YOUR AILMENT
You have been told, or you know, that you have stomach trouble, prolapses, gall bladder trouble, goiter, tuberculosis, high blood pressure, nervousness, pleasure or any of the many classifications in the category. And you want to learn what to do for your particular trouble. You are a little disappointed, perhaps, in being told that the treatment for your very special disease is no different from that for every other physical ailment. The average patient wants the complicated and mysterious and feels that there should be something different done for him.
But before you can make any progress toward curing yourself you must thoroughly understand that Your Ailment is nothing more than poison, obstructions, filth, food residue, in your system, no matter by what name it may be called.
The name merely denotes the location of the encumbrance in the body, the kind of sensation produced by it in the brain. If there is an accumulation of poison in the legs and you feel pain in that section, your trouble is diagnosed as rheumatism; if the poison is diffused through the blood and you are weak and toxic, you are called "run-down," anemic; if the obstruction is in the kidneys, you have kidney trouble; if it has settled in the organs of regeneration, you have female disorders or prostate gland troubles; if it breaks out on the skin, it is called eczema; and there is a collection of pus and poison which we term "cancer." And so it goes. The name is according to the symptom--the manner and location of the manifestion of the disease.
But always the disease itself remains the same--poison, obstruction, in the body. There is only one disease, and but one cure.
If you essay to be well, you must, as a prerequisite step, realize the fact that there is but one disease, and that if any real lasting cure is to be effected, that disease itself must be attacked, and not a symptom. i.e., the manifestation of that disease. You must learn that the only disease of the human race is poison accumulations somewhere in the body, and that suppressing the symptom by treating it, paralyzing the nerve reaction through use of drugs, or the more violent cutting out of an organ, in no sense CURES. General body cleansing, removing the body poison, the cause of all disease, alone cures.
The treatment for Your Ailment, then, just as the treatment for every other physical illness, is house-cleaning of your body, cleansing of the general system of its poison, giving Nature the chance to heal.
CURE YOURSELF
Paul Bragg 1929
THERE IS BUT ONE DISEASE
In the Medica Curricula some four hundred diseases are listed according to name. In reality, there are four hundred (and more) symptoms, but only ONE disease. It is a symptom, or group of symptoms, to which the medical name is given. There is only ONE disease manifesting itself in innumerable different kinds of pains, aches, distresses, and annoyances. The name merely indicates the location of the pain or distress. The manifestation, of the symptom which we feel, is not the disease. It is only a warning, a danger signal, that disease is present.
The word DISEASE means simply dis-ease---absence of ease and as originally applied to the body meant absence of ease in the body.
It is a popular conception that in the process of digestion the blood absorbs from the alimentary canal enough nutriment only to supply the cells of the body with the fuel "needed to carry on." This is an erroneous belief. The blood has no such determining power. It has no brain, but simply a function of absorbing matter from the alimentive tract, and the amount it absorbs is in proportion to the amount put in (by our act of eating).
This process of absorption is what is called digestion. The matter taken up by the bloodstream in digestion is carried by 200 miles or more of tiny hair-like capillaries to the various cells and tissues of the body and there deposited. A very small portion of this deposit is burned up for energy. The great balance remains, causing congestion and usurping the place of oxygen, which is our life. It is this fact that is not understood: That only a part of the food matter brought by the bloodstream to the different cells and tissues is used for the needs of living--that the remainder is stored in the various tissues and organs of the body, there forming the basis of disease. In this accumulating deposit of dead matter throughout the system germs breed, putrefaction, fermentation, and rotting take place, pus, mucus, poison encumbrances form, and it is thus that we have disease. This poison, filth, obstruction in the body, and not the much-berated germ, is in reality what we suffer from in illness.
The poison or obstruction may enter into the arms or shoulders and we call it neuritis, in the legs and we call it rheumatism, in the joints and we call it arthritis, in the kidneys and it is Bright's Disease or diabetes; it may collect in the female organs and we have female troubles, in the prostate gland and we have impotency, in the muscles of the intestines and we have the weakened condition resulting in constipation, ulcers, hemorrhoids, piles, colitis; it may settle in the lungs and we have tuberculosis or pneumonia. Colds, boils, skin eruptions., are all efforts of Nature to throw off this unwanted poisonous matter--they are Healing Crises. What we term catarrh, asthma, influenza, high blood pressure, and so on down the endless list, are not different diseases in reality, but only different manifestations, different symptoms of the one disease, which is simply Poison, or in other words, Obstruction in the body.
There is no so-called "disease," no physical disability, with which pus or mucus is not associated. This poison is easily apparent in colds, boils, pneumonia, cancer, colitis, leucorrhea, tuberculosis, etc. In such diseases as rheumatism, neuritis, arthritis, the pain is caused by poisonous pus bearing on the nerves; in heart troubles, the derangement is caused by the matter in that organ interfering with its normal function. This foreign matter, this obstruction, is to be found in every case of "disease." It is the disease.
How else can this mucus that is present be explained? The germs certainly do not manufacture it, and if they do, out of what? The living body cells? The quarts and quarts of pus drained out of the lungs of a tubercular patient manufactured out of his live tissue by the germ which: caused" his disease? Do germs work in living tissue? No, indeed. Germs breed and ferment only in dead, foul, rotting matter. Our disease comes first; the germs follow the disease. They are the scavengers. We would never have any trouble from germs if we did not present a proper bed for them to work in. The germs do not cause our disease; they only take advantage of the breeding place of filth which we provide. It is the filth, and not the germ, which is the disease.
Therefore it can be easily seen that little is gained by attempts to exterminate the poor germ. If we succeed in halting the ferment which he generates, the filth (mucus, poison, obstruction) is still there to cause us trouble later.
This is where the error arises in orthodox medical treatment. Medicine treats the local agitation, the symptom, as though it were the disease and directs all efforts toward getting rid of it, regardless. If a certain drug is found to banish a pain, this drug is administered; the pain ceases, and the patient is considered cured. But is he? Cured of the pain (temporarily) yes, cured of the symptom but not the disease. The disease, the poison or rubbish in his system, is still with him, and if his constitution is strong enough, Nature institutes another healing crisis later to get rid of it.
Drugs only paralyze Nature's healing force, deaden the nerves so that the brain ceases to feel the pain. The disease remains, unaffected. If the cancer is cut out, that particular symptom is cured. But the disease--poison in the body---is still there, and eventually breaks out somewhere else, either in the form of another cancer or as some other symptom. We hear so often of heart affections, weak eyes, or other troubles following a sickness such as scarlet fever, typhoid, measles, influenza, or following an operation. This is due to the drugs administered to stop the scarlet fever, typhoid, measles, influenza, etc.
The procedure of Natural Healing, on the other hand, is to cleanse the body of its obstruction, its poison, thereby relieving the symptom or pain by relieving the cause. Nothing could be more simple. Orthodox medical treatment, by filling the system with drugs, serums, etc., only adds to the obstructions of the body and the eventual dis-ease.
If people will only believe that when they are sick their systems are trying to get rid of impurities and rubbish which if not eliminated in time will suffocate them, then they can proceed intelligently to use Nature's remedies.
What we call being sick is, in reality, a Healing Crisis---an effort to heal the body by cleansing it of poisons. The only disease is the poison and filth in the system. When Nature tries to throw it off, when she sets loose this deposit of waste from the tissues into the blood, and we have fever and illness, we are being healed, but that is when we think we are sick. Before, with the poison nicely packed away in our tissues and organs, we consider ourselves well. But when these poisons break loose and we start to eliminate them, then we call ourselves sick! We don't realize that we are just as "sick," more so really, before the poisons start coming out, and that when they begin to come out we are being healed.
Illnesses are what save our lives; they are healing crises. If allowed to progress unhindered, they remove obstruction and poison from the body. If we didn't have them, if our tissues did not discharge their waste into the bloodstream and thus out of the system now and then, the accumulated impurities and poisons would suffocate the tissues unto death. We would be smothered in our own poisons. Sickness is our salvation---that is if we let Nature alone; if we do not hinder her healing process through the use of drugs, serums, and other medical measures to suppress elimination.
Therein lies the only danger when acute disease strikes---interfering with the elimination by the use of drugs, etc., or by stuffing with food under the false impression that nourishment is necessary. That is why people die of acute illnesses. Because Nature's tremendous effort to cleanse the body is violently interrupted.
Let Nature clean. Don't try to block her; let the filth come out. Instead of taking drugs and frantically trying to halt the house-cleaning process of Nature, help her through fasting, natural laxatives, and enemas. Then the visitation, instead of being a cause for great alarm and bewailing, becomes a blessing in disguise.
For there is but one disease, and only by treating that disease by ridding the body of accumulated filth and poison, and not by suppressing the symptom, can real lasting health be secured.
ONE DOCTOR
In ALL sickness or departure from the state of vibrant health, this is the first thing to think of: Nature is the only one who cures. The best we can do is to help and not hinder (as we do) her process of healing.
This force of Nature to heal is one of the greatest factors in our lives. For instance, you cut your finger. What happens? At once the wound begins to heal of itself. Does the Doctor who sets a broken arm and puts it in a plaster cast heal it? Indeed not! Nature, alone, does the healing. Without this great healing force of Nature, the broken bone would never knit despite the plaster cast, and the mutilated tissues would remain torn. The physician could never patch them up any more than he could set the broken pieces of a china China doll together, bandage them and expect the severed parts to knit. In the case of a broken arm or leg, the Doctor assists Nature, but he does not do the healing. Just as in the case of a cut we help Nature by keeping the area clean, but we would never be so foolish as to believe that we, or any of the salves put on as disinfectants are the healing agent. Nature is the healing agent.
Nature is the only Doctor, the only true healer. The human body heals of itself. And this is true in everything that is wrong with us. One of the most powerful forces in our lives, if we would only realize it, is that of the body to heal--just as soon as the causative agent is removed.
The Natural instinct in case of bodily illness is to fast, to remove the cause of the trouble, and give the body a chance to cure itself. But in the human being, that instinct has become almost entirely lost during civilization.
If you are at all familiar with the animal in his natural state you will know that when anything becomes wrong with his body, the animal fasts immediately. He will not take food, or anything but water until his illness has passed. And this is also true of little children in good health. They will stubbornly refuse food when they do not feel well. One of the worst crimes we can commit is to force children to eat when they do not want to, or urge sick people to eat "for strength." It is the natural instinct to permit the body unhindered opportunity to heal, but we have grown so civilized, so far away from the natural, that we tend to stuff the sick person, feed him frantically to "keep up his strength."
When we fast, wholly by taking nothing but water, or partially by reducing the quantity of food intake, Nature at once, relieved of the great burden of taking care of food, sets about to heal, to restore Health.
There is a tremendous force at work in the human body to constantly preserve the healthy state, and when this instinct to fast is observed Nature is right on the job to heal, just as she knits the broken bones together, or closes the wound in the finger. Cure lies within the body itself, in life, in Nature, and not in any outside factor such as doctors, drugs, operations or serums.
POISON
Every drug prescription, every serum, every glandular extract, every medicinal tonic, every pill, powder and patent nostrum, by the rule of Right, should be labeled in large letters POISON, and marked with the significant skull and crossbones underneath. POISONS they are, every one of them! Do not take them. The action of drugs upon the human constitution is nothing more nor less than that of paralyzing.
The force of Nature to heal, to purify, to cleanse, is simply paralyzed by drugs; its operation ceases. In some cases there is a primary stimulation of the nervous system caused by the powerful effect of the drug, but unless the poison is continued in ever-increasing doses and intensity, an ultimate reaction ensues, which is deadening in its effect.
Drugs and medicines suppress the symptoms through paralyzation of the healing force of Nature. The encumbrance in the system which caused the trouble--the disease--remains, though it is no longer being recorded in the brain. Eventually, if the individual has enough vital energy left to institute another house, cleaning process the attempt of Nature is repeated to drive out the unwanted matter, either through the same avenue of elimination (which is the cause in chronic disease) or through some other channel.
For instance, a patient will go to a doctor complaining of pains in the legs (excess foreign matter in these parts which the blood is laboring to carry off), The doctor pronounces the trouble dropsy and writes a prescription for a drug which the patient accordingly takes in the prescribed doses. The drug paralyzes Nature's machinery for throwing off poisons and the pain is no longer felt. If the drug is not continued, there may be a recurrence of the trouble; or, as is often the case the waste matter will continue to drain into the blood in too great quantities for it to handle, and will consequently be deposited somewhere else en route---many times in the heart tissue. That is the explanation of the frequent occurrence of heart trouble following treatment for some other disease.
The danger in taking drugs, serums, and nostrums lies in two things: First, the paralyzing of the natural effort of the body to rid itself of any annoying obstructions; and Second, increasing the load of harmful matter in the body by the addition of so-called "medicine" (or poison), which must eventually also be eliminated if the patient is to remain in health.
Remember, if you have the impulse to take a drug, that you are only adding to the disease of your body; that your relief (if at all) will be only temporary, and the price for this temporary relief will be more than you probably care to pay, in future suffering.
FASTING
"A-one-day-a-week-fast plan will make a new person out of him in a very few weeks. The one-day-a-week-fast alone will cure many chronic ailments, and when accompanied by systematic, scientific dieting, and proper breathing, is unfailing."
Jim's comment. To learn more about the benefits of fasting, read The Miracle of Fasting by Paul and Patrica Bragg, and Bragg Healthy Lifestyle.
You can read the story on my daughter's fast of 14 days and how it added 30 + years on her life. I have fasted many times--with my longest being 20 days. I have never had a disease of any kind----only a few colds which are good.
7 years ago my wife's calf on her left leg was swollen, hard and had a red line running down the middle. A 9 day fast in bed corrected the condition. She is still alive and well today. (4-15-20).