Crises
Crisis in the ordinary sense of the word means change, either for
better or for worse. In its relation to medicine, the term "crisis"
has been defined as "a decisive change in the disease, resulting
either in recovery or in death."
We of the Nature Cure school distinguish between healing crises and
disease crises, according to the character and the tendency of the
acute reaction. If an acute disease is brought about through the
accumulation of morbid matter or the invasion of disease germs to
such an extent that the health or the life of the organism is
endangered, in other words, if the disease conditions are forcing
the crises, we speak of disease crises.
But if acute reactions take place in the system because conditions
have become more normal, because the healing forces have gained the
ascendancy and forced the acute inflammatory processes, we call them
healing crises.
Healing crises are simply different forms of elimination by means of
which Nature endeavors to remove the latent, chronic disease
encumbrance from the system. The most common forms of these acute
purifications are colds, catarrhal and hemorrhoidal discharges,
boils, ulcers, abscesses, open sores, skin eruptions, diarrheas,
etc.
Healing crises and disease crises may seem very much alike. Patients
often tell me: "I have had this before. I call it an ordinary boil
(or cold, or fever)."
That may be true. The former disease crisis and the present healing
crisis may be similar in their outward manifestations. But they are
taking place under entirely different conditions.
When the organism is loaded to the danger point with morbid matter,
it may arouse itself in self-defense to an acute eliminative effort
in the shape of cold, catarrh, fever, inflammation, skin eruption,
etc. In these instances, the disease conditions bring about the
crisis and the organism is on the defensive. These are disease
crises.
Such unequal struggles between the healing forces and disease
conditions sometimes end favorably and sometimes unfavorably.
On the other hand, healing crises develop because the healing forces
are in the ascendancy and take the offensive. They are brought about
through the natural methods of living and of treatment and always
result in improved conditions.
A simple allegory may assist me in explaining the difference between
a healing crisis and a disease crisis:
For years a prizefighter holds the championship because he keeps
himself in perfect physical condition and before every contest
spends many weeks in careful training. When he faces his opponent in
the ring, he has eliminated from his organism as much waste matter
and superfluous flesh and fat as possible by a strictly regulated
diet and a great deal of hard exercise. As a consequence, he comes
off victorious in every contest and easily maintains his
superiority.
These victories in his career, like healing crises in the organism,
are the result of training and preparation.
The prizefighter in the one case and Vital Force in the other are on
the offensive from the beginning of the struggle and have the best
of the fight from start to finish.
Rendered overconfident by long-continued success, our champion
gradually permits himself to drift into a weakened physical
condition. He omits his regular training and indulges in all kinds
of dissipation.
One day, full of self-conceit and underestimating the strength of
his challenger, he enters the ring without preparation and is
ingloriously defeated by a man who, under different circumstances,
would not be a match for him.
So, in the case of a patient in a disease crisis, fatal termination
may be due to the excessive accumulation of waste and morbid matter
in the system, to lowered vitality and to lack of preparation.
Victory or defeat in acute reactions as well as in the ring depends
on right living and preparatory training.
In the healing crisis, vitality is the stronger and gains the
victory in the struggle; in the disease crisis, disease conditions
have gained the ascendancy and may bring about the defeat of the
healing forces.
Under conditions favorable to human life, a body of normal
structure, healthy blood and tissues and good vitality cannot be
affected by acute disease. Such an organism is practically immune to
all forms of inflammatory febrile reactions. These always indicate
that there is something wrong in the system which Nature is trying
to correct or get rid of.
Healing Crises
In Chapter Two "Catechism of Nature Cure," we defined healing
crises as follows: "A healing crisis is an acute reaction, resulting
from the ascendancy of Nature's healing forces over disease
conditions. Its tendency is toward recovery, and it is, therefore,
in conformity with Nature's constructive principle." The possibility
of producing healing crises and thereby curing chronic ailments
depends upon the following conditions:
The patient must possess sufficient vital energy and powers of
reaction to respond to the natural treatment and to a change of
habits. The destruction and disorganization of vital fluids and
organs must not have advanced too far.
Some patients become frightened at the idea of crises. They exclaim:
"I came here to get well, not to grow worse."
However, there is no occasion for alarm. Healing crises occur in
mild form only because, under the influence of natural living and
treatment, Nature has the best of the fight. The healing forces of
the organism have gained the ascendancy over the disease conditions.
In fact, Nature never undertakes a healing crisis until the system
has been prepared for it, until the organism is sufficiently
purified and strengthened to conduct the acute reaction to a
favorable termination.
Furthermore, it is well to remember that crises cannot be avoided,
because it is through fevers and inflammatory processes that Nature
effects the cure--that she tears down the old to build up the new.
On the other hand, if patients are possessed of exceptionally good
vitality and if the organs of elimination are in good working order,
the purification and adjustment of the organism may occasionally
proceed gradually without the occurrence of marked acute reactions
or crises.
Healing Crises, When Properly Conducted,
Are Never Fatal to Life
When well assisted by the right, natural methods of living and of
treatment, healing crises are never dangerous or fatal to life. The
only danger lies in suppressing these acute reactions by drugs,
knife, the ice bag or any means whatever.
If acute reactions are suppressed, the constructive healing crisis
may be changed into a destructive disease crisis. Therefore we
earnestly warn our patients never to interfere in any way with a
healing crisis lest the chronic condition (which resulted from the
suppression of the original disease) become worse than before.
When Nature, with all the force inherent in the human organism, has
finally worked up to the point of a healing crisis, another defeat
by a new suppression may be beyond her powers of endurance and
recuperation. Fatal collapse may then be the result.
Therefore, take heed! If you are not willing to endure the healing
crises, do not undertake the treatment. When you have conjured up
the hidden demons of disease, you must have the courage to face and
subdue them. Nothing good in life comes to us except as we pay the
price. He who is too cowardly to conquer in a healing crisis may
perish in a disease crisis.
Drugs Versus Healing Crises
Our explanations of the natural laws of cure and of natural
therapeutics are often greeted by "Old School" physicians and
students with remarks like the following:
"You speak as if you had the monopoly of eliminative treatment and
of the production of crises. With our laxatives, cathartics,
diuretics, diaphoretics and tonics, we are doing the same thing.
What is more effectual for stimulating a sluggish liver and
cleansing the intestinal tract than calomel followed by a dose of
salts? What will produce more profuse perspiration than pilocarpin;
or what is a better stimulus to the kidneys than squills or buchu?
Can we not by means of stimulants and depressants regulate heart
action to a nicety?
"We accomplish all this in a clean, scientific manner, without
resorting to unpleasant dieting and to barbarous applications of
douches, packs and manual treatments. Isn't it more dignified and
professional to write a Latin prescription? How much better the
impression on the laity than soaking and rubbing!"
Let us see if these statements are true, if laxation, urination or
perspiration produced by poisonous drugs are identical in character
and in effect with the elimination produced by natural living and
natural methods of treatment through healing crises.
Mercury, in the form of calomel, is one of the best-known
cholagogues [an agent designed to increase the flow of bile and,
thereby, stimulate lower bowel action, ~ed.~]. It is the favorite
laxative and cathartic of allopathy. The prevailing idea is that
calomel acts on the liver and the intestines; but in reality these
organs act on the drug.
All laxatives and cathartics are poisons; if it were not so, they
would not produce their peculiar, drastic effects. Because they are
poisons, Nature tries to eliminate them from the system as quickly
and as thoroughly as possible. In order to do this, the excretory
glands and membranes of the liver and the digestive tract greatly
increase the amount of their secretions and thereby produce a forced
evacuation of the intestinal canal.
Thus the system, in the effort to eliminate the mercurial poison,
expels also the other contents of the intestines. This may effect a
temporary cleansing of the intestinal tract, but it does not and
cannot cleanse the individual cells throughout the body of their
impurities.
The Lasting Effects of Artificial Purging
In accordance with the Law of Action and Reaction, action and
reaction are equal and opposite; the temporary irritation and
overstimulation of the sensitive membranes of the digestive organs
are followed by corresponding weakness and exhaustion, and if this
procedure be repeated and become habitual, by gradual atrophy and
paralysis. As atrophy progresses, the dose of the purgative must be
increased in order to accomplish the desired result and this, in its
turn, hastens the degenerative changes in the system.
Such enforced, artificial purging may flush the drains and sewers,
but does not cleanse the chambers of the house. The cells in the
interior tissues remain encumbered with morbid matter. A genuine and
truly effective housecleaning must start in the cells and must be
brought about through the initiative of the vital energies in the
organism, through healing crises, and not through stimulation by
means of poisonous irritants.
When, under a natural regimen of living and of treatment, the system
has been sufficiently purified, adjusted and vivified, the cells
themselves begin the work of elimination.
This is what takes place: The morbid matter and poisons thrown off
by the cells and tissues are carried by means of the venous
circulation to the organs of elimination, the bowels, kidneys, lungs
and skin, and to the mucous membranes lining the interior tracts,
such as the nasal passages, the throat and bronchi, the digestive
and genitourinary canals, etc.
These organs of elimination become overcrowded with the rush of
morbid matter and the accompanying congestion and irritation cause
the acute inflammatory processes and feverish symptoms
characterizing the various forms of colds, catarrhs, skin eruptions,
diarrheas, boils and other acute forms of elimination, which we call
healing crises. In other words, what the "Old School" of medicine
calls the disease, we look upon as the Cure.
Acute elimination brought about in this manner is Nature's method of
housecleaning. It is a true healing crisis, the result of
purification and increased activity from within the cell, produced
by natural means.
Here interposes Friend Allopath: "You claim that you bring about
your acute reactions by natural means only, and that these are never
injurious to the organism. What difference does it make if the
circulation is stimulated and elimination increased by a cold-water
spray or by digitalis? The cold-water stimulation produces a
reaction just as digitalis does, and the one must therefore be as
injurious as the other."
To this we reply: "The stimulating effect on heart and circulation
produced by digitalis is the first action of a highly poisonous
drug; the second lasting effect is weakening and paralyzing. On the
other hand, the first action of a cold-water spray is depressing; it
sends the blood into the interior of the body and benumbs the
surface. The sensory nerves at once report this sensation of cold to
headquarters in the brain, and immediately the command is
telegraphed to the blood vessels in the interior of the body: 'Send
blood to the surface!' As a result, the blood is carried to the
surface, and the skin becomes warm and rosy with the glow of life.
In this case the stimulation is the second and lasting effect of the
water treatment, from which there is no further reaction."
Similarly, the stimulation produced by exercise, massage,
manipulation or the exposure of the nude body to light and air is
natural stimulation, produced by harmless, natural means. It is
entirely due to the fact that conditions in the system have been
made more normal, as explained in other chapters.
Drugs, stimulants and tonics, while they produce an artificial,
temporary stimulation, do not change the underlying abnormal
conditions in the organism. Likewise, the flushing of the colon with
water, the use of laxative herb teas and decoctions or forced
sweating by means of Turkish or Russian baths, though not as
dangerous as inorganic minerals and poisonous drugs, cannot be
classed among the natural means of cure. These agents, which by many
persons are looked upon as natural treatment, irritate the organs of
elimination to forced, abnormal activity without at the same time
arousing the cells in the interior of the body to natural
elimination.
Dr. H. Lahmann, one of the foremost scientists of the Nature Cure
movement, made a series of interesting experiments. His chemists
gathered the natural perspiration of certain patients, produced by
ordinary exercise in the sunshine. These excretions of the skin were
evaporated and analyzed, and were found to contain poisons powerful
enough to kill rabbits.
If profuse sweating was produced in the same patients by the high
temperature of the hot-air box or the electric-light cabinet, their
perspiration, when evaporated and analyzed, was found to contain
only small amounts of toxins. Thus Dr. Lahmann proved that:
Sweating and the elimination of disease matter are two different
processes. Artificially induced sweating does not eliminate disease
matter. The organism cannot be forced by irritants and stimulants
and artificial means, but eliminates morbid matter only in its own
natural manner and when it is in proper condition to do so.
In a lesser degree, this applies also to fasting. Under certain
conditions it becomes a necessity; but it may easily be abused and
overdone.
Do We Never Fail?
Certainly we fail, but our failures are usually due to the fact that
sick people, as a rule, do not consider Nature Cure except as a last
resort. The methods and requirements of Nature Cure appear at first
so unusual and exacting that people seek to evade them so long as
they have the least faith in the miracle-working power of the poison
bottle, a metaphysical healer or the surgeon's knife. When health,
wealth and hope are entirely exhausted, then the chronic sufferer
grasps at Nature Cure as a drowning man clutches at a straw. But
even though ninety percent of these cases which come to us are of
the apparently incurable type, our total failures are few and far
between.
If there is sufficient vitality in the body to react to natural
treatment and if the destruction of vital parts and organs has not
too far advanced, a cure is possible. Often the seemingly hopeless
cases yield the most readily.
Our success is due to the fact that we do not rely on any one method
of treatment, but combine in our work everything that is good in the
different systems of natural healing.
The Law of Crises
Everywhere in nature and in the world of men we find the Law of
Crises in evidence. This proves it to be a universal law, ruling all
cosmic relations and activities.
Wars and revolutions are the healing crises in the life of nations.
Heresies and reformations are the crises of religion. In strikes,
riots and panics, we recognize the crises of commercial life.
Staid old Mother Earth herself has in the hoary past repeatedly
changed the configurations of her continents and oceans by great
cataclysms or geological crises.
When the sultry summer air has become pregnant with poisonous vapors
and miasmas, atmospheric crises, such as rainstorms, thunder,
lightning and electric storms, cool and purify the air and charge it
anew with life-giving ozone. In like manner will healing crises
purify the disease-laden bodies of men.
Emanuel Swedenborg gives us a wonderful description of the Law of
Crises in its relationship to the regeneration of the soul. We quote
from the chapter in which he describes the working of this law,
entitled, "Regeneration Is Effected by Combats in Temptation."
"They who have not been instructed concerning the regeneration of
man think that man can be regenerated without temptation. But it is
to be known that no one is regenerated without temptation; and that
many temptations succeed, one after another. The reason is that
regeneration is effected for an end, in order that the life of the
old man may die, and the new life which is heavenly be insinuated.
It is evident, therefore, that there must be a conflict [healing
crisis--~author's note ~]; for the life of the old man resists and
determines not to be extinguished; and the life of the new man can
only enter where the life of the old is extinct.
"Whoever thinks from an enlightened rationale, may see and perceive
from this that a man cannot be regenerated without combat, that is,
without spiritual temptations; and further, that he is not
regenerated by one temptation, but by many. For there are very many
kinds of evil which formed the delight of his former life, that is,
of the old life. These evils cannot all be subdued at once and
together; for they cleave tenaciously, since they have been inrooted
in the parents for many ages back [the scrofula of the
soul--~author's note~ ] and are therefore innate in man, and are
confirmed by actual evils from himself from infancy. All these evils
are diametrically opposite to the celestial good [perfect
health--~author's note~ ] that is to be insinuated and which is to
constitute the New Life."
Thus the inspired Seer of the North draws a vivid picture of what we
call healing crises in their relation to moral regeneration.
We cannot help recognizing the close agreement of physical and
spiritual crises; this, again, demonstrates the continuity and exact
correspondence of Natural Law on the different planes of being. [The
Law of Hermes: ~As above, so below; as in the inner, so in the
outer; as in the lesser, so in the greater.~]
We of the Nature Cure school know that this great Law of Crises
dominates the cure of chronic disease. Every case is another
verification of it; in fact, every decided advance on the road to
perfect health is marked by acute reactions.
The cure invariably proceeds through the darkness and chaos of the
crises to the light and beauty of perfect health, periods of marked
improvement alternating with acute eliminating activity (the
"spiritual temptations" and "combats" of Swedenborg), until perfect
regeneration has taken place.