Cancer
Let us see how our theories of the Unity of Disease and Cure apply
to cancer, the much-dreaded and rapidly increasing disease which is
considered absolutely incurable by both the laity and the medical
profession.
Allopathy says that the only possible remedy is "early operation."
Nevertheless, in the textbooks of medical science and in medical
schools and colleges it is taught that cancer and all other
malignant growths "always return after extirpation." In fact, every
student of medicine is expected to state this in his examination
papers as part of the definition of malignant tumors.
The great majority of medical practitioners hold, furthermore, that
cancer is a local disease. This is proved by the fact that they
apply local, symptomatic treatment.
In reality, however, the disease is constitutional. Therefore, after
removal of the growth by surgery, the electric needle, x-rays, etc.,
the cancer or tumor is liable to break out again in the same place
or in several places.
The surest way to change insignificant, so-called "benign" (not
fatal to life) fibroid or fatty tumors into malignant cancer or
sarcoma is to operate upon them. Wens and warts are often made
malignant by surgical interference or other local irritation.
In my article titled "What We Know About Cancer" in the August,
1909, issue of the ~Nature Cure Magazine~ I quote from an article by
Burton J. Hendrick, the cancer expert, published in the July, 1909,
number of ~McClure's Magazine,~ as follows:
"Clinical observation long ago established the fact that any
irritating interference with a cancer almost always stimulates its
growth. In his earliest experiments Dr. Loeb found that, by merely
drawing a silk thread through a dormant or slowly developing tumor,
he could transform it into a rapidly growing one. Cutting with a
knife produced the same effect. This accounts for the commonly
observed fact that, when extirpated cancers in human beings recur,
they increase in size much more rapidly than the original growth."
The late Dr. Senn, the great cancer surgeon, admitted these facts in
an interview given to Chicago press representatives upon his return
from his trip around the world in 1906. The press clipping reads as
follows.
"Avoid Beauty Doctors"
"Incidentally, Dr. Senn advises women who worry over their
disfigurement of moles about their heads and shoulders to have those
so-called beauty spots removed early in life, but he tells them they
should not go to beauty doctors to have the operations performed.
"He knows of hundreds of cases, he says, where cancer has resulted
from the irritation of moles by an electric needle, or by constant
picking it. 'Have a surgeon cut the mole out,' is his advice, as it
will hurt little and leave no scar."
To this we answered in our comments on the interview: "If the little
knife of the beauty doctor causes cancer, what about the big knife
of the surgeon?"
In point of fact, our office records show that a large percentage of
malignant growths are the direct result of surgical operations.
Cancer Not a Local, But a Constitutional Disease
For many years I have been teaching in my lectures and writings as
well as in private advice to patients that cancer is a
constitutional disease; that it is rooted in every drop of blood in
the body; that it is caused by the presence of certain disease
taints or of food and drug poisons in the system; that these poisons
irritate and stimulate the cells in a certain locality and cause
their abnormal multiplication or proliferation in the forms of
benign or malignant tumors.
I also claim that meat eating has much to do with the causation of
cancer.
Certain discoveries by Dr. H. C. Ross of London, England, confirm my
claims that cancer is not at all of local and accidental origin, but
that it is constitutional, and that it may be caused by the gradual
accumulation in the system of certain poisons which form in decaying
animal matter.
One day, while experimenting in his laboratory, Dr. Ross brought
white blood cells or leucocytes into contact with a certain aniline
dye on the slide of a microscope and noticed that they began at once
to multiply by cell division (proliferation). This was the first
time that cell proliferation had been observed by the human eye
while the cells were separated from their parent organism.
Dr. Ross realized that he had made an important discovery and
continued his experiments under the microscope in order to find out
what other substances would cause cell multiplication. He found that
certain xanthines and albuminoids derived from decaying animal
matter were the most effective for this purpose and induced more
rapid cell proliferation than any other substances he was able to
procure.
Dr. Ross obtained these "alkaloids of putrefaction," as he called
them, from blood which had been allowed to putrefy in a warm place.
He found that albuminoids derived from decaying vegetable substances
did not have the same effect.
His discoveries led him to believe that the alkaloids of
putrefaction produced in a cut or wound by the decaying of dead
blood and tissue cells are the cause of the rapid multiplication of
the neighboring live cells, which gradually fill the wound with new
tissues.
Thus, for the first time in the history of medicine, a rational
explanation of Nature's methods for repairing injured tissues has
been advanced.
Dr. Ross applied his theory still farther to the causation of benign
and malignant growths, reasoning that the alkaloids of putrefaction
produced in or attracted to a certain part of the body by some local
irritation are the cause of the rapid, abnormal multiplication of
cells in tumor formations.
In benign tumors the abnormal proliferation of cells takes place
slowly, and they do not tend to immediate and rapid decay and
deterioration.
In malignant tumors the "wild" cells, created in immense numbers,
decay almost as rapidly as they are produced because the abnormal
growths are devoid of normal organization. They have no established,
regular blood and nerve supply, nor are they provided with adequate
venous drainage. They are, therefore, cut off from the orderly life
of the organism and doomed to rapid deterioration.
The processes of decay of these tumor materials liberate large
quantities of alkaloids of putrefaction, and these, in turn,
stimulate the normal, healthy cells with which they come in contact
to rapid, abnormal multiplication.
The malignant growth, therefore, feeds on its own products of decay,
aside from the systemic poisons and morbid materials already
contained in the blood and tissues of the body. These morbid
products permeate the entire system. They are carried by the
circulation of the blood into all parts of the body. This explains
why cancer is a constitutional disease, why it is, as I stated it,
"rooted in every drop of blood."
It also explains why cancer, or rather the disposition to its
development (diathesis), is hereditary.
If the original cancerous growth is removed by surgical
intervention, x-rays, the electric needle, cauterization or any
other form of local treatment, the poisonous materials (alkaloids of
putrefaction) in the blood will set up other foci of abnormal, wild
proliferation. Medical science has applied the term metastasis to
such spreading and reappearing of malignant tumors after
extirpation.
Dr. Ross' findings throw an interesting light on the relationship
between cancer and meat eating. Is it not self-evident that in a
digestive tract filled most of the time with large masses of
partially digested and decaying animal food enormous quantities of
alkaloids of putrefaction are created? These are absorbed into the
circulation, attracted to any point where exists some form of local
irritation and then stimulate the cells in that locality to abnormal
proliferation.
"But," it will be said, "meat eating alone does not account for
cancer, because vegetarians also succumb to the disease." This is
true. Alkaloids of putrefaction are constantly produced in every
animal and human body. They form in the excretions of living cells
and in the decaying protoplasm of dead cells, and if the organs of
elimination do not function properly, these morbid materials will
accumulate in the system.
Furthermore, the Diagnosis from the Eye furnishes positive proof
that Hahnemann's theory of psora is based on truth. I quote from my
article in the ~Nature Cure Magazine~ August, 1909:
"For a hundred years, Hahnemann's theory of psora has been scouted
and ridiculed by the allopathic schools and even among homeopaths
only a few have accepted it. Now we are confronted by the remarkable
fact that, at this late day, the Diagnosis from the Eye confirms the
observations and speculations of the great genius of homeopathy.
"After suppression of itchy eruptions, lice, crab lice, etc., spots
ranging in color from light brown to dark red appear in different
places in the iris of the eye. These 'itch spots' indicate the
organs and localities of the body in which the suppressed disease
taints have concentrated.
"Such suppressions represent not only the scrofulous taints which
Nature was trying to eliminate by means of eruptions and parasites,
but, in addition to these, the poisons contained in the bodies of
the parasites and the drug poisons which were used to suppress or
kill them.
"It has been found that the bodies of the itch parasites (~Sarcoptes
scabici ~) contain an exceedingly poisonous substance which the
homeopaths call 'psorinum'. When these minute animals burrowing in
and under the skin are killed by poisonous drugs and antiseptics,
the morbid taints in their bodies are absorbed by the system and
added to the psoriatic poisons which Nature has been trying to
eliminate.
"Thus, after suppression of itchy eruptions or parasites, the
organism is encumbered with three poisons instead of one: (1) the
hereditary or acquired scrofulous and psoriatic taints which the
cells of the body were throwing off into the blood stream and which
the blood was feeding to the parasites on the surface, (2) the
morbid substance contained in the bodies of the parasites, (3) the
drug poisons used as suppressants. (Such poisons may lie latent in
the system for many years before they become active and, in
combination with other disease taints and with food and drug
poisons, create the different forms of chronic destructive
diseases.)
"These facts explain why the itch spots in different areas of the
iris of the eye so frequently indicate serious chronic, destructive
disease conditions in the parts and organs of the body corresponding
to these areas, why; for instance, in asthma and tuberculosis we
often find itch spots in the region representing the lungs or why in
cancer of the liver or of the stomach itch spots show in the area of
stomach or liver.
"That the itch or psoriatic taint is actually at the bottom of the
cancerous diathesis is attested by the fact that all cancer patients
whom we have treated and cured, with two exceptions (whose healing
crisis took the form of furunculosis), broke out with the itch at
one time or another during the natural treatment. In most of these
cases the bodies of the patients were inflamed with fiery eruptions
for days or even weeks at a time.
"Nature Cure allows these healing crises to run their course
unhindered and unchecked; in fact, we encourage them by air and sun
baths, cold-water treatment and homeopathic remedies."
What has been said verifies my claim that benign and malignant
tumors can be cured only by thorough purifying the system of all
morbid and poisonous taints and by building up the blood to a normal
basis, that is, by providing it with the proper elements of
nutrition, especially with the all-important organic salts.
That this is not merely theory, but actual fact has been proved in
the great cancer institutes in Europe and in this country. The
scientists in charge of these institutions report that they have
found a positive cure for cancer in animals. The treatment is as
follows:
The blood is pumped out of the body of a dog or other animal
afflicted with cancer and immediately afterwards the blood of a
healthy animal which has shown immunity to cancer inoculation is
pumped into the body of the diseased animal. It is reported that in
nine cases out of ten thus treated the cancerous growths disappear.
This treatment, of course, entails the death of the animal which had
to give up its life blood to cure the other and therefore this
method of cure is not adaptable to human beings. Even though an
individual, with suicidal intent, would be willing to give up his
life for a stipulated legacy to his relatives, the law would not
sanction the transaction.
However, we of the Nature Cure school say that it is not necessary
to pump the diseased blood out of the organism. In the natural
methods of living and of treatment we possess the means of purifying
and regenerating that blood while it is in the body. That this is
possible we have proved in a number of cancer cases.
It is obvious, however, that the earlier the disease is treated by
the natural methods, that is, before the breaking-down process has
far advanced, the easier and quicker will be the cure.
In the case of tumors, then, we see again verified the fundamental
law of Nature Cure: the Unity of Disease and of Treatment. We see
that the tumor is not of local, but of constitutional, origin, that
its period of incubation may extend over a lifetime or over several
generations.