Be Armed With Facts—Union of Human Gases With Oxygen—Fever and Nettle-rash. Nature Constructs for a Wise Purpose—Processes of Life Must be Kept in Motion—No Satisfaction from Authors—Animal Heat—Semeiology—Symptomatology—Definition of Fever—Fevers only Effects—Result of Stoppages of Vein or Artery—Aneurisms.
Be Armed With Facts—Union of Human Gases With Oxygen—Fever and Nettle-rash. Nature Constructs for a Wise Purpose—Processes of Life Must be Kept in Motion—No Satisfaction from Authors—Animal Heat—Semeiology—Symptomatology—Definition of Fever—Fevers only Effects—Result of Stoppages of Vein or Artery—Aneurisms.
When we reason for causes we must begin with facts, and hold them constantly in line for action, and use, all the time. It would be good advice never to enter a contest without your saber is of the purest steel of reason. By such only can you cut your way to the magazine of truth.
As we line up to learn something of the cause of fever, we are met by heat, a living fact. Does that put the machinery of your mind in motion? If not, what will arouse your mental energy? You see that heat is not like cold. It is not a horse with eyes, head, neck, body, limbs and tail; but it is as much of a being as the horse; it is a being of heat. If cause made the horse, and cause made the heat, why not devote all energy in seeking for cause in all disturbances of life?
Who says heat is not a union of the human gases with oxygen and other substances as they pass out of the excretory system. By what force do parts of the engine of life move? If by the motor power of electricity, how fast must the heart or life current run to ignite the gasolene of the body and set a person on fire and burn to fever heat?
If we know anything of the laws of electricity, we must know velocity modulates its temperature. Thus heat and cold are the effect.
If we understand anatomy as we should, we know man is the greatest engine ever produced, complete in form, an electro-magnet, a motor, and would be incomplete if it could not burn its own gases.
When man, is said to have fever, he is only on "fire," to burn out the deadly gases, which a perverted, dirty, abnormal, laboratory, has allowed to accumulate by friction of the journals of his body, or in the supply of vital fluids. We are only complete when normal in all parts,—a true compass points to the normal only.
When reasoning on the fever subject would it not be strictly in line to suppose that the lowest perceptible grade of fever requires a less additional physical energy to remove some foreign body fromthe person, that at first would naturally show a very light effect upon the human system, which would be the effect of itchy sensation.
Let us stop and reason. Might this effect (itching) not come from obstructed gases that flow through and from the skin? If gas should be detained in the system by the excretory ducts the substance closing the porous system would cause irritation of nerves, and increase the heart's action to such degree that the temperature is raised to fever heat, by the velocity with which electricity is brought into action. Electricity being the force that is naturally required to contract muscles and force gases from the body.
Let us advance higher in the scale of foreign bodies until we arrive to the condition of steam, which is more dense than gas. Would it not take more force to discharge it? By the same rule of reasoning we find water to be much thicker as an element than either gas or steam.
Then we have lymph as another element, albumen, fibrin, with all the elements found in arterial and venous blood, all of which forces required to circulate, pass through and out of the system, must be increased to suit. Therefore we are brought to this conclusion, that the different degrees of temperature do mark the density of the fluids with which the motor engine has to contend.
If gas produces an itching sensation, would it not be reasonable to suppose that the consistence of lymph would cause elevations on the skin, such as nettle-rash.
If this method of reasoning sustains us thus far, why not argue that albumen obstructed while in the system of the fascia would require a much greater force to put it through the skin. The excretions of the body would cause a much greater heat to even throw the albumen as far as the cuticle.
If a greater, with a greater velocity, why not grant to this as cause of the disturbance of motor energy equal to measles. Let us add to this albumen a quantity of fibrin, have we not cause to expect the energy hereby required to be equal to that nerve and blood energy found in smallpox?
If this be true, have we not a foundation in truth on which to base our conclusions? That the difference in forces manifested is the resistance offered by the difference in the consistence of devitalized fluids which the nerves and fibers of the fascia labor to excrete.
By close observation the philosopher who is hunting to acquaint himself with the laws of causeand effect, finds upon his voyages as an explorer, that nature as cause does construct for wise purposes; and shows as much wisdom in the construction and preparation of all bodies, beings and worlds, as the workings of those beings show when in action.
As life, the highest known principle sent forth by nature to vivify, construct and govern all beings, it is expected to be the indweller and operator, and one of the greatest perceivable and universal laws of nature. And when it becomes necessary to break the friendly relation between life and matter, nature closes up the channels of supply.
It may begin its work near the heart, at the origin of the greatest blood vessels, or do its work at any point. It may begin its closing process at the extremities of the veins or anywhere where exhausted vital fluids may enter for return to the heart for renewal by union with new material.
As nature is never satisfied with incompleteness in anything, all interferences from whatsoever cause are sufficient for nature to call a halt and begin the work of excavation by bringing the necessary fluids, already prepared in the chemical laboratory, to dissolve and wash away all obstructing deposits previous to beginning the work of reconstruction, which is to repair all injured parts of themachinery if disabled by atmospheric cause, poisons, or otherwise.
When nature renovates it is never satisfied to leave any obstruction in any part of the body. All the powers of its battery force are brought in line to do duty, and never stop short of completeness which ends in perfection.
All seasons of the year come and go, and we see year in and out the perpetual processes of construction of one class of bodies, and the passing away of others.
Vegetation builds forests, and cold builds mountains of ice to be dissolved and sent into the ocean to purify the water, and keep the brines from drying to powder, as salt.
All the processes of earth-life, must be kept in perpetual motion to cultivate and be kept in healthy condition, or the world would wither and die, and go to the tombs of space, to join the funeral procession of other dead worlds. Thus you see all nature comes and goes by the fiat of wisely adjusted laws.
Read all the authors from Æsculapius to this date, and all combined leave the inquirers without a single fact as to the cause or causes of fever.
One says fever may come from too much carbon. Another says chemical defects may be the cause.
I would like to agree with some of the good men of our date or the ancient theorists if I could, but they, both dead and alive, are a blank except the tons of paper they have covered all over with conjectures, and closed out by the words "Perhaps so's and howevers" spoken in all tongues and languages on earth.
All have explored for centuries for the cause of fevers, and on return from their multiple voyages say, we hope some day to find the cause. We have killed many dogs experimenting, but have failed to find the cause of fever.
To think of fever, we think of animal heat. By habit we want to know how great the heat is. We measure by a yard stick till we find we have 100°, 102°, 104°, to 106°, at this point we stop as we find too many yards of red calico to suit the size of the purse of life. Which we think cannot consume more than 106 yards of heat. We begin to ask for the substances that are more powerful than fire. We try all known fire compounds and fail. The fire department had done faithful work, and all it could bring to bear on the fire. It had put on hose and steam, knocked shingles off and windows out, butnot until the fire had ruined the house with all its inside and outside usefulness and beauties. Another and another house gets on fire and burns just as the first did. All are content to see the ruins and say it is the will of the Lord; never thinking for a moment that it was with the aid of the heart that the brain burned up the body.
Of what use is a knowledge of anatomy to man if he overlooks cause and effect in the results obtained by the machinery that anatomy should teach? He finds each part connected to all others with the wisdom that has given a set of plans and specifications that are without a flaw or omission. The body generates its own heat and modulates to suit climate and season. It can generate through its electro-motor system far beyond the kindly normal, to the highest known fever heat, and is capable of modulations far above or below normal. A knowledge of Osteopathy will prepare you to bring the system under the rulings of the physical laws of life. Fever is electric heat only.
(Med.) The science of the signs or symptoms of disease.
The doctrine of symptoms; that part of the science of medicine which treats of the symptoms of disease. Semeiology.
These definitions are from Webster's International Dictionary, considered by all English speaking people as a standard authority. Both words are chosen names to represent that system of guess work, which is now and has been used as a method of ascertaining what disease is or might be. It is supposed to be the best method known to date to classify or name diseases, after which guessing begins in earnest. What kinds of poisons, how much and how often to use them, and guess how much good or how much harm is being done to the sick person.
To illustrate more forcibly, to the mind of the reader that such system though honored by age is only worthy the name of guess work, as shown by the following standard authority on fevers:
"Fever is a condition in which there are present the phenomena of rise of temperature, quickened circulation, marked tissue change, and disordered secretions.
"The primary cause of the fever phenomena is still a mooted (discussed and debated) question, and is either a disorder of the sympathetic nervous system giving rise to disturbances of the vaso-motor filaments, or a derangement of the nerve centers located adjacent to the corpus striatum, which have been found, by experiment, to govern the processesof heat production, distribution, and dissipation.
"Rise of temperature is the pre-eminent feature of all fevers, and can only be positively determined by the use of the clinical thermometer. The term feverishness is used when the temperature ranges from 99° to 100° fahr.; slight fever if 100° or 101°; moderate, 102° or 103°; high if 104° or 105° and intense if it exceed the latter. The term hyperpyrexia is used when the temperature shows a tendency to remain at 106° fahr. and above.
"Quickened circulation is the rule in fevers, the frequency usually maintaining a fair ratio with the increase of the temperature. A rise of one degree fahr. is usually attended with an increase of eight to ten beats of the pulse per minute.
"The following table gives a fair comparison between temperature and pulse:—
TABLE OF DEGREES.A temperature of98°correspondsto apulse of60°"99°"""70°"100°F"""80°"101°F"""90°"102°F"""100°"103°F"""110°"104°F"""120°"105°F"""130°"106°F"""140°
"The tissue waste is marked in proportion tothe severity and duration of the febrile phenomena, being slight or (nil) in febricula, and excessive in typhoid fever.
"The disordered secretions are manifested by the deficiency in the salivary, gastric, intestinal, and nephritic secretions, the tongue being furred, the mouth clammy, and there occurring anorexia, thirst, constipation, and scanty, high-colored acid urine."[6]
Fevers are effects only. The cause may be far from mental conclusions. If we have a house with one bell, and ten wires each fastened to a door running to the center, all having wire connection and so arranged that to pull any one wire will set the bell in motion, and without an indicator you cannot tell which wire is disturbed, producing the effect or ringing of the bell at the center. An electrician would know at once the cause, but to discriminate and locate the wire disturbed is the study.
Before a bell can be heard from any door, the general battery must be charged. Thus you see but one source of supply. To better illustrate—we will take a house with eight rooms, and all supplied by one battery—one is a reception room, one a parlor, one a sitting room, one bed room, one cloak room, one dining room, one a kitchen, and one a basement room, all having wires and bells running to one bell in the clerk's office, which has an indicator for each room by numbers on its face. If the machinery is in good order he can call and answer correctly all the time and never make a mistake. But should he ring to call the cook and her bell keep on ringing and she and clerk could not stop it, and they summon an electrician, what would you think if he began at the parlor bell to adjust a trouble of the kitchen bell? Surely you would not have him treat the parlor bell first, because you know the cook could only answer by the effect, or rattling of the office bell. Hers is cause, sound at office, effect. Now to apply this illustration, we will say a system of bells and connecting wires run to all parts or rooms of the body, from the battery of power or the brain, conveyed by the strings of wires or nerves, that are put up and run to all active or vital parts of the body. Thus arranged we see how blood is driven to any part of the system, by the power that is sent over the nerves from the brain to the spinal cord, and from there to all nerves of each and all divisions of the body. Then your blood that has done its work in constructing parts or all of the system, entering veins to be returned to the heart for renewal. Each vein, great and small, has nerveswith them as servants of power, to force blood back to heart through the different sets of tubes known as veins, and made to suit the duties they have to perform in the process of life. As it travels to the heart with blood too thick to suit the lungs, the great system of lymphatics pour in water to suit demands, preparatory to entering the lungs to be purified and renewed. Thus you see nature has amply prepared all the machinery and power to prepare material and construct all parts, and when in normal condition the mind and wisdom of God is satisfied that the machine will go on and build and run according to the plan and specification. If this be true as nature proves at every point and principle, what can man do farther than plumb, line up, and trust to nature to get results desired, "life and health?" Can we add or suggest any improvement? If not, what is left for us to do is to keep bells, batteries and wires in normal place and trust to normal law as given by nature.
But few questions remain to be asked by the philosophical navigator when he sets sail to go to the cause of flux. Would he go to blood supply? Certainly, there must be supply previous to deposit. Reason would cause us to combine the fact that blood must be in perpetual motion from and to theheart during life, and that law is the fiat of all nature which is indispensable and absolute. Blood must not stop its motion nor be allowed to unduly deposit, as the heart's action is perpetual in motion. The work is complete of the heart if it delivers blood into the exploring arteries. Each division must to do its part fully as a normal heart does, or can in the greatest measure of health; and a normally formed heart is just as much interested in the blood that is running constantly for repairs and additions, as the whole system is on the arteries for supply. Thus you must have perfection in shape first, and from it to all parts as far as an artery reaches. All hindrances must be kept away from the arteries great and small. Health permits of no stopping of blood in either the vein or artery. If an artery cannot unload its consents a strain follows, and as an artery must have room to deposit its supplies it proceeds to build other vessels adjacent to the points of obstruction.
Some are builded to enormous sizes. We call them aneurisms or accommodation chambers, builded by nature's constructing ability of the arteries as deposits for blood. The artery should pass farther on, thus you by reason must know an obstruction has limited the flow of blood, and thetumor is only an effect, and obstruction is the cause of all abnormal deposits, either from vein or artery. Unobstructed blood cannot form a tumor, nor allow inharmony to dwell in any part of the system. Flux is an effect, blood supply and circulation both at variation from normal. An artery finds veins of bowels irritated and contracted to such degree that arterial blood cannot enter veins with cargo of blood at all, and deposits its blood at terminal points in mucous membrane of bowels, and when membrane fails to hold all blood so delivered, then the first blood which dies of asphyxia finds an outlet into the bowels to be carried off and out by peristaltic actions. Thus you have a continuous deposit and discharge for arterial blood until death stops the supply.
As defined by Allopathy—Scarlet Fever as Defined by Osteopathy—Smallpox—Power to Drive Greater Than in Measles.
As defined by Allopathy—Scarlet Fever as Defined by Osteopathy—Smallpox—Power to Drive Greater Than in Measles.
"Scarlet fever begins with a short period of tired feeling. A short period of chilly sensation, fullness of eyes and sore throat. In a few hours fever begins with great heat of back of head. It soon extends all over the body, sick stomach and vomiting generally accompany the disease. Rash of a red color beginning on back, and extends to throat and limbs. About the second or third day, the fever is very high, from 100° to 104° and generally lasts to fifth and seventh day, at which time fever begins to diminish, with itching over the body. The skin at this time throws off all of the dead scales that had been red rash in the fore-part of the disease. Often the lining membranes of the mouth, throat and tonsils slough and bleed. Also pus is often formed just under the skin in front of the throat. Such cases usually die.[7]
Allopathy."
Is a disease generally of the early spring and late fall seasons. Generally comes with cold and damp weathers during east winds. It begins with sore throat, chilly and tired feelings, followed with headache and vomiting. In a few hours chilly feeling leaves and fever sets in very high, burns your hands. The patient is rounded in chest, abdomen, face and limbs by congestion of the fascia and all of the lymphatic glands. This stagnation will soon begin its work of fermentation of the fluids of fascia, then you see the rash. If you do not want to see the rash and sloughing of throat, with a dead patient, I would advise you to train your guns on the blood, nerves, and lymphatics of the fascia and stop the cause at once, or quit.
Osteopathy.
If we give a thought to the action of the electro-motor force, we would be constrained to believe that a power that could drive gas through a body of great density, would be much less than one that could force lymph through the same density. The same of albumen.
Thus in smallpox the motor energy must be equal to the force that would convey albumen through all tissues. Measles would be less, and so on according to the thickness of the fluids present. Thus you see the power to drive dead fluids from fascia must be much greater in smallpox than in cases of measles. Then we must see why the pulse of smallpox is so powerful during development of the pox. After killing the fluids by retention in the fascia of the skin, a greater force yet is created by hurting nerve fibers of fascia; then the motor energy appears and all the powers of life go to help the arteries force fluids through the skin and push to and leave them in the fascia of the skin to be eliminated as best it can. In some parts elimination fails, such places are called pox. They supurate and drop out leaving a pit (the pox mark). Now had the nerves of the skin and fascia not been irritated to contract the skin against the fascia passing its dead fluids through the excretory ducts of the skin, we probably would have no eruption. It is not quite reasonable to conclude that after the heart overloads the fascia and the nerves lose their control by pressure of fluids, that all that is left is chemical action to the production of pus, which throws it out of fascia in intervening spaces? Then should the fascia have greater death of its substances, we have one spot to run into others, and we have "confluent smallpox."
Wonders on the Increase—What Is Life?—How Is Action Produced—Acquaint Yourself With the Machinery—Duty of the Osteopath—Formation of Sacrum—The Pelvis—Appearance of Œdema—Do All Diseases Have Appearance in Œdema.
Wonders on the Increase—What Is Life?—How Is Action Produced—Acquaint Yourself With the Machinery—Duty of the Osteopath—Formation of Sacrum—The Pelvis—Appearance of Œdema—Do All Diseases Have Appearance in Œdema.
Wonders are daily callers, and seem greatly on the increase during the Eighteenth century. As we read history we learn that no one hundred years of the past has produced wonders in such number and variety. Stupid systems of government have given place to better and wiser. Voyages of the ocean have had months by sail reduced to days by steam. Journeys over land that would require six months by horse and ox, are now accomplished in six days by rail. Our law, medical and other schools of five and seven years, are now but two or three; and the graduates of such schools are far superior in useful knowledge to those of the five and seven. And no wonder at that, for the facilities for giving the pupil an education are so far superior that the knowledge sought, can be obtained in less time.Our schools are not intended to use the greatest number of days that are allotted to man. But at this day schooling and learning mean, to obtain useful knowledge in the quickest way that a thoroughness can be obtained. If there is any method by which arithmetic can be taught so as to master it in thirty days instead of thirty months let us have it. We want knowledge, we are willing to pay for it, we want all we pay for, and we want our heads kept out of the sausage-mill of time wasting.
A great question now stands before us: What are the possibilities of mind to improve our methods of gaining knowledge, shorten time, and getting greater and better results? I am free to say the question is too momentous to form an answer, as each day brings a new wonder, to the man or woman who reasons on cause, and gives demonstrations by effects.
The philosopher who first asked that question no one knows. But all intelligent persons are interested in the solution of this problem, at least to know some tangible reason why it is called life; whether life is personal or so arranged that it might be called an individualized principle of nature.
I wish to think for a time on this line, because we should make a wise handling of the machinery of the body.
If life in man has been formed to suit the size and duties of the being; if life has a living and separate personage, then we should be governed by such reasons as would give it the greatest chance to go on with its labors in the bodies of man and beast.
We know by experience that a spark of fire will start the principles of powder into motion, which, were it not stimulated by the positive principle of father nature, which finds this germ lying quietly in the womb of space, would be silently inactive for all ages, without being able to move or help itself, save for the motor principle of life given by the father of all motion.
Right here we could and should ask the question: Is this action produced by electricity put in motion, or is it the active principle that comes as a spiritual man? If so, it is useless to try, or hope to know what life is in its minutia. But we do know that life can only display its natural forces by the visible action of the forms it produces.
If we inspect man as a machine, we find a complete building, a machine that courts inspectionand criticism. It demands a full exploration of all its parts with their uses. Then the mind is asked to see or find the connection between the physical, and the spiritual. By nature you can reason on the roads that the powers of life are arranged to suit its system of motion.
If life is an individualized personage, as we might express that mysterious something, and it must have definite arrangements by which it can be united and act with matter; then we are admonished to acquaint ourselves with the arrangements of those natural connections, the one or many, as they are connected to all parts of the completed being.
As motion is the first and only evidence of life, by this thought we are conducted to the machinery through which life works to accomplish these results.
If the brain be that division in which force is generated or stored, you must at all hazards acquaint yourself with that structure of this machine; trace the connection from brain to heart, from heart to lungs, and other organs that can be acted upon by the brain, whose duty may be to construct the fleshy and bony parts of the body. Trace from the brain to the chemical laboratories, andnote their action as they unite and prepare blood and other fluids, that are used in the economy of this vital, self-constructing and self-moving wonder, commonly known as man; wherein life and matter do unite, and express their friendly relation one with the other; and while this relation exists we have the living man only, expressing and proving the relation that can exist between life and matter, from the lowest living atom, to the greatest worlds. They can only express form and action by this law. Harmony only dwells where obstructions do not exist.
The Osteopath finds here the field in which he can dwell forever. His duties as a philosopher admonish him, that life and matter can be united, and that union cannot continue with any hindrance to the free and absolute motion. Therefore his duty is to keep away from the track all that will hinder the complete passage of the forces of the nervous system, that by that power the blood may be delivered and adjusted, to keep the system in normal condition. Here is your duty; do it well, if you wish to succeed.
We believe only when we do not know. Belief and doubt are equal terms. If we believe thesacrum is formed by a local system, then we can or will have cause to believe that the rectum and colon appear after the outer skin is in process of forming. For want of the truths we are left in speculative doubt. I believe the lower bowels are formed by local machinery that receives and appropriates to the purpose of construction of such parts or organs as nature designs to be used there. If we dissect a chicken as soon as hatched we will find the colon beginning at rectum and complete in form, but not connected to the small intestines.
To get more directly at the point I want to make I will say I have some reasons to believe that the lower bowels are builded from rectum to the vermiform appendix, by acts of pelvis. It may be well to state that I have seen formation of rectum and colon in the chicken, before the small intestines were visible at all. Then in same chicken I saw, liver, lung, crop and gizzard, and only one artery in the region of the small intestines. From this I was led to believe that the pelvis did much of the forming of the viscera. If so, then we could look for much relief through the system of the pelvis.
Œdema is the one word that appears to be at the first showing of life and death in animal forms.Previous to death by general swelling of system, a watery swelling of fascia and lymphatics, even to those of nerve fibers. If a disease should destroy life by withholding all fluids, we can trace such cause in the beginning to a time when there was watery swelling of the centers of nerves of nutrition, to such amount as to cut off nerve supply until sensation ceased to renovate and keep off accumulating fluids so long that fermentation did the work of heating till all fluids had dried up, and the channels of supply closed by adhesive inflammation, and death follows by the law of general atrophy.
To assert that all diseases have their beginning in œdema may be wide in range, but we often find one principle to rule over much territory. "Instance:" Mind is the supreme ruler of all beings, from the mites of life to the monsters of the land and sea. Thus we see a ruling principle is without limit. The same of numbers. By heat all metals melt to fluidity; acids must have oxygen to begin as solvents in most metals. We only speak imperfectly of some common laws to prepare the student to think on the line of probabilities as I hold them out for consideration. Suppose we begin at the atoms of fluids such as enter to construct animal or vegetable forms, and pen up till decomposition begins. By such delay does not nature call a halt and refuse to obey the laws of construction and let all other supplies pile up even to death? Is not all this the result of œdema? Œdema surely begins with the first tardy atom of matter.
Pneumonia begins by its œdematous accumulations of dead atoms, even to the death of the whole body, all having found a start in atoms only.
We will close this chapter by propounding a few questions which the Osteopath should keep in mind.
Are the human and animal forms complete as working machines?Has nature furnished man with powers to make his bones; give them the needed shapes of durable material, strong in kind?Does a section in nature's law provide fastenings to hold these to one another?Then another question arises: How will this body move, and where and how is the force applied?Where and how is this force obtained?How is it generated and supplied to these parts of motion?What makes these muscles, ligaments, nerves, veins, arteries?Are they self-forming, or has nature prepared machinery to make them?Does animal life contain knowledge and force to construct all of the parts of man?Can it run the machine after it has finished it?By what power does it move?Is there a blood vessel running to all parts of this body to supply all these demands?If it has a battery of force, where is it?What does it use for force?Is it electricity? If so how does it collect and use this substance?How does it convey its powers to any or all places?How does the man keep warm without fire?How does he build and lose flesh all the time?Where and how is the supply made and delivered to proper places?How is it applied and what holds it to its place when adjusted?What makes it build the house of life?Do demand and supply govern the work? If not, what does?Are the laws of animal life sufficient to do all this work of building and repairing wastes and keep it in running condition?If it does, what can man do or suggest to help it?Is this machine capable of being run fast or slow if need be?Does man have in him some kind of chemical laboratory that can turn out such products as he needs to fill all his physical demands?If by heat, exercise, or any other cause he gets warm, can that chemistry cool him to normal?If too cold can it warm him? Can it adjust him to heat and cold?If so, how is it done? Is the law of life and longevity fully vindicated in man's make up?
Are the human and animal forms complete as working machines?
Has nature furnished man with powers to make his bones; give them the needed shapes of durable material, strong in kind?
Does a section in nature's law provide fastenings to hold these to one another?
Then another question arises: How will this body move, and where and how is the force applied?
Where and how is this force obtained?
How is it generated and supplied to these parts of motion?
What makes these muscles, ligaments, nerves, veins, arteries?
Are they self-forming, or has nature prepared machinery to make them?
Does animal life contain knowledge and force to construct all of the parts of man?
Can it run the machine after it has finished it?
By what power does it move?
Is there a blood vessel running to all parts of this body to supply all these demands?
If it has a battery of force, where is it?
What does it use for force?
Is it electricity? If so how does it collect and use this substance?
How does it convey its powers to any or all places?
How does the man keep warm without fire?
How does he build and lose flesh all the time?
Where and how is the supply made and delivered to proper places?
How is it applied and what holds it to its place when adjusted?
What makes it build the house of life?
Do demand and supply govern the work? If not, what does?
Are the laws of animal life sufficient to do all this work of building and repairing wastes and keep it in running condition?
If it does, what can man do or suggest to help it?
Is this machine capable of being run fast or slow if need be?
Does man have in him some kind of chemical laboratory that can turn out such products as he needs to fill all his physical demands?
If by heat, exercise, or any other cause he gets warm, can that chemistry cool him to normal?
If too cold can it warm him? Can it adjust him to heat and cold?
If so, how is it done? Is the law of life and longevity fully vindicated in man's make up?
The Advent of Man—Care of the Stock Raiser—Mental Degeneration Makes It Unpleasant for an Original Thinker—Original Thinkers of the Ancients—Methods of Healing—Failure of Allopathy—Primitive Man—Evidences of Prehistoric Man—Mental Dwarfage.
The Advent of Man—Care of the Stock Raiser—Mental Degeneration Makes It Unpleasant for an Original Thinker—Original Thinkers of the Ancients—Methods of Healing—Failure of Allopathy—Primitive Man—Evidences of Prehistoric Man—Mental Dwarfage.
The exact time when man's foot appeared on the earth, no record shows. A knowledge of his advent might be profitable. The unwritten history of the human races with the genius or lack of genius, might to us be an open book of knowledge. As it is not supposable that the mind of man has just become observingly active in the last few centuries, absolute evidence of purer and deeper reason than we have been able to present, stand recorded on the faces of many valuable "lost arts" which we have never been able to equal. Is it not very reasonable to suppose that the powers of mind have wonderfully degenerated from some cause?
The stock raiser carefully preserves the best and most healthy of the males and females of his flocks and herds for breeding purposes, that theiroffspring might be healthy and well developed, for the purposes for which he raises them. As a result he raises stock from the poultry house up, with marked improvement in form, strength and usefulness. Should he be foolish enough to kill off all the healthy and well developed males as they appear in his herds of cattle and other stock, for one or two centuries, would any one with average intelligence suppose that the standard of animals would or could be kept up, by breeding from the unfortunate stock, that had been pierced through the lungs while fighting with more powerful animals. If for breeding purposes he would save calves, colts, lambs, pigs, goats or any other young males to breed from, that had had a leg frozen off, one or both eyes plucked out, necks and ears torn by panthers, what would you think of the man's sanity?
On this line we would ask what has been the procedure of all nations? Has it not been to select the strong and healthy males, drive them out to the field of battle, destroy a million or more of the strongest men, as our war of the sixties shows. Since that war closed the fathers of our children are mainly the crippled, worn out, and degenerated physical wrecks, with the assistance of the refused, who for lack of physical ability were barred from entering the United States'service. Such physical and mental wrecks are the fathers of the children born during the last thirty years. Every healthy young lady who married and became a mother after the early sixties, had to select a husband from a war or hereditary wreck. From that degenerated stock of human beings our asylums are filled, and the beams of the gallows pulled down by the weight of the bodies of those mental dwarfs. Run this train of reason back for a few hundred or thousand of years,—this degenerating force, bearing upon the offspring, and is it a wonder that we have physical and mental wrecks all over the country?
Now if we have been mentally degenerating, killing our best men back for a few thousand years time, and still have a few left who are fairly good reasoners, what was their mental powers then, compared with now? They could think from native ability; we only through acquired ability by our methods of education. Should an original thinker occasionally appear from the crippled and maimed, he will have much that is unpleasant to contend with, unless he is generous enough to credit the cause to an effect produced by the lack of mental and physical forces in the sires just described. Aman or woman who is able to reason, cannot afford to wear out his or her physical and mental forces by spending time in tiresome discussions with such blank masses, who are very fortunate to have intelligence enough to make a living under the methods that require the least mental action.
It would not be manly nor lady like to allow a feeling of combattiveness to arise and spend your forces on such persons. Pre-natal causes have dropped them where they are, and a philosopher knows he must submit to the conditions, and he is sorrowful in place of vengeful and vindicative, and all that is left for him to do is to trim his lamps and let the lights defend themselves.
On this line we have much to think of. Anciently they did think: Great minds existed then, as is evidenced by the architecture displayed in constructing temples and pyramids. As in philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics, they stand to-day as living facts of their intelligence. In some ways we are equal and even surpass the ancients. Before the establishment of religious and political governments, national and tribal creeds, to sustain which the powerful minds and bodies of thousands and millions have been slain and their wise councils prohibited by death. Reason says under thecircumstances we must kindly make and do the best we can in our day and time. No doubt their religion was better than ours, before they began to fight about their gods and governments.
Some evidence crops out now and then that their methods of healing were natural and wisely applied, and crowned with good results. As far as history speaks of the ancient healing arts they were logical, philosophical, good in results and harmless. It is true enough that we have great systems of chemistry that are useful in the mechanical arts, but very limited in their uses in the healing arts. In fact, a very great per cent of the gray-haired philosophers of all medical schools, unhesitatingly assert that the world would be better off without them. These conclusions are sent forth by competent and honest investigators, who have tested all known methods and medicines, and carefully observed the results from a quarter to a half a century. Let us call it "a trade," as the use of drugs is not a science.
The author will now say, the health hunter in a majority of cases, when he administers drugs, gives one dose for health and nine for the dollar.
As it becomes necessary to throw off oppressive governments, it becomes just as necessary to throwoff other useless customs, without which no substitute has ever been received.
Allopathy, a school of medicine known and fostered by all nations, drove on with its exploring teams; gave up the search, went into camp and builded temples to the god who purged, puked, perspired, opiated, drank whiskey and other stimulants; destroyed its thousands, ruined nations, established whiskey saloons, opium dens, insane asylums, naked mothers and hungry babies, and still cries aloud, and says: "Come unto me and I will give you rest. I have opium, morphine, and whiskey by the barrel. I am the god of all healing knowledge, and want to be so recognized by people and statute. I do not wish to be annoyed by Eclecticism, Homœopathy, Christian science, massage, Swedish movements, nor Osteopathy. I do not like Osteopathy any better than I do a tiger. It scratches me and tears away all my disciples. I cannot destroy it. It uses neither opium nor whiskey, and it is impossible to catch it asleep. It scratches us, and has scratched our power out of four states during the last twelve months, with no telling where it will scratch next time. We must prepare for more war, I have heard from my scouts that on its flag the inscription readsthus: 'No quarters for allopathy in particular and none at all for any schools of medicine farther than surgery, and war to the hilt on three-fourths of that as practiced in the present day. The use of the knife in everything and for everything must be stopped; not by statute law, but through a higher education of the masses, which will give them more confidence in nature's ability to heal.'"
It is reasonable to suppose that the mind that constructed man was fully competent to undertake and complete the being to suit the purpose for which he was designed. After giving him physical perfection in every limb, organ, or part of his body, it is reasonable to suppose, that at that time, he gave him all the mental powers needed for all purposes during the life of his race, and with that perfection in the physical, it is supposable he approached very nearly to intellectual perfection. He was a mathematician, not by collegiate process, but by native ability. He did not have to take a course in a university to study chemistry, because of the fact that he was a chemist when he was born. Possibly he could speak or understand all languages spoken by the human tongue, from the powers of his mind, which occupied a pure and healthy physique. In a word he was well made and fully endowed with all thephysical and mental forces necessary to the whole journey of his life. Now a question arises: "When did he begin to degenerate physically and mentally?" Let us reason some on this line, which seems to be a rather solid foundation, and as history is young itself, and has imperfectly recorded only such events as have transpired during a few centuries, with records imperfectly preserved.
We see evidences all along the journey of prehistoric man's life, though the being and his bones have been mostly obliterated; we see close to his bony remains the stone axe, the flint-dart. We find acres of ground in many places close to mounds and caves, with countless millions of slivers that have been scaled from flints and formed to suit war purposes; while the many bones that are found in caves, heaps and piles, indicate that many thousands fell in mortal combat then and there. Possibly they were old in the skilled arts of war at that day. Their great and powerful men, who should have been parents of the coming generations, were slain and destroyed and the conquered became the captives and slaves of the more powerful, with all opportunities for mental development suppressed. Other nations and tribes willingly entered the bloody fields of battle, with nothing to report butthe death of the best physically formed men, and leaving the propagation of the race or races to be kept up by those who were left behind as unqualified to go into battle, for lack of strength of either body or mind.
This process of destroying the mentally and physically great has been kept up to the limits of our history's record. We have to go to schools about one-half of our time in order to cultivate and stimulate our mental energies sufficiently well, that we may follow the ordinary business pursuits of life.
Without worrying the patience of the reader any further, we will ask him if it is not reasonable that during all the past thousands of years, that men have fought over their gods and governments, has it not produced the mental dwarfage from the causes he has had to face? Our professional men are only imitators of one another. They must spend years in school because of a lack of native ability. This is our condition, and we must make the best we can of it. Most of our learned men, so-called, at the present day, stand upon heaps of mental rubbish. You seldom see in an editor's columns any evidence of mental greatness. He clips, quotes and sells his wisdom.He takes up some hobby, religious or scientific. He lauds his own religious views; his scientific ideas he wishes embalmed for the use of future generations. His law isthelaw. His medicine is God's pills, notwithstanding he is the laughing stock of all who know him. I want to be good to them. I expect to be good to them, as they are suffering from the effects of pre-natal causes, thrown upon them by their ancestors for thousands of years. By those causes they have been possibly wounded worse than I have, and I do not expect to spend any time in combats with mental dwarfs; political, religious, or scientific bigots. If I can successfully run my boat over the riffles of time, I shall credit it to good luck, not native ability, for I, too, feel what they should,—the deep plowings of mental dwarfage, that is the result of killing all the great and good men for ages.