2.3. Toxemia Is The Universal Cause Of Disease
2.4. Natural Hygiene Or Life Science Care Of The Ailing
Article #1: A True Perspective Of Health And Disease by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton
Article #2: The Nature Of Disease: Its Cause And Purpose by Dr. Hereward Carrington
Inasmuch as we’re having only one lesson specifically on the subject of disease, I bid you to study hard and absorb it well, for nearly all your clientele will suffer disease in one form or another.
In this lesson we will ascertain what disease is, what brings it about, what purposes it serves, and why it ends at all in view of the fact that it is supposed to be an occasion when malevolent microbial entities have gained a destructive foothold in our bodies. We will explore how a body in descendancy (as it is said to be in disease) and microbes in ascendancy reverse these tendencies.
In physiological terminology, disease means deviation from normal. That means that the body has deviated from regular functions. In a state of disease the body has rechanneled or redirected its energies so that it has less than usual energy for functions normally engaged in.
Your service to your clients will largely depend on your ability to recognize whether a disease is constructive or degenerative. I repeat: this is not difficult. You will, regardless of these conditions of disease, still proceed by guiding your client into healthful practices, healthful practices being the universal panacea.
If diseases are remediable and reversible as most of them are, it is constructive. When disease can no longer be reversed through body remediable processes, it is degenerative. For instance, an arthritic’s bony deposits can usually be autolyzed and restored to near normal. But when ankylosis has occurred due to destruction of bone and cartilage and subsequent fusing, healthful practices will restore health except for the ankylosis—it is rarely reversible. However, many diseases commonly regarded as degenerative can be corrected by the body, most cases of arthritis being among them.
Disease affects the whole body, not just a part. Disease serves an important body purpose. The body initiates remedial diseases to accomplish a goal. The goal serves the whole body, not just an organ, area, or part. For instance, we can know we have diseased kidneys. But, in actuality, the whole body is diseased. The fact that the symptoms are noticeable only in the kidneys does not mean that the rest of the body is unaffected—it means that the kidneys are the focal point for the eliminative effort, the point at which toxic matters are put out of the body.
Everything that affects any part of the body affects the whole organism. If we have a bad back, the whole body is affected. We are concerned about the welfare of our toes, fingers, ears, legs, eyes, arms—we defend our whole being because our whole body is a single unit. There are no isolated parts about which we are unconcerned, either at the conscious or unconscious level of intelligence. We defend it all at all levels because it is all of us.
We don’t have a disease here or a disease there. It’s suffered all over. An inflamed appendix has been overloaded with toxic materials because the body is overloaded. Body intelligence puts the overload out through all channels of elimination, but despite this the load is so great the appendix is burdened with more than it can handle. This condition is the same in all remedial diseases where a local organ seems to be the only thing affected.
The body itself institutes the crisis known as disease. Life Scientists call this process a “housecleaning” or healing crisis. Such a procedure by the body is instituted when bodily integrity is compromised or threatened by an accumulation of uneliminated toxic materials. The level of vitality and the extent of the overload determine the type of crisis. Given high vitality as in an infant, a very low level of toxicity is tolerated. In infants, colds are frequent. Given low vitality as in most older people in our society, colds are a rarity. Because so few older people maintain vital bodies, the toxic overload drags them down into chronic diseases, degenerative diseases, and unsuspected pathology that leads to unexpected death or a “sudden onset” of cancer.
The body must be in a toxic state before it will institute a crisis. Neither bacteria nor anything else starts and sustains a crisis. Microorganisms are incapable of unified action; in fact they cannot exist where there is no food (soil) for them, and living cells are not soil for bacteria.
Bacteria are helpless against living cells. An “invasion” by bacteria such as we imagine in contagion never takes place. The bacteria that proliferate in a crisis are with us all the time. We harbor uncounted billions of microorganisms in our intestinal tract, on our skin, in our mouth and nose and other body cavities. Thus, the body is the ONLY, actor in the crisis of elimination or cleansing called a disease.
Bacteria and viruses cannot be blamed for disease.
Blaming disease on viruses or bacteria is an easy cop out. It’s not good business to tell a client that they have caused their own miseries, so the medical profession has blamed suffering on everything but the individual’s own failure in the game of living.
The body creates a crisis in response to a body need to free itself of toxic matters and repair damages. Consequently, the body withdraws energy from normal body activities and redirects them to the healing crisis.
I could tell you that I am suffering a disease at this moment. I’m not at ease with my larynx as you’ve noticed in my trying to clear my voice. I ate some cabbage for my evening meal. It was very sharp as it had some mustard oil in it, without doubt. Typically any irritant in the throat, esophagus or windpipe will occasion the flow of mucus which encompasses the irritant for the purpose of ejecting it from the body. In my case now, the body has started a mucus flow to clear the passage of what was regarded as toxic or irritating substance. This is a minor disease or unease. But it is disease and the body reacted to maintain its functional integrity.
The body will reject anything that’s irritating. For example, if dust is put into your nose, the body will secrete mucus to surround and eject the dust irritant. Or you may sneeze. In both cases, the body is acting defensively. Thus, all remedial disease is body-defensive action.
Bacteria do not invade organisms for they’re always within the organism. Even after we’ve lost our intestinal flora after fasting, bacteria are still there. Bacteria can in many cases do what bears and many other animals do—hibernate or become dormant. Pasteur was not the father of bacteriology as many people think. Antoine Bechamp was the father of this science. Bechamp was a scientist in the true sense of the word. He took what he called microzyma from the chalk cliffs of France. He found that, upon furnishing water, warmth and other nutrients, the microzyma proliferated. These microorganisms had been entombed for ten million years in a state of dormancy. So bacteria have certain qualities for survival that most are not aware of.
The celebrated Dr. Lewis Thomas who heads the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute said, “pity not the man who has caught bacteria; pity the bacteria that was caught by the man.” This is to say that humans furnish a very rough environment for bacteria. The body keeps them restricted within certain bounds. The body controls bacteria at all times. The body is master of its domain.
Bacteria do not control the body as medical people have led us to believe.
Following are two paragraphs from a “bible” on Natural Hygiene, Dr. Shelton’s first major work, Human Life: Its Philosophy and Laws.
“For ages the study of disease has progressed. One by one the various systems and system complexes that are presented by the diseased human body have been studied with painstaking care in both living and dead bodies. The study of pathology has reached a degree of perfection unknown to most of the collateral sciences that form what is called the science of medicine. Knowledge of pathology increased by leaps and bounds after the invention of the microscope, until today pathology is one of the most important studies for the medical student. Physiology, anatomy, histology and biology are all made subservient to pathology.
“The study of disease has fascinated the student for ages. Health has received scant attention. Strange as it may appear, health has been considered of so little importance as to be unworthy of investigation. No schools ever existed for teaching the conditions of health. Medical schools existed to train the student in a knowledge of disease and cures. Even today no school exists that has as its purpose the teaching of the conditions and requirements of health. The conditions of a healthy life are but little understood by the various healing professions and still less so by the general public. Health is not in the professional line of the physician.”
The medical world is preoccupied with treating disease with drugs that are currently in fashion. Their seeking out of bacteria and “viruses” as culprits in disease reminds me of a little joke we heard back after the Second World War. It goes like this.
During the Second World War a German civilian worked in a concentration camp. One evening he pushed a wheelbarrow to the exit gate for inspection by a guard. The wheelbarrow was loaded with rags. The guard, very conscientious about his job and the security of the camp and its assets, methodically went through the rags but found nothing. So he waved the worker through the gate.
The very next day the worker came through with a wheelbarrow of newspapers. The guard repeated the previous careful examination. The following day came a wheelbarrow of leaves. Again the same thorough inspection.
The day following this the worker came to the guard pushing a heavy load of dirt. The guard was not going to be fooled. He made the worker dump the dirt and spread it out, then laboriously reload it on the wheelbarrow.
The next workday came another load of newspapers. The guard was very suspicious that the worker was sneaking something out. So, in addition to other procedures, he tapped the handles and other places for concealed material that the worker might be stealing. But nothing was found.
This went on almost every workday for a year. On occasion the guard systematically searched the wheelbarrows but never found anything of value being removed from the camp.
By and by the war was over. A while later the former guard met the former construction worker on the street.
He went up to the worker and stopped him abruptly with this smiling demand:
“Hans, you have to tell me something. I’m no dummy. You were stealing something from the camp. I could never find it. Now that it doesn’t matter, why not let me in on it?”
Hans replied, “Why, dummkopf, you saw it with your own eyes. I was stealing wheelbarrows.”
Such blindness characterizes the medical profession. The purpose of disease is so evident that the medics can’t see it. They are looking for something that doesn’t exist, and they have no idea, after countless millions of man hours of chasing microbes and similar deadends, that viruses as living entities do not exist.
So they have gone into the phenomenon of disease elaborately and have chronicled over twenty thousand different diseases. They name them after the area that is most affected. Sometimes they have multiple names because of the number of organs or organ systems or tissues which art affected.
2.3.1 The Seven Stages of Disease
2.3.2. Viruses And Bacteria—Their Role In Disease
2.3.3 Disease Complicated by By-Products of Symbiotic Bacteria
Actually, there is only one disease, no matter how it manifests itself. And the disease, which we call constructive disease, is occasioned by the body itself and is known as a crisis of toxemia or healing.
There are several stages of disease. The underlying cause of disease in all stages is toxemia. Although toxemia may arise from many sources, it basically exists because of insufficient nerve energy to sufficiently eliminate exogenous poisons and body wastes. Toxemia is not broad enough a term to cover the whole poisoning process for it means poison in the blood. Actually toxicosis exists. Tissues, cells and interstitial spaces are also toxic-laden. In short, the whole body is toxic.
Diseases present many different aspects because they evolve with the progressing deterioration of the organism that suffers them. Disease has seven distinct stages. These stages correspond to the distinct differences of each stage of evolution.
The first stage is not even recognized by physicians as a disease. Life Scientists call it enervation. Most people call it nervous exhaustion. Enervation is a state in which the body is either not generating sufficient nerve energy for the tasks the body must perform, or the tasks the body must perform may be greater than the normal nerve energy supply can cope with. In any event, the body becomes impaired, and an impaired body generates less nerve energy if the conditions of overwork or under-generation persist. Most people know when they are nervously exhausted.
Enervation can be caused by depletion of nerve energy in any of hundreds of ways. Sleep regenerates nerve energy. Obviously, insufficient sleep will not supply us with our needs. It will not fully recharge our batteries. We need sleep to regenerate nerve energy for the brain and nervous system.
Nerve energy is a form of electricity measurable in millivolts. Sleep laboratories have successfully substituted electricity in place of the body’s own. When this is accomplished it is called electrosleep. It takes only two hours out of twenty-four to fully restore nerve energy in this manner.
Demonstrating that nerve energy is electrical is easy. If you mashed your finger, a message would immediately go to the brain and back would come a command to remove the finger from that which applied the pressure. Moreover, the brain would command the entire balance of the body to cooperate in the extraction of the finger from the offending pressure. Only electricity is capable of such speedy transmission. No chemical process or circulatory process is capable of this dispatch. It occurs only through a network of nerves with conductive abilities, and electricity is the only form of energy it can conduct. If you take a weak voltage and hook up to it while holding someone else’s hand, the other person gets a shock immediately when you touch the live electrical source. I don’t think anyone can doubt that we do generate electricity, and that is the form of energy we use to conduct our physical and mental activities. Sensations are transformed into electrical stimuli and forwarded to the brain. The brain interprets these and sends out commands based upon the interpretation. Thus, if you put your finger to a hot object, the finger is commanded in a flash to withdraw from it.
The foregoing is to demonstrate that the body is primarily an organism that works on the amount of electricity it generates and which it has in its reserves. If this supply is depleted or otherwise insufficient to cope with the needs of the body, then body functions become impaired, including the processes of elimination of both endogenous metabolic wastes and exogenous poisons introduced into the body. This impairment begets further impairment including diminishing the body’s ability to restore depleted nerve energy. The body starts going downhill. The next stage of this decline is called toxemia.
When toxic substances from whatever source saturate the blood and tissues, the lymph system and interstitial fluids, then the conditions of toxemia and toxicosis exist.
As functioning organisms, we generate a tremendous amount of toxic by-products. We generate enough carbon dioxide to kill us within a few minutes. If our lungs failed to function, carbon dioxide buildup and lack of oxygenation would overwhelm us quite quickly. We can accommodate only so much carbon dioxide. And this is but one of many waste products. There are trillions of cells in the human body. Tens of billions of these expire every day. They are replaced by new cells. The old cells are broken down by lysosomes, enzymes that reside in a little organelle within the cell itself. Upon cell death, these enzymes break the cell down into many smaller components for elimination. These components are cell debris. Some of these components such as iron, protein, and amino acids are recycled by the body. Some 95% of the body’s iron needs and 70% of its protein needs are met by recycling. Certain other of the body’s needs are met by recycling as well. This will give you some idea as to the immense providence and wisdom of the body in meeting its needs. Other components of the decomposed cell are the RNA and DNA. These are toxic while in the system. If they accumulate as they do in most humans in today’s society, a condition of intoxication (toxemia and toxicosis) exists. These are what medical people call viruses, and they mistakenly attribute to this dead debris the powers of life and malevolence.
Tissue and blood saturation with toxic materials can be caused by both internally generated wastes and pollutants taken in from the outside which the body has not been able to eject from the vital domain. Intoxication occurs when we overload the body with toxic materials from the outside, or we fail to observe our capacities, and overwork, get insufficient sleep, or are subjected to great stress, or when any number of other factors deplete the body of nerve energy or prevent its sufficient regeneration. For instance, stresses, emotional shocks, or traumatic experiences can drain our bodies of nerve energy very quickly. It’s just like shorting out the battery of a car.
At some level of intoxication we begin to experience the next stage of disease which is called irritation.
Irritation results from toxic materials being sensed by our nerve network. Most of us pay this stage little mind, and certainly physicians do not pay it heed. When we feel itchy, queasy, jumpy, uneasy, or when we have bothersome but not painful areas, irritation exists. Tickling of the nose is a form of irritation. Collections of mucus along the mucus membranes irritate, although irritation is not painful. It is a gentle prod that moves us to seek comfort, to establish freedom from it. For instance, the urge to urinate or defecate is a form of irritation due to accumulation of wastes greater than the body feels comfortable with. However, the urge is not painful unless it is ignored until it creates too much pressure in its area. Near painful irritation forces us to deal with the problem.
When a person drinks too much alcohol we say that he or she is intoxicated. That’s a good example of exogenous intoxication. While all alcohol intake is damaging to the organism, the body can speedily eliminate a small amount before much damage has occurred. Increase the intake, and the elimination is proportionately less and the damage proportionately greater. The first drink of alcohol occasions only irritation which we also call stimulation. But any toxic material, be it salt, caffeine, or condiments will irritate or stimulate. This is a condition wherein the body sets in force its defensive mechanisms and accelerates its internal activities. This might well be likened to an alarm aboard ship where all hands are summoned. A frenzy of activity results in a bout with enemy forces. Unfortunately, this often makes us feel good or hyper or even euphoric. It is distressing to see a euphoric condition arise out of a situation that is damaging to the organism.
If the causes of enervation/intoxication/irritation remain in force and the body can’t cope with it the body initiates a responsive crisis called inflammation.
This is usually the stage in which physicians recognize pathology. It is the stage where sufferers are keenly aware of a problem, for it involves pain. As well, it involves bodily redirection of vital energies. The intestinal tract is closed down. Energy that would normally be available for activity there is pre-empted and redirected to the massive effort to cope with a severe condition of intoxication. Lest the integrity of the organism be dealt a mortal blow or crippled, the body musters its all to the emergency.
In inflammation, the toxicants have usually been concentrated in an organ or area for a massive expulsive effort. The area becomes inflamed due to the constant irritation of the toxic materials. When inflammation exists we are said to have an “itis,” appendicitis, tonsilitis, hepatitis, or nephritis for example. Note that the “itises” just cited are all due to overburdening of four different organs of purification and elimination.
The names of “itises” are usually after the organ or tissue area that is inflamed. Thus if we have a cold we have rhinitis. If we have inflammation of the sinus cavities we have sinusitis. If we have inflammation of bronchial tissue we have either bronchitis or asthma. And so it goes. We have these peculiar pathologies because in each case the body elected to eliminate the extraordinary toxic load through the organ affected. For instance, asthma exists because the body has selected the bronchi as an outlet for toxic materials. The condition is chronic because the toxic condition is unceasing. While the sufferer continues to intoxicate himself or herself, the body continues to eliminate the overload through the bronchi or alveolar tissue.
Inflammation or fever is a body crisis response to a life-threatening situation. The body and the body alone creates the fever. It is an evidence or symptom of increased and intense body activities directed at cleansing and repair. The extraordinary energies employed for a fever are at the expense of energies normally involved in digestion, work or play, thinking and seeing, etc. Fever is a healing activity. The idea of suppressing it is equivalent to hitting a drowning man over the head so he’ll cease his struggles. For instance, if rhinitis or influenza sufferers are drugged it amounts to hitting the body’s healer over the head. Thus, the eliminative effort is suppressed, and the toxicity increases until other organs, usually the lungs, become saturated—not only with the toxicity but the drugs administered as well. When body vitality reasserts itself a condition known as pneumonia is likely to result.
Inflammation is the fourth stage of disease and is the body’s most intense effort to cleanse and restore itself. The next stage of disease is destructive and degenerative. It will result if the causes of general body intoxication are continued.
Ulceration means that a staggering amount of cells and tissue structures are, being destroyed. Physiological systems are wiped out due to the body’s inability to live in an unceasing toxic media. Where tissue is destroyed there remains a void. An example is a canker sore of the mouth. Lesions or ulcers can occur in other areas of the body also. These conditions are often intensely painful, for there are exposed nerves.
While the body may use an ulcer as an outlet for extraordinary toxic buildup thereby relieving itself, it will heal the ulcer if causes are discontinued, or if the toxicity level is significantly lowered. This process of repairing the damage is like patching up pants with holes in them. This patching up process is called induration.
Induration is a hardening of tissue or the filling in of tissue vacancy with hard tissue. Scarring is a form of induration. But in this stage of disease, there is direction and purpose in hardening. The space is filled, and the toxic materials that threaten bodily integrity are encapsulated in a sac of hardened tissue. The ulcer and the toxic materials are sealed off by the hardening of the tissue around them. This is a way of quarantining the toxic materials, often called tumor formation. It is this condition that is diagnosed as cancer nineteen times out of twenty when, in fact, no cancer exists.
Induration is the last stage during which the body exerts intelligent control. Should the pathogenic practices which brought matters to this stage be continued, cells and tissue systems go wild. They survive as best they can on their own. Cells become parasitic—living off the nutrients they can obtain from the lymph fluid but contributing nothing to the body economy. They have become disorganized. Their genetic encoding has been altered by the poisons. Thus, they are not capable of intelligent normal organized action within the context of a vital economy. When cells go wild in this manner, the condition is called cancer.
The endpoint of the evolution of disease is cancer. It is the last stage of disease and is usually fatal, especially if the causes that brought it about are continued. Cessation of causes and indulgence of healthful practices may arrest it, for they can so revitalize the body that they may even destroy the cancer cells. It’s all relative. Cancer cells live in a hostile environment but still divide and flourish as long as nutrients are available to them. Cancer cells may be regarded as cells that have become independent and have reverted to the status of uncontrolled primitive cells—cells that live entirely on their own as do protozoa.
These stages of disease are quite distinct in their characters, yet the lines are more or less arbitrarily drawn. This often happens in attempts at categorization where one form evolves into another. The dividing lines have no clear-cut delineation.
People sometimes ask when cancer begins. Hygienists or Life Scientists say that it begins with the first cold or rash of childhood. The first crisis a baby endures begins the pathological chain that leads to cancer. This evolutionary chain begins then because the phenomenon of life is one constant violation of the laws of life from beginning to end.
After reviewing the seven stages of disease it should be obvious that bacteria and so-called viruses do not cause diseases. Viruses do cause diseases if you call toxic waste materials of decomposed body cells viruses. Decomposed cell debris is precisely what virologists and physicians are calling viruses. They regard viruses as living entitities when, in fact, medics have not in all history observed any quality of life they ascribe to viruses. What is called virus is always dead. It’s never been observed to be alive. It doesn’t have the first prerequisites of life, that is, metabolic and control mechanisms. Even bacteria have that. I repeat that what is called viruses are nothing more than components of decomposed cells.
Some people insist that syphilis is caused by bacteria, more specifically spirochetes. Though the term spirochetes has given way to viruses called Herpes these days—that’s today’s fashion—it was easy to demonstrate that spirochetes were never responsible in the first place. When you ask a bacteriologist which comes first, the soil or the bacteria, he will answer that the soil must exist first for bacteria to thrive, for bacteria are presented a deadly environment by living cells. So, bacteria never exist in a proliferating state where there is no food or soil for their propagation. They multiply when there is feast, and they die off when there is famine or adverse environment, hence, bacteria no more create their food supply than flies cause garbage. The garbage must preexist the flies and, on the same order, the garbage or soil on which bacteria thrive in our bodies must preexist their presence and propagation. In other words, they do not cause the condition—they are there because of the condition.
When the body has a highly toxic condition such as inflammation, it will absorb bacteria from the intestinal cavity and transport them to the point where deadly materials have been concentrated. The bacteria then symbiotically assist in breaking up these toxic materials for elimination. Of course, the excreta of bacteria are toxic, too.
Ignorant physicians regard these bacteria not as our symbiotic partners in the process of combating disease, but as the cause of the disease. Koch destroyed Pasteur’s original theories by his four postulates. The first two state that if a disease is caused by a certain type of bacterium, then that form of bacteria must always be present when the disease exists. The other says that the disease must always be occasioned by the presence or introduction of the bacteria said to be responsible. Although these cardinal principles are self-evident, so many exceptions existed as to disprove totally the germ theory of disease-causation. Koch laid down his postulates in 1892; the medical profession never has given them credence. To this day the profession clings to the disproven germ theory except that germs in the form of bacteria are taking a back seat to an even more elusive entity called a virus.
Bacteria exist in a multitude of strains, forms, and metabolic capabilities. Bacteria are versatile and in many cases change forms and lifestyles in keeping with the character of the soil available to them. Round bacteria can become rod shaped and vice versa.
It used to be said that pneumococcus caused pneumonia. But it was noted that this type of bacteria was absent in nearly half the cases. Moreover, administering the bacteria to healthy organisms never occasioned pneumonia. The plain fact that bacteria are in the human body as they are everywhere else is not recognized by the medical profession. Bacteria are symbiotic partners of all creatures in nature. In order to come to exist in nature in the first place, humans had to establish a state of symbiosis with all natural forces.
In the second place, if bacteria invaded organisms and laid them low as they’re supposed to do—if the body could be laid low while in a state of health—then the impetus or momentum the bacteria had built up would become more pronounced and overwhelming as the organism receded in disease. It would be a one-way trip the same as vultures picking the bones of a cadaver. If bacteria and viruses cause disease, once they have overwhelmed the body and actually debilitated it, how does the much weakened body regain ascendancy? If you were to inquire into this deeply and pursue it to its logical conclusions, you’d find that, once a body has lost the battle while in a state of health, it’s going to lose the war after being disabled.
At their strongest, bacteria complicate disease because the byproducts of bacterial fermentation or putrefaction are deadly poison. In fermentation the by-products are lactic acid, acetic acid or vinegar, and alcohol. Putrefaction involves nitrogenous foods or proteins. The by-products of rotting protein are ammonias, indoles, skatoles, purines, etc. They are toxic within organisms, although the body can normally eliminate these poisons. In fact, our feces and urine are loaded with the by-products of protein decomposition, both from our body decomposition and bacterial decomposition.
You’ve heard of the ideal of living in a germ-free environment. That is an impossibility, of course. Trillions of bacteria are in and on our bodies at all times. If we were free of these minute organisms, we’d soon die. They perform many essential services for us which will be discussed in a later lesson. Suffice it to say that we live symbiotically with bacteria.
Bacteria are wrongfully blamed for our own indiscretions. It’s the rare medic who doesn’t find a scapegoat for his client and remove responsibility for problems from the shoulders of the sufferer.
Medical logic is not very logical. According to medical thinking, bacteria or viruses invade our bodies and destroy our cells. It would seem that our body defenses permit this by their intimations. It would seem that once these invading entities have a headstart they would not stop destroying the rest of the cells of the organism, especially as the first strike has crippled the organism and lessened its ability to defend itself. By medical logic, the bacteria are there in greater numbers, for they proliferate astronomically when they’ve found a feast situation. How can the body reverse this situation and recover?
The medics believe that they administer drugs that kill off the bacteria so that the body can have a chance to recover. Also, they have people believing that medicines are healing agents or that they assist in healing.
When you start asking deep penetrating questions into the causes of disease, the medical theories fall of their own weight. They cannot be sustained in the face of self-evident truths. So we have to find the rational basis for disease causation.
Disease has a sole unitary cause. It is instituted and conducted by the body itself. It is the only organized entity capable of coordinating the various processes of disease. Disease is occasioned when toxic materials that we have generated within or taken in from without are uneliminated due to the body’s inability to cope with them. These debilitate and devitalize the organism until, at a point where it can no longer tolerate the growing toxic load at its mean level of vitality, the body institutes a crisis, redirecting its body energies to the enemy within.
Let’s go back to pneumonia. Physicians worry that when a person has a cold or the flu, it will become pneumonia. It occurs so many times among their patients that they make “heroic” efforts to prevent this. They administer drugs galore. Yet, pneumonia occurs so frequently despite the drugging that doctors feel powerless in the face of pneumonia, one of the primary causes of death in our society. The question arises: what causes pneumonia then? Does pneumococcus survive the drug onslaught and cause pneumonia anyway?
If colds are, as we teach, a cleansing process, how does a body that is in crisis get yet worse? If the body is eliminating toxic materials profusely through the respiratory tract as in colds and flu, then how do the lungs also become contaminated?
All cases of colds and flu recover very quickly if the sufferer goes to bed in an airy room with lots of natural daylight. Almost total rest is called for. Total abstention from food but plenty of pure water is needed. Under these conditions debility ceases in from one to three days. But, if the sufferer refuses to rest and continues to eat the same bad food that contributed heavily to the crisis in the first place, the eliminative effort may be less than the continued toxic buildup, in which case pneumonia may be a concomitant. But, if the sufferer goes to a medic and gets drugged in addition, the body turns its attention to eliminating the drugs. It may cease the cold or flu altogether in face of the greater enemy. The continued toxic buildup spreads to the lungs. The drugs and toxic materials may concentrate so strongly in the lungs as to cause death or to set the stage for cancer. Many autopsies reveal people who have had pneumonia or who have smoked or lived in highly polluted air have tumors, indurated sacs of lung tissue which encapsulate toxic substances in the lungs. Many cases of long fasts have been conducted in which pneumonia had been suffered many years before. The drugs that had been given had been noted to make their exit from the lungs during the course of the fast as the body autolyzed the tumors and expelled their contents.
Yet, despite the obvious causes of pneumonia, medical professionals are still saying that pneumococcus causes pneumonia when, in fact, more than 25% of pneumonia cases never have pneumococcus. Now that medics are getting more and more away from the germ theory of disease causation they’re invoking viruses as the culprits. This is true only if by viruses we mean uneliminated metabolic wastes. But when you start probing into what viruses are and how they cause disease, you might call this the “evil spirit” theory of disease, for the medics imbue viruses with all the qualities of malevolent spirits.
Such blindness characterizes the medical profession. The purpose of disease is so evident that medics can’t see it. Just as with the guard in the concentration camp, they are looking for something that doesn’t exist and they overlook that which they see so plainly all the time.
Medical researchers have chronicled over 20,000 different diseases. They name almost every variation. They have multiple names because of the number of organs or tissue systems that exhibit symptoms. All of this is only one disease. And the disease, which we call constructive disease, is occasioned by the body itself and is known as toxemia or toxicosis.
Just as there is one universal cause of disease there is one universal panacea! In mythology Asclepius had two daughters. Both were goddesses. One was the goddess of health and she was called Hygeia. The other daughter was Panacea. She was the goddess of healing. The name itself, in Greek, means all-healing or universal healing.
While these goddesses are mythological, they do represent valid concepts. Panacea can be achieved by a return to natural practices. Fasting is the quickest way to invoke the universal panacea. Just as the universal disease is a toxic-laden body, the universal panacea is establishing the most ideal conditions under which the body can cleanse itself of the toxicity and repair the damages suffered. Fasting is the answer. It works in all cases of constructive disease, that is, disease where organic damage of an irremediable nature has not occurred.
Some great luminaries have long since rediscovered the Grecian panacea. Dr. Jennings first employed it until Dr. John Tilden elaborated on it in his scholarly book, Toxemia Explained. Dr. Hereward Carrington wrote a few very illuminating volumes about Natural Hygiene. But Dr. Shelton probed deeper and farther afield than did all those before him. He built upon the shoulders of all who went before him and added a touch of his own genius. In our text section some observations of Dr. Carrington are presented. Here is a quote from Dr. Herbert M. Shelton about the nature of disease:
“The Hygienic system teaches that disease is a remedial effort, a struggle of the vital powers to purify the system and recover the normal state. This effort should be aided, directed, and regulated if need be, but never suppressed. What is this mysterious thing called disease? It is simply an effort to remove obstructing material which we call toxic materials from the organic domain and to repair damages. Disease is a process of purification and repair. It is remedial action. It. is a power struggle to overcome obstruction and to keep the channels of circulation free.”
Actually disease is really more than this if we view it in all aspects. Dr. Carrington has simplified Dr. Shelton’s presentation somewhat. He says the following:
“Disease is an attempt of the body to free its cells and circulatory system of clogging and toxic materials. It is a desperate body rallying its remaining resources to the task of purgation and restoration.”
We have many illustrious forebears in the elaboration and creation of what we call Natural Hygiene or Life Science. Most notable among our forebears have been some truly great women. While women were spurned in the medical profession, the Hygienic movement was truly an enlightened and unfettered one. It welcomed women with open arms and, if we leave the renegade M.D.’s aside, their numbers almost equal those of male Hygienic professionals.
How many of you have heard of Louisa May Alcott? Yes, all of you have. But how many of you know that she was a Hygienist? That her father was a Hygienist? That her brother William Alcott was a professional Hygienist and was also a brilliant writer?
I’m sure you’ve all heard of Florence Nightingale, who gave new dignity and direction to the profession of nursing. She was a Hygienist.
How many of you have heard of Ellen White? She was a Hygienist who founded the religion we know today as the Seventh Day Adventists.
There are many unsung heroines among women who were Hygienic professionals. Mary Gove, Susan Nichols, Linda Burfield Hazzard and others were a credit to both the profession of Hygiene and to womanhood.
Perhaps the most famous Hygienist of the fair sex was Florence Nightingale. Her daring on the battle fields of eastern Europe still draws our admiration for the courage of her convictions. The British were fighting the Russians and more soldiers were dying behind the battle lines than on them. The physicians and their treatments were killing off the wounded and ailing faster than the Russians.
When Florence Nightingale arrived on the battle scene she really took charge despite the physicians. What she did was a very simple thing: she went to the rooms of the wounded and ailing and opened the windows for fresh air. She would not permit drugs. She gave the patients water which was against medical policy at the time. She rejected heavy feeding and, in fact, for many, any feeding at all. Being confined to a battlefield hospital had been a death sentence before. Now almost all the wounded and sick became well speedily. It’s all history and Florence Nightingale became famous because of her tremendous success employing the mere rudiments of Hygienic methods. This is all the more phenomenal when you consider that Ms. Nightingale lived in a medical age and in a man’s world. She defied the medics and won. She was truly a pioneer Hygienist. The world, despite its poverty on the health scene, is still richer for her having been amongst our forebears.
In order to understand disease, we must understand health. Health is the enjoyment of full faculties and functioning power. Disease is not the opposite of health but an expression of healthy vitality while under the burden of toxicosis. Disease is a body-instituted and conducted crisis for the purpose of purifying and repairing itself.
Disease is caused by indulging in practices or being subjected to materials and influences not normal to the human organism: that to which we are not adapted will cause disease.
It is a misconception that we have to fight disease. It will not occur unless it is caused. A huge catalog of materials and influences which are abnormal to the body could be given, but it’s not that complicated. We need only to maintain the simple needs of life which build and sustain health. We should consume only pure water as thirst demands and wholesome raw ripe fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds as genuine hunger dictates. We are frugivores, and it is to a diet of fruits as nature delivers them that we are biologically adapted.
Further, we are adapted to pure air, sunshine, rest and sleep, pleasant environment, emotionally balanced companions - in short we are adapted to a harmonious world. We are so constituted that health results when all our physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, and aesthetic needs are met. Thus diseases other than degenerative ones may be said to be body crises for the purpose of restoring health.
The cause, purpose, and nature of disease have now been delineated. Certain questions will be explained below.
STUDENT: Is it true that diseases are not contagious in any sense?
INSTRUCTOR: That is correct. Diseases are not contagious in any sense simply because they are body instituted. We cannot transfer our toxic load to someone else. That should be self-evident. A Hygienist can go into a sickroom and not suffer a bit for it. Obviously most physicians and nurses and other people go to the sickrooms, even those housing the most so-called contagious diseases. They never contract the disease or suffer even though on occasion medics claim they do. You cannot transfer your toxic materials to another person unless you have it drawn out of you and injected into the person. The medics do, indeed, do that in transfusions. But the contagion here is medically induced rather than occurring within the realm of natural possibilities.
It is said that colds, flu, leprosy, and a number of other things are contagious. As we learn more, diseases become less and less contagious. Asthma, cancer, psoriasis, meningitis, poliomyelitis and a long list of other diseases have come off the contagious list. Measles, chicken pox, and other affections are still on the list of diseases said to be contagious. The only thing contagious about these diseases is medical ignorance. That is the most contagious of all.
The reason that there seems to be “epidemics” is that the true contagion is an epidemic of similar bad habits. We all eat pretty much the same junk, are subjected to the same seasons, the same type of housing and, in many other ways, indulge the same health-sapping practices. It’s no wonder that many of us suffer the same diseases. Like causes beget like effects. Of course this is modified in the human situation by the diathesis of each individual.
Thus we see that, within the context of a given family or group, people have more or less the same bad habits and suffer the same diseases.
This business about incubation periods of germs and viruses is strictly medical mythology. We’ll get into the depths of that and study it methodically in later lessons.
To what are plagues and epidemics attributed? Today’s epidemics are for the most part invented and publicized in America by the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a federal service that does yeoman service for the medical profession. When the drug companies want to sell lots of flu vaccine, measles vaccine, etc. they get CDC to release the scare propaganda that stampedes the public into the physicians’ offices for shots. To entertain the thought that vaccines injected into people makes them immune is an absurdity not worthy of serious consideration—it is a species of voodooism.
Epidemics today result, I reassure you, from mass indulgence of the same bad habits and subjection to the same pathogenic living conditions. It’s no accident that almost 90% of the affections labeled generally as colds and influenza occur within a seven-month period of the year.
The reason epidemics occur in winter and not in summer should be obvious. If anything, microbial life is more active in summer just as we are and their functions are depressed in winter. But lo and behold, microbial forms of life are said to be more active and to cause epidemics. That’s nonsense of course. In the winter we eat less wholesome food—we eat more junk. We do not exercise as much. We stay indoors and breathe foul air. In the summer we get more sunshine, more exercise, more fresh air, fresh ripe fruits—in short we live more healthfully in summer and less healthfully in winter. Conditions cause us to so live as to generate our diseases. General conditions cause general ill health. It is not contagion of germs but contagion of pathogenic conditions that create what are termed plagues or epidemics.
Hygienists or Life Scientists deplore the medical practice of feeding the ailing and drugging them too. When ill, the continuance of feeding alone is enough to thwart the healing forces within. But the addition of drugs so destroys vital powers that the body must often redirect its purification efforts to freeing itself from the more virulent poisons administered. Thus it is seen that medical professionals are death-dealing rather than being life-enhancing.
Yes, drugs kill bacteria. But they’re just as deadly to all forms of metabolic life. That which deranges and destroys the metabolic functions of bacteria usually does likewise to the cells of all forms of life. Even physicians will tell you that drugs have no effect on viruses. Of course they don’t have any effect on what they call viruses because that is dead cell debris that can’t be made any deader.
In conclusion I assure you that disease is not something to fear. That’s like being scared of your own body. If you fear anything fear your disposition to indulge in unwholesome foods and unwholesome living conditions.
Are indigestion and acidosis diseases or just passing little crises?
These are diseases even though usually of short duration. Anything that puts us at unease is disease. While there is no such thing as acidosis because we’d die long before our body fluids reached the acid stage, there is such a thing as hypo-alkalinity. A reduction in alkalinity from a pH of 7.40 to as little as 7.35 is enough to bring on coma and another five to ten points lower may cause death.
Indigestion and what is called acidosis are usually caused by eating foods in incompatible digestive combinations and in eating a predominantly acid-forming diet. These are the primary causes of these complaints.
You said that diseases are not contagious. If so how do you explain away venereal disease? That’s proven to be contagious.
I’ve responded to this in a way before but I’ll go over these grounds again. Conventional thinking has it that gonococcus and spirochetes are transferred from one person to another during the sexual act. The “infected” person will then develop either gonorrhea or syphilis. Even the medical profession is deserting this long held belief today in favor of the herpes virus as causing what is called venereal disease.
First, syphilis is a figment of the medical imagination. Most of what is described as syphilis in the books of yesteryear were effects of mercury and sulfa drugs which the profession administered so liberally. What is described as gonorrhea is no more serious than the canker sores of the mouth. Both are eliminative steps by the body. The ulceration and suppuration represent the fifth stage of the evolution of disease. The so-called contagious factors, bacteria, are there because of the disease, not the cause of it. In fact something like 20% of those who suffer venereal diseases have neither gonococcus nor spirochetes. Saying that a pimple, ulcer or pustule in the sexual area is caused by either bacteria or viruses is like saying boils are caused by the same when it is generally agreed that boils are a result of filth in the body. Both are the same processes but occur in different areas of the body. Besides it must be recognized that the autolysis of tissue and the creation of inflammations and boils are body actions, not bacterial or viral actions.
It is not true that venereal diseases are contagious. The U.S. Navy conducted experiments wherein it was shown that so-called infected persons could not infect healthy persons. When I was with a vice squad in Japan we had cases of so-called infected prostitutes who had been with dozens of GI’s, none of whom contracted the disease. On the other hand there are many who have infections in the sexual area who have not been in contact with anyone, especially in small children who do sometimes have infections in the sexual area.
The concept of contagion is unproven despite appearances. It is a medical scareword that stampedes customers into the offices of medical practitioners. It’s much like insurance companies who like to see fires and pay off for that makes it all the easier to sell insurance.
It seems rather impudent of you to say millions of scientists, doctors, researchers and teachers of medical science are all wrong. Isn’t it just possible that you’re wrong about disease being body action instead of bacterial or viral action? Isn’t it just possible that the medical people who’ve been around so long are really right?
Old myths die hard, don’t they? The older and more revered the myth, the harder it is to dispel. Your question would have done well nearly five hundred years ago when Copernicus presented his heliocentric theory of the solar system. It’s just difficult to believe that everyone can be wrong. But I insist that the whole profession operates on a wrong premise. The fact that fasting will enable an organism to heal quickly in injury or illness and drugging will defer or prevent healing altogether is some indication of the error of the medical school of thought. The very word medicine is a misnomer. The word means healing agent or substance. There is not such an agent or substance. Healing is always the sole prerogative of the affected organism. There’s not enough intelligence and know how in the collective knowledge of the world to effect the knitting of a bone within an organism. Healing is, I repeat, entirely a body process.
The impudence lies not with me but with those who deny the obvious and plainly evident truth. Age does not make beliefs true, and truth never changes with age. The belief that the world was flat was accepted by millions over nearly two thousand years but that did not flatten the world. Likewise if the masses of our people do not accept obvious truths, truths that account for everything in health and disease and are demonstrable when put to the test, then it is those who deny the obvious that are impudent. Should I repeat an old refrain: “I’d rather be right with a persecuted few than wrong with many.”
I know about the swine flu hoax but is the measles vaccination really a hoax too? If children are exposed to the measles they get it; but if they have been vaccinated they don’t get it, right?
It’s general knowledge that the swine flu vaccination was a hoax. It is only a question of time before people will learn of the tetanus hoax, the rabies hoax, the whooping cough hoax, the measles hoax and other medical hoaxes.
If children are exposed to others who have the measles they don’t “catch” it. It is not something that is contagious. What is “contagious” are the food habits, that cause it (any unhealthful living habits, wrong food combinations, stress, etc.). But children usually do not have measles if their system is too drugged and devitalized. And that’s what happens when they’re vaccinated. They cannot conduct the simple eliminative crisis called measles. If they cannot have measles they’ll sooner or later have something worse—like cancer! Measles is a body instituted and conducted crisis to get rid of toxic accumulations. Vaccinal interference destroys the vitality necessary to have measles.
Measles is helpful, not hurtful. The body creates the measles and keeps the process in force until body cleansing has been completed. Contrary to medical myth, the body will not harm itself by conducting this or any other crisis. This is more than can be said for the vaccines, which are poisonous in themselves.
The harm said to be derived from measles is actually from the “heroic” drugging and treatment administered by the medical profession. Measles and other acute diseases are helpful body functions; the body is grappling with an overload of toxic materials. Vaccinations and drugging add to these toxic materials. They are never a “preventive” or an antidote. They can make matters worse but they have no intelligence or ability to help under any circumstances.
If vaccinations don’t give us immunity, how about the antibodies vaccinated organisms produce? Don’t antibodies really defend against a virus as in the case of measles?
This reminds me of a joke that goes like this: An Air Force Colonel who commanded a fighter wing was inspecting his pilots one Saturday morning. He stopped by a Captain and Lieutenant who piloted and co-piloted a plane. He asked the Captain: “What would you do, Captain, if your plane caught on fire and you couldn’t open the overhead canopy?” The Captain repled: “Sir, I’d eject through the canopy.” The Colonel rejoined with “You idiot, you’d be squashed to death in the process.” Then he turned to the Lieutenant and asked him what he’d do. The Lieutenant meekly said, “Sir, I’d go through the hole the Captain made.”
Of such substance is this question. The truth is that the body does not create new defensive faculties in responses to a poison. Rather it has its defensive faculties destroyed. Putting a question that way is like saying that the body creates antibodies to defend against tar and nicotine in cigarette smoking because the body can tolerate ever greater quantities without the same ill effects as with the first cigarette of life. The body can’t tolerate smoke any better after a thousand smokes than after one. The body no longer defends against the pathogenic poisons of cigarette smoke simply because its defenses have been destroyed, not built up.
Medical researchers will tell you that “antibodies” are merely presumed and not something actually demonstrable in the laboratory as a new body faculty. They are presumed because, when vaccines are administered, most recipients no longer get the disease. This is because the body’s defensive faculties are destroyed, not enhanced. The body’s ability to conduct the simple cleansing crisis known as measles is so debilitated by the vaccinal poison that it retains what would normally be expelled. It’s no accident that cancer is now the number one killer of our children. When simple cleansing cannot occur, the body all the more quickly evolves to the next and succeeding stages of disease.
Antibodies are, I repeat, a medical myth, a figment of the medical imagination.
Well, you’ve just admitted that vaccines lower the incidence of measles. Isn’t that a good thing since measles can cause brain damage?
How can I get this across that measles are not a bane but a boon. If the body is filthy inside, a cleansing is a good thing. Measles are a cleansing process. The body conducts the crisis called measles and it is doing so to help itself, not hurt itself. The body never injures itself except where injury is necessary as the lesser of two evils. Brain damage does not occur from a cleansing crisis. Rather, it is the drugs that are administered in such a crisis that are responsible for the damage. Physicians damage many people with their drugs and conveniently place all blame on the body’s noble reparative efforts rather than take responsibility.
How can you prove that a sickness is caused by toxicity rather than germs? Do you base your statement on laboratory proof or on empirical observations?
Were germs the cause of disease there would be no remission. If they had the power to successfully attack living tissue and proliferate enough to lay a person low as is commonly supposed, then the results would be like the effects of rotten apples amidst good ones—they’d all soon be bad. Humans simply would not survive the ordeal and there would be no human race.
Should we fast people who were laid low with a germ-caused disease the fasting would not kill off the germs. Just as a rotten apple can spoil the good ones so, too, the germ proliferation would continue whether we are eating or fasting. Actually people who fast recover health rapidly whereas, if they continue to eat and take drugs, they recover slowly if at all.
Actually there have been fasts conducted under laboratory conditions in many hospitals and university medical centers with controls. It has been proven beyond doubt that the body cleanses itself under the condition of fasting and heals two or three times speedier when fasting than in alimentation and/or drug therapy. Medical experimentation with fasting has been conducted at the University of Illinois in Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. You won’t have to delve much into the literature on fasting to come up with the results observed. All medical research has proven the truth of the toxemia causation of disease regardless of the misinterpretations of the researchers. Researchers usually interpret their data to suit those who are paying for the experimentation, usually drug companies or drug beneficiaries. If the experiments are too contrary to the ends sought they are usually buried quietly. Both laboratory evidence and empirical observations substantiate that disease is a body reaction to intoxication rather than germs.
How can we convince our clientele that they’re responsible for their diseases and that it is not just a bit of bad luck that has befallen them?
Fortunately, you don’t have to lay the load of responsibility on your clients’ shoulders. Your clients will at first be “cure-minded” and want a way out of the dilemma. You can point out the positive way back to health without getting into culpability. You can have them fill out an extensive questionaire which we’ve developed and the answers to which are advance weighted so that you can suggest changes in the customer’s living regime. You can make the process one of adventure and exploration by holding forth the benefits to be obtained by doing this and this and not doing that and that anymore.
Dr. Jennings had people fasting under a deception. He gave them bread and sugar pills, what we’d call placebos, and instructed the taking of water with them four or five times daily. With that he advised bed rest, fresh air, etc. He cautioned against taking anything with the pills other than water, otherwise they would not work. The results his clients realized were nothing short of miraculous. His patients were recovering 100% while his medical colleagues who were into heroic drugging lost patients in epidemic numbers.
You can impute health magic to certain foods or limited diets, even a distilled water diet. But you can assure a healthful outcome only within certain parameters. Hence the client will likely go along with you in the matter of his welfare just as he or she goes along with every charlatan in the medical or other fields of the so-called healing arts.
I reiterate that you can make a game of this, i.e., make it an interesting adventure rather than an onerous chore. The education and whyfore can follow the results. People are interested in results and you are there to show them how. People believe in the magic of nutrition and we’re going to teach it to you as it really is. We’ll teach it to you so that you can guide your clients back to health most speedily, not only in matters of diet but diet within the context of a thoroughgoing health regimen. You can always give instructions that are completely appropriate and straightforward that will enable the client to quickly regain health. Yet you can do it in such a manner as to make it exciting enterprise. You’ll cultivate this confident manner of knowing just what is called for by sympathetic and empathic consideration of your client’s problems as related to you through questionaire and verbal complaint.
I find no fault with the toxemia explanation of disease but it seems too utterly simple to be for real. Do you think our clients will go for this?
I must repeat that your clients aren’t interested in theories or explanations. They’re looking for results, a magic carpet from a state of disease to a state of health. Just wave the magic wand of nutritional salvation before them within the context of a thoroughgoing health regime and they’ll usually follow it religiously. Your expertise will awe them and once word of mouth has gotten around about the miraculous results your guidance makes possible, clients will flock to you.
We live in a day of sensational discoveries and “miracle medicines.” Remarkable new cures and near-panaceas are frequently announced. Snake venom, artificial fever, frozen sleep, the sulfonamides, penicillin, streptothricin, blood plasma, powerful X-rays and ever more comes before us almost daily—these compete with sports, movies, politics, crime and other publicity for free newspaper space. So much is claimed for this parade of “miracle cures” and so many new discoveries are made relatively that the public is kept constantly keyed up with open-mouthed and wild-eyed expectancy. Perfect health via the medical promises seems always just around the corner.
At long last, “science” is staging a powerful and winning Blitz-Krieg against our ancient and most implacable foe—disease. With remarkable and sensational discoveries crowding so closely one upon the heels of another, the time is surely not far distant when universal health will prevail and disease will have disappeared from the human scene.
Not only is ours an age of remarkable “cures,” it is also a time of equally remarkable preventatives. We now have so much “successful” vaccines and serums that there is no longer any need for anyone ever to suffer from many of the “diseases” that were previously so common. New serums are frequently discovered. We may look forward hopefully to the time when all “disease” will be conquered.
Surgery, too, has made rapid strides. It has grown much more daring. Today it invades physiological precepts which only a few years ago it would not have touched. With the newer advances in surgery added to the new “cures” and the new serums and vaccines, we have an almost ideal combination for the “conquest of disease.” What these three groups of anti-disease weapons lack in power and effectiveness is completely compensated for by the many glandular products (hormones), and by vitamin and mineral combinations that are claimed to do so much for the sick. Surely, there is no reason to doubt that the Golden Age has arrived.
The intelligent and informed reader, however, will notice one very important defect in all these methods of “cure” and “prevention.” He or she will quickly detect a deficiency for which no amount of shouting can compensate. It is this:
None of these methods of “cure” or “prevention” are designed to affect or even touch the basic causes of disease.
Drugs may suspend vital activity such that symptoms disappear but they do not remove cause. They may kill germs but they also kill off patients. They do not clear up the systemic condition that permits bacteria to thrive and grow in parts of the body where they are not normal. “Frozen sleep” may temporarily check the growth of a tumor or cancer, but it does not and cannot remove the causes of cancer. Powerful X-rays may destroy a cancerous growth but they also destroy healthy tissue and cause further cancer while leaving intact the causes of disease. It cannot be emphasized too much that:
If a modality does not remove causes, it does not “cure”.
Serums and vaccines are admittedly capable of doing much harm, but they do not remove the causes of disease. Therefore, they do not enable us to “avoid” diseases, even those for which they are administered. We need to know that:
If they do not enable us to avoid the causes of disease, they cannot prevent disease.
Surgeons may pull a tooth, extract the tonsils, cut out the gall-bladder, excise the appendix, sever and remove the ovaries and seminal vesicles, drain the sinuses, etc. but they do not thereby remove the causes of disease. Mopping up the water from a leaky faucet does not remove the causes of the leak. Removing effects of cause likewise does not remove the cause. It is time for us to understand the following:
If surgery does not remove the causes of disease, it cannot “cure” the disease. There is no “cure” short of removal of causes.
Cutting out an organ, suppressing a symptom with a drug (medicine), destroying a growth, removing a stone—these processes touch effects only. They fail to restore health for three very vital reasons:
We must look to constructive natural agencies, forces, and methods for “prevention” of disease and recovery of health. We must cease relying on destructive, unnatural or anti-natural measures, forces, agents and processes. Agents such as drugs that produce disease in the well cannot possibly produce health in the sick. Disease-producing agents and measures are not health-preserving. The popular methods of “prevention” and “cure” neither prevent nor restore health. Witness the ever-growing army of sick and suffering in spite of the ever-increasing size of our army of physicians, nurses and hospitals, and the ever-growing list of “cures” and “miracle drugs.”
To be healthy, do not indulge the causes of disease. Only madness can lead us to attempt to be free of disease by submitting to means which cause yet more disease.
To “cure” disease, remove the causes of disease. It is the worst kind of folly to attempt to cure disease by ignoring its causes and employing modalities which are in themselves causes of disease.
To build health, employ the causes of health. It is absurd to attempt to build health by employing means and measures that are known to impair and wreck health.
For over forty years this writer has helped the sick and suffering back to health and has taught them how to remain well. I have employed a system called NATURAL HYGIENE. For over forty years my health school has been host to over 40,000 people. Dr. Shelton’s Health School has been employing the health-building system of NATURAL HYGIENE with only successful results. At the Health School we have received a great preponderance of people who have suffered for years and “have tried everything” without avail. Our success in building good health in the great majority of these sufferers has been remarkable.
At the Health School we have no “cure” at all. We recognize that only nature (normal forces and processes of life) restores health. We accord to nature the conditions and the opportunity to restore health. We recognize that in nature and nature only exists the power of healing. The forces and powers of nature constitute the true panacea. Ours is a plan of living and a program of education that restores our guests to harmonious living with nature. If this plan of care seems too simple, too easy or not heroic enough, just think this over:
If this plan were ineffectual we would not have succeeded where all others had failed.
I implore you to intelligently consider the preceding statements. Lay aside your previous conditioning and prepossessions. Do some real honest-to-goodness thinking. Then, when you thoroughly understand NATURAL HYGIENE, give it a fair and honest test. Heed the ancient admonition: “Prove (test) all things, hold fast that which is good (true).”
An old adage has it that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof.” The proof of the truth of the principles presented in NATURAL HYGIENE and of the value of the practices built thereon is in making use of it. “The wise will understand.”
Primitive peoples, as we know, believe disease represents the entry into the patient’s body of some evil spirit or entity—which was caused to enter it by some malevolent voodoo man or witch doctor. The unfortunate victim remains so afflicted until he rights a wrong, appeases the witch doctor, or secures the services of another whose “magic” is more powerful than that of the original spell-caster. When once this “evil spirit” has been removed, he is well and strong again; if he fails in this, he dies!
Strange as it may seem, a modified form of this same belief underlies public thinking and constitutes a basic belief of many physicians. True, we no longer believe that an “evil spirit” has entered into the body of a sick person, but it survives in the form of thinking that disease is an “entity” of some sort which is caught and which can be driven out or expelled by suitable medicines— something in a bottle! When this entity has been expelled, the patient is “cured.” Such is the popular conception...
As opposed to this, the Hygienist believes that so-called “diseases” represent merely the bodily states or conditions, nearly always self-caused which are manifested in a series of symptoms, but which are in themselves the very processes of “cure.” As Dr. Emmet Densmore stated, in his book How Nature Cures:
The hygienic system teaches that disease is a remedial effort, a struggle of the vital powers to purify the system and recover the normal state. This effort should be aided, directed and regulated, if need be, but never suppressed... What is this mysterious thing called disease? Simply an effort to remove obstructing material from the organic domain, and to repair damages. Disease is a process of purification. It is a remedial action. It is a vital struggle to overcome obstructions and to keep the channels of circulation free...
Precisely the same idea was expressed by Miss Florence Nightingale, in her Notes on Nursing, when she said:
Shall we begin by taking it as a general principle that all disease, at some period or other of its course, is more or less a reparative process, not necessarily accompanied by suffering; an effort of nature to remedy a process of poisoning or decay, which has taken place weeks, months, sometimes years beforehand, unnoticed—the termination of the disease being then determined?
So-called disease is, therefore, in the vast majority of cases, merely a curative effort on the part of Nature; it is the process of cure itself—manifested in a set of symptoms. Attempting to “cure” a disease, in the ordinary sense of the word, leads us to a ridiculous paradox: viz., an attempt to “cure” a “curing” process! The disease IS the “cure.” The outward manifestations, the symptoms we notice, represent merely the outward and visible signs of this curative process in action. Any attempt to deal with or smother these symptoms merely retards the process of cure to that extent. Instead of treating symptoms, we should aim at the disease itself—or rather at the causes of the so-called disease. These are really the dangerous factors involved, and those which have brought about the abnormal conditions noted. Once we have removed these causes, the disease (so-called) disappears, and the symptoms vanish. The patient is then restored to health.
Viewed in this light, everything becomes simple! Toxins and waste material of all kinds accumulate in the body, over a period of weeks, months or years—finally reaching the point when they must be expelled or deterioration sets in. This violent expulsive effort on the part of nature produces a series of characteristic symptoms. The body attempts in every way possible to expel these poisonous substances— through the bowels, the kidneys, the skin, the lungs, etc.—with the result that these organs are overtaxed and break down under the load. Clogging and toxemia then set in more seriously than ever, and the patient is really ill. Obviously, the only way to relieve this condition is to stop adding to the waste material the body must eliminate, and assist it in every way possible to dispose of what is already there. Once the body is given a chance to “catch up,” so to say, and cleanse itself to some extent, the violence of the internal upheaval will subside, and as this becomes more normal, the external symptoms will lessen and the patient is then said to be “convalescent.” If this process continues, he ultimately becomes “cured.”
I have used all these terms in a loose sense, because hygienists believe that the so-called “disease” is itself the process of “cure”—as we have seen. What we really mean is that certain causes have been removed, and as they are removed the effects disappear... What are these causes, and how are they removed?
The human body is creating certain poisons within itself by the very process of living. If these poisons were not constantly being excreted we should die. Normally, they are disposed of through the various eliminating organs—the bowels, kidneys, skin, etc. If this balance is maintained, the person remains well. If, however, the poisons accumulate more rapidly than they can be disposed of, abnormal conditions develop. These conditions are the so-called “diseases.”
Now, it should be obvious that the speediest way to regain health, when this condition develops, is to stimulate the eliminating organs, and at the same time introduce no new poisons into the system. The former is accomplished by means of exercise, bathing, water-drinking, etc. But it is highly important to prevent the entrance into the body of material which might further clog and block it. The material is our food, and obviously so; for, aside from air and water, this is the only material we ever introduce into our bodies, under normal conditions.
The necessity of fasting in times of stress thus becomes evident. Food supplies us with essential nutriment, it is true; but if the body is in no condition properly to utilize this food, it merely decomposes, creates poisons and is pushed through the body without really benefiting it. The thing to do, therefore, is to withhold food, so long as this abnormal state lasts, thereby giving the eliminating organs a chance to dispose of the surplus material already on hand, and at the same time rest the internal organs, permitting them to accumulate a certain store of vital energy, which would otherwise be expended in the handling and disposal of this extra mass of food-material. The system thus becomes cleansed and purified. It is the simplest and most effective means known to us—and is the course prescribed by nature when she deprives us, at such times, of our normal appetite.
Practically all diseases thus have a common basis and a common origin. There is a unity and oneness of disease, based on a common denominator. This, in a word, is toxemia. The differing diseases, so-called, are but the various means by which nature tries to expel this poisonous material; and the symptoms noted are the outward and visible signs of such curative action. Naturally developed inherent healing powers alone “cure”—whether it be a cut finger, a broken bone or a so-called “disease.” All that the physician can do is to assist Nature in this remedial effort. Anything which tends to reduce symptoms merely prolongs the effort to that extent. Give Nature a chance, and she will heal in every case. A “cure” will invariably follow—whenever such “cure” is at all possible.
Most drugs so destroy vitality that body efforts as evidenced by symptoms are stopped. Pain is a warning signal—calling attention to a certain local area which is in dire distress. But this condition is merely a localized manifestation of a general condition. As Dr. Samuel Dickson remarked: “Properly speaking, there never was a purely local disease.” Rectify the general body condition, and the local manifestation will disappear. No matter what they may be or where located, they will vanish when the body as a whole is normal.
Drugs do not act upon the body; they are acted upon by the body. The action we perceive is the reaction of the body against the drug. It is the effort on the part of Nature to expel the poison introduced into the living organism... Much the same is true of stimulants. These seem to impart “strength” to the body; but as we know, this is a false strength, denoting merely the waste of the vital energies. If you dig your spur into a tired horse, it will run faster to the corner; but no one thinks that the spur has supplied the horse with fresh energy. It has simply caused the poor animal to expend its reserve energies more quickly. It is the same with stimulants. The false feeling of strength which they impart is fictitious. The same is true of many drugs; and the same is true of food, which also acts as a stimulant, giving us a false feeling of strength when a meal is eaten! It is because of this fact that many people feel “weak” when food is withheld.
The simple, basic idea back of the hygienic system is that practically all “diseases,” so-called, are but the varied manifestations of a single underlying cause; and that, when this cause is removed, the symptoms automatically vanish. This cause is toxemia: waste materials and foreign poisons in the body.
40.8. Why Drugs Should Not Be Used
40.9. What The Body Does When Drugs Are Taken
40.11. What To Do Instead Of Taking Drugs
40.12. What To Do When Acute Symptoms Manifest Themselves
Article #1: The Poisoning Practice by Virginia Vetrano, B.S., D.C.
Since early Egyptian times, it has been recognized that obedience to physiological law is a prerequisite for maintaining health. Hippocrates is supposed to have said that the physician should have two special objectives regarding disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm. According to the Hippocratic concept, the doctor is the servant, the “helper” of pthisis (nature). He said, “It is important to help, or at least not to harm.”
The very early physicians knew of the importance of obeying these natural laws and their practices evolved around this concept. Today there is an increasing body of scientific evidence which supports these concepts and more attention is now being devoted to diet, exercise and the other natural essentials of health.
During the very early years when man was evolving into the being we know today, he knew nothing about science and medicine yet his bones healed, his wounds healed and life went on. Primitives, like animals, instinctively relied upon their own intrinsic powers of healing.
During the 19th century, medical sects arose out of opposition to the so-called “heroic” treatment of their day and they shared some success. When we study each of these sects which arose during that time, we begin to see certain patterns emerging. The highest success rate was among those practitioners who did the least harm and allowed “nature’s healing powers” to work unhampered.
By “nature’s healing power” I do not mean a specific entity for healing but a capacity which resides in all living animals to heal themselves and to maintain a steady state. The goal of life is to maintain life and the body always strives toward a healthy state. Problems arise when too many obstacles are thrown in the path of this effort. The role of the Hygienic practitioner is to remove those obstacles by teaching his students how to correct those errors in living which caused his illness and making sure that all of the conditions for health are supplied in the proper quantity and quality. It is important that all of these conditions are present at the same time as health cannot be achieved if any of them are missing or lacking. These conditions include proper food, pure air, pure water, sunshine, rest and sleep, exercise and emotional poise. The body then becomes the healing force. This is demonstrated in wound healing, healing of broken bones, in self-limited diseases such as colds, flu, etc.
When we consume such unnatural and unwholesome foods as the highly refined products which are so popular today, we build disease. We inflict our illnesses upon ourselves by poor dietary habits, lack of sleep, a sedentary lifestyle and other unhealthy habits. We then develop atherosclerosis, cancer, kidney stones, or ulcers from our own wrong actions. We cannot eliminate these errors in living by taking a drug. We must look amongst our practices for the “cure.”
The cell is a homeostatic mechanism requiring precise entry of nutrients and elimination of wastes. These wastes result from ongoing metabolic activity and the deterioration of structural elements. With proper nutrition and detoxification, the cell is programmed for specific functions. Assuming these functions are healthy cells and tissue that lead to healthy organs that lead to a healthy organism.
Since illness is the result of unhealthful practices, then health should be restored by removing these causes and supplying the conditions for health. This is the philosophy of the drugless practitioners. They do not add further contaminants to an already toxic organism by dispensing drugs but rely on natural means which depend upon the body’s own ability to heal.
The oldest known written record of drug use is a clay tablet from the ancient Sumerian civilization of the Middle East. This tablet, made in the 2000’s B.C., lists about a dozen drug prescriptions. An Egyptian scroll from about 1550 B.C. names more than 800 prescriptions containing about 700 drugs.
Ancient peoples used many drugs. An Egyptian physician, for example, tried to cure blindness by pouring a mixture of honey, pig’s eye, and other ingredients into the patient’s ear. But occasionally people who had taken drugs as remedies would recover naturally. As a result, they credited the drugs for their healing.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the demand for drugs remained high and pharmacies became increasingly common in Europe and the Arab world.
In the early 1500s, the Swiss physician Philippus Paracelsus pioneered the use of minerals as drugs. He introduced many compounds of lead, mercury, and other minerals in the treatment of various diseases.
The drug revolution began about 1800 and has continued up to the present. During this period, scientists have discovered hundreds of drugs. Scientists learned how to isolate drugs from plants in the early 1800s. In 1806, morphine became the first plant drug to be isolated. Within a few years scientists had isolated quinine and several other plant drugs.
The pace of the drug revolution quickened in the 1900s. In fact, most of the major drugs used today have been discovered since 1900, such as hormones, antibiotics, and sulfa drugs.
Since early Neanderthal man, plants have been used as drugs for “healing” purposes. Even as modes of medicine changed throughout the centuries, plants continued to be the mainstay of country medicine as methods and ideas on plant healing were passed down from family to family and within communities. Thus tribes, clans, villages, towns, sometimes entire countries, tended to have similar styles in “healing.” Most of these plant remedies were based on local discoveries and pass-along uses, so many plants are used in exactly the same way.
For several thousands years the Chinese physicians used the Ma Huang plant. Later researchers extracted an alkaloid, ephedrine, from this plant.
Willow bark was used for thousands of years, even by American Indian tribes. Unfortunately, consistent use of the bark affected the digestive system, and it became imperative to find a substitute, or chemical version. This duplication took over fifty years of investigation, and was solved when a German scientist broke the chemical code by using the spirea plant family, instead of willow bark. He called his result aspirin, now one of the most used drugs on earth (resulting in much distress and iatrogenic diseases).
Curare arrow poison, another tropical discovery, is now used to control breathing during some surgery.
Digitalis was extracted from the foxglove plant, an herb, and is still prescribed by physicians for those with heart problems.
In his book, The History of Medicine, the British physician and surgeon, Kenneth Walker says, “Thanks to the extraordinary recuperative powers of the human body and the resilience of the human mind, the patient generally managed throughout the ages to recover health in spite of the vicissitudes of treatment to which he had been subjected.”
During the early days of civilization, there were many types of ‘cures’ that were associated with various cults. If the patient recovered his health, it was attributed to the healing ritual. If recovery did not occur, the disease was blamed. However, in all cases, it becomes evident that it was ‘vis Medicatrix Naturae’ which effected the recovery.
There was always a common denominator involved in all of these ‘cures.’ This is the force active in the organism in which healing takes place in spite of what was done and not because of what was done.
The Indians had their shamen and medicine men. The Hindus worshipped many gods and believed that illness was the work of demons. Therefore, rituals were performed to rid the sick individual of these demons and witches. The African bushman performed a symbolic dance which was supposed to “cure.” The Chinese used acupuncture, herbs and moxibustion. (This is the burning of powered leaves of the moxa plant on the skin of the patient).
All of the therapies differed widely—from magic and witches to acupuncture. The modes of treatment were varied and often bizarre but they all had “success.” Patients overcame their illnesses in most cases. How can a superstitious ceremony overcome a disease? The answer is that it cannot. First of all, most diseases are self-limited and the patient becomes well in spite of the treatment. But there was always this common denominator present in all of the recoveries and that is the vital faculty within each of us which is called upon when needed to re-establish equilibrium within our body and to heal. It is this vital power which we call ‘nature’ that healed the Indian after the witch doctor performed his magical ritual and it was this same force which manifested itself after the Chinese doctor administered herbs. The highest success rate came after those ceremonies or rituals or treatments which did the least harm and interfered least with the body’s innate ability to heal itself.
Pharmacologists consider all chemicals that affect living things to be drugs. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines a drug as “A therapeutic agent; any substance, other than food, used in the prevention, diagnosis, alleviation, treatment, or cure of disease in man and animal.”
The truth is that all drugs are poisons and always do much harm, even when taken in small quantities. The body reacts defensively to all foreign substances which are introduced. This response is mistakenly attributed to the action of me drug when in fact the drugs do not act mechanically to produce any response. It is the body which acts upon the drugs in its efforts to dispose of this dangerous substance as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Hygienists know that the living organism is dynamic and full of energy. Its self-reparative and restorative ability remains intact as long as energy is abundant. Over 100 years ago Dr. R.T. Trall demonstrated the difference between lifeless matter and the living organism. He said that the living organism is active and the lifeless matter is passive.
Drugs are passive inert substances which have no magical powers to impart life and health to a living organism. Drugs combine chemically with the chemical constituents of the body where they do much harm by interfering with normal life processes.
People take so-called headache remedies, stimulants, anesthetics, pain killers, sleeping pills and narcotics for the temporary relief they afford. As a direct consequence of drug poisoning, gastric ulcer, anemia, kidney disease or any of many other ailments many develop. The pathologies these poisons occasion are added to the disease for which they are given. This is to say, physician-made diseases are worse than the natural disease.
It has been said that drug-treated patients have to recover twice—first, they have to recover from the original disease and, second, they have to recover from the drug-induced disease. The fact is that every drug is a poison and every drug produces disease. All too often patients are killed by the drug and, in an even greater number of cases, where the drug does not kill, it produces permanent harm. In fact, the most common cause of chronic disease is drug treatment for acute disease.
There are no harmless drugs; there are no safe drugs. All of them, even the least toxic, result in the production of pathologies, if they are repeatedly administered, even in small doses. It is certainly unwise to continue drug practices, especially in the face of the fact that they produce only ills. For example, what good comes from the administration of cortisone for arthritis? The symptoms are temporarily suppressed; the patient may be provided a certain measure of relief from pain, but the sufferer’s condition inevitably becomes worse and recovery is more difficult. The ultimate result is increased suffering for a brief respite from pain. This is true of all suppressive measures. Both physician and patient are deluded into believing that some suffering is being saved, but the later increased suffering outweighs the brief periods of freedom from pain. In fact, the increased suffering is usually of longer duration than the periods of comfort and is far more acute than the periods of “relief.”
There are no drugs now used by the medical profession and there were no drugs used by any of the schools of medicine in the past that did not and do not produce disease.
If a drug, which is a chemical substance, unites with the protein of the cell, it destroys the cell. It is precisely to prevent this union and thus to save the life of the cell that the drug is resisted, rejected and expelled. All the action that is mistaken for drug action is cellular or organic action designed to protect and preserve life.
When a drug is picked up by the blood, either from the digestive tract or from the site of the injection, it is carried by this medium throughout the body, so that it comes in contact with tissues everywhere. The so-called side effects of drugs are the actions of the different tissues with which the drug comes in contact in rejecting, resisting and expelling the drug. So-called drug effects are not drug actions but vital actions.
If a drug may be employed and it suppresses symptoms, it is said to be good. That the drug may produce unwanted effects at the same time it suppresses the symptoms is, of course, unfortunate and the physician hopes that the “side” effects will not be too great or that he can stop the drug if the “side” effects threaten to become formidable.
Hygienists know how to avoid these poisonous effects. They simply avoid all drugs. We cannot be poisoned into health.
The Law of Duel Effect states that all substances which are taken into the body, or which come in contact with it from without, occasion a twofold and contrary action— the secondary action being the opposite of the primary action, and the more lasting.
Therefore, the primary action (reaction) from taking a stimulant would be stimulating but the secondary and longer lasting effect would be depression. Likewise, the primary reaction from taking a pain-suppressant would be relief from pain but the secondary, longer-lasting effect would be increased pain. If the immediate and temporary effect of a dose of digitalis is to stimulate the heart, the secondary and permanent effect is to depress the heart.
Why would this be so? The body marshalls its available forces to handle the situation at hand which at that moment might be an abnormal substance in the form of a pain-suppressant. This toxin which has been so introduced has to be dealt with and eliminated as quickly as possible. During this time, the organism halts reparative and healing processes which are felt as symptoms, thus temporary relief.
However, as soon as the foreign substance is disposed of, the body reinitiates its healing processes with the return of the old symptoms. However, due to the tremendous expenditure of vital energy and the added toxins from the drugs, greater harm has been done. The heart becomes weaker after its stimulation due to exhaustion and added toxins. Likewise affected are all bodily organs.
Obviously, drugs cannot heal disease. There are no healing powers or intelligence outside of the human body. One should dismiss this notion of “cure” forever from their thoughts. It is only the body which possesses this potential to heal itself and will do so when favorable conditions are provided.
People take drugs for relief of their symptoms but often find that the drugs are ineffective even for this. People who take sleeping pills are more tired than ever. Dieters who take diet pills remain overweight.
The individual who has arthritis still has pain after ingesting enormous quantities of aspirin.
Since 2000 B.C. man has sought that magical formula which would “cure” him of all his illnesses. Man sought an easy way out of his problems which he created for himself. “One pill and I will feel great once again!” Unfortunately, there are no magical formulas that will overcome our ills and still allow us to transgress all the laws of physiology.
Drugs are used to suppress symptoms. That is, to relieve pain, relieve insomnia, skin eruptions, constipation, etc. But are symptoms the disease? No, they are just evidences of it. They are a sign from our body telling us that the body has closed shop for cleansing and repairs. If one were to listen to the innate intelligence of his body instead of immediately suppressing these warning signs, many chronic diseases would not occur. Drugs suppress but never solve the problem of ill health (toxicosis). In fact, drugs cause more ill health (toxicosis).
It is commonly thought that every so-called disease is a distinct entity, requiring a specific remedy. Throughout all systems and methods of therapeutics, there runs a basic error that they call the therapeutic actions of their various procedures. The truth is that these so-called “therapeutic actions” or “remedies” are reactions of the body against the “remedies.” The living organism reacts to everything within its environment—to assimilate useful agents and influences; to eject nonusuable and destructive things. The defensive reactions against harmful substances and influences is proportionate to their harmfulness and commensurate with the vital energy possessed by the affected organism. These two factors—the amount and destructive-ness of the agent or influence, and the vital energy of the organism—are the determining factors in every reaction.
In reality the therapeutic effects are among drugs’ evil effects. They are classed as therapeutic effects only because they are the effects the physician wishes to produce when he prescribes the drug. He assumes that something constructive and beneficial is accomplished when a symptom is temporarily suppressed.
When one uses drugs, one endeavors to provide the sick body with means of carrying on its healing efforts. By sending into it or applying to it, exotic and poisonous substances that it cannot use in a state of health, the body is actually further debilitated. In short, the effort to cure disease has been by producing additional disease.
Medical men employ poisons because they believe that poisons are the proper things with which to restore health. They attempt to prevent disease by the employments of poisons because they believe that poisons can prevent disease. It never enters their minds that the elements of health are essentials to both preserving and restoring health.
Poisons are used because there is an effort to kill something—germs, parasites, viruses. This war is nominally on disease, but the warfare actually devolves upon the human constitution.
Should the sick be poisoned? One might also ask, should the well be poisoned? Is there any more reason the sick should be poisoned than there is that the well should be poisoned? If poisons are not the proper things with which to preserve health, why should they be thought of as the proper things with which to restore health? If poisons make the well man sick, what do they do for the sick man?
As you have learned from previous lessons, disease is a body-conducted remedial process. It is an effort on the part of the organism to repair and heal itself. You have also learned that disease is not something lurking in the bushes ready to attack the first person who passes by it. Rather it is occasioned by our own transgressions of life’s laws.
Drugs cause disease and only disease. They do not prevent or eradicate it. Ingestion of drugs adds further toxins to an already toxic organism. Further, it is very enervating for the body to deal with drugs. The less vital energy the body has, the less equipped it will be to initiate healing.
Further, taking drugs does not solve the problem. One cannot attain health by suppressing symptoms. The problems of ill health still remain and the person is usually worse off than before he or she began taking the drugs. We are, in effect, telling our body a lie when we take drugs. We attempt to deceive it into thinking that this or that drug will be the “miracle cure.” But in reality, we are hurting our body more by taking these poisonous substances.
Healing powers are possessed solely by the living organism. It is always in force and is forever functioning in the body in sickness or health. Hygienists cannot “cure”; they have no “cures.” Neither has anyone else.
Outside of the human body, man cannot make blood; he cannot produce a cell; he cannot mend a broken bone; he cannot repair a wound. All that he may do is to remove all interfering factors, whether internal or external, and supply the normal conditions for life. After that, the organs and processes of life do the work of healing.
People do not become well if the causes of their illnesses are not discontinued and their modes of living are not corrected. Enervating habits cripple their functioning powers so that they remain toxic. They can get well as soon as they cease to build disease.
A toxic state of the body develops and slowly devitalizes the tissues for years, resulting in delayed healing and degeneration in injured or devitalized parts. When men live in a manner to maintain a continuous toxin saturation, they are in line for the development of any disease to which diathesis or environment determines them.
It is foolish to suppress symptoms. Let us consider a cough. It is a vigorous, forceful and dramatic expulsion of air from the lungs and is accomplished by sudden contractions of the walls of the chest and of the diaphragm. It is intended to force obstructing and irritating matter (mucus, blood, water, particles of dust, smoke, gas, etc.) from the air passages. In pneumonia, coughing keeps the lungs cleared of exudate so that breathing remains possible. The cough is part of the remedial effort, not an attack upon the body from without. If the cough is checked or suppressed by drug devitalization, passages tend to fill with exudate. Checking the cough definitely, reduces the patient’s chances of recovery.
Analogous to coughing is diarrhea. Like coughing, diarrhea is a dramatic acceleration of a normal physiological action. It is a bowel action and is, designed to free the colon, perhaps even the small intestines, of unwanted material. The unwanted substance may be unsuitable, or decaying food or drugs, or it may be a mineral water. In any case, the diarrhea is a remedial effort. To check the diarrhea while there is a need for it is to lock up, as it were, in the food tube the unsuitable material the diarrhea is intended to remove. The diarrhea automatically ends when its purpose is served and no suppression is necessary.
The first thing the body does when drugs are taken is to make an attempt at their removal through the bowels, the skin, the kidneys, the liver, the lungs, the mucous membranes, by vomiting or by other means.
Noxious materials within are either rejected or, failing that, shunted aside where they offer the least harm. Resistance and expulsion are self-preservative efforts on the part of the living organism. Sometimes due to lowered vitality, it is very difficult to expel certain toxic substances and may even be too difficult. Then the body adopts another technique for self-preservation—it stores them away in the bones’ fatty tissues or even creates sacs called cysts or tumors for this purpose.
The poisonous quality of drugs that occasion vital defensive actions are termed the “medicinal action” of the drug.
Pharmacologists mistakenly believe that drugs have specific relations to various parts, organs, or structures of the organism, although they have never been able to verify it. Hence their belief in selective affinity, i.e. certain drugs act on one part of the body, and others act on other parts. Thus they classify drugs as cathartics, emetics, purgatives, diaphoretics, etc.
It is the body, the living organism, which chooses the way it can best expel drugs. Some drugs will be thrown out of the body via kidney excretion, which the pharmacologist will call diuretics, another by vomiting, and yet another by expectoration. Some drugs, because of their more poisonous nature, will be ejected by the body through as many channels as possible. Hence, its alleged “multiple actions.”
Healing is a normal physiological or biological process. It results from the orderly operations of the ordinary and regular forces and processes of life, working with agents and substances that bear a normal relation to the living organism. Success of the body’s efforts at self-healing depends absolutely upon removal of the cause of its ills. This is to say, the body mends itself when causes are removed. No healing can take place without removal of cause.
The force that is in any “medicinal action” is really vital power, that is, the power of the body itself. Understanding this property of living matter, we can clearly see that medicines do not at all act; do not furnish power for action; and do not in any mysterious way impart power to the body for its own action. The action occurring between the body and drugs is exclusively vital action, power being expended, not generated.
The organized body has remarkable powers of self-regulation, adjustment and distribution. When unhampered, it distributes its available energy to the various organs and tissues in proportion to their importance and needs.
Easily shown is that disease is a process of repair, renovation or healing; and that “cure” in the proper sense is nothing more nor less than the correction of those basic causes which necessitated, in the first place, the institution of disease. All disease phenomena exhibit vital action.
There is this relationship: unhygienic conditions of life give rise to a toxic state of the body. Toxicosis (or toxin saturation) develops beyond a point of vital toleration and evokes special eliminative efforts. These special efforts are the process called disease. Disease tends to free the body of its toxic overload. Disease is, itself, the healing process. Recognizing disease as the “cure,” why employ drugs to stop it? Does that make sense? Is it working against the body’s efforts to heal an exhibition of wisdom or ignorance?
Constructive disease is evidence of vitality. It is obvious, therefore, that therapy is anti-vital—destructive of the vital faculties of the body. Treatment by means of drugs is in reality directed against a beneficial, curative process. The remedy actually subdues vitality and with it physiological activity called “disease.” This is harmful inasmuch as vitality is wasted, the restorative process is arrested, and poisonous substances are introduced into the system to lay the basis for further toxemic crises when vitality shall have been summoned to eject the “medicinal” accumulation. Thus the drug-treated body has a double liability: (1) The poisons introduced and (2) the continued retention of noxious materials because of suppressed remedial efforts.
To the extent that the body diverts energy to drug expulsion, to that extent a reduction in vital activities elsewhere in the body is occasioned. This usually results in the reduction of the remedial- process, or illness, not by removing its needs, but by a reduction of the vital power whereby it is conducted. Such a reduction comprises suppression.
It becomes apparent that you cannot indulge in the causes of disease and expect to be made free of its consequences. Physiology does not work that way. We cannot be made exempt from violations of Nature’s laws.
The medical profession no longer advocates bloodletting, leeching, purging, puking, mercury treatments, tobacco and alcohol treatments, or a long list of other injurious and deadly practices of the past.
The medical profession, however, continues to defend drugging, vaccination, blood transfusion and a whole host of injurious and deadly practices. How long will it take them to admit the fact that these practices also require condemnation?
We know that all drugs are bad without exception. But to cite some specific examples, I will mention a few of the most commonly used drugs.
Acne most often appears on the face and causes much discomfort and embarassment to sufferers because of its unsightly appearance. It is the result of accumulated toxins in the body which are being discharged via the sebaceous glands of the skin. This condition results mainly from wrong diet and if this were to be corrected, the acne would disappear for the body would no longer need this outlet. However, many people attempt to suppress this cleansing effort by using acne preparations.
Acne products most often come in the forms of lotions or creams which are applied topically. The claim is that these lotions help heal and prevent acne pimples and absorb excess oil. As Hygienists, we know that nothing outside of the human body has the ability to heal and that, therefore, these claims are quite false. However, much harm can be done. One common ingredient in most acne preparations is benzoyl peroxide. This chemical is used on colored or dyed fabrics to bleach them white. When applied to the skin the body responds to the poison with reactions of itching, redness, burning, swelling or excessive dryness.
Allergy is also due to toxicosis. Allergy relief preparations are highly poisonous substances. The following warning is contained on Dristan Analgesic Tablets: “Warning: may cause drowsiness. May cause excitability especially in children. Do not take this product if you have asthma, glaucoma, difficulty in urination due to enlargement of prostate gland, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, or thyroid disease.”
Clearly, the body recognizes this as a poison and attempts to rid itself of it as quickly as possible. However, this requires a great deal of energy to deal with the poison and anyone who is so toxic as to display the symptoms of “allergy” would be particularly harmed to have an additional flood of highly poisonous toxins put into their systems.
Clearly, the most common analgesic taken today is aspirin. The first report of the therapeutic properties of the salicylates was by the Rev. Edward Stone in 1763. Today, world production of aspirin has been estimated to be around 100,000 tons per year with an average consumption of about 100 tablets per head per year. A large survey, as reported in the Journal of Allergy in Clinical Immunology, listed aspirin among ten drugs most frequently involved in adverse reactions. The first death attributed to aspirin ingestion per se, as distinguished from aspirin poisoning by overdose, was described in Germany in 1902. In 1933, Dr. B.R. Dysart published an article in the Journal of The American Medical Association describing death following ingestion of five grains of acetylsalicylic acid. Most aspirin tablets contain 400-500 mg. or about 7 grains. Recommended dosage is usually two tablets 4 times a day. This is quite a toxic load to deal with!
By 1970, Dr. R.S. Farr, in his presidential address before the American Academy of Allergy, was citing “the need to reevaluate acetylsalicylic acid” and suggested that, because of the risk to a substantial number of people, aspirin and aspirin-containing compounds should become prescription rather than over-the-counter drugs. Hygienists know that they are poisonous and should never be taken. They have no power to heal and cannot be used by our cells for any constructive purposes whatsoever.
In an article in the Journal of Allergy in Clinical Immunology in December 1976, J.R. Vane demonstrated that nonsteroid, anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin inhibit prostaglandin biosynthesis.
Interference with the biosynthesis of prostaglandins could have very grave effects on our health since this compound, which is present in all body tissues, plays a very important part in many physiologic activities. This includes, but is not limited to:
Also, prostaglandins inhibit secretion of pepsin as well as hydrochloric acid by the gastric mucosa by a direct action on the parietal cells of the gastric glands. (Parietal cells secrete hydrochloric acid.) This is one of the body’s homeostatic devices.
Prostaglandins, then, are a control mechanism for secretion. As ulceration is believed to result from erosion of the mucosa by excessive quantities of gastric juice, the physiologic synthesis of prostaglandins by the stomach may protect the mucosa against ulceration by regulating its secretion.
If aspirin interferes with the biosynthesis of prostaglandins, then ulcers could more readily occur and this accounts for a common side effect of aspirin therapy.
So aspirin not only results in a great energy depletion within our body in its attempt to deal with it, its presence also interferes with many normal physiological functions. People create more harm than they realize when they ingest this commonly prescribed tablet.
An antacid is an agent given to neutralize acidity in the stomach. It interferes with the body’s homeostatic attempts to maintain acid-alkaline balance, adds toxins to the body and never promotes health. The cause of acid indigestion must not be indulged. Here again, faulty diet must be corrected. If a person were to fast and then go on an all-raw food program of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, all bodily functions would return to a healthy state.
Dr. Kiki Sidhwa says, “Milk and antacids, the mainstays of therapy for peptic ulcers, may led to metabolic alterations potentially more serious than the primary disease being treated.” He further says that such treatment might produce many changes in the system, including the development of gout. Explanation of the trouble was that this treatment upset the acid-alkaline balance in the system and led to alkalosis if long continued.
Antacids containing aluminum hydroxide inhibit the absorption of dietary phosphate since it binds this mineral in the lumen of the gut. Along with calcium, phosphorus contributes to mineralization of bones and teeth and is intimately involved in human metabolism. There is an important ratio between calcium and phosphorus which must be maintained. Great harm can result if any interference with this ratio occurs such as the binding of phosphorus when drugs are taken. A certain drug taken for a particular reason always has systemic effect.
Antibiotics mean anti-life and indeed they are against life. They are administered to kill life in the form of microorganisms. Since disease is incorrectly thought of as an attack by bacteria, germs, etc., the antibiotic is given to kill these “invaders.” Instead they poison vital cells, that is, the body itself is killed to some degree. The body’s efforts must then be redirected toward eliminating this new poison.
The cause of disease is not the germ that is present, but the mental and physical habits that have broken down the body. Let the office of the germs be what it may, they cannot cause disease. The theory that germs and parasites have to be destroyed in order to “cure” disease is a delusion.
Respiratory distress has been associated with ampicillin administration. Researchers have also demonstrated that several other widely employed drugs including isoniazid (an antibiotic) have produced clinical patterns of chronic (active hepatitis, resulting in cirrhosis. The scientists have found that drug reactions involving the liver result in liver toxicosis from the drug itself. In patients with drug-induced acute hepatitis, the incidence of bridging necrosis was increased. (Bridging necrosis is death of the threads of protoplasm which pass from one cell to another in the liver.)
The use of antibiotics has also been proven to result in many blood disorders including leukemia.
Diarrhea is not in itself a disease but an action of the body against some form of toxic irritation, mainly from unsuitable or unhygienic foodstuffs. Dr. Sidhwa says that antidiarrhea drugs can result in kidney and liver disorders, skin and sight defects and even death.
Why should we poison ourselves and risk the chance of possible kidney or liver disease when all we have to do is simply provide the conditions for health and allow our body to repair itself? In this way we may be sure that we are not doing harm.
It is foolish to take any medication whatsoever when one manifests symptoms of a cold. From the Hygienic point of view, the cold is the “cure.” The cold is the result of systemic poisoning and it is the body’s effort to rid itself of some of its toxic overload. Any preparation taken to suppress these symptoms will only add to the toxins and will create another obstacle for our body to overcome while it is doing its “housecleaning” of toxic debris.
All drugs, including laxatives, sleep aids, stimulants, depressants, diet pills, etc., are aimed at treating symptoms. Hygienists do not treat symptoms but work at removing the cause of toxicosis which occasioned the disease in the first place.
As a student of Life Science you should always keep in mind that the body does not work in separate independent ways but it is a unified whole. The body performs all of its functions as a whole and even though a certain symptom of disease may manifest itself in a particular part of the body it does not mean that the whole system is not involved.
The Hygienist does not accept “cures.” What are we trying to “cure?” Attempts to “cure” actually suppress or stop the body’s defensive and remedial processes. As the body is attempting to get well, we are trying to prevent it from getting well. This is the essence of cures.
What we’re concerned about then, in health and disease, is removing the causes of disease, supplying the body with its basic needs so it may build health. Health is the organism’s natural tendency toward the ideal and everything in the moral organism works toward health. We don’t have to make the body healthy; we only have to live healthfully.
An obese person does not become healthy by taking diet pills. He must examine his diet and lifestyle and remove the causes of his obesity in order to attain health. We have to stop people from making themselves sick.
We must examine the person’s way of life: what it is they’re doing that they shouldn’t be doing, the things they’re not doing that they should be doing, and attempt to discover the causes of their trouble.
When we investigate these factors and remove the causes of disease, then we outline a program which will provide the conditions and circumstances necessary for health. The organism will restore itself to normal providing, of course, that it hasn’t been irreversibly damaged.
It may be helpful to ask yourself the following questions:
By “proper diet” we mean one which we are biologically meant to eat. That is, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds—all eaten in their raw state. This is very important. Of equal importance is the amount that we are consuming. Not only the quality of our food is important but also the quantity. Ask yourself, am I overeating or eating when I am not really hungry? Eating food in the absence of hunger or consuming more food than our body can handle will lead to toxemia as sure as if we were subsisting on a diet of refined foods. So keep in mind quantity and quality when examining your lifestyle.
By this we mean only pure H2O and this is not available from your kitchen sink. Pure distilled water is the only kind that we should drink and then only when we are thirsty. Some people have the mistaken idea that drinking excessive amounts of water will “flush” the kidneys and “clean out” our systems. This is nonsense! Water is inert and has no such cleansing powers. However, when consumed to excess, there can result a great energy drain on the eliminative organs. So, here again, keep the quantity and quality idea in your mind. Distilled water is best in the amounts compatible with your needs.
This is a tough one. Living and working in our polluted cities makes it next to impossible to breathe really pure air. However, there are some things that we can do. If it is possible to move to the country, do so. If not, at least try to stay away from smoke filled working situations (or look into purchasing an electronic air purifier for your office). It helps to live where the house is set at least a little way back from the road and trees between the house and the road will help block and absorb some of the pollution from the cars and purify the air.
Sleep requirements vary from person to person but generally if you wake up without the aid of an alarm clock and feel rested and energetic, then you have obtained enough sleep. If not, you had better go to bed a little earlier or take a nap during the day.
Daily exercise is a must to maintain health. Set aside a certain lime every day for exercise. About 30 minutes to one hour a day should be sufficient.
Sunlight is beneficial and the main source for Vitamin D, but be careful and don’t overdo it as excessive sunbathing can be harmful. Remember the quantity and quality.
It is not always possible to avoid stressful situations but it is possible to learn how to deal with stress. Stress and emotions are a physiological occurrence and can result in many types of disorders.
Now that you have run through your little questionnaire and have determined the cause of your disease, every effort must be made to remove those causes. When the conditions of health are provided in the proper quantity and quality, the body will immediately begin its remedial processes.
First of all, do not take drugs of any kind and this includes the herbal remedies. The best thing to do when symptoms of a cold or flu, pain, skin eruptions, hay fever, headache, stomach ache, or any disease symptom arises is to rest.
The body needs rest. That is, physiological rest. By this we mean rest of the entire body, of the muscles, organs, glands and digestive organs. How can we provide the body with such a rest? Through a fast. By this we mean no food—only pure water and rest in bed. This will provide the ideal conditions for the body to redirect its energies to the reparative process. It may be advisable to fast at a Hygienic fasting institute where you will be supervised by a competent Hygienic practitioner. After the fast is broken, eat only those foods that we are physiologically suited to eat—raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds in compatible combinations. In addition, follow all the other requirements of health and you will find freedom from disease.
For example, the Hygienic care of the pneumonia sufferer is the acme of simplicity. It is not designed to “cure” anything. It does not reduce fever, check coughing, suppress pain, or force further exudate into the lungs. Hygiene does not seek to suppress or palliate symptoms. The death rate is reduced to almost nil. Rest in bed in a well-vented room, warmth, all the water thirst demands, no food of any kind until all acute symptoms have subsided, constitute the essentials of proper care. Thus cared for, the person with pneumonia will recover mote certainly, more speedily and more satisfactorily. Nobody will prove to be allergic to Hygienic care nor have bad reactions, as many have when penicillin is administered. By the employment of healthful measures.
You have done your body a favor. You have built health with proper rest, food, etc. You have not destroyed health with pills and potions. The aim of life is to maintain life. This is the goal of every cell in your body. When you take drugs you throw road blocks in the path of the cells in their efforts to live and support your existence. Don’t sabotage your body. Instead, assist life by providing the conditions for health.
My doctor says that all cases of arthritis are incurable. He also says that I must take 10 tablets of aspirin every day to alleviate the inflammation and that I may have to eventually increase that dosage. Will this much aspirin be harmful?
Your doctor is correct when he says that he cannot cure arthritis. Hygienists know that only the body has the ability to heal. However, there have been many cases of arthritis which have completely recovered following a fast and a Hygienic lifestyle. Aspirin is a poison and the body will treat it as such. A small amount of aspirin will result in a certain amount of damage to the human organism but such large amounts will do much greater damage. The wisest thing to do would be to consult with a Hygienic practitioner and arrange to go on a fast. After that, adhere strictly to the Hygienic lifestyle and health will be realized.
I have been on the ‘pill’ for a number of years since I do not want to have any more children. Am I doing any harm through this practice?
Your body cannot condone the pill. It contains substances which suppress the normal hormone secretions. To be effective, the product must be taken regularly throughout a woman’s reproductive life, and the method is attended by a multitude of ill effects besides being entirely contrary to the principles of natural, healthful living.
Evidence has built up that the use of the pill carries with it may dangers. There is a liability for strokes or cerebral hemorrhage and other conditions involving blood clotting. Reports of eye troubles following their use were reported in the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain. Numerous other “side effects” have been established.
Yes, this is a very harmful practice and should be discontinued immediately. If you are interested in a natural birth control method which is safe, read the book “Creation of Life” by Terrie Guay.
When my doctor prescribes a drug for me, I presume he knows what he is doing and wouldn’t dispense drugs which were not scientifically tested before they were placed on the market. Am I correct in my assumptions?
Because poison effects always follow drugging, physicians must be regarded as a class of voodooists. Dr. Sidhwa states a case where it was found that a woman was given a drug for arthritis which resulted in degeneration of cells in the retina of the eyes. This eventually resulted in loss of 80 percent of her vision. Reporting on this case, the Washington Post said that “drugs potent enough to injure and kill are often prescribed casually and even carelessly because of excessive reliance upon drug salesmen.”
The so-called scientific training concerning the drug apparently came from the salesman’s touting of the drug.
We should simply keep in mind that all drugs are poisons and there are no safe ones.
It seems that every time I take my medication I get drowsy. Why would this occur?
The nervous system of man is highly complex. It is very sensitive and delicate in its structure and function. This highly-specialized system reacts very quickly and shows immediate and marked changes if substances inimical to its well-being are taken. Drugs can and do influence the structure and functions of the whole nervous system. Drugs interfere with the nervous system, hence functions are depressed and drowsiness occurs.
Since digitalis is derived from a plant, wouldn’t it be alright to take?
There are many poisons in the plant kingdom and digitalis is one of them. Furthermore, even though digitalis was originally derived from foxglove, it is now made synthetically. Although digitalis is one of the most commonly-used drugs for treating heart failure, it causes noticeable poisoning in an unbelievably high proportion of patients who take it.
When a drug is given to a man suffering from a weak heart, it weakens the heart still more. The impaired heart must now pump more blood with each beat to help get the drug out of the system. But the heart, in doing so, will exhaust itself more quickly than if intelligently left alone and the patient allowed to rest. The heart needs rest, not stimulation. Exhaustion of all the vital organs is the common result of such stimulation.
This lesson has discussed the harmful practice of drug medication. All such agents are harmful even in small quantities. They are anti-vital and cause disease. They have no power or intelligence to effect healing.
All disease is the result of systemic poisoning and one cannot achieve health by ingesting poisons. The cause of disease must be removed before healing can be realized.
When drugs suppress symptoms they also suppress the body’s healing process.
Only the body can heal and will do so when the proper conditions are provided. These conditions include proper food, fresh air, pure water, sunshine, rest and sleep, exercise and emotional poise.
Beginning about twenty-five hundred years ago and making but little headway in public patronage until the time of the renaissance, the drug system has now completely blanketed the earth. So great has grown popular reliance upon the drug practice and so thoroughly have the people been indoctrinated in the belief in drugs, that the practice has become a greater threat to mankind than the nuclear bomb. The drug system is filling the land with side effects of drugs, filling hospitals with iatrogenic diseases, the jails with drug addicts, the mental institutions with drug-induced psychoses and the graveyards with the premature dead.
In the great main the drug system is a system of spectacular palliation. Physicians are for the most part engaged in providing the sick with temporary and doubtful relief from their discomforts. Instead of seeking for and removing the causes of suffering, physicians seem to be content to provide questionable and evanescent respite from pain and discomfort.
A patient says to a physician, “I have a headache, what should I do?” The physician is likely to reply, “Here, take this aspirin.”
As an outstanding example of this kind of practice and its results, let me briefly go over a case history that I recently received from a guest of the Health School.
A young girl, age 21, arrived at the Health School with the following story: at the age of thirteen she developed severe abdominal pains and was taken to the hospital and operated on for appendicitis. Later it was discovered that this was not her trouble as she still suffered with the same pains after the operation. Her parents reentered her in the hospital for an exploratory operation, during which the physician found lymphatic tumors in the abdominal cavity. Soon after this operation she developed epilepsy, and had to make frequent trips to the hospital for tests. She had all the diagnostic X rays known and many other diagnostic procedures for epilepsy. There were an array of diagnoses, first hypoglycemia, then hyperglycemia, then high blood pressure, then low blood pressure. One diagnosis contradicted another, and there was no end to the diagnoses, but they never could ascertain the reason for her epilepsy. Her brain waves appeared normal on the electroencephalogram .
Every known drug for epilepsy was given her, but she said that they only made her worse. Her physician insisted that she continue taking the drug despite the increased incidence of her convulsions. In desperation he finally decided to use new experimental drugs, but with the same results—no decrease in her epileptic fits. Is it any wonder that she developed kidney trouble, after this treatment? Soon she couldn’t have normal micturition but required a catheter. For five weeks straight, she was forced to have the catheter in place. During this time, she complained that ‘they injected drugs through the catheter into the bladder in an effort to reach an infection. It was during this period in the hospital that she began losing the ability to walk. After this her sight and hearing became impaired. It was then that her physician told her parents that she wouldn’t live and sent her home to die.
She was indeed a victim of the curing practice. There is no wonder that at the hospital she lost her ability to walk, see and hear, as she said she had to take 200 pills a day, every day. Furthermore, she was force fed, and had seven shots a day. Despite her continual complaint of lack of appetite, they made her eat.
Her parents took their dying child home. Here she became more a master of herself. She was disgusted with having to take so many drugs that were apparently making her worse. She said no one but a blind person could fail to see that she was steadily growing worse under this treatment.
When she arrived home, she had to be carried to bed. Sensing that the drugs were making her worse, and with the permission of her father, she quit 90% of them. She was afraid to quit all of them at once. Disgusted with the encumbering and uncomfortable catheter, she took it out. She noticed immediate improvement in her health. Her eyesight improved, her impaired hearing became normal and almost overnight she found that she could walk again. Within five hours her bladder was functioning satisfactorily.
When it was lime to make her regular trip to the epileptic clinic, she walked in unaided. Her M.D. marveled at her improvement and called in other practitioners to show off the miracle. The girl that couldn’t walk, that was dying just a few weeks before, walked in unaided! Her drugs were indeed miracle workers! He immediately prescribed more of the same. He never learned that she had quit taking most of her drugs. It was after this that she presented herself to the Hygienist.
Can she regain the high level health she had at birth? How much recovery can she make after being subjected to such treatment? It is doubtful that she can regain the high level health of which her pristine organism was capable. Drugs and surgery have made of her a cripple. This girl has adamantine determination, however, and I’m sure that she will recover as much health as is possible.
The Hygienist has little to work with when a patient comes to him machine gunned with X rays, vandalized by the surgeon’s knife and enervated by the drugging practice. Can you imagine a family afraid to try natural and harmless methods after subjecting their daughter to all the most pernicious practices of our times? Her family was against her from the start and she had to plead, beg and cajole them into letting her stay long enough to take a lengthy fast. Because of her medical abuse, I was fearful of taking her as anything may happen on a fast after such treatment, and her parents would have been the first to point an accusing finger.
At the end of 18 days of fasting they told her she would have to come home soon. I immediately broke her fast in order that she would be able to travel. She began having mild convulsions soon after taking juices, and developed a slight fever and symptoms of acute distress. There was nothing to do but place her back on the fast and let nature continue the healing process. Somehow she persuaded her parents to let her stay longer. They were very apprehensive and couldn’t believe that she could live through 18 days of fasting. When she continued on through 58 days of fasting, they were sure she could not even walk down to the phone and talk to them. During the second fast she passed kidney stones. During her second fast and subsequently she had no convulsions and has not reported any since leaving here.
How soon she will reach positive and top level health depends upon how well she carries out her Hygienic living. But as mentioned at the beginning of this article, she will have her limitations because of medical bungling.
It is unfortunate but most everyone coming to the Health School has his limitations in recovery because of his prior use of drugs, X rays and surgery. It is not only the elderly, whose health has been wrecked by drugs and surgery, but younger and younger person’s, organisms are impaired because of their physicians’ poisons and their surgeons’ knives.
Daily we receive clippings in the mail from Canada and the United States describing the evils attributed to drugs, but the drugging continues. Neither patients nor physicians lose their faith in magic potions. It seems that very few people ever lose their faith in the physician with his armamentarium of poisons. Despite all the enlightenment of hazardous effects of drugs in the papers today, physicians and their patrons cling to the belief in their efficacy and harmlessness. The drugging continues.
The title of an article received recently, is “No Drugs During Pregnancy,” then in small letters “unless absolutely necessary.” These were the words of Dr. Benirschlese, research pathologist of animal pregnancies. To prevent pregnant mothers from refusing drugs a loop hole is always left for the physician to deem the taking of a drug absolutely necessary. Intelligent mothers, fearing it may hurt their baby, may balk at taking their physicians’ prescriptions and ruffle their physicians’ pride. He can then assure them that he is giving the drug only because it is “absolutely necessary” in each instance.
Dr. Benirshchlese said “even such simple drugs as sleeping pills have unknown effects on unborn children.” He continues, “We don’t really know what effect different drugs have on the human fetus but we do know they bring about changes in animals.”
Are we not of the animal kingdom? Are we intangible angels? We are of the animal kingdom and we have the most complex and differentiated organism of any animal on earth. Because of this complexity, many more things can go wrong with human physiology than with the physiology of a lower animal. We can also enjoy greater functioning capacity than the lower animals because of our increased complexity of structure.
A simple machine has fewer things to go wrong than a more complex one. The slightest change in complex machine will immediately upset its workings, whereas a little flaw in a simple machine may not result in any modification of the machine until the damage becomes immense, then it is easily fixed.
Being the most complex living organism, man is more sensitive to inimical agents and influences than are the lower animals. It has been shown that man is more sensitive to radiation than the mouse, so also is he more sensitive to drug poisons.
A significant remark made by Benirschlese was exactly what Dr. Shelton has been saying for years, that a “nine-month gestation period in humans makes research difficult and long-term effects of drug use should be studied until a child is twenty years old.” Minute impairments of vital organs from drugging may not manifest until a child has reached maturity. The increase in microcephaly, liver damage, heart trouble, kidney trouble, diabetes, and cancer in younger and younger people makes us wonder just how many of these young people would not have suffered if their parents had not taken drugs while these children were in utero.
The vigor that was manifested in our pioneers and in the Amerinds is not seen today in our youth and middle aged. This is certainly due in part to our greater dependence upon the medical profession to care for the slightest bruise, cut or headache, and the prescriptions of drug poisons given for these mild afflictions.
Recently a jury awarded a child $500,000 because her mother was given demerol, a drug used to lessen pain during labor, and the child failed to develop mentally. The child was chronologically seven but had the mind of a three-year old. The drug was not supposed to be given to mothers of premature babies. Despite the prematurity of her baby, this woman’s physician gave her the drug.
Another clipping received by mail stated “digitalis drug poisons many patients.” The article states , “digitalis, one of the most commonly-used drugs for treating heart failure, causes some form of poisoning in an unbelievably unusually high proportion of the patients who take it.” John Ruedy of the McGill University said this is happening because of “improper” use of the drug.
I should like to point out that there is no such thing as the proper use of a drug poison. They are poison no matter how given. They never prolong life but always shorten it, and make more uncomfortable whatever life is left in the patient. Drugs greatly lessen the person’s ability to get well Hygienically. They damage and lessen the vitality of every organ and organ system in the body.
When a drug is given to a man suffering with a weak heart, it weakens the heart still more. It is like whipping a tired horse to make him go. He expands more vital energy to get away from the whip, but he wears out quicker. The impaired heart must now pump more blood with each beat to help get the drug out of the system by increasing circulation. But the heart, in doing this, will wear out quicker than if left alone and patient rests. The heart needs rest not stimulation. Exhaustion of all the vital organs is the common result of such stimulation. Premature death is the result of stimulating people into such good “health.”
With 5,000 new drugs being created each year, we should all remain healthy until the age of 140. We actually see more and more of the crippling disease, that people can’t get well of (even by Hygienic means). All drugging impairs the organism’s ability to function.
Instead of removing the causes of the impairment, people are drugged into insensibility in order that they may continue in their disease-producing ways until there are so many organic or morbid changes in the tissues that full recovery is impossible. The Tribune medical reporter states that this is creating one of the most pressing challenges in medical history; that of how to prevent the new drugs from causing other illnesses or side effects. This has led to the development of a new science, pharmacokinetics.
The very name of their “new” science indicates that they do not yet know the relation between lifeless and living matter—the former being passive and the latter active, always. Kinetics indicates movement and drugs do not move but are moved by the body to various parts of the body.
Pharmacologists freely admit that they don’t know how their drugs act, or how the drugs achieve their therapeutic effect or that they act at all. They don’t even bother to try to prove that drugs act.
If physicians, pharmacokineticists and pharmacologists could begin with a valid premise, their conclusions would be more likely to be correct. They would soon learn that all drugs are as inert in the living organism as in the pill bottle, and that all action attributed to the drug is body action. They would soon realize that these actions, occasioned by the drug, are the actions of the living organism expelling the drug because it is not useful, hence poisonous. As long as they attribute action to inanimate substances, they will continue to confuse themselves about the true nature of the drugging practice, and fail to see the destructiveness of their poisons.
Because of our self-preservative instincts, if a substance is introduced into the organic domain that it can’t use, the cells in immediate contact with the drug, via our magnificent complex nervous system, alert the entire organism to the threat to its integrity. It is not one part of the body that resists a drug but many parts acting as a whole. It is the integral organism which acts to expel the drug before ii damages any one part too greatly.
Digitalis may be given to a man with a feeble heart and there is an immediate pick-up in the pumping ability of the heart, not because the drug acts on the heart but because the heart has to pump blood faster to the emunctory organs in order to save the whole from succumbing to the drug. The digitalis didn’t stay in the heart; it didn’t even have to be near the heart, for it to know that something poisonous was in the system and that it had to .step up its activities in order to do its share in the expulsion and rejection of the nonusable toxic substance.
Because the living organism has done all the acting, its energy is depleted in exact proportion to the amount of work it has had to do to eliminate the poison. His functioning power is permanently lowered, and much rest is needed to recover from the depletion. The already weak heart is more feeble than before the digitalis was taken.
Trall frequently clarified the explanation of the fact that it is the living system that acts and not the drug, by the following example: if you introduce a drug into a dead person, there will be no action whereas there should be more action if the drug acted, because there would be less resistance from a dead person’s tissues than a live one. But the dead body cannot vomit it, it cannot develop diarrhea, nor do its kidneys function to expel it. The drug does nothing to a dead body, except chemically combine with the constituents of its tissues.
This is the difference between drugging a live person and a dead one. The live person resists the chemical union, and as long as it is alive it will continue to do so. For the chemical to combine with the constituents of the cell would mean death of the cell, and the formation of a third substance unlike the two which combined to form it. The living organism fights with herculean force to prevent the chemical union, and in doing so sometimes dies in the struggle. The cells had to die first before the chemical could combine with their constituents.
A debilitated old person cannot resist a drug as well as a healthy young person, for the same reason that a dead person can’t act. The debilitated person has less energy to expend in eliminating the drug. Trail points out that if the drug acted, it should act with more force in a weak person because of less resistance from the weak organs, but we see the opposite.
I cannot repeat too often that anything that the living organism cannot make into living tissue or use in any of its metabolic processes is a poison. Drugs cannot fit this qualification, and hence are all poisons. Some are more virulent than others, depending upon their chemical compositions, but they all cripple the organism to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon how much ability a particular organism has to eliminate them.
Cells, tissues and organs are damaged in resisting and expelling drugs. This results in impaired function. Because much of the damage to the organism from drugs is permanent, complete recovery is impossible in those who have been drugged for years.
The damages of drugs are legion and we could fill many volumes with their evil effects, but I shall end this article by stating that if you desire to recover your health drugging is definitely not the answer. Drugs hinder the healing process and occasion diseases of their own.
The causes of disease must be removed. Then, the primordial requisites of life must be supplied in keeping with the living organism’s ability to use them. Then and then only will the living organism be able to return to health. It will make as full recovery as is possible, depending upon how much previous damage has been done by the drugs. The fewer the drugs taken, the speedier and more complete the recovery.
The Hygienic System, or the treatment of disease by Hygienic agencies, is based on the following propositions:
65.5. Reflexology (Zone Therapy)
65.10. Spurious Products Sold Through The Mail
Many of the methods of treatment that were often prescribed by physicians during the 19th century and before are today considered useless and life-threatening. But the physicians during that time persisted in such practices as bleeding, blistering, purging, and the use of heavy metals, especially mercury, because they witnessed that, in some patients, symptoms would disappear. This, however, was an illusion. Symptoms were suppressed but there was no recovery of health. Indeed, many people died because of the treatment but the physicians did not recognize that the “cure” itself was the direct cause of the deaths.
Since that time, there has been a constant search for that elusive “cure.” Harmful results occur when people become so convinced that these “cures” will restore health that they rely upon this illusion instead of looking to their modes of living as the real cause of their ill health. You must, therefore, strive to become more independent thinkers. You must begin to question “cures” and seek the truth by seeing things from a different perspective.
If a certain drug is found particularly harmful and taken off the market, we are told that we should not doubt the effectiveness of all of these agents. However, we should not follow ourselves to be deceived by them. One may feel better for awhile after taking one of these symptom-suppressing agents, but our so-called “cure” is a deception. The “cure” will not last. By seeking the truth, we will be lead to the true cause of disease and from this we may know how to regain our health.
A good example of how the American people have been misled by this delusion of “cures” lies in the practice of immunization. People have been told that vaccines build up antibodies that protect the vaccinated from disease. This is a false claim. Disease is the result of unhealthful living and one cannot be “immunized” against his errors in living.
Any violation against physiological law always results in sickness. This would include any failure to meet sleep requirements, proper food, air, water, sunshine, exercise, or other needs The body’s ability to adapt is remarkable but freedom from symptoms is a delusion when it is produced by drugs in contravention of physiological functions. Under such circumstances, the body will inevitably become exhausted and more chronic illnesses will ensue.
The adverse effects of drugs were illustrated in a previous lesson and more and more people are realizing the dangers of these poisons and are looking elsewhere for “cures.” Thus, we see many drugless practitioners throughout the country promising all sorts of “cures.” This lesson will review some of the more popular “cures” and it will be demonstrated that they are harmful and, at best, relatively innocuous.
You should keep in mind that there are no “cures.” There is no diet, no herb, no massage therapy that will restore health if the underlying cause of sickness is not removed. As we have stated before, health will result only from healthful living.
65.2.3 Comfrey (Symphytum Officinale)
65.2.4 Ginseng (Panax Schinseng)
65.2.5 Cayenne Pepper (Capsicum Minimum)
Herbs have been used throughout recorded history as “cures” for various ailments. However, the use of herbs came into the forefront more formally in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Samuel Thomson is credited for the wide spread of this practice during that time in history. During that time, the regular medical practice included harsh bleed, purge, and blister methods. The popularity of the Thomsonian sect arose not necessarily from their success in curing patients’ ills but from the fact they seemed to kill fewer patients than did their entrenched competitors—the regular medical practitioners. Thomson’s empirical system was based largely on the use of steam and herbs.
Many people opposed the regular profession, but they had no more knowledge of how to remedy its deficiencies than did the regular physician. They found many aspects of regular medicine repugnant but they did not know why or how they were undesirable. The public could only choose among the alternatives available at the time.
Thomson saw his mother die of measles in spite of the care of several local physicians (or was it because of their treatment?); earlier, he felt he had “cured” himself of the same disease through the use of botanies. The illusion is that what appeared to “cure” did not. At best it was less harmful than the regular mode of therapy and therefore the body was able to overcome this drug obstacle and achieved the purposes for which it instituted the healing crises. A year after his mother’s death, Thomson’s wife became severely ill following childbirth. Several local physicians treated her, but her condition continued to worsen. As she neared death, Thomson wisely dismissed the traditional practitioners and their poisonous treatments. He then called in the local “root doctors.” One day later, his wife appeared “cured.” Of course, the herbs did not “cure” but the body promptly set about the process of healing when the deadly drugs were removed.
On another occasion, Thomson badly lacerated his ankle with an axe while clearing some virgin land with his father. After a number of treatments, including soaking it in turpentine, he naturally became worse. He then ended up at the home of one Dr. Kitteridge who treated the wound with herbs and was credited with healing him. The body cannot heal if it is continually assaulted with toxins. When toxic herbs are removed, healing and repair are accelerated. Dr. Kitteridge or his herbs did not assume healing obviously. Herbs cannot help. They present less of an obstacle to the body than the harsh treatment of medical practitioners.
These incidences were enough to convince Thomson that herbs had the power to “heal” and the Thomsonian Sect began to emerge. Thomson became convinced that all disease arose from one general cause and that one remedy could effect a “cure.” The cause was cold and the cure, heat. He, like the Greeks believed, “all animal bodies are formed of four elements, earth, air, fire, and water.” Any imbalance among these four elements which reduced the power of the heat resulted in illness. To effect a cure, one must restore the balance. Thomson sought to restore the balance through the use of purgatives, enemas and sweat producing botanicals. The chief ingredient was lobelia, an emetic which grew wild in much of North America. To this he might add capsium, hemlock, bayberry, ginger, or pepper, and cloves to make a concoction often referred to as “Composition Tea.” What Thomson did not realize is that you cannot poison anyone into health. But he killed fewer people with his method than the regular practitioners and was therefore considered successful.
Thomson patented his system and marketed it through representatives who traveled about the country selling copies of his two volume work, New Guide to Health; or Botanic Family Physician.
The treatment that Thomson advocated was rather harsh. As with the regular therapeutics, if the patient recovered, it was in spite of the treatment and not because of it. The following is one patient’s account of treatment that he received (Frank G. Halstead, “A first-hand account of a treatment by Thomsonian medicine in the 1830’s” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 10 (1941): 680-687.):
“The Thomsonian treatment is a steam bath 30 minutes in duration. When the sweat rolls off as thick as your finger the body is washed with cold water and the patient is straight-way put to bed with hot bricks to bring back his heat. Then a powerful vomitive is administered, composed of bayberry, of cayenne (red pepper) and lobelia, which suffer naught impure to remain in the stomach, and all these herbs are mixed in 40 proof brandy, after which warm water is drunk until there has ensued the most extraordinary vomiting. Next, the patient rises and takes a second bath, like the first. He takes again to his bed, after having been laved with cold water and is surrounded with hot bricks and remains in bed for an hour. At the end of this time he takes two injections (enemas) of pennyroyal, cayenne pepper and lobelia and the treatment is over for the day.”
The fact that this system was of no value is obvious. It is remarkable that the body could withstand such a treatment. Yet some individuals recovered to a certain extent and, as harsh as this treatment was, it was still less harmful than the heroic treatment that it supplanted.
With the death of Samuel Thomson in 1843, his organization (already split three ways) disintegrated. The principal contending factions came to be known as True Thomsonians, the Physio-pathists, the Physio-medicals, and the Eplectics.
Herbal medicine is still practiced today but not on that formal basis. However, there are several misleading books, organizations, and schools that advocate and teach about herbal “cures.” We condemn herbs because, first of all, they have no ability to heal arid secondly, they are very dangerous due to their toxicity.
Some authors have been known to advocate the use of the herb squill which is an ingredient often found in rat poison. Mark Bricklin lists some of the most toxic herbs in his book Natural Healing.
“In general, it is safe to say that you should never use the following herbs for a home remedy: Jimson weed, daffodils, spurge, arnica, wormwood, mandrake, hellebore, squill, poison hemlock, tobacco, tonka beans, aconite, white bryony, nux vomica, calabar bean, camphor, ergot, ignatius beans, bittersweet, gelsemium; henbane, celandine, belladonna, foxglove, and may flower.”
Tansy is a narcotic and may result in abortion. Valerian in excessive doses may result in headache and even delusions. Goldenseal is extremely toxic if taken in stronger doses than one-quarter of a teaspoon to a cup of water. Even in this dose, the poisoning effects are present but they are not immediately noticeable.
Comfrey root will produce a high amount of gummy substance and the root and the leaf are both high in allantoin and pyrrolizidine, substances that are claimed to help with cell proliferation. An increase of cells will occur due to an inflammatory response to the presence of this foreign agent against the skin. Comfrey has no power to heal skin wounds but will interfere with proper healing initiated by the body. When this substance is applied externally to a wound, the outside of the abrasion will close faster than it normally would. This is a response on the part of the body to protect itself so that foreign matter does not enter into the system. As a result, proper healing, from within, is impaired.
It is also claimed that comfrey will help broken bones to knit. This is impossible since healing can only take place from within the body and no agent applied externally or ingested can promote this process.
Many herbalists advocate the use of comfrey as a tea or to be used raw in salads. However, recent studies have proven that this practice may be harmful. According to Dian Dincin Buchman (Herbal Medicine, New York: Gramercy Publishing Company, 1979). “Comfrey is in the same plant family as several other plants (Senecio, Crotolaria, Heliotropium), and these plants, investigation now indicates, contain some natural poisons in the form of pyrrolizidine alkaloids. These plants have been implicated in various accidental human and animal poisonings.
“The young leaves of comfrey, thought to be edible and rich in chlorophyll, and used in many natural green drinks, may contain up to 0.15 percent (1,500 parts per million) of the alkaloid.
“Dr. Claude Culvenor of the Animal Health Division of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization has worked on this subject and studied this alkaloid in pasture weeds. He is particularly conversant with heliotrope, a weed from the same plant family as comfrey.
“He notes, ‘At least four of these alkaloids are known to be carcinogens, and it is probable that the type found in comfrey is also carcinogenic. While it is unlikely that anybody eating comfrey in small quantities would suffer serious effects, its regular use as a green vegetable could cause chronic liver damage or worse. Plants in the same family, have caused human poisonings: in the USSR, Africa, India, and Afghanistan after their accidental consumption in bread over a period of one or two years. The evidence of these outbreaks, considering the amount of the alkaloid we have measured in comfrey, suggests that daily consumption of several young leaves of the plant over a similarly lengthy period will lead to serious disease.’ ”
There are no cures in comfrey and we should eschew this herb. It is, however, useful in the organic garden as an excellent mulch and as an addition to the compost pile as it contains a large amount of nitrogen. Its prolific blossoms also attract honey bees to the garden ensuring proper pollination to all crops.
Ginseng is an herb with a long, flesh root that is often used as a medicine. It is a low plant with three leaves on the top. Each leaf is made up of five leaflets. Ginseng has small greenish-yellow flowers. Some of these flowers later produce scarlet berries. The Chinese use ginseng to “treat” many illnesses. The name of this plant comes from Chinese words meaning likeness of a man, because of the shape of its root. Those shaped most like a human body are said to be the most valuable.
American ginseng is cultivated chiefly in Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, and Wisconsin. The plant glows wild in pans of the United States and Canada.
Ginseng is a stimulant for the central nervous system. It is often taken as a tonic, a “pick me up,” to sharpen the memory, suppress coughs, ward off colds, etc. This drug effect will eventually lead to extreme enervation and chronic diseases due to the constant stimulation and suppression of symptoms.
The official name, capsicum, is derived from the Greek word “to bite,” and a single taste of this substance will convince you why it was so named. This “biting” effect on the tongue and mouth will give you a clue as to what effect it has on the internal digestive tract. It is a powerful irritant and poison. It is taken for its stimulant effect which are, in reality, nature’s efforts to eliminate this poison as soon as possible. Cayenne pepper should never be taken in any form, in any amount.
Peppermint is a favourite beverage all over the world. It is taken for a suppressive effect on the digestive system to control diarrhea, spasms, and relieve indigestion. Peppermint is very high in tannin which is a very astringent acid and its use results in enervation and impairment of normal metabolism.
There are many other herbs that are commonly used but we should eschew them all. They do not have any property to “cure” and they contribute to ill health due to their poisonous products.
Aloe vera is a cactus that grows outdoors in tropical and subtropical climates and indoors everywhere else. When you break open one of its leaves, you see a thick, clear liquid ooze out.It is this liquid that is claimed to be a “cure” for burns, ulcers, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, psoriasis, shingles, hemorrhages, post-surgery treatment and more. It is applied topically and taken internally in a liquid form. However, instead of curing anything, it is actually a toxic substance. It contains allontoin which results in the same adverse effects as the alkaloid of comfrey. A cathartic, its purgative properties are due to three pentosides (barbaloin, iso-barbaloin, and beta-barbaloin) and to a resin. The resin is aloetin.
Aloe emodin occurs in the free state and as glycoside in various species of aloe and is extremely irritating to the delicate linings of the intestinal tract. The body attempts to discharge this poison quickly. Hence, its purgative effects.
But what about the claims? Many people experience that their sores, burns, and ulcers heal almost immediately after applying aloe vera, where otherwise would heal very slowly. The body is continually striving toward health and will do all it can to protect itself from any poisonous substances. When aloe vera is applied to an ulcer, the body closes off that opening as quickly as it can to block the entrance of that poisonous substance thereby protecting itself. This gives the false impression of proper healing. However, when the ulcer was an outlet for toxic materials, this vital outlet is closed off and toxins are kept inside the body. Now a new outlet must be found. Either other ulcers will form or more serious diseases will result.
If you do not interfere with bodily intelligence, healing will take place. To “intelligently do nothing” is the best advice for all ulcers, psoriasis, etc. That is, simply follow the teachings of Life Science/Natural Hygiene and your body will surely be vital enough to heal itself promptly.
The principles of acupuncture are based on cell paralysis. The idea on which Chinese medicine is founded is the “Doctrine of the Two Principles: Yang and Yin.” According to this philosophy, everything in the universe is governed by these two principles. Yang is the masculine principle, Yin the feminine. They are opposite in all aspects. Yang stands for heaven, Yin for earth. Yang is heat, Yin is cold. Life and death, strong and weak, positive and negative, day and night, dry and wet, hard and soft, light and dark—all these are Yang-Yin—pairs of opposites. Unless these two forces are in exact balance, according to Chinese folklore, health, peace, and well-being are impossible to attain. When the relationship between Yang and Yin get out of balance within a person’s body, illness results. The task of the physician, then, is to restore health by renewing the equality of Yang and Yin, according to the Chinese acupuncturist.
The Chinese regard acupuncture as a complete medical system based upon the principle that man is a part of nature. Since nature is precise, then therefore, man is precise. Predictable order reigns in nature and in man. They claim that disturbance in that order results in illness and it is the acupuncturist’s work to restore that order and thereby “cure” the illness. By inserting hair-thin needles into certain points on the body, acupuncturists treat disease and malfunctions of every organ of the body. The Chinese people believe that channels of energy, called “meridians” run through the body. In acupuncture, needles are inserted at specific points along the meridians.
Illness is explained in terms of disharmony between man and nature, and in man, between Yin and Yang. Illnesses are either Yin or Yang and the therapy used to “cure” them will be either Yin or Yang.
Ch’i comes into the body at birth and leaves at death. During person’s lifetime it flows in a specific and continuous pattern in the forms of Yin and Yang. Ch’i does not inhabit the body at random, although it is present throughout the organism. Instead it flows inside a system of channels called “meridians” that extend into the arms and legs and around the torso beneath the surface of the skin. These meridians are not the vessels of the circulatory system that carry blood. They are not the nerves of the central nervous system.
The Chinese contend that Yin and Yang may not be equal—one rises as the other falls—but their total amount must be properly distributed among the organs for the body to remain healthy. In any organ, Yin and Yang are delicately balanced with each other. Illness results if the balance is disrupted. At certain times of the day, the Yin or Yang “influence” will be stronger than its counterpart, but this is a normal rhythm and will not cause illness or disease. When an imbalance causes sickness, the acupuncturist tries to discover where Yin or Yang has become too strong and with his needles restore the balance, as prescribed in an ancient book called the Nei Ching. The illness supposedly disappears when he has done this successfully.
Such treatment based on superstition and opposed to physiology must be discarded. Acupuncturists hold no “cures” and their needles cannot possibly heal. They can do harm if they strike a nerve and damage it. Cleverly-placed needles distress the nerves, resulting in the secretion of narcotizing encephalins, but this procedure cannot possibly restore health. One is anesthesized into relative unawareness of illness.
Vitamins resemble enzymes in their catalytic action, producing changes without undergoing any changes in themselves. They are active in extremely minute quantities.
Vitamins are constant constituents of living tissues and they make it possible for the body to utilize proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and minerals and are essential to growth, regeneration, and maintenance of health. They must be taken in the context of whole foods since there is a distinct relation between the amount of vitamins required and the other food elements. As Dr. Shelton tells us, the efficiency of the vitamins is dependent upon the composition of the food mixture.
Adverse changes take place when an excessive amount of vitamins are taken in concentrated form, especially vitamins A, E, and D. The other vitamins can be harmful, too, but these are the fat soluble vitamins and are difficult to eliminate and oxidize when taken in excess. As a result, you have abnormal changes that take place in the cells.
If the vitamins and minerals have been separated from their natural partners or nutritive elements that stabilize them and work harmoniously with them, they become harmful. There is not an isolated nutritive component that can lead to the same kind of activity that results when nutritional elements are derived from a natural source. In an extracted form, there is some activity but if is not a normal one.
The vitamins that are contained in fruits, vegetables, and nuts are much more available than those derived from other food sources, such as flesh foods or any cooked foods. The vitamins in synthetic form are not utilizable at all.
Even those vitamins derived from raw foods may not be utilized due to certain abnormal interferences such as the inhibiting effects of tobacco upon digestion, the use of coffee, tea, and other such substances. Also, the use of vinegar and condiments inhibit digestion and thus prevent vitamin utilization.
The body uses vitamins and minerals synergistically with one another. For example, the utilization of vitamin C is better with iron and the B complex. The B complex is used better with A and D. Such minerals as zinc, manganese, and magnesium are necessary for best utilization of vitamin C and B complex. In whole raw foods, we receive the vitamins and minerals in correct proportions so that they are used appropriately.
Concerning the use of synthetic vitamins as “cures” Dr. Shelton says:
“The use of certain vitamins is said to ‘cure’ certain ‘diseases.’ We must not permit ourselves to be misled by these claims. They have no more validity than the claims that drugs, or other such substances, ‘cure’ disease. There is no so-called disease that is due to a unitary cause—every disease is the complex effects of a number of correlated antecedents—and no disease is curable by a unitary cure. On the other hand, practically all of the so-called deficiency states that are said to require vitamins for their cure, will and do get well while the patient is fasting and drinking only distilled water. The wild enthusiasm caused by the discovery of vitamins will sooner or later, give way to sober reflection and it will then be recognized that the research workers and others have permitted their enthusiasm to run away with their judgment.”
A study was conducted to determine the link between adequate amounts of vitamins and the ability of the liver to produce a group of enzymes that inhibits the action of carcinogens. Laboratory animals were fed an artificial diet that included sufficient quantities of all known vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients in a highly-purified form. The animals were unable to produce the important liver enzymes. When small amounts of alfalfa were added to the artificial diet, the enzyme production began almost immediately. Other fresh vegetables—cabbage, brussels sprouts, turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, dill, and celery—also enabled their systems to produce the anti-carcinogenic enzymes.
We cannot utilize inorganic vitamins and minerals. All the essential nutrients that we require are provided in abundance in a diet of raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts. If our diet is correct, we do not have to worry about deficiencies of any kind.
Vitamin E is widely promoted as a preventive, a treatment, or a “cure” for literally scores of human ailments—ranging from diabetes and heart disease to infertility, ulcers, and warts.
A consumer’s report cited an early experiment conducted to determine whether vitamin E was a valid therapy:
“In 1953 M. K. Horwitt, M.D., head of the Biochemical Research Laboratory at Elgin State Hospital in Elgin, Illinois, made the first study of what happens when humans are maintained for protracted periods on low-E diets. The project spanned more than eight years—making it one of the longest as well as one of the most thorough studies of human metabolism under controlled conditions. A total of thirty-eight subjects participated in the study.
“The outcome of the project can be simply stated: There was no apparent physical or mental impairment caused by the restricted intake of vitamin E. Low-E patients remained in satisfactory health, despite the fact that blood levels of alpha-tocopherol were lowered by 80 percent. The survival time of their red blood cells became somewhat shorter—on the average, about 100 days instead of 123—than that of the two comparison groups (those on a low-E diet who received vitamin E supplements, and those on a standard diet). But the number of cells remained adequate and no patient became anemic. Nevertheless, the shorter survival time was considered sufficient reason for termination of the experiment. In earlier studies monkeys maintained on diets severely deficient in vitamin E had developed anemia, and Horwitt did not want to risk that possibility with the Elgin patients. In short, the study showed that human beings apparently need some vitamin E, but that the requirement is a modest one and can be easily satisfied by typical, everyday diets.”
Vitamin E enthusiasts claim that millions of Americans, especially those whose intake of polyunsaturated fats is low, don’t get enough vitamin E in their diet. The deficit, they insist, should be made up by vitamin E supplements. The fact is, however, as the National Research Council made clear in 1973, that vitamin E is available in adequate quantities in the ordinary diet. More than adequate supplies are in vegetables or fruits or nuts.
In a report published in March 1979, a recommendation against the over-the-counter sale of vitamin E supplements on the grounds that deficiencies of vitamin E are “practically nonexistent.” Currently, the Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamin E for adults is 12 to 15 International Units, equivalent to approximately 8 to 10 milligrams of natural vitamin E in foods.
Very low levels of vitamin E have been found in patients with cystic fibrosis, celiac disease, nontropical sprue, chronic pancreatitis, and a few other diseases. These disorders are not caused by lack of vitamin E, however, nor can they be helped by vitamin E. All of these ailments have one feature in common: an impairment in the small intestine’s ability to absorb fat. Consequently, the vitamin E dissolved in that fat is not absorbed either. Even if such patients eat diets with an abundant quantity of vitamin E, very little of it would reach their bloodstreams.
The doses of vitamin E specified in medicinal use commonly range from 300 to 600 milligrams a day or even higher—from thirty to sixty times the Recommended Daily Allowance. Clinical trials have failed to show any vitamin E benefits for miscarriages, sterility, menopausal disturbances, muscular dystrophies, cystic fibrosis, blood disorders, leg ulcers, diabetes, and a variety of heart and vascular diseases. No drug, including vitamin E, can “cure” these diseases because the causes for them are not dealt with. The 1973 statement by the National Research Council was also negative about the supposed value of vitamin E supplements for the wide variety of ailments for which vitamin E is promoted.
The efficacy of vitamin E in toilet soaps or cosmetics for skin care, despite advertised claims, has not been demonstrated. We know that no substance possesses any curative properties. Its proposed advantage in a deodorant was ruled out when the distribution of Mennen E was halted by its manufacturer because of an unexpected number of adverse reactions in unhappy users.
Vitamin C has been recommended to combat cancer, atherosclerosis, every “viral” disease, every so-called bacterial disease, poisoning of all kinds, mental illness, colds, injury, temperature extremes, old age, diabetes, allergy, cataracts, kidney stones, radiation sickness, arthritis, headaches, and bee stings.
While vitamin C plays a very important role in human physiology, it does not have the ability to wipe out the effects of unhealthful living that result in numerous acute and chronic diseases.
Since Dr. Pauling declared that vitamin C was a sure “cure” for the common cold, millions of Americans have been running to their neighborhood drugstores to obtain this vitamin. The effect of this practice is really a drug effect. While the body is eliminating excesses of vitamin C, other housecleaning duties (such as debris eliminated during colds) are temporarily halted. Thus, the illusion of “prevention” or “cure.”
All fresh raw fruits and vegetables contain several times over the vitamin C that we need. When cooked, however, this vitamin is readily destroyed and is, therefore, not available to us. It is important that we consume all our foods raw and as fresh as possible. Even in the winter, when freshness is lacking in many of our fruits and vegetables, we still receive a more than adequate supply.
Reflexology is a specialized form of massage and, among the many claims, it is said to be able to restore normalcy of function and give relief from pain to virtually any part of the body. The two basic modes of this therapy are foot reflexology and hand reflexology.
According to reflexology therapists, organs or parts on the right side of the body have their reflex areas on the right foot or hand. Organs on the left side of the body have their reflex areas on the left, foot and hand. Organs extending past the middle or center of the body will have reflex areas on both feet and hands. Where there are two like organs or parts (kidneys, ovaries, etc.), each has a reflex area on its corresponding foot and hand. The lower half of the body has its reflex areas on the lower half of the, foot, and the upper half of the body has its reflex areas on the upper half of the foot. The waistline is located approximately halfway between the base of the toes and the lower part of the heel.
It is said that reflexology stimulates the internal organs and increases circulation. It is based on the theory that if the body is in a healthy condition, with no congestion in it, no tender areas should be found on the feet. The tenderness, they say, is caused by crystalline deposits that form at the nerve endings in the feet. The purpose in doing compression foot massage is to break up these deposits (or crush them) so that they may become solvent and be carried away with the rest of the waste material in the body. Once these deposits are dissolved, the congestion is relieved, and the circulation to the body is improved.
This theory sounds reasonable, but like other therapies, it is based on symptomatic relief. It does not restore health because it does not remove the underlying cause of ill health. There can not be any “cures” through this method or any other if the causes of disease are left in force. Calcium deposits that may be deposited in the feet are the result of incorrect living habits. Simply removing these deposits does not create health.
When the fight-or-flight response is evoked, it brings into play the sympathetic nervous system, which is part of the autonomic, or involuntary nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system acts by secreting specific hormones: adrenalin or epinephrine and noradrenalin or norepinephrine. These hormones, epinephrine and its related substances, bring about the physiologic changes of increased blood pressure, heart, rate, and body metabolism.
Dr. Herbert Benson (The Relaxation Response, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1975) says:
“While the fight-or-flight response is associated with the overactivity of the sympathetic nervous system, there is another response that leads to a quieting of the same nervous system, indeed, there is evidence that hypertensive subjects can lower their blood pressure by regularly eliciting this other response. This is the Relaxation Response, an opposite, involuntary response that causes a reduction in the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. Since we cannot easily change the nature of modern life, perhaps better prevention and therapy for hyoerten:ior and other creases related to the fight-or-flight response might be achieved by actively bringing forth the Relaxation Response.”
It is true that stress does affect our health and we should learn to deal with this problem. It is also true that we need rest and relaxation on a daily basis. But this aspect alone will not produce health. All the other requirements for health must also be present in one package of totally healthful living. There are no “cures” in the Relaxation Response. If blood pressure is lowered, or metabolism is lowered through this method, this does not indicate that total health has been achieved. One or two symptoms of ill health may have temporarily disappeared, but that is all.
It has been claimed that people have been “cured” from such symptoms as facial pain after a single session of this therapy. Do not be fooled by this illusion. Ill health is developed after a period of time and the body needs time to heal. It cannot accomplish this task in a few minutes or a few days, it takes time. But when the proper conditions are provided (e.g., through a fast), the body will restore health.
The device used for ultrasound therapy consists of a small box. On its face are a few simple dials and gauges. Attached to a cord running into the unit is a transducer similar in appearance to a small bathtub shower spray extension. This transducer emits a stream of sound waves, at a frequency so high that they are inaudible to the human ear.
When this therapy is applied, a gel is spread on the surface of the body that is to be treated. When the transducer is placed against the injured part, the gel keeps the sound waves from being lost in the air.
On the box of the ultrasound unit is a dial where the ultrasound frequency may be set. It produces heat as the sound waves rub against cell molecules and cause them to vibrate. This heat penetrates just slightly under the skin but the ultrasound can penetrate into the joint.
This therapy is often used for persons with arthritis associated with calcium Deposits. The ultrasound waves break up the calcium which then disperses. One main problem is that it can also effect healthy bone and cause destruction there. The higher the ultrasound frequency, the greater the risk of bone damage. Since this therapy is still really in experimental stages, it is unknown what is a safe frequency, if indeed, there is. a safe range and also how long to apply the treatment. Besides being risky, no real and long-lasting benefit can be achieved. Calcium deposits may be broken up but the cause for their deposition has not been removed. They will, therefore, once again accumulate. At best, it is palliative. On the other hand, it can destroy healthy tissues and bones.
Repeated surveys have shown that those physicians who have the most contact with radiation (radiologists) have a significantly higher incidence of leukemia—at least nine times greater than that among all other males of the same age and at least four times greater than that for other physicians.
As atomic radiation permeates living tissues, highly-organized units of living matter in the cell are disrupted. Fundamentally, the cell is composed of atoms and molecules which are split by radiation into electrically-charged fragments. This ionization process is completed in less than a trillionth of a second, yet it triggers off a chain reaction of subtle events within the cell leading to its damage or eventual death. Since cells are not inert blobs of matter but living, reproducing, organisms, they react to the radiation-induced injury by repair processes which lead to apparent recovery. If the radiation dose is overwhelming, immediate or only slightly delayed death of the cell ensues when the cell attempts to divide.
Radiation also harms cells by producing changes in the environment. Cells are bathed by solutions from which radiation-produced activated products can reach and damage them. Also, cells can be damaged by interference with their blood supply and the action of poisonous products released by radiation-killed cells themselves.
Since tissues are a specialized population of cells, their exposure to radiation causes damage as a consequence of injury and death of the component cells. The overall effect involves not only the direct action of the radiation on the individual cells but changes in the surroundings of the tissues.
One tissue may give an immediate response to radiation and another no apparent or detectable response. However, the seemingly unresponsive tissue may show injury at a much later date. The recovery of tissues from immediate radiation injury depends on the specific cell types, or the size of the radiation dose, and on the time between repeated irradiations. These factors have been summarized by Doctors E. G. Williams and S. C. Ingraham II in a United States Health report for 1956 (Jack Schubert, Radiation NY: Viking Press, 1957):
“The blood-forming organs, the skin, the membranes lining body cavities, and the secreting glands may regenerate completely and resume their normal functions. Muscle, brain, and portions of the kidney and eye cannot regenerate; their repair results only in scar formation. Even those tissues that can regenerate may fail to respond after repeated ionization and cause conditions such as nonhealing ulcers or aplastic anemia (bone marrow destruction). Also, repeated regeneration may produce cancerous conditions ... These changes have all been observed in animals following radiation exposures at levels corresponding to doses only slightly above the accepted safe limits for man. There are no constant clinical symptoms which can be relied upon to warn of latent radiation injury before life-threatening changes become manifest.”
No cell fully recovers from a dose of radiation. While a cell may seem to recover, there is an irreversible effect on the chromosomes and genes. According to Drs. Williams and Ingraham: “Ionizing radiation can alter the genes in the body (somatic) cells and in the reproductive (sexual) cells and cause them to grow or reproduce abnormally. If a gene change occurs in a sexual cell, a mutation will occur in later generations provided that the cell is used in reproduction. If a gene change occurs in a cell of growing or regenerating somatic tissue like skin, liver, or bone marrow, it may cause cancerous or other harmful changes in the exposed individual.”
The late effects of radiation are often produced in cooperation with disturbances in body function in general. One of these disturbances in particular—hormonal imbalance —can in itself aid and abet the cancer-producing effects of radiation or even delay years the appearance of the cancer. Consequently, in evaluating the changes wrought by radiation in the body we must also take into account the complex inter-relationship existing between the various organs and the hormones released by the different endocrine glands.
Dr. Schubert theorizes that since hormones influence the regeneration and growth of almost all the cells in the body, it is reasonable to assume that many of the late changes and cancers developed in the body after radiation are related to the impairment of the endocrine glands such as the pituitary, thyroid, gonads, and adrenals, either as a result of the radiation directly on the endocrine organ or, indirectly, because of damage to a distant organ which then brings forth a response from the endocrines.
Since a female child possesses at birth all the ova she will ever use, it is very important to note that exposure of the ovaries to radiation affects eggs which are to be fertilized in the future. Thus, radiation damage is preserved by the ova and may result in defective children. Even if the children appear normal, they may carry defects in their heredity (the genes) which will be manifest in later generations.
A single dose of 50 r to the whole body causes the number of lymphocytes to drop by one-half in about “two to three days. It takes about a week for it to return to the preradiation level. After higher but nonlethal doses of radiation, the lymphocyte drop is abrupt and little or no evidence of recovery may be apparent for several months. In fact, it may take years before the number of white cells returns to normal. Another significant observation is the fact that individuals previously exposed to radiation show a greater depression of cell numbers upon subsequent radiation exposure.
The brain is considered to be relatively insensitive to small radiation doses, but this does not mean there is no damage—it means rather that there exists no suitable means of detecting damage, or that it has not beer, looked for, or that no cases have been followed for a long enough time. One must be suspicious of all tissues to which radiation has been given.
Relatively small doses of radiation to localized regions of the brain give immediate effects. In 1953, two volunteers were given 100 r to a localized region of the brain (diencephalon). About one and one-half hour; later they complained of ringing in the ears, generalized numbness, and apathy. Shortly thereafter they felt mentally stimulated. Sleep that night was very deep. The next morning they were very active and “high.” Then they became unusually quiet. The disturbances lasted about seven to ten days. These effects were confirmed in another experiment involving 120 persons.
There have also been several reports of brain damage in persons given heavy doses of radiation for brain tumors or for scalp lesions.
Derived from apricot pits, which contain cyanide, Laetrile was considered too toxic for human use by its discoverer, a Californian, Ernst Krebs, Sr., M.D. But years later, after his son, Ernst Krebs, Jr., claimed to have “purified” Laetrile, both father and son advocated it as an effective treatment for cancer. The Krebses patented their promising product as “Laetrile”—an acronym derived from the chemical name Laevo-mandelonitrile, the cyanide-containing substance they extracted from the crushed kernels of apricot pits.
The next step was to explain how Laetrile worked. With a little imagination, the younger Krebs came up with a “magic bullet” theory. Cancer cells, he claimed, contain an abundant amount of an enzyme that releases cyanide from Laetrile. The cyanide, in turn, kills off the tumor cells. Normal cells are low in that enzyme, the Krebs theory went, but rich in another enzyme that detoxifies the cyanide. So normal cells live while cancer cells die.
This theory was proved to be wrong. The supposedly abundant “releasing” enzyme is scarcer in cancer cells than in normal ones, and the “protective” enzyme is found in equal amounts in both kinds of cells. Moreover, cyanide does not have bullet-like precision. Because cyanide diffuses rapidly across intercellular barriers, any destructive effects would spread to both cancerous and noncancerous cells.
Its promoters then took a different course. Laetrile, the drug, was suddenly transformed in 1970 into Laetrile, the vitamin. Cancer, according to the later theory, was a vitamin-deficiency disease. Laetrile, it went on, was “vitamin B-17,” the “missing vitamin” needed to prevent and treat cancer.
Besides daily injections or oral doses of Laetrile, the “total holistic metabolic nutritional” regimen includes massive doses of vitamin C and other vitamins, chelated mineral supplements, even coffee enemas. The Laetrile-centered regimen emphasizes a strictly vegetarian diet, free of all animal protein. Often another nonvitamin B-15 or “pangamic acid,” is prescribed (B-15 is also the creation of the same Ernst Krebs, Jr., who christened Laetrile “B-17”).
Laetrile is one of the most tested substances ever put forward as a remedy for cancer. In 1953, the Cancer Commission of the California Medical Association investigated Laetrile and found it ineffective. As part of that study, the commission discovered that all but one of forty-four patients treated with Laetrile still had an active form of cancer or were dead.
The most comprehensive series of animal tests were done at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City. From 1972 to 1976 approximately thirty-seven experiments were conducted using Laetrile on mouse and rat tumors. Laetrile neither prolonged life, nor reduced tumor size, nor checked the spread of cancer.
Medical records submitted by Laetrile proponents have never substantiated the claims made. Many cancer patients who believe they had been cured by Laetrile find out later that they still have the disease. Others never had cancer to begin with. Some cancer patients have temporary remissions—periods when symptoms lessen; if Laetrile use coincides with such a remission, the patient may think Laetrile was the cause.
The FDA’s pharmacological analysis, in 1977 indicated that Laetrile smuggled or imported from Mexico in the form of oral doses and vials of injectable material under the names of “Laetrile” and “amygdalin” were potentially lethal sources of cyanide. Laboratory tests hinted that amygdalin might even be cancer-causing in its own right.
Jerry P. Lewis, M.D., chief on onncology and hematology at the University of California School of Medicine in Davis, reported late in 1977 the case of a seventeen-year-old in Los Angeles who swallowed approximately 10 1/2 grams (one-third of an ounce) of injectable Laetrile. The young woman had a convulsion ten minutes later, and died without recovering consciousness. In mid-1977, a ten-month-old girl died in an upstate New York hospital a few days after gulping down several Laetrile-tablets. Beyond these documented deaths, the FDA toxologists suggest that many cancer patients whose death after long-term, high-dose Laetrile medication was attributed to their malignancy actually succumbed to slow cyanide poisoning from Laetrile.
In addition to being deceived, the patients or their families have to pay dearly for the deception.
Laetrile therapy does not come cheap. The cost of 6 month’s treatment at a Mexican clinic has been estimated at between $1,500 and $2,000. Laetrile smuggled into the United States is priced as high as $50 for a half-ounce vial for injection, compared with a $9 price tag in Tijuana. Tablets sell for nearly two dollars in this country, but cost only about three cents to manufacture.
Cancer is the end point of a lifetime of unhealthful living and the accumulated toxins that results from such a lifestyle. Adding more poisons to our body as “medicines” will not produce health.
Probably the most extensive study of mail-order health advertising was done in the summer of 1977 by the quackery committee of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. The committee screened five-hundred nationally-circulated magazines and found that about a quarter of them carried ads for mail-order health products. Altogether, about one-hundred-fifty such products were offered by fifty promoters. The products included weight reducers, bust developers, blemish removers, hair-loss remedies, longevity formulas, aphrodisiacs, impotency aids, and others.
According to Postal Service estimates, mail-order fraud costs Americans at least $150 million a year.
In January 1978, some two million copies of a four-page brochure were accepted for insertion into the various editions of eighteen city newspapers from coast to coast. The brochure promoted a handbook, “Modern Solution to Age Old Physical Problems,” published by the Midwest Health Research Laboratory. The handbook, it was claimed, “contained a solution or prevention for as many as forty different diseases and illnesses,” including arthritis, diabetes, and hardening of the arteries. More than one thousand readers surrendered to the inviting logic of the promotion: “Our special introductory offer of $9.95 can save you unnecessary visits to the doctor, the hospital, and save you money.”
Those who mailed money received a twenty-five-page booklet revealing the secret cure-all and end-all of disease —“colonic irrigation,” otherwise known as an enema, preferably “two and three times a week.” Coupons were available for those desiring “personal Home Treatment Kits” at $29.95 apiece.
The Washington Post and eleven other prominent publications carried full-page ads for Thera-Slim-100, the “diet aid” that supposedly “burns away more fat each 24 hours than if you ran 14 miles a day.”
Research conducted by the Consumer’s Union resulted in several conclusions concerning some of the more widely-publicized health “cures”:
There are many other “cures” being sold through the mail and magazine advertisements, but all are worthless. They are all dishonest attempts to make money from an uninformed or unknowing public. There are no “cures.”
It is claimed that this single dietary factor plays a role in such diseases as appendicitis, diverticular disease, polyps of the large bowel, cancer of the bowel, irritable colon, hiatial hernia, gallbladder disease, diabetes, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, obesity, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, thrombophlebitis, and dental disease.
Dr. Benjamin H. Ershoff, a research professor of biochemistry at Loma Linda University and the University of Southern California, points to many studies conducted during the past twenty years that he says indicate the beneficial effects of plant fiber-containing materials when administered to animals fed on low-fiber diets. But the beneficial effects are seen when this fiber is part of the natural food and not separated from it.
In 1943, two American medical investigators observed that immature mice who were being given a compound related to vitamin C—glucoascorbic acid—developed a severe condition characterized by growth failure, diarrhea, hemorrhages beneath the skin, hair loss, and death. But the condition developed only in mice who were being fed on a highly-refined ration. It did not develop at all in mice fed similar doses of glucoascorbic acid in conjunction with a natural food stock ration or in mice fed the refined diet supplemented with dried grass.
In 1954, Ershoff showed that alfalfa meal, when incorporated in the diet was similarly effective. He continued to see if any known nutrient in the alfalfa meal might account for the phenomenon. It was not a nutrient that was responsible. When juice was extracted from the alfalfa, it had no effect. But the whole alfalfa with pulp included provided beneficial results.
It turned out that various grasses—rye, orchard, wheat, fescue, and oat—were also effective. When cellulose was tried, it had a moderate effect, considerably less than that obtained with the fiber—containing alfalfa and varied grasses.
“Nearly all disease,” says Denis Burkett, “has more than one causative factor. Not in any of these diseases would suggest that fiber deficiency is a sole causative factor, merely that it may be one important factor. What I would emphasize is that a fiber-depleted diet is a common factor, common to a number of characteristic Western diseases. It is a major factor, I believe, in some, a less important factor in others, but it is common to each of them and offers the only reasonable explanation put forward, I think, why these diseases are associated.”
These diverse diseases are related because the underlying cause is the same in each. That is, an unhealthy and unnatural diet plus other poor living habits. A natural diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds will provide us with all of the proper nutrients needed to ensure a state of health. The natural fiber will be there in proper amounts and we do not need to think about providing this one ingredient separately. The fiber is the undigestable part of the plant and we receive no nourishment from it anyway. It is certainly not so important as is claimed. It is not any “cure” since it is an inert substance that passes through the digestive tract unchanged. It is discarded by the body in this way because it is nonusable.
The mice fed on an unnatural and refined diet became sick not because of lack of fiber alone but because of the presence of toxins in an unnatural diet. This diet was foreign to their body and was not sufficient to promote health. When some of their natural foods were given, such as alfalfa, health was restored because their organism was once again provided with the nutriment they needed, and healing and normalization took place. This was certainly not due to the fiber present in the diet but due to the many factors in their natural diet that are essential for their particular requirements.
Many human disease conditions are associated with low-fiber diets consisting largely of refined breads, cereals, sweets, etc. However, this again is not due to the lack of fiber alone. Other aspects to take into consideration are the presence of toxic elements and lack of vitamins, minerals, and proteins in ‘these refined products. Merely adding fiber in the form of bran will not decrease the toxicity of these foods.
Our natural foods are complete with all nutrients including fiber and these are the foods that will provide the conditions for health.
List 4 - Milk and milk products
List 5 - Vegetables - 1/2 cup per serving
This diet depends on the periodic ingestion of fructose and a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet is followed. Dates are eaten between meals to maintain high blood sugar levels.
The foods are divided into seven basic types: 1) “free foods” which can be eaten in any amount since they contain negligible amounts of carbohydrates, fats, or proteins; 2) meat; 3) fat; 4) milk; 5) vegetables; 6) fruit; 7) flour products.
The fructose diet is intended for people who have functional hypoglycemia, for those who wish to lose weight without feeling hungry or irritable, for those who wish to reduce their craving for alcohol, for people who wish to avoid the onset of migraine headaches or premenstrual tension, for hyperactive children, and for persons with certain psychotic tendencies. Do not be fooled by these claims. The Fructose Diet or any diet cannot detoxify and heal. But they certainly can derange the body!
The lists of foods for this diet is as follows:
| Bouillon | Pepper & other spices |
| Clear broth | Pickles |
| Coffee | Rennet tablets |
| Cranberries | Salt |
| Horseradish | Seasonings |
| Lemon | Vinegar |
| Mustard |
This list of “free foods” contains the most toxic food elements that we can ingest. Except for lemon, all of the above foods are eliminated on the Hygienic diet not only for their toxicity but because they are irritants, and interfere with normal digestion.
| Asparagus | Eggplant | Rhubarb |
| Bean sprouts | Lettuce | Sauerkraut |
| Broccoli | Mushrooms | Spinach |
| Brussels sprouts | Parsley | Summer squash |
| Cauliflower | Peppers | String beans |
| Celery | Pimentoes | Tomatoes |
| Cucumbers | Radishes | Zucchini |
Sauerkraut, spinach, rhubarb, radishes, parsley, and mushrooms all contain toxins which interfere with normal assimilation of certain nutrients. The other vegetables would be healthful additions to our meals if consumed raw.
This list includes meats, fish, cheese, peanut butter, and eggs—each serving contains seven grams of protein. All of these foods are unnatural items in the human diet and contribute to disease.
| Avocado - 1/8 | French Dressing - 1 Tbsp. |
| Butter - 1 tsp. | Mayonnaise - 1 tsp. |
| Bacon - 1 slice | Nuts - 6 small |
| Chocolate - 2 tsp. | Oil - 1 tsp. |
| Light cream - 2 Tbsp. | Olives - 5 |
| Heavy cream - 1 Tbsp. | Shortening - 1 tsp. |
| Lard - 1 tsp. | Cream Cheese - 1 Tbsp. |
Except for the avocado and nuts in this list, these “foods” would result in ill health in anyone consuming them.
1 cup of milk or yogurt equals one serving
1/4-cup ice cream equals one serving
Humans cannot digest milk products due to lack of the enzymes rennin and lactase. Ice cream contains many unnatural and toxic ingredients and a high percentage of refined sugar. Yogurt is fermented milk and also may contain high levels of sugar. Humans cannot digest the byproducts of fermentation and putrefaction.
| Beets | Rutabagas |
| Carrots | Winter squash |
| Onions | Turnips |
| Green peas | Tomato puree |
| Pumpkin | Frozen mixed vegetables |
These vegetables are all served cooked and add little to the value of the diet.
| Apple - 1 | Orange -1 |
| Applesauce – 1/2 cup | Peach - 1 |
| Apricots - 2 | Pear - 1 |
| Banana – 1/2 | Pineapple - 1/2 cup |
| Berries - 1 cup | Plums - 2 |
| Cantaloupe -, Vi | Watermelon - 3” x 1 1/2” |
| Cherries- 10 | Grapefruit - 1/2 |
| Fresh figs - 2 | Grapes - 12 |
| Nectarine - 1 | Honeydew - 1/4 |
List 6 provides the only major worthwhile contribution to the diet but in such small portions that they are merely “crops in the bucket.”
Flour products and starchy vegetables.
As was explained in earlier lessons, humans have a limited capacity for starch digestion. In addition, wheat has toxic acids that are harmful and therefore should not be consumed.
For most people following this diet, Dr. Palm recommends that two to three servings of protein foods from List 2 and usually just one serving per meal for the remaining categories be included. Such high amounts of protein will only further endanger your health.
Several recipes include the use of concentrated fructose. In addition, Dr. Palm requires that you eat between 75 and 100 grams of fructose daily—available in tablet or powder form. Fructose is refined from sucrose, ordinary white sugar. The health consequences of such a practice is the same as ingesting the same amount of refined white sugar. This diet is dangerous and could never result in any benefits.
The roots of diet therapy in the treatment of patients with peptic ulcer extend far back in medical history. As early as the first century, Celsus ordered smooth diets free of “acrid” food, and practitioners of the seventh century wrote of their belief in “special healing properties” of milk for patients with digestive disturbances. In the first half of the nineteenth century, peptic ulcer became established as a pathologic and clinical entity, and physicians generally advocated a liberal dietary regimen with frequent feedings.
However, in the later part of the nineteenth century, a radical change developed in medical opinion concerning peptic ulcer treatment. The belief spread that food was harmful to the ulcer, and only complete rest—meaning an empty stomach—would allow the stomach to heal itself. When the body is free from the irritation of the presence of food and when the digestive system is given a complete rest, healing will commence. This is the safest known method to regain health and its beneficial results can be documented by anyone who is familiar with fasting.
However, in 1915, an American physician, Bertram Sippy, broke the common practice of fasting end established the beginning principles of continuous control of gastric acidity through diet and alkaline medication. He outlined a program of milk and cream feedings with slow additions of single soft food items over a prolonged period of time, allowing little variation.
In general, Sippy’s regimen is used today by many physicians and dietitions for gastric ulcer patients. This diet therapy is based on several erroneous principles. The food must be both acid neutralizing and nonirritating, according to this principle.
The therapy begins with milk and cream feedings every hour or so, to supposedly neutralize free acid with the milk protein, suppress gastric secretion with the cream, and generally soothe the Ulcer by coating the stomach. However, these assumptions have not been supported by research. In fact, clinical evidence proves them to be worthless.
There are gradual additions of soft bland foods over a period of time, keeping some food in the stomach at all times to mix with the acid to prevent its corrosive action on the ulcer. These bland foods are usually limited to choices of white toast or crackers, refined cereals, eggs, milk, cheeses, a few cooked pureed fruits and vegetables, and later, ground meat.
With such frequent meals, the digestive organs are never allowed to rest, and recovery is prolonged rather than assisted. In addition, many of the foods advocated are toxic and further contribute to the reason for the disease.
The therapy is concerned with eliminating chemical, mechanical, and thermal irritation.
Any food believed to stimulate gastric secretions is prohibited. These include highly-seasoned foods, meat extractives, coffee, lea, alcohol, citrus fruit juices, dried foods, spices, and flavorings.
I could concur with this rule. The above foods are highly irritating for anyone and all except citrus juices contain toxic components that would result in sickness in a well person. For a sick individual who is already enervated, the results are just that much worse.
Any food believed to be abrasive in its effect upon the ulcer is prohibited. These include all raw foods, plant fiber (strained fruits and vegetables are used), coarse or rough foods, whole grains, and “gas forming,” or strongly-flavored foods.
Hygienists advocate that all foods should be withheld for the gastric ulcer patient. To ensure complete return of health, a fast is in order. After the fast, a diet of the same foods that are prohibited above would be those that would be the best to maintain health. That is a diet that consists of raw foods, mostly fruit.
Any very hot or cold food believed to irritate the lesion by its effect on surface blood vessels are prohibited. These include hot beverages and soups, frozen desserts or iced beverages.
On this point. I would concur.
After initial hourly milk and cream only, the diet is gradually increased as the ulcer heals. The routine usually, follows a progressive four-stage pattern as follows:
Stage 1 - For this initial stage of the dietary therapy, the following foods are permitted: milk, cream, butter, margarine, eggs, cooked and refined cereals, plain custard, Jell-O, rennet, plain puddings, vanilla ice cream, noodles, macaroni, spaghetti, white rice, white bread, soda crackers, cheese, jelly, honey, sugar, white potatoes, and creamed soups.
A healthy man could live for a very short time on this diet before he became extremely ill. Why, then, is it advocated for sick individuals? It defies reason.
Stage 2 - During this second stage of the bland diet, strained fruit juices are allowed to a limited extent (starting with 1/2 cup). In addition to the fruit juice, the following “foods” are added to the diet: plain cake such as angel food, sponge, pound, butter cake; winter squash; strained asparagus, peas, carrots, green beans, beets, spinach; cooked, stewed fruits.
The fruit juice would be a welcome addition to the diet if it is served fresh. No individual—healthy or sick—should be served cake as it contains toxic ingredients along with refined white sugar and flour that will result in toxicosis and sickness. Since the vegetables and fruits in the above list are all served overcooked and strained, they contribute little value to this diet.
Stage 3 - At this stage, flesh foods are added to the diet. These include fowl, fish, and beef that has been ground.
As we have stated in earlier lessons, flesh is a terrible food for man. We are not equipped to deal with the many toxic byproducts of flesh and therefore, its ingestion will invariably lead to ill health.
Stage 4 - At this stage, certain desserts are added such as prune or apricot whip, plain cookies, plain sherbert, water ices, and fine graham crackers. Also, some additional cooked vegetables and fruits are added.
This entire diet is a nutritional disaster and will result only in disease. Recent research studies demonstrate the uselessness of this type of dietary therapy.
A. M. Gill reported a series of studies with chronic ulcer patients, whose ulcers healed in four to eight weeks with placebo treatment of a daily injection of one ml. of distilled water and no diet or exercise restrictions or medications. He concluded that ulcers healed not by manipulation of the various common therapies used but because, “... the man with the ulcer comes under the care of a physician who is able to transmit some of his own confidence to the patient.”
Gill’s studies were valuable in that he found that the orthodox dietary therapy was useless even though he arrived at some other erroneous conclusions. But his theory that no therapy is better than the bland one, is valid.
Other researchers likewise have found that bland food do not increase the rate of healing, nor was there any particular benefit from avoidance of all foods thought to be commonly irritating (such as fruits and vegetables).
It has been demonstrated that routine omission of any fiber in the diet also seems to have no benefits.
Modes of eating—wrong foods or wrong combinations of foods, improper mastication, and rapid consumption of meals are more involved as sources of irritation. Many physicians, such as Dr. H. J. Shull, contend from their experiences with individual patients that so-called coarse or rough foods; such as lettuce, raw fruits, celery, cabbage, and nuts, do not necessarily traumatize a peptic ulcer when they are properly chewed and mixed with saliva. Grinding or straining of food is needed only when teeth are poor or absent!
Barry Tarshis (DMSO New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. 1981) believes that he has found the true panacea for all illnesses. He states:
“... let’s say, for the sake of argument, that (somebody—the government, a drug company, a foundation—pulled together a blue-ribbon group of pharmacologists and physicians, presented them an unlimited budget and told them to develop a drug that came closer to being a panacea than any substance now known. Imagine the properties that such a drug, were it ever developed, would embody.
“To begin with, the drug would be effective not only against one or two conditions and diseases, but against a broad range of maladies, from simple, everyday problems such as sprains and sinusitis to life-threatening diseases such as stroke or cancer. The drug, in other words, would be far more powerful than aspirin and a good deal more versatile than, say, penicillin.
“Apart from its effectiveness, the drug would be safe, keeping in mind that not even aspirin is completely harmless. Physicians who prescribed it wouldn’t have to concern themselves with the adverse reactions that may claim as many as 30,000 to 60,000 lives a year in the United States alone. And the people who take it wouldn’t have to suffer the myriad side effects—headache, fatigue, blurring of vision, mental disorientation—that come with the territory when you have a chronic disease for which there are only a handful of medications available.
“The drug would also be versatile—versatile enough so that, depending on the condition, a physician could administer it orally or topically, by injection or intravenously. And it would be stable enough so that you could ship it anywhere in the world, or keep it on the shelf for months and not have to worry about it spoiling or losing its potency. The raw materials from which the drug was made would be readily available, so that you would never have to concern yourself with a shortage. And, finally, if you had a social conscience, you’d want the drug to be inexpensive enough (somewhat less expensive than, say, the interferon treatments now being offered for cancer in Europe at a price of $65,000) so that patients who took it on a long-term basis wouldn’t have to spend a big chunk of their yearly income for the privilege of living without pain.”
The name of this new “wonder drug” is dimethyl sulfoxide or DMSO for short. It is being used for such ailments as sprains and sinusitis to burns and arthritis. Some people claim that it has the ability to stabilize progressively crippling arthritic conditions and to alleviate certain forms of mental illness.
This powerful and toxic drug passes through cell membranes so quickly that you can taste it minutes after it has been applied to the skin. Combined with other drugs, it will carry them through cell membranes that were formerly impenetrable to these drugs when taken alone. Due to this property, DMSO can cause immeasurable damage to all the cells of the body. These cell membranes can become weakened or altered and many other toxins besides DMSO will enter the cell which would not ordinarily enter. Such derangement of the cells may result in serious health consequences—much more serious than the ailment for which it was given.
There is never any “easy way out”—no quick and magical path to health. Many athletes have been using this poisonous drug for years for sprains, pulls, and other soft-tissue injuries. Continued suppression of pain by this drug will eventually result in permanent damage. Besides this, DMSO is now being used regularly by thousands of arthritic patients. People use DMSO for cuts, for sores, for itching conditions. Some people even rub it on their gums.
Do not be fooled by misleading claims. No agent outside of the human body has the ability to heal. The regular use of drugs can result only in greater health destruction.
Certain places of the world are well known for their mineral springs that are said to have therapeutic properties. Sometimes it is recommended that these waters be consumed or bathed in as a “cure” for assorted ailments.
The theory behind all forms of hydrotherapy is that the minerals of the water will, in very small amounts, enter your system through the skin or mucous membranes and help restore your entire system to a healthier state.
However, these inorganic minerals are inert substances and have no magic about them. They cannot enter the system through the skin and impose any health benefits. If consumed, they cannot be utilized by the body and may prove toxic.
Honey, bee pollen, bee propolis, and royal jelly are substances collected or produced by bees for their winter food supply, for reproduction, protection, etc.
Honey is a popular product and is essentially sugar (about 1/3 to 1/2 glucose, 1/3 to 1/2 fructose, and the rest water). Bee pollen consists of certain pollen grains of flowers incidentally collected by bees while gathering nectar. It contains protein, vitamins and minerals, and enzymes. It is not a food that bees consume except as a honey contaminant.
Bee pollen is often used by athletes because it is claimed that it will increase their energy and stamina. This effect, however, is an illusion. Its stimulatory effect will first produce a false sense of increased energy, but like all other stimulants will soon have the opposite effect due to enervation of the stimulation of the organs involved.
Neither is propolis one of the bees’ food products. It consists of various tree resins, collected and applied to the interior of the hive by them. It acts as a kind of cement to keep their hives intact. When ingested by humans, this substance will have a stimulatory effect due to the response of the body to attempt to eliminate this foreign material. It has no place in human nutrition and has no property to “cure” as is often claimed.
Royal jelly is produced from honey and pollen and fed exclusively to the queen bee. It is made by the bees for the unique dietary needs of developing a queen bee and is excellent food for her.
With respect to honey it cannot be emphasized enough that:
With respect to pollen keep in mind that, in gathering nectar, the bee performs a symbiotic service for the plant. It becomes contaminated with pollen and spreads it to the female flower, thus fertilizing it. Pollen’s role is to create a seed package, not to serve as a food. When the seed package is mature, it ripens a part of the package as fruit which is free food for the creatures that incidentally perform a service in distributing the plant’s seeds. That is symbiosis.
Pollen is not unique as a food and has no value. It fails to furnish our foremost need, carbohydrates, for energy. It is only the incipient nutrients and components to fertilize a flower ovary and thus create a seed package of which a part might be edible fruit. In that case we get not only all the nutrients contained in pollen but in a form specifically created to meet our needs. Most important of all we get an easily absorbable complement of simple sugars ready to convert to energy!
The macrobiotic diet consists of 60 to 100% grains. These include brown rice, buckwheat, wheat, corn, barley, and millet. They are eaten raw, cooked, creamed, with or without water, fried, or baked. A maximum of 30% of the diet may consist of vegetables. These vegetables that are considered permissible include: carrots, onions, pumpkin (a fruit), radish, cabbage, cauliflower, and lettuce.
Grain is considered “Principal Food” and is eaten at every meal. The principle behind this diet is based on the same Yin-Yang theory as for acupuncture. Yin and Yang are antagonistic but complementary forces. Certain foods are considered Yang foods and others are Yin foods. There must be a certain balance between Yin and Yang.
When a person becomes ill, it is recommended that he/she eat 100% grains. In addition to this, certain specific beverages and/or foods are used for specific ailments—all based on the superstitious Yin-Yang theory.
This type of diet not only cannot produce health but it can be very harmful if persisted in over a period of time. Humans are not grain eaters—we are frugivores. We are not biologically equipped to digest, assimilate, and utilize large amounts of grains. Fruits contain plenty of sugar, but little or no starch, whereas the cereals are largely starch. Starch requires much more time and energy to digest than fruit. Cereals are among the most difficult of foodstuffs to digest. The protein of most cereals are inadequate. They also contain an excess of acid due to the absence of certain base minerals, especially calcium. The need for calcium of most cereal plants is relatively small so they do not draw much of this mineral from the soil. In the human organism, on the other hand, the need for calcium is very great. Cereals, are therefore, inadequate to support growth.
Oats are deficient in many basic salts. Wheat is deficient in sodium and calcium. Rice is deficient in salts, and especially in calcium. It is also deficient in sodium and chlorine. They are all lacking in iodine. What does this mean when we consume large amounts of cereals? Since cereals are acid forming, they must draw on base minerals from the body to neutralize these acids so as not to create a condition of acidosis within the body. These base salts are withdrawn from the tissues, bones, and teeth, eventually resulting in various pathological disorders such as osteoporosis and dental caries.
Dr. Shelton says, “We have learned that all cereals have certain defects which may be looked upon as characteristic of these nutriments. As regards organic salts, they are deficient in sodium and calcium; they are also poorly supplied with organically-combined sulfur and with bases generally; but they contain a superabundance of acid-formers and of potassium. The cereals are also poor in vitamins A, B, and C. Finally, the proteins of the cereals are always inadequate; they are lacking in essential amino acids, and are especially poor in lysin and cystin.”
A study of the human anatomy and physiology will clearly demonstrate which food humans are best suited to eat. For optimum health, we should stick with our biologically-correct fruitarian diet.
Are the natural or “organic” vitamins any better than the synthetic ones?
No, a vitamin is nothing more than a specific compound, whether it is synthesized or extracted from a plant. In either form, they are not usable by the body but may be toxic. All the vitamins that we require are found in our whole natural foods and this is how they must be taken to be utilized.
Is choline effective in keeping fat from accumulating in the liver and arteries as claimed by some advertisements that I have read?
Choline manufacturers may have a difficult time explaining why anyone should swallow choline pills. Choline is widely available in the diet and is also manufactured in the body. It is considered an essential nutrient, but dietary deficiencies have never been demonstrated in man. Although choline has been widely used to treat fatty liver, as well as cirrhosis and hepatitis, it has never been demonstrated that this type of therapy is of any value. It is, in fact, worthless, and should not be used.
I have diverticulitis and my doctor told me not to eat fruits and vegetables. Is that good advice?
Diverticula are outpouchings that can develop in weak spots in the bowel wall. When many of these outpouchings are present and one or more become inflamed causing pain, the condition is known as diverticulitis.
This condition was virtually nonexistent in the early twentieth century and is now known as a disease of Western civilization. Its incidence has increased steadily in industrialized countries until between one-third and one-half the population over forty in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Australia suffer from it. Diverticulitis results from the increased use of refined flour and cereals and the substitution of foods containing large amounts of sugar and of meat for fruits and vegetables. In countries where the diet is high in fruits and vegetables, diverticular disease is still nonexistent.
The very foods that you were told to avoid are the ones that you should be eating exclusively. It would, however, be advisable to fast first to allow the bowel to heal.
Will apple cider vinegar “cure” colds and catarrh?
Cider vinegar is made by pressing the juice out of the apples and fermenting it, in the same way as making cider. The fermented juice is left to age for about six months and then the process of turning the alcohol into acetic acid begins.
Acetic acid is very destructive and corrosive to the tissues of the digestive canal and to all tissues and cells of the body. A small amount will halt digestion completely. This acid is so strong that it will dissolve certain metals and remove rust from steel. Consumption of vinegar will result in ill health and should never be consumed. There is no “cure” for colds. This is a reaction on the part of the organism to rid itself of accumulated toxic debris and should not be interfered with. Vinegar is a drug whose use suppresses the body’s vital activity in conducting the eliminative task called a cold.
Could you suggest a diet for migraine headaches?
There are no diet “cures.” Foods cannot act as specifics and go directly to the afflicted area to effect a cure. Only the body can heal and will promptly do so when the proper conditions provided. A natural diet of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds will provide the proper condition for the body to heal if the other conditions for health are also present.
What is the difference between white and red Ginseng? Are either forms acceptable to take?
All ginseng roots are naturally white. The red roots are produced by a special process that includes treating the white roots with other herbs, steaming, and other steps. This process is supposed to preserve the root and prevent insect infestation. As mentioned earlier, ginseng is a toxic substance and should not be consumed. The red root is just that much worse because it has the addition of other toxic herbs. Neither forms are acceptable.
66.1. The Germ Theory Of Disease
66.2. Pasteur Becomes Identified As Originator Of Germ Theory
66.5. Pasteur Changes His Mind
66.6. A Plausible And Tangible Basis For “Medical Science”
66.9. Germs Are Powerless To Cause Disease
66.11. The Cause, Nature, And Purpose Of Disease
66.12. Disease Is Body Action And Is Self-Limiting
66.13. The Vaccination Network
66.14. Immunity Vs. Toleration
66.15. Inoculation Is A Disease-Producing Process
66.16. Vaccinations And Failure Of Defensive Mechanisms
66.17. The Body Cannot Be Protected From The Consequences Of Injurious Practices
66.20. The True Explanation Of Contagion
66.21. Physiological And Ecological Cleanliness Vs. Vaccination
Article #1: Toleration Means Loss of Vital Resistance by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton
Article #2: Your Probing Mind By V. V. Vetrano, B.S., D.C.
Article #3: Must I Be Immunized? by Virginia Vetrano, B.S., D.C.
Acceptance of the concept of contagion is contingent on acceptance of the germ theory of disease. The germ theory of disease is the reigning premise upon which is superimposed a tremendous network of modern medical procedures.
Simply stated, this is the germ theory: Diseases are due solely to invasion by specific aggressive microscopic organisms; that is, a specific germ is responsible for each disease; and microorganisms are capable of reproduction and transportation outside of the body.
The germ theory was founded on the assumption that disease germs are specific and unchangeable in their biological structure and chemical characteristics.
Dr. Rene J. Dubos (eminent modern bacteriologist and 1968 Pulitzer Prize winner) contradicted this assumption by showing that the virulence of microbial species is variable.
Pasteur himself admitted his mistake (around 1880). Dr. Dudaux, a coworker of Pasteur, wrote that, when nearly sixty years of age, Pasteur discovered facts which were not in accord with his previous conception that disease germs were unchangeable. Pasteur found that microbial species can undergo many transformations, which discovery destroyed the basis for the germ theory.
Reports in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, 1914. Vol. 14, pages 1 to 32, describe experiments by E. C. Rosenow, M.D., of the Mayo Biological Laboratories in Rochester, Minnesota. It was demonstrated that streptococci (pus germs) could be made to assume all the characteristics of pneumococci (pneumonia germs) simply by feeding them on pneumonia virus and making other minor alterations in their environment. When the procedure was reversed, they quickly reverted to pus germs. In all cases, regardless of the type of germs, they quickly mutated into other types when their environment and food were changed.
Two New York City bacteriologists, through similar experiments, converted cocci (round, berry-shaped) into bacilli (long, rod-shaped) and vice versa.
So it is obvious that specific bacteria do not produce specific disease symptoms—it is the environment and the type of soil which determines the type of bacteria that proliferate.
The first “Germ Theory of Infectious Diseases” was published in 1762, by M. A. Plenciz, a Viennese physician. In 1860, Louis Pasteur took the credit for the experiments and ideas of others, “plagiarizing and distorting their discoveries,” according to Dr. Leverson of England. Because of Pasteur’s strength, zeal, enthusiasm, and convincing personality, and his passionate determination to overcome opposition to the germ theory, he became identified as its originator.
Claude Bernard (1813-1878) disputed the validity of the germ theory, and maintained that the general condition of the patient’s body was the principal factor in disease, but this idea was largely ignored by the medical profession and the general public. Pasteur had done his work well as the suave promoter of a plausible “scientific” hypothesis that could bolster the prestige of the sagging medical profession. Bernard and Pasteur had many debates on the relative importance of the microbe and the internal environment.
Pasteur was a chemist and physicist, and knew very little about biology and life processes, but he was a respected and influential man. His phobic fear of infection, his belief in the “malignity” and “belligerence” of germs, and his powerful influence on his contemporaries, had far-reaching consequences, and men of science were convinced of the threat of the microbe to man. Thus was born the period of bacteriophobia (fear of germs) which still exists.
The fear of “infection” of a cut, a bruise, or other injury is widespread. Actually, there is more danger from the drugs and antibiotics administered to “prevent infection.” When an injury occurs, the body quickly seals off the area, a scab forms, and repairs are instituted. Suppuration rarely occurs, except in toxic individuals. Devitalizing drugs serve to hinder the cleansing and reparative processes; antibiotics destroy friendly bacteria.
Patients do not have much (or any) choice in the use of antibiotics after surgery. The massive invasive process of surgery (often opening into the body cavity) is quite different from a cut or other wound near the surface of the body. In any event, there is no option. The antibiotics (after surgery) are mandatory (for the “protection” of the surgeon).
The universal acceptance of the germ theory, and the consequently widespread bacteriophobia, resulted in a multiplicity of frenzied efforts to escape from the threat of the dreadful and malicious germs by waging a constant war against them in the belief that the alternative was certain death.
The populace was advised to cook all food and boil all water (with the inevitable deterioration in health accompanying raw food deprivation).
The present-day practice of killing germs (inside and outside the body) with poison drugs was initiated, resulting in more and more degeneration and iatrogenic (drug-induced) disease.
Various programs were initiated to confer “immunity” against specific germs by means of vaccines and serums, resulting in the monstrous inoculation system—with horrendous effects, detailed in my book, Don’t Get Stuck!
Fortunately, the warning against, and horror of, all raw foods as dangerous and bacteria-ridden, has been largely overcome, through the persistent educational efforts of Hygienists and other knowledgeable people, though the ban on unpasteurized dairy products still exists in most areas in the
United States.
The acceptance of poison drugs, vaccines, and serums has not waned to any appreciable extent.
As previously mentioned, around 1860. Pasteur discovered facts which were not in accord with his previous conception that disease germs were unchangeable. He found that microbial species can undergo many transformations; this discovery destroyed the basis for the germ theory. Since a coccus (pneumonia germ) could change to a bacillus (typhoid germ) and back again (and, indeed, since any germ could turn into another)—and since their virulence could be altered, often at the will of the experimenter, the whole theory exploded.
It is frequently overlooked that Pasteur by then had changed his direction, and his more mature conception of the cause of disease, as given by Dr. Duclaux, was that a germ was “ordinarily kept within bounds by natural laws, but, when conditions change, when its virulence is exalted, when its host is enfeebled, the germ was able to “invade” the territory which was barred to it up to that time. This, of course, is the premise that a healthy body is resistant to disease or not susceptible to it.
After the change in his outlook, and numerous experiments along this line, Pasteur was at last convinced that controllable physiological factors were basic in the assessment of vulnerability to disease and concluded, “The presence in the body of a pathogenic agent is not necessarily synonymous with infectious disease.” (The presence of certain germs is not proof that they are the cause of a disease.)
So Pasteur did finally reverse his position and acknowledge that germs are not the specific and primary cause of disease, and he abandoned the germ theory. He is reported to have said on his deathbed, “Bernard was right. The seed is nothing, the soil is everything.”
Although Pasteur abandoned his early immature and erroneous theory in the 1880s, it was accepted, developed, fostered, and perpetuated by others, and the mischief, medical misunderstanding, and error continue to this day (the ultimate irony!).
Dr. Shelton says, “Medicine is now claimed to be a science. Before the discoveries and pseudo-discoveries of Pasteur it was a medley of diversified diseases and imaginary causes, treated symptomatically and empirically. Up to this time the evolution of medical thought was but a slow transition from superstition. The profession groped blindly about in search of a tangible basis upon which to base their theories and practices.
“Pasteur, while exploiting the work of Bechamp and other scientists of that period, gave the profession the germ. Here, at last, was a tangible and basic theory which could be developed without a limit. The microscope made it possible to visualize, differentiate, and classify the organisms. With a frenzied and hysterical outburst of enthusiasm, the medical profession seized upon this new theory, since which time practically all medical investigation has been carried on with the germ theory of disease as its basis.”
The unity of disease is not understood by those who insist on relating a specific germ to each disease. As long ago as March 12, 1924, an editorial in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal discussed the trend away from this concept: “The reason ... of an eclipse or partial eclipse of bacteriology may be found in the belief that this branch of medicine, if it has not come exactly to a blind alley, has at least come to a halt ... There are signs, more or less vague as yet, that new conceptions of disease are arising, although such views are themselves nebulous. It is thought by some that there is more or less a fundamental unity of disease, and that many of the nosological labels attached to them are superfluous and confusing.”
The German scientist, Robert Koch, maintained that for a specific bacteria to be the cause of a disease:
As has been repeatedly demonstrated, specific bacteria do not fulfill these prerequisites.
Robert Koch (1843-1910) was a bacteriologist, physiologist and one of Pasteur’s contemporaries. The specific requirements of “Koch’s Postulates” follow:
This is a modification of the germ theory, requiring a condition of susceptibility to establish a causal relationship between specific germs and specific diseases.
Scientists know that specific bacteria are not found in every case of a specific disease. The eminent Canadian physician, Sir William Osier (1849-1919) found that the diphtheria bacillus is absent in 28 to 40% of cases of diphtheria. Green’s Medical Diagnosis says that tubercle bacilli may be present early, more often late, or in rare instances be absent throughout the disease condition. Koch’s first postulate, “the specific bacteria must be found in every case of that disease” is not fulfilled in tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid fever, pneumonia, or any other disease. Specific bacteria are not found in every case of a specific disease.
Nor is the second postulate fulfilled, because it is a medically-known fact that bacteria are found in the bodies of humans and animals which exhibit no symptoms of any disease. Specific bacteria are repeatedly found when the specific disease is absent.
Further, bacteria are not capable of living outside the tissues; therefore, the third postulate is not fulfilled. Neither Pasteur nor any of his successors have ever induced a complaint by the inoculation of airborne bacteria, but only by injections from bodily sources. The reason is obvious: germs are dependent on human or animal organisms for their survival.
Quoting from “The Germ Theory Reexamined” by Bob Zuraw and Bob Lewanski (Vegetarian World, Volume 3, Number 11, September-November 1977): “Koch’s Fourth Postulate: Introducing germ cultures in a healthy body or organism does not produce signs and symptoms of the disease. The Bio-Chemical Society of Toronto conducted a number of very interesting experiments in which pure cultures of typhoid, diphtheria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and meningitis germs were consumed by the millions in food and drink by a group of volunteers. The results: no ill effects whatsoever.”
But when the condition of susceptibility is introduced, this changes the whole concept. Thus we are back to the same point we have been emphasizing: the condition of the host is of primary importance in the production of disease.
Dr. Shelton says (February 1972, Dr. Shelton ‘s Hygienic Review), “The germ alone could no more cause disease than a match alone can produce a fire. Just as the fire, so the microbe, if it is to have any part in causing disease, must find an organism that produces a suitable soil for its activities. We cannot avoid germs. We must be proof against them. We can avoid disease only by keeping ourselves in such a high state of health that they are powerless against us.”
Dr. Shelton goes on to tell about numerous experiments in trying to produce various diseases by the feeding of germs, without any disease being produced. Dr. S. K. Claunch, in Exploding the Germ Theory, also cites such experiments by the U.S. Navy, again without results. Dr. Claunch says (page 25), “These experiments, conducted under test conditions and under government .supervision with such disappointing results should knock the last prop from under the germ theory, as they doubtless would have done if our government doctors had seen fit to make them public property ... would have been a signal government service to the people ... but not good business for the doctors and serum manufacturers.”
Bacteria are ubiquitous—they are with us all the lime. Life on this planet would be impossible without them.
Specific “disease” bacteria are commonly assumed to be the primary cause of specific diseases. These much maligned microorganisms are, in truth, friends and scavengers that need nourishment to reproduce. They go into action immediately when there is a dangerous accumulation of toxic materials which is threatening body integrity. They perform the useful function of “cleaning up the mess” and then resume their more passive state, after their work is done.
There is no denying that bacteria are intimately associated with many serious diseases. They contribute secondary or tertiary complicating factors. They elaborate certain powerful toxins. They have factors which add to the primary causes.
There is no denying the importance of bacteria in the evolution of disease. But they are not the fundamental and primary causes, as so many people believe.
It is the disease condition that creates an environment favorable to the mutation of bacteria into those associated with that particular “disease,” and favorable to their proliferation and increasing virulence. The disease condition springs from improper living that begets toxicosis.
There is no denying that in the disease process, the work performed by bacteria as scavengers is unpleasant and exhausting to the host, but it is necessary for the preservation of health and life. After the cleansing is complete, the organism again makes its energies available for normal activities.
We hear about infectious diseases, contagious diseases, communicable diseases. But nobody has even seen a disease travel from one person to another. There is not an iota of evidence that this happens.
In 1860, the world-famous English nurse, Miss Florence Nightingale, published an attack on the germ theory of disease. She said:
“Diseases are not individuals arranged in classes, like cats and dogs, but conditions growing out of one another. Is it not living in a continual mistake to look upon diseases, as we do now, as separate entities, which must exist, like cats and dogs, instead of looking upon them as conditions, like a dirty and clean condition, and just as much under our control; or rather as the reactions of kindly Nature, against the condition in which we have placed ourselves? I have seen with my eyes and smelled with my nose smallpox growing up in first specimens, either in closed rooms, or in overcrowded wards, where it could not by any possibility have been ‘caught’ but must have begun. Nay, more, I have seen disease begin, grow up and pass into one another. Now, dogs do not pass into cats.
“True nursing ignors infection, except to prevent it. Cleanliness and fresh air from open windows, with unremitting attention to the patient, are the only defense a true nurse either asks or needs ... The specific disease doctrine is the grand refuge of weak, uncultured, unstable minds, such as now rule in the medical profession. There are no specific diseases; there are specific disease conditions.”
Disease is a process of physiological and biochemical changes within the body, producing certain signs and symptoms which we label as specific diseases.
When diseases are categorized as communicable or infectious, it is not really meant that the disease, per se, is transmitted from one person to another. The concept actually is that an assumed cause of disease—virus, bacteria, etc.—is transmitted.
But disease is the result of many intoxicating causes. The actual process of disease (the fever, the inflammation, etc.) is the action initiated by the body to purge itself of toxic accumulations.
But the causes, the processes, and the effects have the appearance of being intermingled. Toxicity causes change in the processes of the body. These changes result in other changes as the body tries to cope. The situation becomes extremely complicated, with constant interaction between causes, processes, and effects.
But this should not discourage your attempt to discover and pinpoint the fundamental causes of disease. The Hygienic concept is that disease is the result of enervation—due to the bankruptcy of nerve energy, expending more than we are capable of regenerating. The general energy level diminishes and functional efficiency deteriorates. We evolve into a state which we call toxicosis—a condition of body saturation with toxic matters.
Toxicosis, in the Hygienic sense, implies a disturbance of the blood and tissue fluids, and the accumulation of toxic byproducts of metabolism. In recent years, studies of biochemical pathology have shown this disturbance within the homeostatic mechanism of the body, caused by the accumulation of toxic substances.
Dr. John H. Tilden, a Hygienic pioneer, in his book, Toxemia Explained, long ago (1926) presented “the true interpretation of disease.” Habits of living that fail to supply our needs, that exceed our limitations—too much food, insufficent exercise, insufficient rest, and so on—produce inner stresses and a chemical burden the body cannot handle.
The causes of disease are multiple and relate to all the facets of our existence—nutrition, exercise, rest mental and emotional factors, relationships with other people—all of life. The most significant causes are those that are related to our fundamental biological needs. Those relating to our fundamental and emotional life complete the total picture. Most of the causes of disease are within the control of the individual.
When the toxic level rises above a toleration point, the body takes remedial steps, defensive, and reparative action. Disease is body action, and is limited to the time and effort necessary to rid the organism of injurious substances. Every cell in the body acts in unison with all the other cells for the preservation of the organism. When the work is done and order is restored, the disease symptoms dwindle and disappear, and the organism—although debilitated from the effort made necessary by its toxic condition—regains its powers.
This almost consistent denouement is eloquent evidence that disease is body action and not an attack by proliferating bacteria and viruses. All cases recover without any treatment If a healthy body is unable to resist an original attack by small numbers of microorganisms—if a healthy body can “catch” a cold, or influenza, due to exposure to cold germs or influenza germs—how then can the subsequently debilitated body ever recover? How can the weakened organism subsequently repel the onslaught by proliferating trillions of microorganisms? If such reasoning were carried forward to its logical conclusion, the inevitable result would be the death of the organism. How can it be denied?—when the healing crisis is completed, recovery begins. People do recover from colds, from influenza, and every acute disease that has not had deadly medical treatments.
Under Hygienic guidance (noninterference), disease symptoms disappear. Those who are “treated” with drugs and nostrums and recover, do so despite the treatment. Often the complication brought on by the treatment are much worse than the symptoms of the disease.
“Immunization” is based on the idea that it is possible, by chemical or biological means, to make a person disease-proof. If this were indeed possible, it would represent a suspension of the law of cause and effect.
People have been educated to be terrified of bacteria, to believe implicitly in the idea of contagion—that specific malevolent aggressive disease germs pass from one host to another. Even bacteriologists overlook the fact that, instead of the germ population being divided into specific “good” germs and specific “bad” germs, “good” germs have the ability to mutate into “bad” (proliferating and virulent) germs, when the soil is suitable for this change. Germs have the ability to modify their structure and function, according to the environment in which they find themselves.
The idea of vaccination is that injection of a specific vaccine of lesser virulence is supposed to confer immunity against a specific disease of greater virulence. Originally, it was maintained that one injection would confer lifetime immunity. After that idea failed, the idea of periodic revaccination was adopted. Read my book, Don’t Get Stuck!, for the history of the failure of vaccination and the trail of tragedy it has left in its wake.
Dr. Robert Simpson of Rutgers University said (March 1976): “Immunization programs against flu, measles, mumps, and polio may invade the genetic makeup, and may actually be seeding humans with RNA to form pro-viruses, which then become latent cells throughout the body. These could be molecules in search of diseases, which may become activated and cause a variety of diseases later, such as multiple sclerosis, arthritis, or even cancer.” While this conjecture is in line with medical reasoning, it is blatant nonsense. Organisms do not work this way.
Sometimes the injection of a poison into the bloodstream results in toleration of that poison, which is mistakenly labeled immunity. Toleration means the body hasn’t sufficient vitality to resist.
The dictionary definition of tolerance is “the power or ability to endure, withstand, or resist the effects of a drug or food or other physiologic insults without showing unfavorable effects.” Actually, this is contradictory. If the body endures the insult, it is because of lack of strength to resist. When it resists, it has the energy to institute defensive action: vomiting, sneezing, diarrhea, fever, or any crisis of cleansing and healing.
Dr. Shelton says that toleration is submission; it is broken-down resistance. “The warning voice of self-protection has gradually been put to sleep, while the organism is undermined and premature death comes as a surprise to everyone ... Toleration for poisoning is established by loss of the vitality necessary to resist it. The body pays for this toleration (miscalled immunity) by general enervation and lowered resistance to every other influence. ... It is a sad day for the body when it tolerates poisons. ... If tolerance for tobacco were never established, there would be no tobacco users. The same for alcohol, opium, arsenic, and other poisons. ... The repeated use of a poison gradually overcomes or decreases vital resistance.”
No vaccine or other similar preparation can confer immunity against the effects of wrong living. On the contrary, more (not fewer) diseases are the inevitable result inoculation with serum and vaccines, which exhaust the vitality and resistance. Inoculation is a disease-producing process, which results in injury to organs, the nervous system and the blood.
Serum inoculations and blood transfusions can dissolve red blood cells in the recipient and damage the central nervous system, which helps to account for the enormous numbers of servicemen discharged as insane. (Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, May 1977, page 200).
In an article published in the United States Naval Medical Bulletin, May 1, 1943, three naval officers (physicians reported that inoculations against typhoid, tetanus, and yellow fever are “epidemiological factors” of greatest significance in the history of meningococcic meningitis. They expressed the belief that “immunizing inoculations” may lower body resistance. The occurrence of seventy eight cases of cerebrospinal fever was reported among troops in a camp in Natal after the injection of typhoic vaccine.
The purpose of such inoculations is to produce specific antibodies against specific diseases. Dr. Shelton says that if the body produces antibodies when vaccines and serum are administered, these are the ones required to protect against the injected substances, and not the specific antibodies that would be required to protect it against the contingency of exposure or susceptibility to a specific disease.
The following report appeared in Vol. 93, No. 6, page 482, of the American Journal of Epidemiology (observations made by workers conducting a trial of “flu” vaccine):
In their book, Vaccinations and Immune Malfunction (published October 1982), authors Harold E. Buttram M.D. and John Chriss Hoffman discuss the fundamental differences between the processes of “natural immunity” and so-called vaccine immunity. They suggest that those who are honestly trying to weigh the pros and cons of vaccines should become familiar with the existing evidence that vaccination does indeed cause lasting damage to the defensive systems of children; and they urgently propos an immediate change from compulsory vaccination programs to absolute freedom of choice.
They take the position that there is a fundamental difference between “natural immunity” (conferred by childhood diseases) and the attempts to confer immunity by introducing massive amounts of antigenic materials in the bloodstream, bypassing the primary defenses, and stressing the body in insidious ways which have previously been largely unrecognized. The body’s resistance is lowered through a subtle defensive malfunction and a drastic reduction of the body’s ability to defend.
On page 5 of their book, Buttram and Hoffman give an illustration of their concept. “According to the one cell one antibody rule, once an immune body (plasma cell or lymphocyte) becomes committed to a given antigen, it becomes incapable of responding to other antigens or challenges.” A hypothetical child passes through “so-called usual childhood diseases with relatively minor and uncomplicated illnesses.”
“Considering the extreme efficiency of ‘natural immunity,’ we may make an educated guess that permanent immunity was gained to these diseases by utilizing only 3 to 7 percent of the total immune capacity. In the case of the routine childhood vaccines, in contrast, it is likely that a higher percentage of the total immune capacity becomes committed, perhaps something on the order of 30 to 70 percent. It should be emphasized that, once an immune body becomes committed to a specific antigen, it becomes inert and incapable of responding to other challenges.
“If the reserve immune, capacity of children is being reduced by current vaccinations in this manner, what will be the consequences? No one knows for certain at this time, but it is possible that these consequences could be seen as an increased susceptibility to viruses, to other infections, and to various forms of allergies. A child could be reduced from an expectancy of exuberant, health to a middle state: never entirely healthy, never entirely well.”
One of the most extensively documented studies of the indirect effects of vaccines is found in “The Hazards of Immunization” (Oxford University Press, Inc., New York, 1967) by Sir Graham Wilson, formerly of the Public Health Laboratory Service, England and Wales. Dr. Wilson cites documented historical examples of vaccination against one disease seeming to provoke another; for example, fifteen cases of poliomyelitis following inoculation against diphtheria or pertussis.
Reports of twelve cases of multiple sclerosis following inoculations were reviewed in the article, “Multiple Sclerosis and Vaccinations,” by Miller and others, British Medical Journal, April 22, 1967, pages 210-213. Numerous other reports of apparent immune system-mediated diseases (including Guillain-Barre syndrome) have implicated vaccines.
An overwhelming majority of American medical doctors approve vaccination, on the grounds that occasional direct toxicities are an acceptable risk in terms of assumed control gained over infectious diseases. Although direct toxicities are uncommon (as a result of vaccination), the real danger of vaccination appears to be the indirect effect of impairment of the immune system, first researched in the early 1970s by Dr. Arthic Kalorkerinos and Dr. Glenn Dittman (both of Australia) who uncovered the phenomenon of immune malfunction, lowering the body’s resistance as a result of vaccination. The problem is that, because this effect is apt to be delayed and masked, its true nature usually escapes recognition.
Buttram and Hoffman maintain that, in view of the mounting evidence of immune malfunction following current vaccination programs, there must be a public demand for investigation of vaccination methods, and a discontinuation of compulsory vaccination.
These authors say that we are now seeing an increasing social disintegration, with increasing nervous and mental disorders, and that these trends are thought to be related to a subtle biological deterioration of the health of Americans brought about by denatured, devitalized, and adulterated foods; chemical pollution of air, water, and soil; a medical research system oriented toward the use of synthetic drugs and chemicals, and childhood vaccine programs.
“Nature ... created the human biological system, including the immune system, as extremely adaptable so that it could cope with an ever-changing environment. We are now seeing vast numbers of our children who are unable to cope with their environment demonstrating allergic and/or toxic reactions to their foods, to chemicals, to common inhalants such as dust, pollen, and mold, and to environmental pollutants. If this is combined with an immune system which is compromised from the very first by our present compulsory childhood vaccination programs, and in turn, compounded by devitalized and denatured foods upon which many of our children subsist, could we really expect to see anything other than the deteriorating health which is now taking place?
“It is possible that many of the nervous, mental, behavioral, and sociological problems occurring today among the younger generation in America may represent a counterpart of the malnutrition-immunization interaction observed by Dettman and Kalokerinos among the Australian aborigines.”
Barbara Ann Boruff, in an article, “Immunization: The Risk Factors,” says, “The thymus, spleen, and lymph nodes are the main components of the body’s immune system. Inadequate nutrition during the time in pregnancy when these organs are developing in the fetus can impair their growth and thereby affect a child’s susceptibility to disease, not only in childhood, but throughout his or her lifetime. A pregnant woman must insure that her diet includes the variety of wholesome foods necessary to the development of her unborn child’s immune system.
“Breast-feeding offers the newborn child protection against many diseases. The colostrum present in the first day or so of nursing contains disease-resistant factors.
“The long-term effects of breast-feeding are particularly rewarding. In one study at Northwestern University it was found that in comparing children breast-fed six months or longer to bottle-fed children, the bottle-fed children had four times as many ear infections, four times as many colds, eleven times as many tonsillectomies, twenty times as many diarrheal infections, and from eight to twenty-seven times more allergic conditions.” (Nursing Your Baby, by Karen Pryor.)
“Another recognized guardian of health are the tonsils. A study by Rodrigo C. Hurtado of Georgetown University School of Medicine indicated that the tonsils protect against many diseases, including the common cold, herpes, measles, influenza, and polio.
It was also discussed that following the removal of tonsils, there is an increased incidence of malignancy.”
This paragraph from page 17 of the book, Vaccinations and Immune Malfunction, sounds as though it came straight out of the Hygienic body of literature. “The processes of Nature are always, or almost always characterized by two qualities: efficiency and economy. Attempts of modern science to reproduce or synthesize organic, biological substances and the life-processes of Nature are often grotesquely inefficient, wasteful, and frequently harmful. It is probably a truism that science succeeds only to the extent that it harmonizes with Nature’s laws and processes; it fails to the extent that it conflicts with these laws.”
The body will not conduct defensive crises when there is no need for them. Healthy bodies do not require detoxification. The body cannot conduct defensive crises if its vitality has been lowered to a point where it no longer has the energy and resources to initiate and conduct detoxification and healing processes.
The suppression of the body’s ability to heal itself (by drugging or vaccinating) should not be mistaken for exemption from the consequences of wrong living. On the contrary, the drugs and vaccines constitute additional attacks on the integrity of the organism. They impair structure and function, and hasten degeneration and death.
Although epidemics diminished as man purified his exterior environment, “it is conceivable that the filth that once beset him in rags, has come forth in a needle to destroy him.”
—Cash Asher, Bacteria, Inc.
Epidemics are mass sickness. In all “epidemics” there are more cases of various other diseases than of the one “epidemic disease.”
Dr. Shelton says (Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, April, 1976, page 171):
“What the epidemic will be will be determined by the public health authorities. The tendency is to diagnose everything as the epidemic disease at the outset and class further developments as complications. A case in point was that of typhoid fever in the American army in France. The whole army was immunized against typhoid, therefore our soldiers could not develop typhoid. A large number of boys v/ho died while being treated for influenza as their cases were diagnosed, were found at autopsy to have died of typhoid fever. The incident was of sufficient importance for the surgeon general of the army to issue a special letter about it and point out to the medical heads of the American Expeditionary Forces in France that inoculation is no substitute for hygiene and sanitation. Physicians were so preoccupied with influenza that they saw a flu devil back of every symptom and could not distinguish between influenza and typhoid fever. Even tubercular flare-ups were diagnosed as influenza.
“The high death rate in pneumonia and influenza was not due to any unusual virulence of the two diseases, but to the unusual virulence of the treatment ...
... Where hysteria rules the mind, treatment is always heroic and the death rate is in keeping, with the treatment. The staff of the Macfadden Healthatorium in Chicago cared for over three hundred cases of pneumonia and influenza during the 1918-19 pandemic without a single death in either disease.”
Concurrent with extensive environmental improvements (including better sanitation) some forms of disease seem to have disappeared. Vaccine promoters have taken the credit for the virtual disappearance of smallpox and diphtheria, but nothing is said about the dwindling of cholera, plague, and leprosy, for which no vaccines exist.
The new rampant plagues of heart disease, cancer, arteriosclerosis and diabetes, are due at least in part to the radical changes in the nature and quality of our foods and living habits. These illnesses can also be diminished by environmental improvements, as well as by ceasing to pollute our bloodstreams with vaccines and drugs.
The relationship of population disposition to develop disease and environmental conditions to influenza epidemics is conceded in a 1976 report by the U.S. H.E.W. Center for Disease Control (page 2): “The occurrence of influenza epidemics depends upon a poorly understood interaction of virus, population susceptibility, and environmental conditions.”
Dr. Shelton says (Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, May 1976, page 197), “If yellow fever disappeared from New Orleans after General Butler cleaned up the city and no vaccine was used, what has sanitation had to do with the disappearance of other epidemic diseases?”
From Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, April 1976, page 172: “Yellow fever vanished from New Orleans, Cuba, and Panama when these were cleaned up. The medical profession still refuses to admit that cleanliness did the work. They insist that it is all because they or the sanitary engineers did the St. Patrick act with the mosquitoes. There are still as many mosquitoes in these places as there are in Jersey. I have never been able to figure out how they succeeded in getting just the right mosquitoes to leave, and the harmless ones to remain.”
How many people today know about the medical opposition to the early use of the bathtub? They denounced it as the “obnoxious toy from England,” and said it would bring on a “whole category of zymotic diseases.” In 1842 the Philadelphia physicians submitted a proposal to prohibit by law the use of bathtubs between November 1 and March 15; and in Boston, in 1845, the medical society secured the passage of an ordinance making bathing unlawful “except on medical prescription.” The doctors of the time also violently opposed rapid travel on the railroad as being extremely dangerous to public health. Time marches on! The medical profession has adopted and claimed as their own these ideas which others have established as meritorious; but they are still fighting the battle of the poisoned needle; they are still upholding the myth of “contagion” and the role of virulent and aggressive microorganisms as the major cause of epidemics.
L. Tyagaraja Sarma, in an article in Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, January 1975, page 118, says, “England had repeated—and severe—epidemics of smallpox once every four or five years throughout the last century. The more the British government forced vaccination and revaccination on their people, the more regular were the epidemics. The County of Leicestershire refused to toe the official line; smallpox vaccinations were wholly stopped in this county and all the money that was originally allocated to mass vaccination was spent in improving sanitation. The protagonists of vaccination prophesied that by this step, all the people in the County of Leicestershire would become victims of this dread disease while the rest of England would be saved to a great extent.
“But ... what followed was just the contrary. While smallpox epidemics were raging in the rest of the country, every four or five years as before, Leicestershire was free from this disease.”
After the British government introduced a law allowing people to refuse vaccination, the number of people vaccinated (and the incidence of smallpox) kept declining, and ultimately the vaccination law was repealed.
Dr. Shelton says (Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, October 1970, page 39), “England was the first country in the world to force vaccination on its people by law. After fifty years of rigid enforcement of its compulsory vaccination law, England suffered (1870-71) the largest smallpox epidemic in its history, with the highest death rate in its history. A well-vaccinated, revaccinated and rerevaccinated people suffered a worse epidemic than it had ever suffered under the previously worst sanitary conditions. Vaccination failed and this failure resulted in the rise of an anti-vaccination movement. Today vaccination is no longer compulsory in Britain.”
Epidemics of the more virulent types of disease (plagues, etc.) were caused by unsanitary living conditions. The habits of the civilized world have become cleaner, yet more debilitating.
Modern mass sickness is basically the result of the debilitating lifestyle and eating habits of the majority of the populace. In 1948, a polio epidemic was proven to have been triggered by excess consumption of sugar, and dramatically stopped when decreased sugar consumption was encouraged by mass media campaigns. (Don’t Get Stuck!). Of course, vested interests soon reversed the trend by convincing the public to go back to the old habits.
Epidemics are triggered by mass debilitating and prostrating influences, such as prolonged temperature or humidity extremes, great and general worry, fear, grief, and anxiety (war, panic). The most enervated and toxemic people are the first to get sick. Advocates of vaccination (have never attempted to explain why it is often those who have been vaccinated who are the first to get sick, or who often contract the most virulent forms of disease.
The first colds of early winter are not “caught” from someone else with a cold, but are developed by those who have been improperly living and eating. The added stress of cold temperature further checks elimination, adds to the general toxemia, and thus precipitates a crisis.
The more severe diseases develop in people who carry a greater amount of putrescent poisoning, and are more prevalent after holidays and feast days. The enervating excitement and indiscriminate overeating at these times produce the inevitable unwelcome results.
Why does toxemia cause typhoid in one person and pneumonia in another? Dr. Shelton (Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, March 1972, page 162) says that the answer will have to be found in the laws of heredity, nutrition, and environment. Those tissues offering least resistance to the toxins are the first affected.
The more virulent diseases result from the poisonous toxins in the host. Toxins resulting from protein putrefaction are more virulent than those from carbohydrate fermentation. Flesh foods produce more virulent toxins than plant proteins. There is also a difference in the virulence of poisons produced by different animal proteins, and in various vegetable proteins.
Dr. Shelton says (Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, March 1972) that he believes, for example, that tonsilitis is the result of the less virulent plant toxins, while diphtheria results from the more virulent animal toxins. In both these diseases, there is decomposition in the intestinal tract, which may also sometimes cause pneumonia or meningitis or typhoid or other symptoms of disease.
Why is it that some people who are exposed to those in the throes of these crises subsequently are also “laid low” while others are not? People who have maintained an internal state of cleanliness through correct habits of eating and living do not need the disease process because it cannot develop unless the toxic conditions for disease exist.
As previously indicated, different diseases are different symptom complexes arising out of reduced nerve energy and increased toxicity. Habits of living that waste nerve energy result in inhibition of secretion and excretion—and the consequent self-poisoning. The part of the organism laden with toxins is the first to react, but the effect is general—all the organs and structures of the body suffer the impairing effects.
The body functions as a unit and depends on the continuous cooperation and coordination of all its parts—if one function is disturbed, the health and integrity of the organism and all its parts and functions are affected.
The body ejects its uneliminated waste products by means of a crisis or acute disease, so that the toxins are expelled vicariously, or through channels not normally utilized, e.g., mucous membranes, skin, etc. Thus the disease is a process of detoxification and recovery, and is remedial and beneficial. Although it does expend great reserves of energy, it is a process of self-preservation.
The body ejects uneliminated waste products by means of a crisis or acute disease, so that the toxins are expelled vicariously, or through channels not normally utilized e.g., mucous membranes, skin, etc. Thus the disease is a process of detoxification and recovery, and is remedial and beneficial. Although it does expend great reserves of energy, it is a process of self-preservation.
There is a body limitation to the vital resistance it can muster against acute disease. When the organism is continually subjected to intoxicating substances (such as tobacco, coffee, drugs, etc.), the body accommodates, and the result is impaired function and chronic disease.
In general, accommodation is thought of as beneficial, but most physiological accommodations are just the opposite. The body accommodates to excessive exposure to sunlight by a deep tan, which cuts off the damaging influence of the sun. Vitamin D needed by the organisms is produced in a much reduced quantity. The skin will also become coarse and leathery because of the defensive accommodations. Normal secretions are reduced, and other departures from the ideal occur.
When calluses form on the hands as a result of manual work, this adaption is necessary—it is the body’s defense against a mechanical irritant it can’t escape or overcome. Such accommodations preserve life, but they are departures from the ideal.
Accommodation to smoking, drugs or other poisons imposes upon the body higher levels of toxins. The inevitable effect is the multiplication of the toxicity level, with the body actually accumulating additional toxins of its own which it cannot normally excrete. The result is disease. Epidemic diseases are the consequences of the existence of such conditions in the bodies of great numbers of people.
In today’s world, it is probably not possible to achieve the degree of health that could be attained after several generations of healthful living Hygienists, we keep striving for improvement, though the true “ideal” may be unattainable.
We may have occasional crises of illness, but we must realize that sickness is not an enemy. Discomforts are our own body signals that we are doing something wrong. If we heed such signals in a timely manner, by fasting and resting, instead of waiting for a full-fledged healing crisis, we will need only a mild and brief cleansing period. If we live our lives in this manner, we do not fear so-called “contagion” and “epidemics.”
Natural Hygiene begins in the mind—with understanding. The food regime is a critical factor—exercise is important—but all the other needs of life must be met. It is necessary to get in touch with yourself and be in harmony with your biological requirements.
When, the organism is confronted with toxins which it cannot eliminate and to which it cannot adapt, it may produce “allergic” or even “pan-allergic” symptoms—extreme reactions causing respiratory, neurological, and digestive symptoms, and symptoms involving the muscles, joints, skin, eyes, ears, throat, and elsewhere.
The Environmental Health Center (Dallas, Texas) is a clinic that specializes in treating people for chemical sensitivities, principally by first “fasting patients to cleanse their systems,” then testing on various foods and chemicals to determine which cause “allergic” reactions, and then endeavoring to eliminate the offending substances. It is a slow, painstaking, and expensive process.
Dr. William J. Rea, who founded the Center, and Dr. Sprague, a colleague of Dr. Rea’s, deal mostly with “ecology” patients—people who have become “pan-allergic” from exposure to insecticides, or from the use of drugs or chemicalized foods.
D.W. Nauss, Dallas Times-Herald (reprinted 11/3/82 St. Petersburg Times) says: “Dr. Rea said his interest in chemical sensitivities developed after he and his family were incapacitated following a pesticide spraying in their home. I realized then that there were many chemicals, not only pesticides, that were harming people, he said.
“Chemicals are not the root of all disease, Rea said. But he believes many ailments could be prevented if doctors better understood their role in impairing the body’s defense systems. The medical community, however, is ill-informed about ecological illness and resistant to learning, he said.
“Clinical ecologists admit they have only scratched the surface in their effort to understand chemical allergies. Researchers say allergies can be inherited, can be caused by a physical or emotional trauma or can result from exposure to various toxins.
“An allergy is produced when the immune system breaks down. In simplified terms, the system is depleted of white blood cells which control the production of antibodies to fight antigens or foreign bodies. As a result the system is overrun by antibodies, creating the allergic reaction. In extreme cases, the body becomes so sensitized that it reacts to even small doses of substances that normally would present no problem.
“Because some chemicals often attack the nervous system, mood swings and personality disorders are not uncommon among ecology patients. Dr. Theron Randolph, a Chicago doctor and pioneer in the theory of clinical ecology, suggests some mental illnesses may be caused by chemical sensitivities, stemming from foods, beverages, dusts, and pollen.”
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Don’t take this medical rationale wholehog. There is no such thing as an immune system or antibodies. There are only regular defensive faculties. Allergies are due to body overreaction to certain substances it overdefends.
M. O. Garten (Tomorrow’s Health) says, “An average healthy person, with an uncontaminated bloodstream, need not be concerned or apprehensive about being subjected to a ‘contagious’ disease ... However, this is not true with a person of low vitality and high accumulation of metabolic waste productions ... Bacteria or germs of such a person stimulated into activity by the devitalized elements upon which they thrive, when transferred to the mucous membranes or tissues of another person equally toxemic may be assumed to begin work immediately and in the same manner as on the first-carrier.
“This is a true explanation of ‘contagion’ and one may say that the germ precipitates the disease or excites it in the person to whom the germs are transferred ... Germs ... could be recognized as contributing factors in all toxic crises in which the localized outside area is exposed to infection or contamination. Serums or drugs will help add to the general toxic load, and instability results in serious harm, even though they” (the serums or drugs) “may apparently modify or suppress a local or general pathological process.”
The modification or suppression of normal body function by poisoning (with serums or drugs) is another factor in this picture. Sometimes, when people are too drugged and devitalized, they cannot have the healing crisis, even though elimination of a high accumulation of wastes is necessary. Because vaccinations may so reduce vitality as to make it impossible to conduct a simple eliminative crisis, vaccinated people are said to be “immune” against the particular disease they have lost the ability to conduct. In truth, the price of their inability to dispose of the toxins at an early stage, is their accumulation and the insidious development of worse, and more serious, degenerative diseases.
The contagion that actually is prevalent is the contagion of bad habits, producing the same vulnerable and susceptible condition in great numbers of people. Such people conceivably can, through intimate contact, trigger disease symptoms in each other.
But what about the thousands of people who develop colds who have not been in contact with someone with a cold? And what about the thousands who are in intimate contact with someone with a cold who do not develop a cold?
In 1967, after my 29-day fast, I worked in a small office with several other people. Every one of them had repeated colds, some developed flu; I was the only one in the office who never had any such symptoms and lost no time from work.
66.21.1 Von Hoffman: “Do we really need vaccination?”
Van Hoffman: “Do We Really Need Vaccination?”
66.21.2 Dr. Mendelsohn: Now I Am Against All Vaccines
66.21.3 “Mistakes” and “Bad Batches” (Contaminated Vaccine)
Physiological drainage is even more important than drainage of swamps, and infinitely more important than germicides and pesticides. The soil (in the body) is prepared for so-called epidemic disease by failure to keep the fluids and tissues of the body sweet and clean.
In the 1850s, when this country suffered with recurring epidemics of cholera, it developed among the residents of sweltering and crowded cities, and among (as Dr. Shelton puts it) the drunkards and the ill-nourished.
A Hygienist writing in 1851 about cholera (Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, May 1976, page 196) says, “In New York as in the Old World, the chief victims of the cholera came from the same classes; the destitute poor, the badly fed, the insufficiently clothed, the crowded, the dirty and the intemperate.”
The better fed, better housed, clean, and temperate did not get cholera. The same is true today; the enervated and toxemic, the weak and dissipated are sick. Those who live according to the laws of nature are well.
Dr. Shelton says (Dr. Shelton’s Hygienic Review, May 1976, page 197), “Before the Salk and Sabin vaccines there were great numbers of mild cases of polio and there were a few severe cases. This condition has not been changed, although many cases formerly diagnosed as polio are no longer so diagnosed. But I have yet to learn of a single child of Hygienic or vegetarian parents who has had polio. ... A healthful regime will not cause polio nor cholera, smallpox, and diphtheria.”
Scarlet fever declined in incidence and virulence as rapidly as did diphtheria—without a vaccine. Cholera, bubonic plague, English sweat, and typhus fever declined and disappeared at the same time as smallpox—only smallpox had a vaccine! Some common factor must have been responsible for the total decline—not an “immunizing agent,” used for diphtheria and smallpox and not for the other diseases. Dr. Shelton asks, “Is vaccination merely a substitute for personal and community cleanliness?”
Nicholas Von Hoffman, syndicated columnist, after reading L’Intoxication Vaccinate, by Fernand Delarue, wrote and article, “Do we Really Need Vaccinations?” (St. Petersburg Independent, 9/18/78). He says that the French anti-vaccinationist has some compelling statistics supporting his position.
Von Hoffman continues:
“Swine flu experience or no, no practice of Western medicine is more globally accepted as safe and efficacious as inoculation. In a quiet way, some few doctors have grown so concerned about the known and unknown harmful effects of inoculation, they have wondered if the prevention of the disease may be more risky than going without protection. Prestigious medical figures have even gone so far as to venture that in recent years more polio may have been caused in the United States by the vaccine than by contracting the disease in the usual contagious manner.
“A long list of maladies ranging from blindness to convulsions to eczema to death has been imputed to vaccination, but for well over a hundred years informed opinion has held that the benefits of protection outweigh the risks. Now a small but growing number is wondering if inoculation docs confer the protection claimed for it. We know, for instance, that some of the worst epidemics to ravage our kind were not suppressed by vaccination but by achieving a higher level of public cleanliness. Thus it was sanitation, not inoculation, which ended the Black Death. Something of the same thing may have occurred with smallpox.
“In the middle of the ‘70s, the English launched a large public sanitation program and as it went forward the percentage of vaccinated people in the population and the incidence of smallpox both dropped. Moreover, medical records from the time indicate vaccinated people were more, not less, likely to get smallpox than the unvaccinated.
“Delarue centers his inquiries in France, where he says, for a long time there has been a number of practicing doctors as well as academicians who’ve had the gravest private doubts over inoculating people. They’ve not wanted to take the catcalls and the damage to their careers which speaking out would bring down on them.
“Somewhat the same situation probably obtains here. Yet old ideas have to be reexamined and retested from time to time. We have sunset laws for our public institutions so that every so often they must defend themselves and show that they are still necessary. The same should hold for old, long undiscussed scientific principles, especially when they concern the immediate health and well-being of millions.”
Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn’s book, Confessions of a Medical Heretic, contains three pages (pages 143-145) about the dangers of immunizations, and the fact that “immunized” people may not only be in greater danger of contracting the specific disease against which they were vaccinated (than if unvaccinated), but are also subject to neurological and sometimes fatal conditions caused by the vaccination.
Dr. Mendelsohn says, “The entire flu shot effort resembles some massive roulette game, since from one year to the next it’s anybody’s guess whether the strains immunized against will be the strains that are epidemic. We were all afforded a peek at the real dangers of flu vaccines when, in 1976, the great swine flu fiasco revealed, under close government and media surveillance, 565 cases of Guillain-Barre paralysis resulting from the vaccine, and thirty “unexplained” deaths of older people within hours after receiving the shot.”
Dr. Mendelsohn recently told American Natural Hygiene Society member Barry Mesh that “now he is against all vaccines.”
When an epidemic occurs on the heels of a mass immunization, the excuse is often given that “it was a bad batch.” Sometimes “mistakes” occur. A recent (fall 1982) report from Sarasota, Florida, is a case in point. “Health officials in Sarasota admitted Tuesday a miscalculation in determining the dosage of a vaccine resulted in 19 youngsters receiving 10 times the recommended amount of Rifampin, a vaccine for hemophilius meningitis. Dr. Robert Laurie, head of the Sarasota County Health Department, said the overdose administered over the weekend resulted in adverse reactions in the 19 children, but none of them had to be hospitalized. The vaccine was given to the parents of 19 children at Grace United Methodist Church Day Care Center at Venice after a three-year-old girl at the center was stricken with the disease.” (Craig Basse, Sunrise Digest, St. Petersburg Times.) Sometimes the “bad batches” or “mistakes” result in deaths.
In Barbara Ann Boruff’s article (referred to previously), she also says:
“In addition to the likelihood of disease, complications, or death, is the possibility of receiving contaminated vaccine. Since 1954, several such incidents have occurred. One is the well-known Cutter scandal, which became the impetus for the establishment of a federal agency to monitor the effectiveness and safety of inoculations for mass immunization. This organization is the Division of Biologies Standards (DBS).
“In the early seventies, the DBS came under severe criticism with regard to its practices. In 1961, several million people received polio and adenovirus vaccines that had been contaminated with a monkey virus known as SV40, known to cause cancer in hamsters. Its effect on humans is not yet known. Instead of taking the remaining vaccine off the market, the DBS continued to allow their usage ‘rather than risk eroding public confidence by a recall.’ (Science, March 17, 1972).”
William Howard Hay, M.D., Pocono, Pennsylvania June 25, 1937, Address before The Medical Freedom Society (published in the Congressional Record) on the Lemcke Bill to Abolish Compulsory Vaccination:
... “I know of one epidemic of smallpox comprising nine hundred and some cases, in which 95% of the infected had been vaccinated, and most of them recently ...
“A number of years ago, Cook County, Illinois Hospital decided to immunize (against diphtheria) one-half of the nursing staff, and not the other half. Diphtheria broke out soon afterward among the immunized cases, not the others ...
“Within six years of the U.S. takeover of the Phillipines and after 30,000,000 vaccinations, they suffered the worst onset of smallpox, the worst epidemic three times over, that had ever occurred ... and it was almost three times as fatal. The death rate ran as high as 60% in certain areas, where formerly it had been 10% and 15%.”
Report of U.S. Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, July 24, 1942:
“Recent army experience with yellow fever vaccine resulted in 28,505 cases of hepatitis, with 62 deaths, as of July 24, 1942.”
1957-1959
In 1957, nearly half the paralytic cases of polio in children between five and fourteen occurred in vaccinated children. It was admitted that the vaccine had been causing paralysis. There were more polio cases in 1958 than in 1957—6,029 cases, with 3,122 paralytic. In 1959 there were 8,577 cases of polio, with 5,694 paralytic. (The Salk vaccine had been introduced in 1955.) In 1959, the health director of the state of Idaho; Dr. Carl Eklund, one of America’s vaccination authorities; and Dr. Florio, the medical officer of Denver, all spoke out against the epidemic and crippling effects of the Salk vaccine.
1961 (Chicago Daily News, 9/16/61):
In 1959, the Sabin Live Virus Vaccine for polio was introduced. “Eleven persons who received Sabin oral vaccine a mass immunizing program in the Syracuse, New York, area have developed paralytic polio, the U.S. Public Health Service reported yesterday.”
1964 (Awake Magazine, 11/22/64):
“The U.S. Public Health Service recommended that the Sabin oral vaccine for polio be discontinued to adults ... A seventeen-man committee found that 57 cases of paralytic polio have been found that were compatible with the possibility of having been induced by the vaccine. The vast majority ... involved adults.”
Read Don’t Get Stuck or The Poisoned Needle for details about the trail of crippling and death left by vaccination. A large volume could be filled with the recorded cases.
Dr. Shelton said in 1976, “The pain proposed by the president” (Ford) “involves the absurdity of introducing the supposed cause of influenza into the bodies of the people to produce in them mild cases of influenza in the hope that this will cause them to produce protective antibodies and thus enable them to escape more serious disease by the accidental invasion of their bodies by the same supposed causes. Viruses are very accommodating little critters. They introduce mild disease when introduced into the body by physicians and serious disease when introduced accidentally. What an enormous debt the medical profession owes to viruses!”
A student of mine (in 1976) reported to me that her father had been caught up in the swine flu immunizing frenzy, and had died the day after receiving the vaccination.
It may seem incredible that the 1976 Swine Flu Epidemic hoax, with its terrible consequences, has not aroused the public to reject all so-called immunizations. But the government and the medical profession have glib and plausible explanations and continue to sell the idea that the risks involved in “immunization” are small, compared to the potential benefit. And the public still accepts the idea of “contagion” being the cause of “epidemics”, and allow their children to stand in the “immunizing” lines.
Those who doubt the necessity or advisability of vaccination are browbeaten into submission by the “authorities” who insist “it is the law.” Actually, the laws vary from state to state.
California allows exemption simply on a written statement that immunization is contrary to his or her belief. But even in Florida, where the media have been screaming, “No child will be allowed to enter school without proof of immunization,” it is possible to escape.
Members of the American Natural Hygiene Society can apply to the Society for assistance. Sometimes a firm approach to the school authorities is all that is necessary.
At the October 1982, meeting of our Pasco Natural Hygiene Society, two happy parents (Clearwater, Florida) informed me that all it took was a statement to the school authorities that vaccination is against their religious beliefs. They were told that in case of any outbreak of one of the “vaccination diseases,” their children would be required not to attend school until the outbreak was over.
Of course, they were delighted, and repeatedly thanked me for guiding them in the right direction—away from the fear of “contagion” and “epidemics.”
What explanation does the medical profession offer as to the origin of a disease that appears without any possibility of having been caught from another person with that disease?
I have never heard any “explanation” of this anomaly, but medical people still insist that germs are the primary cause of disease.
If advocates of vaccination believe that it protects, why are they so insistent that everyone else also be vaccinated?
They claim that for vaccination to be truly effective, at least 90% of the population must be vaccinated. The rationale is, I believe, that a vaccinated person can infect an unvaccinated person, and the unvaccinated person, being “unprotected,” may develop a more virulent form of the disease, and start an “epidemic.” When epidemics start among the vaccinated people, the tendency is to blame the unvaccinated people for not participating, so that complete “protection” might be obtained. These specious arguments are the only ones I have ever heard as justification for compulsory vaccination. If there are other more logical reasons for compulsory vaccination, I would like to hear them.
What causes a germ inside the body to mutate into another type of germ?
The amount and type of toxins in the body. See (in the lesson) Dr. Shelton’s explanation of why toxemia causes typhoid in one person and pneumonia in another, and the relationship to the types of food in the diet. Lack of inner cleanliness and the absence of a clean, Hygienic environment, influence the kind of eliminative crises the body will conduct. Bacteria are scavengers which feed on the materials (soil) available to it in the body of the host. The type (shape) of the bacteria is determined by the kind of soil involved.
Barring violence, perhaps the only cause of death is tolerated poisoning. The slow, gradual, insidious undermining of the organism—the wasting of its nervous energy and the impairing of its functional and structural integrity—by poisons that are harbored and “tolerated” kills sooner or later. Yet, toleration is one of the most misunderstood phenomena in all nature. Very few men and women grasp its true character.
Tolerance for poisoning is established by breaking down resistance to its influence. The body pays for this toleration (miscalled immunity) by general enervation and lowered resistance to every other influence.
It has been objected that the breaking down of resistance should not produce toleration, that it should weaken the organism and render it more susceptible to the influence of poison. This objection arises out of not understanding the phenomena of resistance.
We have seen tolerance defined as the “ability to endure the continued use of a drug.” We have also seen it defined as the ability to resist a drug. There is something wrong somewhere. It is one thing to resist; it is another to endure.
That the vital system resists drug poisons is not doubted. The means of resistance is not well understood. When emesis (vomiting) follows a dose of ipecac and diarrhea follows a dose of calomel, these processes are recognized as evidences of intolerance; but they are not understood to be means of resistance. Resistance is supposed to be some occult power that comes into play after the physiological evidences of intolerance have ceased. This is the reason we are told that tolerance means being inured to poison by habit so that it may be taken without harm.
So long as the body actively resists and speedily expels the poison, it is supposed to produce harm, after active resistance has ceased and rapid expulsion no longer occur, it is supposed to be harmless.
It should be obvious to even a child that its speedy expulsion prevents harm while its toleration permits it to do much harm. If calomel is expelled by diarrhea, it does not get into the blood and cannot damage the blood, nerves, bones, teeth, etc. If it is not expelled by diarrhea, it does get into the blood and does damage all of these structures.
It is a sad day for the body when it learns to tolerate poisons. If intolerance persists, it will force cessation of the use of poison. If tolerance for tobacco were never established, there would be no tobacco users. The same for alcohol, opium, arsenic, and other poisons.
Note that the symptoms of poisoning—pain, nausea, vomiting, griping, diarrhea, vertigo, weakness, inflammation, etc.—are also the symptoms of disease. So-called disease is a process of resistance—resistance to poisons. It expels the cause of disease as surely as it expels calomel or ipecac. This fact is so very obvious we are unable to understand why it cannot be grasped by all.
Drugs are said to lose a degree of their potency by repetition. This does not express what actually takes place. It is not the drug that loses its potency. It is the body that loses power. The repeated use of a poison gradually overcomes or decreases vital resistance.
So long as it was believed that the symptoms following the taking of a poison represented drug action, it was legitimate to believe that when these symptoms, no longer followed a dose of the poison, the drug had lost some of its potency. But when we realize that these symptoms are signs of vital resistance, that they are actions of the living body, we understand that the failure of these symptoms to follow a dose of the poison is due to a loss by the body of power to act.
This weakening of the powers of life, this subduing of the power of resistance, results in establishing what is called toleration. When toleration is established, that is, when the power of resistance is worn out, to produce the same effect—the same degree of resistance—the size of the dose must be progressively increased.
When medical men tell us that drugs lose their “remedial” effects by long continuance, we are to understand that vital resistance has been subdued. For the phenomena of resistance are what medical men mistakenly call the “remedial” effects of their drugs. They have not yet learned that it is the living body, not the drug, that acts (acts to expel the poison).
Toleration and lost resistance are one and the same thing. It is a matter of every day experience that as the body’s power of resistance to a particular poison is reduced, it is less able to “react” to that poison.
The first effect of a toxin is always stimulation, which is merely another name for excitement or irritation. This is always followed by actions of the body (the so-called “reaction”) to expel the poison. These actions (or “reactions”) represent the process of resistance. The body refuses to tolerate the poison.
When “stimulation” is frequently repeated, increasingly large doses of the same poison or toxin are required to arouse a degree of intolerance that equals the intensity of the original “reaction.” This lowered “reactive” power, this lessening of the defensive actions of the body, is called toleration.
Diminished resisting power (toleration) is a state of enervation. General enervation, however produced—by drugs, excesses, by toxemia—diminishes resisting power to all poisons or excitants.
This does not, in and of itself, represent a diminished susceptibility to the baneful influence of poisonous drugs. It may, however, represent, in addition to the increased enervation, a change in the methods of self-protection, a shifting from one method of defense to another and let; expensive one—a passive resistance and a slow yielding to the influence of the poison.
This represents the cessation of active resistance, or partial submission to the poison. For submission, or lessened resistance, is what toleration really amounts to.
Passive resistance is doubtless accompanied with or accomplished by changes in the tissue, which, if not identical with those seen in the hands when these are subjected to repeated friction, are analogous to them. The hardening and thickening of the hands, that is the building up of callouses, is not the result of friction, but is a means of resisting friction. The tendency of friction is to wear away the skin, hence this must be continuously built up from beneath.
While the callous guards the underlying structures against the friction, it cripples all the powers of the skin. Such skin is not ideal—does not represent the physiological norm.
If you are not accustomed to using fiery condiments and you undertake to use red pepper, it causes the lips, mouth, tongue, and throat to burn intensely. When swallowed, it produces discomfort in the stomach. There is later a feeling of discomfort in the intestine as the irritating pepper passes along. When, finally, it is expelled in the stools, the anus and rectum burn as much as did the mouth when the pepper was swallowed.
Persist in the use of the pepper and its irritating effect grows less and less until, finally, it produces no burning of the mouth and throat, no distress in the stomach and intestine, no burning of the rectum and anus. The membranes of the entire digestive tract become thickened and hardened in defense against the repeated irritation. The protective thickening impairs their other functions. The sense of taste is dulled, digestion is impaired. Doubtless something similar to this takes place in all the tissues of the body that are subjected to chronic irritation by alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, arsenic, opium, salt, and other poisons and irritants in common use. They, too, must undergo changes to defend themselves.
Adaptation to poisons, that is, the establishment of toleration, is accomplished by changes in the tissues that are away from the idea! and that cripple all the powers of the tissues.
I do not think it can be too strongly emphasized that adaptation to the use of a poison, that is, the establishment of toleration, is accomplished by a depravity of the organism. This fact was, so far as I know, first explained by Sylvester Graham more than a hundred years ago.
The greater the physiological depravity, the more of the poison will be “demanded” by the user and the more his body will tolerate without signs of active resistance. In other words, in precisely the proportion to which one becomes accustomed to the use of any poison is his system depraved and his defensive powers reduced. The ability to use large quantities of tobacco, for instance, without being made sick, instead of being an evidence of strength and physiological fitness, is an evidence of weakness and physiological depravity.
When tobacco is taken into the undepraved organism, it is met with strong vital resistance. There follow in rapid succession distressing dizziness, muscular relaxation, tremor, weakness, perhaps fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and even convulsions. Such a “reaction” always follows the introduction of tobacco into the undepraved organism; and the more vigorous and undeprived the organism, the more prompt and powerful will be this “reaction.”
It is only by commencing a career of depravity, with cautiously measured steps, that we may break down the body’s resistance to the poison and, ultimately, bring about a condition in which the body seems actually to call for and embrace, as a friend, its arch foe.
The body may thus be so depraved that the deadliest poison may be habitually taken in considerable quantities and only result in an immediate feeling of apparent well-being. Indeed, there maybe, and usually is, much suffering if the depraved organism is denied the cause of its depravity.
The habitué may be able to take at one dose enough poison to kill six nonusers. Arsenic may be used as freely as table salt, with as little immediate evidence of its poisonous character, once the body has been beaten into submission. Prussic acid, which kills like lightning, when the body is not accustomed to its use, may, beginning with minute doses, and gradually using larger and larger doses, be used with considerable freedom as a means of “exhilaration” and intoxication.
The opium addict can take at one dose sufficient opium to kill several nonusers outright. Instead of producing any immediate symptoms of poisoning in him, the opium results in an immediate feeling of well-being. If he is denied his accustomed dose, he suffers intensely. Give him his accustomed poison and his sufferings vanish as if by magic. The cause of his suffering seems to cure his suffering, but only seems to, for the longer he uses the opium, the more he suffers and the larger dose and the more frequent doses will he require to silence the outcries of his outraged system. The real effect of the dose is to renarcotize his nerves, which can only cry out and reveal his true condition when they are no longer under the influence of the drug.
In the same way coffee will “cure” the headache it produces; tobacco will “steady” the nerves it has unsteadied; alcohol will “strengthen” the man it has weakened; sleeping potions “cure” the sleeplessness they have produced, only to make the sleeplessness worse and require a larger dose to “cure” next dine. Stimulants weaken us by overstimulation, mistaken for “energy.”
The ability of the carefully depraved organism to tolerate large doses of poisons and the fact of every day experience that the use of poisons by the physiologically depraved instead of producing immediate symptoms of poisoning, results in the appearance and feeling of well-being, has led even intelligent people to stoutly deny the poisonous character of many poisons in habitual use. Because tobacco, opium, alcohol, arsenic or coffee and tea may be freely and habitually used without producing immediate death, or any of the distressing symptoms that indicate acute poisoning; but, on the contrary, so far as the feelings and actions of the users are concerned, they act as grateful “cordials,” men and women are deceived by them. “My experience has shown that tobacco is very kind to me,” says the tobacco user, while the opium addict informs us that his “experience has shown that opium is very kind to me.”
Such “experience” is based not only on the deceptive appearances of drug habituation, but is defective in that it forgets or ignores both the beginning and the end of the experience with the drug. If we accept the nonpoisonous character of tea, coffee, tocabbo, alcohol, opium etc., on the basis of such “experience,” we are forced to the fallacious conclusion that there is no such thing as a poison in nature. The body can learn to tolerate most substances, however deadly, by a career of physiological depravity.
The true test of the poisonous or nonpoisonous character of any substance is its introduction into the undepraved—the intolerant—organism. By this test tobacco, alcohol, tea, coffee, opium, arsenic, and all other drugs that are used for “exhilaration” and intoxication are shown to be strongly anti-vital i.e., poisonous.
The beginning of a poison vice is marked by evidences of acute poisoning. Thereafter, there are evidences of acute poisoning. The end—no one disputes the end of opium addiction. Few today will deny the end of arsenic eating. Why close our eyes to the ends of alcoholism, nicotinism, caffeinism, etc.? Not until we include in our “experience” both the beginning and the end of a poison-vice are we justified in drawing conclusions from “our experience.”
What is the Hygienic viewpoint of viruses and their effects on living cells?
This question is a little difficult to answer because virology is still in its childhood. Their nature is still not known. Are they plants, chemicals, animals, or parasites? No one knows exactly what they are.
Boyd states that a virus “represents a most minute and primitive form of life. Even this statement may be questioned, for the virus seems to exist in the dim borderland between living things and chemical compounds. It is a submicroscopic unit containing nucleic acid and protein. Unlike bacteria, viruses are not capable of supporting life on their own, owing to a lack of enzymes. In order to exist and multiply, they must occupy living cells, which provide them with necessary material and energy. ... It is evident that a virus is a perfect example of a parasite.”
Some viruses live and grow only in man. Others prefer other animals. Some of them like to live only in specific tissues such as nerve tissue (neurotropic), while others prefer the skin, and are called dermotropic. Still others are viscerotropic, meaning that they live in the viscera of animals.
The current knowledge of the virus seems to point clearly to its parasitic nature. Knowing the nature of viruses gives us a clue as to how to “defend” ourselves from them, if, indeed, we need defending. They, like bacteria, may end up being our benefactors instead of our enemies. Their outstanding characteristic is that they cannot multiply unless in a living cell. Since they live within the cell, dosing ourselves with antibiotics and other drugs such as the sulfonamides will not destroy them.
Viruses, being mainly proteinaceous in nature, occasion antibody formation when they are in the bloodstream. The body acts against them to destroy them, just as it destroys bacteria. A healthy body can destroy them as rapidly as they are formed. Even though they are somewhat protected within the cell from the antibodies, a healthy cell can keep them under control and prevent them from overwhelming the cell.
A medical differentiation is made between a viral infection and viral disease. A host may be infected with a virus but not manifest a disease. In the case of viral infection multiplication of the virus can proceed without damage to the cell. When there is a viral disease, the cell shows pathological changes, usually in the form of degeneration. Boyd thinks that viral infection is universal but that viral disease is relatively rare. He says, “viral infection is very much commoner than viral disease—indeed it may be universal. Thus polio virus infection is many hundred times commoner than the disease, and adenovirus infection of the tonsils is present in about 90 percent of normal persons, although disease caused by these viruses occurs in a very small percentage.
“In viral infection, a virus may sojourn indefinitely in the comfortable surroundings of the cell. It is more than a boarder, for it has become one of the family, and it can live with the family for generations without causing trouble. Various internal or external agents may upset the harmony and convert the latent virus into a virulent one, which usurps the cell’s biosynthetic machinery for the production, almost exclusively, of viral progeny (Swartz and Littlefield). Such factors as age, genetic makeup, nutrition, or hormonal balance may be responsible. So may bacterial infection, one of the best examples being the well-known relation between the herpes simplex (”cold sore” on the lip) and pneumococcal pneumonia. Influenza is believed with reason to predispose the patient to respiratory tract bacterial infection, but it is also possible that such an infection may precipitate an attack of influenza through the conversion of a latent into an active virus.
“It is now known that a protein is produced by virus-treated cells in tissue culture which is capable of inhibiting or interfering with the growth of many other viruses. This material has been named interferon, and it seems to have many of the properties of a viral antibiotic, so that we may hear more of it in the future (Isaacs and Burke). Recovery, as opposed to immunity, does not depend on the production of antibodies. The factors responsible for recovery are at present unknown.
“The practical importance of the theoretical considerations which have just been outlined lies in the fact that as viral disease is dependent on viral reproduction, and as viral reproduction is dependent on biochemical processes, it may be possible to interfere with these processes and thus inhibit reproduction by chemical compounds. First steps in this direction have already been taken, but we have to face the unfortunate fact that by the time signs and symptoms of disease are apparent, reproduction for the virus is far advanced. It is evident that the control of viral diseases presents the same formidable obstacles as the control of cancer and for the same reason, namely that we are dealing with a disorder within the cell itself.”
I quoted extensively from Boyd because I wanted you to read the medical man’s words yourself. When analyzing his writing, we learn that a virus can be present without a disease being manifest and without the disease necessarily developing even in the future.
In fact, we learned that 90% of normal persons can harbor a virus and only a few of this percentage develop the disease the virus is supposed to cause. Viral disease, like bacterial diseases, require something else or some other enervating substance or influence to prostrate the body’s protective functions permitting the virus to run away with the biological activities within the cell.
We also learned about interferon. This indicates that the body does have a means within the cell of protecting itself, thus preventing the virus from multiplying within the cell. It has always been totally unthinkable to me that a virus could enter a ceil, and take over without the least bit of biological protest. Now we have learned that the body protects itself from viruses just like it does from bacteria and their toxins. Our job is to supply our bodies with the necessary materials and influences which promote health and protection.
We learned also that there are “carriers” of viruses just as there are “carriers” of bacteria. A “carrier” is a person in a state of impaired health but not yet sick enough to go to bed. This state of lowered vitality is low enough to permit the virus to exist, but not low enough to permit it to multiply so much that it produces apparent degeneration of the cell. This takes years. Greater health will enable the host to destroy the viruses, and less health will cause the carrier to develop a so-called viral disease.
As Hygienists, we know that there is no such thing as a viral disease. There are simply stales of impaired health with cell degeneration. That the virus is an entity and that it occasions cellular degeneration is stilt a mute question. The so-called viruses may simply be the various toxic debris that Hygienists have been condemning and shouting about for many years. Not wanting to keep the toxin in the bloodstream, the body may find a means of encapsulating it in a protein membrane and injecting it into a cell to get it out of the bloodstream. Eventually these toxins pervert the metabolism of the cell and cause cellular degeneration. The virus may be only encapsulated protein, the body having surrounded it with a membrane to prevent an excess from upsetting the system. The modern high protein diet may be the reason for so-called viral infections.
Another thing we gleen from the foregoing quotation from Boyd is the manner in which the medical man thinks. Instead of thinking in terms of improving the person’s health with the normal elements of physiology, he thinks in terms of a chemical which will destroy the virus although he previously pointed out the fact that the cell can protect itself with interferon, and although he mentioned the factors which may make a latent virus become active. Instead of telling us to avoid these factors, he searches for a chemical panacea. It has been proven with antibiotic therapy that you can’t kill all bacteria with antibiotics and often instead of destroying the bacteria, the drug simply produces a mutant strain that is resistant to the chemical or antibiotic, and the bacteria thrive in the host despite the drug.
But the host’s health is destroyed and his ability to destroy bacteria is at the same time depressed by the antibiotic. Instead of making the host immune to disease and bacteria, it makes him more susceptible. The same can be said of any drug, which may be produced, that will kill viruses. If it is destructive to the virus, it will also be destructive to those taking the drug.
Many important facts have been brought to the surface by modern research. What is so remarkable, is that every time something new is learned it only strengthens and confirms the Hygienic viewpoint of disease.
We have learned that viruses vary just as do bacteria. Something causes them to change from a virulent virus to a nonvirulent one or vice versa. What causes this? In bacteria, it is their environment. If the environment is toxic and the bacteria must live on filth, they become virulent. There is every reason to believe that viruses in a toxic environment filled with an excess of metabolic waste products and environmental poisons, will also become virulent because of their nourishment.
An article from the Cyclopedia of Medicine written by Edwin W. Schultz, M.D. clearly points out that viruses change. He states,
“Considerable experimental work has been done on variation in viruses. It is well established that viruses do undergo variations, including variation in virulence, in antigenic structure, and in the character of the lesions induced. Sometimes the variations are of a stable mutation type, at other times, not. While viruses have been compared with self-perpetuating genes, little is known regarding the genetics of viruses.
“The capacity of viruses to undergo variation has also been studied in the laboratory. Certain variations have been induced in vaccinia virus and other pock viruses. The conversion of ‘street virus’ to ‘fixed’ rabies virus it a classical example of laboratory adaptation. In its passage from brain to brain in rabbits, street virus loses its ability to progress along peripheral nerves; this is a variation relating to its tropism. It occurs without significant changes in antigenic properties. With some viruses, however, appreciable shifts may sometimes occur in the antigenic properties when these are passed long enough in a new type of host. Among the more important variations, which have been induced under artificial conditions, is the transformation of yellow fever virus under tissue culture conditions from a primarily viscerotropic virus to one which has not only lost its viscerotropism, but inherent neurotropism as well, arid this without significant alteration of its natural antigenic properties. Strain 17D, now employed in immunizing against yellow fever, has this history.”
Again the physician is thinking in terms of using this newfound knowledge wrongly. Instead of learning that a healthy body will destroy the virus and that it can even turn a virulent virus into a nonvirulent one so that it will not cause any pathological degeneration, they are still thinking in terms of immunizing the body against the virus, which is impossible anyway because of the many different strains of the same virus.
That the immunizing process is fraught with great danger is brought out in the following quotation from the the same author. “A certain degree of pliability in a virus can prove a useful property. If a virus can be made to give up its natural virulence without significant change in its anti-genic properties, it may become useful as a vaccine. What will happen when it is placed in a new environment is, however, often unpredictable. Merely carrying it under such conditions for a time gives no assurance that a change in virulence or other properties has been induced. Proof that such a useful change has been effected may require lengthy experimental observations to determine not only the degree of the change, but the stability of the change.”
In summary, all the newer knowledge about viruses only strengthens, corroborates, and substantiates the Hygienic viewpoint of all bacteria, parasites, and viruses. The healthy body has its means of destroying and eliminating them from the system. If you are in a state of impaired health, drugs and vaccines do no good whatsoever. They further weaken the organism and intoxicate the system, making it even more susceptible to parasitic and bacterial invasion.
Furthermore, we just learned of the hazards of injecting attenuated viruses. They can backfire and become virulent again. Many children became paralyzed after taking Sabin and Salk vaccines. The means of health and only the means of health are useful in states of disease. If a substance bears no normal relation to the body and if it is not generally used in any of its biochemical or physiological processes, then it does not belong in the body even if it does kill bacteria and viruses in the test tube. We are dealing with living organisms, not minced tissue growing in a culture in the lab. Let us rely on the only reliable means left, and those are the primordial requisites of life.
(Editor’s Note: While the above article gives credence to medical views, it is, nevertheless an excellent Hygienic presentation. Students should now know that so-called viruses are only cellular debris, being, particularly, the remnants of genetic material from cellular mitochondria. This debris, along with other uneliminaled wastes, constitutes the morbid material the body endeavors to expel when it institutes an eliminative crisis called sickness, disease, etc.)
Worried people call the Health School asking if they should have themselves immunized before traveling abroad. They are going to the Far East or Mexico, and should they beware of fresh fruits and vegetables? Is it true that they must drink wine or beer, and shun pure water?
These and other questions come to their mind when preparing for a visit to other countries. They have heard so many scare stories written by the masters of the scare science that they take a trip with great fear and trepidation. Indeed, some remain home for, fear of “catching” some foreign “bug.”
On January 4, 1971, the Arkansas Gazette carried an article by Dr. Van Dellen alarming the people that a cholera epidemic was spreading through the Middle and Far East, into Africa. “For the first time in 100 years the disease has bridged the Sahara and is in tropical Africa and as far west as Guinea. These areas are densely populated and have poor sanitation—ideal conditions for the spread of the infection. The mortality also has been high.
He goes on to say that the cholera poses “no immediate threat to the United States,” but he says this “with his fingers crossed, because any person visiting afflicted countries could bring it back.” Then those stow-away germs could pounce on us poor unsuspecting Americans who would then succumb to the disease.
Where was the cholera vibrio all these years? Did it disappear and suddenly return? Travelers are advised to consult the United States Public Health Service to determine which countries demand that they be immunized for cholera before entering, making it sound as if many countries demand immunization for this disease before crossing their frontiers. This is not so. Dr. Van Dellen states in the aforementioned article that, “Many countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa demand evidence of vaccination before a person crosses their frontiers. And this is true particularly after the person has been in a cholera-infected area.”
I telephoned the United States Public Health Service and was told that it is not necessary to be immunized before going into an infected area; that the countries did not care if you were subjected to the disease when there. It is the other countries that worried when you re-entered them on your way home. I was advised that before making a world trip that one should be immunized for smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, tetanus, typhoid, polio, and hepatitis. Then one month before entering a malaria-infested area I was told to start taking medication and continue taking it as long as there was a chance of being bitten by the malaria-carrying mosquito.
The World Health Organization, Geneva, is the responsible body for the International Sanitary Regulations. It is clear in Article 83, for all those countries that accept the International Sanitary Regulations, that “objectors to vaccination can refuse the operations without being refused admission into those countries which have accepted the International Sanitary Regulations.”
If you have traveled into Asia, Africa, America, other than from the United States and Canada, and wish to enter the United Kingdom, an official vaccination certificate is necessary. In almost all countries, however, you can get in without shots of any kind. It is when you re-enter other countries from an infected area that trouble may be given you. Paul-Emile Chevrefils, M.D., founder president of La Ligue Pour Le Vaccine Libre states that he travels without the yellow certificate, using only Article 83. He states that, “This international by-law gives anyone the right to go around the world by using the medical surveillance for 15 days, not to be isolated but to go freely.”
After informing his readers that “there is no good evidence that cholera immunizations are any good ...” Fredrick J. Stare, M.D. (Arkansas Gazette, November 16, 1970) urges us to be shot anyway, and then gives us a formula for eating that will supposedly prevent cholera. Do what he says and you probably will develop cholera. Do the exact opposite of his advice which follows and you will probably have more energy, enjoy yourself more and not be troubled whatsoever with “vacation diarrhea.”
Stare, according to the dictates of the infection myth, gives us this advice: Stick to bottled mineral water, hot tea or coffee, or bottled beer, eat the meat, potatoes, rice, or other well-cooked foods, canned vegetables, bread, butter, and jam; and shun the fruits and vegetables unless you can readily peel them yourself. Wash your hands well before you eat.”
This nonsensical plan of eating supposedly prevents the development of cholera by killing the vibrio with heat or chemical processes before introducing it into the body via food and water. Were the vibrio the cause of cholera his reasoning would still be specious. Vibrio cholerae are aerobic bacteria, meaning that air is necessary for their growth. There is not an excess of air in the gastrointestinal system. They are also killed by acidity. If food and water, contaminated by vibrio cholera are taken, the acid of any good stomach will soon destroy them. Kendall A. Elson, M.D. states in Cyclopedia of Medicine, that, “The cholera vibrio escapes from the body of the infected individual in stools and vomitus, although if the latter is strongly acid the organisms are immediately killed.”
What people should be taught is cleanliness, and to eat moderately of properly-combined foods so that digestion is normal and they need not fear the cholera vibrio, if they still believe the concept of disease of the shaman. We must caution our readers against Stare’s Middle Ages advice. The cholera vibrio does not cause cholera.
Even though he has twice made the statement that cholera immunizations do not protect one from cholera, Stare advises getting immunized anyway to avoid trouble at ports of entry to other countries which have strict public health regulations. He condemns his peers, who are M.D.s who give the shots when he says, “It is important to have this certificate in order to avoid inconveniences in travel or the threat of serum hepatitis from a dirty vaccinating needle.”
To back up his statements about cholera vaccine, Stare quotes Dr. W. B. Greenough, III, whom he says “knows far more about cholera than I know or ever will know,” as having written him the following: “Many commercial vaccines do not protect even in populations from endemic areas (where cholera is always present) ... as a measure for disease control immunization is ineffective since the carrier state is not interfered with by the vaccine.”
What he is saying in plain English is that if the cholera vaccine protected, then cholera would not be endemic, and those who were protected would not develop the disease even if supposed “carriers” are present. However, we are taught that the “organisms usually disappear from the stools of the cholera patient within five to seven days of the onset of infection. ...” and the carrier state is not supposed to be a significant method of transmission of the disease. Cecil and Loeb’s textbook of medicine states “there are no known instances of chronic carriers among human beings.”
Many Hygienists have traveled to the Middle and Far East and into Africa, eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, without developing any trouble, whereas often those who had all the shots and who drank wine instead of water and who didn’t dare taste a fresh fruit or vegetable came down with various illnesses, including cholera. I might add, that for the sake of cleanliness, pure distilled water would be best to drink, here or overseas, and for absolute cleanliness of vegetables and fruits, rinse them well in distilled water. The cholera vibrio is easily killed by drying, and it dies rapidly in pure water. It is cleanliness that is necessary, not sterility.
Cholera, an acute inflammation of the intestinal canal, is supposedly spread by food and water contaminated with vibrio cholerae. It is usually a disease endemic and epidemic in Asia primarily along the Ganges River in India and Pakistan. The bacillus, which is shaped like a comma, and was called the comma bacillus by Koch, its discoverer, releases a powerful endotoxin after death, which contains a mucinase. Mucinase is thought to be responsible for the extreme cellular desquamation of the mucosal epithelium that is so characteristic a feature of cholera. The endotoxin supposedly causes such intense dilatation of all the capillaries along the whole intestinal tract that the fluid leaks out of these into the intestines, thus producing the rice-water stools so typical of Asiatic cholera. Because of the loss of such huge quantities of electrolytes and water, extreme dehydration ensues, and Boyd states that 75% of the untreated patients die.
Since the vibrio cholera does such horrible things to a person, by all means, shouldn’t we take steps to prevent infection? These threats could scare one into being immunized despite the poor reports of immunization, before going to the Middle and Far East. Who wants to dehydrate and die? So we become immunized and avoid all fresh foods, hoping that we won’t develop the disease.
Germs by themselves do not cause disease. Dr. Pettenkofer, Professor of Bacteriology at the University of Vienna, astounded all his students one day by drinking a glass of water containing millions of living cholera bacilli. He had come to the conclusion that germs do not cause disease, and wanted to prove it. As he gulped down a glassful of living vibrio, the bearded Dr. Pettenkofer only growled, “Now let us see if I get cholera.” De Kruif said that Dr. Pettenkofer drank enough of the “wiggling comma germs to infect a regiment.” Nothing happened to the “mad” Pettenkofer. Many incidents could be cited showing that infecting the body with germs does not cause any specific disease to develop. Perhaps this is why the president was persuaded to dump stockpiles of germs for germ warfare. Perhaps experiments proved them useless and physicians didn’t want the lucrative germ theory destroyed just yet. If germ warfare were effective, it is hardly likely that he would have disposed of the stockpile.
As far back 1928, Dr. M. Beddow Dayly, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Medical World, said: “I am prepared to maintain, with scientifically established facts, that in no single instance has it been conclusively proved that any microorganism is the specific cause of a disease.”
In Volume VI of the Hygienic System, Dr. Shelton says: “In more than sixty years of intensive farming the germ idea, there is not one ‘disease’ that has been proved to be of germ origin, and not one can be cured according to the germ theory. Unless a germ will cause a disease every time it infects the body, it is not a cause. A cause must be as constant and specific in its influence, or it is not a cause. Germs are omnipresent—this is one of the fundamental truths Pasteur or his contemporary, Bechamp, discovered; but he and his followers appear to have overlooked the fact that germs fail to have a specific influence all the time.”
Dr. Shelton further says: “The view I would put before the reader is that ‘disease’ is not caused by the germ, but by the state of the body that allows the germ to flourish. And this condition of the organism or any part of it which renders possible the growth of the germ therein is the much sought for ‘filterable virus.’ It is the outgrowth of violations of the laws of life and is no chance or haphazard condition.”
Dr. Tilden says that germs are merely adventitious—secondary. If the soil is proper for the growth of bacteria, they will flourish but if tissues and secretions are normal and healthy, pathological germs will not grow and multiply.
Those who travel and drink alcoholic beverages, smoke, keep late hours, overeat on spicy, cooked dishes, and sight-see until they are about to drop are enervating themselves. They are using up nerve energy in excess. Functions begin to lag. Metabolic waste products mount in the tissues and fluids of the body. Secretion and excretion are impaired. This is the ground work, or the foundation for the development of any disease. Even then, many times the specific bacteria fail to appear. And in numerous other cases the bacteria fail to appear until very late in the stage of the disease. If a cause is a cause, logically it should be present in sufficient numbers before symptoms appear. It cannot be demonstrated that bacteria invariably appear even after the development of a particular disease.
What is the real reason for Fredrick Stare’s change in feeling about vaccinations for cholera? Probably, he was given a good lecture by the AMA. Thousands of dollars will be lost to the American medical profession if people do not get their immunizations before they leave home. So he castigated his brethren physicians in other countries by telling his public that it is important to avoid the dirty needles in other countries. It would have been better to tell them the truth, that they could rely on Article 83 of the World Health Organization and go freely in other countries, as long as they let the health officials know of their whereabouts. This way a painful shot could be avoided as well as the occasional development of hepatitis from dirty needles in this country.
Why the recent outburst of cholera? An item under World Health News, in the September 1971, Health For All (England), has a very good answer to this question. It states: “Whenever there is a great social upheaval, with its tragic displacement of people and the consequent crowding of refugees, there is always a medical lesson to be learned. Disease often follows in the wake of such catastrophes, and, as with the most recent one, cholera becomes almost epidemic. According to medical opinion, the causative organism in this case is the spirillum cholerae which is found in the stools of patients. Entry into the body is through the alimentary tract, and the source of the infection is polluted water due to a lack of sanitation. To say that the organism is the cause of the disease is, however, to put the cart before the horse. The course of events runs in this order; First the breakdown of social order; then the panic of the population; and then the crowding of the people with the absence of sanitation, with the development of the organism as an associated factor. In this country, as history tells, cholera was widespread whenever people were crowded together and there was a lack of proper sanitation.
“It is interesting to notice that whenever there is a cholera outbreak, the headlines in the newspapers are given over the use of vaccines, to which, also, credit is generally afforded when the epidemic comes under control. The vaccines are rushed from the great pharmaceutical centres with the accompaniment of massive publicity with the result that probably 99 persons out of 100 would affirm the vaccines were effective in controlling the situation.
“It would therefore have come as a surprise to many people to have read on the front page of Medical News Tribune, June 11, 1971, the headline: ‘Medical science helpless against cholera epidemic’ and to have learned that ‘medical science is virtually powerless in the face of the cholera epidemic on the India-Pakistan border. Tropical medicine experts can’t even estimate how many could die. Better sanitation is the only answer, impossible in the present situation as millions of Pakistani refugees exist in terrible conditions, aggravated by the monsoon... .’ ”
Boyd’s textbook of pathology states that, “The wise Chinese are the only Orientals who do not suffer from cholera; they use boiled water and cooked food, they drink tea and eat hot rice.” We have had personal talks with Scott Nearing, who also said that cholera was virtually wiped out in China, but this is attributed to better sanitation and better diets for the Chinese and not due to the fact that everything they eat or drink is boiled or cooked. They have habits of moderation in all things and do not eat extensively of flesh foods.
It is a well-known fact that the Chinese have used human wastes for many centuries for fertilizer. They are still using this method of fertilization. It isn’t the boiling or cooking of their foods that protects them; it is the fact that they have a better economy than many years ago, and their people are better fed than previously.
Recently, in Organic Gardening and Farming, an article entitled “Goodbye to the Flush Toilet” pictures the use of human wastes as very ecological and necessary. It demonstrates how unclean our system of purifying water is, and how “even the most modern of sewage plants don’t do a perfect job of taking that one part of human excrement out of toilet water.” This dirty water, even though sterile, is, sent back into the reservoirs for us to drink and wash vegetables in. It clearly shows that the disposal of body wastes is actually cleaner when done the old-fashioned way, by bacteria and filtration through soil. The article states that “clearly, the soil does a much better job of purification than any sewage plant.”
The aforementioned article quotes from Dr. F. H. King’s book, Farmers of Forty Centuries, and shows that all animal wastes are recycled by the Orientals. “Human wastes were almost the life-blood of Oriental agriculture, Dr. King found. Farmers made attractive screens near their fields so passersby would honor them by leaving behind some human fertilizer. All families saved their toilet wastes and sold them to farmers. Cities found their human wastes to be a net profit instead of a liability, as in the U.S. In 1908 Shanghai sold one Chinese contractor 78,000 tons of human waste for $31,000 in gold.”
It just goes to show you that it is not the method of fertilization that harms people. If one fears the vibrio, it may help to know that cholera vibrio can survive in sewage for only 24 hours and if the sewage is well composted before using it as fertilizer, there will be no live vibrios to fear.
Cholera is nothing more than a very severe diarrhea commencing high in the intestinal tract. The fluids that are lost during the diarrhea are secreted by the intestinal membranes to rid the food tube of very poisonous and irritating substances, which are not the vibrios. Overeating and drinking with the consequent putrefaction of proteins, producing virulent poisons high up in the small intestine are the causes of the diarrhea. It is a disease of poisoning, and because it develops high in the digestive tube, many electrolytes and fluids are lost. This is the danger. But if no food is taken when a malaise is first felt, and the body is permitted to wash the intestines free of the poison, and fear is kept from the patient, and he is freely supplied water when he is thirsty and can retain it, there will be a recovery rate much greater than now.
Graham states in his book on cholera “that the primary and paramount cause (of cholera) is always the peculiar condition of the human system resulting from the violation of the laws of organic life. Its more immediate exciting causes, however, are various; such as atmospheric changes and conditions—quality and quantity of food—excesses of every kind; but more than all, perhaps the use of artificial stimulants, and especially of the narcotic and alcoholic kinds;—in short, anything and everything that reduces the vital powers of the nerves of organic life; and brings the alimentary canal and with it the whole system into a state of extreme, morbid irritability, leaving little power in the system to sustain high irritation, and to resist and throw off things that are noxious or disturbing to it.
“It may, however, with confidence be asserted, that all the causes which obtain, beyond the control of man, would seldom or never develop this disease without the occurrence of those causes which operate through his voluntary conduct.”
Instead of indulging in beer and wine, and much coffee and cooked food while traveling, if you do the very opposite of this ancient and harmful advice you will be more likely to have a healthy vacation.
70.3. Other Upper Respiratory Problems
Article #1: Coryza, The Common Cold by Virginia Vetrano, B.S., D.C.
70.1.1 Symptomatic Treatment of Colds
70.1.2 Failure of the Medical Community
70.1.4 Astronomical Cost of Colds
70.1.5 Dangers of Cold “Remedies”
70.1.10 Food Must Be Withheld During Acute Stages
70.1.13 Acute Diseases Are Self-Limiting
70.1.14 Too Many Housecleaning Episodes Are Exhausting
70.1.15 Rationale of Modern Medicine
70.1.17 Bacteria and Viruses Are Secondary or Tertiary Factors in Disease
70.1.18 No Bacteria in Early Stages of a Cold
Almost as common as the “common cold” is the virtually universal misunderstanding as to what a cold really is.
The condition known as a “cold” is characterized by inflammation of the mucous membrane of the nose and throat; there also may be inflammation of the membrane lining the nasal sinuses, the larynx, the pharynx, or the bronchial tubes.
There is a profuse flow of mucus, initially thin and watery, gradually becoming thicker and whitish or greenish. The nasal lining thickens and interferes with breathing. Sneezing sometimes brings some temporary relief to the stopped-up nasal passages, but it is the inflammation that narrows the openings and makes breathing difficult.
There may be a temporary loss of smell and taste. Often there is a raw, sore throat with a flow of mucus from this membrane, a husky voice, and a cough. The eyes and ears may become involved. The person feels miserable, and may have a fever, often a headache. He may progress from “thinking he is going to die” to “being afraid he won’t.”
Charles Dickens once described his cold thus: “I am at this moment deaf in the ears, hoarse in the throat, red in the nose, green in the gills, damp in the eyes, twitching in the joints, and fractious in temper, from a most intolerant and oppressive cold.”
The most common “common cold” is an acute rhinitis—inflammation of the nasal cavity—with rhinorrhea (nasal discharge), nasal obstruction (due to swelling or edema of the mucous membrane of the nasal passage) and sneezing. A disease that can be aborted to 24 to 48 hours lasts for weeks in many cases.
Everyone who has had a “cold” (and who hasn’t?) will agree as to the nature of the symptoms, and the misery they cause. But it is almost incredible to realize that the misunderstanding of colds, and the type of treatment commonly employed today, have changed very little in the last few hundred years.
In the 1500s, British doctors often prescribed tobacco juice, lime juice and emetics (to cause vomiting) for colds. If that didn’t work, the patients were bled. Ronald Kotulak, a Chicago Tribune columnist, said, “Those who could not afford these ministrations naturally had a higher rate of recovery.”
In the 18th century, another Englishman came up with this remedy, “Hang your hat on the bedpost, drink from a bottle of good whiskey until two hats appear, then get into bed and stay there.”
The use of “booze” to ease the symptoms is still widespread, and many drug companies include high levels of alcohol in their cold and cough remedies. Nyquil, for instance, contains 25% alcohol by volume, which makes it equivalent to a 50-proof liquor.
The current medical community admits, that it hasn’t made much progress in its efforts against the common cold. The American Medical Association and doctors at Harvard Medical School say that colds still resist the best efforts of the world’s combined medical research talent.
German scientist Dr. W. Kruse announced in 1914 his discovery that colds were caused by viruses and this was hailed as the first big discovery on colds. After that, research sputtered along, seeking the elusive “cure” that was always just around the corner.
In the 1950s, scientists were hopeful they could develop a vaccine against the “cold virus.” But these hopes soon were dashed when more and more cold viruses were discovered. Now there are more than 150 known viruses which are thought (by medical people) to cause the common cold, and a vaccine is admittedly impractical. As Hygienists, we can at least breathe a sign of relief that a “cold vaccine” has not been added to the arsenal of poisonous vaccines being recommended to the gullible public.
Dr. Robert Muldoon, specialist in virology, and professor of medicine at the University of Illinois, said in 1978, “Disgustingly enough, there is not much new about the, common cold. There really isn’t much you can do to protect yourself from a cold, and there still isn’t anything you can do for it once you get it except to treat the symptoms.” (We beg to contradict him!)
Dr. Muldoon took part in a classic experiment at the university with Dr. George Jackson, showing that exposure to cold temperatures or wet feet do not increase a person’s risk of catching a cold. He said that when a person with a cold sneezes on you, you can expect to receive a direct blast of germs, but your chances of catching his cold are only about one in ten. Dr. Muldoon does not give any explanation as to why he thinks nine out of ten people will not get the cold, even when directly exposed.
A cold research establishment in England has been working for twenty-five years to find a definite cause for the common cold. Everything they have tried has failed, though they have subjected volunteers to every conceivable circumstance in order to find some pattern or combination of factors which produce a cold.
Notwithstanding these conclusions (that no one knows the causes of colds)—I must insist that the causes of colds are known, and that the proper method of dealing with a cold has been known for many years. As long ago as 1873, Dr. Robert Walter said, “A cold is simply an effort of the system to relieve itself of its accumulated waste particles.”
Failure of the medical community to find the cause of colds is due to the fact that researchers are looking for something that isn’t there. No cure for the common cold has ever been found by the researchers for an excellent reason: the cold itself is the “cure.”
When the state of nervous energy is lowered, excretion, elimination and digestion are impaired. The two great causes of colds are exhaustion and repletion (surfeit).
When the state of bodily clogging which precedes a cold reaches intolerable proportions, the body organizes for a radical eliminative crisis. The temperature rises, the head and nasal passages become congested, appetite may disappear. The cold may go through various stages of eliminative processes, usually regarded as disease symptoms, instead of being understood as cleansing efforts of the body to unburden the vital organs.
If drugs are used to stop these processes, the body may face a more serious situation later on—perhaps influenza, or pneumonia, or possibly problems with other organs or functions.
We have been taught that colds lay the foundation for other more serious diseases. Rather, they are efforts to prevent the development of more serious conditions. The persistence of the causes, or the drug treatment common today, can lay the foundations for future degenerative pathologies. Chronic disease is due to chronic provocation.
Means of eliminating the accumulations must be employed by the troubled organism. Coughing, sneezing, discharge of mucus, all represent efforts on the part of the body to remove the accumulated unexcreted waste. The symptoms represent part of the remedial process, as the body is striving to maintain or restore the status quo—the homeostasis or physiological equilibrium.
When the body produces symptoms of a cold as vicarious elimination of toxic material which is threatening its survival, we should not even consider suppressing them. Why should we try to check a cough that is necessary to remove an obstruction? Why should we try to dam up in the body the noxious matter that the wisdom of the body has determined must be expelled?
Americans suffer more than 600,000,000 colds a year. This is worth several billion dollars annually to the drug industry, physicians, pharmacists, and the huge support industries: packaging, advertising, etc.
The Harvard Medical School Health Letter warns that the once common practice of prescribing antibiotics for a cold is useless and potentially dangerous.
Despite the fact that there are no medications available to treat a cold effectively, Americans spend more than five hundred million dollars annually for over-the-counter cold remedies—and that doesn’t include aspirin. In addition, coryza (rhinitis), commonly known as a cold, costs the American people untold millions of dollars in loss of time from work and physicians’ bills, plus the cost of lowered efficiency and lessened productive power.
But these immediate costs in dollars and cents are dwarfed by the mischief done to the human organism, to some extent by the causes (which produce the necessity for the vicarious elimination), but, primarily, by the treatment.
Aspirin is the most commonly used cold remedy. Among so-called “health-minded” people, aspirin is often supplanted by vitamin C. Some people take both aspirin and vitamin C. Antihistamines are commonly used.
Neither “booze,” nor aspirin, nor antihistamines, nor vitamin C (nor anything else) can possibly “cure” a cold. Whatever temporary symptomatic relief they may afford is expiated later by accentuation and prolongation of the symptoms, and by insidious damage to the organism.
The most common “side effect” of aspirin is internal bleeding. Most people who experience slight gastric bleeding are unaware that it is occurring. Many people do experience overt, often serious, effects including burning mouth, throat and stomach; breathing difficulties and congestion; dizziness; lethargy; tinnitus (ringing of the ears); vomiting; a decrease in blood circulation; gastric bleeding, or hemorrhaging serious enough to cause ulceration or anemia, or to be life threatening.
Aspirin also interferes with the prostaglandin system, the body’s key defense against disease-causing elements, and the key to detoxification.
A study by researchers at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland reported that five to ten percent of permanent kidney failure is due to damage by aspirin, acetaminophen (e.g., Tylenol), and other analgesics (pain killers). I believe this to be a low estimate—Hygienists have been maintaining for years that drugs subject the kidneys (and the liver) to intolerable stress. The report says that taking three aspirin tablets a day for three years causes renal (kidney) disease, and many people are advised to use much more than that as blood thinners for chronic pain or to relieve arthritis and other inflammatory ailments. Dr. William M. Bennett told a National Kidney Foundation seminar that mixtures of drugs appear to cause more kidney damage than each drug alone. Dr. Bennett said it is not uncommon for people to take analgesics daily in the danger-level amounts, sometimes just to “feel good” or for the mild mood-altering qualities they have.
The mood-altering drugs in coffee and tea also have adverse effects on gastric, cardiac and renal function.
Alcohol, aspirin, antihistamines, and all drugs are designed to stop the body from doing what it is trying to do. The drugs form chemical unions with body tissues, fluids and processes, destroy the body’s ability to purify itself, dam up the poisons, and multiply the problems. So-called “natural cures” (herbs, vitamin C, etc.) are also used in an effort to thwart the action of the body.
Some people are under the impression that colds can be prevented or “cured” by megadoses of vitamin C. The publicity generated by Linus Pauling’s research and writings helped to perpetuate this belief. It is particularly unwise to use vitamin C if one is also taking aspirin, because vitamin C tablets intensify the effects of aspirin in the body, such as hemorrhaging and anemia.
It is true that a diet predominating in raw foods is high in vitamin C, and it is also true that such a diet is a good start in not developing disease. But vitamin C supplements are not food (contrary to what vitamin pill advocates are fond of proclaiming). The body’s reaction to their use is indisputable proof that they are just another form of drug. They are recognized by the body as acids and irritants, to be expelled as quickly as possible. Large amounts of vitamin C supplements trigger an extraordinary detoxification effort of the body (just as do garlic, mustard, camomille, etc.), at great cost in vitality and energy. Some of the toxins which made the cold necessary will often be borne out of the body, riding out on the “fast train” the body is using as an emergency measure to rid itself of the even more intolerable vitamin C supplements. The cold symptoms may disappear, due to the concurrent elimination of some of the toxins, but primarily due to the diversion of the attention of the body from the toxins causing the cold, to the more urgent necessity for getting rid of the acids and irritants in the vitamin C pills.
Viktoras Kulvinskas says, “Fighting colds with vitamin C results in acidification of mucus, which prevents its elimination via the respiratory system. It must instead be expelled by the kidney. The overall effect is strain on the kidney.”
The ultimate result of forcing the symptoms “underground” is insidious damage to the organism, and chronic degenerative disease.
There is nothing mysterious about a cold—it is the body’s own cure for an intolerable condition brought about by the errors and omissions inherent in “civilized living.” Overeating; overconsumption of refined carbohydrates; too few fresh, uncooked fruits and vegetables; coffee, tea, chocolate; soft drinks, hard drinks (even copious water drinking); insufficient muscular activity; not enough clean, fresh air; too little rest; excessive stress—the more of these mistakes we commit, the more often our bodies require “colds” or other eliminating crises.
Air-tight homes add to the problem. Modern homes outfitted with double- or triple-glazed windows; air-lock vestibules; weather stripping; insulation and plastic vapor barriers in walls, floors and ceilings make a “residential thermos bottle” which traps dangerous pollutants inside. In older, draftier homes, air is replaced by fresh air about once an hour. In today’s tightly-sealed homes, inside air is replaced only about once every ten hours.”
The net result of “civilized living” is that every cell in the body is filled with and surrounded by waste material, the blood vessels are lined with excesses of food, and the blood itself is overloaded with waste materials and excesses of food. Hygienists call this condition toxemia, and consider this to be the basic cause of disease.
When the cells, tissues and body fluids contain an abnormally high amount of metabolic waste, it is a threat to the organism. When the body reaches its toleration level, it must employ means of eliminating these accumulations.
Since the cells will, at all times, act in their own best interests, individually and cooperatively, they initiate a process to eliminate the wastes and excess food residues. The body speeds up some activities and reduces the level of others. Elimination is accelerated. The increased burning activity of the body in disposing of the excess materials produces greater heat—the body temperature rises and a fever is experienced. Loss of appetite is a self-protective mechanism.
“A cold is an intense and acute activity designed to rapidly, efficiently, and effectively expel accumulated wastes. ... It is pure insanity to suppress the symptoms of a cold as is commonly done. ... A cold is no more nor less than a period of intense housecleaning.” (Dr. Immerman) People speak of “catching a cold.” People with colds have not “caught” anything—it is just the opposite—they are getting rid of something: they are getting rid of accumulated foul material. A cold is a cleansing, rejuvenating, renovating process.
A cold, or any disease, usually takes a lot of causation. The bodies of most people have taken so much punishment during the time since infancy, their bloodstreams have become so contaminated, that their levels of toleration have gradually increased. A nontoxic, healthy baby (or a truly Hygienic adult) has a relatively uncontaminated bloodstream. Improper feeding of the infant, too little sleep and rest, too much clothing, not enough fresh air and sunshine, results in a retention of toxic material and the baby develops a cold to eliminate wastes in excess of the toleration level.
As the bad habits continue and the child is dosed and drugged and “immunized,” the child’s body gradually learns to tolerate more toxins and will develop fewer eliminative colds and fevers. When bad habits force the system to learn to live with poisons, the waste products remain to damage the body and pave the way for the development of degenerative disease.
When the body has established high toleration levels, a cold does not eliminate all the toxemia—it only brings it down to a level at which the body has become adapted to functioning.
This adaptation is accomplished by the body as a means of preservation of life, since it could not survive the tremendous and constant elimination required by the mode of eating and living or the frequent interference with its remedial processes by drugs and treatments. So it adapts, sacrificing its level of vitality to the necessity for survival. Most physiological adaptations are regressive, as explained in detail in Lesson No. 66. The adaptation is not toward health; it is away from health. But the body has no alternative.
The toleration point can be returned to its pristine low level by fasting and improving the way of life. The toleration level of the average Hygienist has been reduced. The vitality has been restored to a point where the body will no longer tolerate a large toxic load, and may conduct extraordinary elimination at a level that would allow others to continue insulting their bodies. But if a Hygienist perceives the beginnings of cold symptoms, he knows what to do.
It is not true that colds are caused by viruses; that there really isn’t anything you can do to not cause a cold; or that there isn’t anything you can do for a cold once you get it except treat the symptoms (admittedly with scant success).
My grandchildren have known what to do about colds since they were just a few years old. They know that the way to avoid colds is to avoid junk foods and overeating; and they know that a cold can be eliminated by withholding food completely when the first symptoms appear. They know that if one fasts for 36 or 48 hours (or, at the most, three days), the symptoms will usually disappear, and it will not be necessary to contend with a seven- to fourteen-day period of suffering nor the organic damage that can be caused to the respiratory organs or other parts of the body by a prolongation of the causes and the symptoms.
Such cooperation with the self-healing power of one’s own body enables the necessary elimination of toxins to proceed with a minimum of discomfort, a procedure which is quickly consummated.
“Laboratory experiments have demonstrated that digestion is impaired during the acute stages of a cold, and indigestion and decomposition are inevitable ... Feeding in a cold, when indigestion is inevitable, insures that putrefactive poisons will be absorbed into the system where they will increase toxemia. Continued eating when there is no power of digestion necessitates a supplementary eliminating crisis to expel the noxious material before vital tissues are harmed. Hence, a common cold may develop into other more serious diseases if eating is not discontinued.”
Lesson 22 explained the process of digestion, and what happens when food is consumed under conditions which make proper digestion impossible. Proper digestion reduces food to the diffusible state without depriving it of its organic qualities. During the acute stages of a cold (or fever, or emotional upset, or any condition during which digestion is impaired), putrefaction of proteins and fermentation of sugars and starches are known to occur. Food eaten under such conditions, though rendered diffusible, is reduced to an inorganic, useless and toxic state. Digestion results in solution of the food for utilization by the body. Putrefaction and fermentation result in disintegration into toxic substances.
It is not what we eat, but what we digest and assimilate that produces health and strength. Conditions which disturb or impair digestion produce decomposition, thus poisoning the body instead of supplying it with nutritional elements from the food eaten. Whether or not the individual is aware of overt symptoms of such decomposition, insidious damage occurs.
Health and disease are interrelated. Hygienists think of health and disease as fluctuating qualities of the living organism, as a continuum with health at the top. As health becomes less, disease occurs, and, of course, at the bottom of the scale is death. Between health and death are all varieties and conditions.
In a modern environment, it is probably not possible to attain perfect health. The human body is exposed to many toxins daily. Under normal circumstances, it should be possible to eliminate them from the body rapidly. This is the function of the organs of elimination: the kidneys, the liver, the lungs, even the skin. But when the normal level of toxins rises above a certain point, the body is overloaded and the vital energy drops below normal. The organs of depuration, which are regulated by the nervous system, are then unable to maintain their functional efficiency, and the internal environment becomes less stable.
At this point, the condition may be considered a mild functional disturbance, but some remedial steps must be taken to reduce the toxemia. If the individual recognizes the condition and decides to fast and rest, the efficiency and integrity of the body is speedily restored; otherwise, the organism itself takes remedial steps.
First, the actions of the normal channels of elimination are intensified. Next, channels of vicarious elimination are employed—most commonly, the mucous membranes, with a deluge of mucus in the upper respiratory tract. When a full-blown remedial activity is in progress, fasting and resting are even more certainly indicated, but recuperation of the body’s energies will now require more time.
Acute diseases, such as colds, are debilitating, but they are self-limiting. Most people eventually recover without any treatment, or in spite of the treatment. For that reason, almost anything seems to be a “cure.”
When it is fully understood that a cold, or any disease, is body action and not an attack by an external entity, attempts are not instituted to suppress the body’s own defensive and remedial processes.
If the body is allowed to continue its cleansing actions, the person will feel much better afterwards. The only helpful means of aborting or shortening the duration of a cold is through fasting, keeping warm, getting plenty of fresh air and as much bed rest as possible.
This methodology will increase elimination of toxic materials through the regular channels of excretion, and will decrease the necessity for vicarious elimination through the nose, throat, eyes, etc. The headache and fever will subside and the other uncomfortable symptoms will be reduced and gradually disappear.
People who have frequent colds are conducting beneficial and necessary eliminative processes. Other people, equally toxic (or more toxic) may not have the energy to conduct such housecleaning and may, instead, undergo insidious degeneration.
The wise Hygienist will avoid toxemia, and avoid the necessity for so many housecleaning episodes. If such episodes are too frequent, damage to the channels of vicarious elimination will be inevitable.
Dr. Sidhwa says, “It must be pointed out that too frequent use of the same paths of vicarious elimination will lead to atrophy and degeneration of any path of elimination, as well as a gradual wearing down of the strength of the glands themselves. Although disease, especially acute disease, is a life-saving process, it is also a life-consuming process. Frequent stimulation leads to exhaustion, leading to further enervation of the whole system.”
The medical profession, for the most part, regards diseases as organized entities that attack the body from without and that must be destroyed. That is why medical students spend such a great percentage of their time studying the pharmacopoeia, the thousands of drugs which are the weapons of choice against the little beasties—the “disease germs” and the mysterious viruses (the drugs that destroy the kidneys, that threaten life itself).
Modern medicine employs the word “virus” to mean an ultra-minute form of life that infects cells and causes maladies. They know not exactly what the viruses are—plants, chemicals, animals or parasites?
Boyd’s medical textbook states that “the virus seems to exist in the dim borderland between living things and chemical compounds. It is a submicroscopic unit containing nucleic acid and protein. Unlike bacteria, viruses are “not capable of supporting” life on their own, owing to a lack of enzymes. In order to exist and multiply, they must occupy living cells which provide them with necessary material and energy. It is evident that a virus is a perfect example of a parasite.”
Boyd admits that most normal persons can harbor viruses without developing the disease the viruses are supposed to cause, and that enervating influences overcome the body’s protective functions and “permit the viruses to usurp the biological activities within the cell.”
Interferon, manufactured within the organism in response to colds and other so-called “virus diseases,” is the body’s means of protecting itself, but it can only operate when we supply the necessary materials and influences which promote health and protection.
In recent years, interferon has been publicized as the bright new hope to fight cancer and “virus diseases.” But, although pharmaceutical firms invested millions in synthesizing interferon, the results (as with other magic bullets) have been disappointing and inconclusive.
In 1978, scientists were hailing interferon as a true miracle drug, a century after it was identified. But it has not lived up to its advance billing. Although the price tag for interferon research has hit four hundred million dollars, an FDA spokesman said (May 1983), “There are no real answers yet ... This drug affects a lot of systems in the body and has produced some side effects that include nausea, vomiting, flu-like pains, fevers and chills, confusion and high blood pressure.”
Boyd’s writings exemplify the medical attitude. Instead of thinking in terms of health improvement, so that the cells can heal themselves, they are seeking a chemical panacea to destroy the virus. Chemicals only make the host more susceptible and less able to deal with toxins in the organism.
When the body is undergoing a crisis of elimination, virulent bacteria (or viruses) may become involved as secondary or tertiary factors. The use of drugs may produce mutant, more resistant strains. Edwin W. Schultz, M.D., in an article in the Cyclopedia of Medicine, states, “It is well established that viruses do undergo variations ... in virulence, in antigenic structure, and in the character of lesions induced ... sometimes of a stable mutation type.”
All the newer knowledge about bacteria and viruses substantiate the Hygienic viewpoint: A healthy body will eliminate virulent or threatening influences, making disease unnecessary. Hygienists understand that disease originates inside the body as a result of poor eating and living habits; of physical, mental and emotional practices which subtly and insidiously weaken the organism.”
The true role of germs is as scavengers, breaking up and consuming dead and dying cells and other debris. Bacteria perform the same function in the toxic body as they do everywhere in nature.
Viruses, which the medical profession has been incriminating more and more as the cause of so many diseases, are not even living entities in the same sense as bacteria. Bacteria are microorganisms which have the ability to act. A Virus on the other hand, is not a living entity.
The poisonous materials called viruses have no existence apart from a living organism. They are actually the debris of spent cells—the genetic material or nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) from these spent cells. Viruses are in no sense alive, nor do they have any ability to act, but their presence in the body is as toxic as any other retained body waste material, favoring the surfacing and multiplication of bacteria.
Actually, humans live symbiotically with bacteria. We adapt to, and are dependent on, bacterial flora. Health and disease are not antagonistic to each other. Disease does not attack the body, but rather is produced by it as a means of restoring health.
In Lesson No. 66 it was clearly demonstrated that bacteria do not produce disease; that there are no “disease-producing” bacteria, germs, microbes, bacilli or viruses; and that the opposite is the fact. It is the environment—the host—the disease condition—that determines the type of bacteria that proliferate. The germ does not produce the disease. The disease produces the germ by changing nontoxic bacteria into toxic bacteria in a septic environment. This concept is discussed in detail in
Lesson No. 66.
During the early stages of a cold, the nasal secretions are completely void of bacteria. None are found in the thin watery secretion the first two or three days of the cold. When the thick purulent secretion begins, then pneumococci, staphylococci, or streptococci make their appearance.
Dr. Vetrano says, “Since bacteria are so conspicuously absent at the beginning of a cold, another cause had to be found. The unpopular idea that a person could change his life habits and not develop colds was too preposterous to entertain. The virus saved the day.” People don’t have to change their ways of life as long as they believe their colds are caused because they “picked up” a very malignant virus.
Colds may develop at any time of the year, but the summer months show fewer colds because most people get more fresh air, sunshine, and exercise, and commonly eat less. As indicated in Lesson 66, the first colds of early winter are not “caught” from someone else with a cold but develop in those most susceptible because of the way they have been living and eating. The added stress of cold temperatures further checks elimination, adds to the general toxemia and enervated condition, and precipitates a crisis.
Leslie Thomson says, “To many people a ‘chill’ and a ‘cold’ are almost synonymous. It is an easy error, all the more so because it is not a complete fallacy; rather it is a seriously misplaced emphasis. Many people do develop a cold after an unpleasant incident in bad weather, but one should ask a few questions. In most cases the feelings of chill and the development of a cold are only different aspects—or successive stages—of a bodily springcleaning. When the body reaches a state in which retained wastes seriously impede normal vital functioning, the process has been so slow that the individual is only dimly aware of being substandard. Then some circumstance presents his system with an unusual challenge and the tolerance of his vital system is exceeded.” There is an inability to keep warm because the normal physical and chemical processes are so retarded that the heart is unable to maintain adequately free circulation. The body must, and does, organize for a thorough cleansing and rejuvenating “crisis”—uncomfortable, to be sure—but necessary—and eminently worthwhile. If no stupid interference occurs, “this wonderfully complex process achieves in a few days a massive ejection of waste and a burning up of combustible rubbish.”
A summation by Dr. Vetrano is concise and eloquent: “Colds develop and are not ‘caught.’ Bacteria and viruses have nothing to do with the development of coryza. They may be complicating features or function as saprophytes feeding on the debris. They arrive on the scene when tissues and fluids are abnormal and survive as long as the tissues remains abnormal. They help clean up the debris. Our enervating way of life is the true cause of colds.”
70.2.1 Consequences of the Treatment
70.2.7 The Paradoxical Conventional Weapons Against Disease
Influenza is essentially a magnified version of a cold. If you continue to permit so many adverse factors in your daily life that a couple of colds each year are inevitable, then a bout of flu every second or third year may also be unavoidable.
Influenza in itself is no cause for panic. Properly understood, and intelligently handled, influenza is a constructive process. The fear with which so many laymen and doctors regard the flu is due to its violent potential when it is mishandled.
The severity and after-effects of any cold or flu depend upon the treatment. The terrible developments which are ascribed to flu are almost never due to the basic illness. They are the results of the universally-suppressive treatment, the consequences of the drugging.
Dr. James C. Thomson tells about his experiences during the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918: “Reports collected from naturopaths practicing in all parts of the world after the 1918 wave—the most serious in living memory—gave a death rate of under two percent, whilst around them in the same cities, among the same types of people and under almost identical conditions except for the treatment, the death rate was from seven to over thirty percent. In my own practice, I had personal charge of 87 cases. In 86 of these cases, my instructions were faithfully carried out, and in no case was there either death, complication or any lingering sequel. The majority of these patients spent two or three days in bed, felt somewhat shaky in their walking for a further day or two, and, within a week or two, actually felt better than they had before the attack. In the one remaining case my instructions were willfully ignored, and I was forced to discontinue.”
Influenza often starts out like a simple cold. Sometimes the first symptoms are vigorous, and arrive without warning,. Suddenly the patient may suffer from fever, nausea, vomiting, severe neuritic pain, severe inflammation, general muscular aching, or other distressing or violent symptoms.
Leslie Thomson (son of Dr. James C. Thomson) describes the four main types of flu. No matter how novel the identifying names given by epidemiologists or immunologists, any particular case consists of either one of these types, or a combination of two or more.
Leslie Thomson says that how individuals have lived, and the relative strength of the various vital organs—the individual physical makeup and the inherited temperament—are dominant and significant in determining the type and severity of the flu episode. Nobody needs to be “infected” by anyone else to develop flu. Flu is something which originates and is directed within the individual system. “The danger in differential diagnosis lies in the orthodox tendency to apply suitable treatment—i.e., aimed at obstructing or neutralizing the particular activity or discomfort predominating.”
A couple of days or more of bed rest with nothing taken in except sips of water, is all that is necessary. Plenty of fresh air should be provided, but chilling should be carefully avoided. No attempt should be made to bring down the temperature by prolonged cold bathing, or by applying ice packs, or alcohol, which can be a dangerous interference in the body’s processes.
After perhaps forty-eight hours, if the temperature is more or less normal, fresh fruit or small quantities of green salad may be offered. But the patient must continue to rest. There might be a second phase in a few days, during which food should again be withheld or reduced to a minimum. The patient should continue to rest in bed until the fever and shakiness have cleared.
If one must vomit, or experience diarrhea, to remove irritants and morbid matter from the body, it is the height of folly to try to block it. The body does not go to the trouble of initiating these modifications in its activities unless they are essential for survival.
Dr. Immerrnan says, “When vomiting and diarrhea occur, it is because there are substances in the digestive tract that the body recognizes as troublesome, and wishes to eliminate. The material may enter the digestive tract via the liver. The liver is the great filter for the blood. It draws waste material from the blood and shunts it into the digestive tract for elimination. Sometimes this material is so toxic that the body will send it ‘upstream’ where it will only be exposed to three to four feet of tubing (stomach, esophagus), as opposed to going ‘downstream’ where it will be exposed to thirty feet of tubing (intestines). Once in the stomach, this toxic material will elicit feelings of discomfort and nausea until the stomach violently contracts and ejects the waste. Following this, there is usually a feeling of relief and improved well-being. Diarrhea fundamentally is of the same origin as vomiting. The body recognizes that there is material in the digestive tract and shouldn’t be there. In order to more rapidly eliminate this waste, diarrhea will be initiated.”
Some waste is directly transferred from the bloodstream through the walls of the intestines into the alimentary canal, and then eliminated via vomiting and diarrhea. Violent diarrhea and vomiting rapidly clear the digestive tract so that it can be temporarily put to rest, and repair, rejuvenation and cleansing are accelerated. To eat while experiencing the flu is sheer insanity.
When the body produces fever because of an internal need, why should we panic and seek by heroic means to suppress the fever at all costs? Physicians have prescribed and encouraged the use of antipyretics (fever-reducing drugs) to reduce the temperature as quickly as possible in all cases where the temperature is above the so-called normal temperatures of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). Actually, the medical profession is not universally convinced that fever is altogether harmful. Some medical men have even used fever therapy in an attempt to cure certain diseases.
The human body is delicately balanced and capable of better and safer fever induction than any artificial process of producing fever. Artificially-induced fevers can be dangerous. Artificially reducing fevers interrupts, retards or stops the healing efforts of the body.
The heat of spontaneously-induced fever is produced for the purpose of acceleration of cell activity When the organism perceives that this is necessary. When there is an emergency, the metabolism is accelerated by increasing the amount of heat available. This is controlled by the hypothalamus, which is sort of a human thermostat.
Metabolism consists of the absorption of nutrients and the excretion of wastes. The heat is necessary to accelerate the excretion of wastes which have accumulated beyond the body’s ability to tolerate them, and beyond the body’s ability to eliminate without some extraordinary modification. Heat acts as a catalyst which causes the toxins to liquefy and pass into the bloodstream, where they are transported to the organs of elimination, and thus out of the body.
Every now and then we hear from the “scientific” community that “fever may be beneficial.” An article in the St. Petersburg Times, 1/4/83, says; “For more than a century, we’ve been told to take aspirin to bring down a fever. Now, researchers aren’t so sure that’s a good idea. Now studies suggest that a moderate fever should be allowed to run its course because it may shorten the illness. Scientists have figured out that fever mobilizes the body’s defenses against infectious organisms, and, in some cases, directly inhibits their growth.”
Of course, what the studies “suggest” and what the scientists have “figured out” are not being correlated with what Hygienists have been teaching for the last 150 years.
Kenneth S. Jaffrey, in his booklet, Fever, Nature’s Own Healing Process, says, “Nobody has ever been harmed when a self-induced fever has been managed rationally.”
He quotes Vincent Priessnitz (1829), the discoverer of Nature Cure; R.T. Trall (1862), a Hygienic pioneer; and Henry Lindlahr (1920), another pioneer in the field of natural healing; as having agreed that fever is part of the healing effort, a process of purification to relieve the system of morbid matter and to repair injury to living tissues.
In 1928, Herbert M. Shelton said, “Fever is a necessary increase in body temperature designed to enable the body, or some part or parts of it, to effectively meet and destroy some foe of life that is threatening the body and to repair damages.”
In 1930, another noted Hygienist, Hereward Carrington, described the condition of fever as the result of the forcible recharging of the body with energy, as an emergency measure, to assist in freeing the body from its dangerously-diseased condition.
Eugene F. Du Bois, professor of Physiology at Cornell, University, in his monograph on fever, stated that antipyretics were abandoned in the early part of this century (although later their use was revived). Cold-tubbing in typhoid was also abandoned. Du Bois said, “Clinicians began to regard high temperature as helpful. This belief was strengthened by the realization that many pathogenic organisms (germs and viruses) were inhibited or killed at temperatures that could be tolerated by the human body.” The metabolism and chemical reactions of the body, including enzyme activity, are accelerated by a rise in temperature, thus enhancing the healing process. When fasting is employed during a fever, the metabolism and healing process are even more dramatically multiplied.
Many advocates of so-called “immunization” procedures freely admit the futility of efforts to immunize against influenza. A 1977 report by the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare says that the fragmented nature of the genetic material of the influenza virus is believed now to account for the agent’s unique and puzzling ability to undergo periodic changes which render available vaccines useless. Although we cannot agree with the basic premise expressed therein, the fact remains that the vaccines are admittedly useless. Obviously, the credibility of the whole immunization theory is moot, if the particular problem can never be identified or dealt with in time—in view of the admitted futility of efforts to immunize against influenza. Yet, even after the Swine Flu Fiasco of 1976, flu vaccines are still being recommended and administered by the medical profession.
In Lesson No. 66, I went into great detail about the futility of so-called “immunization.” In January 1983 (some time after preparing Lesson No. 66), I heard Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D., on this subject. He said, “I lost my faith in immunizations around the end of the 1960s. My patients started to come back to me with the damage that I had previously inflicted on them.”
Polio disappeared in Europe without a vaccine. Dr. Mendelsohn said that Salk doesn’t like the Sabin vaccine, and Sabin doesn’t like the Salk vaccine. Dr. Mendelsohn continued, “I think they’re both right.”
He said there are hundreds of cases in the courts due to damage from whooping cough vaccine. He said, “Pediatricians are telling me that they are not immunizing their own children, but they give it to their patients!”
Dr. Mendelsohn is a practicing pediatrician. His credentials (conventional, medical, etc.) are unimpeachable. He has been practicing medicine for about thirty years. He has been national director of Project Head Start’s Medical Consultation Service, chairman of the medical licensing committee for the state of Illinois, associate professor of preventive medicine and community health in the School of Medicine of the University of Illinois, and the recipient of numerous awards for excellence in medicine and medical instruction.
He is also a medical heretic. He believes that the greatest danger to your health is usually your own doctor. He argues that modern medicine’s methods are rarely effective, and in many instances are more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to diagnose and treat. I would recommend that all students of Natural Hygiene read his book, Confessions of a Medical Heretic.
In his book, Dr. Mendelsohn says the entire flu shot effort resembles a massive roulette game. He quotes Dr. John Seal, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, as saying, “We have to go on the basis that any and all flu vaccines are capable of causing Guillain-Barre Syndrome.”
A study, conducted at the Minneapolis Veterans Administration Medical Center, was published in the November 19, 1981, New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers warned that flu shots can cause overreactions to drugs, producing effects similar to “overdoses” of the drugs. The researchers found the influenza vaccine can change human metabolism, hampering the liver’s ability to break down and remove drugs from the body, so that the medicines stay in the body longer.
Thus, the potential damage of drugs is multiplied as a result of the influenza vaccine.
Both of the paradoxical conventional “weapons” against disease have the same result. Injection of noxious material directly into the bloodstream (vaccinations), and the use of drugs to kill the germs which are busily engaged in cleaning up the mess, are not only in opposition to each other, but are also in opposition to the laws of nature, and contrary to common sense.
They are in opposition to each other, because injection of noxious material initiates defensive body action against disease; drugs curtail defensive body action against disease because of the new emergency—the necessity to deal with the drugs. Injection of diseased material into the bloodstream is manifestly in opposition to the laws of nature, and certainly contrary to common sense.
Both vaccinations and medications not only add more poison to the already overburdened system, they frustrate nature’s attempts to help you, and they prolong and intensify your miseries. In addition, they both Have the more insidious quality of increasing your susceptibility and vulnerability to future chronic and degenerative diseases.
Leslie Thomson says, “It is not surprising that orthodox doctors have frighteningly impressive case histories to report. Delirium, peritonitis, pneumonia, neurasthenia, chronic depression, lymphatic enlargements, pulmonary degeneration, cardiac disorders, kidney disease, arthritis, middle ear deafness, and degeneration of the spinal cord, are only some of the sequelae blamed upon influenza. To us, it is undeniably logical that the more the doctor fills the patient with unwanted and unusable nutrients, and obstructs various vital processes with medication, the greater the inevitability of tragic complications.”
I have heard a dark joke, to the effect that, since the treatment of influenza still baffles the physicians but they can “successfully” treat pneumonia with antibiotics, why not let the flu develop into pneumonia and simplify the problem?
But the “humor” is becoming even grimmer, since newer announcements admit that “in recent years, drug resistant pneumonias, especially among hospital patients, have been on the increase.”
Even more ironic is an excerpt from a brochure on flu from the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare: “With identification of a new swine-like influenza virus early in 1976, NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) scientists, grantees, and contractors sprang into action. The technique of recombination was applied to hasten the growth of the vaccine virus; and, in the institute’s vaccine centers, medical investigators with years of experience became the nucleus of experts needed to evaluate the new swine flu vaccines in record time. Working closely with the Army, the Center for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration’s Bureau of Biologies, NIAID supervised a series of tests to determine the proper vaccine dosages that should give good protection with a minimum of adverse reactions.”
They talk about “springing into action,” “evaluating the new swine flu vaccines in record time,” and “determining proper vaccine dosages for good protection with minimum adverse reactions.” Nothing is said about the fiasco that resulted, or the tragic deaths from the vaccine. Nothing is said about the vaccine-induced Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
Hygienists live to have health, not to prevent certain specific diseases. Good health is immunity against influenza and all diseases. Microorganisms only surface when there is a job for them to do—they help to clean up the debris created by atrocious diet and living habits.
Some other upper respiratory ailments are hay fever, sinusitis, postnasal drip, deviated septum, nasal polyps.
Hay fever is not caused by hay and there is no fever. The nasal portion of the respiratory tract is affected, causing the itching, watering, inflamed eyes; nasal obstructions; runny nose; or paroxysms of sneezing. It is usually triggered by pollens from trees, grasses or weeds, or exposure to molds, dust, fur, feathers, animal dander, or orris root, the base of most cosmetics.
The use of nasal sprays for hay fever or colds is a dangerous habit. It produces a rebound nasal congestion, a vicious cycle that is worse than the original problem.
A contributor to Joe Graedon’s column made an excellent suggestion for a way to break the habit. She said that the doctor had told her to quit “cold turkey,” but she couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t breathe at night. Instead, she used the spray on only one nostril. After several days, the untreated nostril unclogged. She then repeated the procedure in the other nostril. She said that breaking the nose spray habit was even harder than quitting smoking.
Sometimes hay fever progresses to a more serious condition called asthma. Asthma is not essentially different, except that the bronchial tubes are affected, resulting in labored breathing, wheezing and coughing, slow respiration, sweating, blueness of skin (cyanosis) and coldness of extremities.
When one or more of the four pairs of air-filled cavities in the skull become affected, the condition is called sinusitis.
Nasal polyps are soft, pendulous outgrowths from lining membranes of the nose. If they are of sufficient size to cause obstructive symptoms, a prolonged fast will sometimes reduce or eliminate them. Sometimes, surgery is necessary.
Sinus headaches and postnasal drip will usually be relieved by short periods of fasting.
Hay fever, asthma, sinusitis and polyps are often associated with so-called allergies. Chronic sinus inflammation can result in the formation of polyps.
Lesson No. 71 will go into detail about allergies, hay fever, asthma, emphysema and other chronic conditions involving the respiratory tract, the bronchial tubes and the lungs.
Actually, the primary causes of all these problems are the same as the causes of all other pathologies—the faulty living habits that lead to toxemia and disease.
Dr. Sidhwa eloquently expresses the Hygienic rationale concerning health and disease: “When man does not overstep Nature’s limits regarding harmful diet and emotional indulgences; when he does not deplete his nerve energy by late nights, overwork, worry, stress, indulgences or by constant stimulation in the form of chemical, thermal, or physical goads, the balance of the life force is maintained, and, with it, good health. Under such Utopian conditions, it is conceivable that disease would be an impossibility. In other words, living within your means, the individual, under the above circumstances, would be immune to disease.”
Why do people, who eat all the wrong foods and get no exercise still seem to get along well and have very few colds?
Most likely their bodies have developed such a high tolerance level for morbid material that a weakening of the detoxifying organs has occurred, and these individuals no longer have the vitality to conduct necessary and effective eliminative crises. Some people are blessed with superior genes, and it may take a long time for the body to degenerate into an irreversible condition—but wrong living will eventually produce this outcome, especially if necessary housecleaning does not occur, and the toxins are dammed up in the body.
Why do colds often evolve into more serious illnesses?
Drugging and feeding produce these sequels to colds. If the individual fasts and rests and takes nothing but water as thirst requires, complications are rare or nonexistent.
What is the best procedure if I fast for a cold (say, two or three days) and the symptoms return when I start eating?
The best action would be to stop eating and go back to bed for another day or two. If not possible or convenient, confine your diet to fruits only for a few days, followed by an all-raw-food diet, until the symptoms disappear (or stay on raw food permanently, if possible).
Is a diagnosis helpful in determining Hygienic means of caring for a patient?
Yes, a diagnosis is helpful, but not absolutely necessary. A correct diagnosis supplies clues to the causes of the problem, but it is of very little influence in the management of the illness, except in quite unusual situations. For instance, in acute appendicitis, no water should be taken until the symptoms disappear, but, of course, this would apply to any acute abdominal discomfort.
Once upon a time there was a beautiful young lady with golden red hair down to her slender waist, and long and shapely legs. Her eyes were a beautiful blue, that scintillated when she laughed. She was lithesome as the fawn in the morning. Her personality sparkled like the cool clear waters of a bubbling spring. There was but one thing that marred the radiant beauty of this lovely young lady. She was continually blowing her nose.
The young lady was well educated. In fact so well “educated” that she could no longer understand the simple things of life. Every new fact or thought had to present itself to her clothed in such heavy scientific garb that anyone trying to comprehend the muss had to peel off layer after layer of nonsense to reach but the core of fallacy. But this type of presentation pleased her. It was scientific, with theory piled upon theory to support a theory, in a long drawn out complicated web of fallacy. It would be highly unbecoming for a woman working on a doctors degree to support or follow any doctrine so simple a child could understand it, even if it would obviate the necessity for rubbing her nose raw blowing all the time.
Let us hope that by the time she receives her doctorate, by wasting so much time with unimportant nonsense such as “proving in what ways mathematically a donut is like a cup,” that she will realize that much nonsense passes for science. Let us hope that after so many years of cramming gobbledegook into her head that she will be able to think. Unless she learns that all true sciences always simplify life and thought, instead of complicating them, she is destined to be a snorting horse until some more formidable disease helps her into the henceforth, her life a wasted travesty of education.
We would like to help Miss Nasal Drip but the time is not ripe. She suffers with chronic rhinitis, marked by frequent acute exacerbations, or the common cold. The common cold is an acute rhinitis, or inflammation of the nasal cavities. She suffers with it so often and so long at a time that one can almost say she has a perpetual cold. Her symptoms are typical; rhinorrhea or nasal discharge, nasal obstruction (due to swelling or edema of the mucous membranes of the nasal passages) and sneezing. A disease that may and should abort after twenty-four to forty-eight hours lasts for many weary weeks in this young lady.
In former years Miss Nasal Drip would have said that she “caught” a germ, were it not for the fact that she has learned that the nasal secretions are completely void of bacteria during the early stages of a cold. Many ciliated epithelial cells desquamate and are found in the thin watery secretion the first 2 or 3 days of the cold, but no bacteria make their appearance until the discharge becomes thick and purulent. When the thick purulent secretion begins then pneumococci, staphylococci, or streptococci arrive upon the scene.
Since bacteria are so conspicuously absent at the beginning of a cold, another cause had to be found. The unpopular idea that a person could change his life habits and not develop colds was too preposterous to entertain. The virus saved the day. Miss Nasal Drip doesn’t have to change her way of life as long as she believes she “picked up” a very malignant virus. This time her cold happens to be a very tenacious one, and it is progressing into bronchitis. Her medically-oriented mind attributes this to secondary invaders, not to her continual overeating of starches and sugars.
If all the Miss Nasal Drips in the world could understand that they do not have to develop colds any more than they had to develop measles, chicken pox or any other childhood disease. The simple expedient of refusing to eat at the first sign of a stuffy nose would not only abort colds, but all other acute diseases as well. Since laboratory experiments have demonstrated that in such simple diseases as coryza (common cold) digestion is impaired, it would seem that logic would proscribe eating, when indigestion and decomposition are inevitable.
Since the incipient stages of the childhood diseases (rubella, measles, chickenpox, and whooping-cough) are indistinguishable from the ordinary common cold, if one followed the rule to never eat when he has symptoms of a cold, these and other childhood diseases would never develop. Feeding in a cold, when indigestion is inevitable, insures that putrefactive poisons will be absorbed into the system, where they increase toxemia. Continued eating when there is no power of digestion necessitates a supplementary eliminating crisis to expel the noxious material before vital tissues are harmed. Hence, a common cold may develop into other more serious disease if eating is continued.
Miss Nasal Drip thinks she can’t breathe because her nose is obstructed with secretion. She blows all the harder to empty it. Actually in the early stages of her cold, the nasal mucosa is red and swollen due to the inflammatory condition. The choanae (the posterior openings of the nasal cavity into the nasal part of the pharynx) are very narrow. The slightest swelling causes difficult breathing. Also due to the fact that the nasal passages are very narrow interiorly, when the nasal cavities are inflamed, and the membranes are swollen (edematous), Miss Drip’s nose feels clogged, even though she empties it every few minutes.
Because of the continuity of mucous membranes, each time Miss Nasal Drip develops a spread to adjoining organs. The nasal cavity communicates with the frontal, ethmoidal, sphenoidal and maxillary sinuses, to which the inflammation may spread. This particular cold of Miss Drip spreads downward to the bronchi, also by way of continuous mucous membranes, and she developed the unpleasant symptom of coughing all night, thus preventing sleep.
Her chest became painful, frightening her, so that she listened to me a slight bit, and stopped eating potatoes swarming in butter one evening for dinner. I couldn’t get her to quit drinking milk every morning and noon but she did substitute grapefruit for some of the heavier foods she was eating. On the day she omitted potatoes and butter her symptoms abated markedly and she slept better that night. But the next day with the chest pains gone, she lost her fear and resumed her bad eating habits!
We must be patient, she has a lot to unlearn. Just yesterday, she requested the microscope to analyze the water, because the idea came to her that everytime she visits us she “catches” a cold, so “it’s due to bacteria in the water here, to which I am unaccustomed.” “You don’t ‘catch’ the cold,” she said, “because you are adapted to these bacteria.”
Adults generally feel lethargic several days before developing a cold, and may have aches in the limbs or back. Children have a tendency to develop more severe symptoms, with a temperature around 102 degrees F and sometimes higher. They are not hungry generally but are encouraged to eat by their parents, hence the frequent development of more formidable disease in children.
Colds may develop at any time of the year, and do not necessarily develop when a person has been chilled or in a draft. When “epidemics” of colds arise, some extra enervating cause happens to be present in the lives of the people of the epidemic area. When large masses of people are surveyed, the summer months show fewer colds. Most people get plenty of fresh air, sunshine, and more exercise, which are highly beneficial to digestion and excretion, and commonly eat less during the summer months. Autumn brings less activity, less fresh air and sunshine, and increased eating, so there is an outburst of colds to rid the system of toxic matter. When midwinter comes, around Christmas and New Year’s, cold statistics mount again. Toxemia rises to above the toleration point, due to improper living, excessive eating and drinking and late hours. Therefore, more noses start running, more chests begin coughing, and more eyes turn red.
Miss Drip will argue that colds develop in the autumn because of reopening of schools with the massing together of children indoors. How does she explain the development of colds at Christmas vacation when most children are out of school for about 12 to 14 days? As the incubation period for colds is 12 to 48 hours, the germ and virus theory simply does not account for all the facts.
The fact that chilling does not cause colds has been repeatedly demonstrated to physicians who have observed the so-called immunity of travellers in the Arctic and of men compelled to spend many weeks at sea on rafts or in open boats and who never ‘caught’ cold. This leads the research workers to believe that “in the absence of the virus no amount of chilling can cause a cold.” Since viruses are ubiquitous, it cannot be said that there were no viruses present. They are everywhere. Was it too cold or too hot for the activity of viruses under those conditions? Or was it, that there was a scarcity of food, hence, the men couldn’t eat their way into a cold?
We are taught that a number of viruses, or a number of strains, cause the common cold. This should lead us to refine the diagnosis still more, to cold type a, type b, type c, etc. The old theory was that there is a specific cause for each specific disease if we could find it. Not so with colds. A number of viruses are said to be guilty. Those infected may be re-infected with the same virus within three weeks after recovery. The so-called immunity is short-lived. Colds cannot be induced experimentally in most animals.
In 1914, the virus theory of the etiology of colds was introduced by Druse, who it was said repeatedly demonstrated that “filterable agents in throat washings obtained from adult patients with acute coryza were capable of producing colds when introduced into anthropoid apes or susceptible human volunteers.”
Volunteers, we are told, developed colds when infected by filtrates of nose and throat washings from those who had colds. A poison, a virus is a poison, or any foreign agent, in contact with the nasal mucous membranes, occasions inflammation, rhinorrhea (running of the nose) redness and swelling, and fever in children. An example of which you can perform yourself, is to run a match stick up into the nostril. The nose will begin to run, sneezing will commence, and if kept there longer inflammation will develop to rid the body of the foreign agent.
Another example is the true story of a child who at three years of age repeatedly developed a high fever, and a cold—one right after the other. Her mother took her to a physician each time the cold developed, and the symptoms were quashed by penicillin injections. Two or three days after the supressive effects of the drug wore off, the cold, high fever and running nose would redevelop. This worried the mother, so she continued taking her child to the pediatrician for more shots. Finally old mother nature won. Despite the continued suppression which interrupted her work, she kept initiating elimination processes until one day, as the child was feverish and nose running still more, the child began picking at her nose in the presence of her mother. To the mother’s surprise, a much frayed, and bloody piece of kleenex was pulled out. This was the occasion for the inflammation, fever and runny nose. The three-year-old had undoubtedly pushed the kleenex up her nose at some time in the past and it remained there until the body excreted it. The human organism just doesn’t like foreign things in the vital domain, and stubbornly keeps working until it rids itself of them. The child’s fever subsided and did not recur.
When viruses are injected to cause colds in “susceptible” invidividuals, it must be remembered that only certain individuals develop symptoms of coryza, and that the great numbers of viruses present are treated as foreign agents and expelled by the only method the nose knows—inflammation and sneezing.
So many viruses have been incriminated as causes of colds that research workers are really very puzzled. After a long discussion of the causative agents of colds, they conclude: “From the foregoing it may be concluded that there is no single viral agent to be incriminated in adult colds and that a variety of agents which produce fairly severe disease in non-immune infants may also occasionally cause coryza in adults.”
From the foregoing, it appears, that any virus or bacteria that is present when a cold develops is the guilty party. It is stated in Cecil and Loeb’s Textbook of Medicine that, “It cannot be said with absolute certainty that under certain conditions the common respiratory pathogenic bacteria do not initiate colds, although the evidence is against this possibility.” Paul and Freese who conducted studies in isolated communities in Spitzbergen, implied that, in the absence of the virus, colds “almost wholly disappear. “He is saying colds almost disappear in the absence of viruses, but they don’t actually do so because some colds still exist; these he attributes to bacterial infection as follows: It is then presumed that “the residuum of sporadic, noncommunicable colds may be due to bacterial infection.” What sophistry! The colds are gone, and they are still there! The remaining colds are of bacterial origin; but are noncommunicable.
Clinical investigators are still puzzled over the role that bacterial inhabitants of the nasopharynx play in the development of colds. Most of the “basal flora” of the upper respiratory tract, they think, consists of nonpathogenic and inconsequential agents. But since such agents that are thought to be true pathogens are often found in the throat washing of patients with colds this leads them to wonder if they do not play some sort of role in the disease known as coryza, or the common cold. “On the other hand,” they reason, “hemolytic streptococci, pneumococci, and hemophilus influenzae are recovered in considerable numbers from a patient with a cold, it is tempting to assume that they are playing a role of some sort.”
Were Miss Nasal Drip a diligent student she would see how confused and frustrated the laboratory men really are. One time a bacteria is a proved pathogen and yet the next time it doesn’t cause symptoms. With only the germ theory from which to reason, no wonder the confusion. The confusion itself would lead intelligent men to start searching in another direction, were they not so deeply rutted in the germ theory. The surmizing continues: “On the other hand, any of these organisms (Group A hemolytic streptococci and h. influenza) may appear in the normal nasopharynx without causing symptoms, and the mere recovery of one of them from a case of coryza may be of little significance. Most authors tend to designate them as ‘secondary invaders,’ assuming that the cold virus paves the way for their entry into the mucous membranes.”
To further befuddle the physicians, when they give antibiotics to kill the germ invaders, it doesn’t shorten the course of the disease one bit. Yale Kneeland, Jr. in Cecil and Loeb’s Textbook of Medicine states, “Yet when effective antibacterial agents have been used in large-scale controlled experiments on adults with colds, there is little evidence that suppression of the bacterial component alters the average duration of the disease.”
Let us review what the physicians are admitting. First, it is not known exactly which virus ‘causes’ colds. Indeed, it may be numerous ones. Chilling doesn’t cause colds in the absence of the virus, yet viruses are ubiquitous. If the virus is sprayed into throats, it causes inflammation in “susceptible” hosts only. The disease doesn’t run the same course as it does in those individuals who really develop a cold and whose tissues are not made irritable by foreign agents. So-called respiratory pathogenic bacteria are present in the throat washings of people who never develop symptoms of disease. They are present in some who have colds, but killing them doesn’t shorten the period of sickness of the individual. What a mish-mash of contradictions upon which to base a practice.
Yale Kneeland, Jr. sums up the medical viewpoint in the following manner: “It can be stated that the common cold is due to one or more filterable viruses and that only in highly susceptible persons is there an ‘etiologic complex,’ i.e., a bacterium acting in concert with a virus. The bacterial effect may be either the general intensification of symptoms already referred to or a clear-cut complication, such as purulent sinusitis or otitis.”
How much simpler if physicians’ befuddled brains could be washed clean of viruses and bacteria or if they could recognize the beneficial effects of bacteria. How lucid would their day be when they would know the truth. Colds develop and are not “caught.” Bacteria and viruses have nothing to do with the development of coryza. They may be complicating features or function as saphrophytes feeding on the debris. They arrive on the scene when tissues and fluids are abnormal and survive as long as the tissues remain abnormal. They help clean up the debris. Our enervating way of life is the true cause of colds.
Let us look at the life of Miss Nasal Drip. She is a heavy milk drinker. Never does a day pass that she doesn’t drink at least six or more glasses of milk. She is an “early” sleeper, never going to bed before 3 a.m. She overeats on starches, shunning all salads and taking very few fresh fruits. She avoids the sun because it makes her freckle. In general, she leads a very enervating life. When toxemia mounts to above her established tolerance level, which it does quite often, then her nose, like a steam valve, lets out the excess. As she never ceases her heavy starch eating even while she has a cold, but seems to eat even more, sometimes taking as many as eight small red potatoes at a time, and gulping more milk to “soothe” her irritated throat, her colds last anywhere from three to four weeks. They run on and on because cause persists. The fact that her symptoms abated markedly when she ate less food did not teach her anything. Germs and viruses have her complete attention.
When we can control the eating of anyone developing a cold—either get them to cut down or to take only water for a few days—and the symptoms of coryza invariably subside, are we to believe that this invariable phenomenon of nature is due to the whim of a virus? Or, can we safely assume that when you rid the body of the cause, the effect will cease? When favorable results invariably occur, can we not say that we have a truth, or a law of nature? Or, must we continue to bury our heads in the sand and refuse to see the truth because it is not in accord with “scientific” thought?
Shelton, eloquently, gives us the cause of colds: “Toxemia from enervation and excess is the cause of local inflammations. Any enervating influence, any influence that lowers nerve energy, will inhibit elimination and produce toxemia. For this reason, worry or overwork, jealousy or lack of rest and sleep, apprehension or excesses, may help to produce rhinitis.
“Excessive food intake is one of the basic causes of toxemia and its effects. Excesses of starches, sugars, fats and milk are especially likely to result in rhinitis and similar supplementary eliminating processes. Indigestion, whether from food excess, wrong combinations of food, eating when fatigued, eating when worried or under other emotional strain, or eating under other physical, emotional and physiological conditions that inhibit digestion, will produce toxemia.”
It is often difficult for people to realize that from their first cold in infancy their tissues and fluids have been saturated with an excessive amount of metabolic wastes. Their way of life prepares their body for a long list of diseases that grow out of an established toxemia. A cold does not eliminate all the toxemia, it only brings it down to a level at which the body has become adapted to functioning.
To make this Hygienic knowledge more clear, let us designate the normal amount of waste products in the body of the nontoxic healthy baby as 1. As the baby grows and is fed improperly, and gets too little sleep and rest, is overclothed, isn’t permitted to play in the sun, he becomes toxemic. When toxic material mounts to 1 1/4, the baby develops a cold to eliminate this excess waste material.
As time goes on and enervating habits continue, the baby learns to tolerate more and more toxins in the system. His established toxemia mounts to 2, and he develops a cold only when it rises above 2, then a crisis brings this back to 2, his new toleration point. As he grows older his toleration point continues to mount. He develops fewer and fewer colds and fevers but is paving the way for the development of degenerative diseases. Unfortunately for him, his bad habits of living have forced his system to learn to live with poisons, and only when toxic material rises above his toleration point will he develop a cold. This reduces toxemia to the toleration point or slightly below but doesn’t eliminate it completely.
Hence the waste products remain to impair and damage structures. Only by fasting and changing the way of life can the toleration point be returned to its pristine low.
We should not fear colds in the sense that we fear to sit in a draft, or fear to go swimming, or get our feet wet, lest we “catch” cold, but we should not take the fact that we develop frequent colds too lightly. Once we have an established “toleration” for excess toxic material in the system we are paving the road for the development of more serious forms of disease, unless we change our mode of life radically. An excess of waste material produces pathology, even though it is tolerated. Such waste material causes changes in and about vital organs which are away from the ideal and decidedly detrimental to the welfare of the organism. Toleration is passive resistance. The tissues are forced to live in a state of constant toxic saturation and must resist this in the fashion that tissues do. Hardening of tissues develops and other pathologies which lower the level of health of the individual, eventually leading to disease and death.
Under the present system of medical care, cause is not understood, hence the treatment is directed at palliating symptoms, instead of eliminating cause and supplying the body with the conditions of health.
Fasting must be instituted immediately upon the first symptoms of a cold and should proceed much further than the time it takes for the symptoms to subside. In this manner the tissues will be washed sweet and clean and the long-established toxemia will be eliminated, thus raising the standard of health of the individual. Dr. Shelton states: “We should not be satisfied with a mere disappearance of symptoms. Nothing short of a complete elimination of accumulated toxins, full restoration of nerve energy and a thoroughgoing correction of the mode of living should satisfy the intelligent. This will result in genuine health.”
Medical treatment is admittedly suppressive and leads to immediate complications. It lowers the body’s functioning powers, causing the retention and toleration of more and more toxic wastes. Kneeland, admits that “Up to the present no specific agent has been developed which is effective against the viruses of the common cold. In consequence, therapy is directed at general management, relief of symptoms and the control of complications.”
Under medical care, complications are so common that they are expected. The suppressive treatment is a direct cause of these complications. About ten years ago anti-histimenic drugs were introduced and it was claimed that if used early enough, the disease could be aborted. Kneeland states of these drugs: “Subsequent carefully controlled studies have quite failed to substantiate the original claims.
Fortunately these drugs, in the dosages employed, have been singularly innocuous as far as untoward side effects are concerned. Nevertheless, they are not recommended unless there is an allergic element present.”
The fact that they are no longer recommended “unless there is an allergic element present” indicates these drugs were not completely harmless. For symptomatic relief, acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) is used for the very young. In adults, when the cough is troublesome, codeine is added and administered in the form of a cough mixture or in the form of the traditional “grippe capsule” which contains “codeine sulfate, acetylsalicylic acid, phenacetin, and caffeine citrate.” Not one of these substances helps eliminate cause. All are directed at suppressing symptoms, and therefore impair and impede the body’s efforts at cleansing itself. With such suppressive treatment of colds, is there any wonder that complications such as laryngitis, tracheitis, tracheobronchitis, sinusitis, or otitis media regularly occur?
Hygiene is so much more simple, direct and effective that it is a wonder that people still run to the physician for his bag of poisons, which only increase suffering and disease. When the living habits of the individual arc corrected, he ceases to develop colds. If one feels out of sorts, and thinks a cold may be developing the thing to do is to institute a fast immediately. He should secure more rest, and reassess his way of life. He should try to conform more to the laws of life. In doing this, he is eliminating cause, not suppressing symptoms. By eliminating cause, he obviates the necessity for future colds, and future development of more formidable diseases.
It is hoped that Miss Nasal Drip will see the fallacy of the germ theory and change her mode of living so that she will not be a T.B., asthmatic, or cancer statistic in the future.
“A cold is simply an effort of the system to relieve itself of its accumulated waste panicles, said accumulation resulting from overeating or inefficient breathing, or breathing of foul air ... “The foregoing words are quoted from an article by Dr. Robert Walter, which appeared in The Science of Health in August 1873, and well sums up the Hygienic theory of the nature of a cold and of its cause. We regard the cold as a remedial effort made necessary by a toxic state of the body. It is not surprising, in view of this, that there is no drug known that will “cure” a cold.
The U.S. Public Health Service says that nearly every person in the United States “catches” at least one cold a year, but that the average is about three colds a year. It says that in January and February some sixty million people in America have colds. The cold is the most common of all the diseases with which man suffers. It is said to disable people in this country to such an extent that two billion working days a year are lost. They are said to cost industry five billion dollars annually in lost production, wages and medical expenses.
The Public Health Service says that there is no known drug that will “cure” a cold. So determined are miseducated people to take drugs that they spend over a quarter of a billion dollars each year for cold and cough “remedies.” The so-called wonder drugs—the antibiotics and sulfas—are said by the American Medical Association to have no effect on the “cold virus.” It is stated that “most remedies do little more than subtract from the pocket book.” Drugs that are called pain killers are said to relieve some of the aches and pains, but “do nothing for the cold.”
The U.S. Public Health Service says that the best thing the cold sufferer can do is to stay at home, take a hot bath, go to bed, eat a balanced diet and wait for the body to do the rest. This is not good advice, as we will make clear in this article.
Here is a relatively mild disease that is more prevalent than any other disease with which man suffers, and one with which he has suffered throughout history. Millions of dollars have been spent in research trying to find the cause of colds and a remedy for them. Uncounted thousands of cures for colds have been discovered, given a thorough test and discarded. Today, medical science, about which we hear so much boasting, stands empty handed and helpless before the cold and can offer the cold sufferer nothing more than a balanced diet.
The advice of the Public Health Service contains the admission that recovery from a cold is the work of the body itself, unaided by so-called remedies. Whatever may be the nature of the cold, and whatever may be its cause, the sufferer must depend upon his own resources for his recovery. So-called medical science can offer him nothing more more than questionable palliation of some of the more annoying symptoms. Palliation is always directed at symptoms and in all cases represents the suppression of symptoms. Palliation is never an attempt to remove the causes of suffering.
For a long time efforts have been made to find a serum or a vaccine that will “immunize” the recipient against colds. Numerous such vaccines and serums have been found and have been tried and, although much money has been made from the administration of such serums and vaccines, they have one and all failed to produce immunity to colds. Often, indeed, those who have been inoculated have suffered more with colds than the uninoculated. It may seem strange to my readers that a relatively mild disease should so long and so persistently defy the efforts of the men of “science,” while more formidable and less common diseases yield so readily to their vaccines and serums, to their “wonder” drugs, and to their other efforts. The men of “science” have tried to prove that they can protect us against the crunch of a tiger, but are helpless in protecting us against the bite of a house cat.
Colds are preventable; but before we can learn to prevent them, we have to learn their causes. So long as it is assumed that germs and viruses are the causes of colds, and so long as our efforts at prevention are directed at these microscopic and submicroscopic beings, the cold will not be prevented. So long as we hug the old delusion that a cold is something that we “catch” or that “catches” us, and against which we have to defend ourselves by the employment of some anti-vital and unphysiological substance, whether taken by mouth or by injection, just so long will our efforts at prevention prove futile.
The Hygienic conception of the cause of colds is that these remedial efforts are made necessary by the accumulation in the blood, lymph and tissues of unexcreted metabolic waste and by the absorption from the digestive tract of toxic products of indigestion. The ultimate cause of the cold, therefore, consists of those habits of living and eating that reduce digestive power and check excretion. In a sentence, a cold is due to a way of life that produces enervation, thus checking secretion and excretion and permitting the fouling of ‘he internal environment. To use a new phrase, we may call this fouling of the internal environment a physiological smog.
When the toxemic saturation resulting from inhibited excretion and the absorption of toxic materials from the digestive tract reaches a certain intolerable state, the body initiates a process of supplementary elimination, requisitioning the mucous membrane of the nose and throat to do vicarious duty in freeing itself of the accumulated waste. The cold lasts a few hours to several days, depending on the time required to excrete the toxic debris. Due to the fact that the cold is a remedial process the sufferer recovers health in almost every instance and this enables him to credit his recovery to the aspirin he took, to the whiskey he drank, to the quinine he dosed himself with, to the hot foot bath, or to whatever else he did as a “cure.” In point of fact, the Public Health Service correctly describes what occurs when it advises the cold sufferer to wait for the body to do the rest.
Aspirin is perhaps the most widely-used drug today for palliating the discomforts of a cold. Medical News for November 4, 1966, carried the following statement: “Salicylates (aspirin), phenylbutazone and oral cortisone drugs can cause local erosions of the gastric mucose by direct contact with the tablet, Dr. M. S. Israel told Medical News after the Erasmus Wilson Demonstration at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.” For a number of years now it has been admitted that aspirin causes bleeding from the stomach; this discovery that the contact of aspirin with the mucous membrane lining the stomach causes an erosion of this membrane explains why the bleeding occurs. It just does not make sense for a man suffering with a cold to dose himself with a drug that produces such damaging effects, along with many other damages. Certainly, he should be better off if cared for by helpful means rather than by means that are productive of damage. It is certain that the depressing effect of aspirin prolongs the cold.
The duration of a cold may be shortened by means that increase toxic elimination through the regular channels of excretion. These means will also decrease the headache, fever, soreness of the throat, huskiness of the voice, sneezing, running of the nose, watering of the eyes, etc., that constitute symptoms of a cold. The best means of promoting elimination is to go to bed in a well-ventilated room, keep warm, and take nothing into the stomach except water and this only as thirst demands. Fasting and rest will not only make the cold sufferer more comfortable and reduce the likelihood of complications, but they will definitely shorten the duration of the cold and do all of this without the production of unwanted side effects. The advice of the Public Health Service to eat a balanced diet completely ignores the lack of physiological demand for food and the absence of the physiological conditions necessary to the efficient digestion of food. Drugging and feeding are the chief causes of complications in colds and the chief reasons that colds frequently evolve into more serious diseases.
The San Antonio Express, December 30, 1959, carried the story that the number of cases of influenza in the city had reached near-epidemic proportions. “The old flu bug, and kindred respiratory and intestinal diseases, have reached near epidemic proportions in San Antonio,” are the words of the news item. It adds that a check showed that “patients seeking treatment for virus influenza, pneumonia and similar disorders are crowding hospitals to capacity and swelling the emergency load to record highs.”
There is nothing unusual about the great increase in colds, so-called “flu,” which is a severe cold, pneumonia and intestinal diseases following upon the heels of the gluttony and the indigestible combinations of the holiday season. What is unusual is the public admission that the standby of the medical profession as a preventive of such suffering is a flop. The news account says that William Foster, administrator of the Bexar County Hospital District, said: “13 of the hospital’s 259 employees, including the supervisor of the emergency room and the supervisor of surgery, were downed by the flu despite the fact immunization shots were given against the disease.”
The city’s largest hospital reported a “high incidence of respiratory and intestinal flu cases from Christmas day on.” The hospital physicians stated “flatly,” that the situation is “abnormal” and is “approaching an epidemic.” From fifty to eighty percent of the patients admitted to this hospital were “flu sufferers.” More youngsters than adults were ill. Foster reported that of 182 patients with upper respiratory affections 117 were children.
Physicians offered some free advice through the press about how to prevent the “flu” and how to care for yourself, should their preventive advice come too late. It is the usual hackneyed and ineffective advice, such as avoiding contact with “flu” cases, avoiding overexposure to cold, drink plenty of water and guzzle fruit juice—they did not even bother to advise fresh rather than canned fruit juice. Of course, they agreed that while “immunization shots” are not 100 percent preventive, they “are effective.”
There was but one sane statement in all that they said, so far as this appeared in the press. “Intestinal flu, the doctors say, comes from overeating and overcelebrating, with a subsequent loss of rest. It is especially prevalent during the holidays.” This is old stuff to Hygienists. For lo! These many years we have been telling people that epidemics follow feasting and revelry.
Reread this statement by the San Antonio physicians and then read again, the following paragraph from the December 1959 issue of the Hygienic Review where I say: “It is unfortunate that our seasons of good will and festivities are always seasons of overeating (commonly also of drinking), so that they are followed almost inevitably by colds, coughs, ‘flu,’ and more severe illness. Beginning with the orgy of Thanksgiving, extending through the revelry of Christmas and ending with the bacchanalia of New Year’s, our periods of festivity not only result in hundreds of deaths and much mayhem on the highways, but in more suffering and death from indulgence and excess. More bronchitis follows such indulgences than ever follows exposure. Those who are more moderate in indulgence, those who are least enervated and least toxemic escape the evolution of crises at these times, but often, they escape by the ‘skin of their teeth.’ ”
More children than adults are suffering with “flu” in this near epidemic, not because the adults behave themselves very well, but because they have built less toleration. Candies and cookies and soft drinks make up a great part of the burden they impose upon their digestive tracts and their eliminating organs. With the adults, they go to the dining table and gorge themselves on turkey and dressing, on cranberry sauce and plum pudding or mince meat pie. The amount of putrescence thus generated in the digestive tracts of these youngsters would kill a jungle tiger. It is ridiculous to talk of germs and viruses in the presence of so much poisoning.
No digestive tract known to man is capable of efficiently digesting the food mixtures eaten by children and adults alike in our periods of celebration. It is just possible, as was suggested by Tilden, that the adults save themselves to some extent by their drinking habits. Alcohol inhibits bacterial activity, hence their wine, beer and whiskey prevents more or less decomposition of the indigestible mixtures they swallow at these times.
Late hours, revelry, noise-making, excitement, visits away from home, lack of sleep—these enervating influences inhibit secretion and check excretion. Add the resulting toxemia to the putrescent poisoning from the overloaded digestive tract and you have enough poisoning to produce any so-called disease to which the individual may be diathetically disposed. A people who celebrate the birth of their Savior by getting drunk, making a lot of noise and eating like hogs must expect to pay for their folly, even though they do their celebrating “in a good cause.”
To inundate the intestinal putrescence evolved out of such gross eating and out of so much added enervation with large quantities of water and to swill great quantities of fruit juice, these commonly canned and sweetened, is but to add insult to injury.
The physicians advise: “Stay in bed until the disease has run its course. In cases of upper respiratory flu, the sufferer tends to become tired but apparently recovers after a short rest. Arising too soon, he is subject to a serious relapse which makes it easy to go into pneumonia.” Rest in bed is vitally important in these cases, but if this is coupled with the water drinking and fruit juice guzzling that is advised, there will be more likelihood of pneumonia evolving out of the putrescence than if a rational plan of care is adopted. Indeed, one may be practically certain that no pneumonia will evolve if he forgets the advice to “drink plenty of water and fruit juice” and will take no food of any kind and will drink only according to the dictates of thirst.
One does not have to come in contact with other cases of “flu” in order to evolve the symptom complex that is labeled influenza when the intestinal tract is a seething mass of putrescence. Nor will avoiding such contact prevent “flu” when the subdiaphragmatic cesspool is filled to overflowing. Colds, pneumonia, intestinal “diseases” and other symptom-complexes are as inevitable under these conditions of acute and chronic poisoning as the explosion of a boiler when the safety valve is stopped down.
How absurd to talk of preventing the evolution of these and similar symptom-complexes in the face of so much poisoning, by the irrational process of shooting more rubbish into the body! Vaccines and serums are efforts to prevent causes from producing their natural effects. They mean that you can be poisoned and not be poisoned. “Immunization” is like trying to prevent drunkenness in the man who drinks. I am reminded, at this point, of the famous serum I invented thirty years ago that I called blisterine. After three inoculations with this serum, a man could sit upon a red hot stove or pass through a firey furnace and not even get hot. He would not burn for he was immunized. I was unable to find a manufacturer for my serum, as it was thought that such a serum would put the firefighters out of business.
When we have learned that we are builders of our own miseries, are architects of our own pathologies and makers of our own “diseases,” we will be prepared to live sensibly, even during periods of celebration. I enjoyed my oranges on Christmas day and developed no cold or “flu” being out in the cold with only enough clothes on to keep out of jail. More than forty years of going with so little clothes that all of my friends have predicted that I will die of pneumonia (several of them have) and developing no trouble as a consequence has convinced me that “over-exposure to cold” is a minor factor in the evolution of any symptom-complex, unless it is frostbite. I have seen as many as four generations of the same family who suffered with frostbite and am sure that any good geneticist will agree that this was due to a mutation.