Ver.10/04/01*END*
Submitted by Steve Solomon <ssolomon@soilandhealth.org>
Nature Cure
Philosophy & Practice Based on the Unity of Disease & Cure
Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
"Ho, ye who suffer! Know ye suffer from vowselves. None else
compels--no other holds ye that ye live or die. "~--Siddartha~
TO THE PROGRESSIVE PHYSICIANS OF THE AGE
There are two principal methods of treating disease. One is the
combative, the other the preventive. The trend of modern medical
research and practice in our great colleges and endowed research
institutes is almost entirely along combative lines, while the
individual, progressive physician learns to work more and more along
preventive lines. The slogan of modern medical science is, "Kill the
germ and cure the disease." The usual procedure is to wait until
acute or chronic diseases have fully developed, and then, if
possible, to subdue them by means of drugs, surgical operations, and
by means of the morbid products of disease, in the form of serums,
antitoxins, vaccines, etc. The combative method fights disease with
disease, poison with poison, and germs with germs and germ products.
In the language of the Good Book, it is "Beelzebub against the
Devil."
The preventive method does not wait until diseases have fully
developed and gained the ascendancy in the body, but concentrates
its best endeavors on preventing, by hygienic living and by natural
methods of treatment, the development of diseases. By these it
endeavors to put the human body in such a normal, healthy condition
that it is practically proof against infection or contagion by
disease taints and miasms, and against the inroads of germs,
bacteria and parasites.
The question is, which method is the most practical, the most
successful and most popular? Which will stand the test of "the
survival of the fittest" in the great struggle for existence?
The medical profession has good reason to be alarmed by the inroads
made in its work by irregular, unorthodox systems, schools and cults
of treating human ailments; but instead of raging at the audacious
presumption of these interlopers, would it not be better to inquire
if there is not some reason for the astonishing spread and
popularity of these therapeutic innovations?
Their success undoubtedly is based on the fact that they concentrate
their best efforts on preventive instead of combative methods of
treating disease. People are beginning to realize that it is cheaper
and more advantageous to prevent disease than to cure it. To create
and maintain continuous, buoyant good health means greater
efficiency for mental and physical work; greater capacity for the
true enjoyment of life, and the best insurance against failure and
poverty. Therefore, he who builds health is of greater value to
humanity than he who allows people to drift into disease through
ignorance of Nature's laws, and then attempts to cure them by
doubtful and uncertain combative methods.
It is said that in China the physician is hired and paid by the
year; that he receives a certain stipend as long as the members of
the family are in good health, but that the salary is suspended as
long as one of his charges is ill. If some similar method of
engaging and paying for medical services were in vogue in this
country the trend of medical research and practice would soon
undergo a radical change.
The diet expert, the hydropath, the physical culturist, the adjuster
of the spine, the mental healer, and Christian scientist, do not pay
much attention to the pathological conditions or to the symptoms of
disease. They regulate the diet and habits of living on a natural
basis, promote elimination, teach correct breathing and wholesome
exercise, correct the mechanical lesions of the spine, establish the
right mental and emotional attitude and, in so far as they succeed
in doing this, they build health and diminish the possibility of
disease. The successful doctor of the future will have to fall in
line with the procession and do more teaching than prescribing.
I realize that many of the statements and claims made in this volume
will seem radical and irrational to my colleagues of the regular
school of medicine. They win say that most of my teachings are
contrary to the firmly established theories of medical science. All
I ask, of them is not to judge too hastily; to observe, to think and
to test, and I am certain that they will find verified in actual
experience many of the teachings of the Nature Cure Philosophy.
Medical science has had to abandon innumerable theories and
practices which at one time were as firmly established as some of
the pet theories of today.
By none of the statements made in this book do I mean to deny the
necessity of combative methods under certain circumstances. What I
wish to emphasize is that the regular school of medicine is spending
too much of its effort along combative lines and not enough along
preventive. It would be foolish to deny the necessity of surgery in
traumatism, and in abnormal conditions which require mechanical
means of adjustment or treatment.
Such necessity, for instance, will exist in certain obstetrical
cases, as long as women have not learned, or are not willing to live
in such a way as to make surgical intervention unnecessary in
child-birth. The same is true with regard to the treatment of germ
diseases. As long as people persist in violating the laws of their
being, and thereby making their bodies prolific breeding grounds for
disease taints, germs and parasites which are bound to provoke
inflammatory, feverish processes (Nature's cleansing and healing
efforts), combative measures will have to be resorted to by the
physician, and precautionary measures against infection will have to
be observed, but these should be in harmony with Nature's endeavors,
not contrary and suppressive; they should tend to conserve and not
to destroy.
Natural dietetics, fasting, hydropathy, osteopathy, chiropractic,
and mental therapeutics, are combative as well as preventive, but if
properly applied they do not in any way injure the organism or
interfere with Nature's intent and Nature's methods. This cannot be
said for much of the surgical and medical treatment of the old
school of medicine. We criticize and condemn only those methods
which are suppressive and destructive instead of curative.
In many instances already the warnings and teachings of Nature Cure
Philosophy have been verified, and had to be heeded and accepted by
medical science. The exponents of Nature Cure protested against the
barbarous practice of withholding water from patients burning in
fever heat, and against the exclusion of fresh air from the sickroom
by order of the doctor. The cold water and no drug treatment of
typhoid fever, the water treatment for other acute diseases, as well
as the open air treatment for tuberculosis, were forced upon the
medical profession by the Nature Cure people. For more than half a
century the latter have been curing all inflammaory, feverish
diseases, from simple colds to scarlet fever, diphtheria,
cerebro-spinal meningitis, smallpox, appendicitis, etc., etc., by
hydropathy, fasting, and other natural methods, without resorting at
all to the use of poisonous drugs, antitoxins and surgical
operations.
For many years before the terrible after-effects of X-Ray treatment,
of extirpation of the ovaries, the womb, and of other vital organs,
became so patent that the physicians of the regular school could not
ignore them any longer, Nature Cure physicians had strongly warned
against these unnatural practices, and called attention to their
destructive after-effects.
As far back as ten years ago, when the X-Rays were in high favor for
the treatment of cancer, lupus, and other diseases, I warned against
the use of these rays, claiming that their vibratory velocity was
too high and powerful, and therefore destructive to the tissues of
the human body. Since the failure of the X-Rays and the discovery of
Radio-activity, the rays and emanations of radium and other
radio-active substances are widely advertised and exploited as
therapeutic agents, but these rays also are far beyond the vibratory
ranges of the physical body in velocity and power. Therefore, it
remains to be seen whether their injurious by and after-effects do
not out-weigh in the long run their beneficial effects.
The destructive action of these high power rays, as well as of
inorganic minerals, is very slow and insidious, manifesting only in
the course of many years. This new field of therapeutics, therefore,
has not yet passed the stage of dangerous experimentation.
Inorganic minerals prove injurious and destructive to the tissues of
the human body because they are too slow in vibratory velocity, and
too coarse in molecular structure.
It is the intent and purpose of this volume to warn against the
exploitation of destructive combative methods to the neglect of
preventive constructive and conservative methods. If these teachings
contribute something toward this end they will fulfil their mission.
The Author
Chicago, Nov., 1913.
INTRODUCTION
It was the following letter from Mr. William Louden to the editor of
~"Health Culture"~ which prompted the author to issue the ~"Nature
Cure Magazine"~ (published from November, 1907, to October, 1909).
In the series of books of which this is the first volume, he will
endeavor to collect and systematize all his former writings in the~
"Nature Cure Magazine," "Health Culture," "Life and Action,"~ the
~"Naturopath,"~ the ~"Volksrath,"~ and other publications, and to
amplify these by new material obtained through further research and
wider experience.
Mr. Albert Turner,
Editor of ~"Health Culture."~
DEAR SIR--I write to ask what you consider the best book or pamphlet
to put into the hands of people generally, in regard to the
preservation of health. I know ther e are a number of very excellent
publications, but as a rule they deal with certain details or phases
of the question, and do not begin with the great underlying
principles in such a way as to attract and hold the attention of the
masses. One advocates one plan, and another an entirely different,
and sometimes a directly opposite plan--such as uncooked vs.
thoroughly cooked food; a strictly vegetarian diet, and mental
culture in place of attention to either, etc. Such a state of
affairs makes it confusing to average people and gets them to
believe that health reformers are all at sea, and what is good for
one is not good for another, or, in common language, "what is one
man's meat is another's poison."
Now, I know it is natural, and doubtless best, that there should be
a difference of opinion on any question, but at the same time, if
any movement is to be crowned with great success, there should be
some underlying principles upon which all should agree, and these
should be pressed to the forefront, so as to attract and hold the
attention of the people, in place of the divergent details upon
which they disagree. If these fundamental laws and principles are
thoroughly studied and well defined, it may be found that they would
explain the discrepancies between the different theories, and that
under certain conditions, one plan is best, and that under different
conditions another plan is more applicable, etc. The pushing of
these fundamental principles to the front would also tend to correct
errors into which the different theorists have fallen, and would
certainly tend to make the different theories more homogeneous and
more easily understood by people in general, than at present.
In my opinion, the general fundamental principles of life and health
are what people need to understand more than anything else. Without
this, most of the details will be meaningless or at least confusing
dogmas. I don't mean by these fundamental principles the details of
anatomy, or, for that matter, the details of anything else, but the
general rules governing life and death, so that people may know
which way they, are tending, and may understand the many illusions
with which life and death, as well as all else in nature are beset.
Yours truly,
WILLIAM LOUDEN
Louden Mfg. Co.,
Fairfield, Iowa.
The present volume and others of the "Nature Cure Series" which are
to follow are an attempt to answer Mr. Louden's inquiry and to
formulate and elucidate the fundamental laws of health, disease and
cure for which he and many others have been vainly seeking. Who
among you at some time or another, has not thought and felt like Mr.
Louden and in doubt and perplexity voiced Pilate's query,
What Is Truth?
The exact information and rational method of teaching which Mr.
Louden is seeking, has heretofore been wanting in health-culture
literature.
Many, indeed, stand ready and willing to show the way to physical,
mental and moral perfection. Hundreds, yes, thousands, of different
cults, isms, teachers, books and periodicals treat of these
subjects, but their teachings are so manifold, so contradictory and
confusing, that one becomes bewildered amid the ever increasing
testimony. As is often the case in the study of complicated
subjects, the more one reads and the more one hears, the less one
knows. I believe that no one has described more strikingly this
state of general perplexity than Mr. Louden in his excellent letter.
Nevertheless, these simple fundamental laws and principles really
exist. They must exist, because everything in Nature, including the
processes of health, of disease and cure, of birth, of life and
death, are subject to law and order.
Allopathy, or Old School Medical Science, admits that it does not
know these fundamental principles; that it reasons, not from
underlying causes, but from external symptoms and personal
experiences. It is, therefore, self-confessedly full of doubts,
errors and confusion; in short, empirical--and necessarily, a
failure.
Many teachers of Nature Cure, Hygiene and Health cults have stumbled
accidentally upon some of the natural laws and true methods of
healing, but have failed to grasp and to formulate the broad
underlying principles. For this reason they are often partly right
and partly wrong and very apt to overdo certain methods to the
neglect of others just as effective and essential, or even more so.
I shall endeavor in these volumes to formulate and elucidate some of
the fundamental laws and principles underlying the phenomena of life
and death, health, disease and cure, and shall try to ascertain in
the light of these laws how much of truth and how much of error, how
much of usefulness and how much of harmfulness there may be
contained in the various theories and systems of living and of
healing.
Nature Owe an Exact Science
One of the reasons why Nature Cure is not more popular with the
medical profession and the public is that it is too simple. The
average mind is more impressed by the involved and mysterious than
by the simple and common-sense.
However, it remains a fact that "exact science" reduces complexity
and confusion to simplicity and clearness. Science becomes exact
science only when the underlying laws which correlate and unify its
scattered facts and theories have been discovered.
These simple laws rightly understood and applied will do for medical
science what the law of gravitation has done for physics and
astronomy, and what the laws of chemical affinity have done for
chemistry, they will place medical science in the ranks of exact
sciences. The understanding and proper application of these truths
will explain every fact and phenomenon in the processes of health,
disease and cure, and will enable the student to reason from simple,
natural laws and principles to their logical effects. The "Regular"
school of medicine, so far, has endeavored to build a medical
science on the observation of "effects" and "experiences," but
since one fundamental law of nature may produce a million seemingly
differing effects it becomes self-evident that it is utterly
impossible to found an exact science on such uncertain and
conflicting evidence.
The primary laws and principles once understood, it becomes easy to
reason from and to explain through them, the various phenomena which
they produce. Herein lie the merit and achievement of the Nature
Cure philosophy.
THE UPAS TREE OF DISEASE
EVIL IS NOT AN ACCIDENT, NOT AN ARBITRARY PUNISHMENT, NOT ALWAYS AN
"ERROR OF MORTAL MIND." IT IS THE NATURAL AND INEVITABLE RESULT OF
VIOLATIONS OF NATURE'S LAWS. IT IS INSTRUCTIVE AND CORRECTIVE IN
PURPOSE, AND WILL REMAIN WITH US ONLY AS LONG AS WE NEED ITS
SALUTARY LESSONS.
Chapter I
What ~Is~ Nature Cure?
It is vastly more than a system of curing aches and pains; it is a
complete revolution in the art and science of living. It is the
practical realization and application of all that is good in natural
science, philosophy and religion. Like many another world-wide
revolution and reformation, it had its inception in Germany, the
land of thinkers and philosophers.
About seventy years ago this greatest and most beneficent of
reformation movements was inaugurated by Priessnitz in Grafenberg, a
small village in the Silesian mountains. The originator of Nature
Cure was a simple farmer, but he had a natural genius for the art of
healing.
His pharmacopeia consisted not in poisonous pills and potions but in
plenty of exercise, fresh mountain air, water treatments in the
cool, sparkling brooks, and simple, wholesome country fare,
consisting largely of black bread, vegetables, and milk fresh from
cows fed on nutritious mountain grasses.
The results accomplished by these simple means were wonderful.
Before he died, a large sanitarium, filled with patients from all
over the world and from all stations of life, had grown up around
his forest home.
Among those who made the pilgrimage to Grafenberg to become patients
and students of this genial healer, the simple-minded
farmer-physician, were wealthy merchants, princes and doctors from
all parts of the world.
Rapidly the idea of drugless healing spread over Germany and over
the civilized world. In the Fatherland, Hahn the apothecary, Kuhne
the weaver, Rikli the manufacturer, Father Kneipp the priest,
Lahmann the doctor, and Turnvater Jahn, the founder of physical
culture, became enthusiastic pupils and followers of Priessnitz.
Each one of these men enlarged and enriched some special field of
the great realm of natural healing. Some elaborated the water cure
and natural dietetics, others invented various systems of
manipulative treatment, earth, air and light cures, magnetic
healing, mental therapeutics, curative gymnastics, etc., etc. Von
Peckzely added the Diagnosis from the Eye, which reveals not only
the innermost secrets of the human organism, but also Nature's ways
and means of cure, and the changes for better or for worse
continually occurring in the body.
In this country, Dr. Trall of New York, Dr. Jackson of Danville, Dr.
Kellogg of Battle Creek, and others caught the infection and crossed
the ocean to become students of Priessnitz. The achievements of
these men in their respective fields of endeavor will stand as
enduring monuments to the eternal truths revealed by the genius of
Nature Cure.
Quimby, the itinerant spiritualist and healer, became successful and
renowned by the application of the natural methods of cure. At first
his favorite methods were water, massage, magnetic and mental
treatment. Gradually he concentrated his efforts on metaphysical
methods of cure, and before he died, he evolved a complete system of
magnetic and mental therapeutics.
Quimby's teachings and methods were adopted by Mrs. Eddy, his most
enthusiastic pupil, and by her elaborated into Christian Science,
the latest and most successful of modern mental-healing cults.
Dr. Still of Kirksville, Missouri, made a valuable addition to
natural methods of treatment by the invention of Osteopathy, a
system of scientific manipulation of the bony structures, nerves and
nerve centers, muscles and ligaments. A later development of
manipulative science is Chiropractic, originated by Dr. Palmer of
Davenport, Iowa. Thus the simple pioneers of German Nature Cure,
every one of them gifted by Nature with the instinct and genius of
the true healer, who is born, not made, laid the foundation for the
worldwide modern healthculture movement.
They were not blinded or confused by the conflicting theories of
books and authorities, or by the action of a thousand different
drugs on a legion of different symptoms, but applied common-sense
reasoning to the solution of the problems of health, disease and
cure.
They went for inspiration to field and forest rather than to the
murky atmosphere of the dissecting and vivisection rooms. They
studied the whole and not only the parts, causes as well as effects
and symptoms. Realizing that man had lost his natural instinct and
strayed far from Nature's ways, they studied and imitated the
natural habits of the animal creation rather than the confusing
doctrines of the schools.
Thus they proclaimed the "return to Nature" and the "new gospel of
health," which are destined to free humanity from the destructive
influences of alcoholism, red meat overeating, the dope and tobacco
habit, and of drug poisoning, vaccination, surgical mutilation,
vivisection and a thousand other abuses practiced in the name of
science.
When parents learn how to create children in accord with natural
law, how to mold their bodies and their characters into harmony and
beauty before the new life sees the light of day, when they learn to
rear their offspring in health of body and purity of mind in harmony
with the laws of their being, then we shall have true types of
beautiful manhood and womanhood, then children will no longer be a
curse and a burden to themselves and to those who bring them into
the world or to society at large.
These thoughts are not the mere dreams of a visionary. When we see
the wonderful changes wrought in a human being by a few months or
years of rational living and treatment, it seems not impossible or
improbable that these ideals may be realized within a few
generations.
Children thus born and reared in harmony with the law will be the
future masters of the earth. They will need neither gold nor
influence to win in the race of life--their innate powers of body and
soul will make them victors over every circumstance. The offspring
of alcoholism, drug poisoning and sexual perversity will cut but
sorry figures in comparison with the manhood and womanhood of a true
and noble aristocracy of health.