Inflammation

From what has already been said on this subject, it will have become apparent that inflammatory and feverish diseases are just as natural, orderly and lawful as anything else in Nature, that, therefore, after they have once started, they must not be checked or suppressed by poisonous drugs and surgical operations.

Inflammatory processes can be kept within safe limits, and they must be assisted in their constructive tendencies by the natural methods of treatment. To check and suppress acute diseases before they have run their natural course means to suppress Nature's purifying and healing efforts, to court fatal complications and to change the acute, constructive reactions into chronic disease conditions.

Those who have followed the preceding chapters will remember that their general trend has been to prove one of the fundamental principles of Nature Cure philosophy, namely the Unity of Disease and Cure.

We claim that all acute diseases are uniform in their causes, their purpose, and if conditions are favorable, uniform also in their progressive development.

In former chapters I endeavored to prove and to elucidate the unity of acute diseases in regard to their causes and their purpose, the latter not being destructive, but constructive and beneficial. I demonstrated that the microorganisms of disease are not the unmitigated nuisance and evil which they are commonly regarded, but that, like everything else in Nature, they, too, serve a useful purpose. I showed that it depends upon ourselves whether their activity is harmful and destructive, or beneficial: upon our manner of living and of treating acute reactions.

Let us now trace the unity of acute diseases in regard to their general course by a brief examination of the processes of inflammation and their progressive development through five well-defined stages. We shall base our studies on the most advanced works on pathology and bacteriology.

The Story of Inflammation

To me the story of inflammation has been one of the most wonderful revelations of the complex activities of the human organism. More than anything else it confirms to me the fundamental principles of Nature Cure, the fact that Nature is a good healer, not a poor one.

Before inflammation can arise, there must exist an exciting cause in the form of some obstruction or of some agent inimical to health and life. Such excitants of inflammation may be dead cells, blood clots, fragments of bone and other effete matter produced in the system itself or they may be foreign bodies such as particles of dust, soot, stone, iron or other metals, slivers of wood, etc.; again, they may be microorganisms or parasites.

When one or more of these exciting agents of inflammation are present in the tissues of the body in sufficient strength to call forth the reaction and opposition of the healing forces, the microscope will always reveal the following phenomena, slightly varying under different conditions:

The blood rushes to the area of irritation. Owing to this increased blood pressure, the minute arteries and veins in the immediate neighborhood of the excitant dilate and increase in size. The distension of the blood vessels stretches and thereby weakens their walls. Through these the white blood corpuscles squeeze their mobile bodies and work their way through the intervening tissues toward the affected area.

In some mysterious way they seem to sense the exact location of the danger point and hurry toward it in large numbers like soldiers summoned to meet an invading army. This faculty of the white blood corpuscles to apprehend the presence and exact location of the enemy has been ascribed to chemical attraction and is called ~chemotaxis.~

The army of defense is made up of the white blood corpuscles or leukocytes and of connective tissue cells which separate themselves from the neighboring tissues. All these wandering cells possess the faculty of absorbing and digesting microbes. They contain certain proteolytic or protein-splitting ferments, by means of which they decompose and digest poisons and hostile microorganisms. On account of their activity as germ destroyers, these cells have been called germ killers or ~phagocytes~. In their movements and actions these valiant little warriors act very much like intelligent beings, animated by the qualities of patience, perseverance, courage, foresight and self-sacrifice.

The phagocytes absorb morbid matter, poisons or microorganisms by enveloping them with their own bodies. It is a hand-to-hand fight, and many of the brave little soldiers are destroyed by the poisons and bacteria which they attack and swallow. What we call pus is made up of the bodies of live and dead phagocytes, disease taints and germs, blood serum, broken-down tissues and cells, in short, the debris of the battlefield.

We can now understand how the processes just described produce the well-known cardinal symptoms of inflammation and fever; the redness, heat and swelling due to increased blood pressure, congestion and the accumulation of exudates; the pain due to irritation and to pressure on the nerves. We can also realize how impaired nutrition and the obstruction and destruction in the affected parts and organs will interfere with and inhibit functional activity.

The organism has still other ways and means of defending itself. At the time of bacterial infection, certain germ-killing substances are developed in the blood serum. Science has named these defensive proteins ~alexins.~ It has also been found that the phagocyte and tissue cells in the neighborhood of the area of irritation produce antipoisons or natural antitoxins, which neutralize the bacterial poisons and kill the microorganisms of disease.

With the Evil, Nature Provides the Cure

Furthermore, the growth and development of bacteria and parasites is inhibited and finally arrested by their own waste products. We have an example of this in the yeast germ, which thrives and multiplies in the presence of sugar in solution. Living on and digesting the sugar, it decomposes the sugar molecules into alcohol and carbonic acid. As the alcohol increases during the process of fermentation, it gradually arrests the development and activity of the yeast cells.

Similar phenomena accompany the activity of disease germs and parasites. They produce certain waste products which gradually inhibit their own growth and increase. The vaccines, serums and antitoxins of medical science are prepared from these bacterial excrements and from extracts made of the bodies of bacteria.