NATURE CURE
By: Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
PART 2 OF 2
Cancer
Let us see how our theories of the Unity of Disease and Cure apply to cancer,
the much dreaded and rapidly increasing disease which is considered
absolutely incurable by both the laity and the medical profession.
Allopathy says that the only possible remedy is "early operation."
Nevertheless, in the textbooks of medical science and in medical schools and
colleges it is taught that cancer and all other malignant growths "always
return after extirpation."
In fact, every student of medicine is expected to state this in his examination
papers as part of the definition of malignant tumors.
The great majority of medical practitioners hold, furthermore, that cancer is a
local disease. This is proved by the fact that they apply local, symptomatic
treatment.
For many years I have been teaching in my lectures and writings as well as in
private advice to patients that cancer is a constitutional disease; that it is
rooted in every drop of blood in the body; that it is caused by the presence of
certain disease taints or of food and drug poisons in the system; that these
poisons irritate and stimulate the cells in a certain locality and cause their
abnormal multiplication or proliferation in the forms of benign or malignant
tumors.
I also claim that meat eating has much to do with the causation of cancer.
In benign tumors the abnormal proliferation of cells takes place slowly, and
they do not tend to immediate and rapid decay and deterioration.
In malignant tumors the "wild" cells, created in immense numbers, decay
almost as rapidly as they are produced because the abnormal growths are
devoid of normal organization.
They have no established, regular blood and nerve supply, nor are they
provided with adequate venous drainage. They are, therefore, cut off from the
orderly life of the organism and doomed to rapid deterioration.
The processes of decay of these tumor materials liberate large quantities of
alkaloids of putrefaction, and these, in turn, stimulate the normal, healthy cells
with which they come in contact to rapid, abnormal multiplication.
The malignant growth, therefore, feeds on its own products of decay, aside
from the systemic poisons and morbid materials already contained in the
blood and tissues of the body.
These morbid products permeate the entire system. They are carried by the
circulation of the blood into all parts of the body. This explains why cancer is
a constitutional disease, why it is, as I stated it is, "rooted in every drop of
blood."
It also explains why cancer, or rather the disposition to its development
(diathesis), is hereditary.
If the original cancerous growth is removed by surgical intervention, x-rays,
cauterization or any other form of local treatment, the poisonous materials
(alkaloids of putrefaction) in the blood will set up other foci of abnormal, wild
proliferation.
Medical science has applied the term metastasis to such spreading and
reappearing of malignant tumors after extirpation.
Medical findings throw an interesting light on the relationship between cancer
and meat eating.
Is it not self-evident that in a digestive tract filled most of the time with large
masses of partially digested and decaying animal food enormous quantities of
alkaloids of putrefaction are created?
These are absorbed into the circulation, attracted to any point where exists
some form of local irritation and then stimulate the cells in that locality to
abnormal proliferation.
What has been said verifies my claim that benign and malignant tumors can
be cured only by thorough purifying the system of all morbid and poisonous
taints and by building up the blood to a normal basis, that is, by providing it
with the proper elements of nutrition.
The Treatment of Acute Diseases by Natural Methods
We shall now proceed to describe the simple and uniform methods of natural
treatment.
If the uniformity of acute diseases is a fact in Nature, then it follows that it must
be possible to treat all acute diseases by uniform methods.
That it is possible to treat all acute diseases most successfully by natural
methods, which anybody possessed of ordinary intelligence can apply, has
been demonstrated for more than seventy years by the Nature Cure
practitioners in Germany, and by myself during the last ten years in an
extensive practice.
One of the many advantages of natural treatment is that it may be applied right
from the beginning, as soon as the first symptoms of acute febrile conditions
manifest themselves. It is not necessary to wait for a correct diagnosis of the
case.
The regular physician, with his specific treatment for the multitude of specific
diseases which he recognizes, often has to wait several days or even weeks
before the real nature of the disease becomes clear to him, before he is able to
diagnose the case or even to make a good guess.
The conscientious medical practitioner has to postpone actual treatment until
the symptoms are well defined.
Meanwhile he applies expectant treatment as it is called in medical parlance,
that is, he gives a purgative or a placebo, something or other to placate, or to
make the patient and his friends believe that something is being done.
But during this period of indecision and inaction very often the best
opportunity for aiding Nature in her healing efforts is lost, and the
inflammatory processes may reach such virulence that it becomes very
difficult or even impossible to keep them within constructive limits.
The bonfire that was to burn up the rubbish on the premises may, if not
watched and tended, assume such proportions that it damages or destroys
the house.
It must also be borne in mind that very frequently acute diseases do not
present the well-defined sets of symptoms, which fit into the accepted medical
conception of certain specific ailments.
On the contrary, in many instances the symptoms suggest a combination of
different forms of acute diseases.
If the character of the disease is ill defined and complicated, how, then, is the
physician to select the proper specific remedy, under such "Old School"
circumstances, the diagnosis of the case as well as the medical treatment will
at best be largely guesswork.
Compare with this unreliable and unsatisfactory treatment the simple and
scientific, exact and efficient natural methods.
The natural remedies can be applied from the first, at the slightest
manifestation of inflammatory and febrile symptoms. No matter what the
specific nature or trend of the inflammatory process, whether it is a simple
cold, or whether it takes the form of measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
smallpox, appendicitis, etc.--it makes absolutely no difference in the mode of
treatment.
In many instances the natural treatment will have broken the virulence of the
attack or brought about a cure before the regular physician gets good and
ready to apply his specific treatment.
The Natural Remedies
The most important ones of these natural remedies can be had free of cost in
any home. They are: air, fasting or eliminative diets, water, and the right
mental attitude.
I am fully convinced that these remedies offered freely by Mother Nature are
sufficient, if rightly applied, to cure any acute disease arising within the
organism.
A plentiful supply of pure fresh air is of vital importance at any time. We can
live without food for several weeks and without water for several days, but we
cannot live without air for more than a few minutes.
"Natural Diet" in Acute Diseases
From the appearance of the first suspicious symptoms until the fever has
abated and there is a hearty, natural hunger, feeding should be reduced to a
minimum or better still, entirely suspended.
The quantity of drinking water should be regulated by the desire of the patient,
but he should be warned not to take any more than is necessary to satisfy his
thirst.
Large amounts of water taken into the system dilute the blood and the other
fluids and secretions of the organism to an excessive degree, and this tends
to increase the general weakness and lower the patient's resistance to the
disease forces.
Water may be made more palatable and at the same time more effective for
purposes of elimination by the addition of the unsweetened juice of acid fruits,
such as orange, grapefruit or lemon, about one part of juice to three parts of
water.
Fresh pineapple juice is very good except in cases of hyperacidity of the
stomach. The fresh, unsweetened juice of Concord grapes is also beneficial.
Fasting
Total abstinence from food during acute febrile conditions is of primary
importance.
There is no greater fallacy than that the patient must be sustained and his
strength kept up by plenty of nourishing food and drink or, worse still, by
stimulants and tonics.
This is altogether wrong in itself, and besides, habit and appetite are often
mistaken for hunger.
A common spectacle witnessed at the bedside of the sick is that of
well-meaning but misguided relatives and friends forcing food and drink on
the patient, often by order of the doctor, when his whole system rebels against
it and the nauseated stomach expels the food as soon as taken. Sedatives
and tonics are then resorted to in order to force the digestive organs into
submission.
Aversion to eating during acute diseases, whether they represent healing
crises or disease crises, is perfectly natural, because the entire organism,
including the mucous membranes of stomach and intestines, is engaged in
the work of elimination, not assimilation.
Nausea, slimy and fetid discharges, constipation alternating with diarrhea,
etc., indicate that the organs of digestion are throwing off disease matter, and
that they are not in a condition to take up and assimilate food.
Taking food during feverish diseases is usually followed by a rise in
temperature and by aggravation of the other disease symptoms.
As long as there are signs of inflammatory, febrile conditions and no appetite,
do not be afraid to withhold food entirely, if necessary, for as long as five, six
or seven weeks.
In my practice I have had several patients who did not take any food, except
water to which acid fruit juices had been added, for more than seven weeks,
and then made a rapid and complete recovery.
In cases of gastritis, appendicitis, peritonitis, dysentery or typhoid fever,
abstinence from food is absolutely imperative.
After a prolonged fast, great care must be observed when commencing to eat.
Very small quantities of light food may safely be taken at intervals of a few
hours.
A good plan, especially after an attack of typhoid fever or dysentery, is to
break the fast by thoroughly masticating one or two tablespoonfuls of
popcorn.
This gives the digestive tract a good scouring and starts the peristaltic action
of the bowels better than any other food.
The popcorn may advantageously be followed in about two hours with a
tablespoonful of cooked rice and one or two cooked prunes or a small
quantity of some other stewed fruit.
For several days or weeks after a fast, according to the severity of the acute
disease or healing crisis, a diet consisting largely of raw fruits, such as
oranges, grapefruit, apples, pears, grapes, etc., and juicy vegetables,
especially lettuce, celery, cabbage slaw, watercress, young onions, tomatoes
or cucumbers should be adhered to.
No condiments or dressings should be used with the vegetables except
lemon juice and olive oil.
Never lose sight of the fact that fever is in itself a healing, cleansing process
which must not be checked or suppressed.
In acute as well as in chronic disease, large amounts of oxygen and ozone are
required to burn up the morbid materials and to purify the system.
Certain combinations of these elements are among the most powerful
antiseptics and germicides.
The Importance of Right Mental and Emotional Attitude in Acute Disease
We have learned that in the processes of inflammation a battle is going on
between the healing forces of the body, the phagocytes and natural antitoxins
on the one hand and the disease taints, germs, bacilli, etc., on the other hand.
This battle is real in every respect, as real as a combat between armies of
living soldiers. In this conflict, going on in all acute inflammatory diseases,
mind plays the same role as the commander of an army.
The great general needs courage, equanimity and presence of mind most in
the stress of battle. So the mind, the commander of the vast armies of cells
battling in acute disease for the health of the body, must have absolute faith in
the superiority of Nature's healing forces.
If the mind becomes frightened by the inflammatory and febrile symptoms and
pictures to itself in darkest colors their dreadful consequences, these
confused and distracted thought vibrations are conveyed instantaneously to
the millions of little soldiers fighting in the affected parts and organs.
They also become confused and panic-stricken.
The excitement of fear in the mind still more accelerates heart action and
respiration, intensifies the local congestion and greatly increases the morbid
accumulations in the system.
In closing we shall deal especially with the deteriorating influence of fear,
anxiety, anger, irritability, impatience, etc., and explain how these and all other
destructive emotions actually poison the secretions of the body.
In acute disease we cannot afford to add to the poisonous elements in the
organism, because the danger of a fatal ending lies largely in the paralysis of
vital centers by the morbid and poisonous products of inflammation.
Everything depends upon the maintenance of the greatest possible inflow of
vital force; and there is nothing so weakening as worry and anxiety, nothing
that impedes the inflow, distribution and normal activity of the vital energies
like fear.
A person overcome by sudden fright is actually benumbed and paralyzed,
unable to think and to act intelligently.
These truths may be expressed in another way. The victory of the healing
forces in acute disease depends upon an abundant supply of the positive
electromagnetic energies.
The positive mind and will are to the body what the magneto is to the
automobile. As the electric sparks from the magneto ignite the gas, thus
generating the power that drives the machine, so the positive vibrations,
generated by a confident and determined will, create in the body the positive
electromagnetic currents, which incite and stimulate all vital activities.
Common experience teaches us that the concentration of the will on the thing
to be accomplished greatly heightens and increases all physical, mental and
moral powers.
Therefore the victory in acute diseases is conditioned by the absolute faith,
confidence and serenity of mind on the part of the patient.
The more he exercises these harmonizing and invigorating qualities of mind
and soul, the more favorable are the conditions for the little soldiers who are
fighting his battles in the inflamed parts and organs.
The blood and nerve currents are less impeded and disturbed, and flow more
normally.
The local congestion is relieved, and this favors the natural course of the
inflammatory processes.
Therefore, instead of being overcome with fear and anxiety, as most people
are under such circumstances, do not become alarmed, nor convey alarm to
the millions of little cells battling in the inflamed parts.
Speak to them like a commander addressing his troops:
"We understand the laws of disease and cure, we know that these
inflammatory and febrile symptoms are the result of Nature's healing efforts,
we have perfect confidence in her wisdom and in the efficiency of her healing
forces. This fever is merely a good house cleaning, a healing crisis. We are
eliminating morbid matter, poisons and germs, which were endangering health
and life.
We rejoice over the purification and regeneration now taking place and
benefiting the whole body. Fear not.
Attend to your work quietly and serenely. Let us open ourselves wide to the
inflow of life from the source of all life in the innermost parts of our being.
The life in us is the life of God. We are strengthened and made whole by the
Divine life and power which animate the universe."
The serenity of your mind, backed by absolute trust in the Law and by the
power of a strong Will, infuses the cells and tissues with new life and vigor,
enabling them to turn the acute disease into a beneficial, cleansing and
healing crisis.
Be careful, however, not to employ your intelligence and your will power to
suppress acute inflammatory and febrile processes and symptoms.
This can be accomplished by the power of the will as well as by ice bags and
poisonous drugs, and its effect would be to turn Nature's acute cleansing
efforts into chronic disease.
The Importance of Right Mental and Emotional Attitude on the Part of Friends
and Relatives
The sick person is exceedingly sensitive to his surroundings. He is easily
influenced by all depressing, discordant and jarring conditions. He catches
the expressions of fear and anxiety in the looks, the words, gestures and
actions of his attendants, relatives and friends and these intensify his own
depression and gloomy forebodings.
This applies especially to the influence exerted by the mother upon her ailing
infant. There exists a most intimate sympathetic and telepathic connection
between mother and child.
The child is affected not only by the outward expression of the mother's fear
and anxiety, but likewise by the hidden doubt and despair in the mother's
mind and soul.
Usually, the first thing that confronts me when I am called to the sickbed of a
child is the frantic and almost hysterical mental condition of the mother, and to
begin with, I have to explain to her the destructive influence of her behavior.
Then I explain how faith, calmness and cheerfulness on her part will soothe
and harmonize the discordant disease vibrations in the child's body.
Herein lies the modus operandi or working basis of all successful mental and
metaphysical treatment.
I. Fresh Air
A plentiful supply of pure air in the sickroom.
Patient must not be kept too warm.
II. Natural Diet
The minimum amount of light food, chiefly fruit and vegetable salads, no
condiments.
Only enough water to quench thirst preferably mixed with acid fruit juices.
In serious acute febrile conditions and during healing crises no food
whatever.
In diseases affecting the digestive organs fasting must be prolonged several
days beyond cessation of febrile symptoms.
Great care must be observed when breaking fast.
No poisonous drugs, nor any medicines or applications, which may check or
suppress the feverish, inflammatory processes.
Mental Attitude
Courage, serenity and presence of mind are important factors.
Fear and anxiety intensify disease conditions, poison the secretions of the
body and inhibit the action of the healing forces.
Do not suppress acute inflammatory and feverish processes by the power of
the will.
The right mental and emotional attitude of relatives and friends exerts a
powerful influence upon the patient.
The True Scope of Medicine
The average medical practitioner has not yet learned from the Nature Cure
school, that simple fasting and cool water when required, will surely and easily
cure every form of acute disease, as, for instance, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
smallpox, cerebrospinal meningitis, appendicitis, etc.
Therefore, we claim that there is no necessity for the employment of
poisonous drugs, serums and antitoxins for this purpose.
Almost every virulent poison known to man is found in allopathic
prescriptions.
By far the greater part of all chronic diseases are created or complicated on
the one hand by the suppression of acute diseases by means of drug
poisons, and on the other hand through the destructive effects of the drugs
themselves.
We condemn the use of drugs insofar as they are poisonous and destructive
and insofar as they suppress acute diseases or healing crises, which are
Nature's cleansing and healing efforts.
In every form of chronic disease there exists in the system, on the one hand,
an excess of certain morbid materials, and on the other hand, a deficiency of
certain mineral constituents, organic salts, which are essential to the normal
functions of the body.
It stands to reason that Nature has provided within the ranges of the natural
foods all the elements which Man needs in the way of food and medicine.
It is imperative to take the organic mineral salts in the forms of fruit, herb and
vegetable juice extracts.
Among the best of these food remedies are extracts of leafy vegetables such
as lettuce, spinach, Scotch kale, cabbage, Swiss chard, etc. These vegetables
are richer than any other foods in the positive mineral salts.
The extract may be prepared from one or more of these vegetables, according
to the supply on hand or the tolerance of the digestive organs and the taste
and preference of the patient.
The difficulty we experience in eliminating mineral poisons from the body
would seem to indicate that Nature never intended them to be used as foods
or medicines.
The intestines, kidneys, skin, mucous membranes and other organs of
depuration are evidently not constructed or prepared to cope with inorganic,
poisonous substances and to eliminate them completely.
Accordingly, these poisons show the tendency to accumulate in certain parts
or organs of the body for which they have a special affinity and then to act as
irritants and destructive corrodents.
The diseases, which we find most difficult to cure, even by the most radical
application of natural methods, are cases of drug poisoning.
Substances, which are foreign to the human organism, and especially the
inorganic, mineral poisons, positively destroy tissues and organs, and are
much harder to eliminate from the system than the encumbrances of morbid
materials and waste matter produced in the body by wrong habits of living
only.
The obvious reason for this is that our organs of elimination are intended and
constructed to excrete only such waste products as are formed in the
organism in the processes of metabolism.
Tuberculosis or cancer may be caused in a scrofulous or psoriatic
constitution by overloading the system with meat, coffee, alcohol or tobacco;
but as soon as these bad habits are discontinued, and the organs of
elimination stimulated by natural methods, the encumbrances will be
eliminated, and the much-dreaded symptoms will subside and disappear,
often with surprising rapidity.
On the other hand, mercury, arsenic, quinine, strychnine, iodine, etc.,
accumulate in the brain, the spinal cord, and the cells and tissues of the vital
organs, causing actual destruction and disintegration.
The tissues thus affected are not easily rebuilt, and it is exceedingly difficult to
stir up the destructive mineral poisons and to eliminate them from the system.
Therefore it is an indisputable fact that many of the most stubborn, so-called
incurable diseases are drug diseases.
The Importance of Natural Diet
We should aim to keep our bodies in a normal, healthy condition by proper
food selection and combination.
Undoubtedly, Nature has supplied all the elements, which the human
organism needs, in abundance and in the right proportions in the natural
foods; otherwise she would be a very ignorant organizer and provider.
We should learn to select and combine food materials in such a manner that
they supply all the needs of the body in the best possible way and thus insure
perfect health and strength without the use of medicines.
Why should we attempt to cure anemia with inorganic iron, hyperacidity of the
stomach with baking soda, when these mineral elements are contained in
abundance and in live, organic form in fruits and vegetables?
At present the trend of allopathic medical science is undoubtedly toward the
serum, antitoxin and vaccine treatment.
Practically all medical research tends that way. Every few days we see in the
daily papers reports of new serums and antitoxins which are claimed to cure
or create immunity to certain diseases.
Suppose the research and practice of medical science continue along these
lines and are generally accepted or, as the medical associations would have it,
forced upon the public by law.
What would be the result? Before a child reached the years of adolescence, it
would have had injected into its blood the vaccines, serums, and antitoxins of
smallpox, hydrophobia, tetanus (lockjaw), cerebro-spinal meningitis, typhoid
fever, diphtheria, pneumonia, scarlet fever, etc.
If allopathy were to have its way, the blood of the adult would be a mixture of
dozens of filthy bacterial extracts, disease taints and destructive drug
poisons.
The tonsils and adenoids, the appendix vermiformis and probably a few other
parts of the human anatomy would be extirpated in early youth under
compulsion of the health departments.
What is more rational and sensible: the endeavor to produce immunity to
disease by making the human body the breeding ground for all sorts of
antibacteria and antipoisons, or to create natural immunity by building up the
blood on a normal basis, purifying the body of morbid matter and poisons,
correcting mechanical lesions and by cultivating the right mental attitude?
Which one of these methods is more likely to be disease building, which
health building?
Just imagine what human blood will be like in coming generations if this
artificial contamination with all sorts of disease taints and drug poisons is to
be forced upon the people!
Surgery
The discoverers of anesthetics are classed among the greatest benefactors of
humanity, because it is believed that ether, chloroform, cocaine and similar
nerve-paralyzing agents have greatly lessened the sum of human suffering. I
doubt, however, that this is true.
Anesthetics have made surgery technically easy and have done away with the
pain caused directly by the incisions; but on the other hand, these marvelous
effects of pain-killing drugs have encouraged indiscriminate and unnecessary
operations to such an extent that at least nine-tenths of all the surgical
operations performed today are uncalled for.
In most instances these ill-advised mutilations are followed by lifelong
weakness and suffering, which far outweigh the temporary pains formerly
endured when unavoidable operations were performed without the use of
anesthesia.
We do not wish to be understood as condemning unqualifiedly any and all
surgical interventions in the treatment of human ailments. An operation may
occasionally be absolutely necessary as a means of saving life.
Surgery is also indicated in cases of injury, such as wounds or fractured
bones, in certain obstetrical complications and in other affections of a purely
mechanical nature.
In all such cases anesthetics prevent much suffering which cannot be
avoided in any other way. But anyone who has had an opportunity to watch
the prolonged misery of the victims of un-called-for operations will not doubt
that anesthesia has been a two-edged sword, which has inflicted many more
wounds than it has healed.
Is it not better to cure a diseased organ than to remove it? Nature Cure proves
every day that the better way is at the same time the easiest way.
Thousands of men and women operated upon for some local ailment which
could have been cured easily by natural methods of treatment are condemned
by these inexcusable mutilations to lifelong suffering.
A body deprived of important parts or organs is forever unbalanced. It is like a
watch with a spring or a wheel taken out; it may run, but never quite right; it is
hypersensitive and easily thrown out of balance by any adverse influence.
The Human Body Is a Unit
We are realizing more and more that the human body is a homogeneous and
harmonious whole, and that we cannot injure one part of it without damaging
other parts and often the entire organism.
Acute and subacute conditions represent Nature's cleansing and healing
efforts, and that local suppression by drug or knife only serves to turn
Nature's corrective and purifying activities into chronic disease.
The highest art of the true physician is to preserve and to restore, not to
mutilate or destroy.
Chronic Diseases
The "Old School" of medical science defines acute diseases as those, which
run a brief and more or less violent course, and chronic diseases as those,
which run a protracted course and have a tendency to recur.
From the Nature Cure viewpoint, the chronic condition is the latent,
constitutional disease encumbrance, whereas acute disease represents
Nature's efforts to rectify abnormal conditions, to overcome and eliminate
hereditary or acquired morbid taints and systemic poisons and to reestablish
normal structure and functions.
Chronic disease, from the Nature Cure philosophy, means that the organism
has become permeated with morbid matter and poisons to such an extent that
it is no longer able to throw off these encumbrances by a vigorous, acute
eliminative effort.
The chronic condition, therefore, represents the slow, cold type of disease,
characterized by feeble, ineffectual efforts to eliminate the latent morbid taints
and impediments from the system.
These efforts may take the form of open sores, skin eruptions, catarrhal
discharges, chronic diarrhea, etc.
If acute diseases are treated in harmony with Nature's laws, they will leave the
body in a purer, healthier condition.
But if the treatment is wrong, if under the "Old School" methods fever and
inflammation (Nature's methods of elimination) are checked and suppressed
with poisonous drugs, serums and antitoxins or if, instead of purifying and
invigorating cells and tissues, the affected parts and organs are removed with
the surgeon's knife, Nature is not allowed to get rid of the disease matter, and
the poisonous taints and morbid encumbrances remain in the organism.
The vital difference between the attitude of Nature Cure physicians and those
of the allopathic school toward disease are; the latter spends all its efforts in
fighting the disease symptoms, while the former confines itself to creating
health conditions in the habits and surroundings of the patient.
We must endeavor in the first place to furnish the bodies cells with the right
nourishment. We must abstain from everything that may be injurious to the
body in food and drink, so as to relieve the cells of all unnecessary work.
Whatever one may think of vegetarianism as a continuous mode of living, a
little consideration will make it plain that a rational vegetarian diet is the sine
qua non in the cure of chronic diseases.
It builds up the blood on a normal basis, excludes all food and drink poisons
and thereby gives the organism an opportunity to throw off the old
accumulations of waste and morbid materials.
In chronic disease, every drop of blood and every cell of the organism is
affected. In order to produce a cure, the old tissues must be broken down and
removed and new tissues built up.
The more thorough the change in diet, the greater and more rapid will be the
changes for the better in cells and tissues, especially if only pure and
eliminating foods are used.
For these reasons it is advisable to omit most red-blooded meat while under
the natural treatment.
All animal flesh contains the morbid secretions and other waste products of
the animal organism, and this means additional work for the cells already
overburdened with systemic poisons.
Fear, anxiety and all kindred emotions congeal the nerve matter and thereby
shut off the supply of nerve force.
The cells and tissues starve and freeze. On the other hand, the emotions of
hope, confidence and cheerfulness relax and open blood vessels and nerve
channels and allow the free and unobstructed inflow and circulation of vital
energy.
Crises
Crisis in the ordinary sense of the word means change, either for better or for
worse. In its relation to medicine, the term "crisis" has been defined as "a
decisive change in the disease, resulting either in recovery or in death."
We of the Nature Cure school distinguish between healing crises and disease
crises, according to the character and the tendency of the acute reaction.
Healing crises are simply different forms of elimination by means of which
Nature endeavors to remove the latent, chronic disease encumbrance from
the system.
The most common forms of these acute purifications are colds, catarrhal and
hemorrhoid discharges, boils, ulcers, abscesses, open sores, skin eruptions,
diarrheas, etc.
When the organism is loaded to the danger point with morbid matter, it may
arouse itself in self-defense to an acute eliminative effort in the shape of cold,
catarrh, fever, inflammation, skin eruption, etc.
In these instances, the disease conditions bring about the crisis and the
organism is on the defensive. These are disease crises.
Such unequal struggles between the healing forces and disease conditions
sometimes end favorably and sometimes unfavorably.
On the other hand, healing crises develop because the healing forces are in
the ascendancy and take the offensive.
They are brought about through the natural methods of living and of treatment
and always result in improved conditions.
Under conditions favorable to human life, a body of normal structure, healthy
blood and tissues and good vitality cannot be affected by acute disease.
Such an organism is practically immune to all forms of inflammatory febrile
reactions. These always indicate that there is something wrong in the system,
which Nature is trying to correct or get rid of.
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. The possibility of producing healing crises
and thereby curing chronic ailments depends upon the following conditions:
The patient must possess sufficient vital energy and powers of reaction to
respond to the natural treatment and to a change of habits.
The destruction and disorganization of vital fluids and organs must not have
advanced too far.
Some patients become frightened at the idea of crises. They exclaim: "I came
here to get well, not to grow worse."
However, there is no occasion for alarm. Healing crises occur in mild form
only because, under the influence of natural living and treatment, Nature has
the best of the fight.
The healing forces of the organism have gained the ascendancy over the
disease conditions.
In fact, Nature never undertakes a healing crisis until the system has been
prepared for it, until the organism is sufficiently purified and strengthened to
conduct the acute reaction to a favorable termination.
Furthermore, it is well to remember that crises cannot be avoided, because it
is through fevers and inflammatory processes that Nature effects the
cure--that she tears down the old to build up the new.
On the other hand, if patients are possessed of exceptionally good vitality and
if the organs of elimination are in good working order, the purification and
adjustment of the organism may occasionally proceed gradually without the
occurrence of marked acute reactions or crises.
When well assisted by the right, natural methods of living and of treatment,
healing crises are never dangerous or fatal to life.
The only danger lies in suppressing these acute reactions by drugs, knife, the
ice bag or any means whatever.
If acute reactions are suppressed, the constructive healing crisis may be
changed into a destructive disease crisis.
Therefore we earnestly warn our patients never to interfere in any way with a
healing crisis lest the chronic condition (which resulted from the suppression
of the original disease) become worse than before.
When Nature, with all the force inherent in the human organism, has finally
worked up to the point of a healing crisis, another defeat by a new
suppression may be beyond her powers of endurance and recuperation.
Fatal collapse may then be the result.
Therefore, take heed. If you are not willing to endure the healing crises, do not
undertake the treatment.
When you have conjured up the hidden demons of disease, you must have
the courage to face and subdue them.
All laxatives and cathartics are poisons; if it were not so, they would not
produce their peculiar, drastic effects.
Because they are poisons, Nature tries to eliminate them from the system as
quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
In order to do this, the excretory glands and membranes of the liver and the
digestive tract greatly increase the amount of their secretions and thereby
produce a forced evacuation of the intestinal canal.
Thus the system, in the effort to eliminate the mercurial poison, expels also the
other contents of the intestines.
This may effect a temporary cleansing of the intestinal tract, but it does not
and cannot cleanse the individual cells throughout the body of their
impurities.
Enforced, artificial purging may flush the drains and sewers, but does not
cleanse the chambers of the house.
The cells in the interior tissues remain encumbered with morbid matter. A
genuine and truly effective housecleaning must start in the cells and must be
brought about through the initiative of the vital energies in the organism,
through healing crises, and not through stimulation by means of poisonous
irritants.
When, under a natural regimen of living and of treatment, the system has been
sufficiently purified, adjusted and vivified, the cells themselves begin the work
of elimination.
This is what takes place: The morbid matter and poisons thrown off by the
cells and tissues are carried by means of the venous circulation to the organs
of elimination, the bowels, kidneys, lungs and skin, and to the mucous
membranes lining the interior tracts, such as the nasal passages, the throat
and bronchi, the digestive and genitourinary canals, etc.
These organs of elimination become overcrowded with the rush of morbid
matter and the accompanying congestion and irritation cause the acute
inflammatory processes and feverish symptoms characterizing the various
forms of colds, catarrhs, skin eruptions, diarrheas, boils and other acute forms
of elimination, which we call healing crises.
In other words, what the "Old School" of medicine calls the disease, we look
upon as the Cure.
Acute elimination brought about in this manner is Nature's method of
housecleaning. It is a true healing crisis, the result of purification and
increased activity from within the cell, produced by natural means.
Drugs, stimulants and tonics, while they produce an artificial, temporary
stimulation, do not change the underlying abnormal conditions in the
organism.
Likewise, the flushing of the colon with water, the use of laxative herb teas
and decoctions or forced sweating by means of Turkish or Russian baths,
though not as dangerous as inorganic minerals and poisonous drugs, cannot
be classed among the natural means of cure.
These agents, which by many persons are looked upon as natural treatment,
irritate the organs of elimination to forced, abnormal activity without at the
same time arousing the cells in the interior of the body to natural elimination.
Artificially induced sweating does not eliminate disease matter.
The organism cannot be forced by irritants and stimulants and artificial
means, but eliminates morbid matter only in its own natural manner and when
it is in proper condition to do so.
In a lesser degree, this applies also to fasting. Under certain conditions it
becomes a necessity; but it may easily be abused and overdone.
The methods and requirements of Nature Cure appear at first so unusual and
exacting that people seek to evade them so long as they have the least faith in
the miracle-working power of the poison bottle, a metaphysical healer or the
surgeon's knife.
When health, wealth and hope are entirely exhausted, then the chronic
sufferer grasps at Nature Cure as a drowning man clutches at a straw.
But even though ninety percent of these cases, which come to us, are of the
apparently incurable type, our total failures are few and far between.
If there is sufficient vitality in the body to react to natural treatment and if the
destruction of vital parts and organs has not too far advanced, a cure is
possible. Often the seemingly hopeless cases yield the most readily.
The Treatment of Chronic Diseases
The Nature Cure treatment of acute diseases tends to relieve inner
congestion, to facilitate the radiation of heat and the elimination of morbid
matter and systemic poisons from the body.
In this way it eases and palliates the feverish processes and keeps them
below the danger point without in any way checking or suppressing them.
Diet (fasting), bathing, correct breathing, general physical exercise, corrective
gymnastics, air and sunbaths, mental therapeutics.
Every honest physician admits that the "Old School" methods of diagnosis
are, to say the least, unsatisfactory and uncertain, especially in ascertaining
the underlying causes of disease.
Vitality
What can we do to increase vitality? "Old School" physicians and people in
general seem to think that this can be done by consuming large quantities of
nourishing food and drink and by the use of stimulants and tonics.
The human organism is capable of liberating and manifesting daily a limited
quantity of vital force, just as a certain amount of capital in the bank will yield a
specified sum of interest in a given time.
If more than the available interest is withdrawn, the capital in the bank will be
decreased and gradually exhausted.
Similarly, if we spend more than our daily allowance of vital force, "nervous
bankruptcy" that is, nervous prostration or neurasthenia will be the result.
It is the duty of the physician to regulate the expenditure of vital force
according to the income. He must stop all leaks and guard against
wastefulness.
Stimulants are poison to the system. Few people realize that their exhilarating
and apparently tonic effects are produced by the paralysis of an important
part of the nervous system.
We found that the human body is capable of liberating in a given time, say, in
twenty-four hours, only a certain limited amount of vital energy; just as the
wound spring of the watch is capable of liberating in a given time only a
certain amount of kinetic energy.
Every motor nerve must be balanced by an inhibitory nerve. The one
furnishes the driving force, the other applies the brake.
For instance, the heart muscle is supplied with motor force through the spinal
nerves from the upper dorsal region, while the pneumogastric [vagus] nerve
retards the action of the heart and in that way acts as a brake.
Another brake is supplied by the waste products of metabolism in the system,
the uric acid, carbonic acid, oxalic acid, etc., and the many forms of xanthines,
alkaloids, and ptomaines.
As these accumulate in the organism during the hours of wakeful activity, they
gradually clog the capillary circulation, benumb brain and nerves, and thus
produce a feeling of exhaustion and tiredness and a craving for rest and
sleep.
In this way, by means of the inhibitory nervous system and of the
accumulating fatigue products in the body, Nature forces the organism to rest
and recuperate when the available supply of vital force runs low.
The lower the level of vital force, the more powerful will become the inhibitory
influences.
The caffeine, alcohol or whatever the stimulating poison may have been has
precipitated the fatigue products from the blood and deposited them in the
tissues and organs of the body.
Furthermore, the stimulant has benumbed the inhibitory nerves; in other
words, it has lifted the brakes from the driving part of the organism, so that the
wheels are running wild.
Nature tried to force the tired body to rest and sleep, so that it could store up a
new supply of vital force.
Under the paralyzing influence of the stimulant upon the inhibitory nerves, the
organism now draws upon the reserve stores of nerve fats and vital energies
for the necessary strength to accomplish the extra nightwork.
During sleep only do we replenish our reserve stores of vitality. The
expenditure of vital energies ceases, but their liberation in the system
continues.
Therefore sleep is the "sweet restorer." Nothing can take its place. No
amount of food and drink, no tonics or stimulants can make up for the loss of
sleep.
Continued complete deprivation of sleep is bound to end in a short time in
physical and mental exhaustion, and death.
The person, who resorts to stimulants to keep up his strength or to increase it,
is never normal, never on the level, never at his best. He is either over
stimulated or abnormally depressed.
The Effects of Stimulants upon the Mind
The mental and emotional exhilaration accompanying the indulgence in
alcohol or other poisonous stimulants is produced in a similar manner as the
apparent increase of physical strength under the influence of these agents.
Here, also, the temporary stimulation and seeming increase of power are
effected by paralysis of the governing and restraining faculties of mind and
soul: of reason, modesty, reserve, caution, reverence, etc.
The moral, mental and emotional capacities and powers of the human entity
are governed by the same principle of dual action that controls physical
activity.
We have on the one hand the motor or driving impulses, and on the other
hand the restraining and inhibiting influences.
In these higher realms appetite, passion, imagination and desire correspond
to the motor nervous system in the physical organism, and the power of the
will and the reasoning faculties represent the inhibitory nervous system.
The exhilarating and stimulating influence of alcohol and narcotics such as
opiates or hashish upon the animal spirits and the emotional and imaginative
faculties is caused by the benumbing and paralyzing effect of these
stimulants upon the powers of will, reason and self-control, the brakes on the
lower appetites, passions and desires which fire the emotional nature and the
imagination.
However, what is gained in feeling and imagination is lost in judgment and
logic.
Alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, opium, cocaine, morphine, etc., when given in
certain doses, all affect the human organism in a similar manner.
In small quantities they seemingly stimulate and animate; in larger amounts
they depress and stupefy.
In reality, they are paralyzers from the beginning in every instance, and their
apparent, temporary tonic effect is deceptive.
They benumb and paralyze not only the physical organism, but also the
higher and highest mental and moral qualities, capacities and powers.
Many people believe that alcohol increases not only physical strength, but
mental energy also. Regular medical science considers it a valuable tonic in
all cases of physical and mental depression.
It is often administered in surgical operations and in accidents with the idea of
prolonging life. I have frequently found the whisky or brandy bottle at the
bedside of infants and on it the directions of the attending physician.
Watch the effect of this tonic on a group of convivial spirits at a banquet. Full
honor is done to the art of the chef, and the wine flows freely. The flow of
animal spirits increases proportionately; conviviality, wit and humor rise by
leaps and bounds.
But the apparent joy and happiness are in reality nothing but the play of the
lower animal impulses, unrestrained by the higher powers of mind and soul.
As King Alcohol tightens his grasp on the merry company, the toasters and
speakers lose more and more of their control over speech and actions.
What was at first mischievous abandon and merry jest gradually degenerates
into loquaciousness, coarseness and querulous brawls.
Here and there one of the maudlin crowd drops off in the stupor of
drunkenness.
If the liquor is strong enough and if the debauch is continued long enough, it
may end in complete paralysis of the vital functions or in death.
Natural Dietetics
The chemical composition of blood and lymph depends upon the chemical
composition of food and drink, and upon the normal or abnormal condition of
the digestive organs.
The purer the food and drink, the less it contains of morbid matter and
poison-producing materials and the more it contains of the elements
necessary for the proper execution of the manifold functions of the organism,
for the building and repair of tissues and for the neutralization and elimination
of waste and systemic poisons, the more "normal" and the more "natural" will
be the diet.
If we study dietetics from a strictly scientific point of view, we find that certain
foods--among these especially the highly valued flesh foods, eggs, pulses
and cereals--create in the system large quantities of morbid, poisonous
substances, while on the other hand fruits and vegetables, which are rich in
the organic salts, tend to neutralize and to eliminate from the system the waste
materials and poisons created in the processes of protein and starch
digestion.
The accumulations of waste and systemic poisons are the cause of the
majority of diseases arising within the human organism. Therefore it is
imperative that the neutralizing and eliminating food elements be provided in
sufficient quantities.
The "Old School" of medicine looks upon starches, sugars, fats and proteins
as the only elements of nutrition worthy of consideration, Nature Cure aims to
reduce these foods in the natural dietary and to increase the purifying and
eliminating fruits and vegetables.
In the treatment of chronic diseases, with few exceptions, we favor a strict
vegetarian diet for the reason that most chronic diseases are created, as
before stated, by the accumulation of the "feces of the cells" in the system.
Every piece of animal flesh is saturated with these excrements of the cells in
the form of uric acid and many other kinds of acids, alkaloids of putrefaction,
xanthines, ptomaines, etc.
The organism of the meat eater must dispose not only of its own impurities
produced in the processes of digestion and of cell metabolism, but also of the
morbid substances that are already contained in the animal flesh.
Since the cure of chronic diseases consists largely in purifying the body of
morbid materials, it stands to reason that a "chronic" must cease taking these
in his daily food and drink.
Whether one approves of strict vegetarianism as a continuous mode of living
or not, it will be admitted that the change from a meat diet to a nonmeat diet
must be of great benefit in the treatment of chronic diseases.
The old, abnormal, faulty diet will continue to build the same abnormal and
disease-encumbered tissues. The more thorough and radical the change in
diet toward normality and purity, the quicker the cells and tissues of the body
will change toward the normal and thus bring about a complete regeneration
of the organism.
Anything short of this may be palliative treatment, but is not worthy the name
of cure.
Natural Foods
If you wish to follow a pure food diet, exclude meat, fish, fowl, meat soups and
sauces and all other foods prepared from the dead animal carcass.
Figs, dates, raisins, bananas and all the other sweet fruits are excellent to
satisfy the craving of the organism for sweets.
Avoid the use of white bread or any other white-flour products, especially
pastry. White flour contains little more than the starchy elements of the grain.
Most of the valuable proteins, which are equal to meat in food value, and the
all-important organic salts, which lodge in the hulls, and the outer layers of the
grain have been refined out of it together with the bran.
In preference to white bread eat whole grain or whole rye bread.
Nuts are exceedingly rich in fats (60 percent) and proteins (15 percent), but
rank low in mineral salts.
Therefore they should be used sparingly, and always-in combination with
fruits, berries or vegetables. The coconut differs from the other nuts in that it
contains less fats and proteins and more organic salts.
The meat of the coconut together with its milk comes nearer to the chemical
composition of human milk than any other food in existence.
Vegetables
Leguminous Vegetables, such as peas, beans and lentils in the ripened state
are richer in protein than meat (25 percent), and besides they contain a large
percentage of starchy food elements (60 percent); therefore they produce in
the process of digestion large quantities of poisonous acids, alkaloids of
putrefaction and noxious gases.
They should not be taken in large quantities and only in combination cooked
or raw vegetables. As a dressing use lemon juice and olive oil.
Peas and beans in the green state differ very much from their chemical
composition in the ripened state. As long as these vegetables are green and
in the pulp, they contain large quantities of sugars and organic minerals, with
but little starch and protein.
As the ripening process advances, the percentages of starches and proteins
increase, while those of the sugars and of the organic minerals decrease.
The Leafy and Juicy Vegetables growing in or near the ground are very rich in
the positive organic salts and therefore of great nutritive and medicinal value.
For this reason they are best suited to balance the negative, acid producing
starches, sugars, fats and proteins.
Lettuce, spinach, cabbage, watercress, celery, parsley, savoy cabbage,
brussel sprouts, Scotch kale, leek and endive rank highest in organic mineral
salts.
Next to these come tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, radishes, onions,
asparagus and cauliflower.
Splendid, cooling summer foods, rich in the blood-purifying organic salts, are
watermelons, muskmelons, cantaloupes, pumpkins, squashes and other
members of the melon family.
The green vegetables are most beneficial when eaten raw, with a dressing of
lemon juice and olive oil. Avoid the use of vinegar as much as possible. It is a
product of fermentation and a powerful preservative, which retards digestion,
as well as fermentation, both processes being very much of the same
character.
Use neither pepper nor salt at the table. They may be used sparingly in
cooking. Strong spices and condiments are more or less irritating to the
mucous linings of the intestinal tract.
They paralyze gradually the nerves of taste. At first they stimulate the
digestive organs; but, like all other stimulants, in time they produce weakness
and atrophy.
While most vegetables are not improved by cooking, we do not mean that they
should never be cooked. Many diet reformers go to extremes when they claim
that all the organic salts in fruits and vegetables are rendered inorganic by
cooking.
This is an exaggeration. Cooking is merely a mechanical process of
subdivision, not a chemical process of transformation. Mechanical processes
of division do not dissolve or destroy organic molecules to any great extent.
Nevertheless, it remains true that the green leafy vegetables are not improved
by cooking. It is different with the starchy tubers and roots like potatoes,
turnips, etc., and with other starchy foods such as rice and grains. Here the
cooking serves to break up and separate the hard starch granules and to
make them more pervious to penetration by the digestive juices.
How to Cook Vegetables
After the vegetables are thoroughly washed and cut into pieces as desired,
place them in the cooking vessel, adding only enough water to keep them
from burning, cover the vessel closely with a lid and let them steam slowly in
their own juices.
The leafy vegetables (cabbage, spinach, kale, etc.), usually contain enough
water for their own steaming.
Cook all vegetables only as long as is required to make them soft enough for
easy mastication. Do not throw away a drop of the water in which such
vegetables as carrots, beets, asparagus, oyster plant, egg plant, etc., have
been cooked. Use what is left for the making of soups and sauces.
The organic mineral salts contained in the vegetables readily boil out into the
water. If the vegetables, as is the usual custom, are boiled in a large quantity
of water, then drained or, what is still worse, pressed out, they have lost their
nutritive and medicinal value.
Fruits and Berries
Next to the leafy vegetables, fruits and berries are the most valuable foods of
the organic minerals group.
Lemons, grapefruit, oranges, apples are especially beneficial as blood
purifiers. Plums, pears, peaches, apricots, cherries, grapes, etc., contain large
amounts of fruit sugars in easily assimilable form and are also very valuable
on account of their mineral salts.
Fruits and berries are best eaten raw, although they may be stewed or baked.
It is better to cook apples, cranberries, rhubarb, strawberries, and all other
acid fruits without sugar until soft, and to add the sugar afterward. Much less
sugar will be required to sweeten them sufficiently than when the sugar is
added before or during the cooking.
Dried fruits rank next to the fresh in value, as the evaporating process only
removes a large percentage of water, without changing the chemical
composition of the fruit in any way.
Prunes, apricots, apples, pears, peaches and berries may be obtained in the
dried state all through the year.
Dates, figs, raisins and currants also come under this head.
Olives are an excellent food. They are very rich in fats (about 50 percent), and
contain also considerable quantities of organic salts. They are therefore a
good substitute for animal fat.
Avoid factory-canned fruits. In the first place, they have become deteriorated
by the cooking process and secondly, they usually contain poisonous
chemical preservatives.
Home-preserved fruits and vegetables are all right providing they do not
contain too much sugar and no poisonous preservative.
Bananas differ from the juicy fruits in that they consist almost entirely of
starches, dextrines and sugars. They belong to the carbohydrate group and
should be used sparingly by people suffering from intestinal indigestion.
However, we do not share the belief entertained by many people that bananas
are injurious under all circumstances. We consider them an excellent food,
especially for children.
Instead of the customary coffee, tea or cocoa, delicious drinks, which are
nutritious and at the same time nonstimulating, may be prepared from the
different fruit and vegetable juices. They may be served cold in hot weather
and warm in winter.
Breakfast consists of juicy fruits, raw, baked or stewed, a cereal (whole wheat
steamed, cracked wheat, shredded wheat, corn flakes, oat meal, etc.), and
health bread. Nuts of various kinds, as well as figs, dates, or raisins, are
always on the table.
Lunch is composed altogether of acid and subacid fruits, vegetable salads or
both. We have found by experience that, by having one meal consist entirely
of fruits and vegetables, the medicinal properties of these foods have a
chance to act on the system without interference by starchy and protein food
elements.
Dinner menu comprise relishes, such as radishes, celery, olives, young
onions, raw carrots, etc., soup, one or two cooked vegetables, potatoes,
preferably boiled or baked in their skins, and a dessert consisting of either a
fruit combination or a fruit pudding.
Acid Diseases
The origin, progressive development and cure of acid diseases are very much
the same whether they manifest as rheumatism, arteriosclerosis, stones
(calculi), gravel, diabetes, affections of the heart or apoplexy.
The human body is made up of acid and alkaline constituents. In order to
have normal conditions and functions of tissues and organs, both must be
present in the right proportions.
If either the acid or the alkaline elements are present in excessive or
insufficient quantities, abnormal conditions and functions, that is, disease will
be the result.
All acids, with the exception of carbonic acid, exert a tensing influence upon
the tissues of the body, while alkalies have a relaxing effect. The normal
functions of the body depend upon the equilibrium between these opposing
forces.
Nearly every disease originating in the human body is due to or accompanied
by the excessive formation of different kinds of acids in the system, the most
important of which are uric, carbonic, sulphuric, phosphoric and oxalic acids.
These, together with poisonous alkaloids and ptomaines, are formed during
the processes of protein and starch digestion and in the breaking down and
decay of cells and tissues.
Of these different waste products, uric acid causes probably the most trouble
in the organism.
Uric acid is undoubtedly one of the most common causes of disease and
therefore deserves especial attention.
Like urea, uric acid is one of the end products of protein digestion. It is formed
in much smaller quantities than urea, in proportion of about one to fifty, but
the latter is more easily eliminated from the system through kidneys and skin.
The principal ingredient in the formation of uric acid is nitrogen, one of the six
elements, which enter into all proteid or albuminous food materials, also called
nitrogenous foods.
Uric acid, as one of the by-products of digestion, is therefore always present in
the blood and, in moderate quantities, serves useful purposes in the economy
of the human and animal organism like the other waste materials.
It becomes a source of irritation and cause of disease only when it is present
in the circulation or in the tissues in excessive amounts.
The alkaline blood takes up the uric acid, dissolves it and holds it in solution in
the circulation until it is carried to the organs of depuration and eliminated in
perspiration and urine.
If, however, through the excessive use of nitrogenous foods or defective
elimination, the amount of uric acid in the system is increased beyond a
certain limit, the blood loses its power to dissolve it and it forms a sticky,
glue-like, colloid substance, which occludes or blocks up the minute blood
vessels (capillaries), so that the blood cannot pass readily from the arterial
system into the venous circulation.
Other results of uric acid irritation are: inflammatory and catarrhal conditions
of the bronchi, lungs, stomach, intestines, genitourinary organs; rapid pulse;
palpitation of the heart; angina pectoris; etc.
The diseases caused by permanent deposits of uric acid in the tissues are
called arthritic diseases, because the accumulations frequently occur in the
joints.
It becomes clear why the meat-eater craves alcohol and xanthines. When by
the taking of flesh foods the blood has become saturated with uric acid and
the annoying symptoms of collaemia make their appearance in the forms of
lassitude, headache and nervous depression, then alcohol and the xanthines
contained in coffee, tea and tobacco will cause the precipitation of the acids
from the circulation into the tissues of the body, and thus temporarily relieve
the collaemic symptoms and create a feeling of well-being and stimulation.
Gradually, however, the blood regains its alkalinity and its acid-dissolving
power and enough of the acid deposits are reabsorbed by the circulation to
cause a return of the symptoms of collaemia.
Then arises a craving for more alcohol, coffee, tea, nicotine or
xanthine-producing foods in order to again obtain temporary relief and
stimulation, and so on, ad infinitum.
Conclusion
The greatest drawback to spreading the Nature Cure idea is the necessity of
self-control, which it imposes.
If our cures of so-called incurable diseases could be made without asking the
patients to change their habits of living, without the demand of effort on their
own part, Nature Cure sanitariums could not be built fast enough in this
country.
No matter how marvelous the results of the natural methods--when
investigators learn that the treatment necessitates the control of
indiscriminate appetite and self-indulgence and the persistent practice of
natural living and all that this involves, they exclaim:
"The natural regimen may be all right, but who can live up to it? You are asking
the impossible. You are looking for a perfection, which does not exist. Your
directions call for an amount of willpower and self-control which nobody
possesses."
Fortunately, however, this is not true. Human nature is good enough and
strong enough to comply with Nature's laws. Furthermore, the natural ways
must be the most pleasant in the end or Nature is a fraud and a cheat.
True enjoyment of life and happiness are impossible without perfect physical,
mental and moral health and these depend upon natural living and natural
treatment of human ailments.
Self-control is the master's key to all higher development on the mental, moral
and spiritual planes of being; but before we can exercise it on the higher
planes, we must have learned to apply it on the lower plane, in the
management and control of our physical appetites and habits.
By: Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
Complete Book Free Online: Nature Cure, Table of Contents
www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020123lindlahr/020123toc.html
By: Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
PART 2 OF 2
Cancer
Let us see how our theories of the Unity of Disease and Cure apply to cancer,
the much dreaded and rapidly increasing disease which is considered
absolutely incurable by both the laity and the medical profession.
Allopathy says that the only possible remedy is "early operation."
Nevertheless, in the textbooks of medical science and in medical schools and
colleges it is taught that cancer and all other malignant growths "always
return after extirpation."
In fact, every student of medicine is expected to state this in his examination
papers as part of the definition of malignant tumors.
The great majority of medical practitioners hold, furthermore, that cancer is a
local disease. This is proved by the fact that they apply local, symptomatic
treatment.
For many years I have been teaching in my lectures and writings as well as in
private advice to patients that cancer is a constitutional disease; that it is
rooted in every drop of blood in the body; that it is caused by the presence of
certain disease taints or of food and drug poisons in the system; that these
poisons irritate and stimulate the cells in a certain locality and cause their
abnormal multiplication or proliferation in the forms of benign or malignant
tumors.
I also claim that meat eating has much to do with the causation of cancer.
In benign tumors the abnormal proliferation of cells takes place slowly, and
they do not tend to immediate and rapid decay and deterioration.
In malignant tumors the "wild" cells, created in immense numbers, decay
almost as rapidly as they are produced because the abnormal growths are
devoid of normal organization.
They have no established, regular blood and nerve supply, nor are they
provided with adequate venous drainage. They are, therefore, cut off from the
orderly life of the organism and doomed to rapid deterioration.
The processes of decay of these tumor materials liberate large quantities of
alkaloids of putrefaction, and these, in turn, stimulate the normal, healthy cells
with which they come in contact to rapid, abnormal multiplication.
The malignant growth, therefore, feeds on its own products of decay, aside
from the systemic poisons and morbid materials already contained in the
blood and tissues of the body.
These morbid products permeate the entire system. They are carried by the
circulation of the blood into all parts of the body. This explains why cancer is
a constitutional disease, why it is, as I stated it is, "rooted in every drop of
blood."
It also explains why cancer, or rather the disposition to its development
(diathesis), is hereditary.
If the original cancerous growth is removed by surgical intervention, x-rays,
cauterization or any other form of local treatment, the poisonous materials
(alkaloids of putrefaction) in the blood will set up other foci of abnormal, wild
proliferation.
Medical science has applied the term metastasis to such spreading and
reappearing of malignant tumors after extirpation.
Medical findings throw an interesting light on the relationship between cancer
and meat eating.
Is it not self-evident that in a digestive tract filled most of the time with large
masses of partially digested and decaying animal food enormous quantities of
alkaloids of putrefaction are created?
These are absorbed into the circulation, attracted to any point where exists
some form of local irritation and then stimulate the cells in that locality to
abnormal proliferation.
What has been said verifies my claim that benign and malignant tumors can
be cured only by thorough purifying the system of all morbid and poisonous
taints and by building up the blood to a normal basis, that is, by providing it
with the proper elements of nutrition.
The Treatment of Acute Diseases by Natural Methods
We shall now proceed to describe the simple and uniform methods of natural
treatment.
If the uniformity of acute diseases is a fact in Nature, then it follows that it must
be possible to treat all acute diseases by uniform methods.
That it is possible to treat all acute diseases most successfully by natural
methods, which anybody possessed of ordinary intelligence can apply, has
been demonstrated for more than seventy years by the Nature Cure
practitioners in Germany, and by myself during the last ten years in an
extensive practice.
One of the many advantages of natural treatment is that it may be applied right
from the beginning, as soon as the first symptoms of acute febrile conditions
manifest themselves. It is not necessary to wait for a correct diagnosis of the
case.
The regular physician, with his specific treatment for the multitude of specific
diseases which he recognizes, often has to wait several days or even weeks
before the real nature of the disease becomes clear to him, before he is able to
diagnose the case or even to make a good guess.
The conscientious medical practitioner has to postpone actual treatment until
the symptoms are well defined.
Meanwhile he applies expectant treatment as it is called in medical parlance,
that is, he gives a purgative or a placebo, something or other to placate, or to
make the patient and his friends believe that something is being done.
But during this period of indecision and inaction very often the best
opportunity for aiding Nature in her healing efforts is lost, and the
inflammatory processes may reach such virulence that it becomes very
difficult or even impossible to keep them within constructive limits.
The bonfire that was to burn up the rubbish on the premises may, if not
watched and tended, assume such proportions that it damages or destroys
the house.
It must also be borne in mind that very frequently acute diseases do not
present the well-defined sets of symptoms, which fit into the accepted medical
conception of certain specific ailments.
On the contrary, in many instances the symptoms suggest a combination of
different forms of acute diseases.
If the character of the disease is ill defined and complicated, how, then, is the
physician to select the proper specific remedy, under such "Old School"
circumstances, the diagnosis of the case as well as the medical treatment will
at best be largely guesswork.
Compare with this unreliable and unsatisfactory treatment the simple and
scientific, exact and efficient natural methods.
The natural remedies can be applied from the first, at the slightest
manifestation of inflammatory and febrile symptoms. No matter what the
specific nature or trend of the inflammatory process, whether it is a simple
cold, or whether it takes the form of measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
smallpox, appendicitis, etc.--it makes absolutely no difference in the mode of
treatment.
In many instances the natural treatment will have broken the virulence of the
attack or brought about a cure before the regular physician gets good and
ready to apply his specific treatment.
The Natural Remedies
The most important ones of these natural remedies can be had free of cost in
any home. They are: air, fasting or eliminative diets, water, and the right
mental attitude.
I am fully convinced that these remedies offered freely by Mother Nature are
sufficient, if rightly applied, to cure any acute disease arising within the
organism.
A plentiful supply of pure fresh air is of vital importance at any time. We can
live without food for several weeks and without water for several days, but we
cannot live without air for more than a few minutes.
"Natural Diet" in Acute Diseases
From the appearance of the first suspicious symptoms until the fever has
abated and there is a hearty, natural hunger, feeding should be reduced to a
minimum or better still, entirely suspended.
The quantity of drinking water should be regulated by the desire of the patient,
but he should be warned not to take any more than is necessary to satisfy his
thirst.
Large amounts of water taken into the system dilute the blood and the other
fluids and secretions of the organism to an excessive degree, and this tends
to increase the general weakness and lower the patient's resistance to the
disease forces.
Water may be made more palatable and at the same time more effective for
purposes of elimination by the addition of the unsweetened juice of acid fruits,
such as orange, grapefruit or lemon, about one part of juice to three parts of
water.
Fresh pineapple juice is very good except in cases of hyperacidity of the
stomach. The fresh, unsweetened juice of Concord grapes is also beneficial.
Fasting
Total abstinence from food during acute febrile conditions is of primary
importance.
There is no greater fallacy than that the patient must be sustained and his
strength kept up by plenty of nourishing food and drink or, worse still, by
stimulants and tonics.
This is altogether wrong in itself, and besides, habit and appetite are often
mistaken for hunger.
A common spectacle witnessed at the bedside of the sick is that of
well-meaning but misguided relatives and friends forcing food and drink on
the patient, often by order of the doctor, when his whole system rebels against
it and the nauseated stomach expels the food as soon as taken. Sedatives
and tonics are then resorted to in order to force the digestive organs into
submission.
Aversion to eating during acute diseases, whether they represent healing
crises or disease crises, is perfectly natural, because the entire organism,
including the mucous membranes of stomach and intestines, is engaged in
the work of elimination, not assimilation.
Nausea, slimy and fetid discharges, constipation alternating with diarrhea,
etc., indicate that the organs of digestion are throwing off disease matter, and
that they are not in a condition to take up and assimilate food.
Taking food during feverish diseases is usually followed by a rise in
temperature and by aggravation of the other disease symptoms.
As long as there are signs of inflammatory, febrile conditions and no appetite,
do not be afraid to withhold food entirely, if necessary, for as long as five, six
or seven weeks.
In my practice I have had several patients who did not take any food, except
water to which acid fruit juices had been added, for more than seven weeks,
and then made a rapid and complete recovery.
In cases of gastritis, appendicitis, peritonitis, dysentery or typhoid fever,
abstinence from food is absolutely imperative.
After a prolonged fast, great care must be observed when commencing to eat.
Very small quantities of light food may safely be taken at intervals of a few
hours.
A good plan, especially after an attack of typhoid fever or dysentery, is to
break the fast by thoroughly masticating one or two tablespoonfuls of
popcorn.
This gives the digestive tract a good scouring and starts the peristaltic action
of the bowels better than any other food.
The popcorn may advantageously be followed in about two hours with a
tablespoonful of cooked rice and one or two cooked prunes or a small
quantity of some other stewed fruit.
For several days or weeks after a fast, according to the severity of the acute
disease or healing crisis, a diet consisting largely of raw fruits, such as
oranges, grapefruit, apples, pears, grapes, etc., and juicy vegetables,
especially lettuce, celery, cabbage slaw, watercress, young onions, tomatoes
or cucumbers should be adhered to.
No condiments or dressings should be used with the vegetables except
lemon juice and olive oil.
Never lose sight of the fact that fever is in itself a healing, cleansing process
which must not be checked or suppressed.
In acute as well as in chronic disease, large amounts of oxygen and ozone are
required to burn up the morbid materials and to purify the system.
Certain combinations of these elements are among the most powerful
antiseptics and germicides.
The Importance of Right Mental and Emotional Attitude in Acute Disease
We have learned that in the processes of inflammation a battle is going on
between the healing forces of the body, the phagocytes and natural antitoxins
on the one hand and the disease taints, germs, bacilli, etc., on the other hand.
This battle is real in every respect, as real as a combat between armies of
living soldiers. In this conflict, going on in all acute inflammatory diseases,
mind plays the same role as the commander of an army.
The great general needs courage, equanimity and presence of mind most in
the stress of battle. So the mind, the commander of the vast armies of cells
battling in acute disease for the health of the body, must have absolute faith in
the superiority of Nature's healing forces.
If the mind becomes frightened by the inflammatory and febrile symptoms and
pictures to itself in darkest colors their dreadful consequences, these
confused and distracted thought vibrations are conveyed instantaneously to
the millions of little soldiers fighting in the affected parts and organs.
They also become confused and panic-stricken.
The excitement of fear in the mind still more accelerates heart action and
respiration, intensifies the local congestion and greatly increases the morbid
accumulations in the system.
In closing we shall deal especially with the deteriorating influence of fear,
anxiety, anger, irritability, impatience, etc., and explain how these and all other
destructive emotions actually poison the secretions of the body.
In acute disease we cannot afford to add to the poisonous elements in the
organism, because the danger of a fatal ending lies largely in the paralysis of
vital centers by the morbid and poisonous products of inflammation.
Everything depends upon the maintenance of the greatest possible inflow of
vital force; and there is nothing so weakening as worry and anxiety, nothing
that impedes the inflow, distribution and normal activity of the vital energies
like fear.
A person overcome by sudden fright is actually benumbed and paralyzed,
unable to think and to act intelligently.
These truths may be expressed in another way. The victory of the healing
forces in acute disease depends upon an abundant supply of the positive
electromagnetic energies.
The positive mind and will are to the body what the magneto is to the
automobile. As the electric sparks from the magneto ignite the gas, thus
generating the power that drives the machine, so the positive vibrations,
generated by a confident and determined will, create in the body the positive
electromagnetic currents, which incite and stimulate all vital activities.
Common experience teaches us that the concentration of the will on the thing
to be accomplished greatly heightens and increases all physical, mental and
moral powers.
Therefore the victory in acute diseases is conditioned by the absolute faith,
confidence and serenity of mind on the part of the patient.
The more he exercises these harmonizing and invigorating qualities of mind
and soul, the more favorable are the conditions for the little soldiers who are
fighting his battles in the inflamed parts and organs.
The blood and nerve currents are less impeded and disturbed, and flow more
normally.
The local congestion is relieved, and this favors the natural course of the
inflammatory processes.
Therefore, instead of being overcome with fear and anxiety, as most people
are under such circumstances, do not become alarmed, nor convey alarm to
the millions of little cells battling in the inflamed parts.
Speak to them like a commander addressing his troops:
"We understand the laws of disease and cure, we know that these
inflammatory and febrile symptoms are the result of Nature's healing efforts,
we have perfect confidence in her wisdom and in the efficiency of her healing
forces. This fever is merely a good house cleaning, a healing crisis. We are
eliminating morbid matter, poisons and germs, which were endangering health
and life.
We rejoice over the purification and regeneration now taking place and
benefiting the whole body. Fear not.
Attend to your work quietly and serenely. Let us open ourselves wide to the
inflow of life from the source of all life in the innermost parts of our being.
The life in us is the life of God. We are strengthened and made whole by the
Divine life and power which animate the universe."
The serenity of your mind, backed by absolute trust in the Law and by the
power of a strong Will, infuses the cells and tissues with new life and vigor,
enabling them to turn the acute disease into a beneficial, cleansing and
healing crisis.
Be careful, however, not to employ your intelligence and your will power to
suppress acute inflammatory and febrile processes and symptoms.
This can be accomplished by the power of the will as well as by ice bags and
poisonous drugs, and its effect would be to turn Nature's acute cleansing
efforts into chronic disease.
The Importance of Right Mental and Emotional Attitude on the Part of Friends
and Relatives
The sick person is exceedingly sensitive to his surroundings. He is easily
influenced by all depressing, discordant and jarring conditions. He catches
the expressions of fear and anxiety in the looks, the words, gestures and
actions of his attendants, relatives and friends and these intensify his own
depression and gloomy forebodings.
This applies especially to the influence exerted by the mother upon her ailing
infant. There exists a most intimate sympathetic and telepathic connection
between mother and child.
The child is affected not only by the outward expression of the mother's fear
and anxiety, but likewise by the hidden doubt and despair in the mother's
mind and soul.
Usually, the first thing that confronts me when I am called to the sickbed of a
child is the frantic and almost hysterical mental condition of the mother, and to
begin with, I have to explain to her the destructive influence of her behavior.
Then I explain how faith, calmness and cheerfulness on her part will soothe
and harmonize the discordant disease vibrations in the child's body.
Herein lies the modus operandi or working basis of all successful mental and
metaphysical treatment.
I. Fresh Air
A plentiful supply of pure air in the sickroom.
Patient must not be kept too warm.
II. Natural Diet
The minimum amount of light food, chiefly fruit and vegetable salads, no
condiments.
Only enough water to quench thirst preferably mixed with acid fruit juices.
In serious acute febrile conditions and during healing crises no food
whatever.
In diseases affecting the digestive organs fasting must be prolonged several
days beyond cessation of febrile symptoms.
Great care must be observed when breaking fast.
No poisonous drugs, nor any medicines or applications, which may check or
suppress the feverish, inflammatory processes.
Mental Attitude
Courage, serenity and presence of mind are important factors.
Fear and anxiety intensify disease conditions, poison the secretions of the
body and inhibit the action of the healing forces.
Do not suppress acute inflammatory and feverish processes by the power of
the will.
The right mental and emotional attitude of relatives and friends exerts a
powerful influence upon the patient.
The True Scope of Medicine
The average medical practitioner has not yet learned from the Nature Cure
school, that simple fasting and cool water when required, will surely and easily
cure every form of acute disease, as, for instance, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
smallpox, cerebrospinal meningitis, appendicitis, etc.
Therefore, we claim that there is no necessity for the employment of
poisonous drugs, serums and antitoxins for this purpose.
Almost every virulent poison known to man is found in allopathic
prescriptions.
By far the greater part of all chronic diseases are created or complicated on
the one hand by the suppression of acute diseases by means of drug
poisons, and on the other hand through the destructive effects of the drugs
themselves.
We condemn the use of drugs insofar as they are poisonous and destructive
and insofar as they suppress acute diseases or healing crises, which are
Nature's cleansing and healing efforts.
In every form of chronic disease there exists in the system, on the one hand,
an excess of certain morbid materials, and on the other hand, a deficiency of
certain mineral constituents, organic salts, which are essential to the normal
functions of the body.
It stands to reason that Nature has provided within the ranges of the natural
foods all the elements which Man needs in the way of food and medicine.
It is imperative to take the organic mineral salts in the forms of fruit, herb and
vegetable juice extracts.
Among the best of these food remedies are extracts of leafy vegetables such
as lettuce, spinach, Scotch kale, cabbage, Swiss chard, etc. These vegetables
are richer than any other foods in the positive mineral salts.
The extract may be prepared from one or more of these vegetables, according
to the supply on hand or the tolerance of the digestive organs and the taste
and preference of the patient.
The difficulty we experience in eliminating mineral poisons from the body
would seem to indicate that Nature never intended them to be used as foods
or medicines.
The intestines, kidneys, skin, mucous membranes and other organs of
depuration are evidently not constructed or prepared to cope with inorganic,
poisonous substances and to eliminate them completely.
Accordingly, these poisons show the tendency to accumulate in certain parts
or organs of the body for which they have a special affinity and then to act as
irritants and destructive corrodents.
The diseases, which we find most difficult to cure, even by the most radical
application of natural methods, are cases of drug poisoning.
Substances, which are foreign to the human organism, and especially the
inorganic, mineral poisons, positively destroy tissues and organs, and are
much harder to eliminate from the system than the encumbrances of morbid
materials and waste matter produced in the body by wrong habits of living
only.
The obvious reason for this is that our organs of elimination are intended and
constructed to excrete only such waste products as are formed in the
organism in the processes of metabolism.
Tuberculosis or cancer may be caused in a scrofulous or psoriatic
constitution by overloading the system with meat, coffee, alcohol or tobacco;
but as soon as these bad habits are discontinued, and the organs of
elimination stimulated by natural methods, the encumbrances will be
eliminated, and the much-dreaded symptoms will subside and disappear,
often with surprising rapidity.
On the other hand, mercury, arsenic, quinine, strychnine, iodine, etc.,
accumulate in the brain, the spinal cord, and the cells and tissues of the vital
organs, causing actual destruction and disintegration.
The tissues thus affected are not easily rebuilt, and it is exceedingly difficult to
stir up the destructive mineral poisons and to eliminate them from the system.
Therefore it is an indisputable fact that many of the most stubborn, so-called
incurable diseases are drug diseases.
The Importance of Natural Diet
We should aim to keep our bodies in a normal, healthy condition by proper
food selection and combination.
Undoubtedly, Nature has supplied all the elements, which the human
organism needs, in abundance and in the right proportions in the natural
foods; otherwise she would be a very ignorant organizer and provider.
We should learn to select and combine food materials in such a manner that
they supply all the needs of the body in the best possible way and thus insure
perfect health and strength without the use of medicines.
Why should we attempt to cure anemia with inorganic iron, hyperacidity of the
stomach with baking soda, when these mineral elements are contained in
abundance and in live, organic form in fruits and vegetables?
At present the trend of allopathic medical science is undoubtedly toward the
serum, antitoxin and vaccine treatment.
Practically all medical research tends that way. Every few days we see in the
daily papers reports of new serums and antitoxins which are claimed to cure
or create immunity to certain diseases.
Suppose the research and practice of medical science continue along these
lines and are generally accepted or, as the medical associations would have it,
forced upon the public by law.
What would be the result? Before a child reached the years of adolescence, it
would have had injected into its blood the vaccines, serums, and antitoxins of
smallpox, hydrophobia, tetanus (lockjaw), cerebro-spinal meningitis, typhoid
fever, diphtheria, pneumonia, scarlet fever, etc.
If allopathy were to have its way, the blood of the adult would be a mixture of
dozens of filthy bacterial extracts, disease taints and destructive drug
poisons.
The tonsils and adenoids, the appendix vermiformis and probably a few other
parts of the human anatomy would be extirpated in early youth under
compulsion of the health departments.
What is more rational and sensible: the endeavor to produce immunity to
disease by making the human body the breeding ground for all sorts of
antibacteria and antipoisons, or to create natural immunity by building up the
blood on a normal basis, purifying the body of morbid matter and poisons,
correcting mechanical lesions and by cultivating the right mental attitude?
Which one of these methods is more likely to be disease building, which
health building?
Just imagine what human blood will be like in coming generations if this
artificial contamination with all sorts of disease taints and drug poisons is to
be forced upon the people!
Surgery
The discoverers of anesthetics are classed among the greatest benefactors of
humanity, because it is believed that ether, chloroform, cocaine and similar
nerve-paralyzing agents have greatly lessened the sum of human suffering. I
doubt, however, that this is true.
Anesthetics have made surgery technically easy and have done away with the
pain caused directly by the incisions; but on the other hand, these marvelous
effects of pain-killing drugs have encouraged indiscriminate and unnecessary
operations to such an extent that at least nine-tenths of all the surgical
operations performed today are uncalled for.
In most instances these ill-advised mutilations are followed by lifelong
weakness and suffering, which far outweigh the temporary pains formerly
endured when unavoidable operations were performed without the use of
anesthesia.
We do not wish to be understood as condemning unqualifiedly any and all
surgical interventions in the treatment of human ailments. An operation may
occasionally be absolutely necessary as a means of saving life.
Surgery is also indicated in cases of injury, such as wounds or fractured
bones, in certain obstetrical complications and in other affections of a purely
mechanical nature.
In all such cases anesthetics prevent much suffering which cannot be
avoided in any other way. But anyone who has had an opportunity to watch
the prolonged misery of the victims of un-called-for operations will not doubt
that anesthesia has been a two-edged sword, which has inflicted many more
wounds than it has healed.
Is it not better to cure a diseased organ than to remove it? Nature Cure proves
every day that the better way is at the same time the easiest way.
Thousands of men and women operated upon for some local ailment which
could have been cured easily by natural methods of treatment are condemned
by these inexcusable mutilations to lifelong suffering.
A body deprived of important parts or organs is forever unbalanced. It is like a
watch with a spring or a wheel taken out; it may run, but never quite right; it is
hypersensitive and easily thrown out of balance by any adverse influence.
The Human Body Is a Unit
We are realizing more and more that the human body is a homogeneous and
harmonious whole, and that we cannot injure one part of it without damaging
other parts and often the entire organism.
Acute and subacute conditions represent Nature's cleansing and healing
efforts, and that local suppression by drug or knife only serves to turn
Nature's corrective and purifying activities into chronic disease.
The highest art of the true physician is to preserve and to restore, not to
mutilate or destroy.
Chronic Diseases
The "Old School" of medical science defines acute diseases as those, which
run a brief and more or less violent course, and chronic diseases as those,
which run a protracted course and have a tendency to recur.
From the Nature Cure viewpoint, the chronic condition is the latent,
constitutional disease encumbrance, whereas acute disease represents
Nature's efforts to rectify abnormal conditions, to overcome and eliminate
hereditary or acquired morbid taints and systemic poisons and to reestablish
normal structure and functions.
Chronic disease, from the Nature Cure philosophy, means that the organism
has become permeated with morbid matter and poisons to such an extent that
it is no longer able to throw off these encumbrances by a vigorous, acute
eliminative effort.
The chronic condition, therefore, represents the slow, cold type of disease,
characterized by feeble, ineffectual efforts to eliminate the latent morbid taints
and impediments from the system.
These efforts may take the form of open sores, skin eruptions, catarrhal
discharges, chronic diarrhea, etc.
If acute diseases are treated in harmony with Nature's laws, they will leave the
body in a purer, healthier condition.
But if the treatment is wrong, if under the "Old School" methods fever and
inflammation (Nature's methods of elimination) are checked and suppressed
with poisonous drugs, serums and antitoxins or if, instead of purifying and
invigorating cells and tissues, the affected parts and organs are removed with
the surgeon's knife, Nature is not allowed to get rid of the disease matter, and
the poisonous taints and morbid encumbrances remain in the organism.
The vital difference between the attitude of Nature Cure physicians and those
of the allopathic school toward disease are; the latter spends all its efforts in
fighting the disease symptoms, while the former confines itself to creating
health conditions in the habits and surroundings of the patient.
We must endeavor in the first place to furnish the bodies cells with the right
nourishment. We must abstain from everything that may be injurious to the
body in food and drink, so as to relieve the cells of all unnecessary work.
Whatever one may think of vegetarianism as a continuous mode of living, a
little consideration will make it plain that a rational vegetarian diet is the sine
qua non in the cure of chronic diseases.
It builds up the blood on a normal basis, excludes all food and drink poisons
and thereby gives the organism an opportunity to throw off the old
accumulations of waste and morbid materials.
In chronic disease, every drop of blood and every cell of the organism is
affected. In order to produce a cure, the old tissues must be broken down and
removed and new tissues built up.
The more thorough the change in diet, the greater and more rapid will be the
changes for the better in cells and tissues, especially if only pure and
eliminating foods are used.
For these reasons it is advisable to omit most red-blooded meat while under
the natural treatment.
All animal flesh contains the morbid secretions and other waste products of
the animal organism, and this means additional work for the cells already
overburdened with systemic poisons.
Fear, anxiety and all kindred emotions congeal the nerve matter and thereby
shut off the supply of nerve force.
The cells and tissues starve and freeze. On the other hand, the emotions of
hope, confidence and cheerfulness relax and open blood vessels and nerve
channels and allow the free and unobstructed inflow and circulation of vital
energy.
Crises
Crisis in the ordinary sense of the word means change, either for better or for
worse. In its relation to medicine, the term "crisis" has been defined as "a
decisive change in the disease, resulting either in recovery or in death."
We of the Nature Cure school distinguish between healing crises and disease
crises, according to the character and the tendency of the acute reaction.
Healing crises are simply different forms of elimination by means of which
Nature endeavors to remove the latent, chronic disease encumbrance from
the system.
The most common forms of these acute purifications are colds, catarrhal and
hemorrhoid discharges, boils, ulcers, abscesses, open sores, skin eruptions,
diarrheas, etc.
When the organism is loaded to the danger point with morbid matter, it may
arouse itself in self-defense to an acute eliminative effort in the shape of cold,
catarrh, fever, inflammation, skin eruption, etc.
In these instances, the disease conditions bring about the crisis and the
organism is on the defensive. These are disease crises.
Such unequal struggles between the healing forces and disease conditions
sometimes end favorably and sometimes unfavorably.
On the other hand, healing crises develop because the healing forces are in
the ascendancy and take the offensive.
They are brought about through the natural methods of living and of treatment
and always result in improved conditions.
Under conditions favorable to human life, a body of normal structure, healthy
blood and tissues and good vitality cannot be affected by acute disease.
Such an organism is practically immune to all forms of inflammatory febrile
reactions. These always indicate that there is something wrong in the system,
which Nature is trying to correct or get rid of.
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. The possibility of producing healing crises
and thereby curing chronic ailments depends upon the following conditions:
The patient must possess sufficient vital energy and powers of reaction to
respond to the natural treatment and to a change of habits.
The destruction and disorganization of vital fluids and organs must not have
advanced too far.
Some patients become frightened at the idea of crises. They exclaim: "I came
here to get well, not to grow worse."
However, there is no occasion for alarm. Healing crises occur in mild form
only because, under the influence of natural living and treatment, Nature has
the best of the fight.
The healing forces of the organism have gained the ascendancy over the
disease conditions.
In fact, Nature never undertakes a healing crisis until the system has been
prepared for it, until the organism is sufficiently purified and strengthened to
conduct the acute reaction to a favorable termination.
Furthermore, it is well to remember that crises cannot be avoided, because it
is through fevers and inflammatory processes that Nature effects the
cure--that she tears down the old to build up the new.
On the other hand, if patients are possessed of exceptionally good vitality and
if the organs of elimination are in good working order, the purification and
adjustment of the organism may occasionally proceed gradually without the
occurrence of marked acute reactions or crises.
When well assisted by the right, natural methods of living and of treatment,
healing crises are never dangerous or fatal to life.
The only danger lies in suppressing these acute reactions by drugs, knife, the
ice bag or any means whatever.
If acute reactions are suppressed, the constructive healing crisis may be
changed into a destructive disease crisis.
Therefore we earnestly warn our patients never to interfere in any way with a
healing crisis lest the chronic condition (which resulted from the suppression
of the original disease) become worse than before.
When Nature, with all the force inherent in the human organism, has finally
worked up to the point of a healing crisis, another defeat by a new
suppression may be beyond her powers of endurance and recuperation.
Fatal collapse may then be the result.
Therefore, take heed. If you are not willing to endure the healing crises, do not
undertake the treatment.
When you have conjured up the hidden demons of disease, you must have
the courage to face and subdue them.
All laxatives and cathartics are poisons; if it were not so, they would not
produce their peculiar, drastic effects.
Because they are poisons, Nature tries to eliminate them from the system as
quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
In order to do this, the excretory glands and membranes of the liver and the
digestive tract greatly increase the amount of their secretions and thereby
produce a forced evacuation of the intestinal canal.
Thus the system, in the effort to eliminate the mercurial poison, expels also the
other contents of the intestines.
This may effect a temporary cleansing of the intestinal tract, but it does not
and cannot cleanse the individual cells throughout the body of their
impurities.
Enforced, artificial purging may flush the drains and sewers, but does not
cleanse the chambers of the house.
The cells in the interior tissues remain encumbered with morbid matter. A
genuine and truly effective housecleaning must start in the cells and must be
brought about through the initiative of the vital energies in the organism,
through healing crises, and not through stimulation by means of poisonous
irritants.
When, under a natural regimen of living and of treatment, the system has been
sufficiently purified, adjusted and vivified, the cells themselves begin the work
of elimination.
This is what takes place: The morbid matter and poisons thrown off by the
cells and tissues are carried by means of the venous circulation to the organs
of elimination, the bowels, kidneys, lungs and skin, and to the mucous
membranes lining the interior tracts, such as the nasal passages, the throat
and bronchi, the digestive and genitourinary canals, etc.
These organs of elimination become overcrowded with the rush of morbid
matter and the accompanying congestion and irritation cause the acute
inflammatory processes and feverish symptoms characterizing the various
forms of colds, catarrhs, skin eruptions, diarrheas, boils and other acute forms
of elimination, which we call healing crises.
In other words, what the "Old School" of medicine calls the disease, we look
upon as the Cure.
Acute elimination brought about in this manner is Nature's method of
housecleaning. It is a true healing crisis, the result of purification and
increased activity from within the cell, produced by natural means.
Drugs, stimulants and tonics, while they produce an artificial, temporary
stimulation, do not change the underlying abnormal conditions in the
organism.
Likewise, the flushing of the colon with water, the use of laxative herb teas
and decoctions or forced sweating by means of Turkish or Russian baths,
though not as dangerous as inorganic minerals and poisonous drugs, cannot
be classed among the natural means of cure.
These agents, which by many persons are looked upon as natural treatment,
irritate the organs of elimination to forced, abnormal activity without at the
same time arousing the cells in the interior of the body to natural elimination.
Artificially induced sweating does not eliminate disease matter.
The organism cannot be forced by irritants and stimulants and artificial
means, but eliminates morbid matter only in its own natural manner and when
it is in proper condition to do so.
In a lesser degree, this applies also to fasting. Under certain conditions it
becomes a necessity; but it may easily be abused and overdone.
The methods and requirements of Nature Cure appear at first so unusual and
exacting that people seek to evade them so long as they have the least faith in
the miracle-working power of the poison bottle, a metaphysical healer or the
surgeon's knife.
When health, wealth and hope are entirely exhausted, then the chronic
sufferer grasps at Nature Cure as a drowning man clutches at a straw.
But even though ninety percent of these cases, which come to us, are of the
apparently incurable type, our total failures are few and far between.
If there is sufficient vitality in the body to react to natural treatment and if the
destruction of vital parts and organs has not too far advanced, a cure is
possible. Often the seemingly hopeless cases yield the most readily.
The Treatment of Chronic Diseases
The Nature Cure treatment of acute diseases tends to relieve inner
congestion, to facilitate the radiation of heat and the elimination of morbid
matter and systemic poisons from the body.
In this way it eases and palliates the feverish processes and keeps them
below the danger point without in any way checking or suppressing them.
Diet (fasting), bathing, correct breathing, general physical exercise, corrective
gymnastics, air and sunbaths, mental therapeutics.
Every honest physician admits that the "Old School" methods of diagnosis
are, to say the least, unsatisfactory and uncertain, especially in ascertaining
the underlying causes of disease.
Vitality
What can we do to increase vitality? "Old School" physicians and people in
general seem to think that this can be done by consuming large quantities of
nourishing food and drink and by the use of stimulants and tonics.
The human organism is capable of liberating and manifesting daily a limited
quantity of vital force, just as a certain amount of capital in the bank will yield a
specified sum of interest in a given time.
If more than the available interest is withdrawn, the capital in the bank will be
decreased and gradually exhausted.
Similarly, if we spend more than our daily allowance of vital force, "nervous
bankruptcy" that is, nervous prostration or neurasthenia will be the result.
It is the duty of the physician to regulate the expenditure of vital force
according to the income. He must stop all leaks and guard against
wastefulness.
Stimulants are poison to the system. Few people realize that their exhilarating
and apparently tonic effects are produced by the paralysis of an important
part of the nervous system.
We found that the human body is capable of liberating in a given time, say, in
twenty-four hours, only a certain limited amount of vital energy; just as the
wound spring of the watch is capable of liberating in a given time only a
certain amount of kinetic energy.
Every motor nerve must be balanced by an inhibitory nerve. The one
furnishes the driving force, the other applies the brake.
For instance, the heart muscle is supplied with motor force through the spinal
nerves from the upper dorsal region, while the pneumogastric [vagus] nerve
retards the action of the heart and in that way acts as a brake.
Another brake is supplied by the waste products of metabolism in the system,
the uric acid, carbonic acid, oxalic acid, etc., and the many forms of xanthines,
alkaloids, and ptomaines.
As these accumulate in the organism during the hours of wakeful activity, they
gradually clog the capillary circulation, benumb brain and nerves, and thus
produce a feeling of exhaustion and tiredness and a craving for rest and
sleep.
In this way, by means of the inhibitory nervous system and of the
accumulating fatigue products in the body, Nature forces the organism to rest
and recuperate when the available supply of vital force runs low.
The lower the level of vital force, the more powerful will become the inhibitory
influences.
The caffeine, alcohol or whatever the stimulating poison may have been has
precipitated the fatigue products from the blood and deposited them in the
tissues and organs of the body.
Furthermore, the stimulant has benumbed the inhibitory nerves; in other
words, it has lifted the brakes from the driving part of the organism, so that the
wheels are running wild.
Nature tried to force the tired body to rest and sleep, so that it could store up a
new supply of vital force.
Under the paralyzing influence of the stimulant upon the inhibitory nerves, the
organism now draws upon the reserve stores of nerve fats and vital energies
for the necessary strength to accomplish the extra nightwork.
During sleep only do we replenish our reserve stores of vitality. The
expenditure of vital energies ceases, but their liberation in the system
continues.
Therefore sleep is the "sweet restorer." Nothing can take its place. No
amount of food and drink, no tonics or stimulants can make up for the loss of
sleep.
Continued complete deprivation of sleep is bound to end in a short time in
physical and mental exhaustion, and death.
The person, who resorts to stimulants to keep up his strength or to increase it,
is never normal, never on the level, never at his best. He is either over
stimulated or abnormally depressed.
The Effects of Stimulants upon the Mind
The mental and emotional exhilaration accompanying the indulgence in
alcohol or other poisonous stimulants is produced in a similar manner as the
apparent increase of physical strength under the influence of these agents.
Here, also, the temporary stimulation and seeming increase of power are
effected by paralysis of the governing and restraining faculties of mind and
soul: of reason, modesty, reserve, caution, reverence, etc.
The moral, mental and emotional capacities and powers of the human entity
are governed by the same principle of dual action that controls physical
activity.
We have on the one hand the motor or driving impulses, and on the other
hand the restraining and inhibiting influences.
In these higher realms appetite, passion, imagination and desire correspond
to the motor nervous system in the physical organism, and the power of the
will and the reasoning faculties represent the inhibitory nervous system.
The exhilarating and stimulating influence of alcohol and narcotics such as
opiates or hashish upon the animal spirits and the emotional and imaginative
faculties is caused by the benumbing and paralyzing effect of these
stimulants upon the powers of will, reason and self-control, the brakes on the
lower appetites, passions and desires which fire the emotional nature and the
imagination.
However, what is gained in feeling and imagination is lost in judgment and
logic.
Alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, opium, cocaine, morphine, etc., when given in
certain doses, all affect the human organism in a similar manner.
In small quantities they seemingly stimulate and animate; in larger amounts
they depress and stupefy.
In reality, they are paralyzers from the beginning in every instance, and their
apparent, temporary tonic effect is deceptive.
They benumb and paralyze not only the physical organism, but also the
higher and highest mental and moral qualities, capacities and powers.
Many people believe that alcohol increases not only physical strength, but
mental energy also. Regular medical science considers it a valuable tonic in
all cases of physical and mental depression.
It is often administered in surgical operations and in accidents with the idea of
prolonging life. I have frequently found the whisky or brandy bottle at the
bedside of infants and on it the directions of the attending physician.
Watch the effect of this tonic on a group of convivial spirits at a banquet. Full
honor is done to the art of the chef, and the wine flows freely. The flow of
animal spirits increases proportionately; conviviality, wit and humor rise by
leaps and bounds.
But the apparent joy and happiness are in reality nothing but the play of the
lower animal impulses, unrestrained by the higher powers of mind and soul.
As King Alcohol tightens his grasp on the merry company, the toasters and
speakers lose more and more of their control over speech and actions.
What was at first mischievous abandon and merry jest gradually degenerates
into loquaciousness, coarseness and querulous brawls.
Here and there one of the maudlin crowd drops off in the stupor of
drunkenness.
If the liquor is strong enough and if the debauch is continued long enough, it
may end in complete paralysis of the vital functions or in death.
Natural Dietetics
The chemical composition of blood and lymph depends upon the chemical
composition of food and drink, and upon the normal or abnormal condition of
the digestive organs.
The purer the food and drink, the less it contains of morbid matter and
poison-producing materials and the more it contains of the elements
necessary for the proper execution of the manifold functions of the organism,
for the building and repair of tissues and for the neutralization and elimination
of waste and systemic poisons, the more "normal" and the more "natural" will
be the diet.
If we study dietetics from a strictly scientific point of view, we find that certain
foods--among these especially the highly valued flesh foods, eggs, pulses
and cereals--create in the system large quantities of morbid, poisonous
substances, while on the other hand fruits and vegetables, which are rich in
the organic salts, tend to neutralize and to eliminate from the system the waste
materials and poisons created in the processes of protein and starch
digestion.
The accumulations of waste and systemic poisons are the cause of the
majority of diseases arising within the human organism. Therefore it is
imperative that the neutralizing and eliminating food elements be provided in
sufficient quantities.
The "Old School" of medicine looks upon starches, sugars, fats and proteins
as the only elements of nutrition worthy of consideration, Nature Cure aims to
reduce these foods in the natural dietary and to increase the purifying and
eliminating fruits and vegetables.
In the treatment of chronic diseases, with few exceptions, we favor a strict
vegetarian diet for the reason that most chronic diseases are created, as
before stated, by the accumulation of the "feces of the cells" in the system.
Every piece of animal flesh is saturated with these excrements of the cells in
the form of uric acid and many other kinds of acids, alkaloids of putrefaction,
xanthines, ptomaines, etc.
The organism of the meat eater must dispose not only of its own impurities
produced in the processes of digestion and of cell metabolism, but also of the
morbid substances that are already contained in the animal flesh.
Since the cure of chronic diseases consists largely in purifying the body of
morbid materials, it stands to reason that a "chronic" must cease taking these
in his daily food and drink.
Whether one approves of strict vegetarianism as a continuous mode of living
or not, it will be admitted that the change from a meat diet to a nonmeat diet
must be of great benefit in the treatment of chronic diseases.
The old, abnormal, faulty diet will continue to build the same abnormal and
disease-encumbered tissues. The more thorough and radical the change in
diet toward normality and purity, the quicker the cells and tissues of the body
will change toward the normal and thus bring about a complete regeneration
of the organism.
Anything short of this may be palliative treatment, but is not worthy the name
of cure.
Natural Foods
If you wish to follow a pure food diet, exclude meat, fish, fowl, meat soups and
sauces and all other foods prepared from the dead animal carcass.
Figs, dates, raisins, bananas and all the other sweet fruits are excellent to
satisfy the craving of the organism for sweets.
Avoid the use of white bread or any other white-flour products, especially
pastry. White flour contains little more than the starchy elements of the grain.
Most of the valuable proteins, which are equal to meat in food value, and the
all-important organic salts, which lodge in the hulls, and the outer layers of the
grain have been refined out of it together with the bran.
In preference to white bread eat whole grain or whole rye bread.
Nuts are exceedingly rich in fats (60 percent) and proteins (15 percent), but
rank low in mineral salts.
Therefore they should be used sparingly, and always-in combination with
fruits, berries or vegetables. The coconut differs from the other nuts in that it
contains less fats and proteins and more organic salts.
The meat of the coconut together with its milk comes nearer to the chemical
composition of human milk than any other food in existence.
Vegetables
Leguminous Vegetables, such as peas, beans and lentils in the ripened state
are richer in protein than meat (25 percent), and besides they contain a large
percentage of starchy food elements (60 percent); therefore they produce in
the process of digestion large quantities of poisonous acids, alkaloids of
putrefaction and noxious gases.
They should not be taken in large quantities and only in combination cooked
or raw vegetables. As a dressing use lemon juice and olive oil.
Peas and beans in the green state differ very much from their chemical
composition in the ripened state. As long as these vegetables are green and
in the pulp, they contain large quantities of sugars and organic minerals, with
but little starch and protein.
As the ripening process advances, the percentages of starches and proteins
increase, while those of the sugars and of the organic minerals decrease.
The Leafy and Juicy Vegetables growing in or near the ground are very rich in
the positive organic salts and therefore of great nutritive and medicinal value.
For this reason they are best suited to balance the negative, acid producing
starches, sugars, fats and proteins.
Lettuce, spinach, cabbage, watercress, celery, parsley, savoy cabbage,
brussel sprouts, Scotch kale, leek and endive rank highest in organic mineral
salts.
Next to these come tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, radishes, onions,
asparagus and cauliflower.
Splendid, cooling summer foods, rich in the blood-purifying organic salts, are
watermelons, muskmelons, cantaloupes, pumpkins, squashes and other
members of the melon family.
The green vegetables are most beneficial when eaten raw, with a dressing of
lemon juice and olive oil. Avoid the use of vinegar as much as possible. It is a
product of fermentation and a powerful preservative, which retards digestion,
as well as fermentation, both processes being very much of the same
character.
Use neither pepper nor salt at the table. They may be used sparingly in
cooking. Strong spices and condiments are more or less irritating to the
mucous linings of the intestinal tract.
They paralyze gradually the nerves of taste. At first they stimulate the
digestive organs; but, like all other stimulants, in time they produce weakness
and atrophy.
While most vegetables are not improved by cooking, we do not mean that they
should never be cooked. Many diet reformers go to extremes when they claim
that all the organic salts in fruits and vegetables are rendered inorganic by
cooking.
This is an exaggeration. Cooking is merely a mechanical process of
subdivision, not a chemical process of transformation. Mechanical processes
of division do not dissolve or destroy organic molecules to any great extent.
Nevertheless, it remains true that the green leafy vegetables are not improved
by cooking. It is different with the starchy tubers and roots like potatoes,
turnips, etc., and with other starchy foods such as rice and grains. Here the
cooking serves to break up and separate the hard starch granules and to
make them more pervious to penetration by the digestive juices.
How to Cook Vegetables
After the vegetables are thoroughly washed and cut into pieces as desired,
place them in the cooking vessel, adding only enough water to keep them
from burning, cover the vessel closely with a lid and let them steam slowly in
their own juices.
The leafy vegetables (cabbage, spinach, kale, etc.), usually contain enough
water for their own steaming.
Cook all vegetables only as long as is required to make them soft enough for
easy mastication. Do not throw away a drop of the water in which such
vegetables as carrots, beets, asparagus, oyster plant, egg plant, etc., have
been cooked. Use what is left for the making of soups and sauces.
The organic mineral salts contained in the vegetables readily boil out into the
water. If the vegetables, as is the usual custom, are boiled in a large quantity
of water, then drained or, what is still worse, pressed out, they have lost their
nutritive and medicinal value.
Fruits and Berries
Next to the leafy vegetables, fruits and berries are the most valuable foods of
the organic minerals group.
Lemons, grapefruit, oranges, apples are especially beneficial as blood
purifiers. Plums, pears, peaches, apricots, cherries, grapes, etc., contain large
amounts of fruit sugars in easily assimilable form and are also very valuable
on account of their mineral salts.
Fruits and berries are best eaten raw, although they may be stewed or baked.
It is better to cook apples, cranberries, rhubarb, strawberries, and all other
acid fruits without sugar until soft, and to add the sugar afterward. Much less
sugar will be required to sweeten them sufficiently than when the sugar is
added before or during the cooking.
Dried fruits rank next to the fresh in value, as the evaporating process only
removes a large percentage of water, without changing the chemical
composition of the fruit in any way.
Prunes, apricots, apples, pears, peaches and berries may be obtained in the
dried state all through the year.
Dates, figs, raisins and currants also come under this head.
Olives are an excellent food. They are very rich in fats (about 50 percent), and
contain also considerable quantities of organic salts. They are therefore a
good substitute for animal fat.
Avoid factory-canned fruits. In the first place, they have become deteriorated
by the cooking process and secondly, they usually contain poisonous
chemical preservatives.
Home-preserved fruits and vegetables are all right providing they do not
contain too much sugar and no poisonous preservative.
Bananas differ from the juicy fruits in that they consist almost entirely of
starches, dextrines and sugars. They belong to the carbohydrate group and
should be used sparingly by people suffering from intestinal indigestion.
However, we do not share the belief entertained by many people that bananas
are injurious under all circumstances. We consider them an excellent food,
especially for children.
Instead of the customary coffee, tea or cocoa, delicious drinks, which are
nutritious and at the same time nonstimulating, may be prepared from the
different fruit and vegetable juices. They may be served cold in hot weather
and warm in winter.
Breakfast consists of juicy fruits, raw, baked or stewed, a cereal (whole wheat
steamed, cracked wheat, shredded wheat, corn flakes, oat meal, etc.), and
health bread. Nuts of various kinds, as well as figs, dates, or raisins, are
always on the table.
Lunch is composed altogether of acid and subacid fruits, vegetable salads or
both. We have found by experience that, by having one meal consist entirely
of fruits and vegetables, the medicinal properties of these foods have a
chance to act on the system without interference by starchy and protein food
elements.
Dinner menu comprise relishes, such as radishes, celery, olives, young
onions, raw carrots, etc., soup, one or two cooked vegetables, potatoes,
preferably boiled or baked in their skins, and a dessert consisting of either a
fruit combination or a fruit pudding.
Acid Diseases
The origin, progressive development and cure of acid diseases are very much
the same whether they manifest as rheumatism, arteriosclerosis, stones
(calculi), gravel, diabetes, affections of the heart or apoplexy.
The human body is made up of acid and alkaline constituents. In order to
have normal conditions and functions of tissues and organs, both must be
present in the right proportions.
If either the acid or the alkaline elements are present in excessive or
insufficient quantities, abnormal conditions and functions, that is, disease will
be the result.
All acids, with the exception of carbonic acid, exert a tensing influence upon
the tissues of the body, while alkalies have a relaxing effect. The normal
functions of the body depend upon the equilibrium between these opposing
forces.
Nearly every disease originating in the human body is due to or accompanied
by the excessive formation of different kinds of acids in the system, the most
important of which are uric, carbonic, sulphuric, phosphoric and oxalic acids.
These, together with poisonous alkaloids and ptomaines, are formed during
the processes of protein and starch digestion and in the breaking down and
decay of cells and tissues.
Of these different waste products, uric acid causes probably the most trouble
in the organism.
Uric acid is undoubtedly one of the most common causes of disease and
therefore deserves especial attention.
Like urea, uric acid is one of the end products of protein digestion. It is formed
in much smaller quantities than urea, in proportion of about one to fifty, but
the latter is more easily eliminated from the system through kidneys and skin.
The principal ingredient in the formation of uric acid is nitrogen, one of the six
elements, which enter into all proteid or albuminous food materials, also called
nitrogenous foods.
Uric acid, as one of the by-products of digestion, is therefore always present in
the blood and, in moderate quantities, serves useful purposes in the economy
of the human and animal organism like the other waste materials.
It becomes a source of irritation and cause of disease only when it is present
in the circulation or in the tissues in excessive amounts.
The alkaline blood takes up the uric acid, dissolves it and holds it in solution in
the circulation until it is carried to the organs of depuration and eliminated in
perspiration and urine.
If, however, through the excessive use of nitrogenous foods or defective
elimination, the amount of uric acid in the system is increased beyond a
certain limit, the blood loses its power to dissolve it and it forms a sticky,
glue-like, colloid substance, which occludes or blocks up the minute blood
vessels (capillaries), so that the blood cannot pass readily from the arterial
system into the venous circulation.
Other results of uric acid irritation are: inflammatory and catarrhal conditions
of the bronchi, lungs, stomach, intestines, genitourinary organs; rapid pulse;
palpitation of the heart; angina pectoris; etc.
The diseases caused by permanent deposits of uric acid in the tissues are
called arthritic diseases, because the accumulations frequently occur in the
joints.
It becomes clear why the meat-eater craves alcohol and xanthines. When by
the taking of flesh foods the blood has become saturated with uric acid and
the annoying symptoms of collaemia make their appearance in the forms of
lassitude, headache and nervous depression, then alcohol and the xanthines
contained in coffee, tea and tobacco will cause the precipitation of the acids
from the circulation into the tissues of the body, and thus temporarily relieve
the collaemic symptoms and create a feeling of well-being and stimulation.
Gradually, however, the blood regains its alkalinity and its acid-dissolving
power and enough of the acid deposits are reabsorbed by the circulation to
cause a return of the symptoms of collaemia.
Then arises a craving for more alcohol, coffee, tea, nicotine or
xanthine-producing foods in order to again obtain temporary relief and
stimulation, and so on, ad infinitum.
Conclusion
The greatest drawback to spreading the Nature Cure idea is the necessity of
self-control, which it imposes.
If our cures of so-called incurable diseases could be made without asking the
patients to change their habits of living, without the demand of effort on their
own part, Nature Cure sanitariums could not be built fast enough in this
country.
No matter how marvelous the results of the natural methods--when
investigators learn that the treatment necessitates the control of
indiscriminate appetite and self-indulgence and the persistent practice of
natural living and all that this involves, they exclaim:
"The natural regimen may be all right, but who can live up to it? You are asking
the impossible. You are looking for a perfection, which does not exist. Your
directions call for an amount of willpower and self-control which nobody
possesses."
Fortunately, however, this is not true. Human nature is good enough and
strong enough to comply with Nature's laws. Furthermore, the natural ways
must be the most pleasant in the end or Nature is a fraud and a cheat.
True enjoyment of life and happiness are impossible without perfect physical,
mental and moral health and these depend upon natural living and natural
treatment of human ailments.
Self-control is the master's key to all higher development on the mental, moral
and spiritual planes of being; but before we can exercise it on the higher
planes, we must have learned to apply it on the lower plane, in the
management and control of our physical appetites and habits.
By: Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
Complete Book Free Online: Nature Cure, Table of Contents
www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020123lindlahr/020123toc.html
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