Toxemia Explained

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Toxemia Explained

NO ONE on the outside of the medical

profession knows so well as doctors themselves the great need of more

knowledge of

what disease really is. Never in the history of so-called medical

science has there

been so much research work done as in the past decade; but with every

new discovery

there follows very closely on its heels the stark and stalking nemesis

that chills

the honest and earnest researchers to the bone--the inevitable word Failure.

Why inevitable? Because, back in the beginning of man's reasoning on

the subject

of his discomforts, his pains, and his sicknesses, he made the

monstrous mistake

that something outside of himself--outside of his own volition--had

wished him harm.

Man being a religious animal, he early thought he had in some manner

offended one

of his many deities. The history of how man evolved the idea of disease

being an

entity is too long to do more than allude to it in a book of this kind.

Any of the

old mythologies may be referred to by those who are curious enough to

look the matter

up. That man is still saturated with centuries of mythological

inheritance was brought

out vividly when the germ theory was introduced. It answered the

instinctive for

demoniacal possession! At last man's search for the demon--the author

of all his

woes--had been rewarded, and a satisfactory apologycould be made to his

conscience

for all his apparent shortcomings. However, seventy years of vicarious

atonement

for man's sins by the demon germ are waning, and reason be praised if

the microbe

is the last excuse that man can make for his sins of omission and

commission before

the throne of his own reason!

Medical science is founded on a false

premise--namely, that disease is caused by extraneous influences, and

that drugs

are something that cures or palliates discomfort. The term "medical"

means

pertaining to medicine or the practice of medicine. Anything used in a

remedial way

carries the idea of curing, healing, correcting, or affording relief,

and this doctoring

is all done without any clear understanding of cause.

The words "medical," "medicine,"

"disease," and "cure" have become concrete in our understanding,

and shape our thoughts and beliefs. And so arbitrary are these beliefs

that new schools

and cults are forced to the conventional understanding. They may

declare that an

impinged nerve is the cause of any pathology. But they do not trouble

themselves

to find why one impinged nerve creates a pathology and another does

not.

The psychologist does not trouble himself

to explain why worry in one subject causes disease and in another it

does not; why

hope in one subject cures and in another it does not; why negation does

not always

cure; why faith does not always cure; begging the question by declaring

that there

was not faith enough, etc. No fool is a bigger fool than the fool who

fools himself.

Why should not all new schools of thought

be found harking back to their mother-thought--I say, why not? So long

as the idea

that disease is a reality, an individuality, an entity, is firmly fixed

in the mind,

even those in research work will be controlled and directed in their

labors by the

conventional understanding. That is why every wonderful discovery soon

proves a mistaken

belief.

There is no hope that medical science

will ever be a science; for the whole structure is built around the

idea that there

is an object--disease--that can be cured when the right drug--remedy,

cure--is found.

It is my intention to portray the common,

every-day foibles of scientific medicine so that the people may see the

absurdities

concerning disease and cure which they are and have been hoodwinked

into believing

by the blare of science. Then I shall describe the only worked-out

rational explanation

of the cause of so-called diseases, hoping, by contrasting the old and

new, to start

a few to thinking and building new brain-cells, which in time may

supersede the old

and conventional.

Until Toxemia was discovered and elaborated

by myself into a medical philosophy there was no real medical

philosophy. The cause

and cure of disease is and has been a medley of guesswork and

speculation which has

confounded the best and most industrious medical minds in every

generation.

Today, as never before, the brightest

minds in the profession are delving into research work, endeavoring to

find the efficient

cause of disease. But they are doomed to disappointment; for they fail

at their beginning.

Why? Because all the work that has ever been done in searching for

cause has been

along the line of critical study and examination of effects; and

certainly reasoning

minds cannot believe that an effect can be its own cause. No one

believes in spontaneous

generation. The remnant of this belief was annihilated by Pasteur's

discovery of

germs as the cause of fermentation--a discovery so profound that it

created a frenzy

in the medical world; and, as in every epidemic of frenzy, mental poise

was lost.

The importance of the germ as a primary or efficient cause of disease

was accepted

nolens volens, willy nilly. Everyone was swept off his feet. As

in all sudden

gushes in change of belief, it was dangerous not to agree with the mob

spirit; hence

opposing or conservative voices were suppressed or ostracized.

The germ frenzy was fierce for two

or three decades; but now it is a thing of the past and will soon be,

if not now,

a dead letter.

Cause of disease is being looked for

everywhere, and no less a personage than the late Sir Mackenzie,

in "Reports

of the St. s Institute for Clinical Research," Volume I,

declared: "The

knowledge of disease is so incomplete that we do not yet even know what

steps should

be taken to advance our knowledge." At another time he wrote: "Disease

is made manifest to us only by the symptoms which it produces; the

first object in

the examination of a patient is the detection of symptoms, and

therefore the symptoms

of disease form one of the main objects of our study."

THE VALUE OF SYMPTOMATOLOGY

Sir , when living, was probably

the greatest clinician of the English-speaking world; yet he had not

outlived the

medical superstition that disease is a positive entity, and that the

way to find

disease is to trace symptoms to their source. But if a symptom is

traced to its source,

what of it? A pain is traced to its source, and we find that it comes

from the head.

The head does not cause the pain. Then we find that there are symptoms

of hyperemia--too

much blood in the head. The pressure from too much blood in the head

causes the pain.

Then pressure must be the disease? No. Then too much blood is the

disease--hyperemia?

Certainly; too much blood in the head was a cause. What is it that

causes congestion?

We find that pain is a symptom. Pressure causes pain; it, too, is a

symptom. Too

much blood in the head causes pressure; it also is a symptom. Pain,

pressure, hyperemia

are, all three, symptoms. In time the walls of the blood-vessels

weaken, and the

pressure ruptures one of the vessels. Hemorrhage into the brain causes

death from

apoplexy. Is the ruptured blood-vessel the disease? No. Is hemorrhage

into the brain

the disease? No; it is a symptom. Is death from hemorrhage the disease?

If the hemorrhage is not severe enough

to cause death, but does produce some form of paralysis--and there can

be many kinds--is

paralysis a disease? Haven't we been traveling along a chain of

symptoms from headache

to paralysis? We have not found anything to which all these symptoms

point as disease;

and, according to the requirements of Sir Mackenzie, disease is

made manifest

to us only by symptoms. Here we have a chain of symptoms beginning with

pain, ending

in hemorrhage and death or paralysis, without giving us any indication

whatever of

cause as understood. Any other chain, namely, stomach symptoms, ending

in pyloric

cancer, will not give any more indication of disease at the various

stages than the

foregoing illustration.

The first symptom we have of any chain

of symptoms is discomfort or pain. In any stomach derangement we have

pain, more

or less aggravated by food. Catarrh follows, or more often precedes,

it--or what

we call inflammation or gastritis. Gastritis continues, with a

thickening of the

mucous membrane. A time comes when there is ulceration. This will be

called a disease,

and is recognized as ulcer of the stomach; but it is only a

continuation of the primary

symptom of catarrh and pain. The ulcer is removed, but the symptom of

inflammation

and pain continues, and other ulcers will follow. This state eventually

merges into

induration or hardening of the pyloric orifice of the stomach. When

this develops,

there is more or less obstruction to the outlet causing occasional

vomiting, and,

on thorough examination, cancer is found.

If we analyze the symptoms from the

first pain and catarrh in the stomach, we shall kind the chain of

symptoms running

along. The first symptom to be noticed is pain. On examination, we find

a catarrhal

condition of the stomach; and this catarrhal condition is not a

disease--it is a

symptom. Catarrhal inflammation continues, with the thickening of the

mucous membrane,

which finally ends in ulceration. Ulceration is not the disease; it is

only a continuation

of the inflammatory symptom. If the ulcer is removed, it does not

remove the disease;

it only removes a symptom. These symptoms continue until there is a

thickening and

induration of the pyloris, which is called cancer. And yet we have not

discovered

anything but symptoms from beginning to end.

By removing the cancer, the question

of what the disease is has not been answered. Cancer being the

end-symptom, it cannot

be the cause of the first symptom.

Any other so-called disease can be

worked out in the same way. Pain and catarrh are the first symptoms, as

a rule, that

call a physician's or a patient's attention to anything being wrong;

and pain and

catarrh are not the disease. When the cause of the pain is found, it

too will be

found a symptom and not a disease. And this will be true to the end.

It is no wonder that diagnosticians

become perplexed in their search after disease, because they have

confounded symptoms

and disease. The fact of the matter is, it is impossible to put the

finger on any

ending of a chain of symptoms and say: "This is the disease." In the

beginning

of this analysis we showed that headache, or pain in the head, is not a

disease;

and when we had finished we found that hemorrhage or apoplexy is not a

disease--it

is only a continuation of the primary symptoms.

"Disease is made manifest to us

only by symptoms which it produces." This statement tacitly infers that

there

are diseases and symptoms, and that through symptoms we may find

disease. When we

undertake to trace symptoms to disease, we are in the dilemma of a

mountain-climber

who on reaching the top of one mountain, finds other peaks, and higher

ones, farther

on and on.

That Mackenzie had been baffled in

his search for fixed disease is indicated in the following, which I

quote from the

reports mentioned before:

Many diseases are considered to be of a

dangerous nature, and many attempts are made to combat the danger,

with, however, no perception of its nature. This is particularly the

case with epidemic diseases, such as measles, influenza, scarlet fever,

and diphtheria. As a consequence, proposals have at different times

been put forward to treat individuals who suffer these diseases upon

some general plan, without consideration of the peculiarities of the

individual case--and thus we get that rule-of-thumb treatment which is

shown in the indiscriminate use of a serum or vaccine.

During influenza epidemics there is always

a cry for a universal method of treatment, and attempts are made to

meet this cry in the shape of so-called specifics and vaccines.

When a great authority declares that dangerous

diseases are combated without any perception of their nature--and that,

too, in spite

of the germ theory--it should be obvious to thinking minds that the

germ theory has

been weighed and found wanting. Yet, when something must be done, and

nothing better

has been discovery, "serums and vaccines may be used indiscriminately."

That the "rule of thumb"

is the rule governing all thinking concerning symptoms, diseases, their

cause and

treatment, is so obvious that anyone possessing a reasoning mind, not

camouflaged

by scientific buncombe, should read as he runs.

Medicine rests on a sound scientific

foundation. Anatomy, physiology, biology, chemistry, and all collateral

sciences

that have a bearing on the science of man, are advanced to great

perfection. But

the so-called sciences of symptomatology, disease, diagnosis, etiology,

and the treatment

of disease go back to superstition for their foundation. We see the

incongruity of

jumbling real science with delusion and superstition. Disease is

believed to be an

entity; and this idea is necessarily followed by another as

absurd--namely, cure.

Around these two old assumptions has grown an infinite literature that

confounds

its builders.

TRUTH AS FAMOUS MEN SEE IT

When a man's knowledge is not in order,

the more of it he has, the greater will be his confusion.--(Herbert

Spencer.)

Confusion worse confounded is the only

explanation that can be given of the theory and practice of medicine.

Of course,

it is hoary with age, and is one of the learned professions. With much

just pride

can the rank and file point to its aristocracy--its long list of famous

dead as well

as living physicians? What has made most of them famous? The same that

has made others

famous in and out of the professions--namely, personal worth and

education. lin

was not a doctor; yet he was as great as any doctor, and could use his

gray matter

in advising the sick as well as those not sick. He appeared to have a

sense-perception

for truth; and I would say that his discrimination is the leading, if

not the distinguishing,

trait that has divided, and always will divide, the really great from

the mediocre

majority. They are the leaven that leaveneth the whole herd of

humanity--the quality

of character that could not be found in all Sodom and Gomorrah.

There was another discriminating mind

in the eighteenth century--another , who also was a signer of

the Declaration

of Independence-- Rush, a physician, a luminary that brought

distinction

to medical science. He was larger than his profession. He left seeds of

thought which,

if acted upon by the profession, would have organized medical thought

and prevented

the present-day confusion. He left on record such golden nuggets as:

Much mischief has been done by the nosological

arrangement of diseases. . . . Disease is as much a unit as fever. . .

.. Its different seats and degrees should no more be multiplied into

different diseases than the numerous and different effects of heat and

light upon our globe should be multiplied into a plurality of suns.

The whole materia medica is infected with

the baneful consequences of the nomenclature of disease; for every

article in it is pointed only against their names. . . . By the

rejection of the artificial arrangement of diseases, a revolution must

follow in medicine. . . . The road to knowledge in medicine by this

means will likewise be shortened; so that a young man will be able to

qualify himself to practice physic at a much less expense of time and

labor than formerly, as a child would learn to read and write by the

help of the Roman alphabet, instead of Chinese characters.

Science has much to deplore from the

multiplication of diseases. It is as repugnant to truth in medicine as

polytheism is to truth in religion. The physician who considers every

different affection of the different parts of the same system as

distinct diseases, when they arise from one cause, resembles the Indian

or African savage who considers water, dew, ice, frost, and snow as

distinct essences; while the physician who considers the morbid

affections of every past of the body, however divers)fied they may be

in their form or degrees, as derived from one cause, resembles the

philosopher who considers dew, ice, frost, and snow as different

modifications of water, and as derived simply from the absence of heat.

Humanity has likewise much to deplore from

this paganism in medicine. The sword will probably be sheathed forever,

as an instrument of death, before physicians will cease to add to the

mortality of mankind by prescribing for the names of diseases.

There is but one remote cause of disease .

.. . . These remarks are of extensive application, and, if duly attended

to, would deliver us from a mass of error which has been accumulating

for ages in medicine; I mean the nomenclature of diseases from their

remote causes. It is the most offensive and injurious part of the

rubbish of our science.

The physician who can cure one disease by a

knowledge of its principles may by the same means cure all the diseases

of the human body; for their causes are the same.

There is the same difference between the

knowledge of a physician who prescribes for diseases as limited by

genera and species, and of one who prescribes under the direction of

just principles, that there is between the knowledge we obtain of the

nature and extent of the sky, by viewing a few feet of it from the

bottom of a well, and viewing from the top of a mountain the whole

canopy of heaven.

I would as soon believe that ratafia was

intended by the Author of Nature to be the only drink of man, instead

of water, as believe that the knowledge of what relates to the health

and lives of a whole city, or nation, should be confined to one, and

that a small or a privileged, order of men.

From a short review of these facts, reason

and humanity awake from their long repose in medicine, and unite in

proclaiming that it is time to take the cure of pestilential epidemics

out of the hands of physicians, and to place it in the hands of the

people.

Dissections daily convince us of our

ignorance of the seats of disease, and cause us to blush at our

prescriptions.... What mischief have we done under the belief of false

facts, if I may be allowed the expression, and false theories! We have

assisted in multiplying diseases. We have done more--we have increased

their mortality.

I shall not pause to beg pardon of the

faculty for acknowledging, in this public manner, the weaknesses of our

profession. I am pursuing Truth, and while I can keep my eye fixed upon

my guide, I am indifferent whither I am led, provided she is my leader.

Oliver W. Holmes, M. D., was a man who gave

dignity and respectability to the profession. He was a literary man,

and from his

beginning to his end, was always larger than his profession. He once

said: "I

firmly believe that, if the whole materia medica could be sunk to the

bottom of the

sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the

fishes."

"Breakfast-Table Series" will be read by the intelligent people of the

future, who will know nothing of Holmes' fight for women against the

dirty hands

of herd-doctors and their consequences--puerperal fever.

"AEquanimitas" will keep

Osler in the minds of intelligent people "Osler's Practice of Medicine"

will be found only in the shops of bibliomaniacs. Such men as Osler

keep the dead

weight of mediocre medicine from sinking to oblivion by embellishing

medical fallacies

with their superb personalities and their literary polish.

Throughout all the ages the finest

minds have sensed the truth concerning the cause of disease, and this

has bulked

large against medical insanities and inanities.

A very striking picture of the medical

herd was made by "Anonymous" in his essay on "Medicine" in

"Civilization

in the United States."

It has been remarked above that one of the

chief causes of the unscientific nature of medicine and the

antiscientific character of doctors lies in their inflate credulity and

inability to think independently. This contention is supported by the

report on the intelligence of physicians recently published by the

National Research Council. They are found by more or less trustworthy

psychologic tests to be lowest in intelligence of all the professional

men, excepting only dentists and horse-doctors. Dentists and

horse-doctors are ten per cent less intelligent. But since the

quantitative methods employed certainly carry an experimental error of

ten per cent or even higher, it is not certain that the members of the

two more humble professions have not equal or even greater intellectual

ability. It is significant that engineers head the list in

intelligence. In fact, they are rated sixty per cent higher than

doctors.

This wide disparity leads to a temptation

to interesting psychological probings. Is not the lamentable lack of

intelligence of the doctor due to lack of necessity for rigid

intellectual discipline? Many conditions conspire to make him an

intellectual cheat. Fortunately for us, most diseases are

self-limiting. But it is natural for the physician to turn this

dispensation of nature to his advantage and to intimate that he has

cured , when actually nature has done the trick. On the

contrary, should die, the good doctor can assume a pious

expression and suggest that, despite his own incredible skill and

tremendous effort, it was God's (or nature's) will that should

pass beyond. Now, the engineer is open to no such temptation. He builds

a bridge or erects a building, and disaster is sure to follow any

misstep in calculation or fault in construction. Should such a calamity

occur, he is presently discredited and disappears from view. Thus he is

held up to a high mark of intellectual rigor and discipline that is

utterly unknown in the world the doctor inhabits.

The critic appears to think that "one

of the chief causes of the anti-scientific character of doctors lies in

their innate

credulity and inability to think independently." I presume he means

that the

doctors cannot think independently; for if medicine, scientific or

unscientific,

could think at all, it might have thought itself out of its present-day

muddle.

The only thing that saves all physicians

from the above indictment is that they are not examined on the cause

and treatment

of disease. If average physicians pass low on "trustworthy

psychological tests,"

it does not speak very well for the higher education which put so many

medical schools

out of business a few years ago. But these psychological tests may be

fitted to educational

standards which are assembled with intelligence left out. Intelligence,

like the

cause of disease, is a force in nature that can be used under the

proper environments;

but it cannot be monopolized to the exclusion of all mankind. Gladstone

in youth

was passed upon by the psychological test of his teacher, and

pronounced incorrigible;

yet at eighty-six he was wielding an ax and translating Virgil.

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

People should not take too seriously

to heart verdicts resting on scientific tests, where a very large part

of the integral

is scientific assumption and presumption. The New York Life Insurance

Company turned

me down more than fifty years ago.

"Anonymous," whoever he is,

writes well, and as that of an iconoclast, his style is quite fetching.

But, to save

his bacon, it was well that he criticized from ambush; for he would

make an excellent

target. From my point of view, I find him as vulnerable as any Standard

A type of

professional men.

He shows his medical length and breadth

when he says: "Of all the dreadful afflictions that plague us, a few

may be

cured or ameliorated by the administration of remedies." That was said

by medical

men now one and two hundred years dead, and with no more aplomb than

that of the

doctors of today in the literary class of our "Anonymous."

"Dreadful afflictions" do

not "plague us." If we are plagued by disease, it is of our own

building;

and all five need to do to get back to comfort and health is to quit

building disease;

then our subconscious self gets busy cleaning house.

"Anonymous" could not have

made a statement that would have been more perfectly one hundred per

cent fallacy.

He says: "A few may be cured." That is a mild statement coming from one

of the ambushed Caesars of scientific medicine. I presume he means that

there is

a contingent possibility that a few can be cured. This is false; for

"afflictions"

or disease cannot be cured. Nature--our subconsciousness--has a full

monopoly on

the power to cure. Healing is nature's prerogative, and she cannot, if

she would,

delegate it to doctors or to the academies of medical science.

What a glorious legacy, vouchsafed

by the powers that be! What a sad plight humanity would be in if

medical commercialism

had a monopoly on healing or curing the sick! It does very well,

however, as it is

vending its camouflage cures of all kinds. But when mankind awakens to

a full realization

of the truth that for all past time it has been buying a pretense of

power of which

it alone possesses a monopoly, old hoary-headed Aesculapius will be

unfrocked and

thrown out of business--staff, snake, and all.

"Anonymous," fearing that

the statements, "A few may be cured," was too strong, added the

modifying

phrase "or ameliorated;" which, in medical parlance, means palliated,

relieved,

etc. This in reality is the whole truth concerning so-called remedies

or cures. And

when the truth is known that curing, or the power to throw off disease

and get well

is wholly within the subconscious and is personal, we will know that

curing and palliating

by the administration of remedies--drugs, serums, vaccines, surgery,

feeding to keep

up the strength, etc.--are superfluous, meddlesome, and on the order of

throwing

a monkey-wrench into the machinery.

After criticizing "Anonymous"

for what we know, inferentially, that he stands for, we will quote the

remainder

of what he says concerning the treatment of the "dreadful afflictions

that plague

us." He further declares:

And an equally small number improved or were

abolished by surgical interference. But, in spite of the relatively few

diseases to which surgery is beneficial, the number of surgeons that

flourished in the land is enormous. The fundamental discoveries of

Pasteur, and their brilliant application by Lister, were quickly seized

upon in America. The names of Bull, Halstead, , the brothers

Mayo, Cushing, and Finney are to be ranked with those of the best

surgeons of any nation. In fact, we may be said to lead the world--to

use an apt Americanism--in the production of surgeons [and surgical

plants], just as we do in that of automobiles, baby carriages, and

antique furniture.

"A few diseases may be cured or ameliorated."

I say, never cured; and amelioration is a form of building disease.

A delicate woman became my patient,

after suffering from megrim for twenty-two years and taking more or

less palliatives

from twenty-two different doctors--a few widely known, one a

neurologist of more

than national fame; the majority of whom told her that there was no

cure, but that,

when she changed life, the headaches would cease. This was a "bum"

guess;

for she declared that her suffering had been greater the past two

years, since her

menstruation has ceased, than ever before. Just how much the

psychological suggestion,

made by fifteen or twenty doctors, that she would not get well for a

given time,

had to do with prolonging her headaches, no one can tell. Drug

palliation is always

inclined to enervate and build Toxemia. This woman had been relieved by

hypodermics

of morphine--a fiendish treatment. There should be a law against such

malpractice.

But the majority never handicap themselves with prohibitory laws.

My prescription was: No more smoking

in the home (the husband being an inveterate smoker); stay in bed;

fast, take a tub

bath and an enema every night until a paroxysm of headache had been

missed.

The paroxysms had been coming weekly,

beginning on Tuesday and leaving her prostrate until Friday. Orders

were given for

a hot bath to be given to full relief, even if it required an hour. The

patient had

only one paroxysm after becoming my patient, and that required

three-quarters of

an hour in a hot bath to relieve. The husband became very enthusiastic

over the fact

that his wife had been of her pain without drugs for the first time in

twentytwo

years. My comment on his outburst of rejoicing was: "Your smoking and

the doctor's

drugging were responsible for her unnecessary suffering during nearly a

quarter of

a century."

Drugging pain of any kind checks elimination

and prevents the human organism from cleaning house. In this case of

megrim, every

time an eliminating crisis developed' the doctor slammed the doors of

egress shut

and barred them with morphine. My prescription reversed the order; it

opened all

the doors, with the result that she never had another headache after

the one that

the hot bath relieved. Of course, I tinkered with her eating and other

habits afterward.

People are never sick who have no bad habits.

About the same time I advised another

woman who had suffered weekly from paroxysms of megrim for sixteen

years. Like the

first case, she had been medicated by many doctors, and told she need

not look for

a cure until after the change of life. The woman, too, had one paroxysm

after giving

up drug palliation and making a few changes in her daily habits.

There were two patients with a "dreadful

affliction," which was kept "dreadful" by a senseless and criminal

medication--and that, too, by physicians holding degrees from class A

colleges.

I refer to these two cases to illustrate

what "Anonymous" means by saying: "Few diseases may be cured or

ameliorated."

Megrim is not cured; and if doping, as these two cases were doped, is

ameliorating,

some other name should be used in designating the procedure.

CRISES

According to the Toxin Philosophy,

every so-called disease is a crisis of Toxemia; which means that toxin

has accumulated

in the blood above the toleration-point, and the crisis, the so-called

disease--call

it cold, "flu," pneumonia, headache, or typhoid fever--is a vicarious

elimination.

Nature is endeavoring to rid the body of toxin. Any treatment that

obstructs this

effort at elimination baffles nature in her effort at self-curing.

Drugs, feeding, fear, and keeping at

work prevent elimination. A cold is driven into chronic catarrh; "flu"

may be forced to take on an infected state; pneumonia may end fatally

if secretions

are checked by drugs; we already know what becomes of headache; typhoid

will be forced

into a septic state and greatly prolonged, if the patient is not

killed.

The above illustrates how "a few

cases may be cured or ameliorated." But the story is different when the

attending

physician knows that every so-called disease is a complex of

symptoms signifying

a crisis of Toxemia--nature's house-cleaning. And she--nature--can

succeed admirably

if not interfered with by venders of poison, who are endeavoring to

destroy an imaginary

entity lurking somewhere in the system, which is mightily increased and

intensified

by the venders' cures or amelioratives.

It is a real pleasure for the doctor

who knows that he cannot cure anything, to watch nature throw off all

these symptoms

by elimination, if he is willing to do a little "watchful waiting" and

"keep hands off." The patient will he comfortable most of the time, and

will say, when asked how he is: "I feel all right; I am comfortable."

Patients

never answer in that way when drugged and fed. Yes, when nature is not

hindered by

officious professional meddling, sick people can truthfully say, when

well over a

crisis of house-cleaning: "I had a very comfortable sickness." Nature

is

not revengeful. Great suffering, chronic and fatal maladies, are built

by the incorrigibleness

of patients, and the well-meaning but belligerent efforts of the

doctors who fight

the imaginary foe without ceasing. The people are so saturated with the

idea that

disease must he fought to a finish that they are not satisfied with

conservative

treatment. Something must be done, even if they pay for it with their

lives, as tens

of thousands do every year. This willingness to die on the altar of

medical superstition

is one very great reason why no real improvement is made in fundamental

medical science.

When the people demand education--not medication, vaccination, and

immunization--they

will get it.

Is there nothing for a doctor to do?

Yes, of course! He should enter the sick-room with a smile and a

cheerful word, free

from odors, and neat and clean; be natural, and free from affectations.

He should

not tell at how many confinements he officiated the night before, or

how many thousands

he has had in the past ten years. Professional lobbying is not

appropriate in the

sickroom. Patients should have confidence in their doctor; and if he

does a lot of

medico-political lying, the patient will know it, and it sloughs

confidence.

He should advise an enema daily--a

stomach-wash if it is needed; something warm to the feet; perfect

quiet; no food,

liquid or solid, and positively no drugs, but all the water desired; a

warm bath

at night; a hot bath when necessary for pain, and as often as necessary

to secure

comfort. Rest, warmth, fresh air, and quiet are curative. Then the

physician should

educate his patient into proper living habits, so as to avoid future

crises of Toxemia.

When this regime is carried out, and

Doctor Nature is allowed full control, the pessimistic statement of

"Anonymous"

that "a few diseases may be cured or ameliorated" can be changed to

read:

All acute so-called diseases can be cured; and the patient will

stay cured

if he will practice self-control concerning the enervating habits that

brought on

his crises of Toxemia. Where this is carried out faithfully, so-called

chronic diseases

will never be built.

ALL DISEASES ONCE INNOCENT

Cancer, tuberculosis, Bright's disease,

and all chronic diseases were once innocent colds "ameliorated," and

which

returned and were "ameliorated" again and again; each time accompanied

by a greater constitutional enervation, and a greater constitutional

toleration for

toxin-poisoning, requiring a greater requisition of mucous membrane

through which

to eliminate the toxin.

Research is being carried on vigorously

in an attempt to find the cause of disease; the conception of disease

being that

it is individual. Here is where investigators meet their Waterloo. All

the so-called

diseases are increasing symptom complexes due to repeated crises of

Toxemia. They

have no independent existence. As soon as Toxemia is controlled, they

disappear,

unless an organ has been forced by innumerable crises to degenerate.

Even organic

change, when the organ is not destroyed, will be overcome by correcting

the life

and getting rid of the cause--crises of Toxemia.

To find the cause of cancer, start

with colds and catarrh, and watch the pathology as it travels from

irritation, catarrh,

inflammation, induration, ulceration to cancer.

As well try to find the cause of man

by ignoring his conception, embryonic life, childhood, manhood, etc.

All symptoms of all so-called diseases

have one origin. All diseases are one. Unity in all things is nature's

plan. Polytheism

is gone, and everything pertaining to it and coming out of it must go.

HERD-BELIEFS

Few realize man's possibilities if

his handicaps are removed--handicaps which are old beliefs and

herd-instincts.

The Toxemic Philosophy is founded on

the truth that there is no such thing as cure. In this it differs from

all the so-called

curing systems. Every pretense or promise of cure, in all lines of

therapeutics,

is false. This cannot be grasped by all minds until time for thinking

has allowed

the idea to soak in. Convention and superstition have the floor, and

they are unwilling

to sit down and listen to the other side. Many learn slowly, others not

at all, and

still others are put to sleep mentally by truth.

There are ox-cart minds in every generation.

The recent episode at Dayton, Tennessee, should cure the enthusiasm of

those who

think the world has outgrown superstition. I have bucked up against

medical superstitions

of all kinds all my life, and I know that clear-thinking minds are as

scarce as hens'

teeth. Many compliment me on my clear reasoning on medical subjects;

but the moment

I cross the border-line into their ethical, moral and theological

preserves, they

remind me of my trespassing in no uncertain terms. Even my own

profession is quick

to ink the waters of my reasoning by declaring that I am an infidel--a

word that

fills the elect with abhorrence. Who is an infidel? One who rejects a

senseless convention.

Didn't Christ repudiate the Jehovic cult?

The average mind prefers the old

interpretation

of to the "new-fangled" definitions. Until the world agrees on one

dictionary,

one Bible, and one God, the tempest in the teapot of misunderstanding

will continue

to ebullate, sending the atomized fundamentalists heavenward and the

anatomized modernists

hellward.

Of course, God made man. He made everything.

But why not find out just how He made him? Surely there is as much

"glory to

God" in discovering just how He did it as in accepting an infantile

interpretation

which up to date has got us nowhere. When we know how man is made, we

shall understand

the laws of his being; and it will not be necessary for him to die of

apoplexy, stone

in the gall-bladder or kidney, hardening of the arteries, or any other

so-called

disease caused by breaking the laws of his body and mind.

If we do our duty to our children,

shall we teach them the laws of their being and how to respect them, or

shall we

go on in the same old way, and, when they get sick from breaking the

laws of their

being and ruin their health, call a surgeon who will cut out God's

mistakes? Think

it over; or, if you're too fanatical or bigoted to think, pay a surgeon

to cut out

the effects of wrong living, and continue the cause.

LET US REASON TOGETHER!

Let us do a little homely reasoning.

We are inclined to be awed by the word "infinite." The infinite is

limitless

to our limited comprehension--it is a relative term and ambiguous; but,

as we grow

in experience, our once limited comprehensions take on extended

dimensions. Each

person's infinite is personal and varies from every other person's

comprehension.

We cannot think in terms of the limitless, and we should not try; for,

if we know

the analysis of an atom of salt, we know the analysis of the infinite

amount there

is in the world. This is true of all elements. If we know the analysis

of a pound

of butter, we know the analysis of the infinite amount contained in the

world. If

we know all about a man, we know all about all men. If we know what

finite love is,

we know that infinite love is of the same character.

We should keep our feet on the ground--stay

on earth--and be satisfied that all worlds are like our world.

HOW TO MEASURE THE INFINITE

We know all by an intensive study of

a part. If we know all about one disease, we know all about all

diseases.

We shall tell the reader all about

Toxemia, and then he should know all about all diseases; for Toxemia is

the basic

cause of all diseases.

Instead of beginning at the top of

any subject, we should begin at the bottom and work up. The usual way

for our finite

minds is to accept the infinite on faith; then to us the comprehensible

does not

agree with our preconception, our faith is shocked, our house of belief

is divided

against itself, and we fall. This is the parting of the ways; and we

must reconcile

our faith and knowledge by transferring our faith to the belief that

the road to

all knowledge is by way of the comprehensible. We must either do this

or live in

doubt concerning the knowable, and accept the unknowable on faith.

Every truth squares itself with every

other truth; every department of science and reason blends into a unit.

The laws

of life are those of the cosmos; the laws of the universe are the laws

of God. The

road to an understanding of God is from rock to man, and through man to

God. Every

step must be a block of truth, or God, the goal, will be sidestepped.

Behold the

head-on collision of the Christian world and the wholesale massacre

that took place

during the World War--all due to undigested truth. The world is full of

truth; but

mental indigestion, due to wrong food combinations, is universal.

Many think they know what I mean when

I use the word "Toxemia," having referred to the dictionary for its

definition.

TOXEMIA, THE BASAL CAUSE

OF ALL SO-CALLED DISEASES

Toxin Poisoning--Toxin: Any of a class of poisonous compounds of

animal, bacterial,

and vegetable origin--any poisonous ptomaine. (Standard Dictionary.)

There are so many ways for the blood

to become poisoned that, unless what I mean by "Toxemia" is thoroughly

comprehended, there must be a confused understanding. This explanation

is made necessary

because even professional men have said to me: "Oh, yes, I believe in

the poisoning

resulting froin retained excretions (constipation) and ptomaine (food)

poisoning."

As stated before, a ptomaine poisoning

resulting from the ingestion of food that has taken on a state of

putrescence, or

a poisoning resulting from this change taking place in food after it

has been eaten,

and which is generally called autotoxemia, is not an autogenerated

poisoning. Both

of these poisons are generated on the outside of the body, and must be

absorbed before

the blood can be poisoned. Food or poison in the intestines is still on

the outside

of the body. A suppurating wound, ulcer, or chancre is on the outside

of the body,

and if it causes septic (blood) poisoning, it will be because the

waste-products

are not allowed to drain--to escape. The discharge being obstructed, it

becomes septic,

and its forced absorption poisons the blood. Even vaccinia fails to

produce septic

poisoning, because its poison is discharged on the surface--on the

outside of the

body. Occasionally the waste-products are forced to enter the blood

because of faulty

dressings; then septic poisoning, with death, follows.

THE DEADLY GERM

It should not be forgotten that unobstructed

free drainage from wounds, ulcers, canals, ducts, keep them aseptic

(non-poisonous).

The deadly germ on the hands, lips, drinking-cups,

hanging-straps of street

cars--in fact, found anywhere and everywhere--is not deadly until it

gets mixed up

with man's deadly dirty, filthy physical and mental habits. There are

people who

cannot be taught cleanliness; they either scrub their bodies raw or

neglect them

overtime. It is an art to wear clothes and maintain a state of

cleanliness conducive

to health. Venereal and all skin diseases, including the eruptive

fevers, are fostered

by clothes. There is something more than prejudice, fanaticism, and

partisanship

in my reiterated allusions to the congenerie relationship of syphilis,

vaccination,

and smallpox. The kinship would have been settled long ago if vaccine

and vaccinia

were not commercialized. Will those with millions invested, and turning

out large

dividends, willingly be convinced that they are engaged in the

wholesale syphilization

of the people? It is not in keeping with our commercialized religion.

The deadly germ must be mixed

with retained, pent-up waste-products before it becomes metamorphosed

into its deadly

toxic state. The dog or other animal licks it out of his wound. When

the "deadly

germ" is osculated into the mouth, and from there into the stomach, it

is digested.

The normal secretions of the body, on the outside as well as on the

inside of the

body, are more than enough to get away with all the "deadly germs"

allotted

to each person.

Normal persons are deadly to all germs

and parasites peculiar to the human habitat.

Normal people have no need of heaven

or hell; these are conjurations of ignorance and filth on the search

for artificial

immunization. Truth immunizes the germ fallacy.

Cures and immunization are the products

of a civilization that does not civilize. Creedal religion is a cure

and an immunization

for those who would be good if evil did not betide them.

Self-control and a knowledge of the

limitations of our privileges bring to us the best in life; then, if we

are contented

to live one world at a time, we shall have the best preparation for the

tomorrows

(future) as they come. If we live well today--live for health of mind

and body today--we

need not worry about the germs that come tomorrow.

Those who preach fear of germs today

are the mental offspring of those who have preached fear of God, devil,

hell, and

heaven in the past. They do not know that the fear which they inculcate

is more to

be dreaded than the object of their warning. Fear does a thousand times

more harm

than any other one cause of Toxemia.

Nature goes her limit in the prevention

or absorption of any and all poisons. The indurated wall built at the

base of ulceration

is a conservative measure--it is to prevent absorption. In the matter

of prevention,

nature sometimes goes too far, and builds tumors and indurations so

dense as to obstruct

the circulation; then degeneration takes place, with slow absorption of

the septic

matter. This poisoning takes place very insidiously. It is called

cachexia, and the

names given to this pathology are syphilis or cancer; or, if of the

lungs, it is

called tuberculosis.

This may be thought a very great digression

from the subject of Toxemia; but, as all pathological roads lead to

Rome--the unity

of all diseases--an apology is not necessary.

THE MEDICAL WORLD IS LOOKING FOR CURES

The medical world has been looking

for a remedy to cure disease, notwithstanding the obvious fact that

nature needs

no remedy--she needs only an opportunity to exercise her own

prerogative of self-healing.

A few years ago a sick doctor offered

dollars for a cure for cancer. If he had known the cause of disease,

instead of being

scientifically educated, he would not have died believing in the

possibility of a

cure, after nature had passed her eternal fiat of unfitness in his

case. Cancer is

the culmination of years of abuse of nutrition, and years of Toxemia

from faulty

elimination. Forcing the bowels to move is an old and conventional

method of so-called

elimination which gets rid of the accumulation in the bowels, causing

an extra amount

of water to be thrown out by the kidneys and bowels; but this forcing

measure adds

to enervation by its overstimulation, and further inhibits elimination

proper--elimination

of waste-products in the blood, the source of all disease-producing

toxins. The most

powerful eliminant is a fast. In other words, give nature rest, and she

needs no

so-called cures. Rest means: Stay in bed, poise mind and body, and

fast. Nature then

works without handicaps, unless fear is created by all the old

fear-mongers, professional

and lay, sending to the patient the warning: "It is dangerous to fast;

you may

never live through it." These wiseacres do not know that there is a

vast difference

between fasting and starving.

Here is a hint for those kill-joys

who are afraid to allow their patients to fast: You know, or think you

do, that people

who are forced to stay in bed from injury never do well, and this is

especially true

of old people. Why? Because they are overfed.

GERMS AS A CAUSE OF DISEASE

Germs as a cause of disease is a dying

fallacy. The bacteriological deadmarch is on, and those with their ears

to the ground

can hear it. Intuition is forcing the active medical minds to fortify

against the

coming revulsion; they are buckling on the armor of endocrinology.

Endocrinology,

focal infection, autogenous and synthetic remedies, vaccine and serum

immunization,

are some of the high points in the science of medicine today; but there

is a lack

of fundamental unity to the system; and nature abhors chaos as she does

a vacuum.

Toxemia accepts the germ (organized

ferment) as it does the enzyme (unorganized ferment). Both are

necessary to health.

My theories have received but little

attention except from plagiarists. A few, a very few, physicians know

what I stand

for. Those few, however, are enthusiastic, and have proved to their own

satisfaction

that the theory has a universal application. Many attempt to work

Toxemia along with

some little two-by-four pet curing system--it means petting a little

personal pride;

but it will not work. Toxemia is big enough for the best in any man.

What more can be asked by any doctor

than a philosophy of cause that gives a perfect understanding of the

cause of all

so-called diseases? To know cause supplies even the layman with a

dependable cure

and an immunization that immunizes rationally. Dependable knowledge is

man's salvation;

and when it can be had with as little effort as that required for a

thorough understanding

of the Philosophy of Toxemia there is little excuse for any man, lay or

professional,

to hazard ignorance of it.

Toxin--the designating poison in Toxemia--is

a product of metabolism. It is a constant, being constantly generated;

and when the

nerve-energy is normal, it is as constantly eliminated as fast as

produced.

The body is strong or weak, as the

case may be, depending entirely on whether the nerve-energy is strong

or weak. And

it should be remembered that the functions of the body are carried on

well or badly

according to the amount of energy generated.

IMPORTANCE OF NERVE-ENERGY

Without nerve-energy the functions

of the various organs of the body cannot be carried on. Secretions are

necessary

for preparing the building-up material to take the place of worn-out

tissue. The

worn-out tissue must be removed--eliminated--from the blood as fast as

it is formed,

or it accumulates, and, as it is toxic, the system will be poisoned.

This becomes

a source of enervation.

Elimination of the waste-products of

tissue-building is just as necessary as the building-up process. As

these two important

functions depend on each other, and as both depend on the proper amount

of nerve-energy

to do their work well, it behooves all people who would enjoy life and

health to

the full to understand in what way they may be frugal in using

nerve-energy so that

they may learn how to live conservatively or prudently, thereby

enjoying the greatest

mental and physical efficiency, and also the longest life. (See chapter

on "Enervating

Habits.")

To the ignorant, thoughtless, and sensual

such suggestion and advice will seem unnecessary, or perhaps the whims

or preachments

of a crotchety person, or the qualms of a sated sensualist; but it is

the writer's

belief that the more sober and thoughtful will welcome a knowledge that

will help

them to become masters of themselves. So far the masses have trusted

their health

and life to a profession that has failed to make good. I say this

advisedly; for

now the supposed masters in the profession are looking for the causes

of disease,

and it should be obvious to any thinking mind that, until the cause of

disease is

found, certainly no dependable advice can be given as to how to avoid

disease.

Fifty-eight years of independent thinking,

unbiased by sect or creed, have enabled me to discover the true cause

of disease;

and it is so simple that even a child can learn to protect itself

against the said-to-be

"diseases peculiar to children."

"These are the times that try

men's souls." If Tom Paine were here now, he would change the wording

of that

line to read: "These are the times that try men's nerves." Nerve-energy

and good money are the commodities that are spent very rapidly these

days. Chasing

the dollar causes great waste of energy; and the dollar has been chased

so much that

it has developed wanderlust to such a degree that men enervate

themselves catching

up with a few, but prostrate themselves endeavoring to break them of

their wander-habit.

There are many ways to use up nerve-energy. It should be the ambition

of everybody

to conserve all the nerve-energy possible for the extraordinary amount

required to

keep the speeding-up necessary to adjust humanity to the automobile

pace. This will

come in time.

Man adjusted himself to the change

from the ox-cart, Dobbin the flea-bitten, string-halt, and blind, and

the steamboats,

on which our forebears took their honeymoon trips, to the "steam-cars"

and high- stepping bays and family carriage.

Many will go into the hands of the

receiver before the nervous system becomes adjusted to high-power

automobiles and

flying-maehines.

Without nerve-energy the functions

of the body cannot be carried on properly. The present-day

strenuousness causes enervation,

which checks elimination, and the retained toxins bring on Toxemia.

Everything that acts on the body uses

up energy. Cold and heat require the expenditure of nerve-energy to

adjust the body

to the changes.

After middle life, those who would

keep well and live to be old must have a care concerning keeping warm

and avoiding

chilling of the body. They must let up on table pleasures and practice

self-restraint

in all ways. Allowing the feet to be cold for any length of time

allowing the body

to chill when a top-coat would prevent--is using up nerve-energy very

fast.

Work with worry will soon end in flagging

energy--enervation.

As no provision is made for the demand

of an extra supply of energy at a given time, it is necessary, very

necessary, to

know how to conserve what we have and build more.

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY THE GREATEST

THERAPEUTIC MEASURE

Now that I have found that enervation

is the source of the cause of the only disease (Toxemia) to which

mankind is heir,

it is easy to see that the so-called science of medicine, as practiced,

is an ally

extraordinary of all the causes of enervation, and becomes a builder of

disease instead

of curing or ameliorating man's sufferings. Every so-called cure in its

very nature

causes enervation. Even the drugs used to relieve pain end in making a

greater pain,

and sometimes kill. The drugs to relieve cough in pneumonia sometimes

kill the patient.

Removing stone from the gall-bladder does not cure the cause, and more

stones form.

Rest from habits that enervate is the

only way to put nature in line for curing. Sleep and rest of body and

mind are necessary

to keep a sufficient supply of energy. Few people in active life rest

enough.

WHY ENERVATION IS THE CAUSE AND NOT

THE DISEASE

Enervation per se is not disease. Weakness,

lost power, is not disease; but, by causing a flagging of the

elimination of tissue-waste,

which is toxic, the blood becomes charged with toxin, and this we call

Toxemia--poison

in the blood. This is disease, and when the toxin accumulates beyond

the toleration-point,

a crisis takes place; which means that the poison is being eliminated.

This we call

disease, but it is not. The only disease is Toxemia, and what we call

diseases are

the symptoms produced by a forced vicarious elimination of toxin

through the mucous

membrane.

When the elimination takes place through

the mucous membrane of the nose, it is called a cold--catarrh of the

nose; and where

these crises are repeated for years, the mucous membrane thickens and

ulcerates,

and the bones enlarge, closing the passage, etc. At this stage

hay-fever or hay-asthma

develops. When the throat and tonsils, or any of the respiratory

passages, become

the seat of the crises of Toxemia, we have croup, tonsilitis,

pharyngitis, laryngitis,

bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, etc. What is in a name? All are symptoms

of the expulsion

of toxin from the blood at the different points named, and are

essentially of the

same character and evolving from the one cause namely, Toxemia--crises

of Toxemia.

This description can be extended to

every organ of the body; for any organ that is enervated below the

average standard

from stress of habit, from work or worry, from injury, or from whatever

cause, may

become the location of crises of Toxemia. The symptoms presented differ

with each

organ affected; and that gives color to the belief that every

symptom-complex is

a separate and distinct disease. But, thanks to the new light shed upon

nomenclature

(naming disease) by the Philosophy of Toxemia, every symptom-complex

goes back to

the one and only cause of all so-called diseases--namely, Toxemia.

The symptoms that are called gastritis

(catarrh of the stomach) are very unlike the symptoms of cystitis

(catarrh of the

urinary bladder); yet both are caused by crises of Toxemia--both become

the locations

for the vicarious elimination of toxin from the blood.

It should be obvious to the discerning

how extraordinarily illogical it is to treat catarrh of the nose as a

local disease;

or, when crises are repeated until ulceration takes place, and the

mucous membrane

becomes so sensitive that dust and pollen cause sneezing and watering

of the eyes--symptoms

called hay-fever--to treat these symptoms as a distinct disease caused

by pollen.

Rest and total abstinence from food, liquid and solid, and reforming

all enervating

habits, will restore nerve-energy; the elimination of toxin through the

natural channels

will take place, and full health will return. This state will remain

permanently

if the erstwhile victim of hay-fever, or any other so-called disease,

will "stay

put."

The first elimination of toxin through

the nose is called a cold. When this elimination is continuous, with

exacerbation--toxin

crises (fresh colds)--occasionally, ulceration takes place, bony spurs

form, and

hay-fever develops. These are all symptoms of toxin elimination. The

cause is the

same from the first cold to hay-fever. The catarrhal discharge that

continues throughout

the interims of fresh colds (crises of Toxemia) is chronic catarrh,

named such in

medical nomenclatures, and treated locally as though it were an

independent, fiendish

entity; when the truth is that the victim of so-called chronic catarrh

keeps his

system enervated by tobacco, alcohol, sugar and sweets of all kinds,

coffee, tea,

excessive eating of butter and bread, too much rich cooking, excessive

eating of

all foods, excess of sensual pleasures, etc. ( See chapter on "Causes

of Enervation.")

Keeping the system enervated prevents

the reestablishment in full of elimination through the normal excretory

organs. The

organism, as time runs on, becomes more tolerant of toxin, and the

"catching-cold

habit" shows fewer (colds) crises of Toxemia. A greater number of the

mucous

membranes are requisitioned to carry out vicarious elimination. The

whole organism

begins to show deterioration. The so- called chronic diseases begin to

manifest.

In catarrh of the stomach the mucous membrane takes on thickening,

hardening, ulceration,

and cancer--all described in the nomenclature of medical science as so

many distinctive

diseases. But they are no more distinctive than President Washington

was distinct

from the boy who cut down his father's cherry tree. Cancer was

once the symptom-complex

of a so-called cold; but, according to the Philosophy of Toxemia, it is

the end of

many crises of Toxemia. As the crises continued, symptoms changed, in

accordance

with the organic degeneration caused by the crises of Toxemia.

Every so-called disease has the same

inception, evolution, and maturity, differing only as the organic

structure involved

differs.

Treating the various symptom-complexes

as distinct entities is fully as scientific as salving the end of a

dog's tail for

its sore ear.

All diseases are the same fundamentally.

The cause travels back to Toxemia,

caused by enervation, which checked elimination; and enervating habits

of body and

mind are the primary causes of lost resistance enervation.

Every chronic disease starts with Toxemia

and a toxemic crisis. The crises are repeated until organic changes

take place. The

chain of symptoms range from cold or catarrh to Bright's disease,

tuberculosis, cancer,

syphilis, ataxia, and other so-called diseases; all, from beginning to

end, symptoms

of the cumulative effects of crises of Toxemia.

-- Peace be with you,

Don "Quai" Eitner

"Spirit sleeps in the mineral, breathes in the vegetable, dreams in the animal and wakes in man."

Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses. ~Baptiste Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire

The obstacle is the path. ~Zen Proverb