The Unity of Disease and Treatment
There exists a close resemblance between the mechanism and the
functions of a watch and of the human body. Their well-being is
subject to similar underlying laws and principles. Both a watch and
a human body may function abnormally as a result of accidental
injury or unfavorable external conditions, such as extreme heat or
cold, etc. However, in our present study of the causes of disease we
shall not consider accidental injury and hostile environment, but
confine ourselves to causes arising within the organism itself.
The watch may cease to vibrate in accord with the harmonics of our
planetary universe for several reasons. It may lose time or stand
still because (1) the wound spring has spent its force, or (2) its
parts are not made up of the right constituents, or (3) foreign
matter clogs or corrodes its mechanism.
Similarly, there exist three primary causes of disease and of
premature death of the physical body. These are:
Lowered vitality. Abnormal composition of blood and lymph.
Accumulation of morbid matter and poisons.
In the ultimate, disease and everything else that we designate as
evil are the result of transgressions of natural laws in thinking,
breathing, eating, dressing, working, resting, as well as in moral,
sexual and social conduct.
In Tables I and II, I have endeavored to present in concise and
comprehensive form the primary and the secondary causes or
manifestations of disease and the corresponding natural methods of
treatment.
TABLE I
~THE UNITY OF DISEASE AND TREATMENT~
Barring trauma (injury), advancing age and surroundings uncongenial
to human life, all causes of disease may be classified as given
below.
Violations of Nature's Laws in thinking, breathing, eating,
drinking, dressing, working, resting and in moral, sexual and social
conduct result in the following:
Primary and Secondary Causes of Disease
Primary Causes
Lowered vitality due to overwork, nightwork, excesses,
overstimulation, poisonous drugs and ill-advised surgical
operations. Abnormal composition of blood and lymph due to the
improper selection and combination of food, and especially the lack
of organic mineral salts and other essential nutritional elements.
Accumulation of waste matter, morbid matter and poisons due to the
first two causes, as well as to faulty diet, overeating, the use of
alcoholic and narcotic stimulants, drugs [both street and
prescription], vaccines, accidental poisoning and, last but not
least, to the suppression of acute diseases (Nature's cleansing and
healing efforts) by poisonous drugs and surgical operations.
Secondary Causes
Hereditary and constitutional taints of sycosis, scrofula, psora,
syphilis; mercurianism, cinchonism, iodism and many other forms of
chronic poisoning. Fevers, inflammations, skin eruptions, chronic
sinus discharges, ulcers, abscesses, germs, bacteria, parasites,
etc. Mechanical subluxations, distortions and displacements of bony
structures, muscles and ligaments; weakening and loss of reason,
will, and self-control resulting in negative, sensitive and
subjective conditions which open the way to nervous prostration,
control by other personalities (hypnotic influence, obsession,
possession); the different forms of insanity, epilepsy, petit mal,
etc.
Table II
~THE UNITY OF DISEASE AND TREATMENT~
In correspondence with the three primary causes of disease, Nature
Cure recognizes the following:
Natural Methods of Treatment
1. Return to Nature, or the establishment of normal habits and
surroundings, which necessitates:
Extension of consciousness by popular general and individual
education. The constant exercise of reason, will and self-control. A
return to natural habits of life in thinking, breathing, eating,
dressing, working, resting and in moral, sexual and social conduct.
Correction of mechanical defects and injuries by means of massage,
chiropractic or osteopathy, surgery and other mechanical methods of
treatment.
2. Economy of Vital Force, which necessitates:
Prevention of waste of vital force by the stoppage of all leaks.
Scientific relaxation, proper rest and sleep. Proper food selection,
magnetic treatment, etc. The right mental attitude.
3. Elimination, which necessitates:
Scientific selection and combination of food and drink. Judicious
fasting. Hydrotherapy (water cure). Light and air baths, friction.
Chiropratic or osteopathy, massage, and other manipulative
treatment. Correct breathing, curative gymnastics. Such medicinal
remedies as will build up the blood on a normal basis and supply the
system with the all-important mineral salts in organic form.
In the following chapters I shall endeavor to show that all the
different forms, phases and phenomena of disease arising within the
human organism, provided they are not caused by accident or external
conditions unfavorable to the existence of human life, can be
attributed to one or more of three primary causes (as outlined in
Tables I and II). When we succeed in proving that all disease
originates from a few simple causes, it will not seem so strange and
improbable that all disease can be cured by a few simple, natural
methods of living and of treatment. If Nature Cure can accomplish
this, it establishes its right to be classed with the exact
sciences.
The Three Primary Causes of Disease
We shall now consider the three primary causes of disease one by
one.
Lowered Vitality
There is a well-defined limit to the running of a watch. When the
wound spring has spent its force, the mechanism stops.
So also the living forms of vegetable, animal and human life seem to
be wound by Nature to run a certain length of time, in accordance
with the laws governing their growth and development. Even the
healthiest of animals living in the most congenial surroundings in
the freedom of Nature do not much exceed their allotted span of
life, nor do they fall much below it. As a rule, the longer the
period between birth and maturity, the longer the life of the
animal.
All the different families of mammalia, when living in freedom, live
closely up to the life period allotted to them by Nature. Man is the
only exception. It is claimed that according to the laws of
longevity his average length of life should be considerably over one
hundred years, while according to life insurance statistics, the
average is at present [1913] thirty-seven years. This shows an
immense discrepancy between the possible and the actual longevity of
man.
Even this brief span of life means little else than weakness,
physical and mental suffering and degeneracy for the majority of
mankind. Visiting physicians of the public schools in our large
cities report that seventy-five percent of all school children show
defective health in some way. Diagnosis from the Eye proves that the
remaining twenty-five percent are also more or less affected by
hereditary and acquired disease conditions. Christian Science says,
"There is no disease." Nature's records in the iris of the eye say
there is no perfect health.
These established facts of greatly impaired longevity and universal
abnormality of the human race would of themselves indicate that
there is something radically wrong somewhere in the life habits of
man, and that there is ample reason for the great health-reform
movement which was started about the middle of the last century by
the pioneers of Nature Cure in Germany, and which has since swept,
under many different forms and guises, all portions of the civilized
world.
When people in general grow better acquainted with the laws
underlying prenatal and postnatal child culture, natural living and
the natural treatment of diseases, human beings will approach much
more closely the normal in health, strength, beauty and longevity.
Then will arise a true aristocracy, not of morbid, venous blue
blood, but pulsating with the rich red blood of health.
However, to reach this ideal of perfect physical, mental and moral
health, succeeding generations will have to adhere to the natural
ways of living and of treating their ailments. It cannot be attained
by the present generation. The enthusiasts who claim that they can,
by their particular methods, achieve perfect health and live the
full term of human life, are destined to disappointment. We are so
handicapped by the mistakes of the past that the best which most of
us adults can do is to patch up, to attain a reasonable measure of
health and to approach somewhat nearer Nature's full allotment of
life.
Wild animals living in freedom retain their full vigor unimpaired
almost to the end of life. Hunters report that among the great herds
of buffalo, elk and deer, the oldest bucks are the rulers and
maintain their sovereignty over the younger males of the herd solely
by reason of their superior strength and prowess. Premature old age,
among human beings, as indicated by the early decay of physical and
mental powers, is brought on solely by their violation of Nature's
Laws in almost all the ordinary habits of life.
Health Positive--Disease Negative
The freer the inflow of life force into the organism, the greater
the vitality, the more there is of strength, of positive resisting
and recuperating power.
In the book~ Harmonics of Evolution~ we are told that at the very
foundation of the manifestation of life lies the principle of
polarity, which expresses itself in the duality and unity of
positive and negative affinity. The swaying to and fro of the
positive and the negative, the desire to balance incomplete
polarity, constitutes the very ebb and flow of life.
Disease is disturbed polarity. Exaggerated positive or negative
conditions, whether physical, mental, moral or spiritual, tend to
disease on the respective planes of being. Foods, medicines,
suggestion and all the other different methods of therapeutic
treatment exert on the individual subjected to them either a
positive or a negative influence. It is, therefore, of the greatest
importance that the physician and every one who wishes to live and
work in harmony with Nature's Laws should understand this
all-important question of magnetic polarity.
Lowered vitality means lowered, slower and coarser vibration, and
this results in lowered resistance to the accumulation of morbid
matter, poisons, disease taints, germs and parasites. This is what
we designate ordinarily as the negative condition.
Let us see whether we can explain this more fully by a homely but
practical illustration: A great many of my readers have probably
seen in operation in the summer amusement parks the "human
roulette." This contrivance consists of a large wheel,
board-covered, somewhat raised in the center, and sloping towards
the circumference. The wheel rotates horizontally, evenly with the
floor or ground. The merrymakers pay their nickels for the privilege
of throwing themselves flat down on the wheel and attempting to
cling to it while it rotates with increasing swiftness. While the
wheel moves slowly, it is easy enough to cling to it; but the faster
it revolves, the more strongly the centrifugal force tends to throw
off the human flies who try to stick to it.
The increasing repelling power of the accelerated motion of the
wheel may serve as an illustration of that which we call vigorous
vibration, good vitality, natural immunity or recuperative power.
This is the positive condition.
The more intense the action of the life force, the more rapid and
vigorous are the vibratory activities of the atoms and molecules in
the cells, and of the cells in the organs and tissues of the body.
The more rapid and vigorous this vibratory activity, the more
powerful is the repulsion and expulsion of morbid matter, poisons
and germs of disease which try to encumber or destroy the organism.
Health and Disease Resident in the Cell
We must not forget that health or disease, in the final analysis, is
resident in the cell. Though a minute, microscopic organism, the
cell is an independent living being, which is born, grows, eats,
drinks, throws off waste matter, multiplies, ages and dies, just
like man, the large cell. If the individual cell is well, man, the
complex cell, is well also, and vice versa. From this it is apparent
that in all our considerations of the processes of health, disease
and cure, we have to deal primarily with the individual cell.
The vibratory activity of the cell may be lowered through the
decline of vitality brought about in a natural way by advancing age,
or in an artificial way through wrong habits of living, wrong
thinking and feeling, overwork, unnatural stimulation and excesses
of various kinds.
On the other hand, the inflow of vital force into the cells may be
obstructed and their vibratory activity lowered by the accumulation
of waste and morbid matter in the tissues, blood vessels and nerve
channels of the body. Such clogging will interfere with the inflow
of life force and with the free and harmonious vibration of the
cells and organs of the body as surely as dust in a watch will
interfere with the normal action and vibration of its wheels and
balances.
From this it is evident that negative conditions may be brought
about not only by hyperrefinement of the physical organism, but also
by clogging it with waste and morbid matter which interfere with the
inflow and distribution of the vital force. It also becomes apparent
that in such cases the Nature Cure methods of eliminative treatment,
such as pure food diet, hydrotherapy, massage, chiropractic,
osteopathy, etc., are valuable means of removing these obstructions
and promoting the inflow and free circulation of the positive
electric and magnetic life currents
Abnormal Composition of Blood and Lymph
As one of the primary causes of disease, we cited abnormal
composition of blood and lymph. The human organism is made up of a
certain number of elements in well-defined proportions. Chem-istry
has discovered, so far, about seventeen of these elements in
appreciable quantities and has ascertained their functions in the
economy of the body. These seventeen elements must be present in the
right proportions in order to insure normal texture, structure and
functioning of the component parts and organs of the body.
The cells and organs receive their nourishment from the blood and
lymph currents. Therefore, these must contain all the elements
needed by the organism in the right proportions, and this, of
course, depends upon the character and the combination of the food
supply.
Every disease arising in the human organism from internal causes is
accompanied by a deficiency in blood and tissues of certain
important mineral elements [organic salts]. Undoubtedly, the
majority of these diseases are caused by an unbalanced diet, or by
food and drink poisoning. Wrong food combinations, on the one hand,
create an overabundance of waste and morbid matter in the system
and, on the other hand, fail to supply the positive mineral elements
or organic salts on which depends the elimination of waste and
systemic poisons from the body.
The great problem of natural dietetics and of natural medical
treatment is, therefore, how to restore and maintain the positivity
of the blood and of the organism as a whole through providing in
food, drink and medicine an abundant supply of the positive mineral
salts in organic form.
Accumulation of Morbid Matter and Poisons
This is the third of the primary causes of disease. We have learned
how lowered vitality and the abnormal composition of thevital fluids
favor the retention of systemic poisons in the body. If, in addition
to this, food and drink contain too much of the waste-producing
carbohydrates, hydrocarbons and proteins, and not enough of the
eliminating positive mineral salts then waste and morbid materials
are bound to accumulate in the system and this results in the
clogging of the tissues with acid precipitates and earthy deposits.
Such accumulation of waste and morbid matter in blood and tissues
creates the great majority of all diseases arising within the human
organism. This will be explained fully in the following chapters
which deal with the causation of acute and chronic disease.
More harmful and dangerous, and more difficult to eliminate than the
different kinds of systemic poisons, that is, those which have
originated within the body, are the drug poisons, especially when
they are administered in the inorganic mineral form. Health is
dependent upon an abundant supply of life force, upon the
unobstructed, normal circulation of the vital fluids and upon
perfect oxygenation and combustion. Anything that interferes with
these essentials causes disease; anything that promotes them
establishes health. Nothing so interferes with the inflow of the
life force, with free and normal circulation of blood and lymph and
with the oxygenation and combustion of food materials and systemic
waste as the accumulation of morbid matter and poisons in the
tissues of the body.
This I have endeavored to explain more fully in connection with
lowered vitality. Let us now see how disease and health are affected
by mental and emotional conditions.
Mental and Emotional Influences
Our mental and emotional conditions exert a most powerful influence
upon the inflow and distribution of vital force. The author of The
Great Work [~The Great Work: The Constructive Principle of Nature in
Individual Life, ~by John Emmett Richardson {1853-1935},
Indio-American Book Company, Chicago, IL. 1907.] has described most
graphically in the chapter on Self-Control how fear, worry, anxiety
and all kindred emotions create in the system conditions similar to
those of freezing; how these destructive vibrations congeal the
tissues, clog the channels of life and paralyze the vital functions.
He shows how the emotional conditions of impatience, irritability,
anger, etc., have a heating, corroding effect upon the tissues of
the body.
In like manner, all other destructive emotional vibrations ob-struct
the inflow and normal distribution of the life forces in and through
the organism, while on the other hand the constructive emotions of
faith, hope, cheerfulness, happiness and love exert a relaxing,
harmonizing influence upon the tissues, blood vessels and nerve
channels of the body, thus opening wide the floodgates of the life
forces, and raising the discords of weakness, disease and discontent
to the harmonics of buoyant health and happiness.
Let us see just how mind controls matter and how it affects the
changing conditions of the physical body. Life manifests through
vibration. It acts on the mass by acting through its minutest
par-ticles. Changes in the physical body are wrought by vibratory
changes in atoms, molecules and cells. Health is satisfied polarity,
that is, the balancing of the positive and negative elements in
harmonious vibration. Anything that interferes with the free,
vigor-ous and harmonious vibration of the minute parts and particles
composing the human organism tends to disturb polarity and natural
affinity, thus causing discord or disease.
When we fully realize these facts we shall not stand so much in awe
of our physical bodies. In the past we have been thinking of the
body as a solid and imponderable mass difficult to control and to
change. This conception left us in a condition of utter helplessness
and hopelessness in the presence of weakness and disease.
We now think of the body as composed of minute corpuscles rotating
around one another within the atom at relatively immense distances.
We know that in similar manner the atoms vibrate in the molecule,
the molecules in the cell, the cells in the organ and the organs in
the body; the whole capable of being changed by a change in the
vibrations of its particles.
Thus the erstwhile solid physical mass appears plastic and fluidic,
readily swayed and changed by the vibratory harmonies or discords of
thoughts and emotions as well as by foods, medicines and therapeutic
treatment.
Under the old conception the mind fell readily under the control of
the body and became the abject slave of its physical conditions,
swayed by fear and apprehension under every sensation of physical
weakness, discomfort or pain. The servants lorded it with a high
hand over the master of the house, and the result was chaos. Under
the new conception, control is placed where it belongs. It is
assumed by the real master of the house, the Soul-Man, and the
servants, the physical members of the body, remain obedient to his
bidding.
This is the new man, the ideal progeny of a new and higher
philosophy. Understanding the structure of the body, the laws of its
being and the operation of the life elements within it, the superman
retains perfect poise and confidence under the most trying
circumstances. Animated by an abounding faith in the supremacy of
the healing forces within him and sustained by the power of his
sovereign will, he governs his body as perfectly as the artist
controls his violin and attunes its vibrations to Nature's harmonies
of health and happiness.