If the character of the disease is ill-defined and complicated, how, then, is the physician of the "Old School" to select the proper specific remedy, Under such circumstances, the diagnosis of the case as well as the medical treatment will at best be largely guesswork.

Compare with this unreliable and unsatisfactory treatment the simple and scientific, exact and efficient natural methods. The natural remedies can be applied from the first, at the slightest manifestation of inflammatory and febrile symptoms. No matter what the specific nature or trend of the inflammatory process, whether it be a simple cold, or whether it take the form of measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox, appendicitis, etc.—it makes absolutely no difference in the mode of treatment. In many instances the natural treatment will have broken the virulence of the attack or brought about a cure before the regular physician gets good and ready to apply his specific treatment.

In the following I shall describe briefly these natural methods for the treatment of acute diseases which insure the largest possible percentage of recoveries and at the same time do not in any way tax the system, cause undesirable aftereffects or lead to the different forms of chronic invalidism.

The Natural Remedies

The most important ones of these natural remedies can be had free of cost in any home. They are: air, fasting or eliminative diets, water, and the right mental attitude.

I am fully convinced that these remedies offered freely by Mother Nature are sufficient, if rightly applied, to cure any acute disease arising within the organism. If circumstances permit, however, we may advantageously add corrective manipulation of the spine, massage, magnetic treatment, advanced regenerative modalities (like the Magnatherm) and homeopathic, herbal and specific nutritional supplementation.

The Fresh-Air Treatment

A plentiful supply of pure fresh air is of vital importance at any time. We can live without food for several weeks and without water for several days, but we cannot live without air for more than a few minutes. Just as a fire in the furnace cannot be kept up without a good draft which supplies the necessary amount of oxygen to the flame, so the fires of life in the body cannot be maintained without an abundance of oxygen in the air we breathe.

This is of vital importance at all times, but especially so in acute disease, because here, as we have learned, all the vital processes are intensified. The system is working under high pressure. Large quantities of waste and morbid materials, the products of inflam-mation, have to be oxidized, that is, burned up and eliminated from the system.

In this respect the Nature Cure people have brought about one of the greatest reforms in medical treatment: the admission of plenty of fresh air to the sickroom.

But, strange to say, the importance of this most essential natural remedy is as yet not universally recognized by the representatives of the regular school of medicine. Time and again I have been called to sickrooms where by order of the doctor every window was closed and the room filled with pestilential odors, the poisonous exhalations of the diseased organism added to the stale air of the unventilated and often overheated apartment. And this air starvation had been enforced by graduates of our best medical schools and colleges. This unnatural and inexcusable crime against the sick is committed even at this late day in our great hospitals under the direct supervision of physicians who are foremost in their profession.

It is not the cold draft that is to be feared in the sickroom. Cool air is most agreeable and beneficial to the body burning in fever heat. What is to be feared is the reinhalation and reabsorption of poisonous emanations from the lungs and skin of the diseased body.

Furthermore, the ventilation of a room can be so regulated as to provide a constant and plentiful supply of fresh air without expos-ing its occupants to a direct draft. Where there is only one window and one door, both may be opened and a sheet or blanket hung across the opening of the door, or the single window may be opened partly from above and partly from below, which insures the entrance of fresh, cold air at the bottom and the expulsion of the heated and vitiated air at the top. The patient may be protected by a screen, or a board may be placed across the lower part of the window in such manner that a direct current of air upon the patient is prevented.

In very cold weather, or if conditions are not favorable to constant ventilation of the sickroom, the doors and windows may be opened wide for several minutes every few hours, while the patient's body and head are well protected. There is absolutely no danger of taking cold if these precautions are taken. Under right conditions of room temperature, frequent exposure of the patient's nude body to air and the sunlight will be found most beneficial and will often induce sleep when other means fail.

I would strongly warn against keeping the patient too warm. This is especially dangerous in the case of young children, who cannot use their own judgment or make their wishes known. I have frequently found children in high fever smothered in heavy blankets under the mistaken impression on the part of the attendants that they had to be kept warm and protected against possible draft. In many instances the air under the covers was actually steaming hot. This surely does not tend to reduce the burning fever heat in the body of the patient.

"Natural Diet" in Acute Diseases

From the appearance of the first suspicious symptoms until the fever has abated and there is a hearty, natural hunger, feeding should be reduced to a minimum or better still, entirely suspended.

In cases of extreme weakness, and where the acute and subacute processes are long drawn out and the patient has become greatly emaciated, it is advisable to give such easily digestible foods as white of egg, milk, buttermilk and whole grain bread with butter in combination with raw and stewed fruits and with vegetable salads prepared with lemon juice and olive oil.

The quantity of drinking water should be regulated by the desire of the patient, but he should be warned not to take any more than is necessary to satisfy his thirst. Large amounts of water taken into the system dilute the blood and the other fluids and secretions of the organism to an excessive degree, and this tends to increase the general weakness and lower the patient's resistance to the disease forces.

Water may be made more palatable and at the same time more effective for purposes of elimination by the addition of the unsweetened juice of acid fruits, such as orange, grapefruit or lemon, about one part of juice to three parts of water. Fresh pineapple juice is very good except in cases of hyperacidity of the stomach. The fresh, unsweetened juice of Concord grapes is also beneficial.

Acid and subacid fruit juices do not contain sufficient carbohydrate or protein materials to unduly excite the digestive processes, while on the other hand they are very rich in Nature's best medicines, the mineral salts in organic form. Sweet grapes and sweetened grape juice should not be given to patients suffering from acute, febrile diseases because they contain too much sugar, which would have a tendency to start the processes of digestion and assimilation, to cause morbid fermentation and to raise the temperature and accelerate the other disease symptoms.

Fasting

Total abstinence from food during acute febrile conditions is of primary importance. In certain diseases which will be mentioned later on, especially those involving the digestive tract, fasting must be continued for several days after all fever symptoms have disappeared.

There is no greater fallacy than that the patient must be sustained and his strength kept up by plenty of nourishing food and drink or, worse still, by stimulants and tonics. This is altogether wrong in itself, and besides, habit and appetite are often mistaken for hunger.

A common spectacle witnessed at the bedside of the sick is that of well-meaning but misguided relatives and friends forcing food and drink on the patient, often by order of the doctor, when his whole system rebels against it and the nauseated stomach expels the food as soon as taken. Sedatives and tonics are then resorted to in order to force the digestive organs into submission.

Aversion to eating during acute diseases, whether they represent healing crises or disease crises, is perfectly natural, because the entire organism, including the mucous membranes of stomach and intestines, is engaged in the work of elimination, not assimilation. Nausea, slimy and fetid discharges, constipation alternating with diarrhea, etc., indicate that the organs of digestion are throwing off disease matter, and that they are not in a condition to take up and assimilate food.

Ordinarily, the digestive tract acts like a sponge which absorbs the elements of nutrition; but in acute diseases the process is reversed, the sponge is being squeezed and gives off large quantities of morbid matter. The processes of digestion and assimilation are at a standstill. In fact, the entire organism is in a condition of prostration, weakness and inactivity. The vital energies are concentrated on the cleansing and healing processes. Accordingly, there is no demand for food.

This is verified by the fact that a person fasting for a certain period, say, four weeks, during the course of a serious acute illness, will not lose nearly as much in weight as the same person fasting four weeks in days of healthful activity.

It is for the foregoing reasons that nourishment taken during acute disease is not properly digested, assimilated and transmuted into healthy blood and tissues. Instead, it ferments and decays, filling the system with waste matter and noxious gases. interferes seriously with the elimination of morbid matter through stomach and intestines by forcing these organs to take up the work of digestion and assimilation. diverts the vital forces from their combat against the disease conditions and draws upon them to remove the worse than useless food ballast from the organism.

This explains why taking food during feverish diseases is usually followed by a rise in temperature and by aggravation of the other disease symptoms. As long as there are signs of inflammatory, febrile conditions and no appetite, do not be afraid to withhold food entirely, if necessary, for as long as five, six or seven weeks. In my practice I have had several patients who did not take any food, except water to which acid fruit juices had been added, for more than seven weeks, and then made a rapid and complete recovery.

In cases of gastritis, appendicitis, peritonitis, dysentery or typhoid fever, abstinence from food is absolutely imperative. Not even milk should be taken until fever and inflammation have entirely subsided, and then a few days should be allowed for the healing and restoring of the injured tissues. Many of the serious chronic aftereffects of these diseases are due to too early feeding, which does not allow the healing forces of Nature time to rebuild sloughed membranes and injured organs.

After a prolonged fast, great care must be observed when commencing to eat. Very small quantities of light food may safely be taken at intervals of a few hours. A good plan, especially after an attack of typhoid fever or dysentery, is to break the fast by thoroughly masticating one or two tablespoonfuls of popcorn. This gives the digestive tract a good scouring and starts the peristaltic action of the bowels better than any other food.

The popcorn may advantageously be followed in about two hours with a tablespoonful of cooked rice and one or two cooked prunes or a small quantity of some other stewed fruit.

For several days or weeks after a fast, according to the severity of the acute disease or healing crisis, a diet consisting largely of raw fruits, such as oranges, grapefruit, apples, pears, grapes, etc., and juicy vegetables, especially lettuce, celery, cabbage slaw, watercress, young onions, tomatoes or cucumbers should be adhered to. No condiments or dressings should be used with the vegetables except lemon juice and olive oil.

Hydropathic Treatment in Acute Diseases

We claim that in acute diseases hydropathic treatment will accomplish all the benefcial effects which the "Old School" practitioners ascribe to drugs, and that water applications will produce the desired results much more efficiently, and without any harmful by-effects or aftereffects upon the system.

The principal objects to be attained in the treatment of acute inflammatory diseases are:

To relieve the inner congestion and consequent pain in the affected parts. To keep the temperature below the danger point by promoting heat radiation through the skin. To increase the activity of the organs of elimination and thus to facilitate the removal of morbid materials from the system. To increase the positive electromagnetic energies in the organism. To increase the amount of oxygen and ozone in the system and thereby to promote the oxidation and combustion of effete matter.

The above-mentioned objects can be attained most effectually by the simple cold water treatment. Whatever the acute condition may be, whether an ordinary cold or the most serious type of febrile disease, the applications described in detail in the following pages, used singly, combined or alternately according to individual conditions, will always be in order and sufficient to produce the best possible results.

Baths and Ablutions

Cooling sprays or, if the patient is too weak to leave the bed, cold sponge baths or ablutions, repeated whenever the temperature rises, are very effective for keeping the fever below the danger point, for relieving the congestion in the interior of the body and for stimulating the elimination of systemic poisons through the skin.

However, care must be taken not to lower the temperature too much by the excessive coldness or unduly prolonged duration of the application. It is possible to suppress inflammatory processes by means of cold water or ice bags just as easily as with poisonous antiseptics, antifever medicines and surgical operations.

It is sufficient to reduce the temperature to just below the danger point. This will allow the inflammatory processes to run their natural course through the five progressive stages of inflammation and this natural course will then be followed by perfect regeneration of the affected parts.

In our sanitarium we use only water of ordinary temperature as it flows from the faucet, never under any circumstances ice bags or ice water. The application of ice keeps the parts to which it is applied in a chilled condition. The circulation cannot react, and the inflammatory processes are thus most effectually suppressed.

To recapitulate: Never check or suppress a fever by means of cold baths, ablutions, wet packs, etc., but merely lower it below the danger point. For instance, if a certain type of fever has a tendency to rise to 104 degree F. or more, bring it down to about 102 degree. If the fever ordinarily runs at a lower temperature, say at 102 degree F., do not try to reduce it more than one or two degrees.

If the temperature is subnormal, that is, below the normal or regular body temperature, the packs should be applied in such a manner that a warming effect is produced, that is, less wet cloths and more dry covering should be used, and the packs left on the body a longer time before they are renewed. More detailed instruction will be given in subsequent pages.

Never lose sight of the fact that fever is in itself a healing, cleansing process which must not be checked or suppressed.

Hot-Water Applications Are Injurious

Altogether wrong is the application of hot water to seats of inflammation as, for instance, the inflamed appendix or ovaries, sprains, bruises, etc. Almost in every instance where I am called in to attend a case of acute appendicitis or peritonitis, I find hot compresses or hot water bottles, by means of which the inflamed parts are kept continually in an overheated condition. It is in this way that a simple inflammation is nurtured into an abscess and made more serious and dangerous.

The hot compress or hot-water bottle draws the blood away from the inflamed area to the surface temporarily; but unless the hot application is kept up continually, the blood, under the Law of Action and Reaction, will recede from the surface into the interior, and as a result the inner congestion will become as great as or greater than before.

If the hot applications are continued, the applied heat tends to maintain and increase the heat in the inflamed parts.

Inflammation means that there is already too much heat in the affected part or organ. Common sense, therefore, would dictate cooling applications instead of heating ones.

The cold packs and compresses, on the other hand, have a directly cooling effect upon the seat of inflammation and in accordance with the Law of Action and Reaction their secondary, lasting effect consists in drawing the blood from the congested and heated interior to the surface, thus relaxing the pores of the skin and promoting the radiation of heat and the elimination of impurities.

Both the hot-water applications and the use of ice are, therefore, to be absolutely condemned. The only rational and natural treatment of inflammatory conditions is that by compresses, packs and ablutions, using water of ordinary temperature, as it comes from the cold water tap.

By means of the simple cold-water treatment and fasting all fevers and inflammations can be reduced in a perfectly natural way within a short time without undue strain on the organism.

The Whole-Body Pack

The whole-body pack is most effective if by means of it the patient can be brought into a state of copious perspiration. The pack is then removed and the patient is given a cold sponge bath.

It will be found that this treatment often produces a second profuse sweat which is very beneficial. This aftersweat should also be followed by a cold sponge bath.

Such a course of treatment will frequently be sufficient to eliminate the morbid matter which has gathered in the system, and thus prevent in a perfectly natural manner a threatening disease which otherwise might become dangerous to life.

How to Apply the Whole-Body Pack

On a bed or cot spread two or more blankets, according to their weight. Over the top blanket spread a linen or cotton sheet which has been dipped into cold water and wrung out fairly dry. Let the blankets extend about one foot beyond the wet sheet at the head of the bed.

Place the patient on the wet sheet so that it comes well up to the neck, and wrap the sheet snugly around the body so that it covers every part, tucking it in between the arms and sides and between the legs. It will be found that the sheet can be adjusted more snugly and smoothly if separate strips of wet linen are placed between the legs and between the arms and the sides of the body.

The blankets are now folded, one by one, upward over the feet and around the body, turned in at the neck and brought across the chest, the outer layers being held in place with safety pins.

The patient should stay in this whole-body pack from one-half hour to two hours, according to the object to be attained and the reaction of the body to the pack. If the pack has been correctly applied, the patient will become warm in a few minutes.

The Bed-Sweat Bath

If the patient does not react to the pack, that is, if he remains cold, or if, as is sometimes the case in malaria, the fever is accompanied by chills or if profuse perspiration is desired, bottles filled with hot water or bricks heated in the oven and wrapped in flannel should be placed along the sides and to the feet, under the outside covering.

This form of application is called the bed-sweat bath. It may be used with good results when an incipient cold is to be aborted.

After the pack has been removed, the body should be sponged with cold water, as already stated. Use a coarse cloth or Turkish towel for this purpose rather than a sponge, as the latter cannot be kept perfectly clean. Dry the body quickly but thoroughly, and finish by rubbing with the hands.

In the meantime the damp bed clothing should be replaced by dry sheets and blankets (a second cot or bed will be found a great convenience), and the patient put to bed without delay and well covered in order to prevent chilling and also to induce, if possible, a copious aftersweat. The patient is then sponged off a second time, put into a dry bed, and allowed to rest.

If the patient is too weak to leave his bed, the cold sponge may be given on a large rubber sheet or oilcloth covered with an old blanket, which should be placed on the bed before the pack is applied. After removing the pack, put a blanket over the patient to prevent chilling and wash quickly but thoroughly first the limbs, then chest and stomach, then the back, drying and covering each part as soon as finished. Remove the rubber sheet from the bed and wrap the patient in dry, warm blankets, or lift him into another bed.

How to Apply the Short-Body Pack

A wide strip of linen or muslin, wrung out of cold water, is wrapped around the patient from under the armpits to the thighs or knees in one, two or more layers, covered by one or more layers of dry flannel or muslin in such a manner that the wet linen does not protrude at any place.

Similar packs may be applied to the throat,* the arms, legs, shoulder joints or any other part of the body.

The number of layers of wet linen and dry covering is determined by the vitality of the patient, the height of his temperature and the particular object of the application, which may be to lower high temperature to raise the temperature when subnormal to relieve inner congestion to promote elimination.

If the object is to lower high temperature, several layers of wet linen should be wrapped around the body and covered loosely by one or two layers of the dry wrappings in order to prevent the bed from getting wet. The packs must be renewed as soon as they become dry or uncomfortably hot.

If the object is to raise subnormal temperature, less wet linen and more dry covering must be used, and the packs left on a longer time, say from thirty minutes to two hours. If the patient does not react to the pack, hot bricks or bottles filled with hot water should be placed at the sides and to the feet, as explained in connection with the whole-body pack.

If inner congestion is to be relieved, or if the object is to promote elimination, less of the wet linen and more dry wrappings should be used.

When packs are applied, the bed may be protected by spreading an oilcloth over the mattress under the sheet. But in no case should oilcloth or rubber sheeting be used for the outer covering of packs. This would interfere with some of the main objects of the pack treatment, especially with heat radiation. The outer covering should be warm but at the same time porous, to allow the escape of heat and of poisonous gases from the body.

Local Compresses

In case of local inflammation, as in appendicitis, ovaritis, colitis, etc., separate cooling compresses may be slipped under the pack and over the seat of inflammation. These local compresses may be removed and changed when hot and dry without disturbing the larger pack.

In all fevers accompanied by high temperature, it is advisable to place an extra cooling compress at the nape of the neck (the region of the medulla and the back brain), because here are located the brain centers which regulate the inner temperature of the body (thermotaxic centers), and the cooling of these brain centers produces a cooling effect upon the entire organism.

Enemas

While ordinarily we do not favor the giving of injections or enemas unless they are absolutely necessary, we apply them freely in feverish diseases in order to remove from the rectum and lower colon any accumulations of morbid matter, and thus to prevent their reabsorption into the system. In cases of exceptionally stubborn constipation, an injection of a few ounces of warm olive oil may be given. Allow this to remain in the colon about thirty minutes in order to soften the contents of the rectum, and follow with an injection of warm water.

Just How the Cold Packs Produce

Their Wonderful Results

(1) How Cold Packs Promote Heat Radiation

Many people are under the impression that the packs reduce the fever temperature so quickly because they are put on cold. But this is not so, because, unless the reaction be bad, the packs become warm after a few minutes' contact with the body.

The prompt reduction of temperature takes place because of increased heat radiation. The coldness of the pack may lower the surface temperature slightly; but it is the moist warmth forming under the pack on the surface of the body that draws the blood from the congested interior into the skin, relaxes and opens its minute blood vessels and pores, and in that way facilitates the escape of heat from the body.

In febrile conditions the pores and capillary blood vessels of the skin are tense and contracted. Therefore the heat cannot escape, the skin is hot and dry, and the interior of the body remains overheated. When the skin relaxes and the patient begins to perspire freely, we say the fever is broken.

The moist warmth under the wet pack produces this relaxation of the skin in a perfectly natural manner. By means of these simple packs followed by cold ablutions, the temperature of the patient can be kept at any point desired without the use of poisonous antifever medicines, serums and antitoxins which lower the temperature by benumbing and paralyzing heart action, respiration, the red and white blood corpuscles, and thus generally lowering the vital activities of the organism.

(2) How Cold Packs Relieve Inner Congestion

In all inflammatory febrile diseases the blood is congested in the inflamed parts and organs. This produces the four cardinal symptoms of inflammation: redness, swelling, heat, and pain. [Rubor, tumor, colar and dolar.] If the congestion be too great, the pain becomes excessive, and the inflammatory processes cannot run their natural course to the best advantage. It is therefore of great importance to relieve the local blood pressure in the affected parts and this can be accomplished most effectively by means of the wet packs.

As before stated, they draw the blood onto the surface of the body and in that way relieve inner congestion wherever it may exist, whether it be in the brain, as in meningitis, in the lungs, as in pneumonia, or in the inflamed appendix.

In several cases where a child was in the most dangerous stage of diphtheria, where the membranes in throat and nasal passages were already choking the little patient, the wet packs applied to the entire body from neck to feet relieved the congestion in the throat so quickly that within half an hour after the first application the patient breathed easily and soon made a perfect recovery. The effectiveness of these simple water applications in reducing congestion, heat and pain is little short of marvelous.

(3) How Cold Packs Promote Elimination

By far the largest number of deaths in febrile diseases result from the accumulation in the system of poisonous substances, which paralyze or destroy vital centers and organs. Therefore it is necessary to eliminate the morbid products of inflammation from the organism as quickly as possible.

This also is accomplished most effectively and thoroughly by the application of wet packs. As they draw the blood into the surface and relax the minute blood vessels in the skin, the morbid materials in the blood are eliminated through the pores of the skin and absorbed by the packs. That this is actually so is verified by the yellowish or brownish discoloration of the wet wrappings and by their offensive odor.

One of the main causes of constipation in febrile diseases is the inner congestion and fever heat. Through the cooling and relaxing effect of the packs upon the intestines, this inner fever heat is reduced, and a natural movement of the bowels greatly facilitated.

If constipation should persist in spite of the packs and cooling compresses, injections of tepid water should be given every day or every other day in order to prevent the reabsorption of poisonous products from the lower colon. But never give injections of cold water with the idea of reducing fever in that way. This is very dangerous and may cause fatal collapse.

The Electromagnetic Effect of

Cold Water Applications

One of the most important, but least understood, effects of hydropathic treatment is its influence upon the electromagnetic energies in the human body. At least, I have never found any allusions to this aspect of the cold-water treatment in any books on hydrotherapy which have come to my notice.

The sudden application of cold water or cold air to the surface of the nude body and the inhalation of cold air into the lungs have the effect of increasing the amount of electromagnetic energy in the system.

This can be verified by the following experiment: Insert one of the plates of an electrometer (sensitive galvanometer) into the stomach of a person who has remained for some time in a warm room. Now let this person inhale suddenly fresh, cold outside air. At once the galvanometer will register a larger amount of electromagnetic energy.

The same effect will be produced by the application of a quick, cold spray to the warm body.

It is the sudden lowering of temperature on the surface of the body or in the lungs and the resulting contrast between the heat within and the cold outside, that causes the increased manifestation of electromagnetic energy in the system.

This, together with the acceleration of the entire circulation, undoubtedly accounts for the tonic effect of cold-water applications such as cold packs, ablutions, sprays, sitz baths, barefoot walking, etc., and for the wonderfully bracing influence of fresh, cold outside air.

The energizing effect of cold air may also explain to a large extent the superiority of the races inhabiting the temperate zones over those of the warm and torrid southern regions.

To me it seems a very foolish custom to run away from the invigorating northern winters to the enervating sameness of southern climates. One of the reasons I abandoned, with considerable financial sacrifice, a well-established home in a Texas city which is the Mecca of health-seekers, was that I did not want to rear my children under the enervating influence of that beautiful climate. I, for my part, want some cold winter weather every year to stir up the lazy blood corpuscles, to set the blood bounding through the system and to freeze out the microbes.

In our Nature Cure work we find all the way through that the continued application of warmth has a debilitating effect upon the organism, and that only by the opposing influences of alternating heat and cold can we produce the natural stimulation which awakens the dormant vital energies in the body of the chronic.

Increase of Oxygen and Ozone

The liberation of electromagnetic currents through cold-water applications has other very important effects upon the system besides that of stimulation.

Electricity splits up molecules of water into hydrogen, oxygen and ozone. We have an example of this in the thunderstorm. The powerful electric discharges which we call lightning separate or split the watery vapors in the air into these elements. It is the increase of oxygen and ozone in the air that purifies and sweetens the atmosphere after the storm.

In acute as well as in chronic disease, large amounts of oxygen and ozone are required to burn up the morbid materials and to purify the system. Certain combinations of these elements are among the most powerful antiseptics and germicides.

Likewise, the electric currents produced by cold packs, ablutions and other cold-water applications split up the molecules of water in the tissues of the body into their component parts. In this way large amounts of oxygen and ozone are liberated, and these elements assist to a considerable extent in the oxidation and neutralization of waste materials and disease products.

The following experiment proves that sudden changes in temperature create electric currents in metals: When two cylinders of dissimilar metals are welded together, and one of the metals is suddenly chilled or heated, electric currents are produced which will continue to flow until both metals are at the same temperature.

Another application of this principle is furnished by the oxydonor. If both poles of this little instrument are exposed to the same temperature, there is no manifestation of electricity; but if one of the poles be attached to the warm body and the other immersed in cold water or exposed to cold air, the liberation of electromagnetic currents begins at once. These electric currents set free oxygen and ozone, which in their turn support the oxidation and neutralization of systemic poisons.

According to my experience, however, the cold-water applications are more effective in this respect than the oxydonor.

The Importance of Right Mental and

Emotional Attitude in Acute Disease

We have learned that in the processes of inflammation a battle is going on between the healing forces of the body, the phagocytes and natural antitoxins on the one hand and the disease taints, germs, bacilli, etc., on the other hand.

This battle is real in every respect, as real as a combat between armies of living soldiers. In this conflict, going on in all acute inflammatory diseases, mind plays the same role as the commander of an army.

The great general needs courage, equanimity and presence of mind most in the stress of battle. So the mind, the commander of the vast armies of cells battling in acute disease for the health of the body, must have absolute faith in the superiority of Nature's healing forces.

If the mind becomes frightened by the inflammatory and febrile symptoms and pictures to itself in darkest colors their dreadful consequences, these confused and distracted thought vibrations are conveyed instantaneously to the millions of little soldiers fighting in the affected parts and organs. They also become confused and panic-stricken.

The excitement of fear in the mind still more accelerates heart action and respiration, intensifies the local congestion and greatly increases the morbid accumulations in the system. In the last chapters of this volume we shall deal especially with the deteriorating influence of fear, anxiety, anger, irritability, impatience, etc., and explain how these and all other destructive emotions actually poison the secretions of the body.

In acute disease we cannot afford to add to the poisonous elements in the organism, because the danger of a fatal ending lies largely in the paralysis of vital centers by the morbid and poisonous products of inflammation.

Everything depends upon the maintenance of the greatest possible inflow of vital force; and there is nothing so weakening as worry and anxiety, nothing that impedes the inflow, distribution and normal activity of the vital energies like fear. A person overcome by sudden fright is actually benumbed and paralyzed, unable to think and to act intelligently.

These truths may be expressed in another way. The victory of the healing forces in acute disease depends upon an abundant supply of the positive electromagnetie energies. In the initial chapters of this volume we have learned that health is positive, disease negative. The positive mental attitude of faith and equanimity creates positive electromagnetic energies in the body, thus infusing the battling phagocytes with increased vigor and favoring the secretion of the antitoxins and antibodies, while the negative, fearful and worrying attitude of mind creates in the system the negative conditions of weakness, lowered resistance and actual paralysis.

In the paragraphs dealing with the effects of cold-water treatment upon the body we learned that the electric currents created in the organism split up the molecules of water in the tissues into their component elements (hydrogen and oxygen), thus liberating large amounts of oxygen and ozone; and that these, in turn, support the processes of combustion and oxidation in the system, burn up waste and morbid matter, and destroy hostile microorganisms.

However, the electromagnetic forces in the body are not only increased and intensified by positive foods, exercise, cold-water treatment, air baths, etc., but also by the positive attitude of mind and will.

The positive mind and will are to the body what the magneto is to the automobile. As the electric sparks from the magneto ignite the gas, thus generating the power that drives the machine, so the positive vibrations, generated by a confident and determined will, create in the body the positive electromagnetic currents which incite and stimulate all vital activities.

Common experience teaches us that the concentration of the will on the thing to be accomplished greatly heightens and increases all physical, mental and moral powers.

Therefore the victory in acute diseases is conditioned by the absolute faith, confidence and serenity of mind on the part of the patient. The more he exercises these harmonizing and invigorating qualities of mind and soul, the more favorable are the conditions for the little soldiers who are fighting his battles in the inflamed parts and organs. The blood and nerve currents are less impeded and disturbed, and flow more normally. The local congestion is relieved, and this favors the natural course of the inflammatory processes.

Therefore, instead of being overcome with fear and anxiety, as most people are under such circumstances, do not become alarmed, nor convey alarm to the millions of little cells battling in the inflamed parts. Speak to them like a commander addressing his troops: "We understand the laws of disease and cure, we know that these inflammatory and febrile symptoms are the result of Nature's healing efforts, we have perfect confidence in her wisdom and in the efficiency of her healing forces. This fever is merely a good house-cleaning, a healing crisis. We are eliminating morbid matter, poisons and germs which were endangering health and life.

"We rejoice over the purification and regeneration now taking place and benefiting the whole body. Fear not! Attend to your work quietly and serenely! Let us open ourselves wide to the inflow of life from the source of all life in the innermost parts of our being! The life in us is the life of God. We are strengthened and made whole by the Divine life and power which animate the universe."

The serenity of your mind, backed by absolute trust in the Law and by the power of a strong Will, infuses the cells and tissues with new life and vigor, enabling them to turn the acute disease into a beneficial, cleansing and healing crisis.

In the following we give a similar formula for treating chronic constipation.

Say to the cells in the liver, the pancreas and the intestinal tract:

"I am not going to force you any longer with drugs or enemas to do your duty. From now on you must work on your own initiative. Your secretions will become more abundant. Every day at—o'clock the bowels will move freely and easily."

At the appointed time make the effort, whether you are success-ful or not, and do not resort to the enema until it becomes an absolute necessity. If you combine with the mental and physical effort a natural diet, cold sitz baths, massage and osteopathic treatment, you will have need of the enema at increasingly longer intervals, and soon be able to discard it altogether.

Be careful, however, not to employ your intelligence and your will power to suppress acute inflammatory and febrile processes and symptoms. This can be accomplished by the power of the will as well as by ice bags and poisonous drugs, and its effect would be to turn Nature's acute cleansing efforts into chronic disease.

The Importance of Right Mental and Emotional

Attitude on the Part of Friends and Relatives

What has just been said about the patient is true also of his friends and relatives. Disease is negative. The sick person is exceedingly sensitive to his surroundings. He is easily influenced by all depressing, discordant and jarring conditions. He catches the expressions of fear and anxiety in the looks, the words, gestures and actions of his attendants, relatives and friends and these intensify his own depression and gloomy forebodings.

This applies especially to the influence exerted by the mother upon her ailing infant. There exists a most intimate sympathetic and telepathic connection between mother and child. The child is affected not only by the outward expression of the mother's fear and anxiety, but likewise by the hidden doubt and despair in the mother's mind and soul.

Usually, the first thing that confronts me when I am called to the sickbed of a child is the frantic and almost hysterical mental condition of the mother, and to begin with, I have to explain to her the destructive influence of her behavior. I ask her:

"Would you willingly give some deadly poison to your child?" "Certainly not," she says, to which I reply:

"Do you realize that you are doing this very thing? That your fear and worry vibrations actually poison and paralyze the vital energies in the body of your child and most seriously interfere with Nature's healing processes?

"Instead of helping the disease forces to destroy your child, assist the healing forces to save it by maintaining an attitude of absolute faith, serenity, calmness and cheerfulness. Then your looks, your voice, your touch will convey to your child the positive, magnetic vibrations of health and of strength. Your very presence will radiate healing power."

Then I explain how faith, calmness and cheerfulness on her part will soothe and harmonize the discordant disease vibrations in the child's body.

Herein lies the modus operandi or working basis of all successful mental and metaphysical treatment.

Summary

Natural Methods in the Treatment of Acute Disease

I. Fresh Air

A plentiful supply of pure air in the sickroom. Frequent exposure of the nude body to air and sun light. Patient must not be kept too warm.

II. Natural Diet

The minimum amount of light food, chiefly fruit and vegetable salads, no condiments. Only enough water to quench thirst, preferably mixed with acid fruit juices. In serious acute febrile conditions and during healing crises no food whatever. In diseases affecting the digestive organs fasting must be prolonged several days beyond cessation of febrile symptoms. Great care must be observed when breaking fast.

III. Water Treatment

Cooling sprays or sponge baths whenever temperature rises. Fever and inflammation must not be suppressed by cold-water applications, but kept below the danger point. Neither ice nor hot applications should be used. Wet packs followed by cold ablutions for elimination of systemic poisons. Separate compresses over seat of inflammation, also at nape of neck. Kind and duration of pack to be determined by condition of patient and object to be attained. Injections of tepid water to relieve constipation when necessary.

IV. Medications

No poisonous drugs, nor any medicines or applications which may check or suppress the feverish, inflammatory processes. Homeopathic medicines, herb decoctions and specific nutritional remedies when indicated.

V. Manipulative Treatment

Osteopathy, massage or magnetic treatment when indicated and available.

VI. Mental Attitude

Courage, serenity and presence of mind are important factors. Fear and anxiety intensify disease conditions, poison the secretions of the body and inhibit the action of the healing forces. Do not suppress acute inflammatory and feverish processes by the power of the will. The right mental and emotional attitude of relatives and friends exerts a powerful influence upon the patient.



Chapter XIV

The True Scope of Medicine

Anyone able to read the signs of the times cannot help observing the powerful influence which the Nature Cure philosophy is already exerting upon the trend of modern medical science. In Germany the younger generation of physicians has been forced by public demand to adopt the natural methods of treatment and the German government has introduced them in the medical departments of its army and navy.

In English-speaking countries, the foremost members of the medical profession are beginning to talk straight Nature Cure doctrine, to condemn the use of drugs and to endorse unqualifiedly the Nature Cure methods of treatment. In proof of this I quote from an article by Dr. William Osler in the Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. X, under the title of "Medicine":

Dr. Osler on Medicine

"The new school does not feel itself under obligation to give any medicines whatever, while a generation ago not only could few physicians have held their practice unless they did, but few would have thought it safe or scientific. Of course, there are still many cases where the patient or the patient's friends must be humored by administering medicine or alleged medicine where it is not really needed, and indeed often where the buoyancy of mind which is the real curative agent, can only be created by making him wait hopefully for the expected action of medicine; and some physicians still cannot unlearn their old training. But the change is great. The modern treatment of disease relies very greatly on the old so-called natural methods, diet and exercise, bathing and massage—in other words, giving the natural forces the fullest scope by easy and thorough nutrition, increased flow of blood and removal of obstructions to the excretory systems or the circulation in the tissues.

"One notable example is typhoid fever. At the outset of the nineteenth century it was treated with 'remedies' of the extremest violence—bleeding and blistering, vomiting and purging, and the administration of antimony and mercury, and plenty of other heroic remedies. Now the patient is bathed and nursed and carefully tended, but rarely given medicine. This is the result partly of the remarkable experiments of the Paris and Vienna schools in the action of drugs, which have shaken the stoutest faiths; and partly of the constant and reproachful object lesson of homeopathy. No regular physician would ever admit that the homeopathic preparations, 'infinitesimals,' could do any good as direct curative agents; and yet it was perfectly certain that homeopaths lost no more of their patients than others. There was but one conclusion to draw—that most drugs had no effect whatever on the diseases for which they were administered."

Dr. Osler is probably the greatest medical authority on drugs now living. He was formerly professor of materia medica at the Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore, U. S., and now holds a professorship at Oxford University, England. His books on medical practice are in use in probably every university and medical school in English-speaking countries. His views on drugs and their real value as expressed in this article should be an eye-opener to those good people who believe that we of the Nature Cure school are altogether too radical, extreme, and somewhat cranky.

However, what Dr. Osler says regarding the "New School" is true only of a few advanced members of the medical profession.

On the rank and file, the idea of drugless healing has about the same effect as a red rag on a mad bull. There are still very few physicians in general practice today who would not lose their bread and butter if they attempted to practice drugless healing on their patients. Both the profession and the public will need a good deal more education along Nature Cure lines before they will see the light.

In the second sentence of his article, Dr. Osler admits the efficacy of mental therapeutics and therapeutic faith as a "curative agent," and ascribes the good effects of medicine to their stimulating influence upon the patient's mind rather than to any beneficial action of the drugs themselves.

With regard to the origin of the modern treatment of typhoid fever, however, the learned doctor is either misinformed or he misrepresents the facts. The credit for the introduction of hydropathic treatment of typhoid fever does not belong to the "remarkable experiments of the Paris and Vienna schools." These schools and the entire medical profession fought this treatment with might and main. For thirty years Priessnitz, Bilz, Ruhne, Father Kneipp and many other pioneers of Nature Cure were persecuted and prosecuted, dragged into the courts and tried on the charges of malpractice and manslaughter for using their sane and natural methods. Not until Dr. Braun of Berlin wrote an essay on the good results obtained by the hydropathic treatment of typhoid fever and it had in that way received orthodox baptism and sanction, was it adopted by advanced physicians all over the world.

Through the Nature Cure treatment of typhoid fever, the mortality of this disease has been reduced from over fifty percent under the old drug treatment to less than five percent under the water treatment.

But the average medical practitioner has not yet learned from the Nature Cure school, that the same simple fasting and cold water which cure typhoid fever so effectively, will just as surely and easily cure every other form of acute disease, as, for instance, scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox, cerebrospinal meningitis, appendicitis, etc. Therefore, we claim that there is no necessity for the employment of poisonous drugs, serums and antitoxins for this purpose.

Referring to the last two sentences of Dr. Osler's article, homeopaths have, as a matter of fact, lost less patients than allopaths. The effect of homeopathic medicine, moreover, is not altogether negative, as Dr. Osler implies. The discovery of the minute cell as the basis of the human organism on the one hand and of the unlimited divisibility of matter on the other hand explains the rationality of the infinitesimal dose. Health and disease are resident in the cell; therefore, the homeopath doctors the cell, and the size of the dose has to be apportioned to the size of the patient.

When Dr. Osler says that most drugs have no effect whatsoever, he makes a serious misstatement. While they may not contribute anything to the cure of the disease for which they are given, they are often very harmful in themselves.

Almost every virulent poison known to man is found in allopathic prescriptions. It is now positively proved by the Diagnosis from the Eye that these poisons have a tendency to accumulate in the system, to concentrate in certain parts and organs for which they have a special affinity and then to cause continual irritation and actual destruction of tissues. By far the greater part of all chronic diseases are created or complicated on the one hand by the suppression of acute diseases by means of drug poisons, and on the other hand through the destructive effects of the drugs themselves.

Dr. Schwenninger, the medical adviser of Prince Bismarck, and later of Richard Wagner, the great composer, has published a book entitled The Doctor. This work is the most scathing arraignment and condemnation of modern medical practice, especially of poisonous drugs and of surgery. Dr. Treves, the body physician of the late King Edward of England, is no less outspoken in his denunciation of drugging than Drs. Osler and Schwenninger.

Just a few men like these, foremost in the medical profession, who have achieved financial and scientific independence, can afford to speak so frankly. The great majority of physicians, even though they know better, continue in the old ruts so as to be considered ethical and orthodox, and in order to hold their practice. It is not the medical profession that has brought about this reform in the treatment of typhoid fever and other diseases. They have been forced into the adoption of the more advanced natural methods through the pressure of the Nature Cure movement in Germany and elsewhere.

Dr. Osler's statements, made with due deliberation in a contribution to the Encyclopedia Americana, are certainly a frank declaration as to the uselessness of drug treatment, and on the other hand, an unqualified endorsement of natural methods of healing.

But it seems to me that Dr. Osler pours out the baby with the bath water, as we say in German. That is, I am inclined to think that his opinion regarding the ineffectiveness of drugs is entirely too radical. There is a legitimate scope for medicinal remedies insofar as they build up the blood on a natural basis and serve as tissue foods.

Many people who have lost their faith in "Old School" methods of treatment have swung around to the other extreme of medical nihilism. In fact, Dr. Osler himself stands accused of being a medical nihilist.

Many of those who have adopted natural methods of living and of treating diseases have acquired an actual horror of the word medicine. However, this extreme attitude is not justified.

It also appears that some of the readers of my writings are under the impression that we of the Nature Cure school absolutely condemn the use of any and all medicines. This, however, is not so.

The Position of "Nature Cure" Regarding Medicinal Remedies

We do condemn the use of drugs insofar as they are poisonous and destructive and insofar as they suppress acute diseases or healing crises, which are Nature's cleansing and healing efforts; but on the other hand we realize that there is a wide field for the helpful application of medicinal remedies insofar as they act as foods to the tissues of the body and as neutralizers and eliminators of waste and morbid materials.

In every form of chronic disease there exists in the system, on the one hand, an excess of certain morbid materials, and on the other hand, a deficiency of certain mineral constituents, organic salts, which are essential to the normal functions of the body.

Thus, in all anemic diseases the blood is lacking in iron, which picks up the oxygen in the air cells of the lungs and carries it into the tissues, and in sodium, which combines with the carbonic acid (coalgas) that is constantly being liberated in the system and conveys it to the organs of depuration, especially the lungs and the skin. In point of fact, oxygen starvation is due in a much greater degree to the deficiency of sodium and the consequential accumulation of carbonic acid in the system (carbonic acid asphyxiation) than to the lack of iron in the blood, as assumed by the regular school of medicine.

Foods or medicinal remedies which will supply this deficiency of iron and sodium in the organism will tend to overcome the anemic conditions.

The great range of uric acid diseases, such as rheumatism, calculi, arteriosclerosis, certain forms of diabetes and albuminuria, are due, on the one hand, to the excessive use of acid-producing foods, and on the other hand, to a deficiency in the blood of certain alkaline mineral elements, especially sodium, magnesium and potassium, whose office it is to neutralize and eliminate the acids which are created and liberated in the processes of starchy and protein digestion.

In another chapter I have explained the origin and progressive development of uric-acid diseases. Our volume on Natural Dietetics will contain additional proof that practically all diseases are caused by, or complicated with, acid conditions in the system.

Any foods or medicines which will provide the system with sufficient quantities of the acid-binding, alkaline mineral salts will prove to be good medicine for all forms of acid diseases.

The mineral constituents necessary to the vital economy of the organism should, however, be supplied in the organic form. This will be explained more fully in subsequent pages.

From what I have said, it becomes apparent that it is impossible to draw a sharp line of distinction between foods and medicines. All foods which serve the above-named purposes are good medicines, and all nonpoisonous herb extracts, homeopathic and vitochemical remedies that have the same effect upon the system are, for the same reason, good foods.

The medical treatment of the Nature Cure school consists largely in the proper selection and combination of food materials. This must be so. It stands to reason that Nature has provided within the ranges of the natural foods all the elements which Man needs in the way of food and medicine.

But it is quite possible that, through continued abuse, the digestive apparatus has become so weak and so abnormal that it cannot function properly, that it cannot absorb and assimilate from natural foods a sufficient quantity of the elements which the organism needs. In such cases it may be very helpful and indeed imperative to take the organic mineral salts in the forms of fruit, herb and vegetable juices, extracts or decoctions. Among the best of these food remedies are extracts of leafy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, Scotch kale, cabbage, Swiss chard, etc. These vegetables are richer than any other foods in the positive mineral salts. The extract may be prepared from one or more of these vegetables, according to the supply on hand or the tolerance of the digestive organs and the taste and preference of the patient. They should be ground to a pulp in a vegetable grinder, then pressed out in a small fruit press, which can be secured in any department store. One or two teacups per day will be sufficient to supply the needs of the system for mineral salts. This extract should be prepared fresh every day.

Then there are the Kneipp Herb Remedies. Most of these are the Hausmittel [home remedies] of the country population of Germany which have proved their efficacy since time immemorial. Their medicinal value lies in the organic mineral salts which they contain in large quantities and in beneficial combinations.

The homeopathic medications, as will be explained at length in another chapter, produce their good results because they work in harmony with the Laws of Nature.

We never hesitate, therefore, to prescribe for our patients homeopathic medicines, herb decoctions and extracts, and the vitochemical remedies which assist in the elimination of morbid matter from the system and in building up blood and lymph on a normal basis, that is, remedies which supply the organism with the mineral elements in which it is deficient in the organic, easily assimilable form. Herein lies the legitimate scope of medicinal remedies.

All medicinal remedies which build up the system on a normal, natural basis and increase its fighting power against disease without in any way inflicting injury upon the organism are welcome to the adherents of the Nature Cure methods of treatment.

On the other hand, we do not use any drugs or medicines which tend to hinder, check or suppress Nature's cleansing and regenerating processes. We never give anything in the least degree poisonous. We avoid all anodynes, hypnotics, sedatives, antipyretics, laxatives, cathartics, etc. Judicious fasting, cold-water applications and, if necessary, warm-water injections in case of constipation will do everything that is claimed for poisonous drugs.

Inorganic Minerals and Mineral Poisons

For many years past, physicians of the different schools of medicine, diet experts and food chemists have been divided on the question whether or not mineral substances which in the organic form enter into the composition of the human body may safely be used in foods and medicines in the inorganic form.

The medical profession holds almost unanimously that this is permissible and good practice, so that nearly every allopathic medical prescription contains some such inorganic substance, or worse than that, one or more virulent mineral poisons, as mercury, arsenic, phosphorus, etc.

So far, the discussion about the usefulness or harmfulness of inorganic minerals as foods and medicines was largely theoretical and controversial. Neither party had positive proofs for its contentions.

But Nature's records in the iris of the eye settle the question for good and for ever. One of the fundamental principles of the science of Diagnosis from the Eye is that "nothing shows in the iris by abnormal signs or discolorations except that which is abnormal in the body or injurious to it." When substances which are uncongenial or poisonous to the system accumulate in any part or organ of the body in sufficient quantities, they will indicate their presence by certain signs and abnormal colors in the corresponding areas of the iris.

In this way Nature makes known by her records in the eye what substances are injurious to the body, and which are harmless.

Certain mineral elements, such as iron, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, sulphur, etc., which are among the important constituents of the human body, may be taken in the organic form in fruits and vegetables, or in herb extracts and the vitochemical remedies, in large amounts, in fact, far beyond the actual needs of the body, but they will not show in the iris of the eye, because they are easily eliminated from the system.

If, however, the same minerals be taken in the inorganic form in considerable quantities, the iris will exhibit certain well-defined signs and discolorations in the areas corresponding to those parts of the body in which the mineral substances have accumulated.

Obviously, Nature does not intend that these mineral elements should enter the organism in the inorganic form, and therefore the organs of depuration are not able to neutralize and eliminate them.

Thus, for instance, any amount of iron may be taken in vegetable or herb extracts, or in the vitochemical remedies, but this will not be seen in the eye. Whatever is taken in excess of the needs of the body will be promptly eliminated.

If, however, similar quantities of iron be taken for the same length of time in the inorganic, mineral form, the iron will accumulate in the tissues of stomach and bowels, and begin to show in the iris in the form of a rust brown discoloration in the corresponding areas of the digestive organs, directly around the pupil.

In similar manner sodium, which is one of the most important mineral elements in the human body, if taken in the inorganic form, will show in a heavy, white rim along the outer edge of the iris. Sulphur will show in the form of yellowish discolorations in the area of stomach and bowels. Iodine in the medicinal, inorganic form, prepared from the ash of seaweeds, shows in the iris in well-defined bright red spots. Phosphorus appears in whitish streaks and clouds in the areas corresponding to the organs in which it has accumulated.

An interesting exception to this rule is our common table salt (sodium chloride), which is an inorganic mineral combination. So far, diagnosticians from the eye have not discovered any sign in the iris for it. There seems to be something in its nature that makes it akin to organic substances or, like other inorganic minerals and their combinations, it would show in the iris.

This might explain why salt is the only inorganic mineral substance which is extensively used as food by humanity in general. Also animals who, guided by their natural instincts, are the finest discriminators in the selection of foods and medicines, do not hesitate to take salt freely (salt licks) when they would not touch any other inorganic mineral.

Nevertheless, we do not wish to encourage the excessive use of salt, either in the cooking of food or at the table. Taken in considerable quantities, it is undoubtedly injurious to the tissues of the body.

Before the days of canned goods, scurvy was a common disease among mariners and other people who had to subsist for long periods of time on salted meats and were deprived of fresh vegetables. The disease manifested as a breaking down of the gums and other tissues of the body, accompanied by bleeding and much soreness. As soon as these people partook of fresh fruits and vegetables, the scurvy disappeared.

The minerals contained in these organic salts foods furnished the building-stones which imparted tensile strength to the tissues and stopped the disintegration of the fleshy structures.

The Nature Cure regimen aims to provide sodium chloride as well as the other mineral elements and salts required by the body in organic form in foods and medicines.

When the use of inorganic minerals is discontinued and when the proper methods of eliminative treatment, dietetic and otherwise, are applied, these mineral substances are gradually dislodged and carried out of the system. Simultaneously with their elimination disappear their signs in the iris and the disease symptoms which their presence had created in the organism.

In this connection it is a significant fact that those minerals which are congenial to the system, that is, those which in their organic form enter into the composition of the body, are much more easily eliminated if they have been taken in the inorganic form, than those substances which are naturally foreign and poisonous to the human organism, such as mercury, arsenic, iodine, the bromides, the different coal-tar preparations, etc.

This is proved by the fact that the signs of the minerals which are normal constituents of the human body disappear from the iris of the eye much more quickly than the signs of those minerals which are foreign and naturally poisonous to the system.

The difficulty we experience in eliminating mineral poisons from the body would seem to indicate that Nature never intended them to be used as foods or medicines. The intestines, kidneys, skin, mucous membranes and other organs of depuration are evidently not constructed or prepared to cope with inorganic, poisonous substances and to eliminate them completely. Accordingly, these poisons show the tendency to accumulate in certain parts or organs of the body for which they have a special affinity and then to act as irritants and destructive corrodents.

The diseases which we find most difficult to cure, even by the most radical application of natural methods, are cases of drug-poisoning. Substances which are foreign to the human organism, and especially the inorganic, mineral poisons, positively destroy tissues and organs, and are much harder to eliminate from the system than the encumbrances of morbid materials and waste matter produced in the body by wrong habits of living only. The obvious reason for this is that our organs of elimination are intended and constructed to excrete only such waste products as are formed in the organism in the processes of metabolism.

Tuberculosis or cancer may be caused in a scrofulous or psoriatic constitution by overloading the system with meat, coffee, alcohol or tobacco; but as soon as these bad habits are discontinued, and the organs of elimination stimulated by natural methods, the encumbrances will be eliminated, and the much-dreaded symptoms will subside and disappear, often with surprising rapidity.

On the other hand, mercury, arsenic, quinine, strychnine, iodine, etc., accumulate in the brain, the spinal cord, and the cells and tissues of the vital organs, causing actual destruction and disintegration. The tissues thus affected are not easily rebuilt, and it is exceedingly difficult to stir up the destructive mineral poisons and to eliminate them from the system.

Therefore it is an indisputable fact that many of the most stubborn, so-called incurable diseases are drug diseases

The Importance of Natural Diet

While certain medicinal remedies in organic form may be very useful in supplying quickly a deficiency of mineral elements in the system, we should aim to keep our bodies in a normal, healthy condition by proper food selection and combination. A brief description of the scientific basis of "Natural Dietetics" will be found in the chapter on Diet.

Undoubtedly, Nature has supplied all the elements which the human organism needs in abundance and in the right proportions in the natural foods, otherwise she would be a very ignorant organizer and provider.

We should learn to select and combine food materials in such a manner that they supply all the needs of the body in the best possible way and thus insure perfect health and strength without the use of medicines.

Why should we attempt to cure anemia with inorganic iron, hyperacidity of the stomach with baking soda, swollen glands with iodine, the itch with sulphur, ricket conditions in infants with lime water, etc., when these mineral elements are contained in abundance and in live, organic form in fruits and vegetables, herbs and in the vitochemical remedies?

Unfortunately, however, a great many individuals, through wrong habits of living and of treating their ailments, have ruined their digestive organs to such an extent that they are incapable of properly assimilating their food and require, at least temporarily, stimulative treatment by natural methods and a supply of the indispensable organic mineral salts through medicinal food preparations.

In such cases the mineral elements must be provided in the most easily assimilable form in vegetable extracts (which should be prepared fresh every day), and in the vitochemical remedies.

What has been said is sufficient, I believe, to justify the attitude of the Nature Cure school toward medicines in general. It explains why we avoid the use of inorganic minerals and poisonous substances, while on the other hand we find a wide and useful field for medicinal remedies in the form of blood and tissue foods.



Chapter XV

Homeopathy

When we recommend the use of homeopathic remedies, the medical nihilist says: "Don't talk homeopathy to me! I didn't come to you for drugs; I have had enough of them."

When we explain that these remedies are so highly refined that they cannot possibly do any harm, he becomes still more indignant. "I don't need any of your mental therapeutics in homeopathic form," he exclaims. "I, too, believe in the power of mind over matter, but I have no faith in your sugar of milk pellets; they are poor substitutes for the real article. That kind of sugar-coated suggestion might work on some people, but it doesn't on me."

When I first entered upon the study of medicine, I, too, did not believe in the curative power of homeopathic doses; but experience caused me to change my mind. The well-selected remedy administered at the right time often works wonders.

True homeopathic medicines in high-potency doses are so highly refined and rarefied that they cannot possibly produce harmful results or suppress Nature's cleansing and healing efforts; on the contrary, if employed according to the Law of Homeopathy: "like cures like," they assist in producing acute reactions or healing crises, thus aiding Nature in the work of purification and repair.

Homeopathy Works with the Laws of Cure, Not Against Them. Similia similibus curantur (like cures like) translated into practice means that a drug capable of producing a certain set of disease symptoms in a healthy body, when given in large, physiological doses, will relieve or cure a similar set of symptoms in the diseased organism if the drug be given in small, homeopathic doses.

For instance, belladonna, given in large, poisonous doses to a healthy person, will cause a peculiar headache with sharp, stabbing pains in forehead and temples, high fever, violent delirium, dilation of the pupils, dryness and rawness of the throat, scarlet redness of the skin and extreme sensitiveness to light, jars and noises.

It will be observed that this is a fair picture of a typical case of scarlet fever. A homeopathic prescriber, when called to a scarlet fever patient exhibiting in a marked degree three or more of the above-described symptoms, would give a trituration of belladonna, say 6x. In numberless cases the fever has subsided and its symptoms have rapidly disappeared under such treatment.

The reader may say: "I do not see any difference between this and the allopathic suppression of disease by drugs."

There is a great difference. The allopathic physician may use the same remedy, belladonna, in the same case, but he will give from ten to twenty drops of tincture of belladonna, repeated every three or four hours. These doses are from twenty to forty thousand times stronger than the homeopathic 3x or 6x.

Herein lies the difference. The allopathic dose allays the fever symptoms by paralyzing the organism as a whole and the different vital organs and their functions in particular. This is frankly admitted in every allopathic materia medica. But by such dosing Nature is forcibly interrupted in her efforts of cleansing and healing; the acute reaction is suppressed, but not cured.

If fever is a healing effort of Nature, it may be controlled and modified, but must not be suppressed. A minute dose of homeopathic belladonna, acting on the innermost cells of the organism which the coarser allopathic doses would paralyze, stimulates these cells to effort in the right direction. It brings about conditions similar to those produced by Nature, and thus assists her; it is cooperation instead of counteroperation.

After this brief discussion of the practical application of homeopathy, let us now ascertain in how far its laws and theories agree with and corroborate the laws and principles of the Nature Cure school.

Hahnemann discovered the Law of ~similia similibus curantur ~accidentally, while investigating the effects of quinine on the human organism. Ever since then it has been applied successfully by him and his followers in treating human ailments.

However, this law has been used empirically. Neither in the Organon nor in any other writings or teachings of Hahnemann and the homeopathic school can be found a clear and concise explanation of why like cures like. The proof offered has been negative rather than positive.

Therefore the allopath says: "You tell me that ~'like cures like,' ~and that you can prove it at the sickbed; but unless you can give me good and valid reasons why it should be so, I cannot and will not believe that it is your 'similar' which cures the patient. How do I know it is your 'potency'? The patient might recover just as well without it."

With the aid of the three laws of cure, I shall endeavor to give the reasons and furnish the proofs for our contentions. The laws alluded to are: The Law of Cure, the Law of Dual Effect and the Law of Crises.

Similia similibus curantur is only another way of stating the fundamental Law of Nature Cure: "Every acute disease is the result of a cleansing and healing effort of Nature."

If a certain set of disease symptoms are the result of a healing effort of Nature, and if I give a remedy which produces the same or similar symptoms in the system, am I not aiding Nature in her attempt to overcome the abnormal conditions?

In such a case, the indicated homeopathic remedy will not suppress the acute reaction, but it will help it along, thus accelerating and hastening the curative process.

In the last analysis, disease resides in the cell. The well-being of the organism as a whole is dependent upon the health of the individual cells of which it is composed. This has been explained more fully in connection with the action of stimulants.

In order to cure the man, we must free the cell of its encumbrances. Elimination must begin in the cell, not in the organs of depuration. Laxatives and cathartics, by irritating the digestive tract, may cause a forced evacuation of the contents of the intestinal canal, but they do not eliminate the poisons which clog cells and tissues.

In stubborn chronic diseases, when the cells are too weak to throw off the latent encumbrances of their own accord, a well-chosen homeopathic remedy is often of great service in arousing them to acute reaction.

For instance, if the system is heavily encumbered with scrofulous taints and if its vitality is lowered to such an extent that the individual cell cannot of itself throw off the morbid encumbrances by means of a vigorous, acute effort, sulphur, if administered in doses sufficiently triturated and refined to affect the minute cells composing the organism, will start disease vibrations similar to those of acute scrofulosis, and thus give the needed impetus to acute eliminative activity on the part of the individual cell.

The acute reaction, once started, may develop into vigorous forms of scrofulous elimination, such as skin eruptions, glandular swellings, abscesses, catarrhal discharges, etc.

Are High-Potency Doses Effective?

The question now arises: How large or how small must the dose be in order to affect the minute cells?

In the administration of medicines, the size of the dose is adjusted to the size of the patient. If half a grain of a certain drug is the normal dose for an adult, the proper dose of the same drug for a small infant, say, less than a year old, may be about one twenty-fifth of the adult dose. How small, in proportion, should then be the dose given to a cell a billion times as small as the infant?

The dose given to an adult would paralyze or perhaps kill an infant. In like manner the minute cell would be benumbed and paralyzed by the drug suited to the infant's organism.

But this is how allopathy effects its fictitious cures. It suppresses inflammatory processes by paralyzing the cells and organs and their vital activities.

Homeopathy adapts the smallness of the dose to the smallness of the cell which is to be treated. Herein lies the reasonableness of the high-potency dose.

The Personal Responsibility of the Cell

The cell resembles Man not only in physical and physiological aspects, but also in regard to the moral law.

Elimination must commence in the cell and by virtue of the cell's personal effort. Its work cannot be done vicariously by drugs or the knife. Large, allopathic doses of medicine may be given with the idea of doing the work for the cell by violently stimulating or else paralyzing the organism as a whole or certain ones of the vital organs; but this is demoralizing and destructive to the cell. The powerful doses calculated to affect the body and its organs as a whole make superfluous or paralyze the individual efforts of the cells and thus intensify the chronic disease conditions in cells and tissues.

Alms-giving, prison sentences and capital punishment have a similar allopathic effect upon Man, the individual cell of the social body. Instead of providing for him the proper environment and the opportunity for natural development and for working out his own salvation, they take this opportunity away from him and weaken his personal effort or make it impossible.

The Efficacy of Small Doses

The late revelations of chemistry, Roentgen rays, x-rays, radio-activity of metals, etc., throw an interesting light upon the seemingly infinite divisibility of matter. A small particle of a given substance may for many years throw off a continuous shower of corpuscles without perceptibly diminishing its volume.

For an illustration we may take the odoriferous musk. A few grains of this substance will fill a room with its penetrating aroma for years. When we smell musk or any other perfume, minute particles of it bombard the end filaments of the nerves of smell in the nose. Therefore the musk must be casting off such minute particles continually without apparent loss of substance.

With the aid of this recent knowledge of the true nature of matter, of the minuteness and complexity of the atom, we can now understand how the highly triturated and refined (attenuated) homeopathic remedy may still retain the dynamic force of the element, as Hahnemann has expressed it, and how a remedy so attenuated may still be capable of exerting an influence upon the minute cell. Since chemistry and physiology have acquainted us with the finer forces of Nature, demonstrating that they are mightier than the things we can apprehend by weight and measure, the claims of homeopathy do not appear so absurd as they did a generation ago.

Undoubtedly, the good effect produced by a well-chosen remedy is heightened and strengthened by the mental and magnetic influence of the prescriber. The positive faith of the physician in the efficacy of the remedy, his sympathy and his indomitable will to assist the sufferer affect both the physical substance of the remedy and the mind of the patient.

The varying mental and magnetic qualities of prescribers have undoubtedly much to do with the varying degrees of efficaciousness of the same remedy when administered by different physicians.

The true Hahnemannian homeopath, who believes in his remedies as in his God, will concentrate his intellectual and spiritual forces on a certain remedy in order to accomplish certain well-defined results. The bottle is not allowed to become empty. Whenever the graft runs low, it is replenished with distilled water, alcohol, milk sugar, or another "vehicle." Every time he takes the medicine bottle into his hands, these potent thought forms are projected into it: "You are the element sulphur. You produce in the human body a certain set of symptoms. You will produce these symptoms in the body of this patient."

If there is any virtue at all in magnetic, mental and spiritual healing, the homeopathic remedy must be an effective agency for transmitting magnetic, mental and psychic healing forces from prescriber to patient.

Transmission of these higher and finer forces, whether directly, telepathically or by means of some physical agent, such as magnetized water, a charm or simile, etc., is the modus operandi in all the different forms of ancient and modern magic, white or black. It is the active principle in mental healing, Christian Science, sympathy healing, voodooism, witchcraft, etc.

Homeopathy and the Law of Dual Effect

I have formulated the Law of Action and Reaction in its application to the treatment of diseases as follows:

"Every agent affecting the human organism has two effects: a first, apparent, temporary one and a second, lasting one. The second effect is directly opposite to the first."

Allopathy, in giving large, physiological doses, takes into consideration only the first, apparent effect of the drug, and thereby accomplishes in the long run results directly opposite to those which it desires to bring about. It produces the very conditions it tries to cure. As an example, note the permanent effects of laxatives, stimulants and sedatives upon the system. This has been explained more fully in Chapter Six.

On the other hand, the homeopathic physician may use the same remedies as the allopath, provided they produce symptoms similar to those of the disease, but he administers the different drugs in such minute doses that their first effect is noticed only as a slight "homeopathic aggravation," while their second and lasting effect is relied upon to relieve and cure the disease.

In other words, homeopathy produces as the first effect the condition like the disease, and counts on the second and lasting effect of the drug to bring about a permanent change.

If, in accordance with the Law of Dual Effect as applied to drugs, the primary, temporary effect of the homeopathic remedy is equal to the disease, it is self-evident that the secondary, lasting effect of the remedy must be equal to the cure.

This law has been proved by homeopathy for over a hundred years. An experienced homeopathic prescriber would no more doubt it than he would doubt the Law of Gravitation.

Homeopathy and the Law of Crises

Therefore, if the remedy be well chosen in accord with the Law of similia similibus curantur, the first homeopathic aggravation, which corresponds to the crisis of Nature Cure, will be followed by speedy and perfect readjustment. Nature has her way, the disorder runs its course, and the return to normal conditions will be quicker and more perfect than if the homeopathic remedy had not been employed or if Nature's healing processes had been forcibly interrupted and suppressed by large, poisonous allopathic doses. Homeopathy assists Nature in removing the old encumbrances, whereas allopathy changes the acute, inflammatory healing effort into chronic, destructive disease.

The Economics of Homeopathy

The Law of like cures like is of great practical importance from another point of view, namely, that of economics.

The best engineer is the one who accomplishes the maximum of results with the minimum of expenditure of force and with the least friction. The same is true of the physician and his remedies.

We have learned that drugs given in the coarse allopathic doses attack and affect the organism as a whole. If, for instance, there is a catarrhal affection of the serous and mucous membranes of the respiratory tract accompanied by fever, the allopath will give quinine in large doses to change this condition. He may accomplish his aim; but if so, he does it by paralyzing the heart, the respiratory centers, the red and white blood corpuscles and the excreting cells of the mucous membranes. The body as a whole and certain parts in particular are saturated with the drug poison and correspondingly weakened. As allopathy itself states it: "Quinine reduces fever by depressing the metabolism" (the vital functions).

Homeopathic materia medica teaches that Bryonia has a special affinity for the mucous and serous membranes of the respiratory tract and that its symptomatic effects correspond closely to those described in the preceding paragraph.

If, in accordance with the Law of similia similibus curantur, a homeopathic dose of Bryonia be given to a patient exhibiting these symptoms, the remedy, as has been demonstrated, will assist Nature in her work of cure; and in doing this, it will not attack and affect the entire organism, but only those serous and mucous tissues for which it has a special affinity and which, as in the case of this patient, are the most seriously affected.

To state it in another way: the large, allopathic dose paralyzes the whole organism in order to produce its fictitious cure. The small, homeopathic dose, on the other hand, goes right to the spot where it is needed, and by mild and harmless stimulation of the affected parts, assists and supports the cells in their acute eliminative efforts.

Homeopathic medication, therefore, is not only curative in its effects, but also conservative and in the highest degree economic.

Homeopathy, a Complement of Nature Cure

Having proved the accuracy of Hahnemann's Law of similia similibus curantur, and having occasion daily to observe its practical results in the treatment of acute and chronic diseases, we should not be justified in omitting homeopathy from our system of treatment. The attenuated homeopathic doses of certain drugs may be of great service in bringing about the acute reactions which we so earnestly desire, especially in the treatment of chronic diseases of long standing.

I am aware of the fact that in severe and obstinate conditions homeopathy is often apparently of no avail. But when the system has been purified and strengthened by our natural methods, by a rational vegetarian diet, hydrotherapy, chiropractic or osteopathy, massage, corrective exercise, air and sun baths, normal suggestion, etc., the homeopathic remedies will work with much greater promptitude and effectiveness.

It is the combination of all the different healing factors which constitutes the perfect system of treatment.

No disease condition, whether apparently hopeless or not, can be called incurable unless all these different healing factors, properly combined and applied, have been given a thorough trial. It is no charlatanic boasting, but the simple truth, when we affirm that the different natural methods of treatment, as we of the Nature Cure school apply them, can and do cure so-called incurable diseases, such as tuberculosis, cancer, locomotor ataxy, epilepsy, eczema, neurasthenia, insanity and the worst forms of chronic dyspepsia and constipation, always providing that the patient possesses sufficient vitality to react to the treatment and that the destruction of vital parts and organs has not advanced too far.



Chapter XVI

The Diphtheria Antitoxin

In this country the antitoxin treatment for diplitheria is still in high favor, while in Germany, where it originated, many of the best medical authorities are abandoning its use on account of its doubtful curative results and certain destructive after-effects.

According to the enthusiastic advocates of this treatment among the "regular" physicians in this country, the antitoxin is a "certain cure" for diphtheria; but how is this claim borne out by actual facts?

The Health Bulletins sent regularly to every physician in the City of Chicago by the City Health Department show an average of from fifteen to twenty deaths every week from diphtheria treated with antitoxin.

I do not deny that the antitoxin treatment may have reduced somewhat the mortality percentage of this disease, allowing even for the great uncertainty of medical statistics. But we of the Nature Cure school claim and can prove that the hydropathic treatment of diphtheria shows a much lower percentage of mortality than the antitoxin treatment.

The crucial point to be considered in this connection is: What are the after-effects of the different methods of treatment?

This is a very important matter. I make the following claims: that the antitoxin, being itself a most powerful poison, may be and often is the direct cause of paralysis, or of death due to heart-failure. That diphtheria treated with antitoxin may be and often is followed by paralysis, heart-failure, or lifelong invalidism of some kind after the patient has apparently recovered from the disease. That these undesirable after-effects of diphtheria do not occur when the disease is treated by natural methods, but that they are the result of the antitoxin treatment and of its suppressive effect upon. the disease.

To prove my claims, I submit the following facts: I have in my possession clippings from newspapers from different parts of the country stating that death had followed the administration of the diphtheria antitoxin for prevention or "immunization," that is, where the individual had been in good health at the time the antitoxin was given.

Several cases of this kind created quite a sensation in Germany about fifteen years ago. Dr. Robert Langerhans, superintendent of the Moabit Hospital in Berlin, a strong advocate of the antitoxin treatment and also of vaccination, had been one of a committee of three appointed by the municipal government of the German metropolis to investigate the efficiency of the diphtheria antitoxin. As a result of his findings, he had recommended its free distribution to the poor of the City of Berlin.

Not long thereafter the doctor's cook was suddenly taken ill with severe pains in the throat and sent to the hospital. It was thought to be a case of diphtheria, and the doctor, to protect his little son, one and one-half years old, against possible infection, administered an injection of antitoxin. Shortly afterward the child developed symptoms of blood-poisoning and died of heart-failure within twenty-four hours.

It is customary in Germany to insert a death-notice in one of the local newspapers and to invite the friends of the family to the funeral. In his announcement in the columns of the "Lokalanzeiger," Dr. Langerhans stated explicitly that his little son had died after an injection of diphtheria antitoxin for immunization.

Another similar case is that of Dr. Pistor, a prominent Berlin physician, whose little daughter contracted a slight inflammation of the throat. The child was given an injection of antitoxin, and this was followed by a severe and protracted illness.

Very significant, in this connection, are certain utterances of Dr. William Osler in his "Practice of Medicine." He says, on page 150:

" Of the sequelae of diphtheria, paralysis is by far the most important. This can be experimentally produced in animals by the inoculation of the toxic material produced by the bacilli. [This is the active principle in the antitoxin. Author's note] The paralysis occurs in a variable proportion of the cases, ranging from 10 to 15 and even to 20 per cent. It is strictly a sequel of the disease [of the disease treated with antitoxin?—Author's note], coming on usually in the second or third week of convalescence. . . . It may follow very mild cases; indeed, the local lesion may be so trifling that the onset of the paralysis alone calls attention to the true nature of the disease. . . .