I saw that chiropractic and osteopathic correction of spinal and pelvic lesions and consequent removal of irritation and pressure on the nerves, the cure of chronic constipation and malnutrition by pure food diet and hydrotherapy, the strengthening of the pelvic muscles and nerves by means of active and pa.s.sive movements and exercises, were fully sufficient to correct the local symptoms in a natural manner. Thousands of cases cured by us by these methods attest the truth of our statements; while those who failed to understand the simple reasoning of the Nature Cure philosophy or lacked will power to withstand the arguments of friends and physicians followed the siren call of the operating table and have been sorry for it ever since.

In case of operation for misplacement of the womb, it is necessary, in order to keep the womb in its new position, to st.i.tch it to the frontal abdominal wall. Very frequently it will not stay there, breaks loose, and relapses into an abnormal position. Granted that it remains fixed, woe to the woman if she becomes pregnant. The womb cannot a.s.sume the constantly changing positions of pregnancy, and the result is either abortion or malformation of the fetus, together with great and constant suffering to the woman.

The operation has done nothing to correct unnatural habits of living or to purify the system of its scrofulous and psoriatic taints, of drug and food poisons. Frequently these gather in the parts that have been weakened and irritated by the antiseptics and by the surgeon's knife, and set up new inflammations, ulcerations and only too often malignant tumors. As a result, one operation follows another.

We cannot cut in the genital organs without cutting in the brain.

The nervous system is a unit, and the brain is directly and intimately connected with the complex and highly sensitive nerve centers of the genital organs. Mutilation of the genital nerve centers, therefore, invariably affects the brain, and thus the intellectual and emotional life of a woman. It is almost axiomatic that a woman whose uterus or ovaries have been removed or mutilated is afterward mentally and emotionally more or less abnormal.

Nervousness, irritability and only too often nervous prostration and insanity are the sequelae of operative treatment.

In medical colleges, among students and professors, these facts are freely admitted and discussed, but the prospective patient hears a different story. "Cut loose the womb, shorten the ligaments, put it into the right position, and everything will be well." This sounds plausible and seductive; but everyday experiences expose the inadequacy and the destructive aftereffects of local symptomatic treatment.

The Climacteric or Change of Life

Under our artificial methods of living, the ~climacteric~ or change of life, has become the bugbear of womanhood. It seems to be universally a.s.sumed that this period in a woman's life must be fraught with manifold sufferings and dangers. It is taken as a matter of course that during these changes in her organism a woman is a.s.sailed by the most serious physical, mental, and psychic ailments which may endanger her sanity and often her life.

Like rheumatism, neurasthenia, neuralgia and hundreds of other medical terms, "change of life" is a convenient phrase to cover the doctor's ignorance. No matter what ailments befall a woman during the years from forty to fifty, may the causes be ever so obscure, the diagnosis is easy. "You are in the climacteric, you are suffering from the change of life," says the doctor, and the patient is satisfied and resigns herself to the inevitable.

Frequently women come to us for consultation, and after reciting a long string of troubles they conclude with the remark: "Of course, doctor, I'm in the change, and I know that lots of these things are natural at my time of life."

Is it true that all this suffering is natural and inevitable? Among the primitive races of the earth suffering incident to the change of life is practically unknown. The same is true in a lesser degree of the country population of Europe. The causes of it must, therefore, be sought in the artificial modes of living peculiar to our hypercivilization and in the unnatural methods of treating disease as commonly practiced.

Which are the specific causes of the profound disturbances so often accompanying the organic changes of the climacteric?

Aside from their other physiological functions, the menses are for the woman a monthly cleansing crisis through which Nature eliminates from her system considerable amounts of waste and morbid matter which, under a natural regime of life, would be discharged by means of the organs of depuration, that is, the lungs, skin, kidneys and bowels.

The more natural the life and the more normal, as the result of this, the woman's physical condition, the shorter and less annoying and painful, within certain limits, will be the menstrual periods.

Through unnatural habits of eating, drinking, dressing, breathing and through equally unnatural methods of medical treatment, the kidneys, skin and bowels have become inactive, benumbed or paralyzed. As long as the vicarious monthly purification by means of the menses continues, the evil results of the torpid condition of the regular organs of depuration do not become so apparent. The organism has learned to adapt itself to this mode of elimination.

But when, on account of the organic changes of the climacteric, menstruation ceases, then the systemic poisons, which formerly were eliminated by means of this monthly purification, acc.u.mulate in the system and become the source of all manner of trouble. All tendencies to physical, mental or psychic disease are greatly intensified. The poisonous taints circulating in the blood overstimulate or else depress and paralyze the brain and the nervous system. As a consequence, mental and psychic disorders are of common occurrence; the more so because the waning of the s.e.x functions is accompanied by a tendency to negativity and hypersensitiveness.

How Can the Ailments of the Climacteric Be Avoided or Cured?

Is it not self-evident that the easiest way to sidestep the troubles incident to this critical period and to reestablish the perfect equilibrium of the organism lies in restoring the natural activity of the organs of elimination?

This is what Nature Cure accomplishes easily and successfully with its natural methods of treatment. Air and sun baths, water treatments and ma.s.sage bring new life and activity to the enervated skin. Pure food diet, chiropractic and osteopathic treatment, curative gymnastics, homeopathic or herb remedies restore the natural tonicity and functioning of the stomach, liver, kidneys and intestines. Mental therapeutics, systematically practiced, make every cell in the body vibrant with the higher and finer forces of the mental and spiritual planes of being.

When the natural equilibrium of the organism is thus restored, there is absolutely no occasion for the troubles of the climacteric. We have proved this in hundreds of cases. As kidneys, skin and bowels begin to function normally and freely, physical and mental conditions commence to improve, and one after another the dreaded symptoms disappear.

Let us compare with this common sense, natural treatment the orthodox medical practice in such cases:

The medical treatment, as usual, is entirely symptomatic. The sluggish organs of elimination are prodded by poisonous cathartics, laxatives, diaph.o.r.etics, cholagogues and tonics, all of which, after temporary stimulation, leave the organs in a more weakened and the system in a more poisoned condition. If brain and nerves are irritated and aching, sedatives and hypnotics are given to stupefy them into insensibility. If the heart action is weak and irregular, it is whipped up by poisonous stimulants; if too fast, it is checked and paralyzed by sedatives and depressants.

Thus, instead of removing the underlying causes, every symptom is promptly suppressed. Drug poisons are added to the waste and morbid matter which are already clogging the channels of life. And, of course, under such unnatural treatment, in many instances things go from bad to worse. Flushes, headaches, rheumatic and neuralgic pains, melancholia, irritability, mental aberration, partial paralysis and a mult.i.tude of other symptoms appear and gradually increase in severity.

When the family physician has arrived at the end of his wits, the surgeon has his innings, and leaves the patient in a still worse condition of chronic suffering.

These experiences are so common that the manifold troubles of the climacteric are regarded as unavoidable and as a matter of course.

Here, as in so many other instances, people fail to see that it is the treatment which prevents the cure. If the efficiency of common sense, natural treatment were more widely known and recognized, how much unnecessary suffering could be avoided.

Chapter XIII

The Treatment of Acute Diseases by Natural Methods

In the preceding chapters we have described the results of the wrong, that is, suppressive treatment of acute diseases. We shall now proceed to describe the simple and uniform methods of natural treatment.

If the uniformity of acute diseases be a fact in Nature, then it follows that it must be possible to treat all acute diseases by uniform methods.

That it is possible to treat all acute diseases most successfully by natural methods, which anybody possessed of ordinary intelligence can apply, has been demonstrated for more than seventy years by the Nature Cure pract.i.tioners in Germany, and by myself during the last ten years in an extensive practice.

One of the many advantages of natural treatment is that it may be applied right from the beginning, as soon as the first symptoms of acute febrile conditions manifest themselves. It is not necessary to wait for a correct diagnosis of the case.

The regular physician, with his specific treatment for the mult.i.tude of specific diseases which he recognizes, often has to wait several days or even weeks before the real nature of the disease becomes clear to him, before he is able to diagnose the case or even to make a good guess. The conscientious medical pract.i.tioner has to postpone actual treatment until the symptoms are well defined. Meanwhile he applies expectant treatment as it is called in medical parlance, that is, he gives a purgative or a placebo, something or other to placate, or to make the patient and his friends believe that something is being done.

But during this period of indecision and inaction very often the best opportunity for aiding Nature in her healing efforts is lost, and the inflammatory processes may reach such virulence that it becomes very difficult or even impossible to keep them within constructive limits. The bonfire that was to burn up the rubbish on the premises may, if not watched and tended, a.s.sume such proportions that it damages or destroys the house.

It must also be borne in mind that very frequently acute diseases do not present the well-defined sets of symptoms which fit into the accepted medical conception of certain specific ailments. On the contrary, in many instances the symptoms suggest a combination of different forms of acute diseases.

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

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

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

The Natural Remedies

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

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

The Fresh-Air Treatment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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