"The entire system suffers also, and you have here two series of symptoms. At first the patient becomes anxious and restless and cannot remain quiet; he changes his position; he moves about from place to place; he seems to have a great deal of anxiety about the heart, praecordial anguish, as it is termed, particularly at night.

"Then, in another series of symptoms, there are jerkings of the limbs, making the patient appear as though he were attacked by St.

Vitus' dance. Or, you may notice what is more common yet, trembling of the hands, this tremor being altogether beyond the control of the patient and gradually spreading over the entire body, giving you a resemblance to paralysis agitans or shaking palsy.

"Finally, the patient becomes paralyzed, cannot move his limbs, his mind becomes lost, and he presents a perfect picture of imbecility.

He does all sorts of queer things. He sits in the corner with an idiotic smile on his face, playing with straws; he is forgetful, he cannot remember even the most ordinary events. He becomes disgustingly filthy and eats his own excrement. In fact, he is a perfect idiot.

"Be careful how you give mercury; it is a treacherous medicine. It seems often indicated. You give it and relieve; but your patient is worse again in a few weeks and then you give it again with relief.

By and by, it fails you. Now, if I want to make a permanent cure, for instance, in a scrofulous child, I will very seldom give him mercury; should I do so, it will be at least only as an intercurrent remedy."

Chapter X

Suppressive Surgical Treatment of Tonsillitis and Enlarged Adenoids

The following paragraphs are taken from an article in the ~Nature Cure Magazine~ May, 1909, t.i.tled "Surgery for Tonsillitis and Adenoids." They will throw further interesting light on the dangerous consequences of suppressing acute and subacute diseases.

"The tonsils are excreting glands. Nature has created them for the elimination of impurities from the body. Acute, subacute and chronic tonsillitis accompanied by enlargement and cheesy decay of the tonsils means that these glands have been habitually congested with morbid matter and poisons, that they have had more work to do than they could properly attend to.

"These glandular structures const.i.tute a valuable part of the drainage system of the organism. If the blood is poisoned through overeating and faulty food combinations, or with scrofulous, venereal or psoriatic poisons, the tonsils are called upon, along with other organs, to eliminate these morbid taints. Is it any wonder that frequently they become inflamed and subject to decay?

What, however, can be gained by destroying them with iodine or extirpating them with the surgeon's scissors or the 'guillotine'?

"Because your servants are weakened by overwork, would you kill them? Because the drains in your house are too small to carry off the waste, would you blockade or remove them? Still, this is the orthodox philosophy of the medical schools applied to the management of the human body.

". . . In case of any morbid discharge from the body, wherever it be, whether through hemorrhoids, open sores, ulcers or through tonsils, scrofulous glands, etc., a fontanelle has been established to which and through which systemic poisons make their way. If such an outlet be blocked by medical or surgical treatment the stream of morbid matter has to seek another escape or else the poisons will acc.u.mulate somewhere in the body.

"Fortunate is the patient when such an escape can be established, because wherever in the system morbid excretions, suppressed by medical treatment, concentrate, there will inevitably be found the seat of chronic disease.

"After the tonsils have been removed, the morbid matter which they were eliminating usually finds the nearest and easiest outlet through the adenoid tissues and nasal membranes. These now take up the work of 'vicarious' elimination and, in their turn, become hyperactive and inflamed.

"Sometimes it happens that the adenoid tissues become affected before the tonsils. In that case, also, relief through the surgeon's knife is sought and then the process is reversed: after the adenoids have been removed, the tonsils develop chronic catarrhal conditions.

"When both tonsils and adenoids have been removed, the nasal membranes will, in turn, become congested and swollen. Often the mucous elimination increases to an alarming degree, and frequently polyps and other growths make their appearance or the turbinated bones soften and swell and obstruct the nasal pa.s.sages, thus again making the patient a 'mouth breather.'

"But in vain does Nature protest against local symptomatic treatment. Science has nothing to learn from her.

"When the nose takes up the work of vicarious elimination, the same mode of treatment is resorted to. The mucous membranes of the nose are now swabbed and sprayed with antiseptics and astringents, or 'burned' by cauterizers, electricity, etc. The polyps are cut out, and frequently parts of the turbinated bone and septum as well, in order to open the air pa.s.sages.

"Now, surely, the patient must be cured. But, strange to say, new and more serious troubles arise. The posterior nasal pa.s.sages and the throat are now affected by chronic catarrhal conditions and there is much annoyance from phlegm and mucous discharges which drop into the throat. These catarrhal conditions frequently extend to the mucous membranes of stomach and intestines.

"When the drainage system of the nose and the nasopharyngeal cavities has been completely destroyed, the impurities must either travel upward into the brain or downward into the glandular structures of the neck, thence into the bronchi and the tissues of the lungs.

"If the trend be upward, to the brain, the patient grows nervous and irritable or becomes dull and apathetic. How often is a child reprimanded or even punished for laziness and inattention when it cannot help itself? In many instances the morbid matter affects certain centers in the brain and causes nervous conditions, hysteria, St. Vitus' dance, epilepsy, etc. In children the impurities frequently find an outlet through the eardrums in the form of pus-like discharges. This may frequently avert inflammation of the brain, meningitis, imbecility, insanity or infantile paralysis.

"If the trend of the suppressed impurities and poisons be downward, it often results in the hypertrophy and degeneration of the lymphatic glands of the neck. In such cases the suppressive treatment, by drugs or knife, is again applied instead of eliminative and curative measures. The scrofulous poisons, suppressed and driven back from the diseased glands in the neck, now find lodgment in the bronchi and lungs, where they acc.u.mulate and form a luxuriant soil for the growth of the bacilli of pneumonia and tuberculosis.

"In other cases, the vocal organs become seriously affected by chronic catarrhal conditions, abnormal growths and in later stages by tuberculosis. Many a fine voice has been ruined in this way.

"The prevention and the cure of all these ailments lie not in local symptomatic treatment and suppression by drugs or knife, but in the rational and natural treatment of the body as a whole."

Chapter XI

Cancer

Let us see how our theories of the Unity of Disease and Cure apply to cancer, the much-dreaded and rapidly increasing disease which is considered absolutely incurable by both the laity and the medical profession.

Allopathy says that the only possible remedy is "early operation."

Nevertheless, in the textbooks of medical science and in medical schools and colleges it is taught that cancer and all other malignant growths "always return after extirpation." In fact, every student of medicine is expected to state this in his examination papers as part of the definition of malignant tumors.

The great majority of medical pract.i.tioners hold, furthermore, that cancer is a local disease. This is proved by the fact that they apply local, symptomatic treatment.

In reality, however, the disease is const.i.tutional. Therefore, after removal of the growth by surgery, the electric needle, x-rays, etc., the cancer or tumor is liable to break out again in the same place or in several places.

The surest way to change insignificant, so-called "benign" (not fatal to life) fibroid or fatty tumors into malignant cancer or sarcoma is to operate upon them. Wens and warts are often made malignant by surgical interference or other local irritation.

In my article t.i.tled "What We Know About Cancer" in the August, 1909, issue of the ~Nature Cure Magazine~ I quote from an article by Burton J. Hendrick, the cancer expert, published in the July, 1909, number of ~McClure's Magazine,~ as follows:

"Clinical observation long ago established the fact that any irritating interference with a cancer almost always stimulates its growth. In his earliest experiments Dr. Loeb found that, by merely drawing a silk thread through a dormant or slowly developing tumor, he could transform it into a rapidly growing one. Cutting with a knife produced the same effect. This accounts for the commonly observed fact that, when extirpated cancers in human beings recur, they increase in size much more rapidly than the original growth."

The late Dr. Senn, the great cancer surgeon, admitted these facts in an interview given to Chicago press representatives upon his return from his trip around the world in 1906. The press clipping reads as follows.

"Avoid Beauty Doctors"

"Incidentally, Dr. Senn advises women who worry over their disfigurement of moles about their heads and shoulders to have those so-called beauty spots removed early in life, but he tells them they should not go to beauty doctors to have the operations performed.

"He knows of hundreds of cases, he says, where cancer has resulted from the irritation of moles by an electric needle, or by constant picking it. 'Have a surgeon cut the mole out,' is his advice, as it will hurt little and leave no scar."

To this we answered in our comments on the interview: "If the little knife of the beauty doctor causes cancer, what about the big knife of the surgeon?"

In point of fact, our office records show that a large percentage of malignant growths are the direct result of surgical operations.

Cancer Not a Local, But a Const.i.tutional Disease

For many years I have been teaching in my lectures and writings as well as in private advice to patients that cancer is a const.i.tutional disease; that it is rooted in every drop of blood in the body; that it is caused by the presence of certain disease taints or of food and drug poisons in the system; that these poisons irritate and stimulate the cells in a certain locality and cause their abnormal multiplication or proliferation in the forms of benign or malignant tumors.

I also claim that meat eating has much to do with the causation of cancer.

Certain discoveries by Dr. H. C. Ross of London, England, confirm my claims that cancer is not at all of local and accidental origin, but that it is const.i.tutional, and that it may be caused by the gradual acc.u.mulation in the system of certain poisons which form in decaying animal matter.

One day, while experimenting in his laboratory, Dr. Ross brought white blood cells or leucocytes into contact with a certain aniline dye on the slide of a microscope and noticed that they began at once to multiply by cell division (proliferation). This was the first time that cell proliferation had been observed by the human eye while the cells were separated from their parent organism.

Dr. Ross realized that he had made an important discovery and continued his experiments under the microscope in order to find out what other substances would cause cell multiplication. He found that certain xanthines and alb.u.minoids derived from decaying animal matter were the most effective for this purpose and induced more rapid cell proliferation than any other substances he was able to procure.