The Treatment of Chronic Diseases
Let
us now consider the best methods for producing the healing crises
referred to in the preceding chapters, that is, the best methods
for treating the chronic forms of disease.
We
found that acute diseases represent Nature's efforts
to purify and regenerate the human organism by means of inflammatory
feverish processes, while in the chronic condition the system is
not capable of arousing itself to such acute reactions. The treatment
must differ accordingly.
The
Nature Cure treatment of acute diseases tends to relieve inner congestion,
to facilitate the radiation of heat and the elimination of morbid
matter and systemic poisons from the body. In this way it eases
and palliates the feverish processes and keeps them below the danger
point without in any way checking or suppressing them.
While
our methods of treating acute diseases have a sedative
effect, our treatment of chronic diseases is calculated to stimulate,
that is, to arouse the sluggish organism to greater activity in
order to produce the acute inflammatory reactions or healing crises.
If
the unity of diseases as demonstrated in a previous chapter is a
fact in Nature, it must be possible to
treat all chronic as well as all acute diseases by uniform methods,
and the natural remedies must correspond to the primary causes of
disease.
The
Natural Methods of Treatment
Natural
methods of treatment may be divided into two groups:
1.Those
which the patient can apply himself, provided he has been properly
instructed in their correct selection, combination and application.
2.Those
which must be applied by a competent Nature Cure physician.
To
the first group belong diet (fasting), bathing
and other water applications, correct breathing,
general physical exercise, corrective gymnastics, air and
sun baths, mental therapeutics.
To
the second group belong special applications of the methods mentioned
under group 1, and in addition to these hydropathy, massage,
manipulation, medical treatment in the form of homeopathic
medicines, nonpoisonous herb extracts and the vitochemical remedies,
and most important of all, the right management of healing
crises which develop under the natural treatment of chronic
diseases.
Diagnosis
Correct
diagnosis is the first essential to rational treatment.
Every honest physician admits that the "Old School" methods
of diagnosis are, to say the least, unsatisfactory and uncertain,
especially in ascertaining the underlying causes of disease.
Therefore
we should welcome any and all methods of diagnosis which throw more
light on the causes and the nature of disease conditions in the
human organism.
Two
valuable additions to diagnostic science are now offered
to us in osteopathy and in the Diagnosis
from the Eye.
Osteopathy
furnishes valuable information concerning the connection between
disease conditions and misplacements of vertebrae and other bony
structures, contractions or abnormal relaxation of muscles and ligaments,
and inflammation of nerves and nerve centers.
The
Diagnosis from the Eye is as yet a new science, and much remains
to be discovered and to be better explained. We do not claim that
Nature's records in the eye disclose all the details of pathological
tendencies and changes, but they do reveal many disease conditions,
hereditary and acquired, that cannot be ascertained by any other
methods of diagnosis.
Omitting
consideration of everything that is at present speculative and uncertain,
we are justified in making the following statements:
1.
The eye is not only, as the ancients said, "the mirror of the
soul," but it also reveals abnormal conditions and changes
in every part and organ of the body.
2. Every organ and part of the body is represented in the iris of
the eye in a well-defined area.
3. The iris of the eye contains an immense number of minute nerve
filaments, which through the optic nerves, the optic brain centers
and the spinal cord are connected with and receive impressions from
every nerve in the body.
4. The nerve filaments, muscle fibers and minute blood vessels in
the different areas of the iris reproduce the changing conditions
in the corresponding parts or organs.
5. By means of various marks, signs, abnormal colors and discolorations
in the iris, Nature reveals transmitted disease taints and hereditary
lesions.
6. Nature also makes known, by signs, marks and discolorations,
acute and chronic inflammatory or catarrhal conditions, local lesions,
destruction of tissues, various drug poisons and changes in structures
and tissues caused by accidental injury or by surgical mutilations.
7. The Diagnosis from the Eye positively confirms Hahnemann's theory
that all acute diseases have a constitutional background of hereditary
or acquired disease taints.
8. (This science enables the diagnostician to ascertain, from the
appearance of the iris alone, the patient's inherited or acquired
tendencies toward health and toward disease, his condition in general
and the state of every organin particular. Reading Nature's records
in the eye, he can predict the different healing crises through
which the patient will have to pass on the road to health.
9. The eye reveals dangerous changes in vital parts and organs from
their inception, thus enabling the patient to avert any threatening
disease by natural living and natural methods of treatment.
10. By changes in the iris, the gradual purification of the system,
the elimination of morbid matter and poisons, and the readjustment
of the organism to normal conditions under the regenerating influences
of natural living and treatment are faithfully recorded.
This
interesting subject will be treated more fully in a separate volume
(Iridiagnosis, published in 1919 by Dr. Lindlahr). In this
connection I shall confine myself to relating briefly the story
of the discovery of this valuable science.
The Story of a Great Discovery
Dr.
Von Peckzely, of Budapest, Hungary, discovered Nature's records
in the eye, quite by accident, when a boy ten years of age.
Playing
one day in the garden at his home, he caught an owl. While struggling
with the bird, he broke one of its limbs. Gazing straight into the
owl's large, bright eyes, he noticed, at the moment when
the bone snapped, the appearance of a black spot in the lower central
region of the iris, which area he later found to correspond
to the location of the broken leg.
The
boy put a splint on the broken limb and kept the owl as a pet. As
the fracture healed, he noticed that the black spot in the iris
became overdrawn with a white film and surrounded by a white border
(denoting the formation of scar tissues in the broken bone).
This
incident made a lasting impression on the mind of the future doctor.
It often recurred to him in later years. From further observations
he gained the conviction that abnormal physical conditions are portrayed
in the eyes.
As
a student, Von Peckzely became involved in the revolutionary movement
of 1848 and was put in prison as an agitator and ringleader. During
his confinement, he had plenty of time and leisure to pursue his
favorite theory and he became more and more convinced of the importance
of his discovery. After his release, he entered upon the study of
medicine, in order to develop his important discoveries and to confirm
them more fully in the operating and dissecting rooms. He had himself
enrolled as an interne in the surgical wards of the college hospital.
Here he had ample opportunity to observe the eyes of patients before
and after accidents and operations, and in that manner he was enabled
to elaborate the first accurate Chart of the Eye.
Since
Von Peckzely gave his discoveries to the world, many well-known
scientists and conscientious observers in Austria, Germany and Sweden
have devoted their lives to the perfection of this wonderful science.
The regular schools of medicine, as a body, have ignored and will
ignore it, because it discloses the fallacy of their favorite theories
and practices, and because it reveals unmistakably the direful results
of chronic drug poisoning and ill-advised operations.
In
our work we do not confine ourselves to the Diagnosis from
the Eye, but combine with it the diagnostic methods (physical
diagnosis) of the regular school of medicine and the osteopathic
diagnosis of bony lesions, as well as microscopic examinations and
chemical analyses.
Thus
any one of these methods supplements and verifies all the others.
In this way only is it possible to arrive at a thorough and definite
understanding of the patient's condition.
The
"Key to the Diagnosis from the Eye" outlines with precision
the areas of the iris as they correspond to the various parts of
the body. This colored chart of the iris has been prepared by Dr.
H. Lahn, author of "The Diagnosis From the Eye," and can
be obtained from the Kosmos Publishing Co., 2112 Sherman Ave., Evanston,
Ill.