Nature Cure: Philosophy & Practice Based on the Unity of Disease & Cure

Submitted by Steve Solomon <ssolomon@soilandhealth.org>
Nature Cure
Philosophy & Practice Based on the Unity of Disease & Cure
Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
Ho, ye who suffer! Know ye suffer from vowselves. None else compels—no other holds ye that ye live or die. ~—Siddartha~
There are two principal methods of treating disease. One is the combative, the other the preventive. The trend of modern medical research and practice in our great colleges and endowed research institutes is almost entirely along combative lines, while the individual, progressive physician learns to work more and more along preventive lines. The slogan of modern medical science is, Kill the germ and cure the disease. The usual procedure is to wait until acute or chronic diseases have fully developed, and then, if possible, to subdue them by means of drugs, surgical operations, and by means of the morbid products of disease, in the form of serums, antitoxins, vaccines, etc. The combative method fights disease with disease, poison with poison, and germs with germs and germ products. In the language of the Good Book, it is Beelzebub against the Devil.
The preventive method does not wait until diseases have fully developed and gained the ascendancy in the body, but concentrates its best endeavors on preventing, by hygienic living and by natural methods of treatment, the development of diseases. By these it endeavors to put the human body in such a normal, healthy condition that it is practically proof against infection or contagion by disease taints and miasms, and against the inroads of germs, bacteria and parasites.
The question is, which method is the most practical, the most successful and most popular? Which will stand the test of the survival of the fittest in the great struggle for existence?
The medical profession has good reason to be alarmed by the inroads made in its work by irregular, unorthodox systems, schools and cults of treating human ailments; but instead of raging at the audacious presumption of these interlopers, would it not be better to inquire if there is not some reason for the astonishing spread and popularity of these therapeutic innovations?