Isabella Valancy Crawford - "Old Spookses' Pass"

Amy Prentice - "Mouser Cats' Story"

Herman Melville - "Moby Dick; or The Whale"

E. P. Roe - "Miss Lou"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Nature Cure

H >> Henry Lindlahr >> Nature Cure




These established facts of greatly impaired longevity and universal
abnormality of the human race would of themselves indicate that
there is something radically wrong somewhere in the life habits of
man, and that there is ample reason for the great health-reform
movement which was started about the middle of the last century by
the pioneers of Nature Cure in Germany, and which has since swept,
under many different forms and guises, all portions of the civilized
world.

When people in general grow better acquainted with the laws
underlying prenatal and postnatal child culture, natural living and
the natural treatment of diseases, human beings will approach much
more closely the normal in health, strength, beauty and longevity.
Then will arise a true aristocracy, not of morbid, venous blue
blood, but pulsating with the rich red blood of health.

However, to reach this ideal of perfect physical, mental and moral
health, succeeding generations will have to adhere to the natural
ways of living and of treating their ailments. It cannot be attained
by the present generation. The enthusiasts who claim that they can,
by their particular methods, achieve perfect health and live the
full term of human life, are destined to disappointment. We are so
handicapped by the mistakes of the past that the best which most of
us adults can do is to patch up, to attain a reasonable measure of
health and to approach somewhat nearer Nature's full allotment of
life.

Wild animals living in freedom retain their full vigor unimpaired
almost to the end of life. Hunters report that among the great herds
of buffalo, elk and deer, the oldest bucks are the rulers and
maintain their sovereignty over the younger males of the herd solely
by reason of their superior strength and prowess. Premature old age,
among human beings, as indicated by the early decay of physical and
mental powers, is brought on solely by their violation of Nature's
Laws in almost all the ordinary habits of life.

Health Positive--Disease Negative

The freer the inflow of life force into the organism, the greater
the vitality, the more there is of strength, of positive resisting
and recuperating power.

In the book~ Harmonics of Evolution~ we are told that at the very
foundation of the manifestation of life lies the principle of
polarity, which expresses itself in the duality and unity of
positive and negative affinity. The swaying to and fro of the
positive and the negative, the desire to balance incomplete
polarity, constitutes the very ebb and flow of life.

Disease is disturbed polarity. Exaggerated positive or negative
conditions, whether physical, mental, moral or spiritual, tend to
disease on the respective planes of being. Foods, medicines,
suggestion and all the other different methods of therapeutic
treatment exert on the individual subjected to them either a
positive or a negative influence. It is, therefore, of the greatest
importance that the physician and every one who wishes to live and
work in harmony with Nature's Laws should understand this
all-important question of magnetic polarity.

Lowered vitality means lowered, slower and coarser vibration, and
this results in lowered resistance to the accumulation of morbid
matter, poisons, disease taints, germs and parasites. This is what
we designate ordinarily as the negative condition.

Let us see whether we can explain this more fully by a homely but
practical illustration: A great many of my readers have probably
seen in operation in the summer amusement parks the "human
roulette." This contrivance consists of a large wheel,
board-covered, somewhat raised in the center, and sloping towards
the circumference. The wheel rotates horizontally, evenly with the
floor or ground. The merrymakers pay their nickels for the privilege
of throwing themselves flat down on the wheel and attempting to
cling to it while it rotates with increasing swiftness. While the
wheel moves slowly, it is easy enough to cling to it; but the faster
it revolves, the more strongly the centrifugal force tends to throw
off the human flies who try to stick to it.

The increasing repelling power of the accelerated motion of the
wheel may serve as an illustration of that which we call vigorous
vibration, good vitality, natural immunity or recuperative power.
This is the positive condition.

The more intense the action of the life force, the more rapid and
vigorous are the vibratory activities of the atoms and molecules in
the cells, and of the cells in the organs and tissues of the body.
The more rapid and vigorous this vibratory activity, the more
powerful is the repulsion and expulsion of morbid matter, poisons
and germs of disease which try to encumber or destroy the organism.

Health and Disease Resident in the Cell

We must not forget that health or disease, in the final analysis, is
resident in the cell. Though a minute, microscopic organism, the
cell is an independent living being, which is born, grows, eats,
drinks, throws off waste matter, multiplies, ages and dies, just
like man, the large cell. If the individual cell is well, man, the
complex cell, is well also, and vice versa. From this it is apparent
that in all our considerations of the processes of health, disease
and cure, we have to deal primarily with the individual cell.

The vibratory activity of the cell may be lowered through the
decline of vitality brought about in a natural way by advancing age,
or in an artificial way through wrong habits of living, wrong
thinking and feeling, overwork, unnatural stimulation and excesses
of various kinds.

On the other hand, the inflow of vital force into the cells may be
obstructed and their vibratory activity lowered by the accumulation
of waste and morbid matter in the tissues, blood vessels and nerve
channels of the body. Such clogging will interfere with the inflow
of life force and with the free and harmonious vibration of the
cells and organs of the body as surely as dust in a watch will
interfere with the normal action and vibration of its wheels and
balances.

From this it is evident that negative conditions may be brought
about not only by hyperrefinement of the physical organism, but also
by clogging it with waste and morbid matter which interfere with the
inflow and distribution of the vital force. It also becomes apparent
that in such cases the Nature Cure methods of eliminative treatment,
such as pure food diet, hydrotherapy, massage, chiropractic,
osteopathy, etc., are valuable means of removing these obstructions
and promoting the inflow and free circulation of the positive
electric and magnetic life currents

Abnormal Composition of Blood and Lymph

As one of the primary causes of disease, we cited abnormal
composition of blood and lymph. The human organism is made up of a
certain number of elements in well-defined proportions. Chem-istry
has discovered, so far, about seventeen of these elements in
appreciable quantities and has ascertained their functions in the
economy of the body. These seventeen elements must be present in the
right proportions in order to insure normal texture, structure and
functioning of the component parts and organs of the body.

The cells and organs receive their nourishment from the blood and
lymph currents. Therefore, these must contain all the elements
needed by the organism in the right proportions, and this, of
course, depends upon the character and the combination of the food
supply.

Every disease arising in the human organism from internal causes is
accompanied by a deficiency in blood and tissues of certain
important mineral elements [organic salts]. Undoubtedly, the
majority of these diseases are caused by an unbalanced diet, or by
food and drink poisoning. Wrong food combinations, on the one hand,
create an overabundance of waste and morbid matter in the system
and, on the other hand, fail to supply the positive mineral elements
or organic salts on which depends the elimination of waste and
systemic poisons from the body.

The great problem of natural dietetics and of natural medical
treatment is, therefore, how to restore and maintain the positivity
of the blood and of the organism as a whole through providing in
food, drink and medicine an abundant supply of the positive mineral
salts in organic form.

Accumulation of Morbid Matter and Poisons

This is the third of the primary causes of disease. We have learned
how lowered vitality and the abnormal composition of thevital fluids
favor the retention of systemic poisons in the body. If, in addition
to this, food and drink contain too much of the waste-producing
carbohydrates, hydrocarbons and proteins, and not enough of the
eliminating positive mineral salts then waste and morbid materials
are bound to accumulate in the system and this results in the
clogging of the tissues with acid precipitates and earthy deposits.

Such accumulation of waste and morbid matter in blood and tissues
creates the great majority of all diseases arising within the human
organism. This will be explained fully in the following chapters
which deal with the causation of acute and chronic disease.

More harmful and dangerous, and more difficult to eliminate than the
different kinds of systemic poisons, that is, those which have
originated within the body, are the drug poisons, especially when
they are administered in the inorganic mineral form. Health is
dependent upon an abundant supply of life force, upon the
unobstructed, normal circulation of the vital fluids and upon
perfect oxygenation and combustion. Anything that interferes with
these essentials causes disease; anything that promotes them
establishes health. Nothing so interferes with the inflow of the
life force, with free and normal circulation of blood and lymph and
with the oxygenation and combustion of food materials and systemic
waste as the accumulation of morbid matter and poisons in the
tissues of the body.

This I have endeavored to explain more fully in connection with
lowered vitality. Let us now see how disease and health are affected
by mental and emotional conditions.

Mental and Emotional Influences

Our mental and emotional conditions exert a most powerful influence
upon the inflow and distribution of vital force. The author of The
Great Work [~The Great Work: The Constructive Principle of Nature in
Individual Life, ~by John Emmett Richardson {1853-1935},
Indio-American Book Company, Chicago, IL. 1907.] has described most
graphically in the chapter on Self-Control how fear, worry, anxiety
and all kindred emotions create in the system conditions similar to
those of freezing; how these destructive vibrations congeal the
tissues, clog the channels of life and paralyze the vital functions.
He shows how the emotional conditions of impatience, irritability,
anger, etc., have a heating, corroding effect upon the tissues of
the body.

In like manner, all other destructive emotional vibrations ob-struct
the inflow and normal distribution of the life forces in and through
the organism, while on the other hand the constructive emotions of
faith, hope, cheerfulness, happiness and love exert a relaxing,
harmonizing influence upon the tissues, blood vessels and nerve
channels of the body, thus opening wide the floodgates of the life
forces, and raising the discords of weakness, disease and discontent
to the harmonics of buoyant health and happiness.

Let us see just how mind controls matter and how it affects the
changing conditions of the physical body. Life manifests through
vibration. It acts on the mass by acting through its minutest
par-ticles. Changes in the physical body are wrought by vibratory
changes in atoms, molecules and cells. Health is satisfied polarity,
that is, the balancing of the positive and negative elements in
harmonious vibration. Anything that interferes with the free,
vigor-ous and harmonious vibration of the minute parts and particles
composing the human organism tends to disturb polarity and natural
affinity, thus causing discord or disease.

When we fully realize these facts we shall not stand so much in awe
of our physical bodies. In the past we have been thinking of the
body as a solid and imponderable mass difficult to control and to
change. This conception left us in a condition of utter helplessness
and hopelessness in the presence of weakness and disease.

We now think of the body as composed of minute corpuscles rotating
around one another within the atom at relatively immense distances.
We know that in similar manner the atoms vibrate in the molecule,
the molecules in the cell, the cells in the organ and the organs in
the body; the whole capable of being changed by a change in the
vibrations of its particles.

Thus the erstwhile solid physical mass appears plastic and fluidic,
readily swayed and changed by the vibratory harmonies or discords of
thoughts and emotions as well as by foods, medicines and therapeutic
treatment.

Under the old conception the mind fell readily under the control of
the body and became the abject slave of its physical conditions,
swayed by fear and apprehension under every sensation of physical
weakness, discomfort or pain. The servants lorded it with a high
hand over the master of the house, and the result was chaos. Under
the new conception, control is placed where it belongs. It is
assumed by the real master of the house, the Soul-Man, and the
servants, the physical members of the body, remain obedient to his
bidding.

This is the new man, the ideal progeny of a new and higher
philosophy. Understanding the structure of the body, the laws of its
being and the operation of the life elements within it, the superman
retains perfect poise and confidence under the most trying
circumstances. Animated by an abounding faith in the supremacy of
the healing forces within him and sustained by the power of his
sovereign will, he governs his body as perfectly as the artist
controls his violin and attunes its vibrations to Nature's harmonies
of health and happiness.



Chapter V


The Unity of Acute Diseases


In the last chapter I endeavored to explain the three primary causes
of disease, namely: (1) Lowered Vitality, (2) Abnormal Composition
of Blood and Lymph, (3) Accumulation of Waste, Morbid Matter, and
Poisons in the System.

We shall now consider some of the secondary manifestations resulting
from these primary causes. Consulting the table on page 18 (Chapter
2, internet version), we find mentioned as the first one of the
secondary causes or manifestations of disease, "Hereditary and
Constitutional Taints."

On first impression, it might be thought that heredity is a primary
cause of disease; but on further consideration it becomes apparent
that it is an effect and not a primary cause. If the parents possess
good vitality and pure, normal blood and tissues, and if they apply
in the prenatal and postnatal treatment of the child the necessary
insight and foresight, there cannot be disease heredity. In order to
create abnormal hereditary tendencies, the parents, or earlier
ancestors, must have ignorantly or wantonly violated Nature's Laws,
such violation resulting in lowered vitality and in deterioration of
blood and tissues.

The female and male germinal cells unite and form the primitive
reproductive cell--the prototype of marriage. The human body with
its millions of cells and cell colonies is developed by the
multiplication, with gradual differentiation, of the reproductive
cell. Its abnormalities of structure, of cell materials and of
functional tendencies are reproduced just as surely as its normal
constituents. Herein lies the simple explanation of heredity which
is proved to be an actual fact, not only by common experience and
scientific observation but also in a more definite way by Nature's
records in the iris of the eye.

The iris of the newborn child reveals in its diagnostic details not
only, in a general way, hereditary taints, lowered resistance, and
deterioration of vital fluids, but frequently special weakness and
deterioration in those organs which were weak or diseased in the
parents. Under the conventional (unnatural) management of the
infant, these hereditary tendencies to weakness and disease and
their corresponding signs in the iris become more and more
pronounced, proceeding through the various stages of incumbrance
from acute, infantile diseases through chronic catarrhal conditions
to the final destructive stages.

In the face of the well-established facts of disease heredity we
have, however, this consolation: If the child be treated in
accordance with the teachings of Nature Cure philosophy, the
abnormal hereditary encumbrances and tendencies can be overcome and
eliminated within a few years. If we place the infant organism under
the right conditions of living and of treatment, in harmony with the
laws of its being, the Life Principle within will approach ever
nearer to the establishment of the perfect type. Hundreds of "Nature
Cure" babies all over this country are living proofs of this
gladsome message to all those who have assumed or intend to assume
the responsibilities of parenthood.

Natural Immunity

Under Division II of "Secondary Causes or Manifestations of Disease"
we find mentioned germs, bacteria, parasites, inflammations, fevers,
skin eruptions, chronic sinus discharges, ulcers, etc.

Modern medical science is built up upon the germ theory of disease
and treatment. Since the microscope has revealed the presence and
seemingly entirely pernicious activity of certain microorganisms in
connection with certain diseases, it has been assumed that bacteria
are the direct, primary causes of most diseases. Therefore, the
slogan now is: "Kill the bacteria (by poisonous antiseptics, serums
and antitoxins) and you will cure the disease."

The Nature Cure philosophy takes a different view of the problem.
Germs cannot be the cause of disease, because disease germs are also
found in healthy bodies. The real cause must be something else. We
claim that it is the waste and morbid matter in the system which
afford the microorganisms of disease the opportunity to breed and
multiply.

We regard microorganisms as secondary manifestations of disease, and
maintain that bacteria and parasites live, thrive and multiply to
the danger point in a weakened and diseased organism only. If it
were not so, the human family would be extinct within a few months'
time.

The fear instilled by the bacterial theory of disease is frequently
more destructive than the microorganisms themselves. We have had
under observation and treatment a number of insane patients whose
peculiar delusion or monomania was an exaggerated fear of germs, a
genuine bacteriophobia.

Keep yourself clean and vigorous from within, and you cannot be
affected by disease taints and germs from without.

Bacteria are practically omnipresent. We absorb them in food and
drink, we inhale them in the air we breathe. Our bodies are
literally alive with them. The last stages of the digestive
processes depend upon the activity of millions of bacteria in the
intestinal tract.

The proper thing to do, therefore, is not to try and kill the germs,
but to remove the morbid matter and disease taints in which they
live.

Instead of concentrating its energies upon killing the germs, whose
presence we cannot escape, Nature Cure endeavors to in-vigorate the
system, to build up blood and lymph on a normal basis and to purify
the tissues of their morbid encumbrances in such a way as to
establish natural immunity to destructive germ activity. Everything
that tends to accomplish this without injuring the system by
poisonous drugs or surgical operations is good Nature Cure
treatment.

To adopt the germ-killing process without purifying and invigorating
the organism would be like trying to keep a house free from fungi
and vermin by sprinkling it daily with carbolic acid and other germ
killers, instead of keeping it pure and sweet by flooding it with
fresh air and sunshine and applying freely and vigorously broom,
brush and plenty of soap and water. Instead of purifying it, the
antiseptics and germ killers would only add to the filth in the
house.

All bacteriologists are unanimous in declaring that the various
disease germs are found not only in the bodies of the sick, but also
in seemingly healthy persons.

A celebrated French bacteriologist reports that in the mouth of a
healthy infant, two months old, he found almost all the disease
germs known to medical science. Only lately, a celebrated physician,
appointed by the French government to investigate the causes of
tuberculosis, declared before a meeting of the International
Tuberculosis Congress in Rome that he found the bacilli of
tuberculosis in ninety-five percent of all the school children he
had examined.

Dr. Osler, one of the greatest living medical authorities, mentions
repeatedly in his works that the bacilli of diphtheria, pneumonia
and of many other virulent diseases are found in the bodies of
healthy persons.

The inability of bacteria, by themselves, to create diseases is
further confirmed by the well-known facts of natural immunity to
specific infection or contagion. All mankind is more or less
affected by hereditary and acquired disease taints, morbid
encumbrances and drug poisoning, resulting from age-long violation
of Nature's Laws and from the suppression of acute diseases; but
even under the almost universal present conditions of lowered
vitality, morbid heredity and physical and mental degeneration it is
found that under identical conditions of exposure to drafts or
infection, a certain percentage of individuals only will take the
cold or catch the disease. The fact of natural immunity is
constantly confirmed by common experience as well as in the clinics
and laboratories of our medical schools and research institutes. Of
a specific number of mice or rabbits inoculated with particles of
cancer, only a small percentage develops the malignant growth and
succumbs to its ravages.

The development of infectious and contagious diseases necessitates a
certain predisposition, or, as medical science calls it, "disease
diathesis." This predisposition to infection and contagion consists
in the primary causes of disease, which we have designated as
lowered vitality, abnormal composition of blood and lymph, and the
accumulation of waste, morbid matter and poisons in the system.

Bacteria: Secondary, Not Primary,

Manifestations of Disease

In a previous chapter we learned how lowered vitality weakens the
resistance of the system to the attacks and inroads of disease germs
and poisons. The growth and multiplication of microorganisms depend
furthermore upon a congenial, morbid soil. Just as the ordinary
yeast germ multiplies in a sugar solution only, so the various
microorganisms of disease thrive and multiply to the danger point
only in their own peculiar and congenial kind of morbid matter.
Thus, the typhoid fever bacillus thrives in a certain kind of effete
matter which accumulates in the intestines; the pneumonia bacilli
flourish best in the catarrhal secretions of the lungs, and
meningitis bacilli in the diseased meninges of the brain and spinal
cord.

Dr. Pettenkofer, a celebrated physician and professor of the
University of Vienna, also arrived at the conclusion that bacteria,
by themselves, cannot create disease, and for years he defended his
opinion from the lecture platform and in his writings against the
practically solid phalanx of the medical profession. One day he
backed his theory by a practical test. While instructing his class
in the bacteriological laboratory of the university, he picked up a
glass which contained millions of live cholera germs and swallowed
its contents before the eyes of the students. The seemingly
dangerous experiment was followed only by a slight nausea. Lately I
have heard repeatedly of persons in this country who subjected
themselves in similar manner to infection, inoculation and contagion
with the most virulent kinds of bacteria and disease taints without
developing the corresponding diseases.

A few years ago Dr. Rodermund, a physician in the State of
Wisconsin, created a sensation all over this country when he smeared
his body with the exudate of smallpox sores in order to demonstrate
to his medical colleagues that a healthy body could not be infected
with the disease. He was arrested and quarantined in jail, but not
before he had come in contact with many people. Neither he nor
anyone else exposed by him developed smallpox.

During the ten years that I have been connected with sanitarium
work, my workers and myself, in giving the various forms of
manipulative treatment, have handled intimately thousands of cases
of infectious and contagious diseases, and I do not remember a
single instance where any one of us was in the least affected by
such contact. Ordinary cleanliness, good vitality, clean blood and
tissues, the organs of elimination in good, active condition and,
last but not least, a positive, fearless attitude of mind will
practically establish natural immunity to the inroads and ravages of
bacteria and disease taints. If infection takes place, the organism
reacts to it through inflammatory processes, and by means of these
endeavors to overcome and eliminate microorganisms and poisons from
the system.