Cancer
Let us see how our theories of the Unity of Disease and Cure apply
to cancer, the much-dreaded and rapidly increasing
disease which is considered absolutely incurable by both the laity
and the medical profession.
Allopathy says that the only possible remedy is "early operation."
Nevertheless, in the textbooks of medical science and in medical
schools and colleges it is taught that cancer and all other malignant
growths "always return after extirpation."
In fact, every student of medicine is expected to state this in
his examination papers as part of the definition of malignant tumors.
The great majority of medical practitioners hold, furthermore,
that cancer is a local disease. This is proved
by the fact that they apply local, symptomatic treatment.
In reality, however, the disease is constitutional.
Therefore, after removal of the growth by surgery, the electric
needle, x-rays, etc., the cancer or tumor is liable to break out
again in the same place or in several places.
The surest way to change insignificant, so-called "benign"
(not fatal to life) fibroid or fatty tumors into malignant cancer
or sarcoma is to operate upon them. Wens and warts are often made
malignant by surgical interference or other local irritation.
In my article titled "What We Know About Cancer" in
the August, 1909, issue of the Nature Cure Magazine I quote
from an article by Burton J. Hendrick, the cancer expert, published
in the July, 1909, number of McClure's Magazine, as follows:
"Clinical observation long ago established the fact that
any irritating interference with a cancer almost always stimulates
its growth. In his earliest experiments Dr. Loeb found that, by
merely drawing a silk thread through a dormant or slowly developing
tumor, he could transform it into a rapidly growing one. Cutting
with a knife produced the same effect. This accounts for the commonly
observed fact that, when extirpated cancers in human beings recur,
they increase in size much more rapidly than the original growth."
The late Dr. Senn, the great cancer surgeon, admitted these facts
in an interview given to Chicago press representatives upon his
return from his trip around the world in 1906. The press clipping
reads as follows.
"Avoid Beauty Doctors"
"Incidentally, Dr. Senn advises women who worry over their
disfigurement of moles about their heads and shoulders to have those
so-called beauty spots removed early in life, but he tells them
they should not go to beauty doctors to have the operations performed.
"He knows of hundreds of cases, he says, where cancer has
resulted from the irritation of moles by an electric needle, or
by constant picking it. 'Have a surgeon cut the mole out,' is his
advice, as it will hurt little and leave no scar."
To this we answered in our comments on the interview: "If
the little knife of the beauty doctor causes cancer, what about
the big knife of the surgeon?"
In point of fact, our office records show that a large percentage
of malignant growths are the direct result of surgical operations.
Cancer Not a Local, But a Constitutional Disease
For many years I have been teaching in my lectures and writings
as well as in private advice to patients that cancer is a constitutional
disease; that it is rooted in every drop of blood in the body; that
it is caused by the presence of certain disease taints or of food
and drug poisons in the system; that these poisons irritate and
stimulate the cells in a certain locality and cause their abnormal
multiplication or proliferation in the forms of benign or malignant
tumors.
I also claim that meat eating has much to do with the causation
of cancer.
Certain discoveries by Dr. H. C. Ross of London, England, confirm
my claims that cancer is not at all of local and accidental origin,
but that it is constitutional, and that it may
be caused by the gradual accumulation in the system of certain poisons
which form in decaying animal matter.
One day, while experimenting in his laboratory, Dr. Ross brought
white blood cells or leucocytes into contact with a certain aniline
dye on the slide of a microscope and noticed that they began at
once to multiply by cell division (proliferation). This was the
first time that cell proliferation had been observed by the human
eye while the cells were separated from their parent organism.
Dr. Ross realized that he had made an important discovery and
continued his experiments under the microscope in order to find
out what other substances would cause cell multiplication. He found
that certain xanthines and albuminoids derived from decaying animal
matter were the most effective for this purpose and induced more
rapid cell proliferation than any other substances he was able to
procure.
Dr. Ross obtained these "alkaloids of putrefaction,"
as he called them, from blood which had been allowed to putrefy
in a warm place. He found that albuminoids derived from decaying
vegetable substances did not have the same effect.
His discoveries led him to believe that the alkaloids of putrefaction
produced in a cut or wound by the decaying of dead blood and tissue
cells are the cause of the rapid multiplication of the neighboring
live cells, which gradually fill the wound with new tissues.
Thus, for the first time in the history of medicine, a rational
explanation of Nature's methods for repairing injured tissues has
been advanced.
Dr. Ross applied his theory still farther to the causation of
benign and malignant growths, reasoning that the alkaloids of putrefaction
produced in or attracted to a certain part of the body by some local
irritation are the cause of the rapid, abnormal multiplication of
cells in tumor formations.
In benign tumors the abnormal proliferation of cells takes place
slowly, and they do not tend to immediate and rapid decay and deterioration.
In malignant tumors the "wild" cells, created in immense
numbers, decay almost as rapidly as they are produced because the
abnormal growths are devoid of normal organization. They have no
established, regular blood and nerve supply, nor are they provided
with adequate venous drainage. They are, therefore, cut off from
the orderly life of the organism and doomed to rapid deterioration.
The processes of decay of these tumor materials liberate large
quantities of alkaloids of putrefaction, and these, in turn, stimulate
the normal, healthy cells with which they come in contact to rapid,
abnormal multiplication.
The malignant growth, therefore, feeds on its own products of
decay, aside from the systemic poisons and morbid materials already
contained in the blood and tissues of the body. These morbid products
permeate the entire system. They are carried by the circulation
of the blood into all parts of the body. This explains why cancer
is a constitutional disease, why it is, as I stated it, "rooted
in every drop of blood."
It also explains why cancer, or rather the disposition to its
development (diathesis), is hereditary.
If the original cancerous growth is removed by surgical intervention,
x-rays, the electric needle, cauterization or any other form of
local treatment, the poisonous materials (alkaloids of putrefaction)
in the blood will set up other foci of abnormal, wild proliferation.
Medical science has applied the term metastasis to such spreading
and reappearing of malignant tumors after extirpation.
Dr. Ross' findings throw an interesting light on the relationship
between cancer and meat eating. Is it not self-evident that in a
digestive tract filled most of the time with large masses of partially
digested and decaying animal food enormous quantities of alkaloids
of putrefaction are created? These are absorbed into the circulation,
attracted to any point where exists some form of local irritation
and then stimulate the cells in that locality to abnormal proliferation.
"But," it will be said, "meat eating alone does
not account for cancer, because vegetarians also succumb to the
disease." This is true. Alkaloids of putrefaction are constantly
produced in every animal and human body. They form in the excretions
of living cells and in the decaying protoplasm of dead cells, and
if the organs of elimination do not function properly, these morbid
materials will accumulate in the system.
Furthermore, the Diagnosis from the Eye furnishes positive proof
that Hahnemann's theory of psora is based on truth.
I quote from my article in the Nature Cure Magazine August, 1909:
"For a hundred years, Hahnemann's theory of psora has been
scouted and ridiculed by the allopathic schools and even among homeopaths
only a few have accepted it. Now we are confronted by the remarkable
fact that, at this late day, the Diagnosis from the Eye confirms
the observations and speculations of the great genius of homeopathy.
"After suppression of itchy eruptions, lice, crab lice, etc.,
spots ranging in color from light brown to dark red appear in different
places in the iris of the eye. These 'itch spots' indicate the organs
and localities of the body in which the suppressed disease taints
have concentrated.
"Such suppressions represent not only the scrofulous taints
which Nature was trying to eliminate by means of eruptions and parasites,
but, in addition to these, the poisons contained in the bodies of
the parasites and the drug poisons which were used to suppress or
kill them.
"It has been found that the bodies of the itch parasites (Sarcoptes
scabici ) contain an exceedingly poisonous substance which the homeopaths
call 'psorinum'. When these minute animals burrowing in and under
the skin are killed by poisonous drugs and antiseptics, the morbid
taints in their bodies are absorbed by the system and added to the
psoriatic poisons which Nature has been trying to eliminate.
"Thus, after suppression of itchy eruptions or parasites, the
organism is encumbered with three poisons instead of one: (1) the
hereditary or acquired scrofulous and psoriatic taints which the
cells of the body were throwing off into the blood stream and which
the blood was feeding to the parasites on the surface, (2) the morbid
substance contained in the bodies of the parasites, (3) the drug
poisons used as suppressants. (Such poisons may lie latent in the
system for many years before they become active and, in combination
with other disease taints and with food and drug poisons, create
the different forms of chronic destructive diseases.)
"These facts explain why the itch spots in different areas
of the iris of the eye so frequently indicate serious chronic, destructive
disease conditions in the parts and organs of the body corresponding
to these areas, why; for instance, in asthma and tuberculosis we
often find itch spots in the region representing the lungs or why
in cancer of the liver or of the stomach itch spots show in the
area of stomach or liver.
"That the itch or psoriatic taint is actually at the bottom
of the cancerous diathesis is attested by the fact that all cancer
patients whom we have treated and cured, with two exceptions (whose
healing crisis took the form of furunculosis), broke out with the
itch at one time or another during the natural treatment. In most
of these cases the bodies of the patients were inflamed with fiery
eruptions for days or even weeks at a time.
"Nature Cure allows these healing crises to run their course
unhindered and unchecked; in fact, we encourage them by air and
sun baths, cold-water treatment and homeopathic remedies."
What has been said verifies my claim that benign and malignant
tumors can be cured only by thorough purifying the system of all
morbid and poisonous taints and by building up the blood to a normal
basis, that is, by providing it with the proper elements of nutrition,
especially with the all-important organic salts.
That this is not merely theory, but actual fact has been proved
in the great cancer institutes in Europe and in this country. The
scientists in charge of these institutions report that they have
found a positive cure for cancer in animals. The treatment is as
follows:
The blood is pumped out of the body of a dog or other animal afflicted
with cancer and immediately afterwards the blood of a healthy animal
which has shown immunity to cancer inoculation is pumped into the
body of the diseased animal. It is reported that in nine cases out
of ten thus treated the cancerous growths disappear.
This treatment, of course, entails the death of the animal which
had to give up its life blood to cure the other and therefore this
method of cure is not adaptable to human beings. Even though an
individual, with suicidal intent, would be willing to give up his
life for a stipulated legacy to his relatives, the law would not
sanction the transaction.
However, we of the Nature Cure school say that it is not necessary
to pump the diseased blood out of the organism. In the natural methods
of living and of treatment we possess the means of purifying
and regenerating that blood while it is in the body. That
this is possible we have proved in a number of cancer cases.
It is obvious, however, that the earlier the disease is treated
by the natural methods, that is, before the breaking-down process
has far advanced, the easier and quicker will be the cure.
In the case of tumors, then, we see again verified the fundamental
law of Nature Cure: the Unity of Disease and of Treatment. We see
that the tumor is not of local, but of constitutional, origin, that
its period of incubation may extend over a lifetime or over several
generations.