The Laws of Cure
This brings us to the consideration of acute inflammatory and
feverish diseases. From what has been said, it follows that
inflammation and fever are not primary, but secondary,
manifestations of disease. There cannot arise any form of
inflammatory disease in the system unless there is present some
enemy to health which Nature is endeavoring to overcome and get rid
of. On this fact in Nature is based what I claim to be the
fundamental Law of Cure.
"Give me fever and I can cure every disease." Thus Hippocrates the
Father of Medicine, expressed the fundamental Law of Cure over two
thousand years ago. I have expressed this law in the following
sentence: "Every acute disease is the result of a cleansing and
healing effort of Nature."
This law, when thoroughly understood and applied to the treatment of
diseases, will in time do for medical science what the discovery of
other natural laws has done for physics, astronomy, chemistry and
other exact sciences. It will transform the medical empiricism and
confusion of the past and present into an exact science by
demonstrating the unity of disease and treatment.
Applying the law in a general way, it means that all acute diseases,
from a simple cold to measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox,
pneumonia, etc., represent Nature's efforts to repair injury or to
remove from the system some kind of morbid matter, virus, poison or
microorganism dangerous to health and life. In other words, acute
diseases cannot develop in a perfectly normal, healthy body living
under conditions favorable to human life. The question may be asked:
"If acute diseases represent Nature's healing efforts, why is it
that people die from them?" The answer to this is: the vitality may
be too low, the injury or morbid encumbrance too great or the
treatment may be inadequate or harmful, so that Nature loses the
fight; still, the acute disease represents an effort of Nature to
overcome the enemies to health and life and to reestablish normal,
healthy conditions.
It is a curious fact that this fundamental principle of Nature Cure
and Law of Nature has been acknowledged and verified by medical
science. The most advanced works on pathology admit the constructive
and beneficial character of inflammation. However, when it comes to
the treatment of acute diseases, physicians seem to forget entirely
this basic principle of pathology, and treat inflammation and fever
as though they were, in themselves, inimical and destructive to
health and life.
From this inconsistency in theory and practice arise all the errors
of allopathic medical treatment. Failure to understand this
fundamental Law of Cure accounts for all the confusion on the part
of the exponents of the different schools of healing sciences, and
for the greater part of human suffering.
The Nature Cure philosophy never loses sight of the fundamental Law
of Cure. While allopathy regards acute disease conditions as in
themselves harmful and hostile to health and life, as something to
be cured (we should say suppressed) by drug or knife, the Nature
Cure school regards these forcible housecleanings as beneficial and
necessary, so long, at least, as people will continue to disregard
Nature's Laws. While, through its simple, natural methods of
treatment, Nature Cure easily modifies the course of inflammatory
and feverish processes and keeps them within safe limits, it never
checks or suppresses these acute reactions by poisonous drugs,
serums, antiseptics, surgical operations, suggestion or any other
suppressive treatment.
Skin eruptions, boils, ulcers, catarrhs, diarrheas, and all other
forms of inflammatory febrile disease conditions are indications
that there is something hostile to life and health in the organism
which Nature is trying to remove or overcome by these so-called
"acute" diseases. What, then, can be gained by suppressing them with
poisonous drugs and surgical operations? Such practice does not
allow Nature to carry on her work of cleansing and repair and to
attain her ends. The morbid matter which she endeavored to eliminate
by acute reactions is thrown back into the system. Worse than that,
drug poisons are added to disease poisons. Is it any wonder that
fatal complications arise, or that the acute condition is changed to
chronic disease?
Why Does the Greater Part of Allopathic Materia
Medica Consist of Virulent Poisons?
The statements made in the preceding pages are a severe indictment
of regular medical science, but they point out the difference in the
basic principles of the "Old School" of healing and those of the
Nature Cure philosophy.
The fundamental Law of Cure quoted in this chapter explains why
allopathic medical science is in error, not in a few things only,
but in most things. The foundation, the orthodox conception of
disease being wrong, it follows that everything which is built
thereon must be wrong also.
No matter how learned a man may be, if he begins a problem in
arithmetic with the proposition 2x2=5, he never will arrive at a
correct solution if he continue to figure into all eternity. Neither
can allopathy solve the problem of disease and cure as long as its
fundamental conception of disease is based on error.
The fundamental law of cure explains also why the great majority of
allopathic prescriptions contain virulent poisons in some form or
another and why surgical operations are in high favor with the
disciples of the regular school.
The answer of allopathy to the question, "Why do you give poisons?"
usually is, "Our materia medica contains poisons because drug poison
kills and eliminates disease poison." We, however, claim that drug
poisons merely serve to paralyze vital force, whereby the deceptive
results of allopathic treatment are obtained.
The following will explain this more fully. We have learned that
so-called acute diseases are Nature's cleansing and healing efforts.
All acute reactions represent increased activity of vital force,
resulting in feverish and inflammatory conditions, accompanied by
pain, redness, swelling, high temperature, rapid pulse, catarrhal
discharges, skin eruptions, boils, ulcers, etc.
Allopathy regards these violent activities of vital force as
detrimental and harmful in themselves. Anything which will inhibit
the action of vital force will, in allopathic parlance, cure (?)
acute diseases. As a matter of fact, nothing more effectively
paralyzes vital force and impairs the vital organs than poisonous
drugs and the surgeon's knife. These, therefore, must necessarily
constitute the favorite means of cure (?) of the regular school of
medicine.
This school mistakes effect for cause. It fails to see that the
local inflammation arising within the organism is not the disease,
but merely marks the locality and the method through which Nature is
trying her best to discharge the morbid encumbrances; that the acute
reaction is local, but that its causes or feeders are always
constitutional and must be treated constitutionally. When, under the
influence of rational, natural treatment, the poisonous irritants
are eliminated from blood and tissues, the local symptoms take care
of themselves; it does not matter whether they manifest as pimple or
cancer, as a simple cold or as consumption.
The Law of Dual Effect
Everywhere in Nature rules the great Law of Action and Reaction. All
life sways back and forth between giving and receiving, between
action and reaction. The very breath of life mysteriously comes and
goes in rhythmical flow. So also heaves and falls in ebb and tide
the bosom of Mother Earth.
In some of its aspects, this law is called the Law of Compensation,
or the Law of Dual Effect. On its action depends the preservation of
energy.
The Great Master expressed the ethical application of this law when
he said:
"Give, and it shall be given unto you. . . . For with the same
measure that ye mete it shall be measured to you again."--Luke 6:38.
In the realms of physical nature, giving and receiving, action and
reaction balance each other mechanically and automatically. What we
gain in power we lose in speed or volume, and vice versa. This makes
it possible for the mechanic, the scientist and the astronomer to
predict with mathematical precision for ages in advance the results
of certain activities in Nature.
The great Law of Dual Effect forms the foundation of the healing
sciences. It is related to and governs every phenomenon of health,
disease and cure. When I formulated the fundamental Law of Cure in
the words, "Every acute disease is the result of a healing effort of
Nature," this was but another expression of the great Law of Action
and Reaction. What we commonly call crisis, acute reaction or acute
disease is in reality Nature's attempt to establish health.
Applied to the physical activity of the body, the Law of
Com-pensation may be expressed as follows: "Every agent affecting
the human organism produces two effects: a first, apparent,
temporary effect, and a second, lasting effect. The secondary,
lasting effect is always contrary to the primary, transient effect."
For instance: The first and temporary effect of cold water applied
to the skin consists in sending the blood to the interior; but in
order to compensate for the local depletion, Nature responds by
sending greater quantities of blood back to the surface, resulting
in increased warmth and better surface circulation.
The first effect of a hot bath is to draw the blood to the surface;
but the secondary effect sends the blood back to the interior,
leaving the surface bloodless and chilled.
Stimulants, as we shall see later on, produce their deceptive
effects by burning up the reserve stores of vital energy in the
organism. This is inevitably followed by weakness and exhaustion in
exact proportion to the previous excitation.
The primary effect of relaxation and sleep is weakness, numbness and
death-like stupor; the secondary effect, however, is an increase of
vitality.
The Law of Dual Effect governs all drug action. The first,
temporary, violent effect of poisonous drugs, when given in
physiological doses, is usually due to Nature's efforts to overcome
and eliminate these substances. The secondary, lasting effect is due
to the retention of the drug poisons in the system and their action
on the organism.
In theory and practice, allopathy considers the first effect only
and ignores the lasting aftereffects of drugs and surgical
operations. It administers remedies whose first effect is contrary
to the disease condition. Therefore, in accordance with the Law of
Action and Reaction, the secondary, lasting effect of such remedies
must be similar to or like the disease condition.
Common, everyday experience should teach us that this is so, for
laxatives and cathartics always tend to produce chronic
constipation.
The secondary effect of stimulants and tonics of any kind is
increased weakness, and their continued use often results in
complete exhaustion and paralysis of mental and physical powers.
Headache powders, pain killers, opiates, sedatives and hypnotics may
paralyze brain and nerves into temporary insensibility; but, if due
to constitutional causes, the pain, nervousness and insomnia will
always return with redoubled force. If taken habitually, these
agents invariably tend to create heart disease and paralysis, and
ultimately develop the patient into a dope fiend.
Cold and catarrh cures (?), such as quinine, coal-tar products,
etc., suppress Nature's efforts to eliminate waste and morbid matter
through the mucous linings of the respiratory tract, and drive the
disease matter back into the lungs, thus breeding pneumonia, chronic
catarrhs, asthma and consumption.
Mercury, iodine and all other alteratives, by suppression of
external elimination, create internal chronic diseases of the most
dreadful types, such as locomotor ataxy, paresis, etc.
So the recital might be continued all through orthodox materia
medica. Each drug breeds new disease symptoms which are in their
turn cured (?) by other poisons, until the insane asylum or merciful
death rings down the curtain on the tragedy of a ruined life.
The teaching and practice of homeopathy, as explained in Chapter
Twenty-Six, is fully in harmony with the Law of Action and Reaction.
Acting upon the basic principle of homeopathy: ~Similia similibus
curantur,~ or like cures like, it administers remedies whose first,
temporary effect is similar to the disease conditions. In accordance
with the Law of Dual Effect, then, the secondary effect of these
remedies must be contrary to the disease conditions, that is,
curative.