Natural Cures: A Health Manual for the People , livre ebook

Charles Page
Natural Cures:
A Health Manual for the People


THE BIG NEST
Published by The Big Nest
This Edition first published in 2020
Copyright © 2020 The Big Nest
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 9781787361713
Contents
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Although it is evident to my mind that the world is growing more healthy and more moral with every generation-speaking of civilized nations-it is still, as all agree, in a most pitiful state as regards both moral and physical health. The two are indissolubly associated, notwithstanding the glaring exceptions which are, indeed, more apparent than real, and it is difficult to appreciate which leads-whether man grows more healthy as his moral tone improves or more moral as his physical state is exalted. Both are, in fact, constantly acting and reacting upon each other. Few people withdraw themselves from the influence of disease-producing habits, who do not first come to hate disease as a symptom of disobedience to the laws governing their organism. The pain of an aching head is not sufficient, generally, although it may discount the tortures of the damned, to determine the sufferer to live a better life; but when he comes to know the fact that the disorder is needless, brought upon himself by violation of law, and that it is the normal office of pain to warn of danger;8 then, if he be conscientious, instead of cursing his suffering, he will feel ashamed of his sin, and endeavor to learn the laws of life and obey them.
“In days gone by and not far away, there was a very general impression with the people that sickness and the death which so often follows it were of divine origination and ordainment. No person who might be sick blamed himself for it; certainly no one was held by the community of which he was a member, as in any sense responsible or blameworthy because of his death by sickness. It was believed that for reasons thoroughly justifiable, but incomprehensible to the mind of man, the Supreme Ruler saw fit to manifest His modes and methods of government, either providential or punitive, by taking away the health or the life of those who became sick, or who being sick died of their sickness.
“This notion, though not so prevalent as formerly, still lingers in the popular mind and lies hidden away in the select circles of religious people, occasionally to be brought forth and urged upon public consideration with emphasis, when some person is taken sick and remains for many months and perhaps years an invalid, or when one taken sick suddenly dies.
“There is no basis in science nor in religion for this impression. It never rose, it never can rise, to the dignity or worthiness of an idea; it must always dwell, no matter who entertains it, on the low level of irrational impression. Its basis is error, not knowledge; its superstructure is superstition. By and by, when mankind shall reach such a degree of9 rational development as to understand that human life has its laws, and that human health is but the legitimate outcome of the operation of these laws, and that every human being of every tribe and kindred and tongue, is born to live on earth under such minute and careful providential arrangements as to hold within him, at his starting, great securities and guarantees of the very highest order, for the continuance of his life up to a definite period, and that by reason of this inherent capability, he is entitled to live to the full measure of his endowment, this foolish, I may say wicked, notion, that God kills people will disappear. When it shall be abandoned, the sickness which now is so common everywhere, and the deaths which now so frequently result, will cease, and human beings will live from birth to death by old age, casualties, and accidents one side, as surely as the seasons come and go.”[1]
[1] “The Absurdity of Sickness,” by James C. Jackson, M.D.
Few people have any just conception of the prevalence of disease even in their own midst-among their own kindred; and this is simply because it never absurdly happens that all those who are subject to illnesses are “attacked” at the same time. When any large proportion are down at once, the doctors call it an epidemic, and it is attributed to a “wave”-an epizootic or influenza wave, for example, according as the victims are horses or men (the poor animals depend upon the elevated race for their habits, and never have disease except these are unphysiological),-when, in fact, the so-called epidemic, whether it be10 scarlet or yellow fever, diphtheria, or what not, is the result chiefly of the uniformly bad living habits of our people and their consequent predisposition to sickness. I do not ignore the influence of contagion in certain disorders, but assert that no person in prime physical condition is ever made sick by transient contact with the so-called contagious diseases.
“There can be no doubt,” says Dr. Moore, “of the inherent effort of the system to preserve its integrity and to resist and overcome the effects of morbid influences. And when the system is properly organized and perfect in its physiological functions, it has the power to accomplish this (unless these obnoxious influences are so overwhelming as to destroy life at once) in a prompt and complete manner, unaided by any external influences whatsoever, so that health will be maintained and all injurious action of disease-producing causes unconsciously and successfully averted. But if instead of such a properly organized and healthy system, we have formed an incomplete and inferior grade of structural organization, and consequently an enervated nervous system, resulting from imperfect and deficient nutrition, such as evidently exists in the scorbutic diathesis (the effect of deficiency in vegetable food), or as must result from habitual or frequent digestive disturbances, this endeavor to resist or avert disease, will be necessarily so enfeebled that it will be impossible for the system, by its own inherent and unaided energy, either to ward off or to overcome the effects of disease-producing agents. This protective and restorative effort,11 if not sustained by a high character of structural organization and active nervous energy, must be followed, therefore, as a natural consequence, by an exhaustion of vital power; in which condition there would be evidently an increased susceptibility to all morbific influences, and a marked predisposition to any exciting causes of disease which might be brought to bear upon it.
“It is well known that certain individuals are more severely affected by any ascertained cause of disease than others; and also that the same exciting cause may at one time produce serious disturbance of health, while at another, and under precisely the same conditions, as far as known, no injurious effect is produced. How frequently do we observe during the same epidemic, as, for instance, scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria (and even of sporadic forms of disease), a marked difference in the character and severity of individual cases. Even in members of the same family, under apparently similar conditions, some are stricken down with the most malignant form of one of these diseases, while others may, at the same time, be but slightly affected by it, or perhaps entirely escape an attack. It can not be that they who are the most severely affected receive a larger or a stronger dose of the morbific agent which has produced the disorder, than the others, and that the disease-producing influence, in consequence of larger quantity or greater strength and power, acts with more severity and force on one than on another. For, leaving out of consideration all effects of existing12 predisposition, we know that a person unprotected by a previous attack or by vaccination, would be, in all probability, just as severely affected by the contagious influence of a case of small-pox, whether he was exposed for a few moments or for several hours; and besides, it would make no difference whether the case happened to be a mild one or of a more malignant form.
“It is, therefore, difficult to account for this variable operation of disease-producing agents, unless we admit the existence of such a latent predisposition as that already mentioned, and acknowledge that the system, at the time of exposure to disease-producing causes, is thereby made more or less susceptible to their effects in proportion to the development of such a predisposition. The less the power of resistance and the greater the degree of impressibility, the more aggravated will be the character of every disease which affect the system while it is thus predisposed; or, in other words, the severity of the disease will be proportionate to the degree of departure from the standard of health.”[2]
[2] “Predisposition and Typhoid Tendency,” by Thomas Moore, M.D. Philadelphia.
Predisposition is that state of susceptibility produced by the continued operation of the predisposing cause. Exciting causes are those which tend to the immediate development of diseases, especially in a system already having a predisposition thereto.
But in my opening remarks, I had in view, particularly, the common sicknesses that prevail among us,13 and which are not classed as contagious. Not one in the thousand of our population so lives as to feel an assurance of absolute health for, say, a single month, much less for the coming twelve months. There are, however, among the class I shall hold up as examples to my readers, further on, individuals who would be willing to stake their lives on their ability to meet any engagement depending upon a mental and physical state, equal to that enjoyed at the present moment, on