[Reader-list] Of disease, germs and health!

[zainab at xtdnet.nl]

While It Rained, It Dawned On Me 


While it rained heavily in Mumbai, I was sitting oblivious, throughout, in
a Naturopathy Ashram at Uruli Kanchan called Nisargopchar. Life is an
interesting story of twists and turns. About two months ago, I contracted
various illnesses including fever, cough, cold, an injury, a stomach bug,
etc. I began doctor shopping in the hope of obtaining some relief and
cure. But nothing came to my aid. About a month ago, I decided to go off
on a weekend nature trek. During the course of the trek, my coughing
increased severely. A friend advised me on taking the juice of a Himalayan
plant which is known to spew out cough from the lungs. On taking the
juice, my stomach began to activate on its own and I felt as if my dormant
digestive system had begun working again. I spoke with my friend about
this. We began talking about illness and disease at length. He mentioned
to me how his mother, who suffering from myasthenia gravis, was wrongly
diagnosed by the doctor as suffering from tuberculosis and was then put on
tuberculosis drugs. Consequently, her condition worsened and two months
later, the doctors realized that she was actually not suffering from
tuberculosis. “I have heard of several cases like this where doctors look
at symptoms and put patients on tuberculosis drugs only to find out that
the patient is not actually suffering from tuberculosis. Doctors have
become specialists instead of viewing the body as an integral whole,” my
friend began to say, “They look at the skin problem as only a skin problem
instead of examining whether something is wrong somewhere else. Then, the
course of conventional medicine is to treat the skin problem externally,
usually by suppressing the problem.”

I began to research on my own sickness and discovered that I was suffering
from a condition known as Candida. The world of the Internet revealed to
me that doctors do not even acknowledge Candida as a problem. The symptoms
are totally unrelated and the usual procedure is to go doctor shopping
since there are multiple problems. In fact, the intake of antibiotics only
increases the condition. Candida is caused when the Candida bacteria in
the stomach begins to form pods. This occurs due to excessive intake of
sugars, white bread, yeast (bakery) products and these days, mainly due to
over-chlorination of waters by the municipal corporation. It appears that
80% of the world’s population suffers from Candida, with women being more
susceptible to this condition. The only cure to Candida is dietary
control.

The first step for me then was to stop all antibiotics and go in for a
complete detoxification. Therefore, I decided in favour of the Nature Cure
Ashram at Uruli Kanchan. At the Ashram, the treatment is mainly in the
form of helping to restore the body balance through removal of toxins
which have accumulated in the body. Nature Cure believes that we each have
an innate body intelligence and that the body is a wonderful mechanism
which can heal by itself when allowed to through dietary restrictions,
fasting and adequate rest. While at the Ashram, as I read several old
books on Nature Cure and observed the method of treatment, what
interestingly became obvious was the ‘myth’ of the ‘germ theory’ of
disease as first propagated by Louis Pasteur and now, widely accepted in
the medical community and among the masses. The germ theory of disease
leads us to believe that the body is but a poor host to germs floating
externally in the atmosphere. The human being is but a sorry victim to
these deadly germs. What the theory fails to account is the fact that not
all diseases are caused by germs, cancer for instance! Nature Cure
believes, and here I quote Harry Benjamin, is that disease is caused owing
to accumulation of toxins in the body. These toxins accumulate over a
period of time and depending on your body’s constitution, the toxic matter
may be deposited in either the lungs or the heart or the throat or the
back, etc. We just give different names to different diseases, but the
basic cause of disease lies in faulty lifestyle habits including faulty
diet and inadequate rest to the body including the digestive system and
other mechanisms in the body.

I was particularly interested in the ‘germ theory’ of disease because it
is so widely prevalent that to believe that germs are not necessarily the
cause of disease is too difficult to accept in our current paradigm. We
think of germs and associate them with certain populations including the
‘hawkers, slum dwellers, pavement dwellers,’ etc. These are germ spreading
populations. And I wonder why we do not think of food consumed in hotels
and restaurants as not germ propagating or disease causing for that
matter.

The other interesting thing which came to my notice during my stay at the
Ashram was the amount of State Control in terms of medicine and medical
treatment. The drug industry is huge and its basis lies in greater belief
in germs and the germ theory. Modern medicine has allowed us to subjugate
our body intelligence and suppress signs of body’s throwing out of toxins
as ‘disease’. Thus, in case of fever and common cold, when the body is
attempting to throw out accumulated mucus and toxins from the system, we
resort to medicines to suppress the unwell condition, thus leading the
body to deposit the toxins elsewhere, causing greater harm. State Control
appears in the case of ‘the state’s benevolence’ in giving treatment. It
appears that vaccines and vaccination only harm the body more than helping
it. I was appalled when I came back and read that our supreme government,
apart from deciding on terrorism and terrorists (which is another
suspicious matter altogether), is now deciding on what we should eat – the
banning of the sale of any non-iodized salt. Did we ever seek to question
whether we truly require the amount of iodine that is ‘given’ to us in the
salt sold in the market? What are our body’s requirements?

I am now beginning to become skeptical of medical research that is being
published. I’d rather make independent inquiries apart from popular
theories floating in the market. I am also beginning to re-examine debates
on medical patents and the flow of public tax money in medical research.
Wouldn’t it be better if a segment of that money is utilized in making
available rich and pesticide-free fruits and vegetables to the population?
What alternatives are available to us? Can we think differently?



Zainab Bawa
Bombay
www.xanga.com/CityBytes
http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html