Health and Sickness

by The ABC Herbal

March 2007

Through the work of a 19th century herbalist, Samuel Thomson, we have learned to think of the body as a wood stove. Like a stove, our body takes in air and fuel and burns it to create heat or energy. It also has to eliminate the waste products (smoke or ash) from this process. As long as you stoke up the body's fire with good food and air (and lots of love), it will burn clean and hot with a minimum of waste. That means the body will have plenty of energy to run its various functions and the elimination of waste will be satisfactory.

However, if you put cheap fuel (i.e. "junk" food) into the body's firebox, then the fire will burn poorly and the body will become clogged with waste. This will produce a lack of energy to properly run the body's many processes, which will undoubtedly result in disease.

We believe that the symptoms of disease are the result of the body's efforts to remove waste material out of the system. The body has four "chimneys" which it can use for this purpose - the digestive tract, the urinary system, the skin and the respiratory passages. When the body tries to eliminate waste through the digestive tract we experience nausea, vomiting and diarrhea (i.e., the "flu"). When the body uses the skin to eliminate waste we have body odor, rashes, pimples and pox. If the respiratory passages are used to get rid of this material, we will experience runny noses, coughs, earaches, sore throats and other ailments that accompany respiratory congestion. Lastly, the body may also use the kidneys to eliminate unwanted material which can cause kidney and bladder irritations and infections. Fevers are also an effort of the body to "burn up" waste material so it can be more easily eliminated.

If any of the above is the case, the symptoms of the disease are not the enemy. They are the result of the body's efforts to heal itself, to get rid of the disease. In other words, the cold symptoms are the body's way of curing the cold. Anything you do to suppress the cold symptoms only prolongs the length of time it takes for the body to relieve the sickness. This is why doctors have been unable to find a cure for the cold. The cold IS the cure!

Unfortunately, most people think that the symptom is the disease. They want something that will suppress the symptoms. Think of this in terms of vomiting. Suppose you just ate something that was tainted and you experience food poisoning. Is the vomiting the sickness? Of course not. The vomiting is the body's way of eliminating the sickness. Hence, it would do no good to suppress the vomiting as this would only prolong your misery and suffering.

Since the symptoms are the result of the body's life processes, the only way to suppress the symptoms is by poisoning the body. This is why most drugs are dilute doses of poisons. These small doses of poison give the appearance of a cure, but they actually interfere with long term health and vitality. This is why the child who is always being taken to the doctor for medication is often more sickly than the child who is not.

Instead of trying to use poisons to suppress disease symptoms, we need to use methods which support the body in its efforts to eliminate the disease. This is done by supplying the body with the same things it required to stay healthy in the first place - nutrition, rest, exercise, love, touch, etc. These methods help strengthen the body so that the body can complete its process of eliminating the disease. In other words, the body will heal itself if we provide it with the conditions and raw materials it needs to affect repairs. This is the great secret of natural healing.

Return to Articles

Comments

Comment on this article.