As a matter of fact, ice is more suppressive than antifever medicines. The continued icy cold applications chill the parts of the body to which they are applied, depress the vital functions and effectually suppress the inflammatory processes.
The result in this case, as in many similar ones which I had occasion to observe during and after the ice-bag treatment, was that the inflammation in the lungs had been arrested and suppressed during the stage of destruction, when the air cells and tissues were filled with exudates, blood serum, pus, live and dead blood cells, bacteria, etc., leaving the affected areas of the lungs in a consolidated, liver-like condition.
As a consequence of suppression in the case of this Greek patient, the pneumonia had been changed from the acute to the subacute and chronic stages and the doctors in charge had told his friends that he was now suffering from miliary tuberculosis, and would probably die within a week or two.
After receiving this discouraging information, the friends of the patient came to me and prevailed upon me to take charge of the case. He was transferred to our institution, and we began at once to apply the natural methods of treatment. Instead of ice packs we used the regular cold-water packs, strips of linen wrung out of water of ordinary temperature wrapped around the body and covered with several layers of flannel bandages.
The wet packs became warm on the body in a few minutes. They relaxed the pores and drew the blood into the surface, thus promoting heat radiation and the elimination of morbid matter through the skin. They did not suppress the fever, but kept it below the danger point.
Under this treatment, accompanied by fasting and judicious osteopathic manipulation, the inflammatory and feverish processes suppressed by the ice packs soon revived, became once more active and aggressive, and were now allowed to run their natural course through the stages of destruction, absorption (abatement) and reconstruction.
The result of the Nature Cure treatment was that about two months after the patient entered our institution, his friends bought him a ticket to sunny Greece. He had a good journey, and in the congenial climate of his native country made a perfect recovery.
I have observed a number of similar cases suffering from consolidation of the lungs and the resulting asthmatic or tubercular conditions, which had been doctored into these chronic ailments by means of antipyretics and of ice.
Equally dangerous is the ice bag if applied to the inflamed brain or the spinal column. Only too often it results either in paralysis or in death. In many instances, acute cerebrospinal meningitis is changed in this way by drug and serum treatment or by the use of ice bags into the chronic, so-called incurable infantile paralysis.
We say so-called incurable because we have treated and cured such cases in all stages of development from the acute inflammatory meningitis to the chronic paralysis of long standing.
In our treatment of acute diseases we never use ice or icy water for packs, compresses, baths or ablutions, but always water of ordinary temperature as it comes from the faucet. The water compress or pack warms up quickly, and thus brings about a natural reaction within a few minutes, while the ice bag or pack continually chills and practically freezes the affected parts and organs. This does not allow the skin to relax; it prevents a warm reaction, the radiation of the body heat and the elimination of morbid matter through the skin.
Suppression During the Fourth and
Fifth Stages of Inflammation
Let us see what happens when acute diseases are suppressed during the stages of abatement and reconstruction. If the defenders of the body, the phagocyte and antitoxins, produced in the tissues and organs, gain the victory over the inimical forces which are threatening the health and life of the organism, then the symptoms of inflammation, swelling, redness, heat, pain and the accelerated heart action which accompanies them, gradually subside. The debris of the battlefield is carried away through the venous circulation which forms the drainage system of the body.
When in this way all morbid materials have been completely eliminated, Vital Force, "the physician within," will commence to regenerate and reconstruct the injured and destroyed cells and tissues.
If, however, these processes of elimination and reconstruction are interfered with or interrupted before they are completed, then the affected parts and organs will not have a chance to become entirely well or strong. They will remain in an abnormal, crippled condition, and their functional activity will be seriously handicapped.
The After-effects of Drug-Treated Typhoid Fever
In hundreds of cases I have told patients after a glance into their eyes that they were suffering from chronic indigestion, malassimi-lation and malnutrition caused by drug-treated typhoid fever; and every time the records in the eyes were confirmed by the history of the patient.
In such cases the outer rim of the iris shows a wreath of whitish or drug-colored circular flakes. I have named this wreath "the typhoid rosary." It corresponds to the lymphatic and other absorbent vessels in the intestines, and appears in the iris of the eye when these structures have been injured or atrophied by drug, ice or surgical treatment. Wherever this has been done, the venous and lymphatic vessels in the intestines do not absorb the food materials and these pass through the digestive tract and out of the body without being properly digested and assimilated.
During the destructive stages of typhoid fever, the intestines become denuded by the sloughing of their membranous linings. These sloughed membranes give the stools of the typhoid fever patient their peculiar pea soup appearance. In a similar manner the lymphatic, venous and glandular structures which constitute the absorbent vessels of the intestines atrophy and slough away.
If the inflammatory processes are allowed to run their normal course under natural methods of treatment through the stages of Destruction, Absorption and Reconstruction, Nature will rebuild the membranous and glandular structures of the intestinal canal perfectly, convalescence will be rapid and the patient will enjoy better health than before he contracted the disease.
If, however, through injudicious feeding or the administration of quinine, mercury, purging salts, opiates or other destructive agents, Nature's processes are interfered with, prematurely checked and suppressed, then the sloughed membranes and absorbent vessels are not reconstructed, and the intestinal tract is left in a denuded and atrophied condition.
Such a patient may arise from his bed thinking that he is cured; but unless he is afterward treated by natural methods, he will never make a full recovery. It will take him, perhaps, months or years to die a gradual, miserable death through malassimilation and malnutrition, which usually end in some form of wasting disease, such as pernicious anemia or tuberculosis. If he does not actually die from the effects of the wrongly treated typhoid fever, he will be troubled all his life with intestinal indigestion, constipation, malassimilation and the accompanying nervous disorders.
A Change for the Better
Speaking of typhoid fever, we are glad to say that for this particular form of disease the most advanced medical science has adopted the Nature Cure treatment, that is, straight cold water and fasting, and no drugs, as it was originated by the pioneers of Nature Cure in Germany more than fifty years ago.
This treatment, which medical science has found so eminently successful in typhoid fever, would prove equally efficacious in all other acute diseases if the regular doctors would only try it. It is a strange and curious fact that so far they have never found it worth while to do so. All Nature Cure physicians know from their daily experience in actual practice that the simple water treatment and fasting is sufficient to cure all other forms of acute diseases just as easily and effectively as typhoid fever. By this is proved the unity of treatment in all acute diseases.
Both in typhoid fever and in tuberculosis, progressive medical men have now entirely abandoned the germ-killing method of treatment. They have found it absolutely useless and superfluous to hunt for drugs and serums to kill the typhoid and tuberculosis bacilli in these, the two most destructive diseases afflicting the human family. They were forced to admit that the simple remedies of the Nature Cure school, cold water and fasting in typhoid fever and the fresh-air treatment in tuberculosis, are the only worthwhile methods to fight these formidable enemies to health and life.
If they would continue their researches and experiments along these natural lines, they would attain infinitely more satisfactory results than through their germ-hunting and germ-killing theories and practices.
The Effects of Suppression of Venereal Diseases
Another good illustration of suppression may be found in the allopathic treatment of venereal diseases. Almost invariably the drug treatment suppresses these diseases in the stages of incubation and aggravation, thus locking them up in the system. The venereal taints and germs, however, are living things which grow and multiply until the body has been completely permeated by them. Then they must find an outlet somehow and somewhere, and consequently they break out in the manifold so-called "secondary" and "tertiary" symptoms.
The drug poisons which are used to "cure" (suppress) these symptoms, greatly aggravate the disease. They create conditions in the system infinitely worse than the venereal diseases themselves. Thus the acute, easily curable stages of these ailments are changed into the dreadful and obstinate chronic conditions. It is in this way that venereal diseases are made hereditary and transmitted to future generations.
In a special article on this subject entitled "Venereal Diseases," published in ~"The Naturopath,"~ January, 1913, I have substantiated the following claims:
"Venereal diseases are not necessarily chronic in their progressive development. "They are essentially acute and self-limited. But may become chronic through neglect or through suppressive drug treatment. "The chronic, so-called secondary and tertiary manifestations of venereal diseases, such as ulceration of bones and fleshy tissue, gummata of the brain, sclerosis of the spinal cord, arthritic rheumatism, degeneration and destruction of other vital parts and organs of the body, are not so much the result of the original gonorrheal or syphilitic infection, as of the destructive drug poisons which have been taken to cure or rather to suppress the primary lesions and acute inflammatory symptoms. "Venereal diseases in the acute inflammatory stages are easily and completely curable by natural methods of living and of treatment. "Venereal diseases treated and cured by natural methods during the acute inflammatory stages are never followed by any chronic after-effects or secondary and tertiary manifestations whatsoever. "When venereal diseases have reached the secondary and tertiary stages, they are still curable by natural methods of living and of treatment, providing there is left sufficient vitality to respond to treatment and providing the destruction of vital parts and organs has not advanced too far.
"Hundreds of cases of well-developed locomotor ataxy, paresis, and other so-called secondary and tertiary diseases of the brain and the nervous system, of bony and fleshy tissues, and of vital organs have been cured by our natural methods of treatment.
"It is self-evident, however, that the treatment and cure of the chronic conditions require more patience and perseverance than the cure of acute conditions not tampered with and suppressed by drugs. "Venereal diseases treated and cured by natural methods are never followed by chronic after-effects. On the other hand, mercury, iodine, quinine, and coal-tar poisons produce all the so-called secondary and tertiary symptoms of syphilis in people who never in their lives were afflicted with venereal diseases, but who have taken or absorbed these drug poisons in other ways.
". . . These facts are proven beyond doubt by the Diagnosis from the Eye. All, destructive poisons taken in sufficient quantities will in time reveal their presence and exact location in the body through certain well-defined signs or discolorations in the iris.
"These poisons undermine the structures of the body and deteriorate vital parts and organs so slowly and insidiously that the superficial observer does not trace and connect cause and effect."
The Wasserman and Noguchi Tests
Medical men may say to the foregoing that the Wasserman and Noguchi tests furnish positive proofs of syphilis in the system. These chemical tests are supposed to reveal with certainty the presence of venereal taints in the body,—at least, the public is left under this impression.
I am convinced, however, that in many instances the "positive" Wasserman or Noguchi tests are the result of mercurial poison instead of syphilitic infection. In a number of cases where these tests proved "positive," that is, where, according to the theory of allopathic medical science, they indicated a luetic condition of the system, the subjects of these tests had never in their lives shown any symptoms of syphilis nor, as far as they knew, had they ever been exposed to infection, but every one of them showed plainly the sign of mercurial poisoning in the iris of the eye, and had taken considerable mercury in the form of calomel or of other medicinal preparations for diseases not of a luetic nature, or they had been "salivated" by coming in contact with the mercurial poison in mines, smelters, mirror factories, etc.
This leads me to believe that, sooner or later, medical science will have to admit that the Wasserman and Noguchi tests reveal, in many instances at least, the effects of mercurial poisoning instead of the effects of syphilitic infection. And this would not be surprising since it is well known that mercury has very similar effects upon the system as syphilis.
It takes the mercurial poison from five to ten and even fifteen years before it works its way into the brain and spinal cord, and there causes its characteristic degeneration and destruction of brain and. nerve tissues which manifest outwardly as locomotor ataxy, paralysis agitans, paresis, apoplexy, hemiplegia, epilepsy, St. Vitus dance, and the different forms of idiocy and insanity. Mercurial poisoning is also in many instances the cause of deafness and blindness.
When the symptoms of mercurial destruction begin to show, then they, in turn, are suppressed by preparations of iodine, the "606," or other "alteratives," and so the merry war goes, on: poison against poison, Beelzebub against the Devil, and the poor suffering body has to stand it all.
In this way the system is periodically saturated with the most virulent poisons on earth, until the undertaker finishes the job. And this is miscalled "scientific treatment." There never was invented by cruel Indian or fanatical inquisition worse torture than this. They mercifully finished the sufferings of their victims within a few hours or, at the worst, days; but this torture inflicted upon human beings in the name of medical science continues for a lifetime. It means dying by inches under the most horrible conditions for ten, twenty, thirty years or longer.
In this connection it may be well to quote the testimony of Professor E. A. Farrington of Philadelphia, one of the most celebrated homeopathic physicians of the nineteenth century. He says, in his ~"Clinical Materia Medica,"~ third edition, page 141:
"The various constitutions or dyscrasia underlying chronic and acute affections are, indeed, very numerous. As yet, we do not know them all. We do know that one of them comes in gonorrhoea, a disease which is frightfully common, so that the constitution arising from this disease is rapidly on the increase.
"Now I want to tell you why it is so. It is because allopathic physicians, and many homeopaths as well, do not properly cure it. I do not believe gonorrhoea to be a local disease. If it is not properly cured, a constitutional poison which may be transmitted to the children is developed. I know, from years of experience and observation, that gonorrhoea is a serious difficulty, and one, too, that complicates many cases that we have to treat.
"The same is true of syphilis in a modified degree. Gonorrhoea seems to attack the nobler tissues, the lungs, the heart, and the nervous system, all of which are reached by syphilis only after the lapse of years."
The Destructive After-Effects of Mercury
Concerning the destructive after-effects of mercury, of which homeopaths have made a most careful study, Professor Farrington says, on pages 558-559 of the same volume:
"The more remote symptoms of mercurial poisoning are these: You will find that the blood becomes impoverished. The albumin and fibrin of that fluid are affected. They are diminished, and you find in their place a certain fatty substance, the composition of which I do not exactly know. Consequently, as a prominent symptom, the body wastes and emaciates. The patient suffers from fever which is rather hectic in its character. The periosteum becomes affected, and you then have a characteristic group of mercurial pains, bone pains worse in changes of the weather, worse in the warmth of the bed, and chilliness with or after stool. The skin becomes rather of a brownish hue; ulcers form, particularly on the legs; they are stubborn and will not heal. The patient is troubled with sleeplessness and ebullitions of blood at night; he is hot and cannot sleep; he is thrown quickly into a perspiration, which perspiration gives him no relief.
"The entire system suffers also, and you have here two series of symptoms. At first the patient becomes anxious and restless and cannot remain quiet; he changes his position; he moves about from place to place; he seems to have a great deal of anxiety about the heart, praecordial anguish, as it is termed, particularly at night.
"Then, in another series of symptoms, there are jerkings of the limbs, making the patient appear as though he were attacked by St. Vitus' dance. Or, you may notice what is more common yet, trembling of the hands, this tremor being altogether beyond the control of the patient and gradually spreading over the entire body, giving you a resemblance to paralysis agitans or shaking palsy.
"Finally, the patient becomes paralyzed, cannot move his limbs, his mind becomes lost, and he presents a perfect picture of imbecility. He does all sorts of queer things. He sits in the corner with an idiotic smile on his face, playing with straws; he is forgetful, he cannot remember even the most ordinary events. He becomes disgustingly filthy and eats his own excrement. In fact, he is a perfect idiot.
"Be careful how you give mercury; it is a treacherous medicine. It seems often indicated. You give it and relieve; but your patient is worse again in a few weeks and then you give it again with relief. By and by, it fails you. Now, if I want to make a permanent cure, for instance, in a scrofulous child, I will very seldom give him mercury; should I do so, it will be at least only as an intercurrent remedy."
Suppressive Surgical Treatment of Tonsillitis and Enlarged Adenoids
The following paragraphs are taken from an article in the ~NatureCure Magazine~ May, 1909, titled "Surgery for Tonsillitis andAdenoids." They will throw further interesting light on thedangerous consequences of suppressing acute and subacute diseases.
"The tonsils are excreting glands. Nature has created them for the elimination of impurities from the body. Acute, subacute and chronic tonsillitis accompanied by enlargement and cheesy decay of the tonsils means that these glands have been habitually congested with morbid matter and poisons, that they have had more work to do than they could properly attend to.
"These glandular structures constitute a valuable part of the drainage system of the organism. If the blood is poisoned through overeating and faulty food combinations, or with scrofulous, venereal or psoriatic poisons, the tonsils are called upon, along with other organs, to eliminate these morbid taints. Is it any wonder that frequently they become inflamed and subject to decay? What, however, can be gained by destroying them with iodine or extirpating them with the surgeon's scissors or the 'guillotine'?
"Because your servants are weakened by overwork, would you kill them? Because the drains in your house are too small to carry off the waste, would you blockade or remove them? Still, this is the orthodox philosophy of the medical schools applied to the management of the human body.
". . . In case of any morbid discharge from the body, wherever it be, whether through hemorrhoids, open sores, ulcers or through tonsils, scrofulous glands, etc., a fontanelle has been established to which and through which systemic poisons make their way. If such an outlet be blocked by medical or surgical treatment the stream of morbid matter has to seek another escape or else the poisons will accumulate somewhere in the body.
"Fortunate is the patient when such an escape can be established, because wherever in the system morbid excretions, suppressed by medical treatment, concentrate, there will inevitably be found the seat of chronic disease.
"After the tonsils have been removed, the morbid matter which they were eliminating usually finds the nearest and easiest outlet through the adenoid tissues and nasal membranes. These now take up the work of 'vicarious' elimination and, in their turn, become hyperactive and inflamed.
"Sometimes it happens that the adenoid tissues become affected before the tonsils. In that case, also, relief through the surgeon's knife is sought and then the process is reversed: after the adenoids have been removed, the tonsils develop chronic catarrhal conditions.
"When both tonsils and adenoids have been removed, the nasal membranes will, in turn, become congested and swollen. Often the mucous elimination increases to an alarming degree, and frequently polyps and other growths make their appearance or the turbinated bones soften and swell and obstruct the nasal passages, thus again making the patient a 'mouth breather.'
"But in vain does Nature protest against local symptomatic treatment. Science has nothing to learn from her.
"When the nose takes up the work of vicarious elimination, the same mode of treatment is resorted to. The mucous membranes of the nose are now swabbed and sprayed with antiseptics and astringents, or 'burned' by cauterizers, electricity, etc. The polyps are cut out, and frequently parts of the turbinated bone and septum as well, in order to open the air passages.
"Now, surely, the patient must be cured. But, strange to say, new and more serious troubles arise. The posterior nasal passages and the throat are now affected by chronic catarrhal conditions and there is much annoyance from phlegm and mucous discharges which drop into the throat. These catarrhal conditions frequently extend to the mucous membranes of stomach and intestines.
"When the drainage system of the nose and the nasopharyngeal cavities has been completely destroyed, the impurities must either travel upward into the brain or downward into the glandular structures of the neck, thence into the bronchi and the tissues of the lungs.
"If the trend be upward, to the brain, the patient grows nervous and irritable or becomes dull and apathetic. How often is a child reprimanded or even punished for laziness and inattention when it cannot help itself? In many instances the morbid matter affects certain centers in the brain and causes nervous conditions, hysteria, St. Vitus' dance, epilepsy, etc. In children the impurities frequently find an outlet through the eardrums in the form of pus-like discharges. This may frequently avert inflammation of the brain, meningitis, imbecility, insanity or infantile paralysis.
"If the trend of the suppressed impurities and poisons be downward, it often results in the hypertrophy and degeneration of the lymphatic glands of the neck. In such cases the suppressive treatment, by drugs or knife, is again applied instead of eliminative and curative measures. The scrofulous poisons, suppressed and driven back from the diseased glands in the neck, now find lodgment in the bronchi and lungs, where they accumulate and form a luxuriant soil for the growth of the bacilli of pneumonia and tuberculosis.
"In other cases, the vocal organs become seriously affected by chronic catarrhal conditions, abnormal growths and in later stages by tuberculosis. Many a fine voice has been ruined in this way.
"The prevention and the cure of all these ailments lie not in local symptomatic treatment and suppression by drugs or knife, but in the rational and natural treatment of the body as a whole."
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.
In reality, however, the disease is constitutional. Therefore, after removal of the growth by surgery, the electric needle, x-rays, etc., the cancer or tumor is liable to break out again in the same place or in several places.
The surest way to change insignificant, so-called "benign" (not fatal to life) fibroid or fatty tumors into malignant cancer or sarcoma is to operate upon them. Wens and warts are often made malignant by surgical interference or other local irritation.
In my article titled "What We Know About Cancer" in the August, 1909, issue of the ~Nature Cure Magazine~ I quote from an article by Burton J. Hendrick, the cancer expert, published in the July, 1909, number of ~McClure's Magazine,~ as follows:
"Clinical observation long ago established the fact that any irritating interference with a cancer almost always stimulates its growth. In his earliest experiments Dr. Loeb found that, by merely drawing a silk thread through a dormant or slowly developing tumor, he could transform it into a rapidly growing one. Cutting with a knife produced the same effect. This accounts for the commonly observed fact that, when extirpated cancers in human beings recur, they increase in size much more rapidly than the original growth."
The late Dr. Senn, the great cancer surgeon, admitted these facts in an interview given to Chicago press representatives upon his return from his trip around the world in 1906. The press clipping reads as follows.
"Avoid Beauty Doctors"
"Incidentally, Dr. Senn advises women who worry over their disfigurement of moles about their heads and shoulders to have those so-called beauty spots removed early in life, but he tells them they should not go to beauty doctors to have the operations performed.
"He knows of hundreds of cases, he says, where cancer has resulted from the irritation of moles by an electric needle, or by constant picking it. 'Have a surgeon cut the mole out,' is his advice, as it will hurt little and leave no scar."
To this we answered in our comments on the interview: "If the little knife of the beauty doctor causes cancer, what about the big knife of the surgeon?"
In point of fact, our office records show that a large percentage of malignant growths are the direct result of surgical operations.
Cancer Not a Local, But a Constitutional Disease
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.
Certain discoveries by Dr. H. C. Ross of London, England, confirm my claims that cancer is not at all of local and accidental origin, but that it is constitutional, and that it may be caused by the gradual accumulation in the system of certain poisons which form in decaying animal matter.
One day, while experimenting in his laboratory, Dr. Ross brought white blood cells or leucocytes into contact with a certain aniline dye on the slide of a microscope and noticed that they began at once to multiply by cell division (proliferation). This was the first time that cell proliferation had been observed by the human eye while the cells were separated from their parent organism.
Dr. Ross realized that he had made an important discovery and continued his experiments under the microscope in order to find out what other substances would cause cell multiplication. He found that certain xanthines and albuminoids derived from decaying animal matter were the most effective for this purpose and induced more rapid cell proliferation than any other substances he was able to procure.
Dr. Ross obtained these "alkaloids of putrefaction," as he called them, from blood which had been allowed to putrefy in a warm place. He found that albuminoids derived from decaying vegetable substances did not have the same effect.
His discoveries led him to believe that the alkaloids of putrefaction produced in a cut or wound by the decaying of dead blood and tissue cells are the cause of the rapid multiplication of the neighboring live cells, which gradually fill the wound with new tissues.
Thus, for the first time in the history of medicine, a rational explanation of Nature's methods for repairing injured tissues has been advanced.
Dr. Ross applied his theory still farther to the causation of benign and malignant growths, reasoning that the alkaloids of putrefaction produced in or attracted to a certain part of the body by some local irritation are the cause of the rapid, abnormal multiplication of cells in tumor formations.
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, "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, the electric needle, 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.
Dr. Ross' 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.
"But," it will be said, "meat eating alone does not account for cancer, because vegetarians also succumb to the disease." This is true. Alkaloids of putrefaction are constantly produced in every animal and human body. They form in the excretions of living cells and in the decaying protoplasm of dead cells, and if the organs of elimination do not function properly, these morbid materials will accumulate in the system.
Furthermore, the Diagnosis from the Eye furnishes positive proof that Hahnemann's theory of psora is based on truth. I quote from my article in the ~Nature Cure Magazine~ August, 1909:
"For a hundred years, Hahnemann's theory of psora has been scouted and ridiculed by the allopathic schools and even among homeopaths only a few have accepted it. Now we are confronted by the remarkable fact that, at this late day, the Diagnosis from the Eye confirms the observations and speculations of the great genius of homeopathy.
"After suppression of itchy eruptions, lice, crab lice, etc., spots ranging in color from light brown to dark red appear in different places in the iris of the eye. These 'itch spots' indicate the organs and localities of the body in which the suppressed disease taints have concentrated.
"Such suppressions represent not only the scrofulous taints which Nature was trying to eliminate by means of eruptions and parasites, but, in addition to these, the poisons contained in the bodies of the parasites and the drug poisons which were used to suppress or kill them.
"It has been found that the bodies of the itch parasites (~Sarcoptes scabici ~) contain an exceedingly poisonous substance which the homeopaths call 'psorinum'. When these minute animals burrowing in and under the skin are killed by poisonous drugs and antiseptics, the morbid taints in their bodies are absorbed by the system and added to the psoriatic poisons which Nature has been trying to eliminate.
"Thus, after suppression of itchy eruptions or parasites, the organism is encumbered with three poisons instead of one: (1) the hereditary or acquired scrofulous and psoriatic taints which the cells of the body were throwing off into the blood stream and which the blood was feeding to the parasites on the surface, (2) the morbid substance contained in the bodies of the parasites, (3) the drug poisons used as suppressants. (Such poisons may lie latent in the system for many years before they become active and, in combination with other disease taints and with food and drug poisons, create the different forms of chronic destructive diseases.)
"These facts explain why the itch spots in different areas of the iris of the eye so frequently indicate serious chronic, destructive disease conditions in the parts and organs of the body corresponding to these areas, why; for instance, in asthma and tuberculosis we often find itch spots in the region representing the lungs or why in cancer of the liver or of the stomach itch spots show in the area of stomach or liver.
"That the itch or psoriatic taint is actually at the bottom of the cancerous diathesis is attested by the fact that all cancer patients whom we have treated and cured, with two exceptions (whose healing crisis took the form of furunculosis), broke out with the itch at one time or another during the natural treatment. In most of these cases the bodies of the patients were inflamed with fiery eruptions for days or even weeks at a time.
"Nature Cure allows these healing crises to run their course unhindered and unchecked; in fact, we encourage them by air and sun baths, cold-water treatment and homeopathic remedies."
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, especially with the all-important organic salts.
That this is not merely theory, but actual fact has been proved in the great cancer institutes in Europe and in this country. The scientists in charge of these institutions report that they have found a positive cure for cancer in animals. The treatment is as follows:
The blood is pumped out of the body of a dog or other animal afflicted with cancer and immediately afterwards the blood of a healthy animal which has shown immunity to cancer inoculation is pumped into the body of the diseased animal. It is reported that in nine cases out of ten thus treated the cancerous growths disappear.
This treatment, of course, entails the death of the animal which had to give up its life blood to cure the other and therefore this method of cure is not adaptable to human beings. Even though an individual, with suicidal intent, would be willing to give up his life for a stipulated legacy to his relatives, the law would not sanction the transaction.
However, we of the Nature Cure school say that it is not necessary to pump the diseased blood out of the organism. In the natural methods of living and of treatment we possess the means of purifying and regenerating that blood while it is in the body. That this is possible we have proved in a number of cancer cases.
It is obvious, however, that the earlier the disease is treated by the natural methods, that is, before the breaking-down process has far advanced, the easier and quicker will be the cure.
In the case of tumors, then, we see again verified the fundamental law of Nature Cure: the Unity of Disease and of Treatment. We see that the tumor is not of local, but of constitutional, origin, that its period of incubation may extend over a lifetime or over several generations.
Women's Suffering
Certain ailments peculiar to the female organism have become almost universal among civilized races. Probably the majority of surgical operations are performed for so-called women's diseases. That women suffer untold agonies during menstruation, in childbirth and at the climacteric is looked upon as unavoidable and a matter of course.
The fact that the native women of Africa, of the Sandwich Islands, the South American bush and our western plains are practically exempt from these ailments indicates that the cause of female troubles must lie in artificial habits of living and in the unnatural treatment of diseases.
Many are beginning to recognize these truths. For them is dawning a new era, when knowledge will free Woman from physical suffering as it has freed her from other bondage.
Instances like the following are of common occurrence in our free clinics for Diagnosis from the Eye:
A lady tells us that she has been suffering for many years from a complication of female troubles. Her eyes show a heavy scurf rim, indicating an inactive, atrophied skin, poor surface circulation and, as a result of this condition, defective elimination through the skin and accumulation of waste matter and systemic poisons in the system. The areas of stomach and intestines reveal the signs of chronic catarrhal affection and atrophy of the membranous linings and glandular structures. This, of course, means indigestion, fermentation of foods, gas formation, constipation and a multitude of resulting disturbances.
The signs in the iris also indicate an atonic, relaxed and prolapsed condition of stomach, bowels and other abdominal organs. This is likely to cause sagging of the genital organs, relaxation of the bands and ligaments which hold them in place and, as a result of this relaxation, misplacement of the womb.
We tell the patient of our findings in her eyes and she admits all the conditions and symptoms which we describe, but she is not satisfied because our diagnosis does not agree with that of the great specialists and professors of medicine whom she has consulted. Every one of them has told her that all her troubles are due to the fact that her uterus is flexed and retroverted, that it presses on the rectum (this being the cause of her chronic constipation and of the obstructed menstrual flow, the congestion, pain, etc.), and that the womb must be placed in its normal position by a surgical operation.
In this and many similar cases that have come to us for treatment, it was the relaxed and prolapsed condition of the stomach and intestines that caused the sinking (prolapsus) of the uterus with the attending distressing symptoms. In some instances the womb and with it the bladder had fallen so low that they protruded from the vagina. In all of these cases, as the patients without exception told us, the professors and specialists assured them that surgical treatment, shortening of the ligaments, the insertion of pessaries, the cutting loose and raising of the womb, etc., were the only possible means of curing these ailments.
So we explain to the lady that the relaxed and prolapsed condition of the genital organs, the misplacement of the womb, etc., are not causes of disease, but only the effects of the weakened and relaxed condition of the digestive organs, and that this, in turn, is due to indigestion, malnutrition, defective elimination through skin, bowels and kidneys; that, therefore, the only possibility of cure lies in correcting and overcoming these constitutional conditions through an eliminative diet, blood-building remedies and other natural methods; that the blood must be built up on a normal basis, and that the digestive tract and the other abdominal organs must be made more alive and active through hydropathic treatment, massage, spinal manipulation, general and special exercises, air and sun baths, etc.
In thousands of cases we have thus cured female troubles without poisonous drugs or surgical operations, simply by improving the digestion, purifying the blood and invigorating the abdominal organs in a natural manner.
On the other hand, almost daily we meet with instances of untold suffering as the direct consequence of operations, the use of pessaries, etc., which only served to weaken the genital organs still more and resulted in all sorts of complications, inflammations, adhesions, etc., and in many cases in malignant tumors.
In this connection I would warn especially against the use of pessaries. They are at best only a mechanical contrivance, and do not add anything to the improvement of the diseased condition. On the other hand, they irritate the abdominal organs by excessive pressure, which in many instances produces inflammation of the neighboring tissues and abnormal growths.
Suppressing inflammation of the genital organs by poisonous antiseptics, sprays, tampons or other local applications only tends to aggravate the chronic conditions. Curetting (scraping) the womb does not cure the catarrhal affection, but only serves to destroy its delicate mucous lining and to suppress catarrhal elimination. Holding up the womb by means of a pessary in order to strengthen its muscles and ligaments is about as reasonable and effective as to try to strengthen a weak arm by carrying it in a sling. Replacing or removing misplaced or affected organs by means of surgery does not contribute anything toward correcting the causes of these abnormal conditions, but in many instances makes a real cure impossible. How can an organ be cured after it has been extirpated with the knife?
It is a fact known to every observing physician that from fifty to seventy-five percent of all women have some kind of misplacement of the genital organs and that only a comparatively small number of these suffer from local disturbances, indicating that, in most cases, misplacement alone will not create serious trouble.
It is ridiculous to assume that the small, flabby uterus of an anemic woman can block the rectum and cause disease, but it is an excellent talking point, as effective in bringing victims to the operating table as appendicitis with its fairy tales of seeds and foreign bodies lodging in the appendix vermiformis.
While studying Nature Cure in Germany, I took special courses in the Thure-Brandt Massage. By means of this internal manipulative treatment, weakness of ligaments and muscles, displacements, adhesions, etc., can be corrected without the use of knife or drugs. During my first years in practice, I frequently resorted to the internal manual treatment with good results; but I found that in most cases it was not at all necessary in order to produce perfect cures.
I saw that chiropractic and osteopathic correction of spinal and pelvic lesions and consequent removal of irritation and pressure on the nerves, the cure of chronic constipation and malnutrition by pure food diet and hydrotherapy, the strengthening of the pelvic muscles and nerves by means of active and passive movements and exercises, were fully sufficient to correct the local symptoms in a natural manner. Thousands of cases cured by us by these methods attest the truth of our statements; while those who failed to understand the simple reasoning of the Nature Cure philosophy or lacked will power to withstand the arguments of friends and physicians followed the siren call of the operating table and have been sorry for it ever since.
In case of operation for misplacement of the womb, it is necessary, in order to keep the womb in its new position, to stitch it to the frontal abdominal wall. Very frequently it will not stay there, breaks loose, and relapses into an abnormal position. Granted that it remains fixed, woe to the woman if she becomes pregnant. The womb cannot assume the constantly changing positions of pregnancy, and the result is either abortion or malformation of the fetus, together with great and constant suffering to the woman.
The operation has done nothing to correct unnatural habits of living or to purify the system of its scrofulous and psoriatic taints, of drug and food poisons. Frequently these gather in the parts that have been weakened and irritated by the antiseptics and by the surgeon's knife, and set up new inflammations, ulcerations and only too often malignant tumors. As a result, one operation follows another.
We cannot cut in the genital organs without cutting in the brain. The nervous system is a unit, and the brain is directly and intimately connected with the complex and highly sensitive nerve centers of the genital organs. Mutilation of the genital nerve centers, therefore, invariably affects the brain, and thus the intellectual and emotional life of a woman. It is almost axiomatic that a woman whose uterus or ovaries have been removed or mutilated is afterward mentally and emotionally more or less abnormal. Nervousness, irritability and only too often nervous prostration and insanity are the sequelae of operative treatment.
In medical colleges, among students and professors, these facts are freely admitted and discussed, but the prospective patient hears a different story. "Cut loose the womb, shorten the ligaments, put it into the right position, and everything will be well." This sounds plausible and seductive; but everyday experiences expose the inadequacy and the destructive aftereffects of local symptomatic treatment.
The Climacteric or Change of Life
Under our artificial methods of living, the ~climacteric~ or change of life, has become the bugbear of womanhood. It seems to be universally assumed that this period in a woman's life must be fraught with manifold sufferings and dangers. It is taken as a matter of course that during these changes in her organism a woman is assailed by the most serious physical, mental, and psychic ailments which may endanger her sanity and often her life.
Like rheumatism, neurasthenia, neuralgia and hundreds of other medical terms, "change of life" is a convenient phrase to cover the doctor's ignorance. No matter what ailments befall a woman during the years from forty to fifty, may the causes be ever so obscure, the diagnosis is easy. "You are in the climacteric, you are suffering from the change of life," says the doctor, and the patient is satisfied and resigns herself to the inevitable.
Frequently women come to us for consultation, and after reciting a long string of troubles they conclude with the remark: "Of course, doctor, I'm in the change, and I know that lots of these things are natural at my time of life."
Is it true that all this suffering is natural and inevitable? Among the primitive races of the earth suffering incident to the change of life is practically unknown. The same is true in a lesser degree of the country population of Europe. The causes of it must, therefore, be sought in the artificial modes of living peculiar to our hypercivilization and in the unnatural methods of treating disease as commonly practiced.
Which are the specific causes of the profound disturbances so often accompanying the organic changes of the climacteric?
Aside from their other physiological functions, the menses are for the woman a monthly cleansing crisis through which Nature eliminates from her system considerable amounts of waste and morbid matter which, under a natural regime of life, would be discharged by means of the organs of depuration, that is, the lungs, skin, kidneys and bowels.
The more natural the life and the more normal, as the result of this, the woman's physical condition, the shorter and less annoying and painful, within certain limits, will be the menstrual periods.
Through unnatural habits of eating, drinking, dressing, breathing and through equally unnatural methods of medical treatment, the kidneys, skin and bowels have become inactive, benumbed or paralyzed. As long as the vicarious monthly purification by means of the menses continues, the evil results of the torpid condition of the regular organs of depuration do not become so apparent. The organism has learned to adapt itself to this mode of elimination.
But when, on account of the organic changes of the climacteric, menstruation ceases, then the systemic poisons, which formerly were eliminated by means of this monthly purification, accumulate in the system and become the source of all manner of trouble. All tendencies to physical, mental or psychic disease are greatly intensified. The poisonous taints circulating in the blood overstimulate or else depress and paralyze the brain and the nervous system. As a consequence, mental and psychic disorders are of common occurrence; the more so because the waning of the sex functions is accompanied by a tendency to negativity and hypersensitiveness.
How Can the Ailments of the Climacteric Be Avoided or Cured?
Is it not self-evident that the easiest way to sidestep the troubles incident to this critical period and to reestablish the perfect equilibrium of the organism lies in restoring the natural activity of the organs of elimination?
This is what Nature Cure accomplishes easily and successfully with its natural methods of treatment. Air and sun baths, water treatments and massage bring new life and activity to the enervated skin. Pure food diet, chiropractic and osteopathic treatment, curative gymnastics, homeopathic or herb remedies restore the natural tonicity and functioning of the stomach, liver, kidneys and intestines. Mental therapeutics, systematically practiced, make every cell in the body vibrant with the higher and finer forces of the mental and spiritual planes of being.
When the natural equilibrium of the organism is thus restored, there is absolutely no occasion for the troubles of the climacteric. We have proved this in hundreds of cases. As kidneys, skin and bowels begin to function normally and freely, physical and mental conditions commence to improve, and one after another the dreaded symptoms disappear.
Let us compare with this common sense, natural treatment the orthodox medical practice in such cases:
The medical treatment, as usual, is entirely symptomatic. The sluggish organs of elimination are prodded by poisonous cathartics, laxatives, diaphoretics, cholagogues and tonics, all of which, after temporary stimulation, leave the organs in a more weakened and the system in a more poisoned condition. If brain and nerves are irritated and aching, sedatives and hypnotics are given to stupefy them into insensibility. If the heart action is weak and irregular, it is whipped up by poisonous stimulants; if too fast, it is checked and paralyzed by sedatives and depressants.
Thus, instead of removing the underlying causes, every symptom is promptly suppressed. Drug poisons are added to the waste and morbid matter which are already clogging the channels of life. And, of course, under such unnatural treatment, in many instances things go from bad to worse. Flushes, headaches, rheumatic and neuralgic pains, melancholia, irritability, mental aberration, partial paralysis and a multitude of other symptoms appear and gradually increase in severity.
When the family physician has arrived at the end of his wits, the surgeon has his innings, and leaves the patient in a still worse condition of chronic suffering.
These experiences are so common that the manifold troubles of the climacteric are regarded as unavoidable and as a matter of course. Here, as in so many other instances, people fail to see that it is the treatment which prevents the cure. If the efficiency of common sense, natural treatment were more widely known and recognized, how much unnecessary suffering could be avoided.
The Treatment of Acute Diseases by Natural Methods
In the preceding chapters we have described the results of the wrong, that is, suppressive treatment of acute diseases. We shall now proceed to describe the simple and uniform methods of natural treatment.
If the uniformity of acute diseases be 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 of the "Old School" to select the proper specific remedy, Under such 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 be a simple cold, or whether it take 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.
In the following I shall describe briefly these natural methods for the treatment of acute diseases which insure the largest possible percentage of recoveries and at the same time do not in any way tax the system, cause undesirable aftereffects or lead to the different forms of chronic invalidism.
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. If circumstances permit, however, we may advantageously add corrective manipulation of the spine, massage, magnetic treatment, advanced regenerative modalities (like the Magnatherm) and homeopathic, herbal and specific nutritional supplementation.
The Fresh-Air Treatment
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. Just as a fire in the furnace cannot be kept up without a good draft which supplies the necessary amount of oxygen to the flame, so the fires of life in the body cannot be maintained without an abundance of oxygen in the air we breathe.
This is of vital importance at all times, but especially so in acute disease, because here, as we have learned, all the vital processes are intensified. The system is working under high pressure. Large quantities of waste and morbid materials, the products of inflam-mation, have to be oxidized, that is, burned up and eliminated from the system.
In this respect the Nature Cure people have brought about one of the greatest reforms in medical treatment: the admission of plenty of fresh air to the sickroom.
But, strange to say, the importance of this most essential natural remedy is as yet not universally recognized by the representatives of the regular school of medicine. Time and again I have been called to sickrooms where by order of the doctor every window was closed and the room filled with pestilential odors, the poisonous exhalations of the diseased organism added to the stale air of the unventilated and often overheated apartment. And this air starvation had been enforced by graduates of our best medical schools and colleges. This unnatural and inexcusable crime against the sick is committed even at this late day in our great hospitals under the direct supervision of physicians who are foremost in their profession.
It is not the cold draft that is to be feared in the sickroom. Cool air is most agreeable and beneficial to the body burning in fever heat. What is to be feared is the reinhalation and reabsorption of poisonous emanations from the lungs and skin of the diseased body.
Furthermore, the ventilation of a room can be so regulated as to provide a constant and plentiful supply of fresh air without expos-ing its occupants to a direct draft. Where there is only one window and one door, both may be opened and a sheet or blanket hung across the opening of the door, or the single window may be opened partly from above and partly from below, which insures the entrance of fresh, cold air at the bottom and the expulsion of the heated and vitiated air at the top. The patient may be protected by a screen, or a board may be placed across the lower part of the window in such manner that a direct current of air upon the patient is prevented.
In very cold weather, or if conditions are not favorable to constant ventilation of the sickroom, the doors and windows may be opened wide for several minutes every few hours, while the patient's body and head are well protected. There is absolutely no danger of taking cold if these precautions are taken. Under right conditions of room temperature, frequent exposure of the patient's nude body to air and the sunlight will be found most beneficial and will often induce sleep when other means fail.
I would strongly warn against keeping the patient too warm. This is especially dangerous in the case of young children, who cannot use their own judgment or make their wishes known. I have frequently found children in high fever smothered in heavy blankets under the mistaken impression on the part of the attendants that they had to be kept warm and protected against possible draft. In many instances the air under the covers was actually steaming hot. This surely does not tend to reduce the burning fever heat in the body of the patient.
"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.
In cases of extreme weakness, and where the acute and subacute processes are long drawn out and the patient has become greatly emaciated, it is advisable to give such easily digestible foods as white of egg, milk, buttermilk and whole grain bread with butter in combination with raw and stewed fruits and with vegetable salads prepared with lemon juice and olive oil.
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.
Acid and subacid fruit juices do not contain sufficient carbohydrate or protein materials to unduly excite the digestive processes, while on the other hand they are very rich in Nature's best medicines, the mineral salts in organic form. Sweet grapes and sweetened grape juice should not be given to patients suffering from acute, febrile diseases because they contain too much sugar, which would have a tendency to start the processes of digestion and assimilation, to cause morbid fermentation and to raise the temperature and accelerate the other disease symptoms.
Fasting
Total abstinence from food during acute febrile conditions is of primary importance. In certain diseases which will be mentioned later on, especially those involving the digestive tract, fasting must be continued for several days after all fever symptoms have disappeared.
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.
Ordinarily, the digestive tract acts like a sponge which absorbs the elements of nutrition; but in acute diseases the process is reversed, the sponge is being squeezed and gives off large quantities of morbid matter. The processes of digestion and assimilation are at a standstill. In fact, the entire organism is in a condition of prostration, weakness and inactivity. The vital energies are concentrated on the cleansing and healing processes. Accordingly, there is no demand for food.
This is verified by the fact that a person fasting for a certain period, say, four weeks, during the course of a serious acute illness, will not lose nearly as much in weight as the same person fasting four weeks in days of healthful activity.
It is for the foregoing reasons that nourishment taken during acute disease is not properly digested, assimilated and transmuted into healthy blood and tissues. Instead, it ferments and decays, filling the system with waste matter and noxious gases. interferes seriously with the elimination of morbid matter through stomach and intestines by forcing these organs to take up the work of digestion and assimilation. diverts the vital forces from their combat against the disease conditions and draws upon them to remove the worse than useless food ballast from the organism.
This explains why 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. Not even milk should be taken until fever and inflammation have entirely subsided, and then a few days should be allowed for the healing and restoring of the injured tissues. Many of the serious chronic aftereffects of these diseases are due to too early feeding, which does not allow the healing forces of Nature time to rebuild sloughed membranes and injured organs.
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.
Hydropathic Treatment in Acute Diseases
We claim that in acute diseases hydropathic treatment will accomplish all the benefcial effects which the "Old School" practitioners ascribe to drugs, and that water applications will produce the desired results much more efficiently, and without any harmful by-effects or aftereffects upon the system.