Valere Aude: Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration. Louis Dechmann
which is life.
METABOLISM.
This continuous changing of the entire human body—the removal of the discarded cells, burned up by oxidation and expelled from the body in the urine, the perspiration and other excretions, and their replacement by new ones—is called metabolism, that is, "change of matter."
This change is brought about by means of a vital fluid in the body, which circulates from the moment in which the spermatozoon, or male seed, touches the female egg in the womb of the mother, until the time of our last breath. That fluid is the blood—the carrier of nature's supplies to all parts of the body for the rebuilding of cells; the exact and equitable distributor in quantities of material which determines the quality of the cells.
In its marvelous performance of this function, the blood is the bearer of the sole existing condition of health; namely the necessary elements of cell-building in the right proportions.
This is health, and the lack thereof is disease.
The demand of nature for upbuilding and rebuilding is the strongest instinctive impulse of our being; and this being so, a wrong proportion may cause the upbuilding of things which are different and disturbing to the normal organism.
But, on the other hand, kindly nature exhibits an ever existent inclination to counterbalance any disturbance in the right proportion, and to bring back conditions to uniformity.
We may thus justly speak of the overwhelming healing tendency of nature.
Metabolism is, therefore, the one great dominant function of the body which, accordingly, must have our especial care.
It is the blood, consequently, to which alone we can resort if we desire to assist nature in its process and tendency of balancing and healing.
This again indicates that, notwithstanding the apparent great variety of constitutional diseases, they are all practically one and the same disease. They are all disturbances of proper metabolism, by some irregularity of the quantitative or qualitative condition of the blood.
This governing truth the great physiologist, Prof. Jacob Moleschott, has formulated in the memorable words: "It is one of the chief questions which humanity must always ask of the physician: how to attain good, healthy and active blood. And, view the question as we may, all who give it serious thought, are forced by experience to acknowledge explicitly, or otherwise, that our mental and physical capacity, and likewise the power of reproduction, are directly dependent upon our blood, and our blood on our nutrition."
VARIETY OF ORGANS.
Why then, you may ask, if such unity exists, why this dissimilarity in the tissues of the respective bodily organs? How is it that a bone in its stonelike hardness is essentially the same as the infinitely tender tissues of the eye? This difference is due to and accounted for by the adaptation of certain portions of the immense accumulation of cells to diverse functions, which has necessitated the variable conformity of the supporting elements. But all of these elements are in the blood, which carries them in the necessary quantities to the different organs to which they belong and where they are utilized to replace used-up matter.
I do not overlook the difficulty of grasping this idea of unity.
The fact, that it is so difficult to realize, has led to the greatest errors in present day medical science.
It seemed at first sight, so obviously necessary to study the different organs as entirely different groups, to work out a careful system of bones, of intestinal organs, of blood-vessels, of nerves, and so on; all of which is of course very valuable, in its place, but only from a descriptive standpoint.
Anatomy shows us what life has produced in the construction of a human form, but it does not indicate the source of life, nor, consequently, the source of health.
It is well to know the different forms of cell accumulations, which are called organs, but if we desire to keep them in good order, we must watch closely what is common to them all; for it is only from this point of view, that we are able to determine the necessary, and possibly, the lacking elements for purposes of healing.
Thus, as one of the greatest achievements of modern science, we come to the one most vital thing, so sorely needed and yet so badly neglected throughout the centuries: The chemical analysis of the human body and its different organs.
A new light has now dawned upon the subject most essential to the inauguration of a new and effective system of healing.
The physiological chemist has at length discovered that the human body, and every organ of that body consists of a certain number of chemical elements, which appear in different parts in different aggregations. These aggregations, however, repeat themselves in the various parts or organs.
It was thus finally discovered that there are twelve different main aggregations of such elements, which groups of equal elements we call tissues.
Through this discovery we have arrived at the great truth that it is not to the purpose, in healing, to turn attention to the various organs, but rather to the various tissues.
The influence which can be exercised on these tissues is exercised through the blood which nourishes all of them alike, and which has the wonderful capacity of carrying to each of them their necessary building and rebuilding, or regenerating materials—provided, of course, that these are, as they should be, present in the blood.
THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS.
Research in physiological chemistry, has so far determined that there are sixteen definite and discernible elements—and a seventeenth is now in course of determination—which, in their various combinations and aggregations, form the different tissues of which the various organs of the human body are constructed.
The preponderance of one or more of these elements in a certain tissue forms the main or governing feature, or tissue of any organ. Thus the prevalence of potassium phosphate forms the muscle tissue, the prevalence of ammonium phosphate (lecithin) forms the nerve tissue.
For the purpose of general explanation it is sufficient to know that each of the various tissues consist of some of these elements, and that each of the tissues, at whatever part of the body it exists, is affected by the lack of any one of these elements.
The greatest chemist of the age, Justus von Liebig, maintains that if one of the necessary elements in a chemical composition is missing, the rest cannot fulfil their duties, and the consequence of such deficiency is that the cell in question must become diseased and degenerate.
This discovery, known as "the law of the minimum," has thrown an additional reassuring light upon the practice of the new school of medicine.
To bring to the tissue the lacking constituent element or elements by way of the blood is the only means of regenerating that tissue, that is, of healing its diseased cells.
DYSAEMIA THE CAUSE OF ALL CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES.
Within the limits of this abstract I do not propose to deal with the disturbances in the system caused by traumatic influences, such as wounds, etc. We are treating only of constitutional diseases which, whether of acute or of chronic character, are all caused by the lack of such chemical elements as described.
It has been shown that the blood supplies all the chemical substances to the different tissues, and that, consequently, it is the lack of these elements in the blood, which causes the tissues to degenerate, or, in other words, the lack of certain chemical elements in the blood is disease.
It is, therefore, merely a question as to which of the elements are missing or which do not exist in correct proportion, that determines the different forms of disease.
When once this fact is established, the method of healing consists mainly in supplying in the regular way, that is, by certain additions