There is a long history and tradition of Naturopathic Vitalism in the United States originating with Vincent Priessnitz (1799-1852) who began the “heating compress” of hydrotherapy that was brought to the US and influenced the Sanitorium practitioners and Naturopaths such as Henry Lindlahr (1852-1925), Benedict Lust (1872-1945) – The Father of Naturopathy, and Dr. Otis G Carroll (1879-1962). Dr. “OG” Carroll (a Sanipractor) trained Dr. Leo Scott DC, ND and Dr. Harold Dick, DC, ND. (1921-1994) Dr. Dick is my father. He began practice with Dr. Carroll in 1956 and worked in his clinic with him for 3 years and then began his own clinic in 1959 which I still continue to this day in Spokane WA. The modalities that I utilize to restore health are virtually unchanged since the days of OG Carroll and my practice is a modern model of the Lindlahr healing center of long ago. These modalities are in use because they are effective in healing, as they are based upon the laws of nature which are always present and ever constant.
When I see a patient, the first modality I employ is the Carroll Food Intolerance Method® to determine if there are inflammatory promoting foods in their diet. Removing foods from the diet that the patient is unable to fully digest and assimilate, we then decrease the “toxemia” of the gut. The theory is that the patient does not have the DNA code for the digestive enzymes necessary to fully digest and assimilate those particular foods or food groups. “Toxemia” is a term utilized when the emunctories (the body’s natural means of eliminating cellular debris from normal metabolic processes using the liver, lymph, kidneys, skin, colon, etc.…) are not fully moving the morbid matter out of the blood. If you continue to eat a diet that is not compatible with your metabolic processes then the toxemia progresses to the point that the organs of elimination are overwhelmed and no longer can throw off these cellular wastes. These toxins then affect whatever the weakest metabolic process is in the body. Any organ not strong enough to throw off the toxins, will be affected by them. This is why one person has asthma, another person has arthritis, has migraines, another diabetes or hypertension. The toxic load affects the weakest link in the metabolism. This is also why Naturopaths treat the whole person and not the symptom. The symptom is simply a manifestation of the toxemia of the body.
All disease has the same beginnings; as Henry Lindlahr stated, “… The effects of the violation of natures’ laws on the physical human organism are (1) lowered vitality, (2) abnormal composition of blood and lymph, (3) the accumulation of waste matter, morbid materials and poisons.” Lindlahr adds, “What methods are in conformity with the constructive principal in nature? Those methods which economize the vital force, build the blood, and promote the elimination of waste materials and poisons without harming the body”.
Toxemia of the body can be determined, not only by blood inflammatory markers and allergy profiles (highly allergic folks have a heavy load of lymphatic overload) but also by employing Naturopathic signs and symptoms evaluated by Bolen Blood screening, iris diagnosis, tongue & pulse readings, and ACG Heart recordings.
Using a compilation of these “diagnostic modalities” (as they are named in our Naturopathic Law in Washington State), in vitalistic Naturopathic medicine, a therapeutic plan is drawn up for the individualized need of each patient with diet, nutrition, glandular support for weakened organs, and care to open the emunctories (the organs of elimination).
The emunctories are opened using constitutional hydrotherapy, as well as bitter herbals, homeopathy, diet, rest, exercise, sunlight, barefoot walking in the dew, water treading, to name a few. Constitutional Hydrotherapy is a term and modality began with OG Carroll. He stated, “Constitutional Hydrotherapy affects the very constitution of each cell”; meaning that it detoxifies on a cellular level.
When the body can properly eliminate and the vital organs are stimulated with proper blood flow and nutrition, then permanent restorative healing occurs. Dr. Joe Boucher (1916-1987) stated, “The essence of all disease is the accumulation in the system of waste matter and impurities due to wrong habits of living. The elimination of the toxic matter from the body is what nature is striving for all the time… It is through detoxification… that the healing latent within all of us can be given a free hand to function”.
In treating the gut and digestive process, we restore power to the blood and lymph. When the blood is strong, then nutrition is feeding each cell and metabolic pathway. Vitality returns naturally as the poisons are thrown off; healing occurs at a cellular level first, then on an organ level, then on a systemic level. This is seen in Herrings Laws. Constantine Herring noted that in observations of the healing process you will see health return in the reverse order of how it occurred; from top to bottom, inside out, and in the reverse order of the symptoms present.
The following case illustrates the role of the gut in the healing process. A 26-year-old woman was diagnosed with Lupus and came to me no longer wanting to be on her immuno-suppressive medications and with the goal of curing her illness. I determined her Carroll food intolerance to be potato with a combination of fruit and sugar. This means that she doesn’t have the ability to fully digest and assimilate potato and that in the gut it adds a great burden to the toxemia of the system, thus infiltrating her entire metabolism and causing a systemic auto-immune reaction. This also occurs if she combines fruits and sugar cane within 8 hours in her diet. These are incompatible to her digestive enzyme functions, although they do well for her when eaten separately. Along with this dietary change, I gave her specific nutrition in the form of glandulars to support her thymus and pancreas. Her prescription included nutrients which she was deficient in such as iron, vitamin B complex, vitamin D3 and EFAs. I employed bitter herbs to stimulate digestion and assimilation (opening the emunctories). She was prescribed and completed a series of 20 constitutional hydrotherapy sessions (opening the emunctories, stimulating vital organs, and rebuilding the blood and lymph). At the end of three months and this vitalistic therapeutic approach, her medical blood markers where normal, she was not on any prescription medication, and all of her symptoms resolved and have remained this way now, at least 10 years later. This is a “cured” case of a severe autoimmune disease utilizing Naturopathic diagnostic modalities in concert with natures laws.
This is one case of thousands that I have treated in my 30 years of practice, not to mention those of my fathers, or OG Carroll’s. I have employed these methods with success in treating breast cancer, pemphigus, MS, polymyalgia rheumatica, TB, emphysema, and the list goes on. When we rely on the wisdom of nature and abide by her laws, the inherent vital power of the body is unleashed to achieve the miracle of healing.
Everything that you do for a patient should support building the blood. Everything a person eats and drinks, as well as the air they breathe, must support healing and metabolism. If something cannot be used by the body for healthy cellular function then it is adding to the toxemic load of the patient and hinders the healing process. You cannot poison the body back to health. It is an impossible notion to give a poison and expect anything but more dis-ease, more toxemia, more inflammation, a downward spiral of health and finally a premature death. Lindlahr stated in 1913, “Be not deceived: neither this (syphilis) nor any other disease can be cured by putting poisons into the human bodies. The only possibility of cure lies in taking the old poisons out of the system, and this can be accomplished solely by natural methods of treatment.”
There are times when natural healing measures don’t seem to be enough, or appear to fail. The modalities are not at fault. Healing is determined by the vitality of the patient and that individual’s metabolic ability to return to a state of health. In part, this is the Art of Naturopathic Medicine, to determine the vitality of the patient, and match it to the aggressiveness or strength of the modality chosen for that individual. Henry Lindlahr felt that all diseases were acute before they became chronic and suppression, or lowered vitality of the metabolism, began the chronicity if the illness. “[All Diseases] yield to the natural treatment, provided there is enough vitality in the system to respond to the treatment and the destruction of vital parts and organs has not too far advanced.” H. Lindlahr, 1914.
I have treated many severe chronic illnesses with success in my practice, and with failure in my practice. I have taken on cases of cancer, TB, RA, Crohns, Lupus, and also referred patients elsewhere with these diseases because I knew that I could no longer be of help to them. My decisions to do so were based upon my knowledge of the healing power of the human body and whether or not the individual before me had the vital strength and the empowered self determination to heal. Sometimes this wasn’t apparent to me at the beginning of the doctor-patient relationship and I only realized it a few weeks into therapy as I saw that the body wasn’t responding to the modalities employed. This is medicine. All physicians in the history of this planet have faced this dilemma. This is medicine.
The Vital Naturopath considers the disease process of the patient in relationship to the Therapeutic Order. Naturopaths will choose the first three to four levels of intervention prior to addressing more aggressive measures such as suppressive prescriptions or surgeries. (The basis of the Therapeutic Order of Healing is: (1) Establish the foundation for optimal health; (2) Stimulate the self-healing mechanisms; (3) Support and restore weakened systems; (4) Address physical alignment; (5) Natural symptom control; (6) Synthetic symptom control; (7) High force interventions [chemotherapeutics/surgery]). There are times when aggressive or suppressive therapies ARE necessary and allopaths are very skilled in these approaches. Some people are alive because of pharmaceuticals but will never be able to stop using taking them; such is the case with the insulin dependent diabetic, or the heart failure patient on digoxin and furosemide. Benedict Lust (the Father of Naturopathy) in 1935 stated, “There are times even when drugs are necessary. Don’t be so radical.”
In thinking about the future of Naturopathy, there are scientific investigations and questions left to answer. We should research the benefits and differences between the various methods of dietary prescriptions; such as a study comparing The Carroll Food Intolerance Method® with The Blood Type Diet®. A study on the therapeutic effect of Constitutional Hydrotherapy on cortisol production, immunoglobulin changes, or white blood cell activation would be enlightening. A comparison of Constitutional Hydrotherapy vs prescriptions such as prednisone, biologics, or chemotherapeutics for particular disease states is needed. There is much to investigate. Clinical experiences show clear positive outcomes over 100 years of use as allopathic medicine has changed with technology, yet these well used modalities are as beneficial now as ever. 100 years of empirical data is evidence of therapeutic value. Outcome studies investigating the combined effects of Naturopathic modalities are needed to provide efficacy to the public of the power of this approach to healing.
Naturopathy is an amazing medicine. It is based upon the laws of Nature and the innate ability within us all to heal. In regards to the vital processes of the body, all disease begins in the gut and all healing must also begin there. Through proper diet for the individual, opening the emunctories, stimulating the Vis, and applying the methods of nature-cure, we achieve the greatest healing of all.
In the tradition of Vincent Priessnitz of Austria, Father Kneipp and “The Water Cure”, Lindlahr, Lust, Carroll, Dick; the healing of ALL disease starts with the proper elimination of morbid matter. Assisting the healing of digestion and assimilation of nutrition, and the elimination of toxemia is the key to curing ALL diseases of the human frame. No matter what symptoms the body exhibits and no matter what “disease” we label it, as based upon the medical terminology and diagnosis we use, this process all comes from the same beginning–in effect it is only one disease–toxemia.