Nature's cure

Principles and Practice of Nature Cure

  Nature Cures, not the Physician.

- Hippocrates

 

Nature cure is a constructive method of treatment which aims at removing the basic cause of

disease through the rational use of the elements freely available in nature. It is not only a system

of healing, but also a way of life, in tune with the internal vital forces or natural elements

comprising the human body. It is a complete revolution in the art and science of living.

Although the term ' naturopathy' is of relatively recent origin, the philosophical basis and several

of the methods of nature cure treatments are ancient. It was practised in ancient Egypt , Greece

and Rome . Hippocrates, the father of medicine ( 460-357 B.C.) strongly advocated it. India , it

appears, was much further advanced in older days in natural healing system than other

countries of the world.

 

There are references in India 's ancient sacred books about the extensive

use of nature's excellent healing agents such as air, earth, water and sun. The Great Baths of

the Indus Valley civilisation as discovered at Mohenjodaro in old Sind testifies to the use of water

for curative purposes in ancient India .

The modern methods of nature cure originated in Germany in 1822, when Vincent Priessnitz

established the first hydropathic establishment there. With his great success in water cure, the

idea of drugless healing spread throughout the civilised world and many medical practitioners

throughout the civilised world and many medical practitioners from America and other countries

became his enthusiastic students and disciples.

 

These students subsequently enlarged and

developed the various methods of natural healing in their own way. The whole mass of

knowledge was later collected under one name, Naturopathy. The credit for the name

Naturopathy goes to Dr. Benedict Lust ( 1872 - 1945), and hence he is called the Father of

Naturopathy.

Nature cure is based on the realisation that man is born healthy and strong and that he can stay

as such as living in accordance with the laws of nature. Even if born with some inherited

affliction, the individual can eliminate it by putting to the best use the natural agents of healing.

Fresh air, sunshine, a proper diet, exercise, scientific relaxation, constructive thinking and the

right mental attitude, along with prayer and meditation all play their part in keeping a sound mind

in a sound body.

 

Nature cure believes that disease is an abnormal condition of the body resulting from the

violation of the natural laws. Every such violation has repercussions on the human system in the

shape of lowered vitality, irregularities of the blood and lymph and the accumulation of waste

matter and toxins. Thus, through a faulty diet it is not the digestive system alone which is

adversely affected. When toxins accumulate, other organs such as the bowels, kidneys, skin and

lungs are overworked and cannot get rid of these harmful substances as quickly as they are

produced.

Besides this, mental and emotional disturbances cause imbalances of the vital electric field

within which cell metabolism takes place, producing toxins. When the soil of this electric filed is

undisturbed, disease-causing germs can live in it without multiplying or producing toxins. It is

only when it is disturbed or when the blood is polluted with toxic waste that the germs multiply

and become harmful.

 

Basic Principles

The whole philosophy and practice of nature cure is built on three basic principles. These

principles are based on the conclu sions reached from over a century of effective naturopathic

treatment of diseases in Germany , America and Great Britain . They have been tested and

proved over and over again by the results obtained.

 

The first and most basic principle of nature cure is that all forms of disease are due to the same

cause, namely, the accumulations of waste materials and bodily refuse in the system. These

waste materials in the healthy individual are removed from the system through the organs of

elimination. But in the diseased person, they are steadily piling up in the body through years of

faulty habits of living such as wrong feeding, improper care of the body and habits contributing to

enervation and nervous exhaustion such as worry, overwork and excesses of all kinds. It follows

from this basic principle that the only way to cure disease is to employ methods which will

enable the system to throw off these toxic accumulations. All natural treatments are actually

directed towards this end.

 

The second basic principle of nature cure is that all acute diseases such as fevers, colds,

inflammations, digestive disturbances and skin eruptions are nothing more than self-initiated

efforts on the part of the body to throw off the accumulated waste materials and that all chronic

diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, rheumatism, asthma, kidney disorders, are the results

of continued suppression of the acute diseases through harmful methods such as drugs,

vaccines, narcotics and gland extracts.

The third principle of nature cure is that the body contains an eleborate healing mechanism

which has the power to bring about a return to normal condition of health, provided right

methods are employed to enable it to do so. In other words, the power to cure disease lies within

the body itself and not in the hands of the doctor.