The Natural Cure of Consumption, Constipation, Bright's Disease, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, "Colds" (Fevers), Etc. / How Sickness Originates, and How to Prevent It. A Health Manual for the People.

by C. E. Page

“But what shall we say of that principle of intelligence which pervades every part of this complicated system; which dwells in each of the thousand millions of cells, where the chemical laboratories are furnishing out of the crude materials of the food, the wonderful organisms of every part of the body? Intelligence and contrivance reign in every cell; combination and co-operation are carried on through the instrumentality of the nervous system. At the centres of co-operation and power there seem to be placed higher forms of intelligence that govern the whole of the subordinate functions by some unitary plan governing

thus the functions of the heart, or the liver, or the lungs. Finally, for the moral and social exigencies of man, there is provided an enormous centralization of co-operative intelligences and powers, that seem to have their seat in the brain; but it is a republic and not a monarchy; every individual cell in the body has its representative there, mediately or immediately; every one contributes to the welfare of the whole, and can not be denied its rights, or be neglectful of its duties, without injury, in that proportion, to the whole republic.

“There is a subtle and indefinable health beyond that of the stomach and muscular powers; a man may be torpid in moral brain and intellectual functions, who yet has an excellent appetite and can do the work of an ox.[9] This is not usually regarded as sickness, or needing any physiological treatment. But it is as much so as the grossest form of sickness. A man’s temper and disposition may be the only evidence that his liver is out of order. A paroxysm of rage may come from a diseased spleen, and many a murder, arson, and suicide, I doubt not, come from a defective hygiene.

[9] Others, again, are physically as well as mentally impotent, while eating enormously, “the digestion and excretion of superfluous food almost monopolizing the vital energy.”

“Physiology is an integral part of theology. Sanitary reforms lie at the foundation of moral reforms. Christianity is health, and the means of escaping from disease.

“No delusion is so vain as to suppose that this

world is ever to be Christianized, society purified and exalted, man saved and brought to the divine likeness, while a thousand forms of disease prey upon his vitals, cloud his moral perceptions, enfeeble or exasperate his will, overwhelm him with pain and confusion, even in the midst of his noblest designs; and all this, because he knows not, or respects not sufficiently, the laws of his physical nature; the subtle powers and mechanism of which are as divine in their origin and inflexible in their character as any that govern the soul.”

It is not necessary to know, precisely, how this sympathetic or telegraphic system operates in the conservation of health, but all of this knowledge that is essential to us is the understanding of the main fact, to know the nature of a message and from whence it comes, or its probable origin when doubt arises. It is owing to an imperfect knowledge of this law which causes so general a belief in the theory that the internal organism takes on disease readily from the action of cold upon the surface of the body. But, in fact, the skin was especially designed to be played upon by extremes of heat and cold, wind and wet; and human beings are not necessarily such pitiable creatures as they are made to appear from the general supposition that a transient exposure to a current of pure air, whether wet, dry, cold or hot, is likely to bring on disease. “The immediate effects of a displacement of blood from the surface, and its determination to the internal organs, are not,” says the Lancet, “as was once supposed, sufficient to produce the sort of congestion

that issues in inflammation. If it were so, an inflammatory condition would be the common characteristic of our bodily state. When the vascular system is healthy, and that part of the nervous apparatus by which the calibre of the vessels is controlled performs its functions normally, any disturbance of equilibrium in the circulatory system which may have been produced by external cold will be quickly adjusted.” Nothing so readily promotes disorder of the vascular system, and of the nervous apparatus which controls it, as to interfere with the nutrition of the nervous system; and in turn, no cause is more effectual, and none more speedy, among the ordinary vicissitudes of life, in depriving the nerves and tissues of their appropriate aliment, than an excessive or otherwise unwholesome diet and the consequent disturbance of the organs of nutrition; and the excess is increased relatively, and the disorder intensified, in proportion as the body is sweltered with clothing and defrauded of the “breath of life”—outdoor air. It is a very significant comment on the cold-air fallacy, that people of all ages, sexes, occupations and social positions, and in all conditions of general health, catch cold, say to-day, from the slightest exposures, often, indeed, they are totally at a loss to account for them except upon one surmise or another, like that of the old lady who “caught her death o’ cold taking gruel out of a damp basin”; while next month, or next week, perhaps, the same individuals endure the most extreme exposure, as, for example, riding for hours in face of a driving rain or snow-storm, until wet and chilled through and through; or, perhaps, being

turned out at night in bitter cold, half clad, to find their way from their burning dwelling to a distant neighbor’s—in short, they may suffer the most taxing exposures and yet “catch” nothing more than a good appetite for a warm dinner or a cheery fireside. The boy who, as was supposed, caught a fearful cold one warm day last week, from merely stepping to the door bareheaded, stole away yesterday, when the mercury was twenty or thirty degrees lower, and bareheaded and barefooted, paddled in the frog-pond until his clothes were wet through and his lips blue with cold, and yet he turned out this morning without a trace of disease! Can we learn nothing from constantly occurring instances of this character? The simple fact is, in such cases, in the first instance the victims were in bad condition, they had found the end of their rope, so to say, i.e., they had reached a point where from continued bad living the system could no longer contain the accumulated impurities and the overflow had to come, and come it would, sooner or later (and the later, the more severe), without even the influence of the slightest current of air, or any form of exposure. If a slight chill was experienced it arose from the internal fever, and not, as was foolishly supposed, from the puff of pure air that was felt co-incidently. But in the second instance, the “cold” of last week had cleansed the system more or less completely, and now, owing to the improved condition, the really severe exposures give rise to no symptoms of disease—the temporary inconvenience from the wet or the cold is all.