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Read the Classic Natural Health Book, "Nature Cure" for Free

This is the web version of a classic natural cure book from 1913 by Henry Lindlahr, MD, the grandfather of modern natural health. It's interesting because: It contains a lot of natural health ideas that are still floating around... in fact this is one of the earliest American books on natural cures. It shows us how old some of these natural health ideas are, even in the west... and that modern authors ideas aren't really all that new!

TO THE PROGRESSIVE PHYSICIANS OF THE AGE

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?

Their success undoubtedly is based on the fact that they concentrate
their best efforts on preventive instead of combative methods of
treating disease. People are beginning to realize that it is cheaper
and more advantageous to prevent disease than to cure it.

To create and maintain continuous, buoyant good health means:

• greater efficiency for mental and physical work;
• greater capacity for the true enjoyment of life, and
• the best insurance against failure and poverty.

Therefore, he who builds health is of greater value to
humanity than he who allows people to drift into disease through
ignorance of Nature's laws, and then attempts to cure them by
doubtful and uncertain combative methods.

It is said that in China the physician is hired and paid by the
year; that he receives a certain stipend as long as the members of
the family are in good health, but that the salary is suspended as
long as one of his charges is ill. If some similar method of
engaging and paying for medical services were in vogue in this
country the trend of medical research and practice would soon
undergo a radical change.

The diet expert, the hydropath, the physical culturist, the adjuster
of the spine, the mental healer, and Christian scientist, do not pay
much attention to the pathological conditions or to the symptoms of
disease. They regulate the diet and habits of living on a natural
basis, promote elimination, teach correct breathing and wholesome
exercise, correct the mechanical lesions of the spine, establish the
right mental and emotional attitude and, in so far as they succeed
in doing this, they build health and diminish the possibility of
disease. The successful doctor of the future will have to fall in
line with the procession and do more teaching than prescribing.

I realize that many of the statements and claims made in this volume
will seem radical and irrational to my colleagues of the regular
school of medicine. They win say that most of my teachings are
contrary to the firmly established theories of medical science. All
I ask, of them is not to judge too hastily; to observe, to think and
to test, and I am certain that they will find verified in actual
experience many of the teachings of the Nature Cure Philosophy.
Medical science has had to abandon innumerable theories and
practices which at one time were as firmly established as some of
the pet theories of today.

By none of the statements made in this book do I mean to deny the
necessity of combative methods under certain circumstances. What I
wish to emphasize is that the regular school of medicine is spending
too much of its effort along combative lines and not enough along
preventive. It would be foolish to deny the necessity of surgery in
traumatism, and in abnormal conditions which require mechanical
means of adjustment or treatment.

Such necessity, for instance, will exist in certain obstetrical
cases, as long as women have not learned, or are not willing to live
in such a way as to make surgical intervention unnecessary in
child-birth. The same is true with regard to the treatment of germ
diseases. As long as people persist in violating the laws of their
being, and thereby making their bodies prolific breeding grounds for
disease taints, germs and parasites which are bound to provoke
inflammatory, feverish processes (Nature's cleansing and healing
efforts), combative measures will have to be resorted to by the
physician, and precautionary measures against infection will have to
be observed, but these should be in harmony with Nature's endeavors,
not contrary and suppressive; they should tend to conserve and not
to destroy.

Natural dietetics, fasting, hydropathy, osteopathy, chiropractic,
and mental therapeutics, are combative as well as preventive, but if
properly applied they do not in any way injure the organism or
interfere with Nature's intent and Nature's methods. This cannot be
said for much of the surgical and medical treatment of the old
school of medicine. We criticize and condemn only those methods
which are suppressive and destructive instead of curative.

In many instances already the warnings and teachings of Nature Cure
Philosophy have been verified, and had to be heeded and accepted by
medical science. The exponents of Nature Cure protested against the
barbarous practice of withholding water from patients burning in
fever heat, and against the exclusion of fresh air from the sickroom
by order of the doctor. The cold water and no drug treatment of
typhoid fever, the water treatment for other acute diseases, as well
as the open air treatment for tuberculosis, were forced upon the
medical profession by the Nature Cure people. For more than half a
century the latter have been curing all inflammatory, feverish
diseases, from simple colds to scarlet fever, diphtheria,
cerebro-spinal meningitis, smallpox, appendicitis, etc., etc., by
hydropathy, fasting, and other natural methods, without resorting at
all to the use of poisonous drugs, antitoxins and surgical
operations.

For many years before the terrible after-effects of X-Ray treatment,
of extirpation of the ovaries, the womb, and of other vital organs,
became so patent that the physicians of the regular school could not
ignore them any longer, Nature Cure physicians had strongly warned
against these unnatural practices, and called attention to their
destructive after-effects.

As far back as ten years ago (1903), when the X-Rays were in high favor for
the treatment of cancer, lupus, and other diseases, I warned against
the use of these rays, claiming that their vibratory velocity was
too high and powerful, and therefore destructive to the tissues of
the human body. Since the failure of the X-Rays and the discovery of
Radio-activity, the rays and emanations of radium and other
radio-active substances are widely advertised and exploited as
therapeutic agents, but these rays also are far beyond the vibratory
ranges of the physical body in velocity and power. Therefore, it
remains to be seen whether their injurious by and after-effects do
not out-weigh in the long run their beneficial effects.

The destructive action of these high power rays, as well as of
inorganic minerals, is very slow and insidious, manifesting only in
the course of many years. This new field of therapeutics, therefore,
has not yet passed the stage of dangerous experimentation.

Inorganic minerals prove injurious and destructive to the tissues of
the human body because they are too slow in vibratory velocity, and
too coarse in molecular structure.

It is the intent and purpose of this volume to warn against the
exploitation of destructive combative methods to the neglect of
preventive constructive and conservative methods. If these teachings
contribute something toward this end they will fulfil their mission.

Henry Lindlahr, MD

Chicago, Nov., 1913.

Here's the full table of contents for Nature Cure:

• INTRODUCTION 11
• WHAT ~IS~ NATURE CURE? 16
• CATECHISM OF NATURE CURE 19
• WHAT IS LIFE? 25
• THE UNITY OF DISEASE AND TREATMENT 32
• THE UNITY OF ACUTE DISEASES 44
• THE LAWS OF CURE 52
• SUPPRESSION VERSUS ELIMINATION 59
• INFLAMMATION 72
• THE EFFECTS OF SUPPRESSION OF VENEREAL DISEASES 87
• SUPPRESSIVE SURGICAL TREATMENT OF
• TONSILLITIS AND ENLARGED ADENOIDS 93
• CANCER 97
• WOMEN'S SUFFERING 104
• NATURAL TREATMENT OF ACUTE DISEASES 113
• THE TRUE SCOPE OF MEDICINE 140
• HOMEOPATHY 154
• THE DIPHTHERIA ANTITOXIN 165
• VACCINATION 175
• SURGERY 181
• CHRONIC DISEASES 186
• CRISES 196
• PERIODICITY 207
• WHAT ABOUT THE "CHRONIC"? IT TAKES SO LONG 220
• THE TREATMENT OF CHRONIC DISEASES 227
• VITALITY 233
• NATURAL DIETETICS 247
• ACID DISEASES 267
• FASTING 277
• HYDROTHERAPY TREATMENT OF CHRONIC
• DISEASE 287
• AIR AND LIGHT BATHS 298
• CORRECT BREATHING 304
• PHYSICAL EXERCISE 315
• MANIPULATIVE TREATMENT MASSAGE 324
• LEGITIMATE SCOPE AND NATURAL LIMITATIONS 336
• OF MENTAL AND METAPHYSICAL HEALING 336
• FUNCTIONAL VS. ORGANIC DISEASE 345
• THE TWO-FOLD ATTITUDE OF MIND AND SOUL 351
• THE SYMPHONY OF LIFE 355
• THE THREE-FOLD CONSTITUTION OF MAN 357
• MENTAL THERAPEUTICS 362
• HOW SHALL WE PRAY? 370
• SCIENTIFIC RELAXATION AND NORMAL
• SUGGESTION 376
• CONCLUSION 380