Books: Nature Cure
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Henry Lindlahr >> Nature Cure
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Suppression During the First
Two Stages of Inflammation
It may be suggested that suppression during the stages of Incubation
and Aggravation need not have fatal consequences if followed by
natural living and eliminative treatment. To this I would reply:
"Such procedure always involves the danger of concentrating the
disease poisons in vital parts and organs, thus laying the
foundation for chronic destructive diseases."
Furthermore, it is not at all necessary to suppress inflammatory
processes by poisonous drugs and other unnatural means, because we
can easily and surely control them and keep them from becoming
dangerous by our natural means of treatment.
I shall now endeavor to prove and to illustrate the foregoing
theoretical expositions by following the development of various
diseases through the five stages of inflammation. I shall first take
up the commonest of all forms of disease, the cold.
Catching a Cold
According to popular opinion, the catching of colds is responsible
for the greater portion of human ailments. Almost daily I hear from
patients who come for consultation: All my troubles date back to a
cold I took at such and such a time, etc. Then I have to explain
that colds are not taken suddenly and from without but that they
come from within, that their period of Incubation may have extended
over months or years, that a clean, healthy body possessed of good
vitality cannot take cold under the ordinary thermal conditions
congenial to human life, no matter how sudden the change in
temperature.
At first glance, this may seem to be contrary to common experience
as well as to the theory and practice of medical science. But let us
follow the development of a cold from start to finish. This will
throw some light on the question as to whether it can be caught, or
whether it develops slowly within the organism; also whether this
development or incubation may extend over a long period of time.
Taking cold may be caused by chilling of the surface of the body or
part of the body. In the chilled portions of the skin the pores
close, the blood recedes into the interior, and as a result of this
the elimination of poisonous gases and exudates through these
portions of the skin is suppressed.
This catching a cold through being exposed to a cold draft, through
wet clothing, etc., is not necessarily followed by more serious
consequences. If the system is not too much encumbered with morbid
matter and if kidneys and intestines are in fairly good working
order, these organs will take care of the extra amount of waste and
morbid materials in place of the temporarily inactive skin and
eliminate them without difficulty. The greater the vitality and the
more normal the composition of the blood, the better the system will
react in such an emergency and throw off the morbid matter which
failed to be eliminated through the skin.
If, however, the organism is already overloaded with waste and
morbid materials, if the bowels and the kidneys are already weakened
and atrophied through continued overwork and overstimulation, if, in
addition to this, the vitality has been lowered through excesses or
overexertion and the vital fluids are in an abnormal condition, then
the morbid matter thrown into the circulation by the chilling and
temporary inactivity of the skin cannot find an outlet through the
regular channels of elimination and endeavors to escape by way of
the mucous linings of the nasal passages, the throat, bronchi,
stomach, bowels and genitourinary organs.
The waste materials and poisonous exudates which are being
eliminated through these internal membranes cause irritation and
congestion, and thus produce the well-known symptoms of inflammation
and catarrhal elimination: sneezing (coryza), cough, expectoration,
mucous discharges, diarrhea, leucorrhea [vaginal dis-charge], etc.
In other words, these so-called colds are nothing more or less than
different forms of vicarious elimination. The membranous linings of
the internal organs are doing the work for the inactive, sluggish
and atrophied skin, kidneys and intestines. The greater the
accumulation of morbid matter in the system, the lower the vitality,
and the more abnormal the composition of the blood and lymph, the
greater will be the liability to the catching of colds.
What is to be gained by suppressing the different forms of catarrhal
elimination with cough and catarrh cures containing opiates,
astringents, antiseptics, germkillers and antipyretics? Is it not
obvious that such a procedure interferes with Nature's purifying
efforts, that it hinders and suppresses the inflammatory processes
and the accompanying elimination of morbid matter from the system?
Worst of all, that it adds drug poisons to disease poisons?
Such a course can have but one result, namely the changing of
Nature's cleansing and healing efforts into chronic disease.
From the foregoing it will have become clear that the cause of a
cold lies not so much in the cold draft, or the wet feet, as in the
primary causes of all disease: lowered vitality, deterioration of
the vital fluids and the accumulation of morbid matter and poisons
in the system.
The incubation period of the cold may have extended over many years
or over an entire lifetime.
What, then, is the natural cure for colds? There can be but one
remedy: increased elimination through the proper channels. This is
accomplished by judicious dieting and fasting, and through restoring
the natural activity of the skin, kidneys and bowels by means of wet
packs, cold sprays and ablutions, sitz baths, massage, chiropractic
or osteopathic manipulation, homeopathic remedies, exercise, sun and
air baths and all other methods of natural treatment that save
vitality, build up the blood on a normal basis and promote
elimination without injuring the organism.
Suppression During the Third
Stage of Inflammation
Should the inflammatory processes be suppressed during the stage of
Destruction, the results would be still more serious and
far-reaching. We have learned that during this stage the affected
parts and organs are involved in more or less disintegration. They
are filled with morbid exudates, pus, etc., which interfere with and
make impossible normal nutrition and functioning. If suppression
takes place during this stage, it is obvious that the affected areas
will be left permanently in a condition of destruction.
Here is an illustration from practical life: Suppose necessary
changes and repairs have to be made in a house. Workmen have torn
down the partitions, hangings, wallpaper, etc. At this stage of the
proceedings the owner discharges the workmen and the house is left
in a condition of chaos. Surely, this would not be rational. It
would leave the house unfit for habitation. But such a procedure
would correspond exactly to the suppression of inflammatory diseases
during the stage of Destruction. This also leaves the affected
organs permanently in an abnormal, diseased condition.
That accounts for the mysterious sequelae or chronic after-effects
which so often follow drug-treated acute diseases. I have traced
numerous cases of chronic affections of the lungs and kidneys, of
infantile paralysis and of many other chronic ailments to such
suppression. In the following I shall describe a typical case, which
came under our care and treatment a few years ago.
Suppression by Means of the Ice Bag
A few years ago several gentlemen of Greek nationality called on me
with the request that I visit a friend of theirs who had been lying
sick for about two months in one of our great West Side [Chicago]
hospitals. On investigation I found that the patient had entered the
hospital suffering from a mild case of pneumonia. The doctors of the
institution had ordered ice packs. Rubber sheets filled with ice
were applied to the chest and other parts of the body. This had been
done for several weeks until the fever subsided.
As a matter of fact, ice is more suppressive than antifever
medicines. The continued icy cold applications chill the parts of
the body to which they are applied, depress the vital functions and
effectually suppress the inflammatory processes.
The result in this case, as in many similar ones which I had
occasion to observe during and after the ice-bag treatment, was that
the inflammation in the lungs had been arrested and suppressed
during the stage of destruction, when the air cells and tissues were
filled with exudates, blood serum, pus, live and dead blood cells,
bacteria, etc., leaving the affected areas of the lungs in a
consolidated, liver-like condition.
As a consequence of suppression in the case of this Greek patient,
the pneumonia had been changed from the acute to the subacute and
chronic stages and the doctors in charge had told his friends that
he was now suffering from miliary tuberculosis, and would probably
die within a week or two.
After receiving this discouraging information, the friends of the
patient came to me and prevailed upon me to take charge of the case.
He was transferred to our institution, and we began at once to apply
the natural methods of treatment. Instead of ice packs we used the
regular cold-water packs, strips of linen wrung out of water of
ordinary temperature wrapped around the body and covered with
several layers of flannel bandages.
The wet packs became warm on the body in a few minutes. They relaxed
the pores and drew the blood into the surface, thus promoting heat
radiation and the elimination of morbid matter through the skin.
They did not suppress the fever, but kept it below the danger point.
Under this treatment, accompanied by fasting and judicious
osteopathic manipulation, the inflammatory and feverish processes
suppressed by the ice packs soon revived, became once more active
and aggressive, and were now allowed to run their natural course
through the stages of destruction, absorption (abatement) and
reconstruction.
The result of the Nature Cure treatment was that about two months
after the patient entered our institution, his friends bought him a
ticket to sunny Greece. He had a good journey, and in the congenial
climate of his native country made a perfect recovery.
I have observed a number of similar cases suffering from
consolidation of the lungs and the resulting asthmatic or tubercular
conditions, which had been doctored into these chronic ailments by
means of antipyretics and of ice.
Equally dangerous is the ice bag if applied to the inflamed brain or
the spinal column. Only too often it results either in paralysis or
in death. In many instances, acute cerebrospinal meningitis is
changed in this way by drug and serum treatment or by the use of ice
bags into the chronic, so-called incurable infantile paralysis.
We say so-called incurable because we have treated and cured such
cases in all stages of development from the acute inflammatory
meningitis to the chronic paralysis of long standing.
In our treatment of acute diseases we never use ice or icy water for
packs, compresses, baths or ablutions, but always water of ordinary
temperature as it comes from the faucet. The water compress or pack
warms up quickly, and thus brings about a natural reaction within a
few minutes, while the ice bag or pack continually chills and
practically freezes the affected parts and organs. This does not
allow the skin to relax; it prevents a warm reaction, the radiation
of the body heat and the elimination of morbid matter through the
skin.
Suppression During the Fourth and
Fifth Stages of Inflammation
Let us see what happens when acute diseases are suppressed during
the stages of abatement and reconstruction. If the defenders of the
body, the phagocyte and antitoxins, produced in the tissues and
organs, gain the victory over the inimical forces which are
threatening the health and life of the organism, then the symptoms
of inflammation, swelling, redness, heat, pain and the accelerated
heart action which accompanies them, gradually subside. The debris
of the battlefield is carried away through the venous circulation
which forms the drainage system of the body.
When in this way all morbid materials have been completely
eliminated, Vital Force, "the physician within," will commence to
regenerate and reconstruct the injured and destroyed cells and
tissues.
If, however, these processes of elimination and reconstruction are
interfered with or interrupted before they are completed, then the
affected parts and organs will not have a chance to become entirely
well or strong. They will remain in an abnormal, crippled condition,
and their functional activity will be seriously handicapped.
The After-effects of Drug-Treated Typhoid Fever
In hundreds of cases I have told patients after a glance into their
eyes that they were suffering from chronic indigestion,
malassimi-lation and malnutrition caused by drug-treated typhoid
fever; and every time the records in the eyes were confirmed by the
history of the patient.
In such cases the outer rim of the iris shows a wreath of whitish or
drug-colored circular flakes. I have named this wreath "the typhoid
rosary." It corresponds to the lymphatic and other absorbent vessels
in the intestines, and appears in the iris of the eye when these
structures have been injured or atrophied by drug, ice or surgical
treatment. Wherever this has been done, the venous and lymphatic
vessels in the intestines do not absorb the food materials and these
pass through the digestive tract and out of the body without being
properly digested and assimilated.
During the destructive stages of typhoid fever, the intestines
become denuded by the sloughing of their membranous linings. These
sloughed membranes give the stools of the typhoid fever patient
their peculiar pea soup appearance. In a similar manner the
lymphatic, venous and glandular structures which constitute the
absorbent vessels of the intestines atrophy and slough away.
If the inflammatory processes are allowed to run their normal course
under natural methods of treatment through the stages of
Destruction, Absorption and Reconstruction, Nature will rebuild the
membranous and glandular structures of the intestinal canal
perfectly, convalescence will be rapid and the patient will enjoy
better health than before he contracted the disease.
If, however, through injudicious feeding or the administration of
quinine, mercury, purging salts, opiates or other destructive
agents, Nature's processes are interfered with, prematurely checked
and suppressed, then the sloughed membranes and absorbent vessels
are not reconstructed, and the intestinal tract is left in a denuded
and atrophied condition.
Such a patient may arise from his bed thinking that he is cured; but
unless he is afterward treated by natural methods, he will never
make a full recovery. It will take him, perhaps, months or years to
die a gradual, miserable death through malassimilation and
malnutrition, which usually end in some form of wasting disease,
such as pernicious anemia or tuberculosis. If he does not actually
die from the effects of the wrongly treated typhoid fever, he will
be troubled all his life with intestinal indigestion, constipation,
malassimilation and the accompanying nervous disorders.
A Change for the Better
Speaking of typhoid fever, we are glad to say that for this
particular form of disease the most advanced medical science has
adopted the Nature Cure treatment, that is, straight cold water and
fasting, and no drugs, as it was originated by the pioneers of
Nature Cure in Germany more than fifty years ago.
This treatment, which medical science has found so eminently
successful in typhoid fever, would prove equally efficacious in all
other acute diseases if the regular doctors would only try it. It is
a strange and curious fact that so far they have never found it
worth while to do so. All Nature Cure physicians know from their
daily experience in actual practice that the simple water treatment
and fasting is sufficient to cure all other forms of acute diseases
just as easily and effectively as typhoid fever. By this is proved
the unity of treatment in all acute diseases.
Both in typhoid fever and in tuberculosis, progressive medical men
have now entirely abandoned the germ-killing method of treatment.
They have found it absolutely useless and superfluous to hunt for
drugs and serums to kill the typhoid and tuberculosis bacilli in
these, the two most destructive diseases afflicting the human
family. They were forced to admit that the simple remedies of the
Nature Cure school, cold water and fasting in typhoid fever and the
fresh-air treatment in tuberculosis, are the only worthwhile methods
to fight these formidable enemies to health and life.
If they would continue their researches and experiments along these
natural lines, they would attain infinitely more satisfactory
results than through their germ-hunting and germ-killing theories
and practices.
Chapter IX
The Effects of Suppression of Venereal Diseases
Another good illustration of suppression may be found in the
allopathic treatment of venereal diseases. Almost invariably the
drug treatment suppresses these diseases in the stages of incubation
and aggravation, thus locking them up in the system. The venereal
taints and germs, however, are living things which grow and multiply
until the body has been completely permeated by them. Then they must
find an outlet somehow and somewhere, and consequently they break
out in the manifold so-called "secondary" and "tertiary" symptoms.
The drug poisons which are used to "cure" (suppress) these symptoms,
greatly aggravate the disease. They create conditions in the system
infinitely worse than the venereal diseases themselves. Thus the
acute, easily curable stages of these ailments are changed into the
dreadful and obstinate chronic conditions. It is in this way that
venereal diseases are made hereditary and transmitted to future
generations.
In a special article on this subject entitled "Venereal Diseases,"
published in ~"The Naturopath,"~ January, 1913, I have substantiated
the following claims:
"Venereal diseases are not necessarily chronic in their progressive
development. "They are essentially acute and self-limited. But may
become chronic through neglect or through suppressive drug
treatment. "The chronic, so-called secondary and tertiary
manifestations of venereal diseases, such as ulceration of bones and
fleshy tissue, gummata of the brain, sclerosis of the spinal cord,
arthritic rheumatism, degeneration and destruction of other vital
parts and organs of the body, are not so much the result of the
original gonorrheal or syphilitic infection, as of the destructive
drug poisons which have been taken to cure or rather to suppress the
primary lesions and acute inflammatory symptoms. "Venereal diseases
in the acute inflammatory stages are easily and completely curable
by natural methods of living and of treatment. "Venereal diseases
treated and cured by natural methods during the acute inflammatory
stages are never followed by any chronic after-effects or secondary
and tertiary manifestations whatsoever. "When venereal diseases have
reached the secondary and tertiary stages, they are still curable by
natural methods of living and of treatment, providing there is left
sufficient vitality to respond to treatment and providing the
destruction of vital parts and organs has not advanced too far.
"Hundreds of cases of well-developed locomotor ataxy, paresis, and
other so-called secondary and tertiary diseases of the brain and the
nervous system, of bony and fleshy tissues, and of vital organs have
been cured by our natural methods of treatment.
"It is self-evident, however, that the treatment and cure of the
chronic conditions require more patience and perseverance than the
cure of acute conditions not tampered with and suppressed by drugs.
"Venereal diseases treated and cured by natural methods are never
followed by chronic after-effects. On the other hand, mercury,
iodine, quinine, and coal-tar poisons produce all the so-called
secondary and tertiary symptoms of syphilis in people who never in
their lives were afflicted with venereal diseases, but who have
taken or absorbed these drug poisons in other ways.
". . . These facts are proven beyond doubt by the Diagnosis from the
Eye. All, destructive poisons taken in sufficient quantities will in
time reveal their presence and exact location in the body through
certain well-defined signs or discolorations in the iris.
"These poisons undermine the structures of the body and deteriorate
vital parts and organs so slowly and insidiously that the
superficial observer does not trace and connect cause and effect."
The Wasserman and Noguchi Tests
Medical men may say to the foregoing that the Wasserman and Noguchi
tests furnish positive proofs of syphilis in the system. These
chemical tests are supposed to reveal with certainty the presence of
venereal taints in the body,--at least, the public is left under
this impression.
I am convinced, however, that in many instances the "positive"
Wasserman or Noguchi tests are the result of mercurial poison
instead of syphilitic infection. In a number of cases where these
tests proved "positive," that is, where, according to the theory of
allopathic medical science, they indicated a luetic condition of the
system, the subjects of these tests had never in their lives shown
any symptoms of syphilis nor, as far as they knew, had they ever
been exposed to infection, but every one of them showed plainly the
sign of mercurial poisoning in the iris of the eye, and had taken
considerable mercury in the form of calomel or of other medicinal
preparations for diseases not of a luetic nature, or they had been
"salivated" by coming in contact with the mercurial poison in mines,
smelters, mirror factories, etc.
This leads me to believe that, sooner or later, medical science will
have to admit that the Wasserman and Noguchi tests reveal, in many
instances at least, the effects of mercurial poisoning instead of
the effects of syphilitic infection. And this would not be
surprising since it is well known that mercury has very similar
effects upon the system as syphilis.
It takes the mercurial poison from five to ten and even fifteen
years before it works its way into the brain and spinal cord, and
there causes its characteristic degeneration and destruction of
brain and. nerve tissues which manifest outwardly as locomotor
ataxy, paralysis agitans, paresis, apoplexy, hemiplegia, epilepsy,
St. Vitus dance, and the different forms of idiocy and insanity.
Mercurial poisoning is also in many instances the cause of deafness
and blindness.
When the symptoms of mercurial destruction begin to show, then they,
in turn, are suppressed by preparations of iodine, the "606," or
other "alteratives," and so the merry war goes, on: poison against
poison, Beelzebub against the Devil, and the poor suffering body has
to stand it all.
In this way the system is periodically saturated with the most
virulent poisons on earth, until the undertaker finishes the job.
And this is miscalled "scientific treatment." There never was
invented by cruel Indian or fanatical inquisition worse torture than
this. They mercifully finished the sufferings of their victims
within a few hours or, at the worst, days; but this torture
inflicted upon human beings in the name of medical science continues
for a lifetime. It means dying by inches under the most horrible
conditions for ten, twenty, thirty years or longer.
In this connection it may be well to quote the testimony of
Professor E. A. Farrington of Philadelphia, one of the most
celebrated homeopathic physicians of the nineteenth century. He
says, in his ~"Clinical Materia Medica,"~ third edition, page 141:
"The various constitutions or dyscrasia underlying chronic and acute
affections are, indeed, very numerous. As yet, we do not know them
all. We do know that one of them comes in gonorrhoea, a disease
which is frightfully common, so that the constitution arising from
this disease is rapidly on the increase.
"Now I want to tell you why it is so. It is because allopathic
physicians, and many homeopaths as well, do not properly cure it. I
do not believe gonorrhoea to be a local disease. If it is not
properly cured, a constitutional poison which may be transmitted to
the children is developed. I know, from years of experience and
observation, that gonorrhoea is a serious difficulty, and one, too,
that complicates many cases that we have to treat.
"The same is true of syphilis in a modified degree. Gonorrhoea seems
to attack the nobler tissues, the lungs, the heart, and the nervous
system, all of which are reached by syphilis only after the lapse of
years."
The Destructive After-Effects of Mercury
Concerning the destructive after-effects of mercury, of which
homeopaths have made a most careful study, Professor Farrington
says, on pages 558-559 of the same volume:
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