"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members
of that one body, being many, are one body:... whether one member
suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured,
all the members rejoice with it."
(St. Paul, I Corinthians, XII. 12 & 26.)
"_DYSAEMIA, or Impure Blood is the cause and source of disorder in
all constitutional diseases. So spoke the Master. Believe it who
will, that, in a nutshell, is 'the burden of my song'--the Alpha
and Omega of my teaching_."
(From Chapter X. "Dare to be Healthy.")
_The Process of Natural Healing_ is the art of curing diseases by
natural methods.
As natural remedies, only those may be included which stand as vital
conditions in constant relation to the organism, assimilable thereby.
Among these are no poisons or chemical preparations, such as were
promulgated by Paracelsus and the medicasters; for these are elements
abnormal to the body, and call forth its reactionary powers, and so,
being useless, they are eliminated; or, after having served an improper
purpose, to _suppress_ some symptom of disease, they become embedded in
the tissues, there causing various forms of medicinal complication or
morbid condition.
Do we not produce blood poisons enough by our irrational diet and modes
of living? The human body is a microcosm--a world in minature--and as
such, exists in constant interchange with universal nature.
A definite relationship exists between it and the solid, fluid and
gaseous elements.
Solid food, water and air, elements of the universe, must become
elements of our bodies, if relations of universal unity are to be
maintained.
There must be a constant interchange of organic matter, and this
inter-transmission is the cause of life, of health, and of disease;
therefore, we must first of all see that the conditions of this process
are uninterrupted.
Food, air, water, light, exercise, must be so provided that they
condition the process of nutrition and metamorphosis.
Skin, lungs, kidneys, intestines, must always be in condition to
eliminate the abnormal products of decomposition.
If then disease be a derangement of the life process, it is self-evident
that disease is not confined to one organ alone, but that the whole body
is diseased.
The body, thus, being in fact an indivisible unity, the treatment we
employ in disease must, logically, act upon it as a united whole.
The modern school of medicine in its present, bacteria ridden frame of
mind or mania, looks upon the bacillus, or microbe, as the sole cause of
disease.
The cause, however, is not the bacillus, but rather the impure blood
which prepares a fertile soil for the development of those destructive
germs.
He who lives strictly in accordance with the rules of hygiene need not
fear the bacillus, for man is not born to sickness; he creates sickness
for himself by his irrational mode of living.
What does the world profit by bacteriological institutions if the people
continue to live in the old sins against health and hygiene?
Man may be born with a predisposition to disease, but not with disease
itself.
Our health depends entirely upon the conditions of our life.
In cases of predisposition to disease, therefore, as well as in disease
itself, according to the principles of hygiene, we must employ only the
hygienic and dietetic methods of treatment.
Is the medical science of the day, then, totally incompetent? You may
well ask.--Have the patient studies and researches of nearly two
thousand four hundred years, since the days of Hippocrates, been all in
vain?
The reply lies ready to your hand, from the lips of one of the brightest
scientific spirits that ever illumined this dull earth of ours with
knowledge and sincerity.
In Goethe's Faust the following lines are found,--lines which sad memory
brings back to the minds of many an unfortunate who, according to the
dictates of the medical science of today, is pronounced incurable--a
sufferer from one or other of the so-called chronic diseases--and in
dire need of both physical and spiritual support.
"I have, alas, philosophy,
Medicine, jurisprudence too,
And, to my cost, theology
With ardent labour studied through,
And here I stand with all my lore,
Poor fool, no wiser than before"
Like Faust, such sufferers study day and night the opinions of learned
doctors and follow their prescriptions with ardent zeal. The more they
study, the more doctors they consult, the more rapidly does strength
fail them, until at length they realize that, in spite of all their
lore, they are but "poor fools, no wiser than before."
For more than two thousand years it has been, in fact, as it is to a
great extent today; the physician prescribes to the best of his
knowledge, medicines compounded according to certain rules dogmatically
laid down in the schools.
Here we have at once the fatal mistake at a glance.
Instead of studying nature and the laws of nature, instead of using
natural means to _heal disease_, they administer deadly poisons to
_allay suffering_, poisons, which doubtless may be able to repress pain
or to temporarily suppress the symptoms of disease; but can _never
remove the cause_, which alone may rightly be called healing.
The drugs prescribed by thousands of physicians today, with but a casual
acquaintance with their action, are bound by their nature to produce
evils worse than the disease itself.
To cite an instance:
Physicians prescribe creosote in cases of consumption to stop the
expectoration of blood.
Creosote will do this, and may suppress the cough, as well as the
accompanying pain; but will it cure consumption or destroy or remove the
cause of this deadliest of diseases?
On the contrary, it inevitably produces laryngeal phthisis after a very
short time. It destroys the head of the windpipe and the patient dies in
consequence of the destruction of one of the most important organs of
the body.
In most instances the physician is either oblivious or unaware of these
facts. He follows those old-standing doctrinal sophisms laid down by
human "science" but discredited by nature.
His courage is called "audacity" by those who have not lost all feeling
for humanity.
Meanwhile, those who regard medical science from a business standpoint
only, are very quick to pronounce judgement upon any natural treatment
of disease and to condemn the most successful natural physicians as
charlatans and frauds.
In order to be competent to decide upon a correct course in the
treatment of disease the physician must possess a thorough chemical
knowledge of all the fundamental substances of which the human organism
is constructed. With the patient therefore rests the responsibility of
choosing his physician, since no physician can be of any assistance who
cannot define what substances are deficient in the blood, and who does
not possess the requisite technical knowledge to supply this deficiency
by adequate dietetic means.
In my nutrition cell-food therapy for constitutional diseases, I have
followed consistently upon the lines of one of the greatest masters of
physiological chemistry that the world has known, who, in one of his
medical colloquies spoke as follows: "In order to thoroughly understand
any form of sickness or disease, so as to undertake the cure of the
same, it is first of all necessary to picture before one's mental
vision the ways and means of its inceptive formation, and by degrees to
trace its origin, step by step, before one is enabled to decide upon
adequate remedial measures conformable to the individual stages of the
same."
In this sense it has ever been my strenuous endeavor to fathom the
secret of the inception of constitutional diseases; but the entire
medical literature did not advance me further than pathological anatomy,
which informs us that the original cause of disease is a change in the
form of the cellular elements of different digestive organs,--in
explanation of which the customary technical terms are used, such as
"atrophy," "degeneration," "metamorphosis," etc. But, I reasoned with
myself, this surely cannot be seriously regarded as the origin of
disease!
The cause of the visible changing of the cellules must be sought in the
conditional interstitial substances which cause the invisible changes or
shiftings of the cellular forms, and which are scientifically termed
"_Changed nutritional conditions_."
By the aid of physiological chemistry I was successful in finding a
pathway to the centre of those mysterious occurrences of life.
And this was my course of reasoning: As the cellules, which are the
smallest individual elements of the human system, are only _products of
the blood_, and for their composition require the different chemical
substances in sufficient quantities, it is obviously necessary to fathom
what those chemical elements of the cellules may be, what form they take
in their mutual relation to the separate parts of the body, and in what
way they enter the organism.
In this manner I obtained a clear insight into the actions of the
so-called _mineral material_ in the organism, and it gradually became
obvious to me that everything is dependent upon the introduction of the
proper _sanguifying or nutritive_ mineral salts into the blood.
On this basis I founded the so-called "_organic nutritive cell-food
therapy_" (called the Dech-Manna therapy).
The point may be raised that the elements of the food we eat or drink
are heterogeneous and that the mineral matter in them is naturally and
casually acquired, according to the properties of the soil they grow in.
This is the general opinion, but not the fact. Our vegetables, grain,
meat and milk contain too much phosphoric acid and sal ammoniac, and
this is due to the use of artificial and animal fertilizers, while the
sulphurics are very often entirely missing.
Von Liebig says: When we consider that the sugar refineries of Waghausel
have an annual output in the market of 600,000 lbs. of potassic salt,
which is taken from the soil by the turnips of the Baden fields without
being replaced, and that there is cultivated in Northern Germany, year
by year, with the assistance of guano, an immense amount of potatoes
solely for the manufacture of spirits, and that these potato fields are
consequently robbed of the essential ingredients which potatoes should
contain, and as these elements are only partially replaced by the
insufficient component parts of the guano, we cannot be in doubt as to
the condition of these fields. The ground may be ever so rich in
ingredients, but it is exhaustible. The analysis of our blood indicates
that, in order to remain healthy, it must contain twice as many
sulphuric as phosphoric salts.
We talk glibly about a natural mode of living, a simple diet; but where
in our civilized countries can we find food that really serves healthy
sanguification?
The crux of the question is this: Why do we propose to _heal naturally_
and not also to _nourish naturally_?--The latter is, to say the least of
it, just as important as the former. But if both were practiced
conjointly, a beneficial object might be more quickly and surely gained.
It is true, we are taught to eat more vegetables than meat; that our
bread lacks the chief nourishing qualities, and so on; but we have
hitherto been in no wise informed as to the substances that are
relatively harmful or beneficial to us.
Why is it then that the science of the sanative power of nature, as well
as medical science, is still in doubt in regard to the relation that
must absolutely exist between the separate component parts of our
nourishment in order to obtain normal healthy sanguification?
_The reason is that the application of a real chemistry of life has
never been comprehended until now._
According to my judgment it is Von Liebig and Julius Hensel who showed
us the paths we are to take to the field of enquiry most important of
all; for without a sound body all the coveted acquisitions of modern
times are worthless to us.
The solution of the question how to prevent the degeneration of mankind
would be a simple and natural one, if history and proverb had not taught
us that as often as a new truth appears "the very oxen butt their horns
against it." They cannot help this, the "disposition" is natural; for
when Pythagoras had found the Master of Arts, Mathesios, he was so
overjoyed that he sacrificed one hundred oxen to the gods, and ever
since that time oxen are attacked with an hereditary fright whenever a
new truth appears,--the human ox is no exception.
Of what use to us, for instance, are the Roentgen X-rays in diseases of
the nerves when there is a generally diseased condition of the blood,
which, as we now know, is also the primary cause of lung, liver, stomach
and kidney troubles, cancer, scrofula, rheumatism, gout, obesity,
diabetes, and the rest?
In such cases _chemistry_ is necessary, in order to ascertain what
ingredients are missing in the blood; they cannot be detected
microscopically.
What blunders are continually committed in the treatment of nerve
diseases! No one considers the physiological law that _no parts of the
nerves can perform their functions lastingly and naturally unless they
are continually supplied with blood permeated_ with oxygen; and for this
purpose iron is most necessary as an adequate ingredient.
Physicians of the old-school do prescribe iron plentifully, but in
inorganic form; and because it is not organized it is indigestible and
is excreted. That is why the treatment of the diseases of the nerves,
which are so general and widespread, has been so unsuccessful.
It is not generally known that organized ammonium phosphate (Lecithin),
which is the mineral foundation of the Neurogen I prescribe, will
regenerate the nerve cells if consumed in the proper proportions. It is,
likewise, little known that although a person with diseased lungs be
placed under conditions where he may acquire an ample quantity of pure
air--that is oxygen--and may consume as much as four quarts of milk
daily, he will nevertheless most certainly be doomed to perish if his
food does not contain the elements of iron, lime and sulphur in
sufficient quantities.
These simple physiological laws have been ignored and medical men have
given us instead, the teachings of the school of bacteriology with its
pitiful illusions and its endless train of suffering and sorrow.
The testimony of many patients who have undergone treatment in the best
physical culture and so-called, natural healing establishments both in
Europe and America, serves to show that their success has been but
partial and one-sided; that is, they have abandoned their wrong albumen
theory, and their state of health has consequently improved. But,
practically, the treatment has failed; for complete and final
recovery--that is, full and correct nutrition and strengthening of the
nerves, has not been accomplished. Such failure is due to the fact that
certain essential constituents have not been supplied. These vital
constituents my organic nutritive cell-food therapy is designed to
provide.
What is lacking in the field of practical science, as authoritatively
voiced by the unprogressive faculty of today, is an absence of chemical
knowledge, especially on the part of the physician and the naturalist;
and, as likewise, the so-called scientific farmer upon whose assurances
we so naturally rely for the wholesome production of food is woefully
ignorant on matters of agricultural chemistry, the logical consequence
is that in all civilized countries great mistakes have been
unconsciously made and perpetuated, detrimental to the health of man and
beast alike and vitally prejudicial to the healthy sustenance of the
race.
_Where are the most vitally necessary mineral substances_ to be found in
nature?
It is an established fact that the fields, on which our nutritive salts
or cell-foods--our vital sustenance--are grown, were originally formed
from decayed primitive rock and _this primitive earth-crust matter is
composed of the same mineral substances that are found in normal blood_.
Therefore, our physical welfare and our capacity to resist disease is
clearly dependent upon the condition of our fields. We must always bear
this in mind--the old truism--that,
"AS A MAN EATS, SO IS HE."
_We are thus, directly, the products of our fields._
Wrongly fertilized, our fields must produce sickly vegetation, and this
in turn will produce a sickly race and disease in cattle.
Primitive rock consists of granite, porphyry, gneiss and basalt,
deposits which are still found upon the earth in immense quantities, and
in the same condition as thousands of years ago.
As a matter of fact, proposals have been made by noted scientists to
utilize pulverized rock of this kind as compost to _assist_ the fields
in a natural way, and so to restore them to their former producing
power, which would thus enable plants, animals, and man, alike, to
regain those substances indispensable to proper sanguification and
general growth.
The agricultural experiments performed with this stone dust fully
confirm this assumption.
One of the most important tasks of today is to indicate to the farmer
new ways and means of promoting and increasing growth for the food
supply of the nations.
Why, then, I imagine I can hear it asked, if this fact be true and
demonstrated, has it not been applied?
This question may be answered by another. Why does not the natural
system of Hygienic Dietetic Healing find general application in cases of
sickness, since its success is so obviously greater than even that
claimed by medical science?
To this vital question upon which so much of human life and happiness
depends, the weak and degrading answer must suffice; to the effect that
the last vestige of public respect for the sciences would be shaken, and
many wise theories would fail of their imaginary virtues and succumb,
before humanity's best birthright--the quality of healthy blood, kind
nature's ample gift to all,--could be wrested from the selfish hand of
tyranny and mankind enabled to secure from nature's willing hand the
succour that an Infinite Providence offers to disease.
A physician to whom I once explained my theories, heard me for some
minutes and then he said "Well, and so you want to create healthy blood
in this way?" "Yes, surely," I replied. "We have no use for that," he
callously exclaimed, "there would _be no business in that_."
_Hence Mankind must degenerate and Disease of all kinds ride rampant_
through the land, rather than upset the firmly rooted fallacies of the
past or foil the ghoul-like greed of a certain set of conscienceless
practitioners.
To the first of these the terse old Latin satire would apply:
"Homine imperito nunquam quidquam injustius
Qui, nisi quod ipse fecit, nihil rectum putat."
(Terentius.)
"Who is there so unreasoning as he, that learned drone,
Who reckons nothing perfect save what he himself hath known."
(M.B.)
To the second let an outraged public reply.
* * * * *
But meanwhile, as the hideous holocaust proceeds, the mills of God grind
slowly but mysteriously secure. The eternal law of equity is working
still; and from every evil there proceeds a good. Truth may be hidden in
the nether deeps, but some day the strained tension breaks, the balance
reversing brings it to the light. Its spirit works for ever, like a
ferment, hidden long, deep down in the Universal heart of things; for
with majestic, unimpressionable tread, sublimely the silent force of
human progress moves; slow and inevitably sure, the great indwelling
spirit of a vast eternal energy leading man ever upward to the True and
Best.
Against this axiom, alas, graceless and suicidal seems the unwisdom of
the world, in action against all who offer it salvation from its pain;
aye, though he be Christ or Commoner.
Rather be wrong in league with wealth and power than be right--and stand
alone. This is now the worldly wisdom of the sage.
Genius at grips with material and religious power, fares ill; as with
far-famed Copernicus, or "starry Galileo and his woes"; or, in a brave
woman's daring words:--"He, who dares to see a truth not recognized in
creeds, must die the death."
"A time of transition is a time of pain," is a truism well recognized by
all, and he who would press Regeneration upon the world--weak, weary and
unthinking as its people are--must run the gauntlet of the bitter
antagonism of the exploiting clans on this benighted sphere, though
later he may see, across the bourne that bounds life's earthly day, a
stately monument, perchance, by gratitude upreared, where pious crowds
pay tribute to his name.