.
In a way, therefore, microorganisms are just as much the product as the cause of disease and act as scavengers or eliminators of morbid matter. In order to hold in check the destructive activity of bacteria and to prevent their multiplication beyond the danger point, Nature resorts to inflammation and manufactures her own antitoxins.
On the other hand, whatever tends to build up the blood on a natural basis, to promote elimination of morbid matter and thereby to limit the activity of destructive microorganisms without injuring the body or depressing its vital functions, is good Nature Cure practice. The first consideration, therefore, in the treatment of inflammation must be to not interfere with its natural course.
By the various statements and claims made in this chapter, I do not wish to convey the idea that I am opposed to scrupulous cleanliness or surgical asepsis. Far from it! These are dictates of common sense. But I do affirm that the danger from germ and other infectious diseases lies just as much or more so in internal filth as in external uncleanliness. Cleanliness and asepsis must go hand in hand with the purification of the inner man in order to insure natural immunity.
Chapter VI
The Laws of Cure
This brings us to the consideration of acute inflammatory and feverish diseases. From what has been said, it follows that inflammation and fever are not primary, but secondary, manifestations of disease. There cannot arise any form of inflammatory disease in the system unless there is present some enemy to health which Nature is endeavoring to overcome and get rid of. On this fact in Nature is based what I claim to be the fundamental Law of Cure.
“Give me fever and I can cure every disease.” Thus Hippocrates the Father of Medicine, expressed the fundamental Law of Cure over two thousand years ago. I have expressed this law in the following sentence: “Every acute disease is the result of a cleansing and healing effort of Nature.”
This law, when thoroughly understood and applied to the treatment of diseases, will in time do for medical science what the discovery of other natural laws has done for physics, astronomy, chemistry and other exact sciences. It will transform the medical empiricism and confusion of the past and present into an exact science by demonstrating the unity of disease and treatment.
Applying the law in a general way, it means that all acute diseases, from a simple cold to measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox, pneumonia, etc., represent Nature’s efforts to repair injury or to remove from the system some kind of morbid matter, virus, poison or microorganism dangerous to health and life. In other words, acute diseases cannot develop in a perfectly normal, healthy body living under conditions favorable to human life. The question may be asked: “If acute diseases represent Nature’s healing efforts, why is it that people die from them?” The answer to this is: the vitality may be too low, the injury or morbid encumbrance too great or the treatment may be inadequate or harmful, so that Nature loses the fight; still, the acute disease represents an effort of Nature to overcome the enemies to health and life and to reestablish normal, healthy conditions.
It is a curious fact that this fundamental principle of Nature Cure and Law of Nature has been acknowledged and verified by medical science. The most advanced works on pathology admit the constructive and beneficial character of inflammation. However, when it comes to the treatment of acute diseases, physicians seem to forget entirely this basic principle of pathology, and treat inflammation and fever as though they were, in themselves, inimical and destructive to health and life.
From this inconsistency in theory and practice arise all the errors of allopathic medical treatment. Failure to understand this fundamental Law of Cure accounts for all the confusion on the part of the exponents of the different schools of healing sciences, and for the greater part of human suffering.
The Nature Cure philosophy never loses sight of the fundamental Law of Cure. While allopathy regards acute disease conditions as in themselves harmful and hostile to health and life, as something to be cured (we should say suppressed) by drug or knife, the Nature Cure school regards these forcible housecleanings as beneficial and necessary, so long, at least, as people will continue to disregard Nature’s Laws. While, through its simple, natural methods of treatment, Nature Cure easily modifies the course of inflammatory and feverish processes and keeps them within safe limits, it never checks or suppresses these acute reactions by poisonous drugs, serums, antiseptics, surgical operations, suggestion or any other suppressive treatment.
Skin eruptions, boils, ulcers, catarrhs, diarrheas, and all other forms of inflammatory febrile disease conditions are indications that there is something hostile to life and health in the organism which Nature is trying to remove or overcome by these so-called “acute” diseases. What, then, can be gained by suppressing them with poisonous drugs and surgical operations? Such practice does not allow Nature to carry on her work of cleansing and repair and to attain her ends. The morbid matter which she endeavored to eliminate by acute reactions is thrown back into the system. Worse than that, drug poisons are added to disease poisons. Is it any wonder that fatal complications arise, or that the acute condition is changed to chronic disease?
Why Does the Greater Part of Allopathic Materia
Medica Consist of Virulent Poisons?
The statements made in the preceding pages are a severe indictment of regular medical science, but they point out the difference in the basic principles of the “Old School” of healing and those of the Nature Cure philosophy.
The fundamental Law of Cure quoted in this chapter explains why allopathic medical science is in error, not in a few things only, but in most things. The foundation, the orthodox conception of disease being wrong, it follows that everything which is built thereon must be wrong also.
No matter how learned a man may be, if he begins a problem in arithmetic with the proposition 2×2=5, he never will arrive at a correct solution if he continue to figure into all eternity. Neither can allopathy solve the problem of disease and cure as long as its fundamental conception of disease is based on error.
The fundamental law of cure explains also why the great majority of allopathic prescriptions contain virulent poisons in some form or another and why surgical operations are in high favor with the disciples of the regular school.
The answer of allopathy to the question, “Why do you give poisons?” usually is, “Our materia medica contains poisons because drug poison kills and eliminates disease poison.” We, however, claim that drug poisons merely serve to paralyze vital force, whereby the deceptive results of allopathic treatment are obtained.
The following will explain this more fully. We have learned that so-called acute diseases are Nature’s cleansing and healing efforts. All acute reactions represent increased activity of vital force, resulting in feverish and inflammatory conditions, accompanied by pain, redness, swelling, high temperature, rapid pulse, catarrhal discharges, skin eruptions, boils, ulcers, etc.
Allopathy regards these violent activities of vital force as detrimental and harmful in themselves. Anything which will inhibit the action of vital force will, in allopathic parlance, cure (?) acute diseases. As a matter of fact, nothing more effectively paralyzes vital force and impairs the vital organs than poisonous drugs and the surgeon’s knife. These, therefore, must necessarily constitute the favorite means of cure (?) of the regular school of medicine.
This school mistakes effect for cause. It fails to see that the local inflammation arising within the organism is not the disease, but merely marks the locality and the method through which Nature is trying her best to discharge the morbid encumbrances; that the acute reaction is local, but that its causes or feeders are always constitutional and must be treated constitutionally. When, under the influence of rational, natural treatment, the poisonous irritants are eliminated from blood and tissues, the local symptoms take care of themselves; it does not matter whether they manifest as pimple or cancer, as a simple cold or as consumption.
The Law of Dual Effect
Everywhere in Nature rules the great Law of Action and Reaction. All life sways back and forth between giving and receiving, between action and reaction. The very breath of life mysteriously comes and goes in rhythmical flow. So also heaves and falls in ebb and tide the bosom of Mother Earth.
In some of its aspects, this law is called the Law of Compensation, or the Law of Dual Effect. On its action depends the preservation of energy.
The Great Master expressed the ethical application of this law when he said:
“Give, and it shall be given unto you. . . . For with the same measure that ye mete it shall be measured to you again.”–Luke 6:38.
In the realms of physical nature, giving and receiving, action and reaction balance each other mechanically and automatically. What we gain in power we lose in speed or volume, and vice versa. This makes it possible for the mechanic, the scientist and the astronomer to predict with mathematical precision for ages in advance the results of certain activities in Nature.
The great Law of Dual Effect forms the foundation of the healing sciences. It is related to and governs every phenomenon of health, disease and cure. When I formulated the fundamental Law of Cure in the words, “Every acute disease is the result of a healing effort of Nature,” this was but another expression of the great Law of Action and Reaction. What we commonly call crisis, acute reaction or acute disease is in reality Nature’s attempt to establish health.
Applied to the physical activity of the body, the Law of Com-pensation may be expressed as follows: “Every agent affecting the human organism produces two effects: a first, apparent, temporary effect, and a second, lasting effect. The secondary, lasting effect is always contrary to the primary, transient effect.”
For instance: The first and temporary effect of cold water applied to the skin consists in sending the blood to the interior; but in order to compensate for the local depletion, Nature responds by sending greater quantities of blood back to the surface, resulting in increased warmth and better surface circulation.
The first effect of a hot bath is to draw the blood to the surface; but the secondary effect sends the blood back to the interior, leaving the surface bloodless and chilled.
Stimulants, as we shall see later on, produce their deceptive effects by burning up the reserve stores of vital energy in the organism. This is inevitably followed by weakness and exhaustion in exact proportion to the previous excitation.
The primary effect of relaxation and sleep is weakness, numbness and death-like stupor; the secondary effect, however, is an increase of vitality.
The Law of Dual Effect governs all drug action. The first, temporary, violent effect of poisonous drugs, when given in physiological doses, is usually due to Nature’s efforts to overcome and eliminate these substances. The secondary, lasting effect is due to the retention of the drug poisons in the system and their action on the organism.
In theory and practice, allopathy considers the first effect only and ignores the lasting aftereffects of drugs and surgical operations. It administers remedies whose first effect is contrary to the disease condition. Therefore, in accordance with the Law of Action and Reaction, the secondary, lasting effect of such remedies must be similar to or like the disease condition.
Common, everyday experience should teach us that this is so, for laxatives and cathartics always tend to produce chronic constipation.
The secondary effect of stimulants and tonics of any kind is increased weakness, and their continued use often results in complete exhaustion and paralysis of mental and physical powers.
Headache powders, pain killers, opiates, sedatives and hypnotics may paralyze brain and nerves into temporary insensibility; but, if due to constitutional causes, the pain, nervousness and insomnia will always return with redoubled force. If taken habitually, these agents invariably tend to create heart disease and paralysis, and ultimately develop the patient into a dope fiend.
Cold and catarrh cures (?), such as quinine, coal-tar products, etc., suppress Nature’s efforts to eliminate waste and morbid matter through the mucous linings of the respiratory tract, and drive the disease matter back into the lungs, thus breeding pneumonia, chronic catarrhs, asthma and consumption.
Mercury, iodine and all other alteratives, by suppression of external elimination, create internal chronic diseases of the most dreadful types, such as locomotor ataxy, paresis, etc.
So the recital might be continued all through orthodox materia medica. Each drug breeds new disease symptoms which are in their turn cured (?) by other poisons, until the insane asylum or merciful death rings down the curtain on the tragedy of a ruined life.
The teaching and practice of homeopathy, as explained in Chapter Twenty-Six, is fully in harmony with the Law of Action and Reaction. Acting upon the basic principle of homeopathy: ~Similia similibus curantur,~ or like cures like, it administers remedies whose first, temporary effect is similar to the disease conditions. In accordance with the Law of Dual Effect, then, the secondary effect of these remedies must be contrary to the disease conditions, that is, curative.
Chapter VII
Suppression Versus Elimination
My claim that the conventional treatment of acute diseases is suppressive and not curative will probably be denied by my medical colleagues. They will maintain that their methods also are calculated to eliminate morbid matter and disease germs from the system.
But what are the facts in actual practice? Is it not true that preparations of mercury, lead, zinc and other powerful poisons are constantly used to suppress skin eruptions, boils, abscesses, etc., instead of allowing Nature to rid the system through these skin diseases of scrofulous, venereal and psoric taints?
Some time ago Dr. Wiley, the former Government Chemist, published the ingredients of a number of popular remedies for colds, coughs and catarrh. Every one of them contained some powerful opiate or astringent. These poisonous drugs relieve the cough and the catarrhal conditions by paralyzing the eliminative activity of the membranous linings of the nasal passages, the bronchi and lungs, the digestive and genitourinary organs; but in doing so, they throw back into the system the morbid matter which Nature is trying to get rid of, and add drug poisons to disease poisons.
Equally harmful is suppression by means of the surgeon’s knife. It may be a quicker and apparently more effective process to remove the inflamed appendix or the diseased tonsils than to cure them by building up the blood and inducing elimination of systemic poisons by natural methods. But operative treatment is not eliminative. It does not remove from the system the original cause of the inflammation or deterioration of tissues and organs, but it does remove the outlet which Nature had established for the escape of morbid materials.
These morbid encumbrances, forcibly retained in the body, weaken and destroy other parts and organs, or affect the general health of the patient.
My own observations during nearly fifteen years of practical experience, confirmed by many other conscientious observers among Nature Cure practitioners as well as physicians of other schools and of allopathy itself, prove positively that the average length of life after a major operation, performed on important, vital parts and organs, is less than ten years, and that after such an operation the general health of the patient is in the great majority of cases not as good as before.
In the following paragraphs are mentioned some very common instances of suppression and some of their usual chronic aftereffects (sequelae).
Diarrhea is suppressed with laudanum and other opiates, which paralyze the peristaltic action of the bowels and, if repeated, soon produce chronic constipation. Gonorrheal discharges and syphilitic ulcers are checked and suppressed by local injections, cauterization and by prescriptions containing mercury, iodine and other poisonous alternatives which effectually prevent Nature’s efforts to eliminate the venereal poisons from the system.
Gonorrheal discharges and syphilitic ulcers are checked and supressed by local injections, cauterizatin, and by prescriptions containing mercury, iodine, and other poisonous alternatives which effectually prevent Nature’s efforts to elminate the venereal poisons from the system.
All feverish diseases are more or less interfered with or suppressed by antiseptics, antipyretics, serums and antitoxins. The best books on ~Materia Medica~ and the professors in the colleges teach that these remedies lower the fever because they are “protoplasmic poisons”; because they paralyze the red and white blood corpuscles, benumb heart action and respiration, and depress all vital functions.
Nervousness, sleeplessness and pain are suppressed by sedatives, opiates and hypnotics. Every one of the drugs used for such purposes is a powerful poison which paralyzes brain and nerve action, in that way interfering with Nature’s healing efforts and frequently preventing the consummation of beneficial healing crises.
Epileptic attacks and other forms of convulsions are suppressed, but never cured, by bromides which benumb and paralyze the brain and nerve centers. All that these sedatives accomplish is to produce in the course of time idiocy and the different forms of paralysis and premature senility.
However, is he not considered the best doctor who can most promptly produce these and many similar deceptive results through artificial inhibition or stimulation by means of the most virulent poisons found on earth?
Dandruff and falling hair are caused by the elimination of systemic poisons through the scalp. The thing to do, therefore, is not to