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All our body cells, the same as microbes, are a form of life. This means that both have their own metabolism; they assimilate nutrients and eliminate waste products. Bacteria, as well as human cells, can be cultivated in a laboratory and as long as the nutrient fluid in which the cells grow contains all the nutrients the cells need and their waste products can be disposed of, these cells stay healthy.

A human being consists of milliards of the tiniest forms of life. Also a human being can only be healthy and procreate when he or she receives the right nutrients and can eliminate waste products. It is a question of input and output, whereby up to a certain point, the output (the excretion of toxins) is even more important than the assimilation of the right nutrients. This is because the accumulation of any kind of waste products, even from the healthiest food, can cause illness.

Although many people do not want to believe this, humans are still part of nature and the laws of nature are the same for all creatures. When bacterial cultures in a laboratory become polluted, the bacteria suffocate in their own dirt and die. When people cannot excrete sufficient waste products, these accumulate somewhere in the body and cause disease.

When the quality of the food is bad and/or when people eat too much, many toxic substances will accumulate in the organism and if the excretory system does not function as well as it should, these substances will accumulate and the person in question will become ill. This is one of the main reasons for the development of our so-called ‘civilisation diseases’. Of course the pollution of the environment, too much stress (as DrHans Seleye has pointed out) and other negative factors are part of the problem.

For the earth, for plants, for animals and for all people the laws of nature are always the same. We should try to understand these laws and we should support nature in all its endeavours. All practitioners and patients should understand and follow these natural laws.

Healthy and simple food, as most people ate in former times, as well as fresh air and plenty of exercise are the best guarantees for a long and healthy life. In former times everyone, with the exception of very rich, old or ill people, was used to regular exercise, as their own feet were their most important means of transportation.

It is high time that natural medicine is also officially recognised, as in Germany where there are special schools for healers, the so-called ‘heilpraktikers’. In other countries too all healers should be permitted to practice in a lawful way, while following certain rules. It is a fact that natural healing is far more acceptable and successful than many life and health-endangering treatments of so-called official medicine. In this book and the others in the Healthcare series you will find logical explications about the origin of disease and how to prevent and, if still possible, cure your disease, while not taking the risk of becoming ill for the rest of your life through wrong treatment.

Until about a hundred years ago medical knowledge which had been accumulating for thousands of years had been guarded very carefully and every medical student had to know all about the subject. All reputable physicians, beginning with Hippocrates (460–377 BC), were convinced that a profound knowledge of medical history was indispensable for all physicians. Only those who have followed the gradual growth of the art of medicine and who know how much was achieved in the past are able to correctly assess the pros and cons of today’s medical science. Pushman, the founder of the school of medical history in Vienna, wrote:

A physician who neglects to study the history of medicine will often be on the wrong track. He has not learned to avoid the mistakes his predecessors made, because he is used to measure everything with the yardstick of the narrow period of his time.

The medical student of today only rarely hears about the so very valuable wealth of experience of the past. The Hippocratic oath still means something, but nothing is taught about the successful Hippocratic and other healing methods of olden times. Therefore the medical student gets the impression that these healing ways are old-fashioned and not relevant in our advanced times. Many of them still believe that modrn medicine is the only right thing.

Today one tries to repair damage with the help of technical appliances and chemical-based substances. Many physicians, who apparently do not understand that medicine is not only a science but also an art, are nothing more than highly respected workers in a workshop, which has been installed by the medical and pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately most of these physicians never learned anything about the art of healing and only know how to repair the damage, not prevent it.

Of course it is possible to be a good physician without learning about medical history. However, if the need arose, for example to free a patient within a short time from terrible pain, that physician would be completely helpless without the medication of the pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately most painkillers have dangerous side effects and in the long run they can even produce more, and often worse, pain. As mentioned already, physicians in olden times knew many harmless and very effective methods of pain control and treatment. Because of ignorance, and also for financial reasons, these methods are no longer made use of, but the physicians of former times were brilliant in this area. It really is ridiculous to believe that physicians of the past, who lived in the time of Aristotle, Archimedes, Pythagoras, Homer and Plato, were less intelligent than we are. ‘Many of them were not beneath us, but even far above us,’ as Professor Werner Zabel said. We cannot possibly assume that physicians who were able to heal diseases that in our time are considered to be incurable had less experience or were less knowledgeable then we are.

In the rest of this chapter you will find useful information on the history of medicine, which is seldom read about and still less will be taught at universities. It is high time to include at least the most important and valuable sections of medical history in the students’ curriculums. Then the next generation of physicians will be less helpless, when it comes to the crunch, to really help the patient in a practical way, and without danger.

Besides accidents, sprains and the dislocation of joints, people who lived in prehistoric times often suffered from intoxication, nausea, diarrhoea and gastric problems, as well as from diseases of the eyes, typhoid, malaria or other infectious and parasitic diseases. From the earliest beginnings, mankind suffered from many different diseases. Today we know this because of the findings of a special branch of science called paleopathology, which bases its findings mainly on archaeological excavations.

In the past people saw illness as something alien, caused by evil spirits, or by poison or harmful substances spoiling the body juices. Medicine men, who at the same time were magicians, tried to chase these evil spirits away by using certain rituals; they also cleaned the body by practical means. This was the beginning of ‘empirical medicine’, which at the time of Hippocrates developed into a real art.

With the help of herbs, thorns and other natural resources, these healers engendered irritations of the skin and haematoma (bleeding under the skin). They made their patients perspire and gave them enemas by pouring water through the hollow stems of plants. They used laxatives and emetics, so that all damaging substances could be discharged.

Through the derivation and the evacuation of disease-provoking substances and the simultaneous exorcism of evil spirits, many patients were healed. (In our time also, the physician who treats body and soul at the same time is the most successful.)

About the medicine of the Aegean period (2000–1000 BC) we know very little. We know only that at the time surgery was already at a very high standard. People attached great importance to hygiene in general and also to personal hygiene. On the island of Crete many relics of very ingenious and first-class sanitary installations have been found.

At the time of Homer, around 800 BC, many campaigns of conquest were being fought. A large number of warriors suffered serious sword wounds and many of them died. Military surgeons were very important persons; these physicians did not use any magic, they only gave practical help. Treatments for internal diseases were not yet known. Only the gods could heal such diseases. For the treatment of the wounds, herbs, leaves and roots, as well as different oils and ointments were used and many plants such as caraway, coriander, fennel, peppermint and sage served for healing as well as for culinary purposes.

In the temples the priests practised religious medicine. In antiquity such temples were mostly built in the neighbourhood of warm springs. People who wanted to be cured donated money and in ancient Greece more than 400 of these temples were built. Every visitor first had to clean himself by fasting, by vomiting the contents of his stomach, bathing and mental exercises. People often came in crowds to the temples and paid their fees with food, goods or jewellery. During the ‘temple sleep’ they were cured of their ailments. Partly these cures were due to the right mental attitude of the patient, as they had a great respect for the gods and goddesses. There is no doubt that real feats of healing took place there.

In the beginning practical medicine was only regarded as a craft. Later this was combined with more knowledge and as early as 600 BC people tried to investigate the causes of internal diseases. Now physicians treated diseases, which at the time of Homer it was believed that only the gods could cure.

In tune with the new ways of thinking scientists tried to explain the causes of different diseases on the basis of practical experience and began to classify them. In this way Greek medicine developed more and more into a science. Their specific thinking was the basis for the medicine of today. Unfortunately our modern medicine has become lost in an aimless and dogmatic investigation of details, which no longer has anything to do with the wisdom of the old physicians and their very logical ways of thinking.

On the basis of often-similar observations the physicians of those times came to the conclusion that internal diseases in most cases were due to wrong nutrition in a qualitative and quantitative sense and to mistakes in the physical, as well as the mental, conduct of the patient. Their therapy always included a change of diet, which was then supported by cleaning procedures (laxatives, vomiting, perspiration, bloodletting and so on). They also tried to correct the mistakes in their patient’s lifestyle by rearranging his or her daily habits according to natural laws. Special gymnastics were part of the treatment and served also to prevent disease.

The physicians of western Greece were the first representatives of the so-called ‘dietetics’, the science of the way of living. It was a further development of the philosophy of nature of the ancient Greeks. This science tried to find the natural balance in all the different aspects of life. It not only tried to bring order into the different eating habits of the people, it also tried to readjust the balance between work and rest, gymnastics and sports, baths and massages, sleeping and waking, excretions and secretions, stimulating the spirit and the soul.

Health, beauty and vigour as well as intelligence and virtue were Greek ideals, which could be attained by dietetics. Especially in the case of idealistic and ambitious young people this was very successful and there were many sports centres and gymnasiums. Teachers of physical education and coaches not only looked after the training and the fitness of their charges, but they were also eager to teach them the principles of healthy nutrition and lifestyle.

Around the year 500 BC several medical schools developed in Greece. The most important ones were on the island of Kos and on the peninsula of Knidos. The school of Knidos stressed the importance of the local character of the illness. There, where the symptoms of the illness were visible or painful they were suppressed by strong medication, or by a knife or a red-hot iron, by the use of oil and ointments or in some other way. The physicians of Knidos only believed in symptomatic treatment. They did not believe in a general holistic treatment.

On the island of Kos, Hippocrates and his successors had completely different ideas. They were convinced that if someone fell ill, it was not only the part of the body where the symptoms were that was ill, but the whole person. They treated their patients with derivative and excretory measures, which were very successful in the past and had been used by all primitive tribes, as well by the physicians in times of high civilisation.

The Greeks were brilliant observers. Hippocrates observed nature and tried in his therapy to support the natural defence reactions of the body, instead of fighting them. He came to the conclusion that many diseases develop because of a surplus of food, fat, blood and residues of metabolic processes. He taught his pupils that all diseases, which he believed to be the consequence of satiation, could be healed through drainage. Every stage of a therapy was adjusted exactly to the patient’s needs and was thoroughly thought out. Every new experience increased the knowledge and the wellbeing of later generations and was written down by Hippocrates and his disciples in the Corpus Hippocrates.

Greek people and also their physicians loved to travel. They not only adapted their ways of treatment from those of their predecessors, but also from those of the Egyptians, the Arabs, Indians, East Asians and especially from the Chinese.

In Kos, as well as in Knidos, gluttony, excessive drinking and an immoral lifestyle were regarded as important causes of disease. Their physicians were convinced that superfluous food residues, which could not be excreted from the body, caused many different diseases.

1. Negative influences of the environment, like the weather, the climate, the air, the soil and the water.

2. The wrong lifestyle, wrong food, stress, injuries, the wrong profession for the person in question.

3. The genetic disposition.

Only nature could heal. Hippocrates wrote a book about the art of healing, wherein he said that physicians should never try to treat a patient who could not be helped any more. He had the same understanding for human suffering as Albert Schweitzer and other great thinkers of our time. He also said that the physician should never harm the patient. ‘He is the servant of the art [of medicine] and the patient together with the physician should fight the disease!’ During the treatment nutrition was very important. Healthy as well as sick people should always eat simple and healthy food.

The oldest meaning of the word ‘etiology’ is the science of the deep-lying causes of an illness. Thereby, in medicine one looks first at the cause which is hidden under the most noticeable symptoms. Then one looks again and again for causes at a deeper level, until the original causes are discovered.

For Hippocrates, as well as for many well-known physicians, the etiology was the foundation of every treatment. According to him disease always develops from a combination of many different factors. Hippocrates, ‘the best known physician of all time’, understood this like nobody else. From him comes the saying: ‘Our food will be our medicine, and our medicine will be our food.’ Hippocrates understood illness as a biological process, whereby there was a battle going on between the organism of the patient and the disease-provoking toxins or useless substances. He was more interested in the patient and his or her lifestyle than in the disease.

After the death of Hippocrates many of his ideas which were not completely understood were applied in a wrong and different way by the so-called ‘Dogmatics’, who were looking for a theoretical explanation of his therapeutic success. They were not interested in purging or bloodletting, although essentially these healing methods were extremely important for the Hippocratians. For healthy as well as for ill people strict rules of behaviour were prescribed and the therapeutic freedom of the Hippocratians was lost.

As a reaction to the exaggerated dogmatism and the practice of far too many specialists, which was even worse than in our time, the Empirical school developed. These physicians advocated exact knowledge of medical tradition. According to them a good physician should have much experience and powers of observation. He should know the history of medicine and be able to think in a logical way in order to understand the real causes of a disease. The physician should help the patient step by step. The first thing was to introduce a healthy diet, the next step was the choice of the right therapy and remedies and only as a last resort, if there were no other possibilities, the patient should be operated on (cutting) or be treated by burning methods.

These empirical physicians had learned how to recognise the different signs of disease and already knew quite a bit about pharmacology and surgery. However, they could not understand natural relationships and were not interested in the possible underlying causes of disease. The most important thing to them was therapeutic success and they experimented with many different medications.

HEALTHCARE SERIES: HEALING IN THE 21ST CENTURY