I have observed a number of similar cases suffering from consolidation of the lungs and the resulting asthmatic or tubercular conditions, which had been doctored into these chronic ailments by means of antipyretics and of ice.
Equally dangerous is the ice bag if applied to the inflamed brain or the spinal column. Only too often it results either in paralysis or in death. In many instances, acute cerebrospinal meningitis is changed in this way by drug and serum treatment or by the use of ice bags into the chronic, so-called incurable infantile paralysis.
We say so-called incurable because we have treated and cured such cases in all stages of development from the acute inflammatory meningitis to the chronic paralysis of long standing.
In our treatment of acute diseases we never use ice or icy water for packs, compresses, baths or ablutions, but always water of ordinary temperature as it comes from the faucet. The water compress or pack warms up quickly, and thus brings about a natural reaction within a few minutes, while the ice bag or pack continually chills and practically freezes the affected parts and organs. This does not allow the skin to relax; it prevents a warm reaction, the radiation of the body heat and the elimination of morbid matter through the skin.
Suppression During the Fourth and
Fifth Stages of Inflammation
Let us see what happens when acute diseases are suppressed during the stages of abatement and reconstruction. If the defenders of the body, the phagocyte and ant.i.toxins, produced in the tissues and organs, gain the victory over the inimical forces which are threatening the health and life of the organism, then the symptoms of inflammation, swelling, redness, heat, pain and the accelerated heart action which accompanies them, gradually subside. The debris of the battlefield is carried away through the venous circulation which forms the drainage system of the body.
When in this way all morbid materials have been completely eliminated, Vital Force, "the physician within," will commence to regenerate and reconstruct the injured and destroyed cells and tissues.
If, however, these processes of elimination and reconstruction are interfered with or interrupted before they are completed, then the affected parts and organs will not have a chance to become entirely well or strong. They will remain in an abnormal, crippled condition, and their functional activity will be seriously handicapped.
The After-effects of Drug-Treated Typhoid Fever
In hundreds of cases I have told patients after a glance into their eyes that they were suffering from chronic indigestion, mala.s.simi-lation and malnutrition caused by drug-treated typhoid fever; and every time the records in the eyes were confirmed by the history of the patient.
In such cases the outer rim of the iris shows a wreath of whitish or drug-colored circular flakes. I have named this wreath "the typhoid rosary." It corresponds to the lymphatic and other absorbent vessels in the intestines, and appears in the iris of the eye when these structures have been injured or atrophied by drug, ice or surgical treatment. Wherever this has been done, the venous and lymphatic vessels in the intestines do not absorb the food materials and these pa.s.s through the digestive tract and out of the body without being properly digested and a.s.similated.
During the destructive stages of typhoid fever, the intestines become denuded by the sloughing of their membranous linings. These sloughed membranes give the stools of the typhoid fever patient their peculiar pea soup appearance. In a similar manner the lymphatic, venous and glandular structures which const.i.tute the absorbent vessels of the intestines atrophy and slough away.
If the inflammatory processes are allowed to run their normal course under natural methods of treatment through the stages of Destruction, Absorption and Reconstruction, Nature will rebuild the membranous and glandular structures of the intestinal ca.n.a.l perfectly, convalescence will be rapid and the patient will enjoy better health than before he contracted the disease.
If, however, through injudicious feeding or the administration of quinine, mercury, purging salts, opiates or other destructive agents, Nature"s processes are interfered with, prematurely checked and suppressed, then the sloughed membranes and absorbent vessels are not reconstructed, and the intestinal tract is left in a denuded and atrophied condition.
Such a patient may arise from his bed thinking that he is cured; but unless he is afterward treated by natural methods, he will never make a full recovery. It will take him, perhaps, months or years to die a gradual, miserable death through mala.s.similation and malnutrition, which usually end in some form of wasting disease, such as pernicious anemia or tuberculosis. If he does not actually die from the effects of the wrongly treated typhoid fever, he will be troubled all his life with intestinal indigestion, constipation, mala.s.similation and the accompanying nervous disorders.
A Change for the Better
Speaking of typhoid fever, we are glad to say that for this particular form of disease the most advanced medical science has adopted the Nature Cure treatment, that is, straight cold water and fasting, and no drugs, as it was originated by the pioneers of Nature Cure in Germany more than fifty years ago.
This treatment, which medical science has found so eminently successful in typhoid fever, would prove equally efficacious in all other acute diseases if the regular doctors would only try it. It is a strange and curious fact that so far they have never found it worth while to do so. All Nature Cure physicians know from their daily experience in actual practice that the simple water treatment and fasting is sufficient to cure all other forms of acute diseases just as easily and effectively as typhoid fever. By this is proved the unity of treatment in all acute diseases.
Both in typhoid fever and in tuberculosis, progressive medical men have now entirely abandoned the germ-killing method of treatment.
They have found it absolutely useless and superfluous to hunt for drugs and serums to kill the typhoid and tuberculosis bacilli in these, the two most destructive diseases afflicting the human family. They were forced to admit that the simple remedies of the Nature Cure school, cold water and fasting in typhoid fever and the fresh-air treatment in tuberculosis, are the only worthwhile methods to fight these formidable enemies to health and life.
If they would continue their researches and experiments along these natural lines, they would attain infinitely more satisfactory results than through their germ-hunting and germ-killing theories and practices.
Chapter IX
The Effects of Suppression of Venereal Diseases
Another good ill.u.s.tration of suppression may be found in the allopathic treatment of venereal diseases. Almost invariably the drug treatment suppresses these diseases in the stages of incubation and aggravation, thus locking them up in the system. The venereal taints and germs, however, are living things which grow and multiply until the body has been completely permeated by them. Then they must find an outlet somehow and somewhere, and consequently they break out in the manifold so-called "secondary" and "tertiary" symptoms.
The drug poisons which are used to "cure" (suppress) these symptoms, greatly aggravate the disease. They create conditions in the system infinitely worse than the venereal diseases themselves. Thus the acute, easily curable stages of these ailments are changed into the dreadful and obstinate chronic conditions. It is in this way that venereal diseases are made hereditary and transmitted to future generations.
In a special article on this subject ent.i.tled "Venereal Diseases,"
published in ~"The Naturopath,"~ January, 1913, I have substantiated the following claims:
"Venereal diseases are not necessarily chronic in their progressive development. "They are essentially acute and self-limited. But may become chronic through neglect or through suppressive drug treatment. "The chronic, so-called secondary and tertiary manifestations of venereal diseases, such as ulceration of bones and fleshy tissue, gummata of the brain, sclerosis of the spinal cord, arthritic rheumatism, degeneration and destruction of other vital parts and organs of the body, are not so much the result of the original gonorrheal or syphilitic infection, as of the destructive drug poisons which have been taken to cure or rather to suppress the primary lesions and acute inflammatory symptoms. "Venereal diseases in the acute inflammatory stages are easily and completely curable by natural methods of living and of treatment. "Venereal diseases treated and cured by natural methods during the acute inflammatory stages are never followed by any chronic after-effects or secondary and tertiary manifestations whatsoever. "When venereal diseases have reached the secondary and tertiary stages, they are still curable by natural methods of living and of treatment, providing there is left sufficient vitality to respond to treatment and providing the destruction of vital parts and organs has not advanced too far.
"Hundreds of cases of well-developed locomotor ataxy, paresis, and other so-called secondary and tertiary diseases of the brain and the nervous system, of bony and fleshy tissues, and of vital organs have been cured by our natural methods of treatment.
"It is self-evident, however, that the treatment and cure of the chronic conditions require more patience and perseverance than the cure of acute conditions not tampered with and suppressed by drugs.
"Venereal diseases treated and cured by natural methods are never followed by chronic after-effects. On the other hand, mercury, iodine, quinine, and coal-tar poisons produce all the so-called secondary and tertiary symptoms of syphilis in people who never in their lives were afflicted with venereal diseases, but who have taken or absorbed these drug poisons in other ways.
". . . These facts are proven beyond doubt by the Diagnosis from the Eye. All, destructive poisons taken in sufficient quant.i.ties will in time reveal their presence and exact location in the body through certain well-defined signs or discolorations in the iris.
"These poisons undermine the structures of the body and deteriorate vital parts and organs so slowly and insidiously that the superficial observer does not trace and connect cause and effect."
The Wa.s.serman and Noguchi Tests
Medical men may say to the foregoing that the Wa.s.serman and Noguchi tests furnish positive proofs of syphilis in the system. These chemical tests are supposed to reveal with certainty the presence of venereal taints in the body,--at least, the public is left under this impression.
I am convinced, however, that in many instances the "positive"
Wa.s.serman or Noguchi tests are the result of mercurial poison instead of syphilitic infection. In a number of cases where these tests proved "positive," that is, where, according to the theory of allopathic medical science, they indicated a luetic condition of the system, the subjects of these tests had never in their lives shown any symptoms of syphilis nor, as far as they knew, had they ever been exposed to infection, but every one of them showed plainly the sign of mercurial poisoning in the iris of the eye, and had taken considerable mercury in the form of calomel or of other medicinal preparations for diseases not of a luetic nature, or they had been "salivated" by coming in contact with the mercurial poison in mines, smelters, mirror factories, etc.
This leads me to believe that, sooner or later, medical science will have to admit that the Wa.s.serman and Noguchi tests reveal, in many instances at least, the effects of mercurial poisoning instead of the effects of syphilitic infection. And this would not be surprising since it is well known that mercury has very similar effects upon the system as syphilis.
It takes the mercurial poison from five to ten and even fifteen years before it works its way into the brain and spinal cord, and there causes its characteristic degeneration and destruction of brain and. nerve tissues which manifest outwardly as locomotor ataxy, paralysis agitans, paresis, apoplexy, hemiplegia, epilepsy, St. Vitus dance, and the different forms of idiocy and insanity.
Mercurial poisoning is also in many instances the cause of deafness and blindness.
When the symptoms of mercurial destruction begin to show, then they, in turn, are suppressed by preparations of iodine, the "606," or other "alteratives," and so the merry war goes, on: poison against poison, Beelzebub against the Devil, and the poor suffering body has to stand it all.
In this way the system is periodically saturated with the most virulent poisons on earth, until the undertaker finishes the job.
And this is miscalled "scientific treatment." There never was invented by cruel Indian or fanatical inquisition worse torture than this. They mercifully finished the sufferings of their victims within a few hours or, at the worst, days; but this torture inflicted upon human beings in the name of medical science continues for a lifetime. It means dying by inches under the most horrible conditions for ten, twenty, thirty years or longer.
In this connection it may be well to quote the testimony of Professor E. A. Farrington of Philadelphia, one of the most celebrated homeopathic physicians of the nineteenth century. He says, in his ~"Clinical Materia Medica,"~ third edition, page 141:
"The various const.i.tutions or dyscrasia underlying chronic and acute affections are, indeed, very numerous. As yet, we do not know them all. We do know that one of them comes in gonorrhoea, a disease which is frightfully common, so that the const.i.tution arising from this disease is rapidly on the increase.
"Now I want to tell you why it is so. It is because allopathic physicians, and many homeopaths as well, do not properly cure it. I do not believe gonorrhoea to be a local disease. If it is not properly cured, a const.i.tutional poison which may be transmitted to the children is developed. I know, from years of experience and observation, that gonorrhoea is a serious difficulty, and one, too, that complicates many cases that we have to treat.
"The same is true of syphilis in a modified degree. Gonorrhoea seems to attack the n.o.bler tissues, the lungs, the heart, and the nervous system, all of which are reached by syphilis only after the lapse of years."
The Destructive After-Effects of Mercury
Concerning the destructive after-effects of mercury, of which homeopaths have made a most careful study, Professor Farrington says, on pages 558-559 of the same volume:
"The more remote symptoms of mercurial poisoning are these: You will find that the blood becomes impoverished. The alb.u.min and fibrin of that fluid are affected. They are diminished, and you find in their place a certain fatty substance, the composition of which I do not exactly know. Consequently, as a prominent symptom, the body wastes and emaciates. The patient suffers from fever which is rather hectic in its character. The periosteum becomes affected, and you then have a characteristic group of mercurial pains, bone pains worse in changes of the weather, worse in the warmth of the bed, and chilliness with or after stool. The skin becomes rather of a brownish hue; ulcers form, particularly on the legs; they are stubborn and will not heal. The patient is troubled with sleeplessness and ebullitions of blood at night; he is hot and cannot sleep; he is thrown quickly into a perspiration, which perspiration gives him no relief.