View source for Chiropractic, Homeopathy, and Osteopathy

= Lesson 87 - Chiropractic, Homeopathy, and Osteopathy =

== Chiropractic ==

=== History ===
In 1877, a man by the name of Harvey Lillard became deaf. He was in a stooped, cramped position, he heard something “pop” in his neck and he was deaf for 18 years. One day in 1895, Dr. D. D. Palmer was called to examine Mr. Lillard. Upon examining the patient, he noticed a large visible bump. He reasoned that if the production of that bump produced deafness, reduction should restore hearing. He pushed the bump, three days in succession, the bump disappeared and hearing was restored.

The more Dr. Palmer examined spines, the more he continued to find abnormal bumps. Some bumps were found on spines of people who were deaf, but most were found on spines of people with other illnesses. When he reduced these bumps, some illnesses, such as heart trouble, stomach trouble, etc., were relieved. Dr. D. D. Palmer believed that spinal bumps were caused by malpositions of vertebrae, called subluxations. It was believed that the subluxated vertebra occluded the neuro-canal, or intervertebral foramen, and impinged on the spinal cord or spinal nerves. Since the nervous system controlled all systems, it was believed that any interference in the nerve impulse was the cause of disease.

Disease originally meant “uneasy, uncomfortable or disturbed.” As medical men began to classify these feelings into symptoms called an illness, disease became an entity, B. J. Palmer (Danial Palmer’s son) liked the term disease. Dis-ease was used to mean “disorganized, or without organization,” and Palmer believed that the cause had to be removed or corrected (adjusted). Chiropractic is defined by B. J. Palmer as follows: “Chiropractic is a philosophy, science and art of things natural; a system of adjusting the segments of the spinal column by hand only, for the correction of the cause of disease.”

=== Chiropractic Philosophy ===
All parts of your body must work together properly to give you physical health. According to Chiropractic philosophy, the common denominator of life or health is proper transmission of nerve energy and the most damaging interference factors where nerve flow affects systems of organization must be corrected.

The primary system of organization is the nervous system. Our whole nervous system was developed to maintain our lives and make activity satisfyingly purposeful. Chiropractors reason that if we accept the premise that the nervous system causes organization, they draw a conclusion: any interference in the nervous system causes disorga-

nization. They reason that any factor which abnormally adds or subtracts impulses to or from the nervous system acts as an interference and causes disorganization. Since the nervous system is so important to the survival of the human organism, they assume that the wisdom of adaptation provides good protection for it. To protect the most sensitive tissues (nerves), the hardest tissue of the body is used (bone).

=== Determine the True Cause ===
Chiropractic treatment is intended to eliminate the cause of a disorder. Upon correction, healing becomes easy. However, chiropractors take a rather narrow view of cause and effect. It is true that there are special cases where adjustments are necessary following injury or trauma. If nerves are being impinged upon due to abnormal pressures on the spinal column, chiropractic adjustments may be helpful.

Since disease is the result of an accumulation of toxins, chiropractic adjustments may bring temporary relief, but the underlying causes have not been corrected. If illness is caused by unhealthful living practices, then these habits must be corrected and a more healthful lifestyle must be implemented. A straight spine will not produce health if you are eating junk food, smoking cigarettes, not getting enough rest and sleep and doing other things that are wrong.

In some cases, Chiropractic treatment may be helpful, but such therapy will only result in health if all the conditions for health are provided simultaneously.

=== Subluxation ===
A subluxation is the condition of a vertebra that has lost its proper position with the one above or the one below or both. The chiropractor holds that a subluxation is the major nonpathological interference factor found in an unhealthy host that can be corrected by nonsurgical, nonmedical techniques, and is the most common cause of disorganization in the human body.

A rapidly increasing tendency on the part of the Chiropractic research and therapy is to seek the cause of disease in the spinal column and to correct that cause by correcting nerve interference. The spinal column, according to the chiropractor, is being recognized as the seat of more abnormalities than any other part of the body structure, and is being held accountable for an increasing number of manifestations of disease.

Dr. Andrew T. Still founded Osteopathy in 1874 based on the principle that disturbances of the musculoskeletal system may lead to disease and that the treatment of this problem should be manipulation. D. D. Palmer insisted that Chiropractic was different because the manipulation of the chiropractic method was a direct, specific thrust on the processes of the vertebrae for the purpose of correcting nerve interference.

Darald E. Bolin, D.C. states, “Neuromusculoskeletal conditions can be considered those disorders arising from the structural and/or functional alterations of the musculoskeletal connective tissues and their attendant neurological complications.” The condition of a subluxation, he says, is a neuromusculoskeletal condition in itself. Strains or sprains almost always occur in the spinal column at the subluxations. He maintains that if the subluxation is preventing the natural healing of diseased conditions, the treatment of the subluxation is called for.

Chiropractic principle and practice is to adjust, to open occlusion, to release pressure, to restore normal quantity flow between brain and body, that innate intelligence can, does and will rebuild normal rhythmic energy wave flow to re-establish its normal rate of function, sensibility and cell activity, thus restoring a healthy level.

=== History ===

== Homeopathy ==

=== History ===
In 1844, the first American Institute of Homeopathy was established. Homeopaths were much more popular than any other sect of the day during the epidemics of yellow fever and Asiatic cholera. Their practically drugless methods left the body comparatively unhampered in its healing efforts, while the drugging methods of the regular practitioners were destructive to health. Some other reasons for its wide popularity are that it attracted members of orthodox physicians, it appealed to middle and upper classes, and it offered a rationale for their practice—it was not purely empirical as were Thomsonian or Eclectic sects which preceded Homeopathy. In 1857, Homeopathy received strong public support, including that of Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune.

Homeopathy was founded by Dr. Samuel C. F. Hahnemann. He stated that, if a physician is aware of the obstacles to recovery and how to remove them, then he understands how to treat judiciously, and is a true practitioner of the healing art. “He has become a preserver of health by knowing those things that derange health and cause disease; he knows how to keep a person in health.”

Hahnemann always advocated prescribing the smallest possible dose necessary to help the patient. After the first dilution, one drop of a plant was diluted to 1/100 of its original strength; after the second, to 1/10,000 of its original strength; after the third to 1/100,000 of its original strength. This constituted the third dilution. Hahnemann recommended the thirtieth dilution.

He evolved a method of mixing, dilution and shaking which he called succession. The result of this was a preparation which, because of its powers, he named potency.

The resulting medicine could be administered in either of two ways, according to Hahnemann. A globule of sugar the size of a mustard seed could be moistened with the thirtieth dilution of the liquid and taken internally. Or, where the patient was “very weak and irritable, one smelling of it is safer and more serviceable than when it is taken in substance.”

=== A Little Poison Is Better Than a Lot ===
It was found that the greater the degree of dilution, the more effective the medicine. And although chemical analysis revealed hardly a trace of the original drug in the suspension, the preparation was found to produce a “symptom picture” corresponding to the proving made on a healthy subject.

This is a very crucial point for it really demonstrates that the most powerful healing agent which exists is that resident within the human body. The higher the dilution, the more unhampered is the body in its restorative efforts, hence the “cure” is the most effective. Thus homeopathy is a happy delusion. The value of Hahnemann’s practically drugless therapy is demonstrated in the successes that he achieved which were far greater than any of the other medical sects of his day.

=== Similia Similibus Curentur ===
The basis of Homeopathy is: the most successful drug for administering to the ill is that very drug which produces the same symptoms in someone who is well. Thus the similium, the most resembling drug, should be given—“Like should be treated by like.”

Hahnemann found that he was sensitive to quinine. He found that after taking a dose of quinine he was soon suffering from the symptoms of an illness similar to those he

had frequently seen as a medical student in the marshlands of lower Hungary. In short, except for the fever, he was experiencing the symptoms of malaria. It then occurred to him that if this drug could produce symptoms similar to those of malaria, it then, might be the “cure” for malaria. It is then that he first applied the words to his theory, similia similibus curentur—like will be cured by like.

What Hahnemann was experiencing was a normal reaction of the body in eliminating poisons, be they quinine or others, but he misinterpreted these symptoms.

=== Requisites of Life Recognized ===
Hahnemann accepted the medically-valid therapies of his time. He recommended the use of fresh air, bed rest, proper diet, sunshine, public hygiene, and numerous other beneficial measures at a time when many other physicians considered them of no value.

Hahnemann did not attribute his success to the real druglessness of his therapy, but to his homeopathic doses. But there is no doubt that the “cures” which came about were due to the body’s intrinsic power to heal itself which were assisted by the above recommendations of fresh air, bed rest, proper diet, etc. Also, the body was not interfered with in its healing process by large doses of drugs, blistering, blood-letting, etc., which were then used by the regular physicians.

=== Vital Force ===
But Hahnemann recognized that in the body there is a self-preserving, self-balancing mechanism that kept it in health in spite of the stress and strain to which man is subject. He used the term “vital force” to describe the balancing mechanism in every living body which promotes, or at, least maintains, health. He wrote that this “vital force” was stimulated by internal and external disorders to build up a reaction to counteract the disorders. The result of them interaction between the “vital force” and the conditions which set it in motion produced various symptoms in the body revealing that an imbalance has occurred, according to his theory.

We know that this vital force is the only true remedial agent that we possess and that the body will heal and repair when the conditions for health are provided.

=== Non-therapy Is Best ===
Hahnemann expected that regular physicians would not greet his system enthusiastically. He called them the “allopathic” schools because they used remedies whose action was opposed to the symptoms caused by the illness, and described their practice by the maxim contraria contraris.

Hahnemann, despite the absurdity of his belief, really made one of the great discoveries of his time: he established that, given the existing state of medical knowledge, the absence of therapy was vastly superior to “heroic” therapy. The regular physicians’ two basic objections to homeopathy was (1) that the doses prescribed by homeopaths were too small to have any physiological effect whatsoever; and (2) that the cures which homeopaths attributed to their drugs were actually brought about by the “recuperative effects of nature.” Both of these statements were very true, and this is why Homeopathy was so successful. Regular physicians did admit that Homeopathy had produced a surprisingly large number of successes. In 1861, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Homeopathy has taught us a lesson of the healing faculty of Nature which was needed.”

The homeopaths attacked the regular physicians’ use of blood-letting, calomel, blisters, poisons, and the rest of “heroic” medicine as invalid, based on fallacies and speculative reasoning, and unsuccessful in treating illnesses. The regular physicians accused the homeopaths of chicanery in administering drugs which could have no possible therapeutic effects of any kind. From the point of view of the patient’s well-being, it is easy to observe which was the superior system.

Homeopathy is still very popular today and widely practiced. However, we may conclude that if heavy use of drugs results in more illness and minute portions of drugs result in less illness, then no drugs at all result in health! It is thus demonstrated that nature is the most effective agent in the restoration of health.

== Osteopathy ==
=== History ===
Andrew Taylor Still, founder of Osteopathy, was born August 6, 1828. Dr. Still founded the first school of Osteopathy in the United States in 1874 and had apparently been developing ideas about the relation of certain diseases to disturbances of the vertebral column at least as far back as 1860.

Probably the first incident in the life of Dr. Still that had any bearing upon Osteopathy, was recorded on pages 31 and 32 of his autobiography.

“One day, when about ten years old, I suffered from a headache, I made a swing of my father’s plowline between two trees; but my head hurt too much to make swinging comfortable, so I let the rope down to about eight or ten inches off the ground and stretched on my back with my neck across the rope. Soon I became easy and went to sleep, got up in a little while with the headache all gone. As I knew nothing of anatomy, I took no thought of how a rope could stop headache and the sick stomach which accompanied it. After that discovery I roped my neck whenever I felt those spells coming on. I followed that treatment for twenty years before the wedge of reason reached my brain, and I could see that I had suspended the action of the great occipital nerves, and given harmony to the flow of the arterial blood to and through the veins, and ease was the effect, as the reader can see.”

The power of nature (the body’s intrinsic forces) began to be revealed to him and he devised a means by which nature would be permitted to exert her inherent powers. He considered nature as his laboratory. He said,

“I, who had had some experience in alleviating pain, found medicines a failure. Since early life I had been a student of nature’s books. In my early days in windswept Kansas, I had devoted my attention to the study of anatomy.”

The practice of allopathy had convinced him that the drug theory was radically wrong, and from his own researches he thought he saw the dawn of a better system. He determined to get closer to nature and learn from her the exact truth.

The first conclusion which he made was that an “all-wise Creator” was the designer of our bodies as well as the author of our spirits, and that the human body is, therefore, a perfect machine.

The second conclusion was the fundamental idea of the importance of the arteries and other tubular structures through which the nutritive elements are carried to their destination and the waste materials of the body are carried away to be expelled.

The third conclusion was that of the influence of the nerves and the part it plays, especially in the control of the fluids of the body.

“This year (1874) I began a more extended study of the drive-wheels, pinions, cups, arms, and shafts of life, with their forces and supplies, framework, attachments by ligaments, muscles, origin, and insertion. Nerves, origin and supplies, blood supply to and from the heart, and how and where the motor-nerves received their power and motion; how the sensory nerves acted in their function, their duties, the source of supplies and the work being done in health, in the obstructing parts, to perform their part of the functions of life; all awoke a new interest in me.

I believed that something abnormal could be found some place in some of the nerve divisions, which would tolerate a temporary or permanent suspension of the blood either in arteries or veins, which effect caused disease.”

In the early years, Osteopathic practice consisted of (1) a physical examination to determine the condition of the mechanisms and function of all parts of the human body; (2) a specific manipulation to restore the normal mechanism and re-establish the normal functions; and, (3) the adoption of all hygienic measures conducive to the restoration and maintenance of health.

This method of practice laid stress upon correct diagnosis based upon a physical examination; removal of the supposed causes of disease through manipulation; and, as an important sequel, wholesome living. The Osteopaths differed markedly from the allopaths of their day by not prescribing drugs. They advocated removing causes of disease rather than treating symptoms. The early osteopaths reasoned that if a part is not doing its duty there must be a cause for it. They said that the cause may be a foreign substance, or a malposition, interfering with the free flow of fluids or the transmission of nerve force, interfering first with function and second with structure. The osteopath then proceeded at once to remove the supposed cause of the trouble, and in doing that set free all the forces of the body involved in combatting disease and maintaining health.

The early osteopaths did not use germicides or antibiotics to kill germs on the theory that germs do not thrive in live tissue, and that every organ within the body as well as all other parts are supplied with nerves that are necessary to keep them alive. Surround the affected area with healthy tissue and the bacteria will soon die for want of suitable nourishment.

Internal cleanliness was said to be essential, but impossible without a perfect distribution of nerve force, nutritious blood, a free circulation of all the fluids of the body, and unimpeded excretion. These are the lines along which osteopaths had proven themselves to be knowledgeable.

=== Modern Osteopathic Practice ===
The osteopath of the present day still relies mainly on manipulative treatment for most diseases, but also dispenses drugs and utilizes all the other therapies of the medical physicians, such as surgery, X rays, etc. Still’s emphasis on treating the whole person, however, has remained an ideal of the profession.

There are now 15,000 doctors of Osteopathy in the United States and others who receive their education here are now located in other countries. The profession maintains nearly 300 hospitals with a total of more than 20,000 beds.

Modern osteopathic medicine is a system of medical practice that emphasizes the importance of the muscles and bones of the body and their connecting tendons and ligaments. Osteopathy maintains that the musculoskeletal system, which makes up 60 percent of the body, has important interrelationships with all other body systems. Despite this, present-day osteopathic physicians use all the medical, surgical, immunological, pharmacological, psychological, and other harmful procedures of modern medicine that we, as Natural Hygienists, condemn as destructive of health.

Osteopathic physicians hold that a disturbance in the musculoskeletal system can lead to three main conditions. (1) It can produce symptoms that occur only in the musculoskeletal system itself. (2) It can cause symptoms resembling those diseases that affect other body systems. (3) It can affect the functioning of other body systems connected to the musculoskeletal systems through nerves and the action of hormones. Osteopathic physicians are specially trained in the detection and treatment of musculoskeletal disturbances and they use massages and other types of osteopathic manipulation to treat those disturbances.

In removing these supposed immediate causes, the real underlying causes are neglected. Therefore, health cannot be achieved. The massage and osteopathic manipulations increase the flow of blood and lymph and thereby may help initiate healing, but the wrong-doing that resulted in the disturbances in the first place must be discontinued before true health can be realized.

== Naturopathy ==
87.4.1 History

87.4.2 Present-Day Naturopaths

87.4.3 Naturopathic Views on Health and Disease

87.4.4 Germ Theory Denied

87.4.5 A Healthful Lifestyle Advocated

87.4.6 Bach’s Flower Remedies and Schuessler Cell Salts

87.4.1 History

As pointed out by Dr. J. M. Jassawalla, Naturopathy is not the invention of any one human mind. It does not place its origin at any given date, but is the accumulation of knowledge and practices pertaining to the natural methods of living and healing throughout the centuries.

The history of “Nature Cure” is as old as the origin of man. All living beings know and practice “Nature Cure” by instinct. A sick dog will automatically fast; cats and many other animals know the importance of a sun bath. Among aboriginal races there were very few diseases in comparison with the diseases found in civilized societies.

Through his work on the subject of diet, Dr. Tilden (in conjunction with such dietetic pioneers as Otto Carque, Dr. Kellogg, Dr. Lindlahr, Bernarr MacFadden and Alfred McCann) considered wrong feeding to be one of the main causes of disease, and wrote several books and pamphlets that are still very relevant today.

Dr. Henry Lindlahr was the first Naturopathic physician to combine in his practice various drugless methods in a systematic and scientific way. Now the school of “Nature Cure” covers not only the original basic philosophy and practice, but also includes other drugless therapies.

The first major development in Naturopathy came in the early nineteenth century in Europe with the pioneering work in hydrotherapy by Vincent Priessnitz and Father Sebastian Kneipp. Father Kneipp, a Bavarian who also went in for walking barefoot through the grass, is said to have cured many difficult cases by having patients bathe in fresh, cool “living water.” Ideally, this was water in fast-flowing streams that had been irradiated by the sun. It was said that this water absorbed “curative solar energy.” His water cures are still given in Woerishofen, Bavaria.

Then there was Louis Kuhne who advocated sun, steam baths, a vegetarian diet, and whole wheat bread. Heinrich Lahmann came along to stress no salt on foods and no water with meals, while Antonine Bechamp proposed the novel theory that it was disease conditions that occasioned bacterial presence and not the other way around. Dr. Benedict Lust called his health program “Nature’s Path.” In addition to being a naturopath he was also an M.D. and an osteopath. In the early 1900s he established health resorts and battled “the drug trusts.” Some considered him the father of American Naturopathy.

One of the first American naturopaths was Dr. John H. Kellogg, a Seventh-Day Adventist. Adventists are a Protestant fundamentalist sect whose members follow a strict vegetarian diet. They adjure not only meat, but all stimulants, including liquor, wine, coffee, tea and tobacco. In 1866, the Adventists founded the Health Reform Institute in

Battle Creek, Michigan. Ten years later, Kellogg reorganized the Institute into what was known as the Battle Creek Sanitorium.

Through the years the Adventists, who operate a number of hospitals and health institutions, have been in the forefront of nutritional research, particularly in the area of vegetarianism.

Henry Lindlahr is remembered for his convictions that disease did not represent an invasion of molecules, but the, body’s way of healing something. In other words, he viewed symptoms as a positive physiological response—proof that the body is correcting whatever is wrong. Accordingly, a fever is a “healthy” sign and one should let it be.

The next naturopath after Kellogg was Bernarr MacFadden, the physical culturist who built a magazine-publishing empire. (His first magazine was Physical Culture founded in 1898.) He advocated exercise and fresh vegetables.

87.4.2 Present-Day Naturopaths

Today, naturopaths are licensed in seventeen states to diagnose, treat, and prescribe for any human ailment through the use of air, light, heat, herbs, nutrition, electrotherapy, physiotherapy, manipulations, and minor surgery. At present, one can earn a D.N. degree at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Seattle and Emporia, Kansas, or the new North American Naturopathic Institute in North Arlington, New Jersey. (There is also a school in Montreal, Canada.) The four-year curriculum covers many standard medical courses—anatomy, bacteriology, urology, pathology, physiology, x-ray reading, etc., but also includes botanical medicine, hydrotherapy, electrotherapy and manipulative technique.

The basic philosophy of naturopaths and Natural Hygienists/Life Scientists are very similar, but differ in that Natural Hygiene offers no cures or therapies. Life Science teaches that only the body can heal and does not endorse the use of herbs, manipulations, surgeries, or other therapies advocated by many naturopaths.

But Naturopathy also holds that the organism will heal itself, regardless of ailment, if given a chance to purge itself of the toxic materials that are the basis of the ailment. This is done by a detoxifying fast and correct life practices after that.

87.4.3 Naturopathic Views on Health and Disease

Naturopathic treatment aims at eliminating the symptom’s, regardless of their diverse appearance, by total cleansing of the body from the inside out. All the different expressions of the body’s efforts to expel uneliminated wastes or toxic materials, called symptoms, are encouraged and utilized by Naturopathy. Diarrhea is seen as “nature’s enemas,” and enemas are considered an important part of body cleansing. This is another variance with Life Science philosophy. We do not advocate the use of enemas because they are enervating and usually result in weakening of the muscle wall of the colon due to stretched and detached musculature.

Sneezing and coughing are reflex reactions by the body to foreign materials or irritation, and are regarded as inconvenient but desirable. A runny nose or a rash is a sign that the body is ridding itself of waste. Since Naturopathy allows all of these symptoms to run, their course, it is not as comfortable at first as medical treatments which occasion immediate relief. Nature’s course’, however, is thoroughgoing and permanent if causes are discontinued.

According to naturopathic philosophy, the body is not an opponent to be battled against with drugs, but is an intelligent, immeasurably complex living system that will eek its own best good automatically. Given the conditions, your body will automatically heal itself. This is a fundamental of nature-cure. All naturopathic treatments are said to be designed to help the body, to give it the chance to heal itself. However, electrothera-

py, hydrotherapy, manipulations, etc., are not natural and interfere with, rather than promote, healing.

Naturopaths hold that the healing power of nature is behind all cures, whether with the aid of natural therapies or in spite of medical ones. Your body will heal itself; again, this is the first rule of nature-cure.

Another principle of nature-cure, according to naturopath, Dr. Andrew W. Saul, is that all disease, all sickness, all illnesses are differing expressions of one root cause of disease which is termed systemic toxemia. (This is in line with Life Science doctrine.) Systemic toxemia, according to Dr. Saul, means a “polluted body.” The underlying factor, the common origin of sickness, is a body filled with wastes, chemicals, and poisons. Such a toxic body may express its plight as this disease or that illness, each with its particular set of symptoms according to the body’s predilection. These are desperate measures on the part of the organism to throw off the accumulated wastes and toxins, or to cope with its impairing conditions. Toxic conditions result from wrong living, meaning eating wring foods or taking medicinal drugs and chemicals among other things. Over a period of time, often many years, the body’s strength is sapped and its natural defenses weakened such at it no longer seems capable of healing itself. The last thing that the organism needs is more pollutants and chemicals added to its toxic burden when it’s attempting to cleanse itself. Naturopaths assert they assist the body in its cleansing and rebuilding work with rest, baths, mineral and vitamin therapy and whole, unprocessed foods. A complete fast is used first to give the body the condition to clean house totally. Life Science agrees with the value of fasting, rest and proper diet. However, vitamin and mineral therapy have a drug effect and therefore are deplored.

87.4.4 Germ Theory Denied

Naturopaths see germs as scavengers assisting in cleaning up wastes. With this in mind, they have confidence that nature heals and that the body will cleanse itself of the cause of illness. If your body is clean and healthy, they say, germs are irrelevant for “susceptibility” does not exist. Germs are not considered causes of disease.

Naturopathic treatment offers the following approach: first build health, and illness will automatically decrease. To let the body cleanse itself is to let the body cure itself. Dr. Andrew Saul defines Naturopathy as “a system of therapy in which the patient is treated without the use of medical remedies of any sort, but with correct dieting, exercises, baths, fasting, manipulations, etc.” Dr. Saul states that the first and most fundamental principle of Nature Cure (Naturopathy) is that all forms of disease are due to the same cause, namely the accumulation in the system of uneliminated body wastes and toxic ingesta. The second principle of Nature Cure, he says, is that the body is always striving for its good no matter how ill-treated; and that all acute diseases are nothing more than self-initiated attempts on the part of the body to throw off the accumulations of impairing substances which interfere with its proper functioning; and that all chronic diseases are really the results of continued causes and suppression of acute diseases by devitalizing drugging and therapies.

The third principle of Nature Cure, according to Dr. Saul, is that the body contains within itself the power to bring about a return to a normal condition of well-being known as health, providing the right methods are employed to enable it to do so.

British naturopath Harry Benjamin, N.D. writes:

“Germs take part in all disease phenomena because these are processes requiring the breaking down or disintegration of accumulated refuse and toxic matter within the body which the system is endeavoring to throw off. But to assume, as our medical scientists do, that merely because the germs are present and active in all the decomposition processes connected with all dead organic matter, they are

the cause of the death of the organic matter, is in question. Germs are part of the results of the disease, not its cause.”

87.4.5 A Healthful Lifestyle Advocated

The view of naturopaths throughout the world is that we are the product of our dietary and lifestyle, that our ailments have basic causes, and that the way to eliminate disease is to establish the conditions of health. Fundamental causation of illness cannot be blamed on germs, bacteria, the weather, or even unsatisfactory medical treatment. We must look to ourselves for the reason—therein lie the causes of illness. We must look to ourselves for the answer to the problem.

Hunza people eat largely natural foods and are healthy. We eat largely unnatural foods and are not.

Naturopathy holds that a natural whole foods diet is of the highest importance in the maintenance and improvement of health, and that a scientifically-prescribed diet is of the proven method to cure disease. The scope of Naturopathy includes the total investigation and utilization of all Nature’s vitamins and materials to promote health. They say that if your nutrition and lifestyle are truly natural, then illness will not be a part of your life. Sickness does not occur in a healthy body.

87.4.6 Bach’s Flower Remedies and Schuessler Cell Salts

Bach’s flower remedies are used by some naturopaths. Dr. Edward Bach was an English medical doctor and bacteriologist who left his practice to devote himself to studying the supposed healing properties of flowers. He claimed that flowers contain energies, which, when suitably prepared, appeared to heal an individual’s disease on the level of the individual’s temperament, attitude, and disposition. Dr. Bach was convinced that all disease ultimately stems from a person’s wrong states of mind. If someone is chronically unhappy, or always worried, or constantly afraid, etc., then these states give rise to physical illness. According to Dr. Bach, by using a dilute flower extract, the person’s temperament or attitude is healed, and therefore healing of the body follows.

There are 38 flower remedies, each prepared by floating the blossoms in spring water while exposed to sunlight for a few hours. The resulting solution is then extracted with alcohol and bottled. The extract is diluted again with pure water for use, and a few drops taken in a glass of water. The remedy is also taken dropped on the tongue or lips. This is reminiscent of homeopathic practices in many aspects.

Schuessler cell salts are also administered by some naturopaths. Twelve cell salts were recognized and categorized by a German biochemist, Dr. William H. Schuessler in 1873. He found that there are certain essential minerals that the body requires, in proper balance, in all of its cells. An imbalance or a lack of any of these minerals may lead to disease in the tissues so lacking. Providing the missing minerals to the tissues corrects that imbalance, it is said, to eliminate the illness.

Most Schuessler cell salts are in a homeopathic potency, which uses minute quantities of a substance. Schuessler remedies are commonly in a “6x” homeopathic potency.

The twelve Schuessler cell salts are as follows: Calcium Fluoride, Calcium Phosphate, Calcium Sulphate, Ferrum Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Potassium Phosphate, Potassium Sulphate, Magnesium Phosphate, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Phosphate, Sodium Sulphate, and Silica.

Both the “flower remedies” and “cell salts” are only “valuable” in that they do relatively little harm when taken in such small homeopathic doses and they may give the patient a psychological “lift.” They cannot, however, have any power to heal. Their only potential is harm for they do not attempt to remove causes—they fail to recognize real causes. Further, inorganic minerals are toxic in themselves.

== Illusion And Disillusion ==
Many of the methods of treatment which were often advocated by physicians during the19th century and before are today considered useless, and, in fact, life-threatening. But the physicians during that time persisted in such practices as bleeding, blistering, purging and the use of heavy metals because they witnessed patients “recover” following such treatment. This, however, was an illusion. If the patient recovered at all, it was in spite of the treatment and certainly not because of it. Many people did die because of their treatment, but physicians did not recognize that the treatment itself was the direct cause of these deaths, attributing that to the disease. However, doubters soon began sounding objections, and the theories of the regular school began to crumble. Physicians fell victim to their delusion. Learned men of science and respected people in the community were practicing under the illusion that such “heroic” treatment would cure. Out of this illusion came disillusion to many, and thus there were cries of objection and new healing sects sprang up out of desperation.

The urge to make new discoveries along with preconceived ideas and auto-suggestion, together with the desire to break new ground, drives men to make certain conclusions from observations which are deceiving. An example of such deceiving observations may lie in the supposed “healing power” of the homeopath’s drugs, or the neuropath’s Schuessler salts, or the manipulations of the osteopaths and chiropractors. General good reason tells us that there is no magic power in any homeopathic drug that could cure arthritis, or eliminate kidney stones, or heal a wound. We know that only our own body can do this by the methods described in earlier lessons. If we observe an individual being restored to health after a manipulative treatment, we must not be so quick to accept this illusion. One must investigate further into the history of the illness and the mode of treatment, and the conditions favoring restoration. If the patient was first taken off of medical drugs, placed on a better diet, and provided other requirements for health, and then given a treatment or cell salts, we must not immediately credit the treatment or cell salts for the cure. The fact that the homeopathic cell salts were far less harmful than the previous drugs that were taken and the fact that the conditions for healing were provided, gives the body an opportunity to heal itself. Keeping this in mind, the illusion becomes obvious.

Harm comes when people become so convinced of these illusions that a more rational approach is not sought. You must, therefore, strive to become independent thinkers. You must begin to question “cures” that do not sound reasonable to you and then seek the truth by seeing things from the rational perspective of Life Science.

If a certain drug is found by the medical community to be harmful and is taken off the market, you are told that you should not doubt the effectiveness of all of these agents. However, you should not allow yourselves to be deceived by them. You may feel better for awhile after taking one of these symptom-suppressing agents, but your so-called “cure” is a deception. Your “cure” will not last. You must be alert to these deceptions and illusions.

Re-education is the key for recognizing misleading illusions. By constantly seeking the truth we will be led to he true cause of disease, and from this we may know how to maintain health.

Any violation of biological law, that is, physiological law, always results in impaired health. This would include any violation against sleep requirements, proper foods, air, water, sunshine, exercise, etc. The body’s ability to adapt is remarkable, but health is a delusion when you attempt to produce it by drugs. Under such circumstances, the body will inevitably become exhausted and chronic illnesses will ensue.

Human conduct is affected by environmental factors which may be psychological or social as well as biological factors. Many types of mental deficiencies are considered congenital. Although such diathesis may be inherited, they will not necessarily develop,

providing all the conditions for health—both physical and mental—are provided to the child.

The child’s physical and mental health tendencies are implanted in his genes at the moment of conception. During the next nine months, the child’s environment consists of the mother’s womb. Here, the child may be affected by different influences and it is imperative that the health and living habits of the mother be correct. We should not fool ourselves into believing that nothing can be done about hereditary traits because something can be done. But it must begin before conception and involve healthful living practices of both parents.

Alcoholism, drugs, X rays, wrong foods, etc., affect the fetus. It would be an error to dismiss any of these factors in the role of mental and physical health. You must not allow the delusion of these agents to affect your decision to utilize them, especially when the health of a future human being depends on your decision.

It is very easy to be deceived today concerning our health and well-being. The public media is flooded with advertising campaigns which involve a host of health-robbing agents. This would include coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, and “junk foods.”

Our weapon against this misleading information is education so that we may learn the truth; so that we may eschew those things which destroy our health. Your health is your most valuable asset. In the world today, health is a commodity which requires a conscious effort to keep, but superior health is well within the grasp of every living being as long as they obey the “Laws of Life.”

== Questions & Answers ==
How can I eliminate my backache if I do not receive chiropractic adjustments?

In most cases, pain in the back is due to toxic accumulations. The most rational mode of action would be to fast, thus freeing the energies needed for detoxification, and then go on a normal Hygienic diet. When you feel better, begin a good exercise program and your back will mend.

Why do some naturopaths employ the use of herbs, electrotherapy, physiotherapy, manipulations, vitamins, minerals, etc.?

Many naturopaths are looking for “cures” to sell just as are the medical doctors. They do not fully realize that the so-called “disease” is the cure and it is the body’s way of eliminating toxins and initiating healing. If left alone, the disease will terminate itself.

How do you explain the success of the homeopaths and their popularity today?

The homeopaths prescribe drugs in such minute doses that the body can eliminate these poisons much easier than those prescribed in the regular large doses of the medical doctor. Therefore, the body is relatively unhampered in its healing efforts. So, it is still the body that heals and effects the “cure”—not any drug. The homeopaths would be even more successful if they prescribed no drugs at all and addressed themselves to removal of causes.

Is Osteopathy similar to that of regular medical practice?

Present-day osteopathic practices are similar to regular medical practices. Osteopaths prescribe drugs and all the other therapies used by the dominant school of medicine. The major difference is that the osteopath also uses manipulative therapy and the medical practitioners do not.

== Article #1: What Is Naturopathy? by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton ==
Will the wonders never cease? Will the inventive ingenuity of the therapeutic dabblers never run out? Will the naturopaths ever “return to nature” and cease running after false gods?

Recently a four-page circular was deposited in our box at the Post Office. It was sent to us by the leading lay Naturopathic journal in the U.S. The first page is an ad for the magazine. The fourth page carries an ad of two Chiropractors in Missouri who say: “Natural methods approved by leading drugless doctors throughout the world are used in this office.”

It is no secret to the readers of this magazine that chiropractors no longer believe in Chiropractic and are employing everything under the sun that any of the other schools of miscalled “healing” are employing. There are probably not more than three Chiropractic schools left in the world, although there are several that still call themselves schools or colleges of Chiropractic. Every “Chiropractic” magazine that comes to our desk is devoted more to physiotherapy, endocrine therapy and “diet” than to Chiropractic.

It is unfortunate that when chiropractors abandoned Chiropractic they did not go forward to something better instead of following popular commercial trends into something worse.

But I did not set out to write this article for the benefit of the Chiropractic profession. I want to discuss the inventive ingenuity of the naturopaths. Naturopathy, as defined by its leaders and its schools, is being practiced, under one name or another, by practically the whole drugless world. Ninety-five percent of the chiropractors are practicing Naturopathy. And this reminds us that D. D. Palmer, alleged discoverer of Chiropractic, was a life member of he American Naturopathic Association; also, that here in Texas a large group of chiropractors have formed a Naturopathic Association and are seeking a law to license them as naturopaths.

On page three of the circular that “inspired” this article is an ad of a “health-building specialist and foot correctionist: Graduate Naturopathist, Masseur and Physiotherapist” of Iowa. He offers to the people of B. J. Palmer’s home town, the following cures:

* Complete Drugless Health Service
* Swedish Massage and Movements
* Vapor Baths and Hydrotherapy
* Ultra Violet Ray and Infra Red
* Short-Wave Radio Therapy
* Arch Supports Built to Fit
* Personalized Notes on Health Building and Feet
Hereafter if anybody dies in Davenport, Iowa, it will be their own fault. This man certainly has enough machinery that he can push an electric button or turn a switch or he can “use his hands” and get everybody well.

Why do so many naturopaths and chiropractors still advertise themselves as “foot correctionists”? Do they not know that Dr. Locke is dead and that his fake cure died before he did? Why not try twisting ears for a while? I guarantee that twisting the ears will cure as many diseases as twisting the feet.

Turning to page two of the circular I see an ad for ‘Topeka’s (Kansas) Naturopathic Physician.” While he uses “no drugs, no serums, no surgery” he “is now using OCTOZONE OXYGEN, the new European treatment.”

“OCTOZONE is an active form of pure oxygen—a natural element of the air discovered by Eugene Royer, the French physicist. A powerful germicide and detoxifying agent, it charges the red blood cells with oxygen, revitalizes the cells and tissues, and produces energy by strong oxidation. The function of oxygen in the blood is to convert

nutrition into energy. These properties make OCTOZONE a valuable treatment in a wide variety of conditions and many cases receive benefit not otherwise obtainable.

“Arthritis, neuritis, sinusitus, colitis, sclerosis, catarrhal deafness, pelvic infections, and other conditions of infectious origin have responded to this treatment and in some cases have been astonishingly rapid. (It is not clear here whether it is the “condition” or the “treatment” that has been “astonishingly rapid.” Ed.)

“Anyone sick and discouraged should investigate Dr. ...’s SYSTEM OF HEALTH BUILDING, which in addition to OCTOZONE includes all acceptable (acceptable to whom? Ed.) drugless and natural methods, such as short-wave diathermy, cold quartz ultraviolet rays, specific light waves, galvanism, colonic irrigation, natural foods, manipulative therapy, and personalized notes on health building.”

Surely, here is a combination of machines and “use of ands” that will cure almost, if not quite, all the diseases in Topeka and the surrounding country.

There are plenty of naturopaths in the country who denounce these machine-shop methods and declare that they have no place in Naturopathy. There are plenty of naturopaths who scoff at these push-button doctors and refuse to recognise them as naturopaths. But how are we to decide what methods are Naturopathy and who are the real naturopaths?

The founder of Naturopathy defines it as “organized drugless healing.” The above methods resemble chaos and do not seem to us to be very well organized, but they are drugless. As the naturopathic schools (the few that are left), are teaching these methods, hundreds of naturopaths are using them and the naturopathic journals carry articles about them, and ads urging them upon the practitioner and patient. I think we are safe in assuming that the new naturopath (neo-naturopathy) is a machine-shop operator. I assume that now that we have machines to give us “an active form of pure oxygen” we will no longer need our lungs and respiratory muscles. We can dispense with breathing and let the machine charge our red blood cells with oxygen, which we are surprised to learn, “is a natural element of the air.”

But now that we have octozone and octozone machines, what are we going to do with our old stand-by, ozone and the ozone generators? What is to become of terpezone and the terpezone chambers? It will surely be heart-rending to have to discard those older loves for a new one.

I often wonder what the feeling of a patient must be when, upon first entering the office of a neo-naturopath, he sees there a vanload of Goldbergian gadgets designed to manufacture health. He hears the purr of the motors and the hum of the machinery; sees the vari-colored lights as these flash on and off and smells the odors of ozone, terpezone, octozone, and of other smelly things. Looking around on the shelves he sees various-size boxes and bottles wearing fancy labels and wrapped in cellophane, containing vitamin pills, food concentrates, gland extracts, laxatives and various herb “remedies.”

With credulous awe he must think to himself as he begins to disrobe for the ceremonials he is about to go through: “Surely now, I have found the right ‘doctor.’ This man certainly has enough machinery to manufacture all the health I need.”

Some of the larger and better stocked of these machine shops have gone in for mass production. Health is turned out on the line like automobiles. They advertise that they treat three hundred patients a day—“each patient receives my personal attention.”

It may amuse my readers; it may disgust them; they may react in various ways; but it is a curious fact that these push-button doctors all insist that their gadget-treatments are natural and that they are practicing “nature cure.” Even their vitamin pills (often so-called synthetic “vitamins”) and their food concentrates are “natural foods.” Their thinking is as artificial as their methods: the machine age has run away with their feeble minds.

If Naturopathy did not change so much, so often and so rapidly, we might be able to find out what it is, but with its rapid kaleidoscopic changes it defies definition.

'''Reprinted from Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review June 1942.'''

== Article #2: Hygiene Vs. the Cures by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton ==
The medical dictionary defines cure to mean: “The course of treatment of any disease, or of a special case. The successful treatment of a disease or wound. A system of treating disease. A medicine effective in treating disease.” Thus do meanings of words change. From the Latin, cura, which is synonymous with our word care, cure was originally applied to the care of the healthy individual, then to the care of the sick; now it is defined as a method or means of treating disease or as a medicine effective in treating a disease. Once it also had the significance of a reinstatement of health in an organism that was recently sick, but even then, in both common and professional acceptance, it had reference to the means whereby this was supposed to be accomplished.

A drug was said to be a “cough cure,” or a cure for constipation, or for some other disease. The present definition that it is “a medicine effective in treating disease” is ambiguous, in that it fails to define what the “medicine” is effective in doing. Few of medicine’s “effective medicines” are claimed to do more than provide a little evanescent and doubtful palliation. Be this as it may, the sick would hardly be said to be cured, however perfect the recovery, without the employment of some drug or treatment. Cure is wrought by some foreign or external aid.

The sick are treated as they are clothed and physicked (drugged) as they are fed, in the confident assurance that, in either case, they are being fitted and burnished for new services. Hence it is that cure has reference to external rather than to an internal recourse. Call it a medicine or a course of treatment, the cure is the work of something outside the living organism, not the result of the body’s own healing work.

Living things alone are subjects of the curative efforts of those who profess to be able to heal and it is the different estimates relatively that are credited to the vital, organic or recuperative forces, and the part that treatment plays, that serves as the basis of the different views entertained of the subject. Apparently most members of the various schools of healing deem that disease is a destructive something that will inevitably consummate its malevolent work unless opposed by some counteracting and neutralizing power, the forces of life being little more than a spectator on the sidelines, until the disease is either vanquished, accepting the victory wrought in their behalf, or the patient dies. There are among these various practitioners, those (relatively few) who award some credit to the processes of life, if these forces are stimulated or goaded by measures capable of exciting or arousing their actions defensively.

Outside the schools of curing, there are those who place no dependence on any other means than those of organic recuperation and reconstruction, or in those all-efficient processes and means that continue the vital or organic changes in the healthy state. These hold that healing is a biological process, as much an activity of life as nutrition, respiration, excretion, etc., and that it requires no goads to action.

All the many schools of curing that have existed in the past and that exist now, with all their many and opposing theories, and their many and conflicting practices, have existed and acted under the assumption that all desirable ends in cases of disease have been and are affected by medical treatment.

Scarcely any reliance has been placed upon the intrinsic vital capacities. At all times the big question in medical investigations and actions has revolved about the matter of the qualities, quantities and times in which medicines are useful.

Obviously there has been a mountain of error in all this theorizing and empirical practice. Schools of medicine and modes of treatment have followed each other into oblivion in a melancholy succession, leaving scarcely a trace behind. It has been assumed that what we call symptoms of disease are necessarily and invariably evidences of a destructive process; that a great variety of substances known to be inimical to health, are yet, also, antagonistic to disease; that on special occasions such substances may constitute special vivifying means, differing from those usually necessary, performing on local structures curative acts that differ from the ordinary nutritive and reproductive processes.

Writing in November 1954, George H. Taylor, M.D., said that the Hygienic or Physiological School “endeavors to show that these assumptions are to be taken, if at all, with many qualifications, and that the present state of science fails to warrant, or absolutely repudiates them.” On this occasion he also pointed out that the Hygienic school “seeks to guide those liable to suffer from disease to a true knowledge of themselves, and to the probable causes of their physical miseries,” and finds redemption “in the discipline and correction of faulty and perverted functional habits.”

Taylor said that the Hygienic school abjures entirely the empirical or experimental practices of the curing schools, and refuses to admit, as untrustworthy, the ambiguous evidence in favor of such practices. Admitting that, even with the same data upon which to reason, there would be differences in judgement, he asserted that “life and its invariable phenomena, rather than medicine and its uses, should furnish the proper field of inquiry.” From such a study is to be gained a knowledge of how the living organism behaves under different circumstances; we would learn what life ordinarily does, and how it will act under constraint and compulsion, and what are the proper conditions for its ascendency over the causes of disease.

As he pointed out on the occasion, we can never weigh or measure the vital principle, but we may observe the circumstances that attend its operations, its work, its invariable conditions, its laws, what it does, and that on our understanding of these we must base our actions in reference to it, both in health and in disease. All of this simply means that, whatever may be the essential nature of life, our behavior towards the body, whether well or sick, must be, if it is not to be harmful, consonant with human physiology.

A living organism grows, reproduces and multiplies its parts and, by this repetition extends itself. To do this, it selects from its environment such materials as it has the capacity to make into parts of its own structure, and as promptly rejects and refuses all other substances. These are necessary conditions to the maintenance of its vital integrity. In the one-celled organism, in the higher plant or animal, wherever we see life, selection and appropriation of food, assimilation and growth, and refusal and rejection are constant actions, and the energy of these actions must gear a constant relation to each other, for the living organism seeks its own welfare in all acts. As the constitution of the living unit is uniform and invariable, it necessarily follows that all external substances must be of three kinds, namely:

# Materials that are identical with or are susceptible to being transformed into the same form as that of the living structure and are related to the organism as nutriment.
# Substances that may be described as indifferent giving rise to no change upon contact, but may serve as a needed medium, for example, water.
# Substances that cannot be transformed into cell substance, but the relation of which,to the vital structure, is one of antagonism, and in varying degrees of intensity, is destructive of the integrity of the vital organism, and are properly classed as poison.

We may properly think of water as belonging, essentially, to the first classification, as it is essential to all vital actions and vital syntheses. Viewing matter in this light, then, all substances with which the living organism comes into contact are either food materials or poisons. The class which we call poisons is very numerous and composed of a number of subdivisions—indeed, this class is almost as various as the number of elements and chemical compounds, after we have subtracted nutriments.

When nonusable substances are brought into contact with the cells, they must be resisted, rejected, expelled. The actions by which these poisons are resisted and expelled have long been mistaken for actions of the poisons. In sober fact, the so-called actions of drugs (poisons) are actions of the living body. These actions are but phases of the pri-

mordial activities of the living organism in rejecting and casting off materials that cannot be normally appropriated into living structures.

Animal organisms are made up of parts and each of these parts is composed of lesser elements, each of which has a quasi-independent existence and exercises its own peculiar powers of action, and is capable of its own peculiar affections, hence the application of foreign substances to the general organism, through the circulation, gives rise to local effects in keeping with the characteristics of the parts affected, all of which are disturbances of the normal functions of the various parts, and this tends to impair and degrade and not to elevate the local function.

All this results inevitably from the invariableness that characterizes the constitution of living organisms as much as it does inanimate things. The same constituent elements and the same conditions of warmth, heat, activity, etc., are employed in the composition of each individual of each species, wherever produced or reproduced; the same laws ruling that are observed to rule other individuals. In the whole evolution of an organism and its activities, effects change in relation to changing conditions, but the laws governing these operations never vary.

Because of this invariableness, all attempts to impose materials or conditions upon the organism other than those that normally and naturally belong to it, are met with determined resistance, and can result only in a waste of its formative elements and actuating energies. The constant and orderly development of forms with which the forces of life are connected, and on which the functions and activities of life depend, is thus retarded and even perverted.

The broad page of nature, with its infinite diversity, is but a statement of these principles. Organization, whether we regard it as something apart from the ordinary chemical and physical forms and forces or a special application of physical and chemical forces, is no less subject to fixed principles and invariable laws. Its almost infinite variety of manifestations are expressions of the values of the forces that inhere in particular organisms under special conditions. Matter itself undergoes no change in its intrinsic qualities.

All the importance that attaches to the effort to manage health and recovery by drugs, arises out of a failure to recognize the foregoing principles. They arise out of a mistake in the essential nature of the actions occasioned in the vital organism by the administration of drugs. The very liberality of man’s constitutional endowments makes possible the great number and variety of actions that are and have been mistaken for the actions of “remedies.”

Considering the nature of man, and his many constitutional capabilities, it should be evident that the variations in his health and the multitude of symptoms which occur, arise out of his complexity of structure and function as much as do the many actions that have, been mistaken for drug actions. It is the human organism, and not simple lifeless chemical substances, that is capable of such a wide variety of behavior patterns. Rightly considered, these many capacities for action are evidences of man’s superiority, not of his defect.

Dr. Taylor thought that “the utmost reach of power demands the utmost freedom of its exercise,” and pointed out, in this connection, that, the ends of man’s intellectual existence “could not be attained by confining him to a fixed point of temperature, or locality, and a consequent uniform subsistence.” To meet the requirements of his intellect, man requires a highly complex and plastic organism. The human organism is capable of accommodating itself to a great variety of circumstances, making use, in so doing, of a variety of means of adjustment and adaptation.

Man is possessed of organs and systems of organs that, in their normal functions, act reciprocally to secrete and excrete, adopt and exclude, to the end that physiological equilibrium be maintained. With such marvelous means of adjustment at his command, man evolves no disease, so long as his needs (supplies) are filled and waste is rejected. Only when he has reduced his functioning powers so that waste is incompletely expelled,

nutrition is impaired, secretion is checked and vital processes are hampered does he become sick, i.e., his body embarks on an emergency course of liberation and restoration.

If we exclude those “diseases” that result from poisoning by drugs or similar toxic substances taken in from without, disease is the result of impairments or imperfections in the functions of the body which permit the accumulation of endogenously generated toxin, the imperfection of function growing out of reduced functioning power (enervation) which, in turn, results from the dissipation of the energies of life. This is to say, disease is autogenerated. It is not an attack upon the body by an outside foe, but a consequence of violations of the conditions of a healthy existence.

Since the principles and conditions of vital as well as of chemical actions are fixed and do not change because the organism is sick, it becomes plain that the professionally induced “medicinal” disease cannot possess the intelligence or power to restore health. Recuperation and recovery are never the results of so-called medicines, but are always the results of the operation of the organic forces and of the conditions that usually maintain health. Health is to be restored, as it is to be preserved, by conforming to the healthful conditions laid down by nature.

This will be met with the assertion that good effects are seen to follow the administration of drugs; we will even be assured that drugs can and often do save life. The record of experience will be appealed to, to substantiate this position. Case histories and case records will be paraded in evidence. Such “evidence” takes no account of the self-healing powers and activities of the organism and, at the same time, assumes that the drug effect is additional to that of the healing work of the sick body. True, there is additional action—the activity needed to resist and expel the drug. The vital actions are changed, not helped.

Any benefit accruing to health must come, either through the ordinary physiological processes or through some temporary, even, perhaps dramatic modification of these to meet special occasions, and these can work only with the normal things of life: food instead of poison, rest instead of stimulation, sleep instead of narcosis, air instead of drug fumes, warmth instead of mustard plasters, etc., etc.

Those substances that the living structure cannot, appropriate and use, but must reject in a state of health are equally nonusable and must be rejected in a state of disease when the powers of life are lowered.

Drugs can only further impair and depress vital powers. Drugs morbidly occasion the diversion of the very functions and processes upon which the body must rely for purgation and healing. This may so devitalize the body that it must suspend its healing efforts—symptoms are suppressed .

Finally, it must be observed that, in treating the sick with drugs, no lesson is taught, no discipline is enforced, and no condition is instituted that is of any value in health or in a subsequent state of illness. The intellect of the patient is left a blank, his body a scene of devastation. The patient does not know why he was sick, nor how he recovered, and he does not know how to avoid becoming sick again.

'''Reprinted from Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, August 1965.'''