Nature Cure: Philosophy & Practice Based on the Unity of Disease & CureLindlahr, Henry
Philosophy
Nature Cure: Philosophy & Practice Based on the Unity of Disease & Cure
Lindlahr, Henry
Naturopathy
The greatest artist living cannot draw harmonious sounds from the
strings of the finest Stradivarius if the body of the violin is
filled with dust and rubbish. Likewise, the life force cannot act
perfectly in a body filled with morbid encumbrances.
The human organism is capable of liberating and manifesting daily a
limited quantity of vital force, just as a certain amount of capital
in the bank will yield a specified sum of interest in a given time.
If more than the available interest be withdrawn, the capital in the
bank will be decreased and gradually exhausted.
Similarly, if we spend more than our daily allowance of vital force,
"nervous bankruptcy," that is, nervous prostration or neurasthenia
will be the result.
It is the duty of the physician to regulate the expenditure of vital
force according to the income. He must stop all leaks and guard
against wastefulness.
Stimulation by Paralysis
This heading may seem paradoxical, but it is borne out by fact.
Stimulants are poison to the system. Few people realize that their
exhilarating and apparently tonic effects are produced by the
paralysis of an important part of the nervous system.
If, as we have learned, wholesome food and drink in themselves do
not contain and therefore cannot convey life force to the human
body, much less can this be accomplished by stimulants.
The human body has many correspondences with a watch. Both have a
motor or driving mechanism and an inhibitory or restraining
apparatus.
If it were not for the inhibiting balances, the wound watchspring
would run off and spend its force in a few moments. The expenditure
of the latent force in the wound spring must be regulated by the
inhibitory and balancing mechanism of the timepiece.
Similarly, the nervous system in the animal and human organism
consists of two main divisions: the motor or driving and the
inhibitory or restraining mechanisms.
The driving power is furnished by the sympathetic nerves and the
motor nerves. They convey the vital energies and nerve impulses to
the cells and organs of the body, thus initiating and regulating
their activities.
We found that the human body is capable of liberating in a given
time, say, in twenty-four hours, only a certain limited amount of
vital energy, just as the wound spring of the watch is capable of
liberating in a given time only a certain amount of kinetic energy.
As in the watch the force of the spring is controlled by the
regulating balances (the anchor), so in the body the expenditure of
vital energy must be regulated in such a manner that it is evenly
distributed over the entire running time. This is accomplished by
the inhibitory nervous system [the parasympathetics].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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