_Anaemia, Chlorosis, Pernicious Anaemia. A. Scrofulosis. B.
Tuberculosis. C. Syphilis. D. Cancer._
To many who are unfamiliar with the results of modern research, and even
to many physicians of the old school of medicine, the family of disease
forms, as enumerated above, will look somewhat formidable. It comprises
the most disastrous plagues of mankind,--plagues for which cures have
been so frantically sought with such an ominous lack of results. It thus
constitutes one of the most practical revelations of the biological
method of research to positively proclaim that the common cause of these
manifestly so different constitutional diseases is one and the same.
That this fact was not recognized long ago is the reason they have been
pronounced incurable by so many physicians who, by poisoning symptoms,
established only a semblance of cure, until biological study led to the
recognition of the truth. It discovered that all of these constitutional
diseases are essentially blood defects and degenerations, resulting in
the destruction of the body tissue in general,--the necessary and
logical consequence of an imperfect condition of the blood.
So there is a ray of hope for humanity breaking through the night of
despair; that is, that its worst foes can be made to disappear in due
time by attack directed at their common root.
Not the knife of the surgeon, not the poison of the physician of the old
school, but simply harmonizing the individual life with the laws of
nature, will eradicate the cause.
The tremendous importance of the subject, the wide field to be covered,
makes it wellnigh impossible to treat the matter within the present
limits as extensively as it should be treated. A large part of my book,
"Dare To Be Healthy," of which this is but an abstract, deals
exhaustively with this topic. There the reader will find the most
interesting details in regard to the connection between these widely
divergent forms of disease. Their nature as blood-diseases carries with
it the fact that they are preeminently persistent through many
generations, so that today there is but a minority of human beings in
whom all tendency towards them is missing. So predisposition advances
with the continuity of environment, the one point at which, at least in
the case of the so-called white plague, or tuberculosis, an effort
against it has been made.
_The development towards the eradication of these evils has been
neutralised by the overwhelming importance science has given to the
theory of the bacillus as the incentive element of disease, while it is
only a product of the same.
The serum and anti-toxin therapy, which in its fight against the
bacillus, lost sight of the first task of medicine, that of fighting the
disease, was the logical consequence thereof._
The blood liquid which consists of the plasma and red and white blood
corpuscles, and is the carrier of the lymph to such parts of the body as
are not fed directly by the lymphatic vessels, such as the nerves, must
have a well defined chemical composition in order to fulfil its task.
What we call deficiency of blood is, with the exception of traumatically
inflicted losses, normal in quantity, to a great extent, but deficient
in quality. This consists in the chemical composition and the proportion
of nutritive salts in the serum, or in the relation and quality of the
oxygen carriers, that is, the red and white corpuscles, whose task it is
to remove foreign and disturbing elements from the blood.
It is obvious that deficiency in these elements may be of infinite
variety and of the most far reaching consequence for the various
tissues of the body, which receive their nourishment therefrom.
According to the nature of the effects which this variety in blood
deficiency (dysaemia) produces, we distinguish certain groups of
degenerations in the body, for which names were established at a time
when the unity of these forms of disease had not yet been recognized.
Thus, where dysaemia produces only general debility, we call it anaemia,
which may gradually become destructive and develop into "pernicious"
anaemia. When it affects girls with all kinds of disturbances in
menstruation, perverting their appetite and causing a greenish color of
the skin, it is called "chlorosis." If the symptoms are the destruction
of the lymphatic glands, so often noticed in children said to be
hereditarily affected, we speak of "Scrofulosis." When erroneous
composition of the blood, produced by poor living and unsanitary
environment, causes destruction of the lungs or of certain bones or
tissues, the name "tuberculosis" indicates that the decaying condition
of the affected tissues results in producing numerous tubercle bacilli.
In the many cases in which the destruction is even more widespread,
attacking the skin, bones, brain and other tissues or organs, and where
the decomposing poison, if not hereditary, has entered the blood by way
of sexual intercourse, the ominous word "syphilis" indicates the
resulting blood disease. When the weakened tissues, which are not
sufficiently fed with the elements they need for their normal existence,
cannot resist the developing power of the phosphates prevalent in the
blood, the much dreaded malign "cancer growths" appear.
The destructions wrought by dysaemia in these various forms, cannot be
fully described in this brief abstract. They can all be reduced,
arrested and forced to give place to healthy regeneration by the
hygienic-dietetic healing system. In each case, however, the possibility
of cure will depend entirely on the degree of decomposition which has
been reached. If the trouble is from hereditary tendency it is obviously
harder to fight, and a long regenerative treatment may be anticipated.
If attacked at an early stage, complete restoration to health is
possible in a comparatively short period.
The most careful and thorough investigation by the physician must
precede any treatment. It is his task to prescribe accordingly, with the
development of the disease and its gradual disappearance.
The simultaneous direct and indirect affection of various tissues,
especially of the lymphatics, will necessitate more complicated
application of the various nutritive compositions.