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Philosophy of Osteopathy;
BY
ANDREW T. STILL,
DISCOVERER OF THE SCIENCE OF OSTEOPATHY AND PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF OSTEOPATHY.
PUBLISHED BY A. T. STILL, KIRKSVILLE, MO 1899.
Copyrighted, 1899, by A. T. STILL.
Lithoprinted by EDWARD BROTHERS, INC. Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
Preface.
Many of my friends have been anxious ever since Osteopathy became an established fact, that I should write a treatise on the science. But I was never convinced that the time was ripe for such a production, nor am I even now convinced that this is not a little premature. Osteopathy is only in its infancy, it is a great unknown sea just discovered, and as yet we are only acquainted with its shore-tide.
When I saw others who had not more than skimmed the surface of the science, taking up the pen to write books on Osteopathy, and after having carefully examined their productions, found they were drinking from the fountains of old schools of drugs, dragging back the science to the very systems from which I divorced myself so many years ago, and realized that hungry students were ready to swallow such mental poison, dangerous as it was, I became fully awakened to the necessity of some sort of Osteopathic literature for those wishing to be informed.
This book is free from quotations from medical authors, and differs from them in opinion on almost every important question. I do not expect it to meet their approval; such a thing would be unnatural and impossible.
It is my object in this work to teach principles as I understand them, and not rules. I do not instruct the student to punch or pull a certain bone, nerve or muscle for a certain disease, but by a knowledge of the normal and abnormal, I hope to give a specific knowledge for all diseases.
This work has been written a little at a time for several years, just as I could snatch a moment from other cares to devote to it. I have carefully compiled these thoughts into a treatise. Every principle herein laid down has been fairly well tested by myself, and proven true.
The book has been written by myself in my own way, without any ambition to fine writing, but to give to the world a start in a philosophy that may be a guide in the future.
Owing to the great haste with which the book has been rushed through the press to meet the urgent demand, we will ask the indulgence of the public for any imperfection that may appear. Hoping the world may profit by these thoughts, I am,
Respectfully, A. T. STILL.
Kirksville, Mo., Sept. 1, 1899.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
SOME INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
Not a Work of Compilation—Authors Quoted—Method of Reasoning—The Osteopath an Artist—When I Became an Osteopath—Dr. Neal's Opinion—The Opinions of Others—What Studies Necessary—What I Mean by Anatomy—Principles—The Practicing Osteopath's Guide—The Fascia—Not a pleasing Task—Without Accepted Theories—Truths of Nature—Body, Motion and Mind—Osteopathy to Cure Disease—The Osteopath Should Find Health. Page 11
CHAPTER II.
OSTEOPATHIC EXPLORATIONS.
Divisions of the Body—Searching for the Cause—Duty of the Osteopathic Explorer—Classification and Division—The Abnormal—Nerve Powers—Witnesses to Examine—Abnormal Growths—Cerebro Spinal Fluid—Body in Perfect Health—Chemistry—Nature's Chemistry. Page 29
CHAPTER III.
THE HEAD.
A Free Circulation—Death Blows—Something of the Neck—Order of Treatment—The Pelvis—Brains of Animals—Arterial Motion—Mental Vibrations—Overburdening the Mind—Hemiplegia. Page 43
CHAPTER IV.
EAR WAX AND ITS USES.
Nature Makes Nothing in Vain—A Successful Experiment—A Question for Ages—The Position—Meaning of Life—Some Questions Asked—Condition in Certain Diseases Caused by Cold—Cerumen in Fluid State—Winter Kills Babies—Some Advice to Mothers—A Case in Point—Connection of the brain and Other Nerves in Digestion—Unaided Investigation. Page 53
CHAPTER V.
DISEASES OF THE CHEST.
Where Confined—Consumption—Can Consumption Be Cured—Consumption Described—No Time for Surrender—Cerebral Spinal Fluid—How to Destroy Deadly Bombs of Decay—Battle of Blood for Life—Miliary Tuberculosis—Conversion of Bodies Into Gas—Forming a Tubercle—Breeding Contagion—The Seeds of Disease—Generating Fever—Whooping Cough—Clouds and Lungs Are Much Alike—The Wisdom of Nature—Water Formed in Lungs—The Law of Fives—Feeble Action of Heart—The Heart—From Neck to Heart—Dyspersia or Imperfect Digestion. Page 68
CHAPTER VI.
THE LYMPHATICS.
Importance of the Subject—Demands of Nature on the Lymphatics—Dunglinson's Definition—Dangers of Dead Substances—Lymph Continued—Solvent in Nature—Where Are the Lymphatics Situated?—The Fat and Lean. Page 104
CHAPTER VII.
THE DIAPHRAGM.
Investigation—A Struggle With Nature—Lesson of Cause and Effect—Something of Medical Etiquette—The Medical Doctor—An Explorer for Truth Must Be Independent—The Diaphragm Introduced—A Useful Study—Combatting Effect—Is Least Understood—A Case of Bilious Fever—A Demand on the Nerves—Danger of Compression—A Cause for Disease—Was a Mistake Made in the Creation—An Exploration—Result of Removal of Diaphragm—Sustaining Life in Principles—Law Applicable to Other Organs—Power of Diaphragm—Omentum. Page 114
CHAPTER VIII.
LIVER, BOWELS AND KIDNEYS.
Gender of the Liver—Productions of the Liver—A Hope for the Afflicted—Evidences of Truth—Loaded With Ignorance—Lack of Knowledge of the Kidney—How a Purgative Acts—Flux—Bloody Dysentery—Flux More Fully Described—Osteopathic Remedies—Medical Remedies—More of the Osteopathic Remedy. Page 138
CHAPTER IX.
THE BLOOD.
Uses for Fluids—Blood an Unknown Fluid—Harvey Only Reached the Banks of the River of Life—Blood Is Systematically Furnished—Fatality of Ignorance—To Find the Cause Must Be Honest—Following Arteries and Nerves—Feeding the Nerves—The Blood on Its Journey—Powers Necessary to Move Blood—Venous Blood Suspended. Page 149
CHAPTER X.
THE FASCIA.
Where Is Disease Sown?—An Illustration of Conception—The Greatest Problem—A Fountain of Supply—Fascia Omnipresent—Connection with Spinal Cord—Goes With and Covers All Muscles—Proofs in Contagion—Study of Nerves and Fascia—Tumefy—Tumefaction. Page 161
CHAPTER XI.
FEVERS.
Be Armed With Facts—Union of Human Gases With Oxygen—Fever and Nettle-rash. Nature Constructs for a Wise Purpose—Processes of Life Must be Kept in Motion—No Satisfaction from Authors—Animal Heat—Semeiology—Symptomatology—Definition of Fever—Fevers only Effects—Result of Stoppages of Vein or Artery—Aneurisms. Page 175
CHAPTER XII.
SCARLET FEVER AND SMALLPOX.
As defined by Allopathy—Scarlet Fever as Defined by Osteopathy—Smallpox—Power to Drive Greater Than in Measles. Page 190
CHAPTER XIII.
A CHAPTER OF WONDERS AND SOME VALUABLE QUESTIONS.
Wonders on the Increase—What Is Life?—How Is Action Produced—Acquaint Yourself With the Machinery—Duty of the Osteopath—Formation of Sacrum—The Pelvis—Appearance of OEdema—Do All Diseases Have Appearance in OEdema. Page 193
CHAPTER XIV.
HAS MAN DEGENERATED?
The Advent of Man—Care of the Stock Raiser—Mental Degeneration Makes It Unpleasant for an Original Thinker—Original Thinkers of the Ancients—Methods of Healing—Failure of Allopathy—Primitive Man—Evidences of Prehistoric Man—Mental Dwarfage. Page 203
CHAPTER XV.
OSTEOPATHIC TREATMENT.
Five Points—Visceral List—Care in Treating the Spinal Column—Most Important Chapter—Perfect Drainage—A Natural Cure. Page 213
CHAPTER XVI.
REASONING TESTS.
The Vermiform Appendix—Operating for Appendicitis—Expelling Power of the Vermiform Appendix—Care Exercised in Making Assertions—Reasoning Tests—A List of Unexplained Diseases—Concluding Remarks. Page 223
CHAPTER XVII.
OBSTETRICS.
Overloading—Similarity of Stomach and Womb—Births—Preparation for Delivery—Caution—Lasceration Need Not Occur—Care of Cord—Severing Cord—Putting on Belly Band—Delivery of Afterbirth—Preparing for Mother's Comfort—Post-Delivery Hemorrhage—Treatment for—Food for Mother—Treatment for Sore Breast. Page 234
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONVULSIONS.
Old Phrases—Results of Stoppage of Fluids—Old Theory of Fits—What the Real Cause may be—Listen for the Cause—What is a Fit—Sensory System Demanding Nourishment—The Causes—The Remedy—Dislocation of Atlas and of the Four Upper Ribs. Page 250
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
Thoughts for Consideration—Offering a New Philosophy—Lymphatics and Fascia—A Satisfactory Experiment—Natural Washing Out. Page 258
CHAPTER XX.
THE SUPERIOR CERVICAL GANGLION.
With What It Has Communication—Its Course—One of its Functions—Stimulation or Inhibition—Result Produced. Page 263
Philosophy of Osteopathy.
CHAPTER I.
SOME INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
Not a Work of Compilation—Authors Quoted—Method of Reasoning—The Osteopath an Artist—When I Became an Osteopath—Dr. Neal's Opinion—The Opinions of Others—What Studies Necessary—What I Mean by Anatomy—Principles—The Practicing Osteopath's Guide—The Fascia—Not a Pleasing Task—Without Accepted Theories—Truths of Nature—Body, Motion and Mind—Osteopathy to Cure Disease—The Osteopath Should Find Health.
NOT A WORK OF COMPILATION.
To readers of my book on the Philosophy of Osteopathy, I wish to say that I will not tire you with a book of compilations just to sell to the anxious reader. As I have spent thirty years of my life reading and following rules and remedies used for curing, and learned in sorrow it was useless to listen to their claims, for instead of getting good, I obtained much harm therefrom, I asked for, and obtained a mental divorce from them, and I want it to be understood that drugs and I are as far apart as the East is from the West; now, and forever. Henceforth I will follow the dictates of nature in all I say or write.
AUTHORS QUOTED.
I quote no authors but God and experience when I write, or lecture to the classes or the masses, because no book written by medical writers can be of much use to us, and it would be very foolish to look to them for advice and instruction on a science they know nothing of. They are illy able to advise for themselves, they have never been asked to advise us, and I am free to say but few persons who have been pupils of my school have tried to get wisdom from medical writers and apply it as worthy to be taught as any part of Osteopathy, philosophy or practice. Several books have been compiled, called "Principles of Osteopathy." They may sell but will fail to give the knowledge the student desires.
METHOD OF REASONING.
The student of any philosophy succeeds best by the more simple methods of reasoning. We reason for needed knowledge only, and should try and start out with as many known facts as possible. If we would reason on diseases of the organs of the head, neck, abdomen or pelvis, we must first know where these organs are, how and from what arteries the eye, ear, or tongue is fed.
THE OSTEOPATH AN ARTIST.
I believe you are taught anatomy in our school more thoroughly than any other school to date, because we want you to carry a living picture of all or any part of the body in your mind as a ready painter carries the picture of the face, scenery, beast or any thing he wishes to represent by his brush. He would only be a waster of time and paint and make a daub that would disgust any one who would employ him. We teach you anatomy in all its branches, that you may be able to have and keep a living picture before your mind all the time, so you can see all joints, ligaments, muscles, glands, arteries, veins, lymphatics, fascia superficial and deep, all organs, how they are fed, what they must do, and why they are expected to do a part, and what would follow in case that part was not done well and on time. I feel free to say to my students, keep your minds full of pictures of the normal body all the time, while treating the afflicted.
WHEN I BECAME AN OSTEOPATH.
In answer to the questions of how long have you been teaching this discovery, and what books are essential to the study? I will say I began to give reasons for my faith in the laws of life as given to men, worlds and beings by the God of nature, June, 1874, when I began to talk and propound questions to men of learning. I thought the sword and cannons of nature were pointed and trained upon our systems of drug doctoring.
DR. NEAL'S OPINION.
I asked Dr. J. M. Neal, of Edinburg, Scotland, for some information that I needed badly. He was a medical doctor of five years training, a man of much mental ability, who would give his opinions freely and to the point. I have been told by one or more Scotch M. D.'s that a Dr. John M. Neal, of Edinburg, was hung for murder. He was not hung while with me. The only thing made me doubt him being a Scotchman was he loved whiskey, and I had been told that the Scotch were a sensible people. John M. Neal said that "drugs was the bait of fools"; it was no science, and the system of drugs was only a trade, followed by the doctor for the money that could be obtained by it from the ignorant sick. He believed that nature was a law capable of vindicating its power all over the world.
THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS.
As this writing is for the information of the student I will continue the history by saying, that in the early days of Osteopathy I sought the opinions of the most learned, such as Dr. Schnebly, Professor of Language and History in the Baker University, Baldwin, Kansas; Dr. Dallas, a very learned M. D. of the Alopathic faith; Dr. F. A. Grove, well-known in Kirksville; J. B. Abbott, Indian agent, and many others of renown. Then back to the tombs of the dead, to better acquaint myself with the systems of medicine and the foundations of truth upon which they stood, if any. I will not worry your patience with a list of the names of authors that have written upon the subject of medicine, as remedial agents. I will use the word that the theologian often uses when asked whom Christ died for, the answer universally is, ALL. All intelligent medical writers say by word or inference that drugs or drugging is a system of blind guess work, and if we should let our opinions be governed by the marble lambs and other emblems of dead babies found in the cemeteries of the world, we would say that John M. Neal was possibly hung for murder, not through design, but through traditional ignorance of the power of nature to cure both old and young, by skillfully adjusting the engines of life so as to bring forth pure and healthy blood, the greatest known germicide, to one capable to reason who has the skill to conduct the vitalizing and protecting fluids to throat, lungs and all parts of the system, and ward off diseases as nature's God has indicated. With this faith and method of reasoning, I began to treat diseases by Osteopathy as an experimenter, and notwithstanding I obtained good results in all cases in diseases of climate and contagions, I hesitated for years to proclaim to the world that there was but little excuse for a master engineer to lose a child in cases of diphtheria, croup, measles, mumps, whooping cough, flux and other forms of summer diseases, peculiar to children. Neither was it necessary for the adult to die with diseases of summer, fall and winter. But at last I took my stand on this rock and my confidence in nature, where I have stood and fought the battles, and taken the enemy's flag in every engagement for the last twenty-five years.
WHAT STUDIES NECESSARY.
As you contemplate studying this science and have asked to know the necessary studies, I wish to impress it upon your minds that you begin with anatomy, and you end with anatomy, a knowledge of anatomy is all you want or need, as it is all you can use or ever will use in your practice, although you may live one hundred years. You have asked for my opinion as the founder of the science. Yours is an honest question, and God being my judge I will give you just as honest an answer. As I have said, a knowledge of anatomy with its application covers every inch of ground that is necessary to qualify you to become a skillful and successful Osteopath, when you go forth into the world to combat diseases.
WHAT I MEAN BY ANATOMY.
I will now define what I mean by anatomy. I speak by comparison and tell you what belongs to the study of anatomy. I will take a chicken whose parts and habits all persons are familiar with to illustrate. The chicken has a head, a neck, a breast, a tail, two legs, two wings, two eyes, two ears, two feet, one gizzard, one crop, one set of bowels, one liver, and one heart. This chicken has a nervous system, a glandular system, a muscular system, a system of lungs and other parts and principles not necessary to speak of in detail. But I want to emphasize, they belong to the chicken, and it would not be a chicken without every part or principle. These must all be present and answer roll call or we do not have a complete chicken. Now I will try and give you the parts of anatomy and the books that pertain to the same. You want some standard author on descriptive anatomy in which you learn the form and places of all bones, the place and uses of ligaments, muscles and all that belong to the soft parts. Then from the descriptive anatomy you are conducted into the dissecting room, in which you receive demonstrations, and are shown all parts through which blood and other fluids are conducted. So far you see you are in anatomy. From the demonstrator you are conducted to another room or branch of anatomy called physiology, a knowledge of which no Osteopath can do without and be a success. In that room you are taught how the blood and other fluids of life are produced, and the channels through which this fluid is conducted to the heart and lungs for purity and other qualifying processes, previous to entering the heart for general circulation to nourish and sustain the whole human body. I want to insist and impress it upon your minds that this is as much a part of anatomy as a wing is a part of a chicken. From this room of anatomy you are conducted to the room of histology, in which the eye is aided by powerful microscopes and made acquainted with the smallest arteries of the human body, which in life are of the greatest known importance, remembering that in the room of histology you are still studying anatomy, and what that machinery can and does execute every day, hour, and minute of life. From the histological room you are conducted to the room of elementary chemistry, in which you learn something of the laws of association of substances, that you can the better understand what has been told you in the physiological room, which is only a branch of anatomy, and intended to show you that nature can and does successfully compound and combine elements for muscles, blood, teeth and bone. From there you are taken to the room of the clinics, where you are first made acquainted with both the normal and abnormal human body, which is only a continuation of the study of anatomy. From there you are taken to the engineer's room (or operator's room) in which you are taught how to observe and detect abnormalities and the effect or effects they may and do produce, and how they effect health and cause that condition known as disease.
PRINCIPLES.
Principles to an Osteopath means a perfect plan and specification to build in form a house, an engine, a man, a world, or anything for an object or purpose. To comprehend this engine of life or man which is so constructed with all conveniences for which it was made, it is necessary to constantly keep the plan and specification before the mind, and in the mind, to such a degree that there is no lack of knowledge of the bearings and uses of all parts. After a complete knowledge of all parts with their forms, sizes and places of attachment which should be so thoroughly grounded in the memory that there would be no doubt of the intent of the builder for the use or purpose of the great and small parts, and why they have a part to perform in the workings of the engine. When this part of the specification is thoroughly learned from anatomy or the engineer's guide book, he will then take up the chapter on the division of forces, by which this engine moves and performs the duties for which it was created. In this chapter the mind will be referred to the brain to obtain a knowledge of that organ, where the force starts, how it is conducted to any belt, pully, journal, or division of the whole building. After learning where the force is obtained, and how conveyed from place to place throughout the whole body, he becomes interested and wisely instructed. He sees the various parts of this great system of life when preparing fluids commonly known as blood, passing through a set of tubes both great and small—some so vastly small, as to require the aid of powerful microscopes to see their infinitely small forms, through which the blood and other fluids are conducted by the heart and force of the brain, to construct organs, muscles, membranes and all the things necessary to life and motion, to the parts separately and combined. By this minute acquaintance with the normal body which has been learned in the specification as written in standard authors of anatomy and the dissecting rooms, he is well prepared to be invited into the inspection room to receive comparisons between the normal and abnormal engines, built according to nature's plan and specification, and absolutely perfect. He is called into this room for the purpose of comparing engines that have been strained from being thrown off the track, or run against other bodies with such force as to bend journals, pipes, break or loosen bolts; or otherwise deranged, so as to render it useless until repaired. To repair signifies to readjust from the abnormal condition in which the machinist finds it, to the condition of the normal engines which stand in the shop of repairs. His inspection would commence by first lining up the wheels with straight journals; then he would naturally be conducted to the boiler, steam chest, shafts, and every part that belongs to a completed engine. To know that they are straight and in place as shown upon the plan and described by the specification, he has done all that is required of a master mechanic. Then it goes into the hands of the engineer, who waters, fires and conducts this artificial being on its journey. You as Osteopathic machinists can go no farther than to adjust the abnormal condition, in which you find the afflicted. Nature will do the rest.
THE PRACTICING OSTEOPATH'S GUIDE.
The Osteopath reasons if he reasons at all, that order and health are inseparable, and that when order in all parts is found, disease cannot prevail, and if order is complete and disease should be found, there is no use for order. And if order and health are universally one in union, then the doctor cannot usefully, physiologically, or philosophically be guided by any scale of reason, otherwise. Does a chemist get results desired by accident? Are your accidents more likely to get good results than his? Does order and success demand thought and cool headed reason? If we wish to be governed by reason, we must take a position that is founded on truth and capable of presenting facts, to prove the validity of all truths we present. A truth is only a hopeful supposition if it is not supported by results. Thus all nature is kind enough to willingly exhibit specimens of its work as vindicating witnesses of its ability to prove its assertions by its work. Without that tangible proof, nature would belong to the gods of chance. The laws of mother, conception, growth and birth, from atoms to worlds would be a failure, a universe without a head to direct. But as the beautiful works of nature stand to-day, and in all time past, fully able by the evidence it holds before the eye and mind of reason, that all beings great and small came by the law of cause and effect, are we not bound to work by the laws of cause, if we wish an effect? If the heavens do move by cause when was its beings divorced from that great common law? Are we not bound to trust and work by the old and reliable self-evident laws, until something later has proven its superior ability to ward off disease and cure the sick.
THE FASCIA.
I know of no part of the body that equals the fascia as a hunting ground. I believe that more rich golden thought will appear to the mind's eye as the study of the fascia is pursued than any division of the body. Still one part is just as great and useful as any other in its place. No part can be dispensed with. But the fascia is the ground in which all causes of death do the destruction of life. Every view we take, a wonder appears. Here we find a place for the white corpuscles building anew and giving strength to throw impurities from the body by tubes that run from the skin to tanks of useful fluids, that would heap up and are no longer of use in the body. No doubt nerves exist in the fascia, that change the fluid to gas, and force it through the spongy and porous system as a delivery by the vital chain of wonders, that go on all the time to keep nerves wholly pure.
NOT A PLEASANT TASK.
I dislike to write, and only do so, when I think my productions will go into the hands of kind-hearted geniuses who read, not to find a book of quotations, but to go with the soul of the subject that is being explored for its merits,—weigh all truths and help bring its uses front for the good of man.
Osteopathy has not asked a place in written literature prior to this date, and does not hope to appear on written pages even to suit the author of this imperfectly written book.
WITHOUT ACCEPTED THEORIES.
Columbus had to launch and navigate much and long, and meet many storms, because he had not the written experience of other travelers to guide him. He had only a few bits of drift-wood not common to his home growth, to cause him to move as he did. But there was a fact, a bit of wood that did not grow on his home soil.
He reasoned that it must be from some land amid the sea whose shores had not before been known to his race. With these facts and his powerful mind of reason, he met all opposition, and moved alone; just as all men do who have no use for theories as their compass to guide them through the storms. This opposition a mental explorer must meet.
I felt that I must anchor my boat to living truths and follow them wheresoever they might drift. Thus I launched my boat many years ago on the open seas, fearlessly, and have never found a wave of scorn nor abuse that truth could not eat, and do well on.
TRUTHS OF NATURE.
We often speak of truth. We say great truths, and use many other qualifying expressions. But no one truth is greater than any other truth. Each has a sphere of usefulness peculiar to itself. Thus we should treat with respect and reverence all truths, great and small. A truth is the complete work of nature, which can only be demonstrated by the vital principle belonging to that class of truths. Each truth or division as we see it, can only be made known to us by the self evident fact, which this truth is able to demonstrate by its action.
If we take man as our object to base the beginning of our reason, we find the association of many elements, which differ in kind to suit the purpose for which they were designed. To us they act, to us they are wisely formed and located for the purpose for which they were designed. Through our five senses we deal with the material body. It has action. That we observe by vision which connects the mind to reason. High above the five senses on the subject of cause or causes of this, is motion. By the testimony of the witness the mind is connected in a manner by which it can reason on solidity and size. By smell, taste and sound, we make other connections between the chambers of reason and the object we desire to reason upon; and thus our foundation on which all five witnesses are arrayed to the superior principle which is mind.
After seeing a human being complete in form, self moving, with power to stop or go on at will, to us he seems to obey some commander. He seems to go so far and stop; he lies down and gets up; he turns round and faces the objects that are traveling in the same direction he does. Possibly he faces the object by his own action. Then by about facing, he sees one coming with greater velocity, sees he can not escape by his own speed, so he steps aside and lets that body pass on, as though he moved in obedience to some order. The bystander would ask the question, "How did he know such a dangerous body was approaching?" He finds on the most crucial examination, that the sense of hearing is wholly without reason. The same is true with all the five senses pertaining to man, beast, or bird. This being the condition of the five physical senses, we are forced by reason to conclude there is a superior being who conducts the material man, sustains, supports and guards against danger; and after all our explorations, we have to decide that man is triune when complete.
BODY, MOTION AND MIND.
First the material body, second the spiritual being, third a being of mind which is far superior to all vital motions and material forms, whose duty is to wisely manage this great engine of life. This great principle known as mind, must depend for all evidences on the five senses, and on this testimony, all mental conclusions are bad, and all orders from this mental court are issued to move to any point or stop at any place. Thus to obtain good results, we must blend ourselves with, and travel in harmony with nature's truths. When this great machine man, ceases to move in all its parts, which we call death, the explorers knife discovers no mind, no motion. He simply finds formulated matter with no motor to move it, with no mind to direct it. He can trace the channels through which the fluids have circulated, he can find the relation of parts to other parts; in fact by the knife, he can expose to view the whole machinery that once was wisely active. Suppose the explorer is able to add the one principle motion, at once we would see an action, but it would be a confused action. Still he is not the man desired to be produced. There is one addition that is indispensable to control this active body, or machine, and that is mind. With that added the whole machinery then works as man. The three when united in full action are able to exhibit the thing desired—complete.
OSTEOPATHY TO CURE DISEASE.
The Osteopath seeks first physiological perfection of form, by normally adjusting the osseous frame work, so that all arteries may deliver blood to nourish and construct all parts. Also that the veins may carry away all impurities dependent upon them for renovation. Also that the nerves of all classes may be free and unobstructed while applying the powers of life and motion to all divisions, and the whole system of nature's laboratory.
A full and complete supply of arterial blood must be generated and delivered to all parts, organs and glands, by the channels called the arteries. And when it has done its work, then without delay the veins must return all to heart and lungs for renewal. We must know some delay of fluids has been established on which nature begins the work of renewal by increased action of electricity, even to the solvent action of fever heat, by which watery substances evaporate and relieve the lymphatic system of stagnant, watery secretions. Thus fever is a natural and powerful remedy.
THE OSTEOPATH SHOULD FIND HEALTH.
To find health should be the object of the doctor. Anyone can find disease. He should make the grand round among the sentinels and ascertain if they are asleep, dead or have deserted their posts, and have allowed the enemy to get into camps. He should visit all posts. Before he goes out to make the rounds, he should know where all posts are, and the value of the supply he has charge of, whether it be shot, shell, grub, clothing, arms or anything of value to the Company or Division.
CHAPTER II.
OSTEOPATHIC EXPLORATIONS.
Divisions of the Body—Searching for the Cause—Duty of the Osteopathic Explorer—Classification and Division—The Abnormal—Nerve Powers—Witnesses to Examine—Abnormal Growths—Cerebro Spinal Fluid—Body in Perfect Health—Chemistry—Nature's Chemistry.
DIVISIONS OF THE BODY.
After many long years, treating and trying to teach the student of Osteopathy how to hunt for and find the local causes of diseases, not contagious, or infectious, I have succeeded in planning and suggesting a method, which I am sure the doctor can easily follow, and find any diversion from the normal, that would interfere with the nerves, veins, and arteries, of any organ or limb of the body. I have formulated a simple mental diagram that divides the body into three parts, chest, upper and lower limbs. The first division takes in head, neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis. The second division takes in head, neck, lower and upper arm and hand. The third division takes in foot, leg, thigh, pelvis and lumbar vertebra. I make this division for the purpose of holding the explorer to the limits of all supplies. In the ellipse of the chest is found all vital supplies; then from that center of life we have two branches only, one of the arm, and one of the lower limb. In each division we have five points of exploration.[1]
[Footnote 1: Explore: (1) To seek for or after: to strive to attain by search; to look wisely and carefully for; to search through or into; to penetrate or range over for discovery; to examine thoroughly; as, to explore new countries or seas; to explore the depths of science; "hidden frauds (to) explore."—WEBSTER.]
SEARCHING FOR THE CAUSE.
To illustrate, we will take the lower limb, whether there is lameness, soreness, gouty, rheumatic, neuralgic, swollen, shrunken, feverish, cold, smooth and glassy, sores, ulcers, erysipelas, milkleg, varicose veins, or any defect that the patient may complain of, who is the only reliable book or being of symptomatology. For convenience we will divide that lower limb into five parts, the foot, leg, thigh, pelvis and lumbar region. The patient (symptomatologist) tells us he has a pain in front, center and under part of foot. Now the doctor or bird dog, can find quails of reason in but one field that would lead him to the cause. As this field is divided into five parts and the hunter has carefully searched four divisions, he will find the cause or causes in the fifth and none other. If a dislocated bone is not found in the foot after ascertaining that there has been no crushing by falling bodies, horses feet, stepping on glass, nails and other things that would penetrate the foot, and irritate by being broken off, closed and remaining in the flesh; we will explore the leg for the quail, ascertain if the articulation is normal at ankle and knee. If we find the bone is not broken, the leg has no splinters of wood, nor injured flesh by bites from dogs or other animals, nor any other substance that would injure the leg, we are prepared to pass on and explore another place for pain in the foot. We go on to division No. 3 or the thigh division, and ascertain if the thigh is normal in all conditions, properly in socket, with all muscles, ligaments and nerves unoppressed. There are but two more divisions left for exploration, and they are the most important and interesting of the five, the pelvis and lumbar, through which all the nerves of the limb pass. We must stop at pelvis and observe carefully that there is no twist of ligaments before going to lumbar, which is the last of the five divisions. If we have found nothing in the previous four, and have explored them as carefully as we should, we have but one brush heap left, and that one contains the quail that we have been hunting for. As the lumbar contains and conveys all nerve forces to the pelvis from the brain and all divisions of the lower limbs, we will now examine the articulations of that part of the spine, and in that we are very certain to find the cause if we have made no mistake in our examination in the preceding divisions of the limb. As we enter the exploration of this part of the spine we must remember that we are about to deal with the many divisions of the nerves of the cauda equina. The great question before us, comes after this form. What would wound or bruise any division of nerves that would lead by the way of the great or lesser sciatic, to a bone in the front and under side of the foot? Jars, strains, twists, and dislocations, must be carefully searched for. A partial dislocation of one side of the spine would produce a twist which would throw one muscle on to another and another, straining ligaments, producing conjestion and inflammation, or some irritation that would lead to a suspension of the fluids necessary to the harmonious vitality of the foot, which is the great and only cause by which the suffering is produced in a foreign land, which we call a famine in the foot.
DUTY OF THE OSTEOPATHIC EXPLORER.
This method of exploration is not directed by the sound of the fog-horns of unreliable and unsatisfactory symptomatology. Osteopathy has a method of its own, which is correct or it has no method at all, and is guided by the surveyor's compass that will find all corners as established by the orders of the government and surveyor's general. Thus an Osteopath must find the true corners as set by the Divine Surveyor. The general surveyor hands our plats and specifications to the division general, with instructions to establish all lines and divisions, state, county, township and sections, and mark each one by stones or otherwise, so they cannot be lost; but are findable by any competent surveyor who follows the field notes displayed in anatomy. Thus you would see a successful Osteopath is guided by the field notes of nature to all corners, his business is to know that every corner stone is in its place, standing erect as nature designed and established it. If he tolerates any variation of this stone or stones from the place or places that God the grand surveyor of the universe has placed them, he will observe there is an infringement and cause for inharmony and discord of the possessors of the four quarter sections of land, for which this cornerstone was placed; and his sworn duty is to bring this stone from any variation from the field notes and establish it where it was first placed. Thus his ability to find the true corners and adjust all stones will mark him as a successful Osteopath.
CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION.
I will classify or divide man's body for convenience of exploration for diseases into head and neck first; then head, neck and chest, third, head, neck, chest and abdomen; then unite head, neck, chest, abdomen and sacrum. I will take up a few diseases under each division as they are located. By this method I think I can better show what nerves should be more or less active.
THE ABNORMAL.
A lesion may and does appear on a part or all of the person which may appear as a growth or withering away of a limb in all its muscles, nerves and blood supply. As in case of tumors on scalp, loss of hair, eruptions of face, growth of tonsils, ulcers of one or both ears, growths on outside and inside of eyes, a cause must precede an effect in all cases. A pain in head is an effect; cause is older than the effect and is absolute in all variations from normal conditions. A tumor on the head and under the skin is an effect only. It took matter to give it size, it took power to deliver that substance, the fact that a tumor was formed, shows that the power to build was present and did the work of construction. Another power should have been there to complete the work at that location; that power is the offbearing of the dead matter after the work of construction was complete.
NERVE POWERS.
If we think as men of reason should, we will count five nerve powers. They must all be present to build a part, and must answer promptly at roll call and work all the time. The names of these master workmen are sensation, motion, nutrition, voluntary and involuntary. All must answer at every roll call during life; none can be granted a leave of absence for a moment. Suppose sensation should leave a limb for a time, have we not a giving away of all cells and glands? An undue filling up follows quickly because sensation limits and tells when the supply is too great for the use of the builder's purpose. Suppose the nerve power known as motion should fail for a time, starvation would soon begin its deadly work for want of food. Suppose again the nerves of nutrition should fail to apply the nourishing showers we would surely die in sight of food. With the voluntary nerves we move or stay at the will of he or she who wishes to give direction to the motor powers, at any time a change by action is required. At this time I will stop defining the several and varied uses of the five kinds of nerves, and begin to account for growths and other variations, from the healthy to the unhealthy conditions of man. The above named are the five known powers of animal life, and to direct them wisely is the work of the doctor of Osteopathy.
WITNESSES TO EXAMINE.
He has five witnesses to examine in all cases he has under his care. He must give close attention to the source and supply of healthy blood. If blood is too scant he must look to the motor systems of blood making, that would surely invite his most careful attention and study of the abdomen. He cannot expect blood to quietly pass through the diaphragm if impeded by muscular constriction around aorta, vena cava or thoracic duct. The diaphragm can and is often pulled down on both vena cava and thoracic duct, obstructing blood and chyle from returning to heart so much as to limit the chyle below the requirement of healthy blood, or even suppress the nerve action of lymphatics to such degree as to cause dropsy of the abdomen, or a stoppage of venous blood by pressure on vena cava so long that venous blood would be in stages of ferment when it enters the heart for renovation, and when purified and returned the supply is too small to sustain life to a normal standard.
ABNORMAL GROWTHS.
Thus the importance of a careful attention to the normal certainty of all the ribs to which the diaphragm is attached is essential. The eleventh and twelfth ribs may, and do often get pushed so far from their normal bearings, that they are often found turned in a line with the spine, with cartilaginous ends down near ilio-lumbar articulation. When in such position they draw the diaphragm down heavily on vena cava at about the fourth lumbar. Then you have cause for intermittent pulse, as the heart finds no passage of blood through the prolapsed diaphragm which is also stopping the vena cava and producing universal stagnation of blood and other fluids in all organs and glands below the diaphragm. Thus you have a beginning for abnormal growths of womb, kidneys and all lymphatics of liver, kidneys, spleen, pancreas, and all tumors of abdomen.
CEREBRO SPINAL FLUID.
To satisfy the mind of a philosopher who is mentally capable of asking for and knowing truth, when presented by nature, you must come at him outside of the limits of conjecture, and address him with self-evident truths only. When he takes up the philosophy of the great subject of life, to him who does know truth, no substitute can to any degree satisfy his mental demands. To the one who would deal in conjectures or suppose so's, he will at once be placed in the proper category to which he belongs, which is the drift-wood that floats down the dark river that is overshadowed by the nightmare of ignorance and superstition. A seeker after truth, is a man of few words, and they are used by him only by the truths or facts discovered. He has no patience with the unmeaning records offered only to please the credulous, and by those of little or no truth that appears during a long recitation of ungrounded statements. From the above it is wisely seen that the object of these remarks is to present a few truths for the purpose of stimulating the attention of the listener. We will take man when formed. When we use the word formed, we mean the whole building being complete. The brain with all organs, nerves, vessels, and every minutia in form with all materials found or used in life.
BODY IN PERFECT HEALTH.
We look at it in perfect health which means perfection and harmony not in part, but of the whole body. So far we are only filled with love, wonder and admiration. Another period of observation appears to the philosopher. We find partial or universal discord from the lowest observable to the highest in action and death. Then the book of whys is opened and displays its leaves which calls out mental labor even to the degree of agony, to know the cause or causes that produce a failure of a limb in sensation, motion, nutrition, voluntary and involuntary functional exhibits. His mind will explore the bone, the ligament, the muscle, the fascia, the channels through which the blood travels from heart to local destiny, with lymphatics and their contents,—the nerves, the blood vessels and every channel through or over which all substances are transmitted all over the body, particularly the disabled limb in question. It proceeds too and does obtain blood abundantly to and from the heart, but the results obtained are not satisfactory, and another leaf is opened of why no good results are obtained and where is the mystery, what quality and element of force and vitality has been withheld? A thought strikes him that the cerebro spinal fluid is the highest known element that is contained in the human body, and unless the brain furnishes this fluid in abundance a disabled condition of the body will remain. He who is able to reason will see that this great river of life must be tapped and the withering field irrigated at once, or the harvest of health be forever lost.
CHEMISTRY.
As chemical compounds are not known to Osteopathy to be used as remedies, then its use as a study for the student is only to teach that elements in nature do combine and form other substances, and without changes and unions, no teeth, bone, hair, or muscle could appear in the body from the food eaten. Then chemistry is of great use as a part of a thorough Osteopathic education. It gives us the reasons why food is found in the body as bone, muscle and so on, to all kinds of flesh, teeth and bones found in animal forms. Unless we know chemistry reasonably well, we can not do away with much mental worry of what becomes of food after eating. By chemistry the truths of physiology are firmly established in the mind of the student of nature, that in man a chemistry of wonderful powers does all the work of animal forms, and that in the laboratory of nature's chemistry is the ruling power. By elementary chemistry we are led to see the beauties of physiology only. Thus chemistry of the elementary is one, and physiology is the witness that it is law in man as in all nature. Thus in chemistry we comprehend some of the laws of union in nature which we can use mentally with knowing confidence. In chemistry we become acquainted with the law of cause and change in union, which is a standard law sought by the student of Osteopathy.
NATURE'S CHEMISTRY.
Osteopathy believes that all parts of the human body do work on chemical compounds, and from the general supply manufacture for local wants; thus the liver builds for itself of the material that is prepared in its own division laboratory. The same of heart and brain. No disturbing or hindering causes will be tolerated to stay if an Osteopath can find and remove it. We must reason that to withhold the supply from a limb, to wither away would be natural. We suffer from two causes. First, want of supply (hunger), and the burdens of dead deposits along nerve centers, which five nerves by chemical changes while in fermentation should regulate local or general divisions.
CORRECT METHOD OF REASONING.
In concluding this chapter we will confine our labor to an effort to direct the beginner to a correct method of reasoning. When he is brought face to face with the stern realities of the "sick room," the Osteopath begins his inquiries and follows with his questions just far enough to know what division of the body is in trouble. If he finds an arm has lost motion, he goes to arm to explore for cause. He can begin his hunt for cause at hand, explore it carefully for wounds, strains or any lesion that could injure nerves of the arm. If he finds no probable cause there, he should explore bones for dislocations or strains of ligaments at elbow; if he finds no defect there sufficient to locate cause in lower arm or hand; he has only two more places left to inspect, the shoulder and neck with their articulations of bone and muscles. If found normal at shoulder, then go to neck, out of which go all or most of the nerves of the arm; if he finds no lesion or cause equal to the trouble so far, then he has been careless in his search and should go over and over from marrow to periostium of all bones of the neck and head, because there are only five divisions in which a lesion can exist. Carefully look, think, feel and know that the head of the humerus is true in the glenoid cavity, clavicle true at both ends of its articulation, with sternum and acromion processes. See that the biceps are in their grooves, and ribs on spine are true at manubrium and spine, and that neck is true on first dorsal. True in all joints of the neck, as the nerves of the arm come from the neck, there must be no variation from normal, or trouble will appear from that cause. As the neck has much to do with the arm, we should keep a living picture of the forms of each bone, how and where it articulates with others, how it is joined by ligaments, what blood vessels, nerves and muscles cross or range with it lengthwise, because to overlook a small nerve and blood vessel you may fail to remove a goitre, and all diseases of the head, face and neck.
CHAPTER III.
THE HEAD.
A Free Circulation—Death Blows—Something of the Neck—Order of Treatment—The Pelvis—Brains of Animals—Arterial Motion—Mental Vibrations—Overburdening the Mind—Hemiplegia.
A FREE CIRCULATION.
Before we treat of the head, we must follow blood from the heart to all organs of the head. Not only look at the pictures in Gray, Morris, Gerrish, or some finely illustrated work on anatomy, but we must apply a searching hand and know to a certainty that the constrictors of neck, or other muscles or ligaments do not pull cervical and hyoid bones so close as to bruise pneumogastric or any other nerves or fibres that would cause spasmodic contraction of digastric, stylo-hyoid or the whole remaining group of neck muscles and ligaments, with which you are or should be very familiar. Ever remember that the venous drainage must be kept normally active or congestion, and tumefaction, with inflammation of the glands of the head, face and neck will appear, and mark for you this oversight; because the perpetual health, ease and comfort of the head beginning with the scalp and hair, with their nerves, glands and purity of blood supply, a healthy eye, good hearing, healthy action of brain with its magnetic and electric forces to the vital parts which sustain life, memory and reason, depend directly and wholly upon unlimited freedom of the circulatory system of nerves, blood and cerebral fluid. They must be normal in action and quantity unembarrassed, otherwise bad hearing, ulcers of the ears, cross eyes, pterygium, cataract, granulated lids, staphyloma, lachrymosis and up to full list of diseases of the eye, with tonsilitis, injured voice, tumors and cancers of face, head, tongue, mouth and throat, along with erysipelas, blotches and pimples, and all diseases of the glandular system of the head and neck. Undoubtedly all these afflictions have their origin in obstructed normal action between the heart and the termination of all above it, for want of nerve and blood harmony.
DEATH BLOWS.
Remember that death blows are dealt out freely above the sternum by irritation and constriction of the parts above described. We should often refresh our minds, beginning with the muscles that connect the head and neck, and know to a certainty as we explore that junction that the capitas minor, major and lateralis, long and short of both anticus and posticus regions are indisputably normal to your hand and judgment. It is almost useless to say to the anatomist who has had the drilling in all branches of that science, previous to obtaining his diploma, to commence and detail the venous and excretory system, through which all those glands are drained, and kept in a healthy condition, but we say this much; let your morning, noon and evening prayer be this, Oh Lord! give me more anatomy each day I live, because experience has taught me the unavoidable demands when in the "sick room."
SOMETHING OF THE NECK.
Before you leave that wisely constructed neck, I want to press and imprint on your minds in the strongest terms that the wisest anatomist, and physiologist, the oldest and most successful Osteopath knows only enough of the neck, and its wondrous system of nerves, blood and muscles and its relation to all above and below it, to say, "From everlasting to everlasting thou art great, O Lord God Almighty!" Thy wisdom is surely boundless, for I see that man must be wise to know all about the neck, for we find by a twist of neck, we may become blind, deaf, spasmodic, lose speech and memory, and all that is known as the joys of man. On that division of the body all action of arms, legs, chest and all muscles get their life—power and motion. Think for a moment of the thousands and tens of thousands of large and small fluid vessels that pass to and from heart and brain, to every organ, bone, fibre, muscle and gland, both large and small, receiving and appropriating the substances as prepared in the chemical laboratory; so wisely situated, and so exact in all its works in the production and application of all substances in the body.
ORDER OF TREATMENT.
The reader will begin with the brain or head because I want to start with the head; first give such diseases as belong to that division of the body. Then the neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis. Thus we have five divisions in regular order, beginning with the head and finishing with the sacrum. The reader will find diseases of eye, ear, tongue, nose, face, scalp and hair under the chapter treating of the head. Next in regular order will be the division of the neck, with diseases of tonsils and glands of neck, swallow, trachae, nerves, blood vessels and muscles, fascia and lymphatics, superior cervical ganglion and other nerves of the neck, as they affect vitality in diseases. Then we pass on to third division, with diseases of lung, heart, pericardium, and pleura, with all parts of chest. Then abdomen, liver, stomach and bowels, and all organs with resisting power of diaphragm. Fifth, pelvis, with its great supply of nerves, blood and other fluids. These give us cause to halt and seat the mind for a long season of observation. A great field opens at this point for the observing thinker.
THE PELVIS.
In the pelvis we find a system of nerves and arteries with blood for local supply, besides blood to construct womb, bladder, rectum, colon, cellular system and all the muscles of that cavity (the pelvis) all of which comes from arteries and branches above. We think it is not necessary to name them only in bulk, to a student versed in anatomy. Perhaps less is known of the pelvic system and its functions than any division of the body, and for that reason I have felt that we should know all that is possible to be learned. I believe more ignorance prevails to-day of internal causes of diseases than would if we reasoned that the pelvic nerves and vessels had much to do in forming the abdominal viscera.
THE BRAIN OF ANIMALS.
Of all parts of the body of man to be well studied, the brain should be the most attractive. It is the place where all force centers, where all nerves connect to one common battery. By its orders the laboratory of life begins to move on crude material and labors until blood is formed and becomes food for all nerves first; then arteries and veins by nerve action and forces, to suit each class of work to be done by that set of nerves which is to construct forms; keep blood constantly in motion by the arteries and from all parts back to the heart, through the veins, that the blood may be purified, renewed and re-enter the arteries to be taken to all places of need.
ARTERIAL MOTION.
Arterial motion is normal during all ages, from the quick pulse of the babe's arm, to the ages of each year to one hundred or more. At this great age the pulse is so slow that the heat is not generated by the nerves, whose motor velocity is not great enough to bring electricity to the stage of heat. All heat, high and low, surely is the effect of active electricity—plus to fever; minus to coldness. When an irritant enters the body by lung, skin or any other way, a change appears in the heart's action from its effects on the brain, to the high electric action and that burning heat called fever. If plus violent type (yellow fever), if minus, low grades (typhus, typhoid, plagues), and so on through the list.
MENTAL VIBRATIONS.
To think implies action of the brain. We can grade thought although we cannot measure its speed.
Suppose a person of one kind of business thinks just fast enough to suit that profession. A man is engaged in raising hogs and that alone. He must reason on and of the nature of hogs. He begins about so: a hog eats, drinks, bathes, roots and sleeps. He knows the hog eats grain, so he feeds it corn, or some other suitable cereal, with plenty of water and good bedding. The swine is on his mind night and day.
THE WHEELS OF THOUGHT.
Now the question is, how fast does he think? How many revolutions do the wheels of his head make per minute to do all the necessary thinking connected with the hog business? Say his mental wheels revolve 100 times each minute. Then he adds sheep to his business, and if that should require 100 more revolutions and he takes charge of raising draft horses with 175 revolutions added, you see the wheels of his head whizzing off 375 vibrations per minute. And at this time he adds the duties of the carpenter with 300 more revolutions, add them together and you see 675. To this number he adds the duties and thoughts of a sheriff, which are numerous enough to buzz his wheels at 1500 more, you find 2175 to be his mental revolutions so far. Now you have the great physical demands added to the mental motion which his brain has to support, yet he can do all so far, fairly well.
OVERBURDENING THE MIND.
He now adds to his labors the manufacturing of leather, from all kinds of hides, with the chemistry of fine tanning, which is equal to all previous mental motions. Add and you find 4250 revolutions all drawing on his brain each minute of the day. Add to this mental strain the increased action of his body which has to perform these duties and you see the beginning of a worry of both mind and body, to which you add manufacturing of engines, iron puddling, rolling, etc.; a delegate to a national convention, thoughts of the death of a near relative; add to this a security debt to meet during a money panic. By this time the mind begins to fag below the power of resistance.
HEMIPLEGIA.
Duration of such great mental vibrations for so long stops nutrition of all or one-half of the brain, and we have a case of "Hemiplegia," or the wheels of one-half of the brain run so fast as to overcome some fountain of nerve force and explode some cerebral artery in the brain and deposit a clot of blood at some motor supply or plexus.
Thus we see men from over mental action fall in our National councils, courts, manufactories, churches, and almost all places of great mental activity. Slaves and savages seldom fall victims to paralysis of any kind, but escape all such, for they know nothing of the strains of mind and hurried nutrition. They eat and rest, live long and happy. The idea of riches never bothers their slumbers. Physical injuries may and often do wound motor, sensory and nutrient centers of brain; but the effect is just the same, partial or complete suspension of the motor and sensory systems.
If you burst a boiler by high pressure or otherwise, your engine ceases to move. And just the same of an over-worked brain or body.
Hemiplegia. "The half" and "I strike." Paralysis of one half of the body.[2]
[Footnote 2: Chambers.]
Hemiplegia is usually the result of a cerebral hemorrhage or embolism. It sometimes occurs suddenly without other marked symptoms, but commonly it is ushered in by an apoplectic attack and on return of consciousness it is observed that one side of the body is paralyzed, the paralysis being often profound in the beginning, and disappearing to a greater or less extent at a later period.
Hemiplegia is much more rarely produced by a tumor. It then generally comes on slowly, the paralysis gradually increasing as the neoplasm encroaches more and more upon the motor tracks, though the tumor may be complicated by the occurrence of a hemorrhage and a sudden hemiplegia.
A gradual hemiplegia may also be produced by an abcess or chronic softening of the brain substance. Other conditions or symptoms presented, will in such case, assist us to diagnose the nature of the lesion.
CHAPTER IV.
EAR WAX AND ITS USES.
Nature Makes Nothing in Vain—A Successful Experiment—A Question for Ages—The Position—Meaning of Life—Some Questions Asked—Condition in Certain Diseases Caused by Cold—Cerumen in Fluid State—Winter Kills Babies—Some Advice to Mothers—A Case in Point—Connection of the brain and Other Nerves in Digestion—Unaided Investigation.
NATURE MAKES NOTHING IN VAIN.
That nature makes nothing in vain is an established truth in the minds of all persons whose observation has created in such persons a desire to reason, and that being my faith for many years I asked myself to try and get a reason of why nature had made and placed in a person's head so much fine machinery just to make a little ear-wax. If nothing is made in vain, what is that bitter stuff made for? It is always there, and more being made all the time. I have read many authors or say so's about ear-wax, and about the best the wise or the unwise have said is that it would keep bugs and other insects out of our heads. I thought if that was all that it was made for nature had done a great deal to shoo off the bugs. The idea that it was made bitter and bad to eat just to make bugs sick was weak philosophy, if nature never did any useless work or made anything in vain. At this time I saw the doors all open and a good chance for the loaded mind to unload and give us other uses for ear-wax than bug food, and to lubricate the auditory nerves with dry wax. At this time of my desire to know some positive use or object that nature had in forming so much fine machinery and no use for its products when made, but to pull out of the head with a hairpin, I reasoned about so, that this dry hard wax was once in the gaseous or fluid state.
A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.
When I had about concluded to sit down with the common herd of doctors and say that wax was wax, a fat boy of two summers was reported to me to be dying with croup. I began to think more about the dry wax that is always found in cases of croup, sore throat, tonsilitis, pneumonia, and all diseases of the lungs, nose and head. On examination I found the ear-wax dried up. So I put a few drops of glycerine, and after a minute's time a few drops of warm water in the child's head, and kept a wet rag corked into its ear frequently for twelve hours, and gave it Osteopathic treatment, at the end of which time all signs of croup had disappeared. I used the glycerine to soften the wax, which combining with water formed a harmless soap better qualified for washing the ear, and retaining the wax in solution than anything I have tried, for it is my opinion that the ear wax should be kept in a fluid state. When in that state the absorbent can more readily take it up and use it in the economy of life in this condition. The same day two ladies came to my house, sore in lungs, necks tied up, sore throats, fever and headache. As an experiment, in addition to Osteopathic treatment, I put a few drops of glycerine in their ears, followed with water to wet and soften the wax which was dry and hard, to get it back to a fluid state. Both got better of their sore lungs and throats in a short time, and in twenty-four hours they were about well, and lungs coughing out phlegm, easily. From this I think that the cause of croup is simply the result of abnormality of the cerumen system.
A QUESTION FOR AGES.
As a question of the uses of ear-wax has been before man for ages without an answer being given that passes the line of conjecture, I think there could be no reason why a few looks through the field glass of inquiry should not be given in a limited way on that great plane of fertility, for the minds of our most profound thinkers. As far as the writer can learn from reading and other methods of inquiry, the power and use of ear-wax has never been known, looked on, or thought of as one of life's agents for good or bad health. One asks this question: "Why are you talking about ear-wax, the filthy stuff?" In answer I asked, "What do you know about ear-wax?" The answer, "I don't know or care anything about the dirty stuff."
THE POSITION.
As my spleen is my organ of mirth, I let it bounce against my side a few times at such ignorance and gave the wax subject more study than ever—I began to read all the books I could find on Anatomy, Physiology, and Histology to get some knowledge of the machinery that the wise architect of that greatest of all temples had made to generate wax. At this time a conviction came to me to be sure of its uses before I gave an opinion. I find the center of nerve supply of the ears located at the base of the brain and side of the head, in front of the cerebellum, just below and near the center of the brain, a little above the foramen magnum, close to and behind the carotid arteries, deep and superficial, just above the entry of the spinal cord to the brain. Thus it is situated directly in communication with all nerves to and from the brain to every part of the body. Another question, and another came only to come and go without an answer—such as how and where is this wax made? Of what use is it? Why so awful bitter? Has it any living principle above dry earth? Is it produced in the brain, lymphatics, fascia, heart, lungs, nerves or where? How much of it would kill a man? Would it kill at all? What is it made for? Is it used by nerves as food, or used by lungs, heart, or any organ as an active principle in the magnetic or electric forces? So far all authors are silent even to offer a speculative opinion about how it is made and its uses. So far we get nothing from the ancient or modern writers, as to its uses or anything that would cause a man to think that the Creator had any great design, when he made so wisely constructed and so much machinery and gave it such prominent place in the center of the brain. By this time the reader begins to mentally ask what does this wax evangelist know about the wax and its uses? The writer wishes to observe and respect all nature and never be too hasty. To carefully explore all, and never leave until he finds the cause and use that nature's hand has placed in its works, never overlooking small packages as they often contain precious gems. I am sure no man of brilliant mind can pass this milepost and not hitch his team and do some precious loading. At this point my pen will give notice to all anatomists, histologists, chemists and physiologists that I will give "no sleep nor slumber to their eyes," until I hear from them an answer, yes or no to these questions: For what purpose did God make ear-wax? Is it food or refuse? If food, what is nourished by it? and how do you know your position is true and undebatable?
MEANING OF LIFE.
Life means existence; existence means subsistence; subsistence means something to subsist on, and of the degree of refinement to suit the being or principle whose function is to do the skilled work which is found marked on the tressle-board of the wisest of all builders, whose work is absolutely correct in form and action, and beautiful to behold. It calls out the admiration of man and God himself, who did say of man, "Not only good, but very good."
SOME QUESTIONS ASKED.
I consider ear-wax one of the most important questions before the minds of our physiologists. The first and only knowledge of which substance begins with the observer's eye when he beholds the dry wax as it is excreted and dropped into the cavities of the ears. A question arises—and stands without an answer—is this substance which is commonly called ear-wax, technically called cerumen, is it dead or is it alive while in this form and visible? If dead, why, and how did it lose its life? Why has it not been consumed if once a living substance? When alive, is it in the gaseous or fluid state? and when alive, and consumed as nutriment by the system what does it nourish? is the question for the philosopher's attention, not superficial, but his deepest thought? Why is it deposited in the center of the brain if not to impart its vital principle to all nerves interested in life and nutrition—both physical and spiritual. Its location, itself, would indicate its importance. Another thought is that no better place could be selected to establish and locate a universal supply office for the laborers of all parts of the whole superstructure. Another question arises: When we examine a person paralyzed on one side, why do we find this bread of life in such great quantities on the table and not consumed? Has not one-half of the brain and the nerves of that whole side, limbs and all, lost their power of digestion? Is hemiplegia a dyspepsia of the nerves of nutriment of the brain and organs of that side? If so we have some foundation on which to build an answer why this wax is not consumed and is dried up in the ears of the parylytic. The answer would be that nutrition is suspended.
CONDITIONS IN CERTAIN DISEASES, CAUSED BY COLDS.
Let us take croup, diphtheria, scarlet fever, la grippe, and all classes of colds—on to pneumonia. They present about the same symptoms, differing more in degrees of severity than of place. All affect the tonsils, nostrils, membraneous air-passages, and lungs about the same way. Croup exceeds by contracting the trachea enough to impede the passing of air to the lungs; diphtheria has more swelling of the tonsils, throat and glands of the neck, but all depend upon the same blood and nerve supply, or a general law of blood beginning with arteries to and from veins, lymphatics, glands and ducts to supply and take away all fluids that are of no farther use to the vital and material support. As all authors have agreed that the brain furnishes the propelling forces to the nerves, it would be proper to inquire how the brain is nourished. If so, we will begin and say the great cerebral system of arteries supply the brain of which it gives quality of all fluids and electric and magnetic forces, which must be generated in the brain. Then a question arises, if the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, lymphatics, kidneys and all parts of the body depend upon the brain for power, what do they give in return? If they give back anything it must be of the kind of the organ from whence it comes; thus a kidney cannot give liver nor spleen. Each must help to keep up the universal harmony by furnishing its mite of its own kind. Suppose lung fever is the effect of lack of renal salts, where would be a better place to dispatch from to renal organs than the ears to reach the brain and touch the nerve that connects with the sympathetic ganglion.
CERUMEN IN FLUID STATE.
Suppose we take the cerumen in its fluid state, by the secretions to the lungs from the ears and see the action of air and other substances on it, and it on them. We may safely look for a general action of some kind. If it be magnetic food, we will see the magnetic power shown in the lungs, and through the whole system, vitalizing all organs and functions of life. Thus the lymphatics will move to wash out impurities, and the nutritive nerves will rebuild lost energy. As but little is known or said of how or where the cerumen is formed, we will guess it is formed under the skin in the glands of the fascia and conveyed to the ears by the secretory ducts. Its place and how it is manufactured is not the question of the greatest importance, but its uses in disease and health.
WINTER KILLS BABIES.
The writer has much reason to believe he has found a reliable pointer for the cause of croup, diphtheria, and pneumonia; also a rational and easy cure that any mother can administer and save the babe from choking to death in her arms. Having witnessed croup in all its deadly work for fifty years, and seen the best skill of each year and generation fail to save, or even give relief, I lost all hope and grew to believe there was no help and the doctor was only one more witness to the scene of death and carnage found along the mysterious road that croup travels to slay the babes of the whole earth. Of later days we have new and different names for the disease, but alas, it kills the babe just as it did before it was called diphtheria, la grippe and so on.
SOME ADVICE TO MOTHERS.
I write this more for the mothers than for the critics. We say to mothers, as you are not Osteopaths, you are perfectly safe in putting glycerine in a child's ears. It is made from oils and fats. I believe when the wax is not consumed it clogs up the excretories with dead matter, thus the irritation of the nerves of throat, neck, lungs and lymphatics which give cause for the swelling of the tonsils and glands of the neck. In this book can be found why I see wisdom in treating for croup from the nerve centers of the brain. So far the uses and importance of healthy ear-wax as a cure for disease has had no attention that I can find by any author on disease or physiology. I hope time and attention may lead us to a better knowledge of the cure of diphtheria, croup, scarlet fever and all diseases of the throat and lungs of children, and how to cure a greater per cent than has been up to this writing. My experience up to date with such diseases, when treated as indicated, has been very encouraging. Though it is but a short time since I began to treat by this method, it has proven good with the young and old.
As all authors so far seem silent even as to how or when the wax is formed, we must resort to much careful dissection to find the relation of the cerumen system to health. To intelligently acquaint the mother with this treatment who does not understand anatomy so as to give Osteopathic treatment for croup, diphtheria, and so on, I will say; take a soft wet cloth and wash the child's neck and rub gently down from ears to breast and shoulders; keep ears wet, often dropping in the glycerine. Use glycerine because it will mix with the water and dissolve the wax, while sweet oil and other oils will not do so.
A CASE IN POINT.
At 2 o'clock p. m. I called to see a babe having malignant croup in its worst form, and examined its ears to see condition of wax. I had noticed in consumptives that some cases had great quantities of dry wax in one or both ears, but to this time had not thought of such deposits being an evidence of lost or suspended action of the nerves that manufactured cerumen. In this case I found wax dry and very hard, with much swelling and hardness in region of ears, eustachian tubes and tonsils. I reasoned that the excretory duct had become clogged, and that by the wax being retained in ducts and glands an irritation of the nerves of the cervical lymphatics had caused contraction near head, and produced congestion of the lymphatics, of the pneumogastric, and cutting off nerves supply from lungs. Believing this to be very likely I concluded to act on the above line of reasoning and see if I could give some relief. I did not stop to debate why the wax was hard and dry, but how to soften the wax, was the question of interest to me then. So I proceeded. I reasoned that soap and water would be the best treatment to clean the ears, and soften the wax. At this point to select the best make of soap in the ears was to be desired, so I took pure glycerine and water, dropped in a few drops and took a small roll of cloth, made it wet in warm water and pushed it in ears to keep them wet. In a few minutes I wet and inserted a soft cloth cork in the child's ears. I twisted the corks around in the ears, each time to mix the water and the wax to a softened condition, for to keep the wax wet was the object. In a few minutes I got the wax wet and the child coughed up phlegm easily, and when the dreaded hour, ten o'clock at night came, all danger had passed.
CONNECTION OF BRAIN AND OTHER NERVES IN DIGESTION.
If digestion is the effect of organs, fluids and forces, then the student of nature's law must be governed by well known truths, such as the location of the brain, connection of the nerves to other organs, bringing all parts interested in digestion in mental view. Thus you have a chance to know if one organ has an assisting relation to any other organ or system or if its products are of general or of special use. A few questions at this point of inquiry would be in place. Does the brain give assistance in digestion, and why may we reasonably suppose so, when digestion does its work normally and has a full, rich supply of blood? Yet disease enters the system, and begins its work with general weakness, swelling, wastings, and pain with some, or all the glands congested and sore, and a plenty of rich blood all the time. Then are we justified to go to the brain and examine the electric and magnetic batteries? We know such forces exist but as their location in the brain is not known farther than the fact of their existence, we do not know how they are fed, nor from where, so we are fully warranted in seeking a use for both powers—magnetic and electric. One says the power of electricity belongs more to the motor nerves and the magnetic to the nutrient system; if not they are happily blended and give the results. Without such forces life and motion could not be sustained. As it is not my object to write a treatise on general physiology, I will turn at once to the subject of the relation of life and health as affected by the abnormal supply and action of ear-wax.[3]
[Footnote 3: "The secretion of the external auditory meatus, mixed with the secretion of the neighboring glands or ceruminous glands, forms the well known ear-wax or cerumen. The secretion in this place contains a reddish pigment of a bitterish sweet taste, the composition of which has not been investigated." American Text-Book of Physiology.]
UNAIDED INVESTIGATION.
As our investigations are without the assistance of ancient or modern writers we will have to reason that man is a machine of form and power, forming its own parts and generating its own powers as it has use for them. At this time we begin to reason thus, that all powers are invisible and we see effect only. We know such forces to be abundant in nature, and life is sustained by them. To find the substances in the body that causes them to act and how to act, has been the object of my journey as an explorer. If they give us health when normal action prevails and disease only when abnormal, then we are admonished to form a more intimate acquaintance with the qualities, and with all the products, when formed in this great laboratory which compounds and qualifies each substance to fill its mission of force, construction, purity and action.
CHAPTER V.
DISEASES OF THE CHEST.
Where Confined—Consumption—Can Consumption Be Cured—Consumption Described—No Time for Surrender—Cerebral Spinal Fluid—How to Destroy Deadly Bombs of Decay—Battle of Blood for Life—Militis Tuberculosis—Conversion of Bodies Into Gas—Forming a Tubercle—Breeding Contagion—The Seeds of Disease—Generating Fever—Whooping Cough—Clouds and Lungs Are Much Alike—The Wisdom of Nature—Water Formed in Lungs—The Law of Fives—Feeble Action of Heart—The Heart—From Neck to Heart—Dyspepsia or Imperfect Digestion.
WHERE CONFINED.
Diseases of the chest are generally confined to heart, lungs, pleura, the pericardium, mediastium, blood vessels, with nerves and lymphatics. As we open the breast we behold the heart, a very large machine or engine, situated conveniently to throw blood to all parts of the body. To it we see hose or pipes that go to each organ, all muscles, the stomach, bowels, liver, spleen, kidneys, bladder and womb, all bones, fibers, ligaments, membranes, and its body, lungs and brain. When we follow this blood through its whole journey to feed the dependent parts, be they organ or muscle, we find just enough unloaded at each station to supply the demand as fast as consumed. Thus life is supplied at each stroke of the heart, which gives blood to keep digestion in full motion while other supplies of blood are being made and put in channels to carry to the heart, blood is freely given to keep those channels strong, clean and active. Thus much depends on the heart, and great care should be given to that study, because a healthy system depends almost wholly on a normal heart and lung. Thus to study well the frame work of the chest should be with the greatest care. Every joint of the neck and spine has much to do with a healthy heart and lung, because all vital fluids from crown to sacrum do or have passed through heart and lungs, and any slip of bone, strain or bruise will affect to some degree the usefulness of that fluid in its vitality, when appropriated in the place or organ it should sustain in a good healthy state. To the Osteopath, his first and last duty is to look well to a healthy blood and nerve supply. He should let his eye camp day and night on the spinal column; to know if the bones articulate truly in all facets and other bearings, and never rest day or night until he knows the spine is true and in line from atlas to sacrum, with all ribs known to be in perfect union with processes of spine. In reasoning for probable causes of diseases of chest, we are met with the fact that the heart and lungs are housed up, and out of reach of the hand and eye. We hear a cough, see blood and other substances after they pass out of the lungs; we learn of general and local pain and misery, feel heat and cold on skin, note abnormal breathing, but here we are at a stop, for want of facts. We know something is wrong, but cannot say what, until after death has done the work, then we open the chest and find tubercles, cancers, ulcers and abcesses. How came they there? is the unanswered question. The servant of that breast who failed to keep his room clean, is the one to find and punish.
CONSUMPTION.
I believe so much death by consumption will soon be with the things of the past, if the cases are taken early and handled by a skilled mind,—one trained for that responsible place. He or she must be taught this as a special branch. It is too deep for superficial knowledge or imperfect work. Life is in danger, and can be saved by skill, not by force and ignorance. He who sees only the dollar in the lung, is not the man to trust with your case.
It is such men as have the ability to think, and the skill to comprehend and execute the application of nature's unerring laws, that obtain the results required. We believe the day has come, and long before noon, the fear of consumption will greatly pass from the minds of people. We have long since known and proven that a cough is only an effect. If an effect then a wise man will set his mental dogs on the track, which is (effect) to hunt the skunk, (cause). He has all the evidence by the cough, location of pain, tenderness of spine, neck, and quality of the substances coughed up to locate the cause, and to know, when he has found it, how to remove the cause, and give relief; will grow more simple as he reasons and notes effect. We do not think this result will be obtained every time by even an average mind, unless he has a special training for that purpose. He must not only know that the lungs are in the upper part of the chest close to the heart, liver and stomach, but he must know the relation all sustain to each other, that the blood must be abundantly supplied, support and nourish three sets of nerves, namely sensory, motor and nutrient; also voluntary and involuntary. If the supply should be diminished on the nutrient nerves, weakness would follow; reduce the supply from the motor and it will have the same effect. Motion becomes too feeble to carry blood to and from lungs normally, and the blood becomes diseased and congested, because it is not passed on to other parts with the force necessary for health of lungs.
At this time the nerves of sensation become irritated by pressure and lack of nutriment, and we cough, which is an effort of nature to unload the burden of oppression that congestion causes with sensory nerves. If this be effect, then we must suffer and die, or remove the cause, put out the fire and stop waste of life, without which all is lost. Nature will do its work of repairing in due time. Let us reason by comparison. If we dislocate a shoulder, fever and heat will follow. The same is true of all limbs and joints of the body. If any obstructing blood or other fluid should be deposited in quantities great enough to stop other fluids from passing on their way, Nature will fire up its engine to remove such deposits by converting fluids into gas. As heat and motion have much to do as remedies, we may expect fever and pain until nature's furnace produces heat, forms and converts its fluids into gas and other deposits, and passes them through the excretories to space, and allows the body to work normally again.
HOW CONSUMPTION USUALLY BEGINS.
We believe consumption causes the death of thousands annually who might be saved. We must not let stupidity veil our reason, and we are to blame if we let so many run into "Consumption" from a simple hard cough. The remedy is natural, and we believe from results already obtained 75 per cent can be cured if taken in time. What we generally call "Consumption" begins with a cough, chilly sensations, and lasts a day or two. Sometimes fever accompanies with cough, either high or low. The cold generally relaxes in a few days, lungs get "loose," and much is raised and continues for a period, but the cough appears again and again with all changes of weather, and lasts longer each time, until it becomes permanent, then it is called "Consumption," because of this continuance. Medicines are administered freely and often, but the lungs grow worse, cough more continued and much harder, till finally blood begins to come from lungs with wasting of strength. Change of climate is suggested and taken, but with no change for the better; another and another travels to death on the same line. Then the doctor in council reports "hereditary consumption" and with his decision all are satisfied, and each member of the family feels that a cold and cough means a coffin, because the doctor says the family has "hereditary consumption." This shade tree has given comfort and contentment to the doctors of the whole past.
CAN CONSUMPTION BE CURED?
If you have a tiresome and weakening cough at the close of the winter, and wish to be cured, we would advise you to begin Osteopathic treatment at once, so the lungs can heal and harden against next winter's attack.
This is the first I have written on "Consumption" because I wanted to test my conclusions by long and careful observations on cases that I have taken and successfully treated. I kept the results from public print until I could obtain positive proof that "Consumption" could be cured. So far the discovered causes give me little doubt, and the cures are a certainty in very many cases. An early beginning is one of the great considerations in incipient consumption.
CONSUMPTION DESCRIBED.
For fear you do not understand what I mean by "Consumption" I will write on a descriptive line quite pointedly. I will give start and progress to fully developed consumption. We often meet with cases of permanent cough, with expectorations of long duration, dating back two, five, ten, even thirty years, to the time they had measles. The severity of the cough and strain had congested even the lung substances, and a chronic inflammation was the result. If we analyze the sputa we find fibrin and even lung muscle. Does all this array of dangerous symptoms cause an Osteopath to give up in despair? It should not, on the other hand he should go deeper on the hunt of cause. He may find trouble in nerve fiber of pneumogastric nerve, atlas or hyoid, vertebra, rib, or clavicle, may be by pressing on some nerve that supplies mucous membrane of air cells or passages. A cut foot will often produce lockjaw, why not a pressure on some center branch or nerve fiber cause some division—nerve of the lungs that governs venous circulation which would contract and hold blood indefinitely as an irritant, equal to cause, perpetual coughing?
NO TIME FOR SURRENDER.
This is not the time for the brainy Osteopath to run up the white flag of defeat and surrender. Open the doors of your purest reason, put on the belt of energy and unload the sinking vessel of life. Throw overboard all dead weights from fascia and wake up the forces of the excretories. Let the nerves all show their powers to throw out every weight that would sink or reduce the vital energies of nature. Give them a chance to work, give them the full nourishment and the victory will be on the side of the intelligent engineer. Never surrender but die in the last ditch.
Let us enter the field of active exploration and note the causes that would lead us to conclude we have the cause that produces "consumption" as it has ever been called.
Begin at the brain, go down the ladder of observation, stop and whet your knives of mental steel sharp, get your nerves quiet by the opium of patience. Begin with the atlas, follow with the search-light of quickened reason, comb back your hair of mental strength, and never leave that bone till you have learned how many nerves pass through and around that wisely formed first part of the neck. Remember it was planned and builded by the mind and hand of the infinite. See what nerve fibers passes through and on to the base center, and each minute cell, fascia, gland and blood vessel of the lungs. Do you not know that each nerve fiber to its place is king and lord of all?
CEREBRAL SPINAL FLUID.
I think consumption begins by closing the channels of cerebro-spinal fluid in neck, which fluid stands as one of, if not the most highly refined elements in animal bodies. Its fineness would indicate that it is a substance that must be delivered in full supply continually to keep health normal; if so, we will for experimental reasons look at the neck ligated, as found in measles, croup, colds and eruptive fevers. Supply is stopped from passing below atlas for three days. During such diseases fever runs high at this time and dries up the albumen, giving cause for tubercles to begin, as fever has dried out the water and left the albumen in small deposits in the lungs, liver, kidneys and bowels. If this view of the great uses of brain fluid is true as cause of glandular growths and other dead deposits; have we not a cause for militis tuberculosis? Have we not encouragement to prosecute with interest, in the hope of an answer to the question, "What is tuberculosis?" Our writers are just as much at sea to-day as a thousand years ago. I will give the reader some of the reasons why I think the mischief was started while fluid was cut off by congestion of neck. How can the fluid be cut off at neck is a very natural question. By the crudest method of reasoning we would conclude that from the form of the neck, many objects are indicated, and the material of which it is composed would give reason to turn all its powers of thought, to ask why it is so formed, as to twist, bend, straighten, stiffen and relax at will, to suit so many purposes? A very tough skin—a sheathe—surrounds the neck with blood vessels, nerves, muscles, bones, ligaments, fascia, glands great and small, throat and trachea. In bones we find a great canal for spinal cord. It is well and powerfully protected by a strong wall of bone, so no outer pressure can obstruct the flow of passing fluids, to keep vitality supplied by brain forces, but with all the guards given to protect the cord, we find that it can be overcome by impact fluids to such degree as to stop blood and other fluids from supplying lungs and all below.
The fluid we speak of comes from the skull, and when in process of formation must not be disturbed until it has passed through all chances of being injured by force, air or light. Thus the great need of walls to hold the enemy outside the safety line. Such truths surely should attract our attention when we explore for causes. We can analyze material bodies but we have to stop at the life line for more knowledge. Our boats have been in port over 6000 years, waiting for knowledge about the whats and whys of life, until barnacles of ignorance have accumulated to such thickness that the conchologist has called that cake of shells "allopathy" which weighed anchor and turned to the great sea of human credulity to expound, with nothing but conjectures to offer. He toots his fog-horn in all lands and on all seas, and says, "age before reason." Thus one generation blindly follows another.
HOW TO DESTROY DEADLY BOMBS OF DECAY.
I think by this time the reader has gotten his mind in line with his exploring needle of thought to get some light or knowledge of why a growth and how a body that has never failed for few or many years, begins and continues to form and plant deadly bombs of decay in that once powerful engine of perfect health, to produce suicide. We see and know this to be the case in thousands of beings annually, and this same question is just as applicable to the herds of animals as to man. Thus we cry piteously for help, but no answer has come in past days; we go on and give place in lungs and other parts of the deadly tubercle. But one answer can be given in "Holy Writ" to suit these questions, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." Turn the waters of life loose at the brain, remove all hindrances and the work will be done, and give us the eternal legacy, LONGEVITY.
BATTLE OF BLOOD FOR LIFE.
In America from the day of Washington and all centuries before his time, man has dreaded diseases of the lungs more universally than any other one disease. If we compare pulmonary diseases with other maladies we find more persons die of consumption, pneumonia, bronchitis and nervous coughs than from smallpox, typhus and bilious fever and all other fevers combined. Many diseases of contagious natures do not stay in city, town, country nor an army, but a short time; kills a few and disappears and may not return for many years. The same is the history of yellow fever, cholera and other epidemics. They slay their hundreds and stop as unceremoniously as they began. But when we think of diseases that begin to show their effects in tonsils, trachea and lining membranes of the air passages, we find we are in a boundless ocean; because we find all seasons of the year, which afford changes of weather: Wet, dry, windy, hot and cold, which mark 30 deg. to 60 deg. in twenty-four hours, chills the lungs and whole system, closes the excretory system against renovating equal to deposits, with all other chances to throw out dead matter and gases that destroy blood and life in proportion to the amount and time of abnormal retention.
It takes no great mind to know from past observation that a common cold often holds on and settles down to chronic inflammation of the lungs, and the patient dies of consumption, croup, diphtheria, tonsilitis, and as catarrhal trouble stays and begins to waste vitality by failing to oxygenize blood while in the lungs, diphtheria paves the way for the young and old to die of consumption. Dance halls, opera houses, churches, school houses, and all crowded assemblies never fail to inspect and deposit the seeds of consumption in weak lungs. |
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