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.
Healing Crises, When Properly Conducted,
Are Never Fatal to Life
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. Nothing good in life comes to us except as we pay the price. He who is too cowardly to conquer in a healing crisis may perish in a disease crisis.
Drugs Versus Healing Crises
Our explanations of the natural laws of cure and of natural therapeutics are often greeted by "Old School" physicians and students with remarks like the following:
"You speak as if you had the monopoly of eliminative treatment and of the production of crises. With our laxatives, cathartics, diuretics, diaphoretics and tonics, we are doing the same thing. What is more effectual for stimulating a sluggish liver and cleansing the intestinal tract than calomel followed by a dose of salts? What will produce more profuse perspiration than pilocarpin; or what is a better stimulus to the kidneys than squills or buchu? Can we not by means of stimulants and depressants regulate heart action to a nicety?
"We accomplish all this in a clean, scientific manner, without resorting to unpleasant dieting and to barbarous applications of douches, packs and manual treatments. Isn't it more dignified and professional to write a Latin prescription? How much better the impression on the laity than soaking and rubbing!"
Let us see if these statements are true, if laxation, urination or perspiration produced by poisonous drugs are identical in character and in effect with the elimination produced by natural living and natural methods of treatment through healing crises.
Mercury, in the form of calomel, is one of the best-known cholagogues [an agent designed to increase the flow of bile and, thereby, stimulate lower bowel action, ~ed.~]. It is the favorite laxative and cathartic of allopathy. The prevailing idea is that calomel acts on the liver and the intestines; but in reality these organs act on the drug.
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.
The Lasting Effects of Artificial Purging
In accordance with the Law of Action and Reaction, action and reaction are equal and opposite; the temporary irritation and overstimulation of the sensitive membranes of the digestive organs are followed by corresponding weakness and exhaustion, and if this procedure be repeated and become habitual, by gradual atrophy and paralysis. As atrophy progresses, the dose of the purgative must be increased in order to accomplish the desired result and this, in its turn, hastens the degenerative changes in the system.
Such 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.
Here interposes Friend Allopath: "You claim that you bring about your acute reactions by natural means only, and that these are never injurious to the organism. What difference does it make if the circulation is stimulated and elimination increased by a cold-water spray or by digitalis? The cold-water stimulation produces a reaction just as digitalis does, and the one must therefore be as injurious as the other."
To this we reply: "The stimulating effect on heart and circulation produced by digitalis is the first action of a highly poisonous drug; the second lasting effect is weakening and paralyzing. On the other hand, the first action of a cold-water spray is depressing; it sends the blood into the interior of the body and benumbs the surface. The sensory nerves at once report this sensation of cold to headquarters in the brain, and immediately the command is telegraphed to the blood vessels in the interior of the body: 'Send blood to the surface!' As a result, the blood is carried to the surface, and the skin becomes warm and rosy with the glow of life. In this case the stimulation is the second and lasting effect of the water treatment, from which there is no further reaction."
Similarly, the stimulation produced by exercise, massage, manipulation or the exposure of the nude body to light and air is natural stimulation, produced by harmless, natural means. It is entirely due to the fact that conditions in the system have been made more normal, as explained in other chapters.
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.
Dr. H. Lahmann, one of the foremost scientists of the Nature Cure movement, made a series of interesting experiments. His chemists gathered the natural perspiration of certain patients, produced by ordinary exercise in the sunshine. These excretions of the skin were evaporated and analyzed, and were found to contain poisons powerful enough to kill rabbits.
If profuse sweating was produced in the same patients by the high temperature of the hot-air box or the electric-light cabinet, their perspiration, when evaporated and analyzed, was found to contain only small amounts of toxins. Thus Dr. Lahmann proved that:
Sweating and the elimination of disease matter are two different processes. 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.
Do We Never Fail?
Certainly we fail, but our failures are usually due to the fact that sick people, as a rule, do not consider Nature Cure except as a last resort. 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.
Our success is due to the fact that we do not rely on any one method of treatment, but combine in our work everything that is good in the different systems of natural healing.
The Law of Crises
Everywhere in nature and in the world of men we find the Law of Crises in evidence. This proves it to be a universal law, ruling all cosmic relations and activities.
Wars and revolutions are the healing crises in the life of nations. Heresies and reformations are the crises of religion. In strikes, riots and panics, we recognize the crises of commercial life.
Staid old Mother Earth herself has in the hoary past repeatedly changed the configurations of her continents and oceans by great cataclysms or geological crises.
When the sultry summer air has become pregnant with poisonous vapors and miasmas, atmospheric crises, such as rainstorms, thunder, lightning and electric storms, cool and purify the air and charge it anew with life-giving ozone. In like manner will healing crises purify the disease-laden bodies of men.
Emanuel Swedenborg gives us a wonderful description of the Law of Crises in its relationship to the regeneration of the soul. We quote from the chapter in which he describes the working of this law, entitled, "Regeneration Is Effected by Combats in Temptation."
"They who have not been instructed concerning the regeneration of man think that man can be regenerated without temptation. But it is to be known that no one is regenerated without temptation; and that many temptations succeed, one after another. The reason is that regeneration is effected for an end, in order that the life of the old man may die, and the new life which is heavenly be insinuated. It is evident, therefore, that there must be a conflict [healing crisis—~author's note ~]; for the life of the old man resists and determines not to be extinguished; and the life of the new man can only enter where the life of the old is extinct.
"Whoever thinks from an enlightened rationale, may see and perceive from this that a man cannot be regenerated without combat, that is, without spiritual temptations; and further, that he is not regenerated by one temptation, but by many. For there are very many kinds of evil which formed the delight of his former life, that is, of the old life. These evils cannot all be subdued at once and together; for they cleave tenaciously, since they have been inrooted in the parents for many ages back [the scrofula of the soul—~author's note~ ] and are therefore innate in man, and are confirmed by actual evils from himself from infancy. All these evils are diametrically opposite to the celestial good [perfect health—~author's note~ ] that is to be insinuated and which is to constitute the New Life."
Thus the inspired Seer of the North draws a vivid picture of what we call healing crises in their relation to moral regeneration.
We cannot help recognizing the close agreement of physical and spiritual crises; this, again, demonstrates the continuity and exact correspondence of Natural Law on the different planes of being. [The Law of Hermes: ~As above, so below; as in the inner, so in the outer; as in the lesser, so in the greater.~]
We of the Nature Cure school know that this great Law of Crises dominates the cure of chronic disease. Every case is another verification of it; in fact, every decided advance on the road to perfect health is marked by acute reactions.
The cure invariably proceeds through the darkness and chaos of the crises to the light and beauty of perfect health, periods of marked improvement alternating with acute eliminating activity (the "spiritual temptations" and "combats" of Swedenborg), until perfect regeneration has taken place.
Periodicity
In many forms of acute disease, crises develop with marked regularity and in well-defined periodicity. This phenomenon has been observed and described by many physicians.
It is not so well known, however, that in the cure of chronic diseases also, crises develop in accordance with certain laws of periodicity.
Periodicity is governed by the Septimal Law or Law of Sevens, which seems to be the basic law governing the vibratory activities of the planetary universe.
The harmonics of heat, light, sound, electricity, magnetism and of atomic structure and arrangement run in scales of seven.
The Law of Sevens governs the days of the week, the phases of the moon and the menstrual periods of the woman. Every observing physician is aware of its influence on feverish, nervous and psychic diseases.
The Law of Sevens dominates the life of individuals and of nations and of everything that lives and has periods of birth, growth, fruitage and decline.
Over two thousand years ago Pythagoras and Hippocrates distinctly recognized and proclaimed the Law of Crises in its bearing on the cure of chronic diseases. They taught that alternating, well-defined periods of improvement and of crises were determined and governed by the law of periodicity and by the law of numbers (the Septimal Law).
The following quotations are taken from the ~EncyclopediaBritannica,~ Vol. XV, p. 800:
"But this artistic completeness was closely connected with 'the third cardinal virtue' of Hippocratic medicine—the clear recognition of disease as being equally with life a process governed by what we should now call natural laws, which could be known by observation and which indicated the spontaneous and normal direction of recovery, by following which alone could the physician succeed.
"Another Hippocratic doctrine, the influence of which is not even yet exhausted, is that of the healing power of Nature. Not that Hippocrates taught, as he was afterwards reproached with teaching, that Nature is sufficient for the cure of diseases; for he held strongly the efficacy of art. But he recognized, at least in acute diseases, a natural process which the humours went through—being first of all crude, then passing through coction or digestion, and finally being expelled by resolution or crisis through one of the natural channels of the body. The duty of the physician was to foresee these changes, 'to assist or not to hinder them,' so that 'the sick man might conquer the disease with the help of the physician.' The times at which crises were to be expected were naturally looked for with anxiety; and it was a cardinal point in the Hippocratic system to foretell them with precision. Hippocrates, influenced as is thought by the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers, taught that they were to be expected on days fixed by certain numerical rules, in some cases on odd, in others on even numbers—the celebrated doctrine of 'critical days.' It follows from what has been said that prognosis, or the art of foretelling the course and event of the disease, was a strong point with the Hippocratic physicians. In this perhaps they have never been excelled. Diagnosis, or recognition of the disease, must have been necessarily imperfect, when no scientific nosology, or system of disease* existed, and the knowledge of anatomy was quite inadequate to allow of a precise determination of the seat of disease; but symptoms were no doubt observed and interpreted skilfully. The pulse is not spoken of in any of the works now attributed to Hippocrates himself, though it is mentioned in other works of the collection."
*The author of this article in the Encyclopedia Britannica does not see that it is the modern [then as now] orthodox "scientific nosology, or system of disease" which obscures the simplicity and precision of the Hippocratic philosophy of disease and cure.
"In the treatment of disease, the Hippocratic school attached great importance to diet, the variations necessary in different diseases being minutely defined. In chronic cases diet, exercises and natural methods were chiefly relied upon."
These wonderful truths, with other wisdom of the ancients, were lost in the spiritual darkness of the Middle Ages. Modern medicine looks upon these claims and teachings of the Hippocratic School as "superstition without any foundation in fact." However, the great sages of antiquity, drawing upon a source of ancient wisdom, deeply hidden from the self-satisfied scribes and wise men of the schools, after all, proclaimed the truth.
Every case of chronic disease properly treated by natural methods proves the reality and stability of the Law of Crises. It is therefore a standing wonder and surprise to one who knows, that this all-important and self-evident law is practically unknown to the disciples of the regular schools.
The Law of Sevens
In accordance with the Law of Periodicity, the sixth period in any seven periods is marked by reactions, changes, revolutions or crises. It is, therefore, looked upon by popular intuition as an unlucky period. Friday, the sixth day of the week, is regarded as an unlucky day; Friday is hangman's day; according to tradition the Master, Jesus, was crucified on Friday.
Counting from the first sixth or Friday period in any given number of hours, days, weeks, months, years or groups of years, as the case may be, every succeeding seventh period is characterized by crises.
This explains why 13 is considered an unlucky number. It represents the second critical or Friday period.
However, there is really no cause for this superstitious fear of Friday and the number 13. It is due to a lack of understanding of Nature's Laws. By intelligent cooperation with these laws we may turn the critical periods in our lives into healing crises and beneficial changes.
We should not fear the crises periods of the larger life and the changes in our outward circumstances which they may bring any more than we should fear crises in the physical body.
A thorough understanding of the nature and purpose of healing crises in acute and chronic diseases has taught me the nature and purpose of evil in general. It has made me understand more clearly the meaning of "Resist not Evil" and of the saying: "We are punished by our sins, not for our sins." It has shown me that evil is not a punishment or a curse, but a necessary complement of good, that it is corrective and educational in its purposes, that it remains with us only as long as we need its salutary lessons.
The evil of physical disease is not due to accident or to the arbitrary rulings of a capricious Providence, nor is it always "error of mortal mind." From the Nature Cure philosophy and its practical applications we have learned that, barring accidents and conditions or surroundings unfavorable to human life, it is caused in every instance by violations of the physical laws of our being. So the social, political and industrial evil of the larger life is brought about by violations of the law in the respective domains of life and action.
So long as transgressions of the physical laws of our being result in hereditary and acquired disease encumbrances, we must expect reactions which may become either disease crises or healing crises. Likewise, so long as ignorance, selfishness and self-indulgence continue to create evil in other domains of life, we must expect there also the occurrence of crises, of reaction and revolution. When knowledge, self-control and altruism become the sole motives of action, evil and the crises it necessitates will naturally disappear.
Therefore, we should not be afraid of changes and crises periods but cooperate with them clear-eyed and strong-willed. Then they will result in improvement and further growth.
Life is growth, and growth is change. The only death is stagnation. The loss of friends, home or fortune may seem for the time being an overwhelming calamity; but if met in the right spirit, such losses will prove stepping-stones to greater opportunity and higher achievement.
Many of our patients formerly looked upon their diseased condition as a great misfortune and an undeserved punishment; but since it brought them in contact with the Nature Cure philosophy and showed them the necessity of complying with the laws of their being, they now look upon the former evil as the greatest blessing in their lives, because it taught them how to become the masters of fate instead of remaining the plaything of Nature's destructive forces.
Why should we fear even the greatest of all crises, physical death, when it, also, is only the gateway to a larger life, greater opportunities and more beautiful surroundings? Why should we mourn and grieve over the death of friends and relatives, when they have only emigrated to another, better country?
Suppose we ourselves had to enter upon the great journey today or tomorrow, shouldn't we be glad to meet some of our friends on the other side and to be welcomed, advised and guided by them in the new surroundings?
Therefore we should not fear, nor endeavor to avoid the crises in any and all domains of life and action, but meet them and cooperate with them fearlessly and intelligently. They then will always make for greater opportunity and higher accomplishment.
The Law of Sevens Applied to Individual Life
Applied to the life of the individual, the Law of Periodicity manifests itself as follows:
Human life on the earth plane is divided into periods of seven years. The first seven years represent the period of infancy. With the next seven, the years of childhood, begins individual responsibility, the conscious discernment between right and wrong. The third group comprises the years of adolescence; the fourth marks the attainment of full growth. Nearly all civilized countries take cognizance of this fact by fixing the legal age at twenty-one.
The twenty-eighth year, the beginning of the fifth period, is another milestone along the road to development.
The sixth period, beginning at the age of thirty-five and ending at forty-two, is marked by reactions, changes and crises. It may, therefore, seem an unlucky period; but if we understand the law and comply with it, we shall be better and stronger in every way after we have passed this period.
During the seventh period, the effects of the sixth or crises period continue and adjust themselves. It is a period of reconstruction, of recuperation and rest, and thus the best preparation for a new cycle of sevens which begins with the fiftieth year.**
**Those who are interested in the Law of Periodicity as applied to life in general, will find much valuable information in a book entitled ~Periodicity~ by J. R. Buchanan, M.D., published by the Kosmos Publishing Co., 2112 Sherman Ave., Evanston, Il.
In this connection it is interesting to note that the Mosaic law recognized the law of periodicity and fixed upon Sunday as the first day or "birthday" of the week, and upon Saturday (the Sabbath) as the last or "rest" day, in which to prepare for another period of seven days.
Orthodox science now admits that the normal length of human life should be about one hundred and fifty years. This would constitute three cycles of forty-nine years each, the first corresponding to youth, the second to maturity, and the third to fruition.
The Law of Sevens in Febrile Diseases
If we apply the Laws of Periodicity to the course of acute febrile or inflammatory diseases, we find that the sixth day from the beginning of the first well-defined symptom marks the first Friday-period or the first crisis of the disease, and that every seventh day thereafter is also distinguished by aggravations and changes, either for better or for worse.
The Law of Sevens in Chronic Diseases
Applied to the cure of chronic diseases under the influence of natural methods of living and of treatment, the Laws of Crises and of Periodicity manifest as follows:
When a chronic patient, whose chances of cure are good, is placed under proper (natural) conditions of living and of treatment he will, as a rule, experience five weeks of marked improvement.
The sixth week, if conditions are favorable, usually marks the beginning of acute reactions or healing crises. This means that the healing forces of the organism have grown strong enough to begin the work of acute elimination.
By all sorts of acute reactions, such as skin eruptions, diarrheas, feverish, inflammatory and catarrhal conditions, boils, abscesses, mucopurulent discharges, etc., Nature now endeavors to remove the latent, chronic disease taints from the system.
The character of the healing crises and the time of their occurrence in any given case can often be accurately predicted by means of the Diagnosis from the Eye (see Chapter XIII), from Nature's records in the iris.
But the best of all methods of diagnosis is the cure iself, because weak spots and morbid taints in the organism are revealed through the healing crises.
The Same Old Aches and Pains
Frequently we hear from a patient in the throes of crises: "These are the same old aches and pains that I had before. It is exactly the same trouble I have been suffering with for many years. This is not a crisis!—I have caught a cold, or I have eaten something which does not agree with me."
The patient has forgotten what we taught him regarding the Law of Crises. He loses sight of the fact that healing crises are nothing more or less than a coming-up-again of old disease conditions, an acute manifestation of ailments which had become chronic through neglect or suppression.
Of course they are "the same old aches and pains." Nature Cure does not create new diseases. Crises mean the stirring up and eliminating of hereditary and acquired taints and poisons. Under the right methods of treatment, any previous disease condition suppressed by drugs or knife or by mental effort may recur as a healing crisis.
They are the same old aches and pains which so often gave trouble in the past, but they are now running their course under different conditions because the patient is now living in harmony with Nature's Laws.
Under the natural regimen, Nature is encouraged and assisted in her cleansing and healing efforts. She is allowed in her own wise way to tear down the old and build up the new.
The "Old Schools" of healing proclaim Mother Nature a poor healer. But we of the Nature Cure school believe that the wisdom which created this wonderful, complex mechanism which we call the human body knows also how to preserve and to repair it. Every healing crisis passed under natural conditions assisted by natural methods of treatment leaves the body purified and strengthened and nearer to perfect health.
Our critics and opponents frequently ask us how we know that our methods are natural and in harmony with Nature's laws.
To this we reply: The timely appearance of healing crises, their orderly development and favorable termination constitute the best criterion of the correctness and naturalness of the methods of treatment employed. The prompt arrival and beneficial results of acute reactions are a certain indication that the healing forces of the organism are in the ascendancy and that the treatment is in conformity with the natural laws of cure and with the constructive principle in Nature.
Another question sometimes asked of us is: "Do healing crises develop in every chronic disease under natural treatment?" Our answer is: If the condition of the patient is not favorable to a cure, that is, if the vitality is too low and the destruction of vital parts too far advanced, the healing crises may be proportionately delayed or may not occur at all. In such cases the disease symptoms will increase in severity and complexity and become more destructive instead of more constructive, until the final fatal crisis. The end may come quickly, or the patient may decline gradually toward the fatal termination.
Again, patients ask us: "Through how many crises shall I have to pass?" We tell them: Just as many as you need; no more, no less. So long as there is anything wrong in the system, crises will come and go; but each crisis, if successfully passed, is another milestone on the road to perfect health.
It is intensely interesting to observe how orderly and intelligently Nature proceeds in her work of healing and repair. One problem after another is taken up and adjusted.
First of all, the digestive organs are put into better condition, because further progress depends upon proper assimilation and elimination. The bowels must act freely and naturally before any permanent improvement can take place. A treatment which fails to accomplish this first preliminary improvement will surely fail to produce more important results.
In this connection it is a significant fact that nearly all our patients, when they come under our care, are suffering from very stubborn constipation in spite of (or possibly on account of) lifelong drugging. Neither medicines nor operations had given them anything but temporary relief and the trouble had grown worse instead of better.
If the "Old School" methods of treatment were not successful in relieving simple constipation, what else can they be expected to cure, since the overcoming of constipation is evidently the primary necessity for any other improvement?
A system of treatment which cannot accomplish this cannot accomplish anything else. It is strange, therefore, that a school of medicine which has not succeeded, with all its vaunted knowledge and wisdom, to cure simple constipation, flatly denies that natural methods can cure cancer, epilepsy, locomotor ataxy and other so-called incurable diseases.
Our Greatest Difficulty
The greatest difficulty in our work lies in conducting our patients safely through the stormy crises periods. The first, preliminary improvement is often so marked that the patient believes himself already cured. He will say: "Doctor, I am feeling fine! There is nothing the matter with me any more! I cannot understand why I shouldn't go home and continue the natural regimen there!"
This feeling of mental elation and physical well-being is usually the sign that the first general improvement has progressed far enough to prepare the system for a healing crisis. Therefore my answer to the overconfident patient may be something like this: "Remember what I told you. The first improvement is not the cure, it is only the preparation for the real fight. Look out! In a few days you may whistle another tune."
And sure enough, usually within a few days after such a conversation the patient is down in the slough of despond. His digestive organs are in a wretched condition. He is nauseated, his tongue is coated, he is suffering from headache and from a multitude of other symptoms according to his individual condition. In fact, many of the old aches and pains which he thought already cured come up again with renewed force.
Healing crises, representing radical changes in the system, are always accompanied by physical and mental weakness, because every bit of vitality is drawn upon in these reconstructive processes. The entire organism is shaken up to its very foundation; deep-seated, chronic disease taints are being stirred up throughout the system.
The eliminative processes of the healing crises are often accompanied by great mental depression and a feeling of strong revulsion to the natural regimen and everything connected with it.
The patient thinks that, after all, Nature Cure is not for him, that he is growing worse instead of better. In proportion to the severity of the changes going on within him, he becomes disheartened and despondent. Often he exhibits all the mental and emotional symptoms of homesickness. In these critical days it requires all our powers of persuasion to keep the depressed and discouraged patient from giving up the fight and from taking something to relieve his distress. He insists that "something must be done for him," and cannot understand how he will ever get out of his "awful condition" without some good strong medicine.
If our patients were not continually and thoroughly instructed regarding the Laws of Crises and of Periodicity and if we did not strongly advise and encourage them to persevere with the treatment, few of them would hold out during these critical periods.
This explains why so many people fail to be cured and it also explains why natural living and self-treatment often do not meet with the desired results if carried on without the instruction and guidance of a competent, experienced Nature Cure physician.
So long as the improvement continues, everything is lovely and hope soars high. But when the inevitable crises arrive, the sufferer believes that, after all, he made a mistake in taking up the natural regimen, especially so when friends and relatives do their best to destroy his confidence in the natural methods of cure by ridicule and dire prophesies of failure.
Frightened and discouraged, the patient returns to the "flesh-pots of Egypt" and to the good old pills and potions and ever afterwards he tells his friends that "he tried Nature Cure and the vegetarian diet, but it was no good."
Mother Nature remains a "book sealed with seven seals" to those who mistrust, despise and counteract her, who rely on man-made wisdom and the ever-changing theories and dogmas of the schools.
But on the other hand, every crisis conducted to a successful termination in accordance with Nature's laws becomes an inspiration to him who follows her guidance and assists her with intelligent effort and loving care.
What About The "Chronic"? It Takes So Long
"Yes, Nature Cure is all right, but it takes so long." Now and then we hear this or a similar remark. Our answer is: "No, it does not take long. It is the swiftest cure in existence."
The trouble is that, as a rule, we have to deal with none but the most advanced cases of so-called incurable diseases. People go to the Nature Cure physician only after all other methods of treatment have been tried and found of no avail.
As long as there remains a particle of faith in the medicine bottle, the knife or the metaphysical formula of the mind healer, people prefer these easy methods, which require no effort on their part, to the Nature Cure treatment, which necessitates personal exertion, self-control, the changing or giving up of cherished habits. This, however, is what most of us evade as long as we can. "Exercise, the cold blitzguss, no red meat, no coffee?—I'd rather die!"
Afraid of Cold Water
The most-dreaded terror on the threshold seems to be cold water. Undoubtedly, it has kept away thousands from Nature Cure and thereby from the only possible cure for their chronic ailments. If we could achieve equally good results without our heroic methods of treatment, the sidewalks leading to our institution would be crowded with people clamoring for admission.
After all, this foolish fear is entirely groundless. Cold water is no more to be dreaded than the bogey man. It is one of our fundamental principles of treatment never to do anything that is painful to the patient. We always "temper the wind to the shorn lamb," the coldness of the water and the force of the manipulations to the sensitiveness and endurance of the subject. Beginning with mild, alternately warm and cool sprays, which are pleasant and agreeable to everyone, we gradually increase the force and lower the temperature until the patient is so inured to cold water that the blitzguss becomes a delightful and pleasurable sensation, a positive luxury.
It is amusing to watch the gradual change in the attitude of our patients toward the cold-water treatment. In some instances we have had to spend hours in earnest persuasion before we could induce a particularly sensitive person to try the first mild spray. A few weeks later if, perchance, something interfered with the cold water applications, the patient would indignantly refuse to take the other treatment if there was to be no cold water.
There is certainly no finer tonic than cold water, no more exhilarating sensation than that produced by the artistic application of alternating douches and the blitz.
The real cause of this cold-water scare, we believe, is to be found in the boasting of the veterans. When, with protruding chest and chin in air, they brag to the newcomers or to their friends about their heroism and the coolness with which they allow the cold-water hose to be turned on them, the listener shudders and exclaims: "This cold water may be all right for you, but it would never do for me."
No doubt, it is this bravado of the initiated that keeps many a novice from the first plunge into the mysteries of Nature Cure. If these timid ones only knew what they miss!
Business Versus Cure
From a business point of view it would, perhaps, be better to omit the cold water altogether. It would certainly be much less trouble; but then, the rugged honesty of Father Kneipp, the champion of the cold-water treatment branch of German Nature Cure, has descended upon his followers and compels them to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, to make use of everything that is likely to be of benefit to the patient and to effect a real and lasting cure.
Our friends, the osteopaths, have only a pitying smile for our arduous labors. They ask: "Why fool with cold water and drive patients away, when pleasant manipulations bring the business?" If we query in return: "Do your pleasant manipulations cure obstinate chronic ailments?" They answer: "We do not expect to cure them. The effort involves too much labor and spoils the reputation of our work. Not one in a hundred chronics has the patience and perseverance to be cured. Besides, if a patient comes too long to the office for treatment he drives others away."
Some of the most successful osteopaths in this city make it a rule not to treat a patient longer than six weeks or two months.
In a number of cases this may be sufficient to produce marked primary improvement, but it is not enough to launch the patient into a healing crisis and, therefore, does not produce a real cure because it does not remove the underlying causes of the disease. If, after a while, the latent chronic condition again manifests in external symptoms, the patient returns for another course of treatment; he was "cured" so quickly before and thinks he will be helped again.
In justice to the osteopaths it must be said that we are not referring to those chronic diseases which are directly caused by lesions of the spine or other bony structures. If such dislocations or subluxations be the sole cause of the trouble, their correction by manipulative treatment may produce a cure within a few weeks.
But notwithstanding the teachings of orthodox osteopathy, the majority of chronic ailments have their origin in other causes. In most cases, the existing spinal lesions are themselves the result of other primary disease conditions which must be removed before the bony lesions will remain corrected.
The mode of treatment depends upon the object that is to be accomplished. If it is to make the patient feel better with the least possible expenditure of time, money, personal effort and self-control on his part, and the least amount of exertion on the part of the physician or healer, then osteopathic manipulations or meta-physical formulas may be in order. But if the object is to cure actually and permanently a deep-seated chronic disease, all the methods of the natural treatment, intelligently combined and adapted to the individual case, will be required in order to accomplish results.
Pull the Roots
Cutting off their heads does not kill the weeds. The first sign of improvement in the treatment of a chronic disease does not mean a cure.
Diagnosis from the Eye, borne out by everyday practical experience, reveals the fact that symptomatic manifestations of disease are due to underlying constitutional causes; that the chronic symptoms are Nature's feeble and ineffectual efforts to eliminate from the system scrofulous, psoric or syphilitic taints and the disease products resulting from food and drug poisoning, or to overcome the destructive effects of surgical mutilations.
An abatement of symptoms is, therefore, not always the sign of a real and permanent cure. The latter depends entirely on the elimination of the hereditary and acquired constitutional taints and poisons.
When, under the influence of natural living and methods of treatment, the body of the chronic becomes sufficiently purified and strengthened, a period of marked improvement may set in. All disease symptoms gradually abate, the patient gains in strength, both physically and mentally, and he feels as though there was nothing the matter with him any more.
But the eyes tell a different story. They show that the underlying constitutional taints have not been fully eliminated—the weeds have not been pulled up by the roots.
This can be accomplished only by healing crises, by Nature's cleansing and healing activities in the form of inflammatory and feverish processes; anything short of this is merely preliminary improvement, "training for the fight," but not the cure.
When you order a suit of clothes from your tailor, you do not take it away from him half-finished; if you do, you will have an unsatisfactory garment.
No more should you interfere with your cure after the first signs of improvement. Continue until you have thoroughly eliminated from your system the hidden constitutional taints and the drug poisons which have been the cause of your troubles. After that you can paddle your own canoe; right living and right thinking will then be sufficient to maintain perfect health and strength, physically, mentally and morally.
Is the Chronic Patient to Be Left to His Fate
Because Allopathy Says He Is Incurable?
Frequently we have been severely criticised by our friends, our coworkers or our patients for accepting certain seemingly hopeless chronic cases. They exclaim:
"You know this man has locomotor ataxy and that woman is an epileptic: you certainly do not expect to cure them," or, "Doctor, don't you think it injures the institution to have that dreadful-looking person around? He is nothing but skin and bones and surely cannot live much longer."
Sometimes open criticism and covert insinuation intimate that our reasons for taking in incurables are mercenary.
If we should dismiss today those of our patients who, from the orthodox and popular point of view, are considered incurable, there would not remain ten out of a hundred; and yet our total failures are few and far between. Many such seemingly hopeless cases have come for treatment month after month, in several instances for a year or more, apparently without any marked advance; yet today they are in the best of health.
Yes, it is hard work and frequently thankless work to deal with these patients. It would be much easier, much more remunerative and would bring more glory to confine ourselves to the treatment of acute diseases, for it is there that Nature Cure works its most impressive miracles. On the other hand, to achieve the seemingly impossible, to prove what Nature Cure can accomplish in the most stubborn chronic cases, sustains our courage and is its own compensation.
The word chronic in the vocabulary of the "Old School" of medicine is synonymous with "incurable." This is not strange; since the medical and surgical symptomatic treatment of acute diseases creates the chronic conditions, it certainly cannot be expected to cure them. If, by continued suppression, Nature's cleansing and healing efforts have been perverted into chronic disease conditions, the following directions are given in the regular works on medical practice:
"When this disease reaches the chronic stage, you can no longer cure it. You may advise the patient to change climate or occupation. As for medication, treat the symptoms as they arise."
We know that the symptoms are Nature's healing efforts; when these are promptly treated, that is, suppressed, it is not surprising that the chronic does not recover. In fact, it is the treatment which makes him and keeps him a chronic.
Why Nature Cure Achieves Results
Nature Cure achieves results in the treatment of chronic diseases because its theories and practices are entirely opposite to those just described. However, when the Nature Cure physician claims that he can cure cancer, tuberculosis, epilepsy, paralysis, Bright's disease, diabetes or certain mental derangements, the regular physician shows only derision and contempt. He will not even condescend to examine any evidence in support of our claims.
Since, then, Nature Cure offers to the so-called incurable the only hope and the only possible means of regaining health, why not give him a chance? Many times apparently hopeless cases have responded most readily to our treatment, while more promising ones offered the most stubborn resistance. Even with the best possible methods of diagnosis, it is hard to determine just how far the destruction of vital organs has progressed, or how deeply they have been impregnated with drug poisons.
Therefore, it is often an impossibility to predict with certainty just what the outcome will be. This can be determined only by a fair trial. In the past we have treated many a case that, according to the rules and precedents of orthodox science, should be dead and buried long ago; yet these individuals are today alive and in the best of health.
Every now and then incidents like the following renew our enthusiasm and our faith in Nature Cure: Recently, we had three new cases, sent by three former patients who had been under treatment several years ago. These three had been among the worst cases ever treated in our institution. When they came to us, one was supposed to be dying with cancer, the second was in the advanced stages of tertiary syphilis and the third, a lady, had survived several operations for the removal of the appendix and the ovaries. At the time she took up our treatment she had been advised to undergo another operation for the removal of the uterus.
These incurables had been exceedingly trying. More than once one or another had quit, discouraged and disgusted, only to return, knowing that, after all, Nature Cure was their only hope. After they left us, we lost track of them and often wondered how they were getting on. Imagine our pleasant surprise when all three were reported by the newcomers as being in good health. What if it did take months or even years to produce the desired results? What would have been the fate of these three patients if it had not been for slow Nature Cure?
Discouraged patients frequently ask: "Why do others recover so quickly when I show so little improvement? This cure seems to be all right for some diseases, but evidently it does not fit my case."
This is defective reasoning. True Nature Cure fits every case because it includes everything good in natural healing methods. In stubborn cases Nature Cure is not to blame for the slow and unsatisfactory results: the difficulty lies in the character and advanced stage of the disease.
The Treatment of Chronic Diseases
Let us now consider the best methods for producing the healing crises referred to in the preceding chapters, that is, the best methods for treating the chronic forms of disease.
We found that acute diseases represent Nature's efforts to purify and regenerate the human organism by means of inflammatory feverish processes, while in the chronic condition the system is not capable of arousing itself to such acute reactions. The treatment must differ accordingly.
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.
While our methods of treating acute diseases have a sedative effect, our treatment of chronic diseases is calculated to stimulate, that is, to arouse the sluggish organism to greater activity in order to produce the acute inflammatory reactions or healing crises.
If the unity of diseases as demonstrated in a previous chapter is a fact in Nature, it must be possible to treat all chronic as well as all acute diseases by uniform methods, and the natural remedies must correspond to the primary causes of disease.
The Natural Methods of Treatment
Natural methods of treatment may be divided into two groups:
Those which the patient can apply himself, provided he has been properly instructed in their correct selection, combination and application. Those which must be applied by a competent Nature Cure physician.
To the first group belong diet (fasting), bathing and other water applications, correct breathing, general physical exercise, corrective gymnastics, air and sun baths, mental therapeutics.
To the second group belong special applications of the methods mentioned under group 1, and in addition to these hydropathy, massage, manipulation, medical treatment in the form of homeopathic medicines, nonpoisonous herb extracts and the vitochemical remedies, and most important of all, the right management of healing crises which develop under the natural treatment of chronic diseases.
Diagnosis
Correct diagnosis is the first essential to rational treatment. 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.
Therefore we should welcome any and all methods of diagnosis which throw more light on the causes and the nature of disease conditions in the human organism.
Two valuable additions to diagnostic science are now offered to us in osteopathy and in the Diagnosis from the Eye.
Osteopathy furnishes valuable information concerning the connection between disease conditions and misplacements of vertebrae and other bony structures, contractions or abnormal relaxation of muscles and ligaments, and inflammation of nerves and nerve centers.
The Diagnosis from the Eye is as yet a new science, and much remains to be discovered and to be better explained. We do not claim that Nature's records in the eye disclose all the details of pathological tendencies and changes, but they do reveal many disease conditions, hereditary and acquired, that cannot be ascertained by any other methods of diagnosis.
Omitting consideration of everything that is at present speculative and uncertain, we are justified in making the following statements:
The eye is not only, as the ancients said, "the mirror of the soul," but it also reveals abnormal conditions and changes in every part and organ of the body. Every organ and part of the body is represented in the iris of the eye in a well-defined area. The iris of the eye contains an immense number of minute nerve filaments, which through the optic nerves, the optic brain centers and the spinal cord are connected with and receive impressions from every nerve in the body. The nerve filaments, muscle fibers and minute blood vessels in the different areas of the iris reproduce the changing conditions in the corresponding parts or organs. By means of various marks, signs, abnormal colors and discolorations in the iris, Nature reveals transmitted disease taints and hereditary lesions. Nature also makes known, by signs, marks and discolorations, acute and chronic inflammatory or catarrhal conditions, local lesions, destruction of tissues, various drug poisons and changes in structures and tissues caused by accidental injury or by surgical mutilations. The Diagnosis from the Eye positively confirms Hahnemann's theory that all acute diseases have a constitutional background of hereditary or acquired disease taints. This science enables the diagnostician to ascertain, from the appearance of the iris alone, the patient's inherited or acquired tendencies toward health and toward disease, his condition in general and the state of every organin particular. Reading Nature's records in the eye, he can predict the different healing crises through which the patient will have to pass on the road to health. The eye reveals dangerous changes in vital parts and organs from their inception, thus enabling the patient to avert any threatening disease by natural living and natural methods of treatment. By changes in the iris, the gradual purification of the system, the elimination of morbid matter and poisons, and the readjustment of the organism to normal conditions under the regenerating influences of natural living and treatment are faithfully recorded.
This interesting subject will be treated more fully in a separate volume (~Iridiagnosis,~ published in 1919 by Dr. Lindlahr). In this connection I shall confine myself to relating briefly the story of the discovery of this valuable science.
The Story of a Great Discovery
Dr. Von Peckzely, of Budapest, Hungary, discovered Nature's records in the eye, quite by accident, when a boy ten years of age.
Playing one day in the garden at his home, he caught an owl. While struggling with the bird, he broke one of its limbs. Gazing straight into the owl's large, bright eyes, he noticed, at the moment when the bone snapped, the appearance of a black spot in the lower central region of the iris, which area he later found to correspond to the location of the broken leg.
The boy put a splint on the broken limb and kept the owl as a pet. As the fracture healed, he noticed that the black spot in the iris became overdrawn with a white film and surrounded by a white border (denoting the formation of scar tissues in the broken bone).
This incident made a lasting impression on the mind of the future doctor. It often recurred to him in later years. From further observations he gained the conviction that abnormal physical conditions are portrayed in the eyes.
As a student, Von Peckzely became involved in the revolutionary movement of 1848 and was put in prison as an agitator and ringleader. During his confinement, he had plenty of time and leisure to pursue his favorite theory and he became more and more convinced of the importance of his discovery. After his release, he entered upon the study of medicine, in order to develop his important discoveries and to confirm them more fully in the operating and dissecting rooms. He had himself enrolled as an interne in the surgical wards of the college hospital. Here he had ample opportunity to observe the eyes of patients before and after accidents and operations, and in that manner he was enabled to elaborate the first accurate Chart of the Eye.
Since Von Peckzely gave his discoveries to the world, many well-known scientists and conscientious observers in Austria, Germany and Sweden have devoted their lives to the perfection of this wonderful science. The regular schools of medicine, as a body, have ignored and will ignore it, because it discloses the fallacy of their favorite theories and practices, and because it reveals unmistakably the direful results of chronic drug poisoning and ill-advised operations.
In our work we do not confine ourselves to the Diagnosis from the Eye, but combine with it the diagnostic methods (physical diagnosis) of the regular school of medicine and the osteopathic diagnosis of bony lesions, as well as microscopic examinations and chemical analyses.
Thus any one of these methods supplements and verifies all the others. In this way only is it possible to arrive at a thorough and definite understanding of the patient's condition.
The "Key to the Diagnosis from the Eye" outlines with precision the areas of the iris as they correspond to the various parts of the body. This colored chart of the iris has been prepared by Dr. H. Lahn, author of "The Diagnosis From the Eye," and can be obtained from the Kosmos Publishing Co., 2112 Sherman Ave., Evanston, Ill.
Vitality
In Chapter Four, we named, as the first of the primary causes of disease, lowered 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 constant cry of patients is: "Doctor, if you could only prescribe some good tonic or some food that will give me strength, then I should be all right! I am sure that is all I need to be cured."
We fully agree with the patient that he needs more vitality to overcome disease, but unfortunately this cannot be obtained from food and drink, from stimulants and tonics.
Vitality, life, life force, whatever we may call it or whatever its aspect, is not something we can eat and drink. It is independent of the physical body and of material food. If the body should "fall dead," as we call it, the life force would continue to act just as vigorously in the spiritual body, which is the exact counterpart of the physical organism.
The physical-material body as well as the spiritual-material body are only the instruments for the manifestation of the life force. They are no more life itself than the violin is the artist.
But just as the violin must be kept in good condition in order to enable the artist to draw from it the harmonies of sound, so food and drink are necessary to keep the physical body in the best possible condition for the manifestation of vital force. The more normal our physical and spiritual bodies are in structure and function, the more harmonious our thought life and emotional life, the more abundant will be the influx of vital force into the twofold organism.
This important subject has been treated more fully in Chapter IV.
Ignorance of these simple truths leads to the most serious mistakes. Physicians and people in general do not stop to think that excessive eating and drinking tend to rob the body of vitality instead of supplying it.
The processes of digestion, assimilation and elimination of food and drink in themselves require a considerable expenditure of vital force. Therefore all food taken in excess of the actual needs of the body consumes life force that should be available for other purposes, for the execution of physical and mental work.
The Romans had a proverb: "Plenus venter non studet libenter"—"A full stomach does not like to study." The most wholesome food, if taken in excess, will clog the system with waste matter just as too much coal will dampen and extinguish the fire in the furnace.
Furthermore, the morbid materials and systemic poisons produced by impure, unsuitable or wrongly combined foods will clog the cells and tissues of the body, cause unnecessary friction and obstruct the inflow and the operations of the vital energies, just as dust in a watch will clog and impede the movements of its mechanism.
The greatest artist living cannot draw harmonious sounds from the strings of the finest Stradivarius if the body of the violin is filled with dust and rubbish. Likewise, the life force cannot act perfectly in a body filled with morbid encumbrances.
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 be 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.
Stimulation by Paralysis
This heading may seem paradoxical, but it is borne out by fact. 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.
If, as we have learned, wholesome food and drink in themselves do not contain and therefore cannot convey life force to the human body, much less can this be accomplished by stimulants.
The human body has many correspondences with a watch. Both have a motor or driving mechanism and an inhibitory or restraining apparatus.
If it were not for the inhibiting balances, the wound watchspring would run off and spend its force in a few moments. The expenditure of the latent force in the wound spring must be regulated by the inhibitory and balancing mechanism of the timepiece.
Similarly, the nervous system in the animal and human organism consists of two main divisions: the motor or driving and the inhibitory or restraining mechanisms.
The driving power is furnished by the sympathetic nerves and the motor nerves. They convey the vital energies and nerve impulses to the cells and organs of the body, thus initiating and regulating their activities.
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.
As in the watch the force of the spring is controlled by the regulating balances (the anchor), so in the body the expenditure of vital energy must be regulated in such a manner that it is evenly distributed over the entire running time. This is accomplished by the inhibitory nervous system [the parasympathetics].
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.
Now we can understand why stimulation is produced by paralysis. Stimulants precipitate the fatigue products from the circulation into the tissues of the body. They do this by overcoming and paralyzing the power of the blood to dissolve and carry in solution uric acid and other acids and alkaloids that should be eliminated from the organism. Thus will be explained more fully in the volume on "Natural Dietetics."
Furthermore, stimulants temporarily benumb and paralyze the inhibitory nervous system. In other words, they lift the brakes from the motor nervous system, and allow the driving powers to run wild when Nature wanted them to slow up or stop.
To illustrate: A man has been working hard all day. Toward night his available supply of vitality has run low, his system is filled with uric acid, carbonic acid and other benumbing fatigue products, and he feels tired and sleepy, At this juncture he receives word that he must sit up all night with a sick relative. In order to brace himself for the extraordinary demand upon his vitality, our friend takes a cup of strong coffee, or a drink of whisky, or whatever his favorite stimulant may be.
The effect is marvelous. The tired feeling disappears, and he feels as though he could remain awake all night without effort.
What has produced this apparent renewal and increase of vital energy? Has the stimulant added to his system one iota of vitality? This cannot be, because stimulants do not contain anything that could impart vital force to the organism. What, then, has produced the seemingly strengthening effect?
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.
But this means drawing upon the reserve supplies of nerve fats and of the vital energy stored in them, which Nature wants to save for extraordinary demands upon the system in times of illness or extreme exertion. Therefore this procedure is contrary to Nature's intent. Nature tried to force the tired body to rest and sleep, so that it could store up a new supply of vital force.