Nature Cure by Henry Lindlahr (best short books to read txt) π
Their success undoubtedly is based on the fact that they concentratetheir best efforts on preventive instead of combative methods oftreating disease. People are beginning to realize that it is cheaperand more advantageous to prevent disease than to cure it. To createand maintain continuous, buoyant good health means greaterefficiency for mental and physical work; greater capacity for thetrue enjoyment of life, and the best insurance against failure andpoverty. Therefore, he who builds health is of greater value tohumanity than he who allows people to drift into disease throughignorance of Nature's laws, and then attempts to cure them bydoubtful and uncertain combative methods.
It is said that in China the physician is hired and paid by theyear; that he receives a certain stipend as long as the members ofthe family are in good health, but that the salary is suspended aslong as one of his charges is ill. If some similar method o
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When the use of inorganic minerals is discontinued and when the proper methods of eliminative treatment, dietetic and otherwise, are applied, these mineral substances are gradually dislodged and carried out of the system. Simultaneously with their elimination disappear their signs in the iris and the disease symptoms which their presence had created in the organism.
In this connection it is a significant fact that those minerals which are congenial to the system, that is, those which in their organic form enter into the composition of the body, are much more easily eliminated if they have been taken in the inorganic form, than those substances which are naturally foreign and poisonous to the human organism, such as mercury, arsenic, iodine, the bromides, the different coal-tar preparations, etc.
This is proved by the fact that the signs of the minerals which are normal constituents of the human body disappear from the iris of the eye much more quickly than the signs of those minerals which are foreign and naturally poisonous to the system.
The difficulty we experience in eliminating mineral poisons from the body would seem to indicate that Nature never intended them to be used as foods or medicines. The intestines, kidneys, skin, mucous membranes and other organs of depuration are evidently not constructed or prepared to cope with inorganic, poisonous substances and to eliminate them completely. Accordingly, these poisons show the tendency to accumulate in certain parts or organs of the body for which they have a special affinity and then to act as irritants and destructive corrodents.
The diseases which we find most difficult to cure, even by the most radical application of natural methods, are cases of drug-poisoning. Substances which are foreign to the human organism, and especially the inorganic, mineral poisons, positively destroy tissues and organs, and are much harder to eliminate from the system than the encumbrances of morbid materials and waste matter produced in the body by wrong habits of living only. The obvious reason for this is that our organs of elimination are intended and constructed to excrete only such waste products as are formed in the organism in the processes of metabolism.
Tuberculosis or cancer may be caused in a scrofulous or psoriatic constitution by overloading the system with meat, coffee, alcohol or tobacco; but as soon as these bad habits are discontinued, and the organs of elimination stimulated by natural methods, the encumbrances will be eliminated, and the much-dreaded symptoms will subside and disappear, often with surprising rapidity.
On the other hand, mercury, arsenic, quinine, strychnine, iodine, etc., accumulate in the brain, the spinal cord, and the cells and tissues of the vital organs, causing actual destruction and disintegration. The tissues thus affected are not easily rebuilt, and it is exceedingly difficult to stir up the destructive mineral poisons and to eliminate them from the system.
Therefore it is an indisputable fact that many of the most stubborn, so-called incurable diseases are drug diseases
The Importance of Natural Diet
While certain medicinal remedies in organic form may be very useful in supplying quickly a deficiency of mineral elements in the system, we should aim to keep our bodies in a normal, healthy condition by proper food selection and combination. A brief description of the scientific basis of βNatural Dieteticsβ will be found in the chapter on Diet.
Undoubtedly, Nature has supplied all the elements which the human organism needs in abundance and in the right proportions in the natural foods, otherwise she would be a very ignorant organizer and provider.
We should learn to select and combine food materials in such a manner that they supply all the needs of the body in the best possible way and thus insure perfect health and strength without the use of medicines.
Why should we attempt to cure anemia with inorganic iron, hyperacidity of the stomach with baking soda, swollen glands with iodine, the itch with sulphur, ricket conditions in infants with lime water, etc., when these mineral elements are contained in abundance and in live, organic form in fruits and vegetables, herbs and in the vitochemical remedies?
Unfortunately, however, a great many individuals, through wrong habits of living and of treating their ailments, have ruined their digestive organs to such an extent that they are incapable of properly assimilating their food and require, at least temporarily, stimulative treatment by natural methods and a supply of the indispensable organic mineral salts through medicinal food preparations.
In such cases the mineral elements must be provided in the most easily assimilable form in vegetable extracts (which should be prepared fresh every day), and in the vitochemical remedies.
What has been said is sufficient, I believe, to justify the attitude of the Nature Cure school toward medicines in general. It explains why we avoid the use of inorganic minerals and poisonous substances, while on the other hand we find a wide and useful field for medicinal remedies in the form of blood and tissue foods.
Homeopathy
When we recommend the use of homeopathic remedies, the medical nihilist says: βDonβt talk homeopathy to me! I didnβt come to you for drugs; I have had enough of them.β
When we explain that these remedies are so highly refined that they cannot possibly do any harm, he becomes still more indignant. βI donβt need any of your mental therapeutics in homeopathic form,β he exclaims. βI, too, believe in the power of mind over matter, but I have no faith in your sugar of milk pellets; they are poor substitutes for the real article. That kind of sugar-coated suggestion might work on some people, but it doesnβt on me.β
When I first entered upon the study of medicine, I, too, did not believe in the curative power of homeopathic doses; but experience caused me to change my mind. The well-selected remedy administered at the right time often works wonders.
True homeopathic medicines in high-potency doses are so highly refined and rarefied that they cannot possibly produce harmful results or suppress Natureβs cleansing and healing efforts; on the contrary, if employed according to the Law of Homeopathy: βlike cures like,β they assist in producing acute reactions or healing crises, thus aiding Nature in the work of purification and repair.
Homeopathy Works with the Laws of Cure, Not Against Them. Similia similibus curantur (like cures like) translated into practice means that a drug capable of producing a certain set of disease symptoms in a healthy body, when given in large, physiological doses, will relieve or cure a similar set of symptoms in the diseased organism if the drug be given in small, homeopathic doses.
For instance, belladonna, given in large, poisonous doses to a healthy person, will cause a peculiar headache with sharp, stabbing pains in forehead and temples, high fever, violent delirium, dilation of the pupils, dryness and rawness of the throat, scarlet redness of the skin and extreme sensitiveness to light, jars and noises.
It will be observed that this is a fair picture of a typical case of scarlet fever. A homeopathic prescriber, when called to a scarlet fever patient exhibiting in a marked degree three or more of the above-described symptoms, would give a trituration of belladonna, say 6x. In numberless cases the fever has subsided and its symptoms have rapidly disappeared under such treatment.
The reader may say: βI do not see any difference between this and the allopathic suppression of disease by drugs.β
There is a great difference. The allopathic physician may use the same remedy, belladonna, in the same case, but he will give from ten to twenty drops of tincture of belladonna, repeated every three or four hours. These doses are from twenty to forty thousand times stronger than the homeopathic 3x or 6x.
Herein lies the difference. The allopathic dose allays the fever symptoms by paralyzing the organism as a whole and the different vital organs and their functions in particular. This is frankly admitted in every allopathic materia medica. But by such dosing Nature is forcibly interrupted in her efforts of cleansing and healing; the acute reaction is suppressed, but not cured.
If fever is a healing effort of Nature, it may be controlled and modified, but must not be suppressed. A minute dose of homeopathic belladonna, acting on the innermost cells of the organism which the coarser allopathic doses would paralyze, stimulates these cells to effort in the right direction. It brings about conditions similar to those produced by Nature, and thus assists her; it is cooperation instead of counteroperation.
After this brief discussion of the practical application of homeopathy, let us now ascertain in how far its laws and theories agree with and corroborate the laws and principles of the Nature Cure school.
Hahnemann discovered the Law of similia similibus curantur accidentally, while investigating the effects of quinine on the human organism. Ever since then it has been applied successfully by him and his followers in treating human ailments.
However, this law has been used empirically. Neither in the Organon nor in any other writings or teachings of Hahnemann and the homeopathic school can be found a clear and concise explanation of why like cures like. The proof offered has been negative rather than positive.
Therefore the allopath says: βYou tell me that βlike cures like,β and that you can prove it at the sickbed; but unless you can give me good and valid reasons why it should be so, I cannot and will not believe that it is your βsimilarβ which cures the patient. How do I know it is your βpotencyβ? The patient might recover just as well without it.β
With the aid of the three laws of cure, I shall endeavor to give the reasons and furnish the proofs for our contentions. The laws alluded to are: The Law of Cure, the Law of Dual Effect and the Law of Crises.
Similia similibus curantur is only another way of stating the fundamental Law of Nature Cure: βEvery acute disease is the result of a cleansing and healing effort of Nature.β
If a certain set of disease symptoms are the result of a healing effort of Nature, and if I give a remedy which produces the same or similar symptoms in the system, am I not aiding Nature in her attempt to overcome the abnormal conditions?
In such a case, the indicated homeopathic remedy will not suppress the acute reaction, but it will help it along, thus accelerating and hastening the curative process.
In the last analysis, disease resides in the cell. The well-being of the organism as a whole is dependent upon the health of the individual cells of which it is composed. This has been explained more fully in connection with the action of stimulants.
In order to cure the man, we must free the cell of its encumbrances. Elimination must begin in the cell, not in the organs of depuration. Laxatives and cathartics, by irritating the digestive tract, may cause a forced evacuation of the contents of the intestinal canal, but they do not eliminate the poisons which clog cells and tissues.
In stubborn chronic diseases, when the cells are too weak to throw off the latent encumbrances of their own accord, a well-chosen homeopathic remedy is often of great service in arousing them to acute reaction.
For instance, if the system is heavily encumbered with scrofulous taints and if its vitality is lowered to such an extent that the individual cell cannot of itself throw off the morbid encumbrances by means of a vigorous, acute effort, sulphur, if administered in doses sufficiently triturated and refined to affect the minute cells composing the organism, will start disease vibrations similar to those of acute scrofulosis, and thus give the needed impetus to acute eliminative activity on the part of the individual cell.
The acute reaction, once started, may develop into vigorous forms of scrofulous elimination, such as
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