Why Does the Greater Part of Allopathic Materia
Medica Consist of Virulent Poisons?
The Law of Dual Effect
This brings us to the consideration of acute inflammatory and feverish diseases. From what has been said, it follows that inflammation and fever are not primary, but secondary, manifestations of disease. There cannot arise any form of inflammatory disease in the system unless there is present some enemy to health which Nature is endeavoring to overcome and get rid of. On this fact in Nature is based what I claim to be the fundamental Law of Cure.
"Give me fever and I can cure every disease." Thus Hippocrates the Father of Medicine, expressed the fundamental Law of Cure over two thousand years ago. I have expressed this law in the following sentence: "Every acute disease is the result of a cleansing and healing effort of Nature."
This law, when thoroughly understood and applied to the treatment of diseases, will in time do for medical science what the discovery of other natural laws has done for physics, astronomy, chemistry and other exact sciences. It will transform the medical empiricism and confusion of the past and present into an exact science by demonstrating the unity of disease and treatment.
Applying the law in a general way, it means that all acute diseases, from a simple cold to measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox, pneumonia, etc., represent Nature's efforts to repair injury or to remove from the system some kind of morbid matter, virus, poison or microorganism dangerous to health and life. In other words, acute diseases cannot develop in a perfectly normal, healthy body living under conditions favorable to human life. The question may be asked: "If acute diseases represent Nature's healing efforts, why is it that people die from them?" The answer to this is: the vitality may be too low, the injury or morbid encumbrance too great or the treatment may be inadequate or harmful, so that Nature loses the fight; still, the acute disease represents an effort of Nature to overcome the enemies to health and life and to reestablish normal, healthy conditions.
It is a curious fact that this fundamental principle of Nature Cure and Law of Nature has been acknowledged and verified by medical science. The most advanced works on pathology admit the constructive and beneficial character of inflammation. However, when it comes to the treatment of acute diseases, physicians seem to forget entirely this basic principle of pathology, and treat inflammation and fever as though they were, in themselves, inimical and destructive to health and life.
From this inconsistency in theory and practice arise all the errors of allopathic medical treatment. Failure to understand this fundamental Law of Cure accounts for all the confusion on the part of the exponents of the different schools of healing sciences, and for the greater part of human suffering.
The Nature Cure philosophy never loses sight of the fundamental Law of Cure. While allopathy regards acute disease conditions as in themselves harmful and hostile to health and life, as something to be cured (we should say suppressed) by drug or knife, the Nature Cure school regards these forcible housecleanings as beneficial and necessary, so long, at least, as people will continue to disregard Nature's Laws. While, through its simple, natural methods of treatment, Nature Cure easily modifies the course of inflammatory and feverish processes and keeps them within safe limits, it never checks or suppresses these acute reactions by poisonous drugs, serums, antiseptics, surgical operations, suggestion or any other suppressive treatment.
Skin eruptions, boils, ulcers, catarrhs, diarrheas, and all other forms of inflammatory febrile disease conditions are indications that there is something hostile to life and health in the organism which Nature is trying to remove or overcome by these so-called "acute" diseases. What, then, can be gained by suppressing them with poisonous drugs and surgical operations? Such practice does not allow Nature to carry on her work of cleansing and repair and to attain her ends. The morbid matter which she endeavored to eliminate by acute reactions is thrown back into the system. Worse than that, drug poisons are added to disease poisons. Is it any wonder that fatal complications arise, or that the acute condition is changed to chronic disease?
The statements made in the preceding pages are a severe indictment of regular medical science, but they point out the difference in the basic principles of the "Old School" of healing and those of the Nature Cure philosophy.
The fundamental Law of Cure quoted in this chapter explains why allopathic medical science is in error, not in a few things only, but in most things. The foundation, the orthodox conception of disease being wrong, it follows that everything which is built thereon must be wrong also.
No matter how learned a man may be, if he begins a problem in arithmetic with the proposition 2x2=5, he never will arrive at a correct solution if he continue to figure into all eternity. Neither can allopathy solve the problem of disease and cure as long as its fundamental conception of disease is based on error.
The fundamental law of cure explains also why the great majority of allopathic prescriptions contain virulent poisons in some form or another and why surgical operations are in high favor with the disciples of the regular school.
The answer of allopathy to the question, "Why do you give poisons?" usually is, "Our materia medica contains poisons because drug poison kills and eliminates disease poison." We, however, claim that drug poisons merely serve to paralyze vital force, whereby the deceptive results of allopathic treatment are obtained.
The following will explain this more fully. We have learned that so-called acute diseases are Nature's cleansing and healing efforts. All acute reactions represent increased activity of vital force, resulting in feverish and inflammatory conditions, accompanied by pain, redness, swelling, high temperature, rapid pulse, catarrhal discharges, skin eruptions, boils, ulcers, etc.
Allopathy regards these violent activities of vital force as detrimental and harmful in themselves. Anything which will inhibit the action of vital force will, in allopathic parlance, cure (?) acute diseases. As a matter of fact, nothing more effectively paralyzes vital force and impairs the vital organs than poisonous drugs and the surgeon's knife. These, therefore, must necessarily constitute the favorite means of cure (?) of the regular school of medicine.
This school mistakes effect for cause. It fails to see that the local inflammation arising within the organism is not the disease, but merely marks the locality and the method through which Nature is trying her best to discharge the morbid encumbrances; that the acute reaction is local, but that its causes or feeders are always constitutional and must be treated constitutionally. When, under the influence of rational, natural treatment, the poisonous irritants are eliminated from blood and tissues, the local symptoms take care of themselves; it does not matter whether they manifest as pimple or cancer, as a simple cold or as consumption.
Everywhere in Nature rules the great Law of Action and Reaction. All life sways back and forth between giving and receiving, between action and reaction. The very breath of life mysteriously comes and goes in rhythmical flow. So also heaves and falls in ebb and tide the bosom of Mother Earth.
In some of its aspects, this law is called the Law of Compensation, or the Law of Dual Effect. On its action depends the preservation of energy.
The Great Master expressed the ethical application of this law when he said:
"Give, and it shall be given unto you. . . . For with the same measure that ye mete it shall be measured to you again."--Luke 6:38.
In the realms of physical nature, giving and receiving, action and reaction balance each other mechanically and automatically. What we gain in power we lose in speed or volume, and vice versa. This makes it possible for the mechanic, the scientist and the astronomer to predict with mathematical precision for ages in advance the results of certain activities in Nature.
The great Law of Dual Effect forms the foundation of the healing sciences. It is related to and governs every phenomenon of health, disease and cure. When I formulated the fundamental Law of Cure in the words, "Every acute disease is the result of a healing effort of Nature," this was but another expression of the great Law of Action and Reaction. What we commonly call crisis, acute reaction or acute disease is in reality Nature's attempt to establish health.
Applied to the physical activity of the body, the Law of Com-pensation may be expressed as follows: "Every agent affecting the human organism produces two effects: a first, apparent, temporary effect, and a second, lasting effect. The secondary, lasting effect is always contrary to the primary, transient effect."
For instance: The first and temporary effect of cold water applied to the skin consists in sending the blood to the interior; but in order to compensate for the local depletion, Nature responds by sending greater quantities of blood back to the surface, resulting in increased warmth and better surface circulation.
The first effect of a hot bath is to draw the blood to the surface; but the secondary effect sends the blood back to the interior, leaving the surface bloodless and chilled.
Stimulants, as we shall see later on, produce their deceptive effects by burning up the reserve stores of vital energy in the organism. This is inevitably followed by weakness and exhaustion in exact proportion to the previous excitation.
The primary effect of relaxation and sleep is weakness, numbness and death-like stupor; the secondary effect, however, is an increase of vitality.
The Law of Dual Effect governs all drug action. The first, temporary, violent effect of poisonous drugs, when given in physiological doses, is usually due to Nature's efforts to overcome and eliminate these substances. The secondary, lasting effect is due to the retention of the drug poisons in the system and their action on the organism.
In theory and practice, allopathy considers the first effect only and ignores the lasting aftereffects of drugs and surgical operations. It administers remedies whose first effect is contrary to the disease condition. Therefore, in accordance with the Law of Action and Reaction, the secondary, lasting effect of such remedies must be similar to or like the disease condition.
Common, everyday experience should teach us that this is so, for laxatives and cathartics always tend to produce chronic constipation.
The secondary effect of stimulants and tonics of any kind is increased weakness, and their continued use often results in complete exhaustion and paralysis of mental and physical powers.
Headache powders, pain killers, opiates, sedatives and hypnotics may paralyze brain and nerves into temporary insensibility; but, if due to constitutional causes, the pain, nervousness and insomnia will always return with redoubled force. If taken habitually, these agents invariably tend to create heart disease and paralysis, and ultimately develop the patient into a dope fiend.
Cold and catarrh cures (?), such as quinine, coal-tar products, etc., suppress Nature's efforts to eliminate waste and morbid matter through the mucous linings of the respiratory tract, and drive the disease matter back into the lungs, thus breeding pneumonia, chronic catarrhs, asthma and consumption.
Mercury, iodine and all other alteratives, by suppression of external elimination, create internal chronic diseases of the most dreadful types, such as locomotor ataxy, paresis, etc.
So the recital might be continued all through orthodox materia medica. Each drug breeds new disease symptoms which are in their turn cured (?) by other poisons, until the insane asylum or merciful death rings down the curtain on the tragedy of a ruined life.
The teaching and practice of homeopathy, as explained in Chapter Twenty-Six, is fully in harmony with the Law of Action and Reaction. Acting upon the basic principle of homeopathy: Similia similibus curantur, or like cures like, it administers remedies whose first, temporary effect is similar to the disease conditions. In accordance with the Law of Dual Effect, then, the secondary effect of these remedies must be contrary to the disease conditions, that is, curative.