Surgery
The discoverers of anesthetics are classed among the greatest
benefactors of humanity, because it is believed that ether,
chloroform, cocaine and similar nerve-paralyzing agents have greatly
lessened the sum of human suffering. I doubt, however, that this is
true.
Anesthetics have made surgery technically easy and have done away
with the pain caused directly by the incisions; but on the other
hand, these marvelous effects of pain-killing drugs have encouraged
indiscriminate and unnecessary operations to such an extent that at
least nine-tenths of all the surgical operations performed today are
uncalled for. In most instances these ill-advised mutilations are
followed by lifelong weakness and suffering, which far outweigh the
temporary pains formerly endured when unavoidable operations were
performed without the use of anesthesia.
We do not wish to be understood as condemning unqualifiedly any and
all surgical interventions in the treatment of human ailments. An
operation may occasionally be absolutely necessary as a means of
saving life. Surgery is also indicated in cases of injury, such as
wounds or fractured bones, in certain obstetrical complications and
in other affections of a purely mechanical nature.
In all such cases anesthetics prevent much suffering which cannot be
avoided in any other way. But anyone who has had an opportunity to
watch the prolonged misery of the victims of un-called-for
operations will not doubt that anesthesia has been a two-edged sword
which has inflicted many more wounds than it has healed.
Many physicians have recognized more or less distinctly the
uselessness and harmfulness of "Old School" medical treatment.
Dissatisfied and disgusted with old-fashioned drugging, they turn to
surgery, convinced that in it they possess an exact scientific
method of curing ailments. They seem to think that the surest way to
cure a diseased organ is to remove it with the knife--fine reasoning
for school boys, but not worthy of men of science.
I, for my part, cannot understand how an organ can be cured after it
has been extirpated and, preserved in alcohol, adorns the specimen
cabinet of the surgeon.
Destruction or Cure--Which Is Better?
"But," the surgeon says, "we do not remove organs from the body
unless they have become useless."
However, this claim is not borne out by actual facts. During the
past ten years thousands of patients have come under our
treatment, both in the sanitarium and in the downtown offices, whose
family physicians had declared that in order to save their lives
they must submit to the knife without delay. With very few
exceptions these people were cured by us without using a poisonous
drug, an antiseptic or a knife.
Several women who, years ago, were confronted with removal of the
ovaries, are today the joyful mothers of children. Many of our
former patients, who were treated by "Old School" physicians for
acute or chronic appendicitis and were strongly urged to have the
offending organ removed, are today alive and well and still in
possession of their vermiform appendices. Other patients were
threatened with operations for kidney, gall and bladder stones;
fibroid and other tumors; floating kidneys; stomach troubles;
intestinal and uterine disorders, not to mention the multitude of
children whose tonsils and adenoids were to have been removed. All
of these onetime surgical cases have escaped the knife and are doing
very well indeed with their bodies intact and in possession of the
full quota of organs given them by Nature.
Is it not better to cure a diseased organ than to remove it? Nature
Cure proves every day that the better way is at the same time the
easiest way.
Thousands of men and women operated upon for some local ailment
which could have been cured easily by natural methods of treatment
are condemned by these inexcusable mutilations to lifelong
suffering. Many, if not actually suffering pain, have been
unnecessarily unsexed and in other ways incapacitated for the normal
functions and natural enjoyments of life.
Cases of this kind are the most pitiable of all that come under our
observation. When we learn that a major operation has been performed
upon a consultant, our barometer of hope drops considerably. We know
from much experience that the mutilation of the human organism has a
tendency to lessen the chances of recovery; such patients are nearly
always lacking in recuperative power.
A body deprived of important parts or organs is forever unbalanced.
It is like a watch with a spring or a wheel taken out; it may run,
but never quite right; it is hypersensitive and easily thrown out of
balance by any adverse influence.
The Human Body Is a Unit
We are realizing more and more that the human body is a homogeneous
and harmonious whole, and that we cannot injure one part of it
without damaging other parts and often the entire organism. Cutting
in the vital organs means cutting in the brain. It affects the
functions of the nervous system most profoundly.
A physician in Vienna has written a very interesting book in which
he shows that the inner membranes of the nose are in close
relationship and sympathy with distant parts and organs of the body.
He located in the nose one small area which corresponds to the
lungs. By irritating this area with an electric needle he could
provoke asthmatic attacks in patients subject to this disease. By
anesthetizing the same area he could stop immediately severe attacks
of asthma and of coughing. Another area in the nasal cavity
corresponds to the genital organs. The doctor proved that by
electric irritation applied to this area abortions could be
produced, and that by anesthesia of the same area in the nose,
uterine hemorrhages could be stopped.
These and many other facts of experience throw a wonderful light
upon the unity of the human organism. The body resembles a watch.
You cannot injure one part of it without affecting its entire
mechanism.
The evil aftereffects of surgical operations do not always manifest
at once. On the contrary, the surgical treatment is frequently
followed by a period of seeming improvement. The troublesome local
symptoms have been removed, and aftereffects of the mutilation have
not had time to assert themselves. But sooner or later the old
symptoms return in aggravated form, or a new set of complications
arises. The patient is made to believe that the first operation was
a perfect success and that this latest crop of difficulties has
nothing to do with the former, but is something entirely new. At
other times he is assured that the first operation did not go deep
enough, that it failed to reach the seat of the trouble and must be
done over again.
And so the work of mutilation goes merrily on. The disease poisons
in the body set up one center of inflammation after another. These
centers the surgeon promptly removes; but the real disease, the
venereal, psoriatic or scrofulous taint, the uric or oxalic acid,
the poisonous alkaloids and ptomaines affecting every cell and every
drop of blood in the body, these elude the surgeon's knife and
create new ulcers, abscesses, inflammations, stones, cancers, etc.,
as fast as the old ones are extirpated.
Those who have studied the previous chapters carefully will readily
comprehend these facts. They will know that acute and subacute
conditions represent Nature's cleansing and healing efforts, and
that local suppression by drug or knife only serves to turn Nature's
corrective and purifying activities into chronic disease.
The highest art of the true physician is to preserve and to restore,
not to mutilate or destroy.