The Laws of Cure
This
brings us to the consideration of acute inflammatory and feverish
diseases. From what has been said, it follows that inflammation
and fever are not primary, but secondary, manifestations of disease.
There cannot arise any form of inflammatory disease in the system
unless there is present some enemy to health which Nature is endeavoring
to overcome and get rid of. On this fact in Nature is based what
I claim to be the fundamental Law of Cure.
"Give
me fever and I can cure every disease." Thus Hippocrates the
Father of Medicine, expressed the fundamental Law of Cure over two
thousand years ago. I have expressed this law in the following sentence:
"Every acute disease is the result of a cleansing and
healing effort of Nature."
This
law, when thoroughly understood and applied to the treatment of
diseases, will in time do for medical science what the discovery
of other natural laws has done for physics, astronomy, chemistry
and other exact sciences. It will transform the medical empiricism
and confusion of the past and present into an exact science by demonstrating
the unity of disease and treatment.
Applying
the law in a general way, it means that all acute diseases, from
a simple cold to measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox, pneumonia,
etc., represent Nature's efforts to repair injury or to remove from
the system some kind of morbid matter, virus, poison or microorganism
dangerous to health and life. In other words, acute diseases cannot
develop in a perfectly normal, healthy body living under conditions
favorable to human life. The question may be asked: "If acute
diseases represent Nature's healing efforts, why is it that people
die from them?" The answer to this is: the vitality may be
too low, the injury or morbid encumbrance too great or the treatment
may be inadequate or harmful, so that Nature loses the fight; still,
the acute disease represents an effort of Nature
to overcome the enemies to health and life and to reestablish normal,
healthy conditions.
It
is a curious fact that this fundamental principle of Nature Cure
and Law of Nature has been acknowledged and verified by medical
science. The most advanced works on pathology admit the constructive
and beneficial character of inflammation. However, when it comes
to the treatment of acute diseases, physicians
seem to forget entirely this basic principle of pathology, and treat
inflammation and fever as though they were, in themselves, inimical
and destructive to health and life.
From
this inconsistency in theory and practice arise all the errors of
allopathic medical treatment. Failure to understand this fundamental
Law of Cure accounts for all the confusion on the part of the exponents
of the different schools of healing sciences, and for the greater
part of human suffering.
The
Nature Cure philosophy never loses sight of the fundamental Law
of Cure. While allopathy regards acute disease conditions as in
themselves harmful and hostile to health and life, as something
to be cured (we should say suppressed) by drug or knife, the Nature
Cure school regards these forcible housecleanings as beneficial
and necessary, so long, at least, as people will continue to disregard
Nature's Laws. While, through its simple, natural methods of treatment,
Nature Cure easily modifies the course of inflammatory and feverish
processes and keeps them within safe limits, it never checks or
suppresses these acute reactions by poisonous drugs, serums, antiseptics,
surgical operations, suggestion or any other suppressive treatment.
Skin
eruptions, boils, ulcers, catarrhs, diarrheas, and all other forms
of inflammatory febrile disease conditions are indications that
there is something hostile to life and health in the organism which
Nature is trying to remove or overcome by these so-called "acute"
diseases. What, then, can be gained by suppressing them with poisonous
drugs and surgical operations? Such practice does not allow Nature
to carry on her work of cleansing and repair and to attain her ends.
The morbid matter which she endeavored to eliminate by acute reactions
is thrown back into the system. Worse than that, drug poisons are
added to disease poisons. Is it any wonder that fatal complications
arise, or that the acute condition is changed to chronic disease?
Why Does the Greater Part of Allopathic Materia
Medica Consist of Virulent Poisons?
The
statements made in the preceding pages are a severe indictment of
regular medical science, but they point out the difference in the
basic principles of the "Old School" of healing and those
of the Nature Cure philosophy.
The
fundamental Law of Cure quoted in this chapter explains why allopathic
medical science is in error, not in a few things only, but in most
things. The foundation, the orthodox conception of disease being
wrong, it follows that everything which is built thereon must be
wrong also.
No
matter how learned a man may be, if he begins a problem in arithmetic
with the proposition 2x2=5, he never will arrive at a correct solution
if he continue to figure into all eternity. Neither can allopathy
solve the problem of disease and cure as long as its fundamental
conception of disease is based on error.
The
fundamental law of cure explains also why the great majority of
allopathic prescriptions contain virulent poisons in some form or
another and why surgical operations are in high favor with the disciples
of the regular school.
The
answer of allopathy to the question, "Why do you give poisons?"
usually is, "Our materia medica contains poisons because drug
poison kills and eliminates disease poison." We, however, claim
that drug poisons merely serve to paralyze vital force, whereby
the deceptive results of allopathic treatment are obtained.
The
following will explain this more fully. We have learned that so-called
acute diseases are Nature's cleansing and healing efforts. All acute
reactions represent increased activity of vital force, resulting
in feverish and inflammatory conditions, accompanied by pain, redness,
swelling, high temperature, rapid pulse, catarrhal discharges, skin
eruptions, boils, ulcers, etc.
Allopathy
regards these violent activities of vital force as detrimental and
harmful in themselves. Anything which will inhibit the action of
vital force will, in allopathic parlance, cure (?) acute diseases.
As a matter of fact, nothing more effectively paralyzes vital force
and impairs the vital organs than poisonous drugs and the surgeon's
knife. These, therefore, must necessarily constitute the favorite
means of cure (?) of the regular school of medicine.
This
school mistakes effect for cause. It fails to see that
the local inflammation arising within the organism is not the disease,
but merely marks the locality and the method through which Nature
is trying her best to discharge the morbid encumbrances; that the
acute reaction is local, but that its causes or feeders are always
constitutional and must be treated constitutionally. When, under
the influence of rational, natural treatment, the poisonous irritants
are eliminated from blood and tissues, the local symptoms take care
of themselves; it does not matter whether they manifest as pimple
or cancer, as a simple cold or as consumption.
The Law of Dual Effect
Everywhere
in Nature rules the great Law of Action and Reaction. All life sways
back and forth between giving and receiving, between action and
reaction. The very breath of life mysteriously comes and goes in
rhythmical flow. So also heaves and falls in ebb and tide the bosom
of Mother Earth.
In
some of its aspects, this law is called the Law of Compensation,
or the Law of Dual Effect. On its action depends the preservation
of energy.
The
Great Master expressed the ethical application of this law when
he said:
"Give,
and it shall be given unto you. . . . For with the same measure
that ye mete it shall be measured to you again."--Luke 6:38.
In
the realms of physical nature, giving and receiving, action and
reaction balance each other mechanically and automatically. What
we gain in power we lose in speed or volume, and vice versa. This
makes it possible for the mechanic, the scientist and the astronomer
to predict with mathematical precision for ages in advance the results
of certain activities in Nature.
The
great Law of Dual Effect forms the foundation of the healing sciences.
It is related to and governs every phenomenon of health, disease
and cure. When I formulated the fundamental Law of Cure in the words,
"Every acute disease is the result of a healing effort
of Nature," this was but another expression of the
great Law of Action and Reaction. What we commonly call crisis,
acute reaction or acute disease is in reality Nature's attempt to
establish health.
Applied
to the physical activity of the body, the Law of Com-pensation may
be expressed as follows: "Every agent affecting the human organism
produces two effects: a first, apparent, temporary effect, and a
second, lasting effect. The secondary, lasting effect is always
contrary to the primary, transient effect."
For
instance: The first and temporary effect of cold water applied to
the skin consists in sending the blood to the interior; but in order
to compensate for the local depletion, Nature responds by sending
greater quantities of blood back to the surface, resulting in increased
warmth and better surface circulation.
The
first effect of a hot bath is to draw the blood to the surface;
but the secondary effect sends the blood back to the interior, leaving
the surface bloodless and chilled.
Stimulants,
as we shall see later on, produce their deceptive effects by burning
up the reserve stores of vital energy in the organism. This is inevitably
followed by weakness and exhaustion in exact proportion to the previous
excitation.
The
primary effect of relaxation and sleep is weakness, numbness and
death-like stupor; the secondary effect, however, is an increase
of vitality.
The
Law of Dual Effect governs all drug action. The first,
temporary, violent effect of poisonous drugs, when given in physiological
doses, is usually due to Nature's efforts to overcome and eliminate
these substances. The secondary, lasting effect is due to the retention
of the drug poisons in the system and their action on the organism.
In
theory and practice, allopathy considers the first effect only and
ignores the lasting aftereffects of drugs and surgical operations.
It administers remedies whose first effect is contrary
to the disease condition. Therefore, in accordance with the Law
of Action and Reaction, the secondary, lasting effect of such remedies
must be similar to or like the disease condition.
Common,
everyday experience should teach us that this is so, for laxatives
and cathartics always tend to produce chronic constipation.
The
secondary effect of stimulants and tonics of any kind is increased
weakness, and their continued use often results in complete exhaustion
and paralysis of mental and physical powers.
Headache
powders, pain killers, opiates, sedatives and hypnotics may paralyze
brain and nerves into temporary insensibility; but, if due to constitutional
causes, the pain, nervousness and insomnia will always return with
redoubled force. If taken habitually, these agents invariably tend
to create heart disease and paralysis, and ultimately develop the
patient into a dope fiend.
Cold
and catarrh cures (?), such as quinine, coal-tar products, etc.,
suppress Nature's efforts to eliminate waste and morbid matter through
the mucous linings of the respiratory tract, and drive the disease
matter back into the lungs, thus breeding pneumonia, chronic catarrhs,
asthma and consumption.
Mercury,
iodine and all other alteratives, by suppression of external elimination,
create internal chronic diseases of the most dreadful
types, such as locomotor ataxy, paresis, etc.
So
the recital might be continued all through orthodox materia medica.
Each drug breeds new disease symptoms which are in their turn cured
(?) by other poisons, until the insane asylum or merciful death
rings down the curtain on the tragedy of a ruined life.
The
teaching and practice of homeopathy, as explained in Chapter Twenty-Six,
is fully in harmony with the Law of Action and Reaction. Acting
upon the basic principle of homeopathy: Similia similibus curantur,
or like cures like, it administers remedies whose first, temporary
effect is similar to the disease conditions. In accordance with
the Law of Dual Effect, then, the secondary effect of these remedies
must be contrary to the disease conditions, that
is, curative.