ON THE 
SELF CURABILITY 
OFJJ1E1IE. ON THE 
SELF CURABILITY 
OF DISEASE; 
OR, 
THE DIVINE ART OF HEALING ' 
AGAINST 
"the human art of healing;" 
OR, 
THE NATURAL CURE OF DISEASE 
AGAINST 
THE CUSTOMARY USE OF DRUGS. 
By R. K. NOYES, M. D., 
GRADUATE OF DARTMOUTH MEDICAL SCHOOL, MEMBER OF MASSACHUSETTS 
MEDICAL SOCIETY, LATE RESIDENT SURGEON TO 
BOSTON CITY HOSPITAL. 
i88o. Copyright, April 12, 18S0, by H. K. Noyes, 21. D. 
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY L. C. PARKER, LYNN, MASS. CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
Preface, 5 
Introduction, 7 
That the Title of Doctor of Medicine is of 
Little Significance, . . . . 11 
The Import of the Science of Medicine, . 12 
The Import of the "Art of Medicine," . 14 
The Baneful Drugs, 20 
That the Prescriber of Drugs is Unnecessary, 
and More Productive of Evil than of Good, 22 
Similarity of Diseases, 30 
That Disease is a Part of us, . . . 33 
The Sufficiency of God's Art to Dispose and 
Heal all Diseases, . . . . . 35 
The Physician's Duties, 46 
III PREFACE. 
I was formerly a dutiful adherent to a profession thought 
; to be dear, to one said to be the promoter of much good, 
and worthy of man's untiring endeavors. I began its study 
after seeing before me with perfect security those sciences 
upon which this so-called profession is built, and pursued 
it year after year with ardent hopes and lessening faith in 
the faCts and principles taught, till I have come to believe 
that this profession, this art, this misnamed knowledge of 
medicine, is none other than a practice of fundamentally 
fallacious principles, impotent of good, morally wrong, 
and bodily hurtful. 
My remarks are not against an imaginary foe, nor that 
which is but sometimes unproductive of good. That which 
is said in the course of this volume is applied with the great- 
est candor and justice to that which can but seldom be 
called other than a real and common enemy to mankind. 
I am aware of the reception this will receive at the hands 
of professional brethren : many will say, as others have 
said, "Much of this is a recognized truth." But to what 
end has it served any who have previously seen it thus and 
have not profited by practicing accordingly? How can I 
expeCt an immediate agreement and friendly recognition of 
sentiment when such a disparity of primary thought exists ? 
V vi 
PREFACE. 
For they believe in the potency and justness of human art, 
in the cure of disease, while I believe in God's art. 
Whatever may be attributed as the worth of this work, 
it will be at least found consistent with such truth as is re- 
vealed to us through the manifold examples of God's art, 
whether it be seen in the rose that blooms and fades, or in 
the sun that shines and is. 
The following fadts cannot fail to show the infiniteness 
of the power, wisdom and will of God to make and un- 
make all fit diseases ; and man's folly, inefficiency and pre- 
sumption in his attempt or wish to alter nature. INTRODUCTION. 
When we know that truth has a living existence, and is 
not sought in vain in any part of creation, and see men 
prize it above aught else, and be grieved at the hate it often 
engenders; and see men despise it, and dare not speak it, 
from fearing the loss of that praise which obsequiousness 
brings, and find ourselves persuaded to whatever beliefs we 
will, it is easy to be confirmed in a feeling that mankind 
has too little regard for truth, even where it pertains to 
things most sacred. Many men choose truth or falsehood 
with eagerness proportionate to the amount of pleasure they 
receive ; some are active in pursuits or practice in profes- 
sions, and adhere to doCtrines with a degree of tenacity 
correspondent to their respective lucre; others are held to 
dogmas and fallacious principles from the instillation of 
precepts through education and custom. 
Why it is that men of science who are constantly endeav- 
oring to gain and disseminate knowledge negleCt such a 
glorious opportunity of revealing truth as is offered them 
in the study of the structures and phenomena of the human 
body, and why it is that they are so zealous of truth and 
yet discountenance the most apparent and essential truth, 
will be presently considered. How it is that they are so 
unjust as to strive to rob us of that disciplinary virtue which 
the experience and observation of even our simplest souls 
would otherwise receive, and how it is that they encourage 
sin by promising a speedy cure of all diseases, will soon be 
vii viii 
INTRODUCTION. 
seen. An evidence that the customary use of drugs, the 
popular belief in human healing, and the falsity and con- 
ceit of the doctor of medicine, should not be an attempted 
substitute for nature, reason and truth in the cure of dis- 
ease, will herein be presented. What must we say when 
the most vital and important knowledge is withheld by phy- 
sicians from those to whom it is their sacred duty to give 
it? What can be more inexpedient than not to acknowl- 
edge with truth the competency of Nature to cure all cura- 
ble diseases? Can we, in justice to ourselves, unite with 
the defenders of " human healing," and sanction the practice 
of whatever manner of fraud, delusion and deception upon 
the weaknesses of our fellowmen, that their individual ex- 
periences, how erroneous soever, have shown them to have 
been destructive to pain and hasteners imaginarily to health ? 
That which, among the principles and practice of medi- 
cine, is not direCtly discordant to morality and manhood, 
can never be of sufficient virtue to warrant a misdirection 
of knowledge and encouragement of error where truth and 
wisdom should most abound. The amount of ignorance 
among the people concerning the nature of disease is not 
so amazing as is the misplaced confidence in the power of 
cure. Man, with unjustly accredited healing art, is be- 
lieved an oracle of wisdom and power who is the embodi- 
ment of a means of cure ; while God's art receives so slight 
a recognition as being the power that relieves, and is ever 
watchful for our good, that it seems like blasphemy and 
sacrilege. This popular error is, however, mainly mitigated, 
when we see medicine teachers throughout the world edu- 
cating men to those beliefs that are not only deserving of 
censure, but are direCtly derogatory to God. INTRODUCTION. 
ix 
If we are to advise and practice a noble conduct in dis- 
ease, we shall not be in the least disheartened from it when 
we see how great a degree of instability and uncertainty 
there has been and is, in every school of medicine, in every 
application of medicament, and in every popular tenet par- 
taking of credence in "human healing." 
We have but to recall the extreme fabulousness of Polyi- 
dus and his snake, and of Melampus and his goat, and the 
various errors with which primeval man has been justly 
charged, to see in what condition the "human healing art" 
was at first conceived. 
History has recorded the origin of "medicine" in the 
mythological deities. Tradition has been wonderfully well 
pleased to attribute to the impostures of Esculapius and 
Hypocrates that which it has been equally well pleased to 
call "medicine." 
That the remembrance of Hypocrates should become im- 
mortal from the utterance of such charlatanical pretences 
as were constituted in his claim to cure the most grave and 
melancholy diseases by the pulverized eye of an insedt, the 
tooth of a fox, the horn of a goat, the heart of a mouse, 
the blood of a white pup, or the bile of a turbulent heifer, 
is what I am quite unable to appreciate. 
We cannot consider Esculapius at a more contemptible 
distance for instituting a curative through the intervention 
of a snake, than Hahnemann for a promiscuous distribution 
of confediionated pilletts between the sick and their dis- 
eases. And it is incomparably more marvelous that for the 
last decade many of our most wealthy and supposedly in- 
telligent people have accredited to homoeopathic "placebos" 
that of health .they have enjoyed, than it is that Mesmer and X 
INTRODUCTION. 
Gassner, who, though they performed without drugs, were 
embraced by the nobility of their day. 
The ancient order of priesthood had a most mystifying 
and depressing efiedt on that knowledge which would have 
otherwise led man to contemplate the power of cure. 
We cannot find or imagine anything that so nearly re- 
sembles the freaks of a madman, as that which has been 
successively performed for a vague and delusive purpose, 
in the "heroic" operation of bleeding, in the almost unen- 
durable sweating, in the continuous and frigid bathing, in 
the unnatural narcotization, in the excessive alcoholic stim- 
ulation, and in the anti-chimerical alterative, purgative and 
tonic. THAT THE TITLE OF DOCTOR OF MEDICINE 
IS OF LITTLE SIGNIFICANCE. 
The title of doctor of medicine has everywhere been too 
unsuspectingly supposed to be significant of good. Such 
a significance would be undoubted, if it were true that the 
"doCtor of medicine" is possessed of a proper power to 
heal disease by the use of drugs ; or justified in impressing 
upon the people a belief that drugs are necessary to the 
cure of disease ; or honest and wise enough, through what 
ought to be his better instinCt and reason, to teach the true 
intent, source and relief of disease; but while all this is 
untrue, and their deeds are in direCt conformity to it, and 
their very existence in the hands of the multitude, they 
ought not only to receive a denial of such titular worth, but 
should be subjected to the most rigid censure. I am not 
advised why those men who receive the title of M. D. are 
more worthy of it than those by whom it is given : for an 
accurate experience has shown that the former do not more 
often teach the truth than the latter. Men who assume the 
title and guise of "doCtor" have their base and delusive 
teachings sanctioned, and are enabled to live in luxury and 
ease from the ill-gotten golden gains it bears them; but as 
, this is of no genuine worth to themselves or the world, 
what more does it signify than do our affeCted tears, joys, 
sighs, and imaginary possessions we fain would but ne'er 
can have ? Ought we to recognize those sayings as authori- 
ty, coming from the tongues of men who have either bought 
their titles with gold or embraced for hope of lucre what 
was at first given them in derision ? Can we give credit to 
those who have gained the doctor's title through the ac- 
quirement of that knowledge which may be justly charged 
as the duty of all men : namely, to know one's self? and 
11 12 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
particularly to those who do not so interpret God's work as 
exemplified in us as to teach us wisely ? This title of doftor 
of medicine is thus bestowed from man to man, serving to 
tickle his vanity, but rarely discovering its own conceit. 
Since the dodtor of medicines does not possess any unusual, 
exclusive or peculiar power of doing good, and does not 
a<St in accordance to reason and truth, it is unwise to con- 
tinue longer in the use of a title that serves only to license 
an oppressive practice of deception upon the sick commu- 
nity. 
THE IMPORT OF THE SCIENCE OF MEDICINE. 
Since the human mind is incompetent to fathom the pro- 
fundities of Nature, our knowledge of the healing of dis- 
ease will be forever so imperfect that it is foolish and puer- 
illy presumptuous to make such a vain and ostentatious 
pretence to it. It is as impossible to have a knowledge 
and understanding of healing as it is of the mysteries con- 
cerning our creation, life and death. To comprehend the 
visible and symtomatic aspects of an organ, in either health 
or disease, together with their partially mediate dependen- 
cies and probably usual consequences, does not acquaint us 
with the power that operates in us to a sufficient degree to 
justify us in an attempt, under any circumstance, to increase 
or diminish it. Such a knowledge of medicine is worse 
than potentially useless; for our observations among the 
incomparably delicate and marvelously perfect textures of 
the body have encouraged, through the vain ambition and 
avarice of man, an unwarrantable activity and boldness 
where should be seen expressions of awe and submission. OF DISEASE. 
13 
That part of the science of medicine with which man 
should be employed is near easy reach of all. Our proper 
power and capacity is related to the science and process of 
healing, as witness, recipient and doer: we witness all, 
receive much, and do little. Disease is properly contem- 
plated only as a natural phenomenon, such as is seen in 
health, conception, maturity and decay of living bodies: 
that is, the science of existence, or our respective experi- 
ences in observing the knowably necessary circumstances 
promotive of bodily conditions of comfort and discomfort. 
The truth of the above should not be lessened under what- 
soever manner of complex peculiarity and severity of bodily 
condition. The best that can be done in any case is to be- 
hold the faCt, submit ourselves with fortitude and patience, 
receive our proper teachings, and aid in the performance 
of aCts dictated by instinCt, sense, and simple reason. Yet 
we must remember, that however accurate our observation, 
perfeCt and profitable our knowledge, or true to instinCt, 
sense and reason, we are still as truly devoid of power to 
heal as it is certain that any attempt thereat is but gttided 
by empirical conjecttire. And no matter what immediately 
apparent or asserted comfort is gained thereby, be assured 
it is not permanently real, wise or just. 14 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
THE IMPORT OF THE "ART OF MEDICINE." 
The " art of medicine " is a sacrilegious claim to do by 
means of so-called medicinal solids, liquids, and ethers, 
that which none save the unknowable and incomprehensi- 
ble Almighty is good, constant, perfect, wise, willing and 
powerful enough to do for us, even, it would seem, infinitely 
beyond our sufficient adoration and gratitude. How can 
any man of right reason continue to assert his desire and 
endeavors to assist, check or alter Nature, when it is known 
that any power that needs or admits such interference can- 
not be from God? Instindi, reason, wisdom and truth are 
the dictates of Nature ; and lead us to aCt in conformity 
thereto; but we cannot in any sense, without derogating 
God, say this is assistance to Nature. Whoever, therefore, 
under any circumstances, is moved by fear, ingratitude, 
folly, distrust, and discontent, rejects Nature astheir guide ; 
and insomuch as all of these are eagerly embraced by be- 
lievers in a power of human healing, it is plainly seen that 
the "art of medicine" is far from being in the best harmony 
with Nature. 
In past ages much has been claimed for this fictitious 
"art." Its professors at present pretend to aid Nature in 
healing disease ; and seek its accomplishment by removing 
appurtenances deemed unfavorable, and by supplying defi- 
ciencies seemingly useful or absolutely necessary. Since 
this cannot be done without a presuming dictation to God, 
I conceive this bold profession and performance an incom- 
parable wickedness,-a proceeding contrary to God's art,- 
a bartering of evil with credulous man. Men, ostensive 
of good, dispense for money and fame, erroneous teachings, 
imaginary assistance, temporary ease and permanent harm. OF DISEASE. 
15 
An instinctive and intuitive knowledge of a necessity of 
a reliance in a higher than human power, together with ig- 
norance and discontent, led men to various sources of re- 
lief of disease from earliest existence. The origin and 
foundation of this present custom was most fallacious and 
unreasonable. The cause of disease was at first attributed 
to bodily ill conduct; its disappearance awaited ; and future 
escape hoped for in improved living. It was soon discov- 
ered that disease operated in them notwithstanding the 
utmost care. They now no longer sought or attended such 
avoidances : supposing disease to result from errors of omis- 
sion ; its disappearance or cure from non-use (arising from 
the natural non-desire and non-requirements of the body in 
disease) of ordinary food, drink and habits; and the use of 
substances as food and drink, with instinctive bodily and 
mental attitudes not taken in health. With this unfortunate 
belief they resorted for a time, in like diseases, to applica- 
tion of the same food, drink and attitudes that had previ- 
ously been followed by recovery. Yet as death sometimes 
came even with the most careful observance of this belief, 
they were induced to try new substances expeCtedly bene- 
* ficial in sickness, but were rewarded with only the same 
proportion of recoveries and deaths. They now charged 
death to some error of omission, and continued to advise, 
warn, and enaCt; and exchange old for new substances to 
similar purposes and results : at first selecting the more pal- 
ateable vegetables, then pleasing and distasteful roots, trees, 
shrubs, plants and ores, many of which were usually well 
endured, and recoveries still ensued, leading them to infer 
that such and such procedures had been potent in bringing 
favorable terminations. Substances administered became 
of reputed healing efficacy from having been followed in 
disease, the nature of which was benign and of rapid re- 
covery, by perfeCt and certain health ; from a faith founded 
on disgusting and ridiculous fables ; and from casual coin- 
cidence of human aCt with divine diction. After thus es- 16 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
tablishing a creed and custom, it was met by avarice and 
fame and called art. Before man became related to man's 
infirmities by selfish motives, " human healing" was believed 
and practiced somewhat like it is to-day by non-profession- 
als. In the present century all men have had or heard 
experience in sickness, and endeavor in a great degree to 
profit and practice by it. So in primitive times, all who 
claimed experience, and few did not, were called on to 
show their judgment in case of sickness. 
Experience is a valuable and inevitable acquisition; but 
sadly useless and injurious when based on error. Experi- 
ence has ever been the authority for the justification of 
''medicine." But what can the experience of ignorance 
and error, superstition and idolatry, fame and avarice, be 
worth as our guidance in disease? It had ever been thus 
in all nations, till superstition and idolatry were partially 
rescued by sense and reason, when fame and avarice con- 
tinued the chase, ever conscious of error and eager of 
truth, though lethargic in one and blind to both, and 
never asking of justice or necessity. It may be said our 
individual experiences example and warrant " human heal- 
ing,"-"When ill I take something and feel better." This 
immediate conscious relief is, unless it be some delusive 
stimulant or sedative, simply the sense of satisfaction that 
often follows or accompanies the performance of any in- 
stinctive, impulsive or customary aCt. The human char- 
acteristics of instinCt and instinctive reason are the true 
and powerful instructors of all important aCts and pleasures 
of life ; as well as being the "world's best schoolmaster" ; 
while all other knowledge is compartively superficial and 
vain, adding little to our necessities. InstinCt and reason 
will undoubtedly serve us at all times; but what has been 
too often called instinCt or instinctive reasoning in man is 
merely the force of custom. It is custom that has led men 
and nations to the performance of strange and varied aCts, 
to the belief of peculiar sentiments, and to particular modes OF DISEASE 
17 
of living; it is custom that associates one idea or line of 
thought with another; it is custom that is the san6tioner of 
many superfluities of life; and it is custom that executes 
the almost unconscious and automatic application of some 
common or arbitrary mode of treatment in disease. When 
we separate Nature and truth from custom, the breach is 
wide between us and medicine. There are few who will 
believe what is desired to be false. Experience in medi- 
cine has ever been a fruitful source of error; for whenever 
inconsistencies have met with reason, a reliance has been 
placed in experience; and what is inferred or concluded 
therefrom must be necessarily fallacious. Rules advanced 
without consulting Nature, reason and truth, and enabled 
by despotic authority, are justly liable to dispute and alter- 
ation. Men have allowed experience, custom and practice 
to make rules, rather than Nature, reason and truth. 
It has been said that all the abuse of the world is from fear 
of professing ignorance, and our bounden duty to accept 
whatever we cannot confute. And I think much abuse has 
been imposed upon mankind in the guise of "medicine;" 
for its teachers are of necessity unable to confess ignorance 
concerning the supposed and many times intendedly im- 
plied mysteries of their trade; and the people cn masse are 
obliged and eager to embrace what they cannot dispute. 
Man's mysticism in religion, law and medicine is said to 
have served its evil purpose well. In " medicine " it has 
been the means of alluring the multitude into delusion. 
It has ever been the care of certain men to defend 
and support a "human art of healing." If we could at- 
tribute any divinely justifiable, real, or specific curative 
power to drugs, the " art of medicine" would be sustained 
by its own intrinsic worth; but in reality we cannot thus 
contemplate it; nor believe the "art" has been, is, or ever 
can be self supporting. All schemes and theories concern- 
ing a "human art of healing" have served no other useful 
end than to show us its worthlessness and false existence. 18 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
This vainly ostentatious art has for an ally the sandtiori 
and patronage of the multitude, together with armies of 
quacks and imposters, from the most vile, sinful and ignor- 
ant to the popular literate pretender; the more modest and 
respectable of the latter of whom are ample creed and 
precedence for the base and connivant manoeuvers of the 
charlatanical rogue, while their own simple presence, 
through custom, insures them a recognition among the 
people. 
Notwithstanding custom has long since been an author- 
ity for the use of drugs in the cure of disease, it is no man- 
ner of evidence that such a practice is good, or that it will 
not soon become obsolete, and our confidence and gratitude 
thereafter placed in an one reasonable and best. 
Man has endeavored to imitate, hasten, feign and favor 
Nature, in her many undertakings and phenomena of our 
bodies. And has sinned direddy against God by adopting 
and preserving a mystical presence, designed to veil for 
personal and unworthy ends that knowledge which all men 
have easy capacity to receive, in imitation of the mysteries 
of His concerning those things we cannot know. 
While their zeal has not remitted from such adherences, 
they have been distracted with creeds and seCts; and it 
would seem that their wrangling and contention has been 
instigated and conducted solely through the spirit of vanity 
and avarice, and desire of precedence or claim to note and 
fame, and with no more justice, humanity, or reason, than 
had those cruel wars between ancient factions, where also 
human blood was the price of the same. Man thus rejects 
and misinterprets God's design and execution of disease. 
I recognize a science of health, or a bodily condition of 
comfort; a science of disease, or a bodily condition of dis- 
comfort ; a science of morals, and a science of substances ; 
all of which is obtained through instinct, sense and reason. 
But I absolutely deny the existence of a human science, or 
art of healing; implying a -practical, wise and just ap- OF DISEASE. 
19 
■plication of knowledge and power. The science of natural 
•or artificial things or substances can never be so applied or 
allied to the science of disease as to warrant such applica- 
tion or alliance being called art in the sense in which it is 
generally received : and in no sense, unless our simple and 
ordinary bodily and mental daily adts are to be regarded 
as such ; thereby so interpreting Nature as to entail on our- 
selves the honor of being instrumental in healing disease. 
Hygiene is said to pertain to that branch of the "medical 
art" devoted to the preservation of health. If this be true 
or of any significance whatever, it must be said that all of 
us are constantly enabling and being adted upon by the 
"medical art;" since every mental or muscular adt or per- 
formance which greatly favors our corporal development, 
sustenance and health, every filament that forms our 
strudture, and that ever present instindtive power and desire 
to preserve our bodies and be clean, together with all the 
happy business or social alliances of life that minister to 
our comfort, content and health, are means wherein is ex- 
hibited the execution of hygiene, or "medical art." This 
being a necessary and natural capacity of man, it is found 
incompatible with the utterly unnatural diredtion and usage 
of a "human medical art." The inherent desire of self- 
preservation is said by many men to have been the author- 
itative suggester of the "art of human healing." While 
this may not be untrue, it is leaving us in our sickness, 
nevertheless, to the guidance of human imagination and 
instindt uncorrected by reason; for any action responding 
to the imagination is impulsive, and aims at immediate 
efledts; while those responding to reason are deliberate, 
and aim at truth and good, however long or circuitous be 
its path; the former instances the encouraged impatience 
and credulity of the physician, while the latter illumines 
an incessant faith in Nature. The supposed efficiency of 
the "medical art" to adt in harmony with Nature in the 
cure of disease, is disproven in the unnaturalness of any 20 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
human aCt that debars, by lessening religious faith, forti- 
tude and valor, the free and continuous exercise of instinCt, 
sense and reason. This is direCtly and indireCUy regarded 
by our Creator as being of the utmost importance to com- 
fort, preservation in health, and cure in disease ; and it is 
therefore to be admitted that all are in possession of the 
requisite and necessary powers of health. 
THE BANEFUL DRUGS. 
A belief that drugs are unnecessary, useless and harm- 
ful to the human organism, is shown in the following incon- 
testible faCts. That there does not exist a solid, liquid 
or gassous substance, as advertised and offered for sale 
as being potentially and positively useful and unavoida- 
bly necessary in disease, that possesses any specific or 
non-specific healing properties; and that many reputed 
medicinal drugs and substances are ineffectual as a cure, 
and indireCtly harmless to the system, while others are 
dangerously injurious and destructive of life, cannot be de- 
nied. That humanity in sickness receive temporary ease, 
satisfaction, and health, after the partaking of things of 
such like repute, I do not deny. But whence comes all 
this, and what is its significance and justification? The 
temporary ease is obtained through the agency of sub- 
stances containing hyponotic and narcotic powers. The 
sense of satisfaction comes as a mental phenomenon from 
that instindive and customary attempt and desire to preserve 
our bodies from danger. The health is from Nature. To 
thus accredit man's invention with what is Nature's is surely 
significant of sin. OF DISEASE. 
21 
To estimate the great positive evil and little real good 
that has come from the invention and use of the anaesthetic 
agent is a difficult task; but to believe that the use of this 
agent is far from being warrantable is very easy. It is 
most commonly employed in cases where avoidance is 
better; and not very uncommonly employed where avoid- 
, ance of the occasion is better. And if men would under- 
stand Nature and themselves aright, they would in no 
instance submit to its application. Mankind is susceptible 
to a degree of virtue capable of scorning its use under all 
circumstances ; and most certainly would attain to that vir- 
tue could all such inventions be as if they had never been. 
It may be justly averred that opium and all hypnotic and 
narcotic substances have been productive of very great 
damage to our race. Whenever resorted to they enslave 
our brain and nerve, weaken our willing bodies, and entail 
on us a sinful, sickly progeny. That the poppy exists and 
yields us a morphiate alkaloid is no more properly an argu- 
ment for the justification of its use to produce sleep and 
annul pain than does the existence of the coniuni macula- 
turn authorize its extreme and compulsory human ingestion. 
Intoxicative stimulants are taken by many in the name 
of medicine. But just experience has demonstrated that 
there is no advantage gained from the administering of 
alcoholic stimulants in bodily weakness ; and that any tem- 
porary stimulative increase of strength is ever more of an 
apparent than of a real usefulness; for it comes from a 
body whose powers after the artificial exacerbation are 
more wasted than before. There is no reasonable argu- 
ment that can justify their so-called medicinal application. 
I am convinced that the supposed nerve tonics are pro- 
motive of unhappiness, weakness, and premature death; 
and that all substances believed to alter or diredt for the 
better those tissues of the body that are diseased, are con- 
trary to Nature and creative of evil. 
To advise or encourage in sickness or health the inges- 22 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
tion of substances which sense, instinCt and reason rejeCt, 
is direCt abuse, censure and sin against ourselves and God. 
The insensible gradations of nervo-moral impairment 
arising from the primary indulgencies of anaesthesia, ine- 
briation, or narcotization, do neither palliate its madness nor 
certainness of utter destruction if oft repeated. A single 
voluntary submittance to that which is unnecessary and 
knowingly debasing is the initiatory step to nervo-physical 
enslavement. 
If we will but preserve without abuse our instinCt, sense 
and reason, there will be nothing lacking for our guide 
and safety in either health or disease. Our inferior senses 
do oft remit and cease, while the superior one of reason 
may yet continue ; but should our sense of reason also 
cease, there is yet remaining to the welfare of our body 
that same power by which our breath and spirit are held 
within us. What can be more delusive and enslaving than 
a feeling that we have not within us every resource of our 
nature? Can we with willingness intrust our bodies in 
their greatest weaknesses to the ignorance and inconsist- 
ency of men when we know that the power of God is per- 
fectly at work at all times within them ? 
THAT THE PRESCRIBER OF DRUGS IS UN- 
NECESSARY, AND MORE PRODUCTIVE 
OF EVIL THAN OF GOOD. 
It is a prevalent belief that physicians with physic, and 
surgeons with knives, are necessary to mankind to ensure 
an easy and pleasing promotion through mediate to remote 
existence ; but such a necessity may as readily be disproven 
as it is truthful to assert our assurance that they have many 
times woefully misdone. OF DISEASE. 
23 
Any educated physician or surgeon, recognized by the 
people and a legally established medical society, will tell 
us without hesitation or doubt that all ignorant persons un- 
lawfully calling themselves "doctor," or pretending to do 
in disease by the use of drugs that which they cannot and 
do not perform, are quacks and imposters, incompetent of 
. good and productive of ill. Many others will say the same. 
To whom should this charge be directed? Should it be to 
"dodtor" "fortune-teller," "manipulator," "spiritualistic," 
"mesmeric," "magnetic," " Indian-herb," "apothecary," 
"empirical," "eclectic," "botanic," "expectant," "hydro- 
pathic," "homoeopathic," or "regular"? Who of these can 
justly escape? That knavish healers do exist, none will 
gainsay. That all professors of healing are more or less 
crooked and pretentious is plainly apparent# The follow- 
ing will serve to show the identifying characteristics of the 
ignorant and crafty charlatan, and the learned surgeon. 
DoCtors of medicine of whatever rank, degree, or repute, 
have the common incentives of avarice and fame. Avarice 
is the sole aim and end of the meaner sort, while honor 
and good, and right, are rarely heartily thought of. Ava- 
rice with all others is indireCtly the sole aim and end : some 
are engrossed with an undue ambition for fame, knowing 
that it will add to their now abundant store of riches ; many 
are apparently striving for the entailment of good upon hu- 
manity ; but when what is supposed to be such is forced into 
view, they stare it with amazement and cherish the darling 
hope of the gold it will bring. They all claim to be in- 
strumental in assisting Nature in the cure of disease, by 
supplying deficiencies in power and structure of the various 
organs and parts of the body, through the agency of solid, 
liquid or gasseous substances, or by some vital and mys- 
terious influence. They all employ similar means to ac- 
quaint their patrons of a readiness to serve. The most 
universal mode is by direCt and indirect printed communi- 
cation, a nimble use of the tongue, together with innumer- 24 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
able significant gestures, and expressions of qualification 
of their worth, wisdom and superiority. We do not expeCt 
to find in a novice or ignoramus accomplished graces, art- 
ful insinuations, affirmo-negative acquiescences, clever apol- 
ogies, pertinent quotations, oracular utterances, facial 
expressions of semi-mystical evasiveness, medical treatises, 
scientific theses, beautifully ingenious preceptive speeches, 
chemico-physiological knowledge of drugs, superfluous 
display of unappurtenacious conduct, and semi-public ma- 
noeuverous demonstrations : neither do we often see the 
literate professional gentleman harangue in a public thor- 
oughfare, or appear with bold and pretentious newspaper 
columns of self-said praise, or secretly bid for occasion to 
perform a common but heinous crime. Their difference is 
in degree and not in kind. 
Mankind is far more desirous of truth than of falsehood, 
and is ever led and held to the one or the other. Circum- 
stances are at times such as impel us to embrace error under 
the guise and conviction of truth. There is no doubt in 
the minds of many men of the nature and course of super- 
stition. There is no doubt in the minds of candid medical 
men that too great a faith and credulity exists among the 
people in the power of drugs to cure diseases. And there 
is no doubt in my mind that a vast majority of "doctors" 
are as firmly imbued with an erroneous and exaggerated 
faith and confidence in their power and skill to heal with 
drugs as are the people. But why and how does this ob- 
tain? We have seen how the "art of medicine" began, 
and what has always been its motive and support. And 
when we observe how jealously and almost instinctively 
we adhere to, and transmit from age to age, religious, 
moral and political principles ; and remember that the same 
asserted faith in human healing, and the same code of 
professional conduCt, is taught to-day as was delivered by 
Hypocrates, we shall have at least retraced the origin of 
our present painful relation to it to remote times. Although OF DISEASE. 
25 
a number of the aphorisms of Hypocrates have been pre- 
served till now, many were soon rejected as being fraught 
with nonsense. It is supposed that Hypocrates received 
his knowledge and precepts of healing from Esculapius. 
Esculapius received his from the god Apollo ; and held that 
most diseases came from the gods, and consequently em- 
ployed the intervention of other gods for their expulsion. 
He is now universally acknowledged to have been an im- 
poster. The identity of Esculapius and Hypocrates with 
the dodtor of the present day is in the use of a simple me- 
chanical principle, a few vegetable substances, a code of 
professional ethics, and a belief, pretended or otherwise, in 
human healing. What is the import of these hereditary 
appurtenances? The mechanical supports used by them 
in surgery is none other than is suggested by our simplest 
instindt and reason; their "vegetable healing substances" 
have now an entirely different use ; their code of laws con- 
cerning condudt was common courtesy ; and their belief in 
human healing was inexcusably erroneous. 
It is needless to enumerate all the cruel and absurd cura- 
tives that have been in vogue since the time of these men : 
a few of the most unfortunate will, however, be related. 
Since pain and its awe is God's golden rod by which man- 
kind is kept in sway, and since it has ever been the boast, 
care and purpose of the physician and surgeon to annul 
pain, it is evident that their desire to frustrate an intent of 
4 Nature has been a prodigious evil. A theory concerning 
pain has been the strongest instrument in the hands of the- 
ologians and others to convert mankind to goodness; and 
if it has been serviceable to them as a means of perpetu- 
ating good to men preparatory to a "future state," then cor- 
poral pain was designed and is needful to the serving of 
very importamt ends, and should not under any circum- 
stances be rudely mitigated by man. As the morals of 
man are degraded by whatever obtunds that perfect type 
of pain, conscience, so is his body abused by whatever 26 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
mars its external sensibility. I believe that the theologian 
and physician, whether they preach the terrors of a possi- 
ble pain or benumb its actuality, produce a disennoblement 
of man. Theologians, and physicians, and teachers, have 
only a rightful power to warn, instruct, persuade and ad- 
vise from temporary and permanent earthly discomfort 
and torture. It is Highly held criminal to take human life ; 
for it curtails earthly existence contrary to God's will. 
It is claimed that "doctors" prolong life : if this be true, it 
is unwarrantable ; for it is tarrying here what the author- 
ity of Nature desires elsewhere. And I believe the nature 
of the adt of shortening and prolonging life to be the same ; 
and both are accounted equally criminal in the eyes of 
God, and should be so in man's. Moreover it is penally 
wicked to inflidt unnecessarily augmented suffering; and 
since human life cannot be thus prolonged without it, such 
doctoral adt is evil. Divine and human laws mark the 
widest distinction between necessary and unnecessary suf- 
fering. There is no bodily condition bordering immediate 
dissolution, amenable to respite how short soever, that docs 
not endure unnecessary -pain thereby. There is no painful 
bodily condition wide from death, robbed and wronged by 
drugs, that docs not entail upon itself undue evil. 
We are groaning under the slavery of drugs and doc- 
tors. We are forgetting the power of God, and fast losing 
our faith and fortitude, and our manhood will soon be going ; 
yet we seek not to escape it by carefully shunning the far, 
and facing bravely the near, but eagerly resort to dodtoral 
means, and receive that which sent us thither, - fear, pain 
and ignorance. Why do we not serve our God with the 
same zeal and valor as our country? It is a fitter place to 
show our fortitude and endurance on a bed of sickness 
than in battle. The very existence of "dodtors" vainly 
endeavoring to veil shortcomings, encourage and sandtion 
these imbecile qualities in man. What can give freer 
license to folly, self-indulgence, excess, and disease, than OF DISEASE. 
27 
"doctors"? There is no need of care, moderation and 
self-denial, for to contract disease is to be cured by the 
"dodtor." Here, too, we find "dodtors" such an incom- 
parable evil as could not be augmented were they infallible ; 
for we have faith in human healing power. The amount 
of human happiness would be far greater had the dodtor 
of drugs never been instituted, for at no time is he neces- 
sary or admissible. All the assistance required by man, 
in whatsoever calamity, may easily be tendered by persons 
of such an average judgment and experience as would 
have otherwise existed. No human relationship is known 
or imagined where greater injustice is exhibited than be- 
tween the human healer and mankind. Where is there a 
more powerful teacher of redtitude and justice than Nature 
herself? Who can discover true justice sooner than Na- 
ture? And since it is from Nature that right receives its 
existence, with what is it more intimate than she? To say, 
then, that the relation of man and man, as is seen between 
physicians and their prey, is right, is to deny all this. How 
much greater and stronger would be our sympathy and 
affedtion for sick and suffering humanity were its fullest 
capacity for valor, goodness and fortitude taught and en- 
couraged ! It would be as truly impossible and inconsistent 
with our nature to love mankind were it not subjedt to suf- 
fering, as it is plain and certain that our care, defference, 
gentleness and love is averted or diminished towards it 
whenever or however the pangs of mind or body are be- 
numbed except by Nature. It is quite unnecessary to 
enumerate the many examples of evil arising from the so- 
called medicimental relief of suffering. It is easy to see 
the beneficial effedts upon a world of humanity as firmly 
convinced of the utter inability to obtain true comfort from 
earthly power as are philosophers ; and upon all who would 
but study and contemplate man and Nature aright. Men 
would then see God's operations on the diseases and man- 
glings of man, and would here be as strongly impressed 28 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
with a conviction of His wisdom, power and goodness as 
anywhere else. They would then be masters of their own 
bodies, enjoy perfeCt freedom of the spirit of good, find 
true pleasure in moderation, and learn to convert pain into 
happiness. They would then shun disease with more wise 
vigilance, and meet calamity with traits of virtue and no- 
bleness now seen in few; and the approach of death would 
at last be calmly and welcomely greeted. 
There is so much conjecture and uncertainty amongst 
doCtors, no two acting or thinking alike, that mankind is 
ever in agony of suspense to seek and discover if all possi- 
ble has been done and all to purpose. That tranquility of 
mind arising from an utter reliance in Nature and truth is 
a noble contrast to that painful agitation seen in those who 
are servile to the disability, doubts, and uncertainties of 
human healing. There is no art, science or handicraft 
in existence, truly or falsely requiring or admitting ratioci- 
nation, where more folly and evil has been exhibited than 
in "medicine." The custom of "doCtoring" is a mere relic 
of superstition and barbarism; for the pretended power of 
our doCtors to foresee, judge, and aCt concerning disease, 
from an experience based on conclusions derived from prem- 
ises, one of which at least is erroneous, does not differ 
from that of the diviners and magicians of old who first 
performed and practiced it. The present false worship of 
medicine is essentially the same as that of the people of 
the fourteenth century, who assembled on the banks of the 
Rhine, on particular days, for the purpose of curing their 
afflictions, or preserving themselves from danger, misfor- 
tune, accident, disease, and death, for the rest of the year, 
by praying and bathing at its waters; and other supersti- 
tious attributes of the power of cure. I believe that that 
part of medicine and surgery that involves a belief in a 
healing potency of drugs, or pretention and attempt to cure 
disease by the use thereof, or such a part as is commonly 
considered by the "doCtors" and the people, is properly OF DISEASE. 
29 
classed with spiritualism, magnetism, fortune-telling, sooth- 
saying, sorcery, alchemy, massage, and the like; and in 
a few years will be viewed with a similar aversion and 
contempt. For they are allied by history, and their co- 
existence has been universal, and have all been alike rec- 
ognized by nobility and custom, and have all served an 
evil end. ''Doctors" are as absurd and impracticable as 
were those men of Arabia who claimed to calm the tem- 
pest, stay the raging of the waters and the rigor of the 
weather, and cure and prevent all manner of diseases, and 
expel evil spirits. 
It must be a sign of human degeneracy when we so far 
lack confidence in Nature as not to intrust our bodies to Her 
both in sickness and in health. Men must be sadly ignor- 
ant and incapable of appreciating God's art who resort to 
" human healing." Can any man believe in a living Nature ? 
can any man believe in his own existence ? can any man 
believe in the universe, and witness the action of the ele- 
ments, in land, sea and space, the permanency and splen- 
dor of planets, the power and vividness of lightning, the 
noble grandeur and magnitude of ocean, and the marvel- 
ous beauty and perfedtness of earthly nature? can any man 
see the form and decay of man, know the inimitable pro- 
cess of ovulation, fecundation, germination, development 
and sustenance of living bodies, and enjoy the pleasing con- 
sciousness of the inexplicable motions and phenomena of 
his own mind and body, and for an instant feel and believe 
that human hands can, or ought to, interfere in disease, 
when all these important and apparently difficult things 
have been perfectly executed by Her? 30 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
SIMILARITY OF DISEASES. 
Those bodily conditions afleCted in their comfort and 
pleasurable working are called disease. The essential 
identifying characteristic of disease is in the degree of 
bodily discomfort and nearness to death ; and in the con- 
sideration of the immediate and remote causes, various 
concurrent symptoms, and primary and secondary effects. 
That which death produces is not influenced by its mode. 
The inherent qualities of pain are not altered by whatso- 
ever manner of excitation. There are numerous occur- 
rences that move us from the line of health. Those 
powerful non-aCtive agencies, deleterious or wholesome 
and useful, within or without the body, may not necessa- 
rily effect disease. Those powerful adtive agencies, good 
or ill, within or without the body, may effeCt disease. It 
matters not what the influences and circumstances are that 
render the body or its parts more or less susceptible to 
pleasing and painful processes of structural alteration. All 
processes of bodily structural alteration are performed by 
the same power and yield a similarity of results. All 
deviations from conditions of comfort present certain symp- 
toms in common, in a greater or less degree, with a marked 
identity. There is no special or exact knowledge of hu- 
man receptivity of disease; nor specific and definite ap- 
plication of the word disease. The word refers to all real 
and fictitious discomforts of mind and body, together with 
all disintegrations of bodily structure, and painful and un- 
becoming passions. So that when we daily observe those 
who are not at ease from some cause, there are few remain- 
ing. There are those who are truly and those who are 
falsely ill at ease. True disease is conscious and painfully 
apparent to its victim; and implies structural or organic 
degeneration or alteration. Bodily structural alteration OF DISEASE. 
31 
and degeneration may exist unwittingly or without ado, or 
begetting disease. Disease is unnecessarily permitted and 
entertained, imagined and erroneously believed to be pres- 
ent, or of possible future existence. We cannot here say 
that ignorance or inaccuracy of judgment or reason is dis- 
ease. The use of the word disease cannot be confined 
to signify structural lesions, and when not, its meaning be- 
comes lessened. 
The human body is an organ ; composed of semi-volun- 
tary organs* ; vitalized by universal and incomprehensible 
power. There are the organs of procreation and suste- 
nance, locomotion and labor, thought, passion and protec- 
tion, circulation and respiration, absorption and excretion. 
There are the organs of brain, heart, blood and lung, 
sight, hearing and smell, tongue, tooth, throat and touch, 
gland, skin and membrane, bone, joint, nail and hair, mus- 
cle and ligament. There are the cellular organs, com- 
prising bone, muscle and fat, joint, tooth, nail and hair, 
ligament and tendon, kidney and pancreas, lung, liver and 
spleen, brain, nerve and spine. There are the corpuscular 
organs, comprising the blood, mucus and serum. There 
are the ep'theleal organs, comprising the skin, cells and 
membrane. There are the porous organs, comprising the 
skin, cells and membrane. There is much interstitial 
granular and amorphous organic matter. Thus we see 
how the human body is made up in every part of innumer- 
able minute organs. We have seen that disease is a pain- 
ful organic or structural change or alteration. We know 
* I do not recognize the usual distinction between voluntary and in- 
voluntary organs. The will is only in degree at variance with bodily 
acts and processes. The limitation of control is here seen. Voluntary 
mental and muscular force may be continued for a long time; and if 
continued will involuntarily cease. The mind and muscle may be will- 
fully inactive for a time, but will soon become involuntarily active. The 
activity of the heart and lungs may be suspended for a short time. The 
passions may be limitedly controlled or influenced, and consequently 
every cellular organic act. 32 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
that all human organs are developed by a common power; 
sustained by the same vascular source, and presided over 
by the same nervous controlling center. It must then be 
true and apparent that all painful processes of degenera- 
tion and decay are subject to like duly proportionate influ- 
ences, and are markedly identical. It matters not whether 
the organic lesion be visible, palpable, or otherwise; since 
they all present such perfect, common and essential like- 
ness of phenomena throughout their course from origin to 
recovery or death. It may be a body or any of its mem- 
bers transfixed with something foreign, or a body surcharged 
with invisible and impalpable zymotic germs* ; a vital tem- 
porary waning of organic function from profound shock, 
or an utter exhaustion from excessive and continuous 
fatigue ; an abrasion of the osutri, or a roughened cardiac 
valve ; an obstructed or " abnormal " circulation in a mucous 
or serous membrane, with its attendant flexion and exuda- 
tion ; or an occlusion or rupture of a large terminal artery, 
followed by gangrene, exfoliation, and sloughing of the 
parts ; an actively or passively congested and swollen liver 
from any cause (or any of the viscera likewise), or a similar 
condition of a visible organ, member or part; a malformed, 
diseased or disabled member, from germinary inefficiency, 
circumstance or accident, requiring or admitting every 
power of Nature for alleviation and customary use, or 
tetanus, epilepsy, or other neuroses with uncommon or 
painful aCtion, dependent on a scarcity of organs, or de- 
fective growth, arrangement, power, or susceptibility of 
some ; an excessive, defective or morbid activity of the 
cerebral cells, or the unusual and painful contortions of 
the womb diseased or dislocated; an obstruction of the 
caecum, or entegumental pores. All forms of organic 
*The usual line of distinction between those lesions of the body 
termed "medical" and "surgical" is mysticism, pretence, ignorance, 
avarice and fame. OF DISEASE. 
33 
cellular proliferation, degeneration or alteration, are at- 
tended with a similarity of phenomena. 
A practical recognition of the above would be to im- 
prove and simplify the nomenclature of diseases, and afford 
a more accurate judgment concerning the sick community. 
The only way by which we can ever speak of our bodily 
conditions with scientific or philosophical precision and 
certainty, is to simplify as far as we may. This is to be 
done by recognizing their similarity in origin, course, ter- 
mination, and intent; and by saying that under infinitely 
varying circumstances the human body presents a number 
of conditions; that these conditions are markedly similar, 
and are wholly within the power of Nature for preservation 
and cure. Such a consideration would lead to truth with 
a mathematical certainty. 
THAT DISEASE IS A PART OF US. 
Disease has been considered as an abnormal or unnatural 
condition of sentient bodies : but the fallacy of this is truth- 
fully asserted and shown in the following : 
Man is a part of Nature. God's art,-Nature, Univer- 
sal Power,- is most noble and wonderful in man. All his 
effluencies, exigences, and receptivities are natural. The 
human body is undergoing a constant change. It is the 
center of a diversity of the most inexplicable phenomena. 
It is the interpreter of comfort and discomfort. And it is 
irretrievably destined to decay. Such capacity is proof of 
the naturalness of pain. For to be void of these conditions 
would deny us what we are. All things within or without 
the scope of human sense are natural. Now since those 
processes operating in our bodies are natural, they are a 
necessary part of us ; and are inadmissable to such denun- 
ciation as is extended to them by the dodlor of medicine. 
Love and death, pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort, 34 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
joy and sorrow, are degrees of distinct and sublime attrib- 
utes of man. They have a respective semblance and relation 
to one another; and their harmonious acquiescence is so 
fully natural, that unwise human interference unhappily 
turns the balance. Pain and sadness, disease and death, 
are not less certain and necessary than joy and comfort, 
love and pleasure. For they are mutually dependent, and 
inseparably coexistent. No one will deny the justness of 
death, nor the insensible decay of body, nor the happy 
fitness of human love. Why then will folly chide the ex- 
acerbation of bodily transformation and pain that so wisely 
warn us of the soul's departure? Pain and love should 
ever wait on death. There exists, operates and depends 
in living bodies susceptible to comfort and discomfort, a 
multiplicity of uncertain and inconstant conditions of con- 
genital or acquired origin. All hereditary or acquired con- 
ditions of the human body are natural; and are all allied to 
virtue by what is either reasonable, accidental or unavoid- 
able. There is so great a proof of Nature in all things that 
it is hard to name it not. We cannot deny the naturalness 
of the many painful and pleasurable vicissitudes of human 
embryronic life, the marvelously intricate interutrine pro- 
cess, nor the necessary conditions and circumstances of the 
soul's beginning. Why then do we not accept all earthly 
conditions as natural? For in the one case we are prepared 
for a visible life, and in the other for an invisible one. 
The necessary and irreplaceable service disease renders is 
a surety of its being a part of us. Man is only perfect and 
complete when he is permitted and encouraged to retain 
and preserve and acknowledge the comfort and discomfort 
divinely due him. The sublime nature of pain marks it 
the foremost need of man. Alteration, degeneration and 
decay of vital structure is natural. Old age must then be a 
necessary and laudable state of bodily discomfort. Since 
all bodily conditions short of decrepitude are designedly 
good, and decrepitude itself being good, they are all an OF DISEASE. 
35 
intimate and inseparable part of us. Disease is a funda- 
mental part of us. 
THE SUFFICIENCY OF GOD'S ART TO DIS- 
POSE AND HEAL ALL DISEASES. 
The height of divine art is shown in the production, 
earthly existence and eternal destiny of man. It is not 
reasonable to suppose that the Almighty instituted man 
with all the sources of discomfort, without a perfect design 
and adequate means of transforming it, if need be, into 
comfort and happiness. It cannot be that God's best work 
was marred by shortcomings of completion. We surely 
were not left to be ever striving for that which He did not 
in all perfedtness deign to give us till death. His great 
goodness does not intend or permit us to multiply our ills 
or to seek out discomposure of disease. Suffering is as di- 
vine an intent as is the soul's separation and Heaven's re- 
ception. The best and greatest achievements within human 
conception have been wrought through it. And the noblest 
qualities ever seen in men have emerged through the thick- 
est fog of painful discontent. Man by divine Wisdom was 
so perfectly planned for the transitions and appurtenances 
of life that it becomes a debasing sin to aCt in accordance 
with a contrary belief. Yet the awful prevalence of a lack 
of confidence in the love, power and goodness of God, is 
constantly encouraged by the foolish and pretentious teach- 
ers of Nature's need of assistance. There can surely be 
no greater impiety than a denial of His ability and desire 
to execute all designs. God's admonition is competent and 
perfeCt. Nature is God's incontrovertible art. Art is hu- 36 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
man attempt to simile Nature. Everything made by God's 
art is Nature. Everything made by man's art is Nature man- 
ifested through the functional capacity of our bodies ; and 
as the design of all things from beginning to end is the 
knowledge of God, so we, being the noblest of earthly 
creatures, are permitted to assert our competency to deter- 
mine the right, wisdom and use of all things within our 
capacity. Nature and art are comparatively as man and 
picture, objeCt and shadow, truth and falsehood, wisdom 
and folly. Human art can never add God-acknowledged 
aid or beauty to Nature. This consideration of Nature 
and art leads us to see how prone is vain man to magnify 
his own work into error and thence to delusion. The uni- 
versal power of God is in all creatures from beginning to 
end. Man was called perfeCt when endowed with effluent 
and receptive capacity for all things within our knowledge. 
All human reason, knowledge and performance ; all animal 
instinCt, instinCtive reason, knowledge and performance ; 
all insective instinCt and performance, is Nature. The 
Nature by which the spider and hornet exist, and are ena- 
bled to construct a shelter, does not differ except in consid- 
eration of the soul, from that implanted in man, and shown 
in his church, house, book, or painting. Every deed and 
capacity of God's creatures is Nature. Even the perform- 
ances of the "doCtor of medicine" is Nature; but this is 
among the toyful parts of Nature which are justly held as 
useful in their proper time and place*. There are many 
things in our own and universal Nature, seemingly insig- 
nificant, that were divinely designed as all important; and 
others to us apparently indispensable are to Him of the 
most minor necessity. But Nature is subservient to divine 
♦That is, what is toyful and unreasonably applied is sometimes ser- 
viceable as a stepping-stone to reason and truth; and as I have before 
said, "human healing art" has served no other useful end than to reveal 
its own fallacy. OF DISEASE. 
37 
Wisdom, and in a degree ever should be so to human rea- 
son. And as truly as every part of Nature is not always 
alike within the grasp, desire and need of man, human 
medicinal assistance is never, for it is wholly without the 
pale of prudence, reason and necessity. The belief in 
"human healing art" has ever been laden with evil. It 
has greatly tended to prevent an increase of continued con- 
fidence in God; and at such times of disease and needful 
distress as are fit by Nature. There is abundant proof 
that God did not establish anything in vain; and that He 
did not institute His dearest and most wonderful Nature in 
man without ample provisions for the emergencies of pov- 
erty, hunger, sickness and distress. He surely does not 
desert us in time of pain and disease; but rather always 
extends to us all that is most serving. Man is ever eager 
in search of something to alleviate his suffering, from 
whatsoever manner of cause, without a conviction of the 
truth that drugs in disease are in discordance to present, 
remote or future benefit, and without seeking their author- 
ity, wisdom and justice; without accrediting God with a 
sufficient competency to heal all maladies that He thinketh 
proper; or acknowledging with submission and praise the 
source of all things; or remembering that the power that 
cures is so intricate and perfect that man can never com- 
prehend its secrets. 
The art of God as applied in health and disease is the 
embodiment of all parts of the process; so that when the 
painful part of any process of disease is removed by nar- 
cotics, the most prominent and apparently essential requi- 
site for the operation of this healing art is wanting. 
Every attempt to escape the pain that has been sent us is 
disobedience to God. To annihilate the greatest blessing 
within human 'appreciation through willing ignorance or 
otherwise, is inhuman harm and the height of folly. 
The aim of all science is to find a theory of Nature. It 
is impossible to discover the complete theory of God's art 38 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
in the production and cure of disease. ImperfeCt and con- 
jeCtional theories are here forever absurd and impracticable. 
Since absolute but obscure truth is most worthy, as compared 
with a few simple true faCts what can be the utility of a 
theory which is but part truth ? God-given misery and hap- 
piness supplemented to life and death are faCts enough for 
vital necessity. 
An analysis of the various vital operations of the human 
organism will reveal a veritable proof of the all-sufficient 
potency of God's art of cure; and a brief study of the 
bodily passions and conditions, such as love, pleasure and 
comfort, pain, discomfort, anger and grief, will convince 
us of the perfeCt and unerring harmony of all parts and 
appurtenances of a living being. In consideration of the 
complexity of our bodily structure, and capacity for mental 
and manual accomplishments, the comprehensible part of 
our development, sustenance, and decay, is consistent with 
human reason; and laudable experience has shown the 
folly and degradation arising from broad disobeyance of 
the rules of simple necessity. 
Since pleasure and pain go hand in hand, and all of our 
happiness comes from within, all of man, whether mad or 
sane, are at times happy and more or less in the enjoyment 
of pleasure. We lack an account of the latter, but are 
sure at the compounding of pain. Of pleasure and pain, 
our capacity for one can never outweigh the other. Such 
dispensation is unalterable. Men have been subjected to 
extremest irritation without a show of discomfort; and have 
suffered manifold miseries while surrounded by all things 
supposed to conduce comfort. This is the most conclusive 
evidence of the internal motions of pain. Since all bodily 
passions are dependent upon pleasurable and painful sen- 
sations, they are within and an intimate part of us; and 
to augment or dorment than is unreasonable. 
o 
The condition of comfort or health is everywhere held 
with instinctive and worthy desire, and is thought the most OF DISEASE. 
39 
prominent, universal, and direitly advantagous of all our 
nature. Suffering must always, however, be acknowledged 
as a precedent of favor towards comfort, happiness, and 
the exercise of virtue. Consequently the amount of health 
and strength justly due us is in accordance to a reasonable 
acceptance of pain. Health and disease are ever sure to 
rule over us by mutual consent for a good, common and 
useful end. The condition of discomfort, or disease, has a 
necessary prevailing existence. Experience has taught us 
that we live, suffer, and die ; that the body has been sored 
by worldly contact, and yet the soul is ever constant to her; 
that our bodies are nearly struck tenantless and are again 
made whole, healthy and useful; and that it is imprudent, 
harmful and unreasonable to chide or attempt to help Na- 
ture in her most vital work. 
Human life is an accurate and perfectly appointed pro- 
cess, containing a diversity of marvelous phases, any one 
of which being so dependent on the other that alteration of 
it mars their combined effeit. Disease is the foremost 
of life's phases. The most pleasing and profitable part of 
disease is, that it is disease, transient, and of self curabil- 
ity. The self curability of disease is everywhere plainly 
apparent. 
Pain is at all times the most prompt, certain and blessed 
of all our senses ; yet our thanks and acknowledgement to 
it are the least abundant. It is abused and sinned against 
beyond, it were feared, divine toleration. It is no sooner 
called disease than attack and railing is made against it. 
The science of morals, religion and philosophy do not 
sanction the agonies of any human organ to be numb ex- 
cept by Nature. No one can commend the drunken con- 
duit of the man whose mind has melancholy soreness. 
The evil of the act is never lessened, whether his choice of 
stupefaition lies in fluid, drug or vapor. It matters not the 
organ, nor how, nor when, nor what the painful part is, 
for to annul the pain of any one moves the action of the 40 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
other. Whatsoever be the occasion, desire, extent, or im- 
aginary motive for drugging a remote organ, the soul be- 
comes so disconcerted, its dearest ally being swayed, that 
we reap untimely weakness. Who are addicted to the use 
of drugs are slaves to needless bondage. 
To every diseased process there is requisite a due sense 
of pain for Nature's cure. Pain is the disease and pain 
the cure. It is as properly our stimulant, guide and safety 
in disease as it is in health. It is no inconsiderable kind- 
ness not to quiet pain. 
Whenever we seek for health it is needful to have our 
faith and hope well founded. To confide in' drugs is to 
have our faith and hope infinitely more ill-founded than in 
a degree corresponding to the amount of the unreasonable 
and nonsensical indirection of their aim and application. 
It seems quite essential that our faith should be well founded 
in some agent supposedly curative. And now since Nature 
is constantly restoring to health, notwithstanding the prev- 
alent misdirection of faith, notwithstanding the disadvan- 
tageous effeCt of drugs to be overcome, it is only reasonable 
to suppose that it would far better become us to fix our 
faith firmly in Nature. Since our afflictions are recovered 
from when drugs are taken, and since we are safe in the 
self curability of disease, we are bound to believe that a 
more natural and God-serving, man-serving and self-serving 
health is attained without them. We can but hope for the 
least advantage whenever we permit drugs, or any such 
human invention, to mediate disease and the direCt opera- 
tions of Nature. 
Although discomfort is resolved into comfort by acknowl- 
edged power of drugs, it is no reasonable proof in any 
case of their admissibility and justice. A confirmation of 
all this is found in the knowledge, as far as may be, of the 
nature of disease. 
The produCt of sorrow, fear and anger is lividity and 
pallor; distortion and detraction of countenance ; incoher- OF DISEASE. 
41 
ent and incontinent utterance ; and a universally changed 
organic function. Whatever may be the cause or occasion 
of the inordinacy of these painful passions, their cure lies 
not in any manner of narcotization, but in schooling the 
brain to their non-susceptibility. The diagnosis of such 
conditions is rendered by a knowledge of psychology and 
metaphysics ; and their removal or palliation is aided by 
religion and morality. The product of a painful solution 
of organic functional or motor continuity, from whatsoever 
cause, or of whatsoever magnitude or extent, is interrupted 
sanguineous circulation ; deformity with impaired function ; 
and general processal organic alteration and secretion. 
These products are significant of secondary ones seen at 
different stages of the painful process. They are all ever 
dependent on pain for their quantitative and qualitative per- 
fection and regularity; and are absolutely essential to the 
possibility of a natural recovery to health. For when 
drugs are used the recovery is attended with a lack of that 
lesson for which in part disease was intended; and in no 
instance is an attempt at their removal or change admissi- 
ble by annihilating, benumbing or exacerbating their right- 
ful guardian. Pain is and should be master of itself. The 
epileptic is paroxysed, rendered unconscious and painless, 
by a kind of overwhelming pain to his delicately sensitive 
nervous organ. This phenomenon operates in us with 
safety whenever pain is of short necessity and endurability. 
And when pain is of continued and depressing acuteness, 
the soul ever possesses a self-preserving equilibrium. Each 
soul has a spontaneous adaptability to pain. There is a 
constant power within us ever ready to turn our pain to joy 
and comfort. There is, in the inclination, susceptibility 
and capacity of the melancholic, a power if rightly trained 
and heeded, which continues and increases him in reason. 
And even after reason has departed, the soul does long 
seek and grope to find return. 
All necessary assistance in disease and accident is sug- 42 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
gested by instinCt and common reason. InstinCl combined 
to a mature reason and intelligence, is the highest human 
aid that is needed for the adjustment of a broken limb. 
The same will dictate what employment is best tendered in 
a case of crushed limb, and will stanch a vital hemorrhage, 
remove foreign bodies embedded in passages or parts, and 
do all other reasonable and essential offices. When we 
employ practiced hands to do our need, we have arrived at 
the limit of admissible superfluity. For we cannot go 
further without conflicting unwisely with Nature and relig- 
ion, and unjustly disfavoring morality and virtue. Unnec- 
essary and ornamental surgical interferences are always sadly 
contrary to Nature ; and the suffering, danger, risk and un- 
certainties attending them is what we have no moral right 
of assuming the responsibility of. I know of no argument 
that will favor the performance of ornamental surgical 
operations, nor none that will sanction any of those vital 
surgical procedures of extreme gravity. For we have no 
right by divine justification to lead or encourage men to the 
very brink of eternity, with an uncertain promise of return, 
and with a small continuance of days for reward. Nor 
have we any warrantable right to assume the responsibility 
and subject ourselves to a similar condition; since in one 
instance we are instigators of a sinful abuse of human 
kind, and in the other case it is the boldness of our own 
bodily abuse that so displeases our Maker. 
I believe vaccination has been the greatest universal de- 
lusion that has ensnared mankind within the last three cen- 
turies. It originated in fraud, ignorance and error, and 
lives as such willing foolery ever lives. It is absurdly un- 
scientific and impracticable. It has been promotive of very 
great evil, and I cannot accredit to it any good. When- 
ever earthly regions or limitations become so numerous 
with men or animals that the necessary and perfedt circum- 
stances of life and health cannot be afforded, a universal 
pestilence is Nature's remedy. Wherever disease exists, OF DISEASE. 
43 
there is temporarily a dearth of health-giving conditions. 
We know that people too closely congregated gender dis- 
ease. And we know that a fatal epidemic more rarely 
spontaneously arises in a sparsely populated community 
(where opportunities there afforded are not abused.) Na- 
ture's admonition is here designed as a most important 
teacher. Although we shall probably never have a knowl- 
edge of the conditions on which this phenomenon depends, 
our proper instructions are plainly written on the face of 
these fails. It is impossible to estimate to how great an 
extent the world's progress has been retarded by those men 
who have influenced mankind by whatsoever manner of 
insurancy or immunity against the immutable certainty 
of disease at such times as are ordered by an all-wise 
Ruler. For the wide dispersion of a city's population 
would determine that universal occupancy of our land 
which most favorably advances the virtuous progress that 
is allied to comfort and happiness. 
Assuming that epidemic small-pox has been as rife as 
in former times, the improved facilities for the cleanliness 
of cities, as far as may be determined by human observa- 
tion, has been the chief preventive from a more extensive 
devastation from it. The most scrupulous sanitary care 
cannot, however, fully compensate for the overplus of a 
city's population, together with the usual epidemical de- 
pendencies. We know not of how many possibilities there 
maybe in Nature's power of thus diminishing or increasing 
the prevalence and fatality of this disease. Statistics are 
always unreliable where they pertain to, and are so fully in- 
fluenced by, the unknown workings of Nature. Reason 
does not here acquiesce with what experience, observation, 
and universal acceptance has. Any procedure so plainly 
unscientific, unphilosophical and unreasonable can but be 
grossly useless. Scientific votaries conceed its semi-fabu- 
lous and superstitious origin; human reason derides 
and disowns it; no philosophy can entertain it. Men of 44 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
science do not instruct us concerning that vaccine phenom- 
enon upon which the supposed immunity from small-pox 
depends. The utmost they can say concerning it is, that a 
series of visible corporal symptoms or conditions are in- 
duced which are supposed to leave a specific systemic im- 
pression capable of preventing variola. 
It is a fadt to which all wise men can testify, that any 
impression made upon the human body from whatever in- 
fluence becomes gradually effaced*, or subjected to the 
most s'ervile and subordinate activity. It may be held that 
the several organs of the body possess a capacity of re- 
ception and retention of impressions from disease, notwith- 
standing bodily transitions, similar in some respedts to 
those in the brain from emotion and intelledtion, and yet 
unlike them in others, insomuch as some of them are sup- 
posed to have the felicitous power of preventing those con- 
ditions favorable to their repetition. But this cannot be 
true, for it is an undeniable fadt that in whatever organ 
there is either disease and contagion or any of their se- 
quelae or impressions, there is also adtivity ; and since there 
is adtivity, it is not less sufficient to our purpose whether 
the impressions are of such a nature as will render them 
liable to be retained in the system and blood for one 
month or four generations, in the mean time eradicating 
the race or the race it. Conjedtural belief may say that 
impressions are made upon individuals who have been at 
various times afflidted with contagion, that insure them from 
a similar contagion under all future circumstances. But in 
truth this so-called impression coincident to disease is a 
condition or phase in life which Nature does not order but 
once (or in rare cases twice or thrice). The child of six 
♦This last remark, implying a ready recovery from impressions, 
must not be taken as a permission for the hypnotization of pain; for it is 
not particularly the immediate effect in such instances that is to be depre- 
cated, but rather the rendering of remote or possible personal advantages 
unhappily void. OF DISEASE. 
45 
that has scarlatina does not undergo any phenomenon and 
receive any impression that might not again be necessarily 
undergone and received could precisely similar circum- 
stances be presented to it. But this being at least impossi- 
ble on one account, it is made easily possible on many. 
Any physician knows how very numerous are the circum- 
stances that influence the phenomena in our bodies in both 
sickness and in health. We are assured, also, that there 
are many and various circumstances on which life's phases 
depend that are utterly unknowable. It is the height of 
folly to talk and adt as if the occurrence of any particular 
disease is the cause of its future non-occurrence. We do 
not here see an exhibition of cause and effedt any more 
than in my inability to again see ten years of age since I 
have already attained them. To have lived is one thing, 
and the cause of having lived is quite another thing. As 
has been already intimated, the philosophical law of im- 
pressions denies the truth of vaccination. The very nature 
of an impression will not permit it to remain latent*. Im- 
pressions are received by sentient bodies in all degrees of 
potency, even to the extent of life. Every impression must 
be either superior to the body or the body superior to it. 
An impression superior to the body rapidly impairs or may 
finally destroy it. An impression inferior to the body is 
rapidly impaired and may finally be destroyed by it. An 
impression may at first sway and depress the body, and 
afterwards lose its activity and be swayed and controlled 
by the body. The above is equally true concerning both 
conscious and unconscious impressions, from whatsoever 
source. It is too credulous and unreasonable to believe 
that God Almighty should here endow us with the unpar- 
alleled privilege and power of producing in mankind a 
latent impression capable under certain unknown circum- 
* I allow exception to such a possibility in that organ the function of 
which is to receive and retain impressions with more or less constancy. 46 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY 
stances of subverting a decree so universal and useful to 
Him. I do not believe that the so-called "vaccine disease" 
and small-pox are conditions of essential similarity. Their 
similarity can never be made clearly verified till we are 
able to comprehend and ally the exact circumstances of 
dependence of both. Since this can never be done, we 
shall be forever unwarranted in asserting their identity. 
The two diseases, variola and vaccina, occur under such 
widely dissimilar and unknowable circumstances that the 
systemic impressions, or bodily conditions following there- 
from, cannot be similar or identical. If the circumstances 
and conditions are not alike, and the impressions are not 
alike, the two diseases are not alike, and conversely. But 
assuming that they are identical, even then, as has been 
before said, the circumstances which favor the existence 
of the two diseases are too conflicting and unequal to yield 
anything but ignorance and uncertainty. We have no 
power to deal with such two things of an unknown quan- 
tity and quality with any degree of accuracy. I hold any 
attempt to beget practical good out of such rash conjectures 
as those concerning vaccination to be impostural. 
This operation is the most universal if not flagitious of a 
group that is wholly unnecessary. Its vanity and crafti- 
ness being unreasonably unwarrantable is antagonistic to 
our need. 
THE PHYSICIAN'S DUTIES. 
What is not direCt and indirect expression of God's art, 
or Nature and reasonable human accordance, should not 
be enaCted on our bodies. The necessities of life are those OF DISEASE. 
47 
things which lead to the exercise of the chieftest virtues, 
and the most perfect divine obedience. All else is unnec- 
essary and in discordance to present, near and remote 
happiness. More good is derived from the constant pres- 
ence of a crippled beggar than from an whole army of 
"human healers." The grossest of bodily deformities oc- 
curring at any period of our existence are far more admiss- 
ible than the encouragement, negledt and misconducting 
of anything unfavorable to the soul's constant improve- 
ment. Those W'ho seek and teach the divine intent from 
every example and opportunity of Nature, perpetuate love, 
obedience and virtue. 
Falsity and artifice is not admissible towards the sick, 
even where the greatest immediate or remote good is in 
view. Credulity and error must give room to knowledge 
and truth. The slowness with which mankind will be 
brought to believe in the non-use of drugs in disease is no 
excuse for a continuous adherence to such delinquency 
and vain pretence as is seen among physicians. There is 
every reason to feel that all sickness will soon be left to the 
kind certainty of Nature. It cannot be possible for uni- 
versal education to advance and it be otherwise. Whoever 
considers the phenomena of disease apart from the bias of 
fame, vainglory and avarice, will wisely interpret it as 
W'hat we cannot rightly molest. What disadvantage and 
folly must of necessity arise from any attempt to change 
the signs of a cause the character and primary depend- 
ence of which is unknowable. It is a certainty of Nature 
that wre shall continue in affliction ; and it is also a certainty 
that wre shall continue to receive from her every requisite 
of relief. He wrho makes a willing choice of an uncer- 
tainty, when a certainty may the more easily be had, or 
confides in the positive uncertainties of human device in 
the cure of physical infirmity, when might be enjoyed the 
beneficent certainties of an all-wise cause, mean and end, 
must be lacking in that reason which was his by Nature- 48 
ON THE SELF CURABILITY OF DISEASE. 
We cannot knowingly intrust our weakened organs to either 
conjecture or arbitration and dogmatism, the produCts of 
which are found alike and equally bad; for our conduct in 
disease, being in a degree conjectural, can but bring doubt- 
ful effeCts ; and were it exaCt and inviolable, the results 
would be but uncertain. While it is the prime duty of 
every one to school the mind to a complete mastery over 
itself and the body,-to seek that power and freedom so 
readily within our grasp, - and to a proper understanding 
and glad acceptance of every phase of life, why do we so 
eagerly prefer that slavish weakness and dependence aris- 
ing from the "opposites" of the "regular" and the "simi- 
lars" of the "homoeopath," and the snares and delusions 
of both they and all other wielders, in the name of medi- 
cine, of willing fraud and error? 
Had not this theme been so boldly distorted by tradition 
and custom, very much more might be said concerning it; 
but as time, and the unskillful conducting of the under- 
handedness of imposture, has plainly revealed the fullness 
of truth, and magnified Nature to human understanding to 
its just estimation, further thought is unnecessary. 
Since the word teacher is the most apt of all the appella- 
tions applied to those who charge themselves with the care 
of the sick, it is the worthy service of him who bears it to 
teach and encourage that which is consonant with divine 
wisdom and human reason, fitting the mind thereby for the 
reception of that knowledge which is of primary necessity 
and naturalness ; and to inculcate the benefits arising from 
a practical knowledge of Nature, of ourselves, of religion, 
of philosophy, of morals, and of virtue.