Issues Related to Alternative Medicine

When I was aged around 17 (some 49 years ago), I began to suffer constant cold and sneezing. The running of the nose began soon after I got up from sleep in the morning every day. The discharge from the nose was watery and slimy.

In those days I was a college student and I had to take with me two, or, even three handkerchiefs to the class to deal with the discharge and also to muffle the harsh sounds in order to prevent disturbing the whole class. When I left college in the evening, all the three kerchiefs would be fully drenched.

As usual, I went to the prominent allopathic doctors in and around town in order to find the one who could cure me of this nasty disease. But no, they could only give me symptomatic relief. I took their medications, which included anti-histamine tablets, syrups and vitamin injections and x-rays. I was told I would have to live with the condition and take the medicines as long as the symptoms persist. An ear-nose-throat doctor said that my trouble came from a deviated sceptum of the nose. He punctured my facial bones through the nostrils to reach the antrum and sygmoid sinuses so that he could wash out the infection in those cavities. But the symptoms returned after a short time. Luckily, I decided that the ‘deviated sceptum’ need not be rectified and left his treatment without further surgery.

Not satisfied with the treatments so far, I went after other doctors and then changed to ayurveda and homeopathy. But the same story everywhere. None of these systems could rescue me.

Thus I spent some 15 years living with the allergic rhinitis and its companion symptoms like occasional fever, nausea, tiredness etc.

Then I accidentally met a retired civil-engineer-turned-natural therapist who advised me that my troubles were the result of very poor digestion and that all my symptoms would vanish if I took care of my stomach and the digestion.
Even though I was skeptic about the pronouncements of this simple-looking, yet authoritative-sounding old man, I decided to try his remedial measures for some time, because I was desperate about my condition.

The instructions this man gave me included some drastic changes in my diet, wet-packs around my stomach and chest at different times, fasting occasionally, cold-water enema once or twice daily, and spinal bath in the special portable bathtub designed by him and made in a local workshop out of tinned iron sheets. I took to these remedies in spite of the objections of the members of my family who were angry at my foolishness in adopting this ‘unorthodox’ way of dieting. But I persisted as I began to find relief by those methods.

The naturopath conducted once-weekly, free study classes (his treatment advice also was free) in a local college room, attended by many men and women with different problems. It was in those classes that I learned that the human body has the wonderful God-given capacity to heal itself and restore lost health. No synthetic, man-made drugs are needed to do the job. Only, you have to submit yourself to the natural way of living as would help maintain health. The same ways would also heal you of your diseases (whatever they may be) which arose because of your wrong ways of living and food intake. All disease arise out of your stomach, meaning the wrong kind of diets, which do not agree with the living principles of food intake, proper digestion and elimination. He said that there was only one cause for disease (any disease, at that), and that was TOXICITY of the body. When the body becomes polluted by toxic substances which could not be eliminated from the body various symptoms appear which the allopathic doctors call by different names in support of their “germ” theory. The allopathic system says that the body becomes diseased from the influence of outside harmful agents we call bacteria, virus and the like. But naturopathy says that the germs are the “result” and not the “cause” of disease. In an unpolluted body no bacteria or virus can live and cause disease.

There is ONE cause for disease; There is ONE remedy to restore health.

Even though the human body is a very, very complicated living organism, Its working can be controlled by the human being if he/she has the knowledge of how to go about it.

It is in this regard that the two sayings, along with many others, in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, written some 2500 years ago, gains much significance:

“You have made me wonderfully and fearfully” (Psalms 139:14);

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6).

Now, going back to my story, all these past 49 years, I have been able to keep my health satisfactorily, except once three years ago when a neglected long-standing upper tooth infection migrated to my brain and caused meningitis which, under the then circumstances, had to be treated in a hospital with antibiotics. But I blame it only on myself for ‘living with the problem’ in an irresponsible manner.

I believe Naturopathy follows God-established principles of healthy living in the human body. Even the wild animals, through their “Instinct”, follow, and do not deviate, from those God-established way of living for each and every one of them. Only man, ignorant and arrogant, chooses to live as he pleases.

Let us seek knowledge, and adhere to it, to gain health and happiness throughout our lives.