A Brief History of Nature Cure and Natural Therapeutics

[Guest guest]

Society, like Nature, hates a void.

" Traditional " medicine, a misnomer, usurped that title for marketing &

promotional purposes. Also, to take the light/focus away from the real

traditional medical practices that was their competion that they were trying to

discredit at the same time as building their influence.

The former healers like shamen, witches, herbalists, etc. were driven out &

diminished. The void was filled by drugs, allopathy & surgery, all controlled by

doctors.

Now, there is a void because the health consumer is not being well served by

the established hierarchy. The cures/chemicals have too many side effects. They

are worse than the problems that they are trying to solve.

In such a void, the " alternative " medicine fills the space because " natural "

seems to be less dangerous.

After all, prescription drugs kill many time over the amount of deaths from

illegal drugs.

(And that's only counting the ones due to mistakes from illegible

prescriptions!)

However, one thing has changed in the modern scenario.

Food, which was the key to health, cannot be counted as a source of health.

Food is now a source of what's wrong than what's healthy.

Manufacturing, processing & overfarming of the land are some of the causes.

For example, we used to be able to count on getting our share of zinc from the

minerals in the ground being absorbed by the plants that we ate. Not so now. Not

enough minerals in the ground. They've been leached by previous generations of

crops. And remineralization of soil is a rare practice. It can be done, but few

want the expense of rock/glacier flour added to their operating costs. So, we

pay the cost.

In the void of healthy food/eating pracices, something has to be added to the

equation:

Supplements are needed to, well, supplement our diet.

No one is saying that they like the way things are, but that's the state of

things that we have to deal with today.

There are many chemical compounds available to us through nature. God gave us

willow trees for headaches & inflammation. Nature is our pharmacy with chemicals

to serve us safely. Or is this just a coincidence?

As mentioned before, many aboriginals can read plants to know what they are &

what they will do or not do for us.

Knowledge lost to the " modern " society. The enlightened are looking & making

their way back to that to rediscover what has been lost & could serve us well

now. But the fact is, natural or manufactured, our bodies are about chemicals.

It's how we get them, what we do with them & how they work that makes the

difference.

By the way, " alternative " is used to describe that segment of health practices

because:

1. " Traditional " is already taken. To reassert that " alternative " is truly the

older of the disciplines & is really the " traditional " is just too much to take

on against the modern bunch already misusing it.

2. Trying to correct the use of this misnomer would confuse the health

consumer.

3. " Alternative " means that it is another answer to the regular, established

" way things are " health system/factory, so it works & gets the idea across to

people clearly.

This is the environment that we are in. Maybe, not of our choosing, but, it's

what we've got to work with. Enlightenment is still the key. (If I have to put

my money on Nature vs. Laboratory, God's chemicals vs. Man's, give me plant

cellulose every time!)

-R.A.Silva,

L.M.T.-

---------------------------------

Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha!

Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Games.

[Guest guest]

Co-Q-10, Amino Acids, Royal Jelly, Green Tea, Red Yeast Rice, on and

on... Is this what alternative medicine is reduced to?

Pharmaceutical drugs lite? Taking a natural substance and using it

like a drug to be your magic bullet? What makes us " alternative " ?

Consider just for a moment where our movement began...

Misty

searching-alternatives

A Brief History of Nature Cure and Natural Therapeutics

s, N.D., L.M.T.

Director of the New Mexico School of Natural Therapeutics

www.coresynch.com

www.nmsnt.org

" Only God and Nature heal. " (Randolph Stone, D.O., D.C., and N.D.)

The use of nature for healing began in the dawn of human history.

Primitive peoples thought that illness was a form of punishment sent

by the gods.

They performed ceremonies to placate the gods so that their suffering

would be removed. Eventually, gifted individuals turned to nature for

answers. They observed the effect of elemental, environmental,

seasonal, emotional, cyclical, and climatic changes on the members

of their community.

They also watched how wild animals instinctively heal themselves.

These early observations and practices formed the basis of a simple

yet powerful system of healing that became known as Nature Cure. For

thousands of years, healing with nature was the only curative means

available to humanity.

Indigenous peoples accumulated a treasure of healing knowledge,

wisdom, and experience. This treasure was passed down through the

generations to worthy pupils who spent long years in apprenticeship

to healers. With the advent of modern life and its disruptive effect

on native cultures, we can only imagine how much of this priceless

knowledge was lost.

Health can be defined as our ability to love unconditionally. Well-

being is not static. Nature is always offering the possibility of

greater balance. If human beings were removed, would nature have

trouble finding balance? No.

Therefore, human beings hold the balance of nature in their hands.

The rightness of our actions depends on our ability to discriminate.

This conscious act is apparently unique to human beings. Health is a

reflection of how well we discriminate. Our actions have great

impact on our own natural balance and on the world of nature. Health

is our ability to love all of life and to act accordingly. When we

look at what is happening in the world, we realize how far most of

the human race has devolved from unconditional love.

People have never been in greater want of the benefits derived from

natural healing practices. Naturopathic systems -- such as

hydrotherapy, massage therapy, hygiene, corrective exercise,

herbalism, dietetics, sun and air baths, and the like --

were valued by the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese, as well as

cultures closer to home, the ancient civilizations of the Americas.

Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, a naturopath, and the

most celebrated physician of antiquity, said, " Nature is the healer

of all disease " and " Let foods be your medicine and your medicine

your foods. " Hippocrates achieved much success working in

cooperation with nature's healing processes. However, he did not

hesitate to call attention to those situations in which he succeeded

only partly or failed entirely, concluding that " the physician is

only the servant of Nature. "

The history of Nature Cure in the Americas began with the native

peoples, who were practicing it long before the advent of

Naturopathy in Europe. Ancient Mayans and Incas had raised natural

healing to a science and an art when Europe was still inhabited by

cave dwellers. The European settlers might not have endured, were it

not for the knowledge of Nature Cure shared by the Native Americans.

This rich healing culture was lost during the European invasions of

the Americas, and not until the beginning of the twentieth century

was the European form of Nature Cure introduced in the United States.

Today, the practice of pure Nature Cure is nearly extinct in the

United States. No schools of pure Nature Cure training exist, nor

are there Nature Cure hospitals for the care and instruction of

those who suffer from illness.

Wood, D.C., N.D., one of the last pure Nature Cure doctors who

practiced in this country, defined Nature Cure thus: Nature Cure

teaches that the primary cause of weakness and disease is the

disobedience of the Laws of Nature. Proper nutrition will answer a

good many health questions, along with a natural regulation

of breathing fresh air, cleanliness, dressing in comfortable clothes,

resting, and mental composure. Medicines should be in conformity

with the constructive principles in nature and not injurious or

destructive to the human organism. The methods of treatment

are supplying the blood with its natural constituents in the right

proportions and promoting the elimination of waste materials and

poisons without in any way injuring the human body.

Nature Cure uses the forces of nature to heal. The medicines of the

Nature Cure physician or naturopath are the four elements of nature:

air, fire, water, and earth.

Henry Lindlhar, M.D., is considered the father of Natural

Therapeutics. He was one of a small group of gifted physicians who

introduced the European system of Nature Cure to the United States

(he was also Dr. Wood's teacher). Dr. Lindlhar developed and

directed a school of Natural Therapeutics and a sanitarium in

Chicago, Illinois. He expanded the scope of Nature Cure theory and

practice, evolving Nature Cure into Natural Therapeutics. His work

is the foundation for the present-day practice of naturopathy.

What is the difference between Nature Cure and Natural Therapeutics?

Dr. Lindlhar added noninjurious herbal preparations and certain

homeopathic remedies based on the principles of Dr.

Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, to create what became known as

Natural Therapeutics. He also integrated the advances being made in

massage, chiropractic, osteopathy, dietetics, and exercise. He

included iridology and other forms of natural diagnosis.

Most importantly, Dr. Lindlhar developed a philosophical system,

mapping the laws and methodology of how nature heals.

According to Dr. Lindlhar's philosophy, nature heals through what is

known as the healing crisis. If you imagine a ladder with four steps

and designate the top step as the acute or inflammatory stage of

symptomatic illness, the second lower step would represent a

progression to the sub-acute stage and the third lower step, a

further development to the chronic stage. The bottom and last step

would be the degenerative stage of illness, usually incurable.

When healing takes place on the first step, during the acute healing

opportunity, it occurs with intensity and for a brief time. The

energy (or vitality, or life force) of the individual increases

until it can bring about restorative natural cleansing and

rejuvenation. The mental, emotional, and physical bodies are also

able to heal during this acute stage. When treatment inhibits this

process, it is called suppression because it is contrary to the

movement of the life force toward healthy, balanced functioning of

the individual's inner ecology.

Examples of acute symptoms are inflammation, pain, fever, skin

discharges, mucous discharges, cough, anger, sorrow, grief. These

symptoms are an expression of nature's desire to bring the whole

organism closer to balance.

Symptoms are the language of nature, guiding us to take appropriate

cleansing and rejuvenating actions. Suppressing this movement toward

balance goes against nature's wisdom. If we suppress the acute

healing crisis, we step down one rung of the ladder to the sub-acute

stage.

To bring about a return to balance, the life force must access more

energy at the sub-acute stage than at the acute stage. This means

that the language of nature (the symptoms) becomes more severe.

Symptoms at this stage are pneumonia, bronchitis, increased pain,

discharge via the skin, deeper mental and emotional patterns. If we

effectively suppress the subacute healing crisis, we eventually

descend to the third rung of the ladder, chronic illness.

Chronic means long and drawn out. Those suffering from chronic

illness live with their symptoms day in and day out. The return from

chronic illness to health requires even more time, energy, and

effort. Many chronically ill patients become so identified with

their illness that they cannot imagine a life free of this

condition. The medical profession typically labels chronic

conditions with names such as asthma, psoriasis, chronic fatigue,

cancer, diabetes and as clinical mental and emotional conditions

(such as anxiety or depression).

Periodically, chronic symptoms become acute. This is the voice

of nature trying to heal and the moment of opportunity that the

Nature Cure physician wants to support.

If we suppress the chronic, we eventually drop down to the last rung

of the ladder, the degenerative stage. At this level, the physical

body is breaking down. The life force is leaving the organism, and

the body is becoming unfit for habitation. The problem faced in the

degenerative state is whether there is enough vitality to sustain a

healing crisis. In this stage, the healing crisis can also be the

means for the life force to exit the physical body, during the

process known as death. This release from suffering is the final

healing from the degenerative stage.

It is possible for sub-acute, chronic, and degenerative conditions

to be healed, but such healing takes place only through the acute

healing crisis.

The necessity of the acute healing crisis appears to be a law of

nature. As with any law, when we break it, we pay the consequences.

Nature is our friend. She is not trying to punish us when we

experience acute symptoms. She is attempting to direct our mental,

emotional, and physical life toward a state of balance. The acute

healing crisis is always constructive, never destructive. It is each

human being's right and privilege to learn how nature accomplishes

healing.

According to Hippocrates, " Nature is the healer of all disease. " The

German physician and naturalist Paracelsus stated that " Nature is

the teacher of Science. " When did this phenomenon change? What

discovery or theory precipitated the radical move away from nature

as a benevolent teacher?

Antoine Bechamp (1816 to 1908) was a contemporary of Louis Pasteur.

Bechamp observed that cells and germs are not the smallest

individual living organisms (as taught by Pasteur and his

followers). Instead, these are, in turn, made up of infinitely more

minute living beings, which he named microzyma, or " minute ferment

bodies. "

The physical characteristics and vital activities of cells and germs

depend on the soil in which their microzyma feed, grow, and

multiply. Thus, microzyma growing in the soil of procreative germ

plasma develop into the normal, permanent, specialized cells of the

living vegetable, animal, and human organism. The same microzyma,

however, feeding on morbid materials and systemic poisons in these

living bodies, develop into bacteria and parasites.

The first and most basic principle of Nature Cure is that all forms

of disease stem from the same cause, namely, the accumulation of

waste materials and bodily refuse in the system. Nature Cure

physicians call this morbidity.

Waste materials in a healthy individual are removed from the system

through the organs of elimination. However, in the diseased person,

they steadily accumulate in the body during years of faulty living:

incorrect diet, improper care of the body, and habits contributing

to enervation and nervous exhaustion (such as worry, overwork, and

excesses). The only true way to cure disease is to enable the system

to throw off toxic accumulation so that it can return to its natural

functioning. All natural treatments are directed toward this end.

How does nature handle morbidity, or the accumulative results of

living outside the laws of nature? When morbidity reaches an

intolerable level, nature seeks to restore balance by creating the

healing crisis in the diseased person.

Nature Cure masters recognize that food quality depends on the soil

in which it is grown. This is also true within the human body, where

the " soil " is the blood and lymph. If the blood and lymph are clean,

the vitality, or life force, circulates freely. It is important to

remember that, via the nervous system, the morbidity of thoughts and

feelings also translate into morbidity of blood and lymph.

When our blood and lymph become thick with viscous, sticky material,

we are prevented from experiencing vitality and, instead, experience

disease. As the morbid blood and lymph circulate through the spleen

and the lymph nodules, they are condensed into leucocytes. These

condensed particles of morbidity accumulate in weaker areas of the

body, obstructing normal function and offering a better soil for the

digestive activities of the microzyma.

Inflammation begins with obstruction in the capillary circulation,

created by the leucocytes and other morbid matter. Stagnation causes

them to break down and putrefy. The morbid soil develops the

microzyma of the normal cells into various kinds of disease germs,

or bacteria. The leucocytes disintegrate into pus. All life forms

experience this as a healing opportunity during the acute phase.

Why must elimination take the form of inflammation? The organs of

elimination can handle waste materials of only comparatively simple

chemical composition. The skin eliminates gases, water, and salts.

The kidneys eliminate urea, indican, and a few other end products.

The intestines eliminate little else but undigested food wastes.

Because morbidity is composed of chemically highly complex

substances, it cannot be released through the normal organs of

elimination. Morbid substances must first be broken down into simple

compounds chemically adapted for elimination through these organs.

This decomposition is accomplished by inflammation and germ

activity. Therefore, the acute healing crisis is the result of

nature's effort to purify and heal. This is the profound truth

underlying Nature Cure.

Now we return to the fork in the road of medical history. Antoine

Bechamp's profound revelations were superseded by the theories of

Louis Pasteur and Metchnikoff, which fully justify the suppressive

and often poisonous treatment prescribed by the allopathic school of

medicine. Pasteur compared the human body to a barrel of beer,

pronouncing it to be, like that beverage, at the mercy of extraneous

organisms. Just as these produce good or bad beer (a healthy brew or

diseased liquid), " bad " microorganisms create disease upon entering

the physical body.

Professor Metchnikoff's theory of phagocytosis and Sir Almroth

and Dr. Bulloch's discovery of obsonins (natural antitoxins) in the

blood, furnished the medical profession with a simple theory as to

the origin of disease.

Modern medical science and treatment is built on the germ theory as

the cause of disease. Because the microscope has revealed the

presence of certain microorganisms in connection with certain

diseases, medical science has assumed that bacteria are the direct

and primary cause of these diseases.

Medicine bases its prophylaxis and treatment on the theory that human

beings are at the mercy of invaders. Health and disease, life and

death, all are perceived as accidents over which we have little

control. Kill the bacteria, and the disease is cured. The language

of allopathic medicine is the language of war.

Because the primary cause of germ activity is the morbid soil in

which bacteria breed and multiply, killing germs with poisonous

drugs, vaccines, serums, and antitoxins is unnecessary and even

harmful. Through natural ways of living and natural methods of

treatment, we can eliminate the morbidity that enables the

development and multiplication of disease germs.

Unfortunately, society has distanced itself from these natural

truths. Pasteur's erroneous theory of disease has permeated the

consciousness of the modern world. Medical science no longer

questions the foundation on which it rests.

As a result, the true activities of nature in relation to our health

go unrecognized by most. The occurrence of chronic degenerative

diseases is widespread and increasing. The cost of health care is

prohibitive, and millions cannot afford health insurance. Modern

medicine is failing to keep us healthy and to help us heal.

Consider the words of Gandhi:

The Nature Cure doctor does not " sell a cure " to the patient.

The patient is taught the right way of living in his or her own

home, which not only cures of some particular ailment but also

teaches the method of prevention of illness in the future. The

ordinary doctor is interested mostly in the study of disease.

The Nature Cure physician is interested in the study of health

not disease. His or her real interest begins where that of the

ordinary doctor ends; the eradication of the patient's ailment

under Nature Cure marks only the beginning of a way of life

in which there is no room for illness or disease. Nature Cure

is thus a way of life, not a course of " treatment " . We do not

claim that Nature Cure can cure all disease. No system of

medicine can do that or else we should all be immortals.

Nature Cure means a change for the better in one's outlook

on life itself. It means regulation of one's life in accordance

with the laws of health.

Collective suffering is forcing us to seek help from the ancient

source of healing, nature. When both physicians and clients

understand that the power to cure disease lies within the patient's

own body, they choose to work with this power and support, not

suppress, the return to normal healthy function according to

nature's own plan. Nature, not the physician, is the healer.

Consider these comments by the great medical visionary Dr. Hahnemann:

There are no diseases, only sick people.

Nature will provide an infinite number of remedies

to meet all occasions that might arise.

In conclusion, the central idea behind Nature Cure, Natural

Therapeutics, and naturopathy is expressed in this simple statement:

Only God and Nature heal.

For more information please see:

www.coresynch.com

www.nmsnt.org