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1.
The primary
cause of disease is violation of Nature’s law and this leads to:
a. Abnormal
composition of blood and lymph
b. Lowered vitality
c. Accumulation of
morbid matter in the body.
Due to un-natural
living and thinking over a prolonged period, the blood and lymph systems’
function alters in terms of proper supply and elimination. This leads to
abnormal composition of these components.
When there is a
faulty functioning of blood and lymph again for a prolonged period, the vitality
or the life force of an individual is lowered considerably.
When there is a
faulty function of the blood and lymph, which results in lowering the vitality,
naturally lead to accumulation of waste, unwanted, morbid matter in the body.
When this stage is not properly tackled, results in some disease symptoms/
conditions.
This stage also
favours the growth or multiplications of disease producing agents like germs/
bacteria/ virus etc.
2.
The germs are the
secondary cause of disease.
The germs/ bacteria
are the secondary cause of the disease as per Naturopathy. As stated above, when
there is a stage of accumulation of morbid matter, there is a great amount of
fermentation takes place in the body. This facilitates the growth or
multiplication of disease producing agents. In case the system is clean and
without such fermenting material, the disease producing agents won’t find the
environment for their proper growth and they will be totally inactive.
3.
Unity of disease and unity of cure: The
Naturopathy doesn’t believe in specific cause of disease and specific treatment.
There is only one cause of disease and there is only one treatment for all
diseases.
The Naturopathy
principle believes in the fact that the disease originates from the violation of
Nature’s laws and when this is corrected or when the person returns to nature
the health reappears. As discussed earlier, the disease arises when the body is
accumulated with morbid matter and when this condition is reversed, the health
sprouts up automatically.
The
modern system of medicine believes in specific cause for specific disease and
the treatment is being administered accordingly. But in Naturopathy, there is
only one cause for all the diseases i.e. accumulation of morbid matter and there
is only one cure for all the diseases i.e. elimination of morbid matter.
4.
Fever is a friend; for that matter all the
acute diseases are the indications of some disturbance in the body. Acute
diseases are the efforts of the body to fight the affecting factors.
Naturopathy
considers that many of the acute symptoms of disease are not the actual disease
symptoms; they are the alarming signals to the person that the body is facing
some problem and that needs correction. For example, Fever. In fever the body
temperature rises above normal due to the process of fermentation in the body,
which arises out of the accumulation of morbid matter. When there is a fever,
generally people would like to consume some anti-pyretics (temperature lowering
drugs) and bring down the temperature. Of course this will give the temporary
relief in fever. But this doesn’t counteract the actual cause of fever. Actual
cause of fever is the accumulation of morbid matter and that need to be
eliminated. By suppressing the fever with medicine, the internal fermentation
process may take different shape and lead to some other problem, which may go
unnoticed. This will / may create a grave danger to the body in the later days.
Hence, according to
Naturopathy fever should not be suppressed and instead efforts should be made to
find out why there is a fever? Since fever is giving a warning to the body that
there is danger ahead, it is considered as a friend.
5.
Your food shall be your medicine and
your medicine shall be your food.
Naturopathy is
purely a drugless system of medicine. Consuming medicine according to
Naturopathy is a process of poisoning the body. Whatever the food we take that
must act as medicine to our body; it means that the food should give proper
nutrition and energy to the body and at the same time it has to assist in
eliminating the unwanted material from the body. That’s why only such foods are
recommended in Naturopathy which has these two basic properties.
The selection of
food varies from disease to disease. It is the intelligence of the Physician who
treats that what food has to be prescribed to a particular patient and
particular disease condition.
6.
Chronic diseases are
the outcome of the suppression of acute symptoms.
As discussed in para
no. 4, when an acute disease or symptom is suppressed by external agents like
medicine etc. the body’s effort to naturally eliminate theunwanted waste
material come to stand still and hence the process of elimination takes diverse
path and emerges as a chronic condition over a period of time. The process of
becoming a disease condition as chronic may take long period but it is also
difficult to treat such diseases. The process of becoming a chronic disease may
go un-noticed or it may depict some minimum/ minor symptoms, which the person
is, tend to ignore.
7.
Body has got a remarkable recuperative power;
if scope is given the body can gain its normalcy without any external aid.
Our body can react
well to the altered state of normal functioning of the body. The body will put
its best effort to get out of the disease condition by facilitating natural
process of elimination. During the process it may depict some acute symptoms.
There is a need to recognize these symptoms as body’s healing effort and to act
accordingly. We must give ample scope for the body in its way to recovery.
When we talk of
defense mechanism of the body in terms of modern medicine, this also reflects
the same. The only difference between modern medicine and Naturopathy is the
former facilitates the process by introducing some medicine/drugs to suppress
the symptoms, where the results are temporary whereas the later facilitates the
elimination process to root out the cause of the symptoms/ disease for providing
permanent cure.
8.
Holistic approach of
the treatment
As mentioned above
the Naturopathy doesn’t believe in specific cause of disease and specific
treatment. It considers the body as a whole and treats the disease. This is
because it trying to know the exact cause of the disease and takes into account
the body as a single entity. Some of the disease symptoms may not be exactly
from that specific system as such and the problem may be in other systems of the
body. For example a severe head ache may be due to chronic indigestion or
constipation. A chest pain may be due to Gastritis.
By treating the body
as a whole there are other benefits too like overall re-conditioning of the
body, which may eventually terminate the unseen problem / symptom.
9.
Nature
heals, not the Physician. Physician’s
duty is to assist the healing process.
In Naturopathy, the
role of Physician is less compare to any other system’s treatment. Here in
naturopathy the patient has to put his efforts to bring back his/her living
habits close to nature. This is possible only by the will and wish of the
patient.
He /she also must
withstand the healing efforts of the body and facilitate the same with his own
efforts. The patient must learn how to lead a natural life, so that he can
prevent any disease condition of the future and at the same time he can promote
his existing health status.
10.
Digestive
system is the main root of disease causation.
The digestive system
is the only system which digests, absorbs, assimilates the useful material and
eliminates the unwanted matter from the body. The digestive system is the system
which is affected primarily and hence the health of this system is utmost
importance in naturopathy. The primary cause of disease – accumulation of
morbid matter begins at digestive system and then spreads to other parts of the
body.
Almost all the
treatments are focused mainly on the health of the digestive system, specially
the eliminative treatments.
11.
In Naturopathy every disease can be cured but not every patient.
In Naturopathy the patient
has to put more efforts than the Physician. The prognosis mostly depends on the
patient’s effort. Until and unless patient wishes to undergo the natural method
of treatment and to change the life-style according to natural principles, one
can not expect the desired results.
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