Valere Aude: Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration. Louis Dechmann
HYGIENIC-DIETETIC METHOD OF HEALING
Biology, the Science of life, has developed under my hand that system of natural healing which I practice, in common with some of the most successful physicians on the continents of Europe and America.
Although based upon the same biological laws, their systems of therapy—or healing—differ materially from one another. My system is entirely my own, developed during the last thirty-five years to that degree of perfection it has attained today.
I am, naturally, honestly proud of the success achieved during this strenuous period, yet am I still as anxiously imbued as ever with the spirit and habit of research which is now directed to the endeavour to further simplify my method of treatment, by further discoveries in the realm of that most abstruse of the sciences, Physiological Chemistry.
In this baffling but wonderful domain I am inspired by the ambitious hope that some, at any rate, of the many unsolved problems of the Science of Life may yet give up their secrets to the demand of my persistency, exerted in the interest of the well-being of humanity.
After centuries devoted by the faculty to a futile and arrogant attempt to counteract the disturbances of health, which we call diseases, in the stereotyped manner known as "orthodox;" after endless complications, infinite "specializing"—in itself a futility—and unblushing complicity with the powers that be, we find them now at length, baffled, discredited, but unashamed, cast back, discomforted, upon Mother Nature's kindly breast, their victims humbly seeking healing in simple unity from her ample store.
Based upon this firm foundation, we term the new departure the "Natural Method of Healing."
The greatest physicians of all time, from Hippocrates to our own day, were satisfied to be simply natural physicians. They were not satisfied to merely suppress the symptoms of suffering and to quiet the sufferer by abnormal appliances. Their higher, more ambitious aim was to reach the active source of distress—and in this they succeeded.
For, not only did they achieve where others failed, but, in addition to healing, they also prevented the recurrence of disease, and, more noteworthy still, they established a system of Prophylactic Therapy, which is the highest function of the healing art; namely, the prevention of disease by treatment before full development, or, in other words, the preservation of health.
It is not the object of this brief brochure to enter into the devious details which a full explanation of this practical, successful, modern method would require. It is designed merely for those who, after experiencing disappointment and failure in other directions, have had recourse, as a last alternative, to advice and assistance, from myself.
Such patients, as a rule, have heard of my method from others; have heard that it differs widely, in its frank simplicity, from the empty pomposity of the old-school "orthodox" elements, though of the principles of the old-school teaching they have really little or no conception, beyond a crude, unwholesome, fear of the unknown, consequent upon the, very necessary, veil of mystery with which its votaries surround themselves—a semi-superstitious sentiment inherited from a malignant past and one which does little credit to the vaunted modern civilization of today.
On this point of difference they ask for enlightenment, and naturally enquire as to the nature of both, but especially of this new hope which is held out to them as a refuge in their hour of despair.
This information it is equally my duty and my desire to give, and in the most convenient and simple form, shorn of all shroud of mystery; for my object is to educate and not to conceal.
It is my chief desire that patients should thoroughly understand the methods and principles of the New-School of Healing and should exercise their own intelligence as to its merits as compared with the old, and, being once thoroughly convinced—not by faith, or fear, or fashion, nor yet biased by the unfair influence of the false prestige of a legalized monopoly detrimental to the interest of the people—they should forthwith honestly test the new deliverance by faithfully following my advice and instruction, to their own unfailing ultimate benefit and relief.
As a labour of love towards the world in general and the people of my adopted country in particular, I have made it my duty to formulate the substance of my researches in the field of science—researches which represent the struggles of a lifetime—in a large and comprehensive work which, to the scientist as well as to the laymen, will constitute in the most detailed and complete degree a reliable guide to the conservation of health which, even now, in the immediate present, has come to be regarded not only as a scientific phase of education, but as a duty incumbent upon every citizen. Should sickness supervene, as well it may sometimes, despite all reasonable precaution, the knowledge and instructions contained therein are sufficient, if closely followed, to prevent, for the most part, the serious consequences of disease and to afford the patient the necessary enlightenment to enable him to co-operate with the hygienic-dietetic physician in the task of restoring him to health and ability.
This book, entitled "Regeneration" or "Dare to be Healthy," will consist of some three thousand or more pages. It will be published shortly; and, in the common interests of human health will, I trust, find prominent place on the book-shelf of every home whose inmates either belong to the ever increasing number of the followers of my patients, or who, by careful study of my teachings therein contained, may be finding their independent way back from the dreary depths of suffering to the glad plains of health.
In following up the general outline of the "New Regeneration" these pages will not lend themselves to the otherwise necessary encounter with what are now admitted to be the recognized errors of the, temporarily dominant, medical school, save in so far as it may be requisite to remove from the mind of the layman pernicious and antiquated ideas to which he has been long and persistently educated, or to protect those who have ceased to believe in them from the pitfalls to which, as an alternative, they may be exposed amongst the numberless unscientific, quasi-miraculous, healing cults, or the equally pernicious nostrums of the spectacular advertising medicine vendor, both of whom reap golden harvests among the ranks of the so justly disappointed and despairing people.
It is, nevertheless, an imperative duty to issue this necessary warning; namely, that the public should safeguard itself against the absurd, but possible mistakes of confusing the Legitimate Scientific School of the Hygienic Dietetic Method of Biological Healing with the nebulous cults aforesaid. There is no vestige of resemblance between them, either in thought or principle, and nothing could be more fatal and foreign to the truth.
There is one thing, and one only, which, like the rest of the community, we share with them in common, and this is that growing spirit of profound distrust with which all classes seem daily more and more constrained to regard the Medical Fraternity and all its ways.
It is the general knowledge of the existence of this sentiment which has called into being the present epidemic of curious cults and catholicons—due, it would appear, more to this insidious temptation to such commercial enterprise than to any other cause—and which form so prominent a feature throughout all sections of the community—and especially in the press—throughout the length and breadth of the land. To such, in an alarming degree, the public turns, in protest, as it were, against the tyranny and turpitude of this "learned profession," with its kindred corporations and its studied callous disregard of scientific advancement in any direction which might tend to jeopardize or reduce the profitable exercise of its own obsolete methods, its system of poisonous medicaments, and dangerous operations and anti-toxins.
There is no possible efficacy or help to be derived from other teachings, whatsoever they may be, except from those based absolutely upon the solid foundation of biological fact. Since Johannes Müller (1833) wrote the first book on physiology and its chemistry, more than a thousand so-called "Authorities" in that branch of science have tried to find some of the secrets of nature pertaining to physiology. A very few (about 10 or 12) may be named as great men who discovered certain laws and solved certain problems. But the majority