Chronic disease

“ A patient may be afflicted with some deep-seated, chronic disease that makes him very easily affected by a change of the weather, by a change of his diet or of his bed, and these may be assigned as the causes of his frequent relapses, and they are the immediate [188] or secondary causes, but the real cause is the deep-seated, chronic disease. Cure that disease and the changes in conditions, now so serious, would not be noticed by the healthy man. ”

“ The fever will be gone in from seven to fourteen days in the vast majority of cases, and then feeding can be resumed.
Chronic disease is often due to neglected acute disease, at other times to the building of abnormality through errors of life which have not resulted in acute troubles. While acquiring chronic disease, the individual may be fairly comfortable, but he is never up to par. ”

“ An acute disease is one which runs its course in a short time. A chronic disease, on the other hand, is one which has a long duration. For example, pneumonia, (commonly called lung fever,) is an acute disease of the lungs, while consumption is a chronic disease of the same organ. The term, acute, has reference to the violence of the symptoms of the diseases to which it is applied, rather than to their duration ”

“ Fortunate is the patient when such an escape can be established, because wherever in the system morbid excretions, suppressed by medical treatment, concentrate, there will inevitably be found the seat of chronic disease. ”

“ For this reason the chronic diseases contribute so much toward the multiplication of the number of consumptives, because they stipulate a continuous weakening of the organism and an emaciation of the system. To these belong Bright's disease, which very often turns into pulmonary consumption, greensickness or chlorosis, anaemia, continued febrile diseases, severe chronic suppuration, chronic catarrh of the stomach, frequent pregnancies, childbed diseases. ”

“ This is due to the fact that in consequence of the general wear of the body this becomes less resistant, less capable of adaptation, and organic injury, which in the younger individual would be in some way compensated for, becomes operative. The territory of chronic disease is so vast that not even a superficial review of the diseases coming under this category can be attempted in the limits of this book, and it will be best to give single examples only, for the same general principles apply to all. ”

“ I have never known a person to go from chronic derangements of any organ in his body to normal conditions of it, without passing through an acute stage, [81] and this acute stage is critical in its nature, subjecting the organ to added liability for the time, may be subjecting the whole organism to it. Thousands of persons die every day under medical treatment in this country from badly-managed critical changes through which they have to pass. ”

“ The reader will perceive, in the account I have given of the remedies proper in the feeble state of chronic fever, that they are the same which are used in the common typhus, or what is called nervous fever. There is no reason why they should not be the same, for the supposed two morbid states of the system are but one disease.
It is agreeable in medical researches to be under the direction of principles. They render unnecessary, in many instances, the slow and expensive operations of experience, and thus multiply knowledge, by lessening labour. ”

“ Moreover, in chronic cases—cases of long standing—the best results may be hoped for—in fact the best possible results have invariably followed—from an abstemious (frugivorous) diet, together with simple bathing, as special symptoms may indicate,—and an improved general regimen, as to fresh air, exercise (inaugurated gradually) , beginning, perhaps, with passive exercise, as rubbing, etc., by the attendant. A chronic disease usually implies chronic provocation: Nature has simply commuted148 the extreme penalty of the law ”

“ THE COURSE OF DISEASE
Each disease possesses its own peculiar characteristics, which are more or less conspicuous in each individual case. Then, too, some diseases develop quickly and end quickly. Others run a course of several weeks; and still others several months or even years. The first class is acute, the second chronic. In both kinds nature is at work endeavoring always to effect a cure; and, unless other complications arise, the result of improper food, bad sanitary quarters, bad air, or conditions not conducive to health, recovery will, in most cases, result. ”

“ Under class B, diseases and defects not in class A but which affect ability to earn a living, are such conditions as hernia, organic heart disease, permanently defective nutrition and muscular or skeletal development, many deformities, varicosities of the lower extremities, premature senescence and arterial degeneration, certain nervous diseases, chronic joint inflammations, poor vision and tuberculosis of the bones, skin or glands. ”

“ Congestions, chronic inflammations, tumors of the brain, paralysis, rupture of blood-vessels, enlargement of the heart, chronic bronchial affections, dropsical effusions, indigestion, diseases of kidneys and bladder, especially the latter, cancers, etc., are what the physician is most often called upon to prescribe for in old people. Aside from actual disease, the conduct of the life of elderly persons is to be studied and observed. ”

“ For instance, if one member of a family is known to be affected, any chronic indisposition in another member, involving, perhaps, a daily rise in the temperature of the body, not sufficient to arouse alarm, but apparent in the listless behavior of the person, may be enough to suggest the beginning of the disease. ”

“ While Americans are no longer dying from many of the diseases that affected previous generations, they must now contend with chronic conditions such as arthritis, osteoporosis, heart and lung disease, dementia, and stroke. ”

“ Another is, that where morbid conditions have existed until they have become chronic, and the organism has become adjusted thereto, changes from the abnormal to the normal can not be made without aggravation of those conditions. ”

“ ACUTE DISEASES are such as are either attended with inflammation, or other urgent symptoms, which bring on an early crisis, and render them dangerous in their consequence: hence they are opposed to chronic diseases, or those which, though of slower progress, may nevertheless terminate in dissolution. ”

“ From the Nature Cure viewpoint, the chronic condition is the latent, constitutional disease encumbrance, whereas acute disease represents Nature's efforts to rectify abnormal conditions, to overcome and eliminate hereditary or acquired morbid taints and systemic poisons and to reestablish normal structure and functions. ”

“ There are eating disorders, shingles, skin problems, kidney disease, Alzheimer's, senility, mental illness, addictions, chronic fatigue syndrome, aids. There's macular degeneration, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic ear infections (especially in children) , tonsillitis, bronchitis, pancreatitis, cystitis, urethritis, prostatitis, colitis, sinusitis, osteomyelitis and a dozen other itises, including appendicitis. ”

“ The pendulum now, however, is swinging the other way, and the time has come to attack, with the aid of the methods of chemistry and physiology, the chronic diseases, the disturbances of metabolism and of internal secretion and the affections peculiar to infancy and old age. Only recently have the diseases of advanced life attracted an attention commensurate with their incidence and importance. ”

“ We shall devote the largest amount of space to a careful and thorough consideration of those chronic diseases, which, by a little study, may be readily recognized and understood by the masses, and for the cure of which we shall suggest such hygienic treatment and domestic remedies as may be safely employed by all who are in quest of relief. ”

“ Should the case be complicated with inflammation of the lungs, brain, or other vital organs, manifesting alarming symptoms, the family physician should be called. The treatment should be active and suited to the indications of each particular case. When the disease becomes chronic, the active stage of symptoms having passed, and it continues to linger without making the desired improvement, all the means suggested for the treatment of suppression from anæmia should be employed. ”

“ From these alone, the most essential advantages may be derived in all chronic diseases, especially such as cannot be traced to their sources, or the predisposing causes of which cannot be discovered, either from an intentional concealment of the patient, his want of resolution and capacity to disclose them, or other reasons, chiefly arising from the present imperfect state of the healing art. ”

“ In senile subjects, in adults, and in children more than two years of age it is cachectic, and observed chiefly toward the close of some fatal and exhausting disease, such as diabetes, carcinoma, tuberculosis, chronic pneumonia, enteric fever, puerperal fever, erysipelas, chronic entero-colitis and recto-colitis, and pseudo-membranous sore throat. ”

“ Contagious ulcers.
“Corrupted elements; epidemical diseases.
“Every acute disease is an attempt to dispel diseased matter.
“Fever is not a disease, but the consequence of it; it is an effect of an exertion greater than the power of the system.
“The radical healing of acute diseases is only possible by releasing the diseased matter, by means of water, an agent which invariably effects its object, and that always in a manner perceptible to the senses.
“By means of physic and bleeding, acute diseases become chronic ”

“ To one who has been an eye-witness of the wonderful achievements of American medical science in the conquest of acute communicable and pestilential diseases in those regions of the earth where they were supposed to be impregnably entrenched, there is the strongest possible appeal in the present rapidly growing movement for the improvement of physical efficiency and the conquest of chronic diseases of the vital organs. ”

“ Diseases He is Most Susceptible To
¶ Acute diseases are the ones chiefly affecting this type. Everything in his organism tends to suddenness and not to sameness. [Pg 121]
Just as he is inclined to get into and out of psychological experiences quickly, so he is inclined to sudden illnesses and to sudden recuperations. A Thoracic seldom has any kind of chronic ailment. If he acquires a superabundance of avoirdupois he is in danger of apoplexy. The combination of extreme Thoracic and extreme Alimentive tendencies is the cause of this disease. ”

“ Permeating the whole organism, they give rise to such diseases as fever, Sarvangaroga, etc. which invade the entire system. The aggravated and expanded humours, thus firmly ensconced in the different parts of the body, exhibit the premonitory symptoms of diseases which will be fully dealt with under their respective heads. The manifestation of these premonitory symptoms should be considered as the fourth occasion for medical treatment.
Disease-Its Development:—Now we shall deal with the full development or manifestation of a disease. ”

“ But I would more especially commend the physician who, in acute diseases, by which the bulk of mankind are cut off, conducts the treatment better than others. Acute diseases are those which the ancients named pleurisy, pneumonia, phrenitis, lethargy, causus, and the other diseases allied to these, including the continual fevers. For, unless when some general form of pestilential disease is epidemic, and diseases are sporadic and [not] of a similar character, there are more deaths from these diseases than from all the others taken together. ”

“ In thus rejecting the nosologies of the schools, I do not wish to see them banished from the libraries of physicians. When consulted as histories of the effects of diseases only, they may still be useful. I use the term diseases, in conformity to custom, for, properly speaking, disease is much a unit as fever. It consists simply of morbid action or excitement in some part of the body. Its different seats and degrees should no more be multiplied into different diseases, than the numerous and different effects of heat and light upon our globe should be multiplied into a plurality of suns. ”

“ The diseases which are hard to cure in neighbourhoods such as those to which I have referred above are catarrh, hoarseness, coughs, pleurisy, consumption, spitting of blood, and all others that are cured not by lowering the system but by building it up. They are hard to cure, first, because they are originally due to chills; secondly, because the patient's system being already exhausted by disease, the air there, which is in constant agitation owing to winds and therefore deteriorated, takes all the sap of life out of their diseased bodies and leaves them more [26] meagre every day. ”

“ Disease, which is quite as natural a process as health, is not allowed to go on as nature would; the internal organs whose morbid action alone can cause death, are made the arena for all sorts of conflicting and inflicting medical stimulants; and between the action which these excite, and that which originally existed, their vitality fails, their efforts towards restoration flag, and their functions are at last extinguished.”
Dr. Rush says:—
“We have multiplied diseases—we have done more, we have increased their mortality.” ”

“ Undoubtedly one of the most important steps which medicine has made in its development, is the recognition of the difference between disease itself and those symptoms which may be caused as the result of such disease. We shall find that in most, if not in all, of the older writers on medicine, the treatment of the physician was directed towards the alleviation of those prominent symptoms, which, then not so much looked upon as symptoms, were only recognized as the main cause of the attack. ”