What About The "Chronic"? It Takes So Long
"Yes, Nature Cure is all right, but it takes so long." Now and then
we hear this or a similar remark. Our answer is: "No, it does not
take long. It is the swiftest cure in existence."
The trouble is that, as a rule, we have to deal with none but the
most advanced cases of so-called incurable diseases. People go to
the Nature Cure physician only after all other methods of treatment
have been tried and found of no avail.
As long as there remains a particle of faith in the medicine bottle,
the knife or the metaphysical formula of the mind healer, people
prefer these easy methods, which require no effort on their part, to
the Nature Cure treatment, which necessitates personal exertion,
self-control, the changing or giving up of cherished habits. This,
however, is what most of us evade as long as we can. "Exercise, the
cold blitzguss, no red meat, no coffee?--I'd rather die!"
Afraid of Cold Water
The most-dreaded terror on the threshold seems to be cold water.
Undoubtedly, it has kept away thousands from Nature Cure and thereby
from the only possible cure for their chronic ailments. If we could
achieve equally good results without our heroic methods of
treatment, the sidewalks leading to our institution would be crowded
with people clamoring for admission.
After all, this foolish fear is entirely groundless. Cold water is
no more to be dreaded than the bogey man. It is one of our
fundamental principles of treatment never to do anything that is
painful to the patient. We always "temper the wind to the shorn
lamb," the coldness of the water and the force of the manipulations
to the sensitiveness and endurance of the subject. Beginning with
mild, alternately warm and cool sprays, which are pleasant and
agreeable to everyone, we gradually increase the force and lower the
temperature until the patient is so inured to cold water that the
blitzguss becomes a delightful and pleasurable sensation, a positive
luxury.
It is amusing to watch the gradual change in the attitude of our
patients toward the cold-water treatment. In some instances we have
had to spend hours in earnest persuasion before we could induce a
particularly sensitive person to try the first mild spray. A few
weeks later if, perchance, something interfered with the cold water
applications, the patient would indignantly refuse to take the other
treatment if there was to be no cold water.
There is certainly no finer tonic than cold water, no more
exhilarating sensation than that produced by the artistic
application of alternating douches and the blitz.
The real cause of this cold-water scare, we believe, is to be found
in the boasting of the veterans. When, with protruding chest and
chin in air, they brag to the newcomers or to their friends about
their heroism and the coolness with which they allow the cold-water
hose to be turned on them, the listener shudders and exclaims: "This
cold water may be all right for you, but it would never do for me."
No doubt, it is this bravado of the initiated that keeps many a
novice from the first plunge into the mysteries of Nature Cure. If
these timid ones only knew what they miss!
Business Versus Cure
From a business point of view it would, perhaps, be better to omit
the cold water altogether. It would certainly be much less trouble;
but then, the rugged honesty of Father Kneipp, the champion of the
cold-water treatment branch of German Nature Cure, has descended
upon his followers and compels them to tell the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, to make use of everything that is likely to
be of benefit to the patient and to effect a real and lasting cure.
Our friends, the osteopaths, have only a pitying smile for our
arduous labors. They ask: "Why fool with cold water and drive
patients away, when pleasant manipulations bring the business?" If
we query in return: "Do your pleasant manipulations cure obstinate
chronic ailments?" They answer: "We do not expect to cure them. The
effort involves too much labor and spoils the reputation of our
work. Not one in a hundred chronics has the patience and
perseverance to be cured. Besides, if a patient comes too long to
the office for treatment he drives others away."
Some of the most successful osteopaths in this city make it a rule
not to treat a patient longer than six weeks or two months.
In a number of cases this may be sufficient to produce marked
primary improvement, but it is not enough to launch the patient into
a healing crisis and, therefore, does not produce a real cure
because it does not remove the underlying causes of the disease. If,
after a while, the latent chronic condition again manifests in
external symptoms, the patient returns for another course of
treatment; he was "cured" so quickly before and thinks he will be
helped again.
In justice to the osteopaths it must be said that we are not
referring to those chronic diseases which are directly caused by
lesions of the spine or other bony structures. If such dislocations
or subluxations be the sole cause of the trouble, their correction
by manipulative treatment may produce a cure within a few weeks.
But notwithstanding the teachings of orthodox osteopathy, the
majority of chronic ailments have their origin in other causes. In
most cases, the existing spinal lesions are themselves the result of
other primary disease conditions which must be removed before the
bony lesions will remain corrected.
The mode of treatment depends upon the object that is to be
accomplished. If it is to make the patient feel better with the
least possible expenditure of time, money, personal effort and
self-control on his part, and the least amount of exertion on the
part of the physician or healer, then osteopathic manipulations or
meta-physical formulas may be in order. But if the object is to cure
actually and permanently a deep-seated chronic disease, all the
methods of the natural treatment, intelligently combined and adapted
to the individual case, will be required in order to accomplish
results.
Pull the Roots
Cutting off their heads does not kill the weeds. The first sign of
improvement in the treatment of a chronic disease does not mean a
cure.
Diagnosis from the Eye, borne out by everyday practical experience,
reveals the fact that symptomatic manifestations of disease are due
to underlying constitutional causes; that the chronic symptoms are
Nature's feeble and ineffectual efforts to eliminate from the system
scrofulous, psoric or syphilitic taints and the disease products
resulting from food and drug poisoning, or to overcome the
destructive effects of surgical mutilations.
An abatement of symptoms is, therefore, not always the sign of a
real and permanent cure. The latter depends entirely on the
elimination of the hereditary and acquired constitutional taints and
poisons.
When, under the influence of natural living and methods of
treatment, the body of the chronic becomes sufficiently purified and
strengthened, a period of marked improvement may set in. All disease
symptoms gradually abate, the patient gains in strength, both
physically and mentally, and he feels as though there was nothing
the matter with him any more.
But the eyes tell a different story. They show that the underlying
constitutional taints have not been fully eliminated--the weeds have
not been pulled up by the roots.
This can be accomplished only by healing crises, by Nature's
cleansing and healing activities in the form of inflammatory and
feverish processes; anything short of this is merely preliminary
improvement, "training for the fight," but not the cure.
When you order a suit of clothes from your tailor, you do not take
it away from him half-finished; if you do, you will have an
unsatisfactory garment.
No more should you interfere with your cure after the first signs of
improvement. Continue until you have thoroughly eliminated from your
system the hidden constitutional taints and the drug poisons which
have been the cause of your troubles. After that you can paddle your
own canoe; right living and right thinking will then be sufficient
to maintain perfect health and strength, physically, mentally and
morally.
Is the Chronic Patient to Be Left to His Fate
Because Allopathy Says He Is Incurable?
Frequently we have been severely criticised by our friends, our
coworkers or our patients for accepting certain seemingly hopeless
chronic cases. They exclaim:
"You know this man has locomotor ataxy and that woman is an
epileptic: you certainly do not expect to cure them," or, "Doctor,
don't you think it injures the institution to have that
dreadful-looking person around? He is nothing but skin and bones and
surely cannot live much longer."
Sometimes open criticism and covert insinuation intimate that our
reasons for taking in incurables are mercenary.
If we should dismiss today those of our patients who, from the
orthodox and popular point of view, are considered incurable, there
would not remain ten out of a hundred; and yet our total failures
are few and far between. Many such seemingly hopeless cases have
come for treatment month after month, in several instances for a
year or more, apparently without any marked advance; yet today they
are in the best of health.
Yes, it is hard work and frequently thankless work to deal with
these patients. It would be much easier, much more remunerative and
would bring more glory to confine ourselves to the treatment of
acute diseases, for it is there that Nature Cure works its most
impressive miracles. On the other hand, to achieve the seemingly
impossible, to prove what Nature Cure can accomplish in the most
stubborn chronic cases, sustains our courage and is its own
compensation.
The word chronic in the vocabulary of the "Old School" of medicine
is synonymous with "incurable." This is not strange; since the
medical and surgical symptomatic treatment of acute diseases creates
the chronic conditions, it certainly cannot be expected to cure
them. If, by continued suppression, Nature's cleansing and healing
efforts have been perverted into chronic disease conditions, the
following directions are given in the regular works on medical
practice:
"When this disease reaches the chronic stage, you can no longer cure
it. You may advise the patient to change climate or occupation. As
for medication, treat the symptoms as they arise."
We know that the symptoms are Nature's healing efforts; when these
are promptly treated, that is, suppressed, it is not surprising that
the chronic does not recover. In fact, it is the treatment which
makes him and keeps him a chronic.
Why Nature Cure Achieves Results
Nature Cure achieves results in the treatment of chronic diseases
because its theories and practices are entirely opposite to those
just described. However, when the Nature Cure physician claims that
he can cure cancer, tuberculosis, epilepsy, paralysis, Bright's
disease, diabetes or certain mental derangements, the regular
physician shows only derision and contempt. He will not even
condescend to examine any evidence in support of our claims.
Since, then, Nature Cure offers to the so-called incurable the only
hope and the only possible means of regaining health, why not give
him a chance? Many times apparently hopeless cases have responded
most readily to our treatment, while more promising ones offered the
most stubborn resistance. Even with the best possible methods of
diagnosis, it is hard to determine just how far the destruction of
vital organs has progressed, or how deeply they have been
impregnated with drug poisons.
Therefore, it is often an impossibility to predict with certainty
just what the outcome will be. This can be determined only by a fair
trial. In the past we have treated many a case that, according to
the rules and precedents of orthodox science, should be dead and
buried long ago; yet these individuals are today alive and in the
best of health.
Every now and then incidents like the following renew our enthusiasm
and our faith in Nature Cure: Recently, we had three new cases, sent
by three former patients who had been under treatment several years
ago. These three had been among the worst cases ever treated in our
institution. When they came to us, one was supposed to be dying with
cancer, the second was in the advanced stages of tertiary syphilis
and the third, a lady, had survived several operations for the
removal of the appendix and the ovaries. At the time she took up our
treatment she had been advised to undergo another operation for the
removal of the uterus.
These incurables had been exceedingly trying. More than once one or
another had quit, discouraged and disgusted, only to return, knowing
that, after all, Nature Cure was their only hope. After they left
us, we lost track of them and often wondered how they were getting
on. Imagine our pleasant surprise when all three were reported by
the newcomers as being in good health. What if it did take months or
even years to produce the desired results? What would have been the
fate of these three patients if it had not been for slow Nature
Cure?
Discouraged patients frequently ask: "Why do others recover so
quickly when I show so little improvement? This cure seems to be all
right for some diseases, but evidently it does not fit my case."
This is defective reasoning. True Nature Cure fits every case
because it includes everything good in natural healing methods. In
stubborn cases Nature Cure is not to blame for the slow and
unsatisfactory results: the difficulty lies in the character and
advanced stage of the disease.