Nature Cure | Page 7

rightly understood and applied will do for medical
science what the law of gravitation has done for physics and astronomy,
and what the laws of chemical affinity have done for chemistry, they
will place medical science in the ranks of exact sciences. The
understanding and proper application of these truths will explain every
fact and phenomenon in the processes of health, disease and cure, and
will enable the student to reason from simple, natural laws and
principles to their logical effects. The "Regular" school of medicine, so
far, has endeavored to build a medical science on the observation of
"effects" and "experiences," but since one fundamental law of nature
may produce a million seemingly differing effects it becomes
self-evident that it is utterly impossible to found an exact science on
such uncertain and conflicting evidence.
The primary laws and principles once understood, it becomes easy to
reason from and to explain through them, the various phenomena
which they produce. Herein lie the merit and achievement of the Nature
Cure philosophy.
THE UPAS TREE OF DISEASE
EVIL IS NOT AN ACCIDENT, NOT AN ARBITRARY
PUNISHMENT, NOT ALWAYS AN "ERROR OF MORTAL MIND."
IT IS THE NATURAL AND INEVITABLE RESULT OF
VIOLATIONS OF NATURE'S LAWS. IT IS INSTRUCTIVE AND
CORRECTIVE IN PURPOSE, AND WILL REMAIN WITH US
ONLY AS LONG AS WE NEED ITS SALUTARY LESSONS.

Chapter I
What Is Nature Cure?
It is vastly more than a system of curing aches and pains; it is a
complete revolution in the art and science of living. It is the practical
realization and application of all that is good in natural science,
philosophy and religion. Like many another world-wide revolution and
reformation, it had its inception in Germany, the land of thinkers and
philosophers.
About seventy years ago this greatest and most beneficent of
reformation movements was inaugurated by Priessnitz in Grafenberg, a
small village in the Silesian mountains. The originator of Nature Cure
was a simple farmer, but he had a natural genius for the art of healing.
His pharmacopeia consisted not in poisonous pills and potions but in
plenty of exercise, fresh mountain air, water treatments in the cool,
sparkling brooks, and simple, wholesome country fare, consisting
largely of black bread, vegetables, and milk fresh from cows fed on
nutritious mountain grasses.
The results accomplished by these simple means were wonderful.
Before he died, a large sanitarium, filled with patients from all over the
world and from all stations of life, had grown up around his forest
home.
Among those who made the pilgrimage to Grafenberg to become
patients and students of this genial healer, the simple-minded
farmer-physician, were wealthy merchants, princes and doctors from all
parts of the world.
Rapidly the idea of drugless healing spread over Germany and over the
civilized world. In the Fatherland, Hahn the apothecary, Kuhne the
weaver, Rikli the manufacturer, Father Kneipp the priest, Lahmann the
doctor, and Turnvater Jahn, the founder of physical culture, became
enthusiastic pupils and followers of Priessnitz.

Each one of these men enlarged and enriched some special field of the
great realm of natural healing. Some elaborated the water cure and
natural dietetics, others invented various systems of manipulative
treatment, earth, air and light cures, magnetic healing, mental
therapeutics, curative gymnastics, etc., etc. Von Peckzely added the
Diagnosis from the Eye, which reveals not only the innermost secrets
of the human organism, but also Nature's ways and means of cure, and
the changes for better or for worse continually occurring in the body.
In this country, Dr. Trall of New York, Dr. Jackson of Danville, Dr.
Kellogg of Battle Creek, and others caught the infection and crossed
the ocean to become students of Priessnitz. The achievements of these
men in their respective fields of endeavor will stand as enduring
monuments to the eternal truths revealed by the genius of Nature Cure.
Quimby, the itinerant spiritualist and healer, became successful and
renowned by the application of the natural methods of cure. At first his
favorite methods were water, massage, magnetic and mental treatment.
Gradually he concentrated his efforts on metaphysical methods of cure,
and before he died, he evolved a complete system of magnetic and
mental therapeutics.
Quimby's teachings and methods were adopted by Mrs. Eddy, his most
enthusiastic pupil, and by her elaborated into Christian Science, the
latest and most successful of modern mental-healing cults.
Dr. Still of Kirksville, Missouri, made a valuable addition to natural
methods of treatment by the invention of Osteopathy, a system of
scientific manipulation of the bony structures, nerves and nerve centers,
muscles and ligaments. A later development of manipulative science is
Chiropractic, originated by Dr. Palmer of Davenport, Iowa. Thus the
simple pioneers of German Nature Cure, every one of them gifted by
Nature with the instinct and genius of the true healer, who is born,