Illness - A Healthy Thing

It is brought in the Rambam (Laws of Knowledge 4:22): 'In any place where there is no doctor, whether the person is healthy or ill, it is not appropriate to deviate from any of these paths mentioned in this chapter, as each of them ensures a good end.'

It is proven from the Rambam that the doctor's role is to correct the defects that a person has created himself, because if a person behaves correctly, he guarantees that he will not become ill all his days. It seems that even medicine proves these things. Here is a segment from the introduction to a book on appendicitis. The book was written in 1935 by James C. Thomson, who developed the natural healing method and managed the 'Kingston Clinic' - the sanatorium and school for natural medicine in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.

The excerpt clarifies an important perspective underlying the natural approach:

'True health is not usually a calm state. It is more accurate to describe it as a dynamic of activities, which sometimes manifests violently. Many misinterpret this physical 'excitement' incorrectly. People mistakenly think that health reactions are illnesses because they involve discomfort and try to stop them.

Unfortunately, these health phenomena are studied as 'diseases', and the scientists studying them do not ask the main question - on what health foundation do they appear?

It is commonly thought that health is a negative essence; that is, the absence of disease symptoms. This is a complete distortion. Let's take, for example, a person who has consumed a deadly wild mushroom or even just spoiled food. If he has good and strong health, his reaction will be vomiting and diarrhea. Not just nausea, but a vigorous and complete emptying of the stomach and intestines. The better this person's health, the more extreme the action of restoring order will be.

The important point is that the more immediate and complete the emptying is, the less the damage. Anything that soothes and calms the emptying process or cancels it will bring death, even if it is done with good intent to relieve his suffering with the best medicine. The more effective the treatment to stop the emptying, the greater the danger to the patient.

This example is simple, as any doctor would encourage emptying in cases of severe poisoning, but it illuminates the natural healing approach and is valid for more complex conditions. Toxic substances that have slowly accumulated in an organ cannot be eliminated at the onset by simple nausea. The mechanisms for excreting harmful substances from the tissues periodically function and try to cause a release from overload, which could take form as a simple cold, diarrhea, a rash of this or that type, abscesses and pus, inflammation in any organ, as well as an effort encompassing all body organs and manifested as fever, weakness, and sometimes appearing as some disease like flu or an unnamed illness.

Those who assign different names to these phenomena, instead of considering the reason for their appearance, only increase the confusion. Lack of understanding regarding the importance of cleansing processes in maintaining proper health leads physicians to attempt to stop these phenomena with medication. The result - pollution that cannot be expelled in one area will appear later in another. Stop it here, and it emerges there... Every new occurrence of waste expulsion is perceived as if it is a different 'disease', and each such 'disease' is treated with ointment, medication, or injection specifically devised for it.

The medication stops the cleansing effort, the cleansing symptoms are suppressed, and the patient 'recovers' until he dies.

Here is an example: a woman received gold treatment for rheumatism (the text was written, as noted, in 1935). The treating doctor testified in the investigation of the cause of death that he stopped the treatment after the woman felt unwell and suffered from a rash all over her body, so he prescribed an ointment for the rash which 'cured' her from the rash completely, and then she died', as quoted.

Medication treatment does not cure; it only masks the symptoms of the illness at the cost of further poisoning. It can be said that any phenomenon or illness that is not degenerative generally falls within the cleansing phenomena realm.

Our body has several ways to excrete excessive and harmful substances. The most important is the urinary system, through which excess substances or those interfering with normal cell function are filtered from the blood. Another way is through the skin's pores, which serve to excrete substances from the body along with sweat (which has other roles, such as cooling the body and expelling excess fluids that the kidneys fail to excrete). Additionally, there is the breathing process, through which waste substances like carbon dioxide are expelled, and the digestive process, which serves as a channel for removing excessive substances from the body.

On top of these, the body has additional cleansing methods activated when harmful substances accumulate in quantities that regular secretion methods cannot handle. Mucous secretions from various organs in the body are a relatively easy way to expel toxins - starting with the respiratory system (mucus from the nose and phlegm from the throat) and continuing with mucous and inflammatory secretions in the digestive system. The more the body is burdened with harmful substances, the more expected are inflammatory and mucus-heavy secretions.

The secretion and inflammation phenomenon can manifest in severe flu, angina, pneumonia, ulcers, purulent wounds, urinary or digestive tract inflammation, and more. The form of appearance, timing, and severity depend on a combination of distinct personal factors, like body structure, heredity, and medical history. Arthritis, for example, is a protective expulsion of toxins to a 'remote corner' for the main's salvation, and it is more typical for individuals with robust body structure, who do not tend to use minor inflammations often.

After even severe inflammations are insufficient to keep pace with the accumulation of contamination in the body, degenerative diseases appear. These include diseases in which an organ cannot bear the load and begins to 'fail' (such as the kidneys, heart, lungs, various glands, pancreas, or liver), as well as diseases in which damage occurs in entire systems (such as blood vessels, lymphatic system, or digestive system). In fact, there is almost no situation where only one organ is damaged while the rest of the organs function as usual. Cancer, for example, indicates the failure of many systems, primarily the immune system.

Before this serious disease, there are always simple efforts at cleansing, flus, anginas, and other inflammations, which we customarily suppress with ordinary or 'natural' medications, continuing the lifestyle that caused them.

By the wisdom of the Creator, it was decreed that the body 'selects' less critical organs for life as centers for collecting waste excesses.

Any treatment preventing a general body cleansing causes worsening of the issue and disease spread to more critical organs.

Anyone blessed with a strong and robust body can withstand a high amount of pollution, and their body may not even respond with mucus, but they are liable to respond suddenly and severely upon reaching the 'red line'. Such a person seldom suffers from flus or inflammations, but may suddenly discover high blood pressure, heart or liver problems, or suddenly collapse from cardiac arrest or a stroke - events generally occurring from age 40 onwards, when the pollution load reaches a critical level.

An individual with a delicate and sensitive body reacts more quickly and easily to pollution accumulation, often doing so through various cleansing symptoms that may compensate for weakness if adopting a healthy lifestyle. His sensitivity advantage is lost if he frequently resorts to medications suppressing the cleansing phenomena, primarily antibiotics. Not only do medications block vital cleansing work and enable continued body harm, but they add to the overall load with their inherent toxic substances. A sensitive person, even without using medications, but merely continuing harmful lifestyle habits, might find that one of their body systems collapses from excessive strain.

It is well known that a degenerative disease is in an incubation process long before the patient notices its first symptom. Conversely, with proper instructions, and as part of the body's cleansing process, entire systems recover and the functioning of damaged or degenerated organs improve, especially in the early stages of malfunction (naturally, depending on each individual's personal situation). The reason for improvement lies with the cells in the damaged organ that still function, and the removal of the pollution burden allows them to carry out their functions much more efficiently. Even in cases of severe damage, when the body can only repair a small part of the damaged organ or system, there is generally a significant improvement in overall body function and enhancement in quality and length of life, provided the patient embraces a healthy lifestyle.

Today, another problem caused by extensive antibiotic use is known. Its widespread use encouraged the emergence of resistant bacterial strains, including particularly resistant strains. In the past, antibiotics eradicated diseases, but due to the creation of resistant bacteria, they can no longer be treated... (typhoid, tuberculosis, and more).

In summary, let us quote a wise sentence said by a doctor:

'The great illnesses cannot be cured, and the small ones do not need to be.'

In the next article, with Hashem's help, we will detail and expand on the topic, and in subsequent articles, we will explain how to adopt a healthy lifestyle for ourselves.

Only health!