The harbinger of health : containing medical prescriptions for the human body and mind

Front matter

ARMY MEDICAL LIBRARY

WASHINGTON

Founded 1836

Chapter I. The Pearly Gates Of Science

Nature's harmonious, eternal heart, is incessantly throbbing with the almighty energy of omnipotent principles. Sweetly bloom the progressive truths and immortal beauties of the Infinite. They come gracefully out from their invisible sanctuary, and shine steadily and lovingly into the gloomy abysses of ignorance.

As a brief definition, we may say that Science is a knowledge of Facts and Forces. What is Art, then, but the intellectual and manual power to control such forces for the gratification and benefit of mankind ? There is a plain difference between Art and Science. The latter is the embodiment of intellectual discoveries ; the former is the archangel which puts theory into practice, for the world's permanent good.

If Science is the glory of mind, then Art is its crown of immortality. But mankind are admonished to travel for forty years in the wilderness of facts not only, but to traverse and reverse their contemplations of the Universe forever, in quest of the countless treasures which lie within the bosom of the Summer Land. When the pilgrim arrives at the goal of Scientific Knowledge, no matter what path he may have pursued, the angels bring forth and place upon his brow a royal diadem, in these days called "Common Sense!"

THE HARBINGER OF HEALTH.

Such a mind feels that Facts are the temporary, yet necessary, stepping-stones of individual progress. Facts are the hard currency of the intellect. They systematize its operations, demolish its flickering superstitions, and promote the refining and useful Arts.

Those who would attend the Academy of right-thinking must take primary lessons at the feet of Scientific truths. Facts in geology, facts in chemistry, facts in physiology, facts in history, facts in mechanism, facts in spiritualism — facts, facts, from and of every side in the rolling Universe — are the first firm friends of Common Sense, and the most trustworthy intercessors between mind and matter. Genius and transcendent talents, even reason and intuition, are next to impossible, except through obedience to the gospel of Facts.

But the lesson of Facts is impressive and startling in its sublimity. This lessons is, that facts are never finalities ! They will let you dogmatize only for a brief season. They neither begin nor terminate in and of themselves. They crop out from a hidden soil, and jut over into some invisible world. To the philosopher they are but palpable shadows thrown upon the soaring mountains of thought. They indicate the existence of invisible substances. They send divinest dispatches to every mind, saying : " Seek further, if thou wouldst behold the Principles of the Infinite."

Excelsior! is the song of every fact. Beauteous flowerfacts bedeck the far-spreading prairies of vision. But? the fire-chemist can banish them into the boundless ocean of imponderables. These imponderables invite you " still higher " among the impersonals. These impersonals, which only the exquisite sense of intuition can appreciate, are the Principles of Nature. But it is just as true to say that they are the Will-powers of Father God.

THE PEARLY GATES OF SCIENCE.

Thus Facts lead away into Principles, which are the rest and delight of the harmonious mind. "We are, therefore, admonished to observe and follow the lead of Scientific Facts. Men should teach their children to know some facts not traditional, but which are absolutely and unequivocally Scientific. Otherwise the mind is chaotic, confused, uncertain, and exposed to the epidemical influence of priests and superstition. Ministers who believe only in the facts of tradition — who refuse the living facts of a living Age — are certain to take possession of minds not fortified with absolute Facts. The drifting affections of the ignorant are wafted by every wind of doctrine. A few well-ascertained and positive facts in Magnetism, for instance, have proved "an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast;" while a neighboring bark has been driven by the gusty breathings of a prayer-meeting upon the rocks of Bigotry and Despair.

The priest-paralyzed Galileo was not killed, because a shield of facts hung between him and his persecutors. The Alpine storms of priestcraft could not drive him ashore. His mind stood firmly upon a foundation of astronomic facts, and amid the deafening thunders of the Vatican he cried — " the world does move ! " In like manner we may record the progressive development of all Sciences and Arts, as also of their masters. The burning breath of an hundred theological Sahara s could not put out the eyes of Newton. Neither did the world of frowning superstition weaken the energies of Spinoza, Kant, Gall, Spurzheim, Combe, and more familiar minds, who have wrought so bravely for the advancement of common sense and mankind.

Put a few positive Facts before your child's mind, not dryly and severely, as though each fact was a "stubborn thing," fit only for headstrong boys, but gently teach your child facts and truths of the world in which we live, and thus fortify the reucson

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ing powers against the assaults of weakness and superstition. Facts are foundation stones in the crystal palace of human knowledge. But, remember, the foundation — below the facts and temple of Progress — is composed of Eternal Principles. Facts are but the incarnations of these immortal Verities. Yet it is ordained, in the system of moral and intellectual growth, that each mind shall pass through the pearly gates of Science.

But human ignorance is demoniac darkness of the blackest degree — reflecting none of the rays of wisdom — hence it does not comprehend the sublime import of truth. To the dullminded man, the physical world seemeth dull and dirty — no light is flowing for him from every well-spring of wisdom, in field and forest — and yet no murmurings, no evil voices, no sobbing complaints, ever break from Nature's seemingly neglected Soul. But the miserable millions of earth groan and weep — and why 1 Not because they have faithfully labored in the vineyards of Progress, and failed to realize great crops therefor, but because they erringly have chosen the delusive slumbers of idleness and ignorance. They have not accepted of the "golden key to ope the palace of Eternity" — have not sought to comprehend the developments of endlessly progressive principles — but have, instead, dwelt idly and willfully in the mysterious shadows of mental blindness and bigotry. Say to the world, in tones as mighty as the thundering voice of

earthquakes, that " Salvation from all disease and discords

physical, social, political, and spiritual— is possible only by and through personal obedience to every known requirement of the law of love and justice," and how many of those who believe in salvation by and through the blood and sufferings of an ancient Martyr, would respond « Amen " ? Only those would accept of such terms who wisely love truth and justice. All the idle and

THE PEAKLY GATES OF SCIENCE.

morally ignorant would abide with the wrongly-educated of the churches, and thus help swell the murky rivers of bigotry and regressive conservatism.

But the divine secrets of Nature will out ! Herbs, shrubs, and trees, do not more naturally grow outside the churches than do the Arts, Sciences, and Philosophies flourish independently of ordained priests. The eternal momentum of progressive truth forces light through what appear to be impenetrable mountains of ignorance. As cultivation subdued the savageness and consequent crabbedness of the tiny wild apple, making it one of the most umbrageous growths of our orchards, and almost the finest fruit in this latitude, so will the silent workings of progressive truth unfold- the sourest tempers into springs of sweetness, fertilize the germs of beauty in the ugliest bosoms, adorn with Reason the flat, low brow of ignorance or misfortune, and convert the primitive instincts of crude souls into flowering and fragrant plants of Intuition.

Yesterday we heard bitter anathemas and heart-stricken weepings, because the ruthless hand of some headstrong Reformer had demolished sacred idols and overthrown moss-covered cathedrals ; but to-day, as we walked that way in deepest meditation, we heard songs of gladness and shouts of enthusiasm, because of joys unspeakable, which had taken possession of the spiritually unfolded and free! The flowing and swelling an then) written by the Poet Dana, was the grandest '

"0 Listen, man !

A voice within us speaks that startling word, Man ! thou shalt never die ! Celestial voices Hymn it to our souls ; according harps By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars Of morning sang together, sound forth still The song of our great Immortality.

Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain,

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The tall dark mountains and the deep toned seas.

Join in this solemn universal song.

O listen ye, our spirits ! drink it i

From all the air ! "lis in the gentle moonlight ;

'Tis floating midst Day's setting glories ; Night,

Wrapt in her sable robe, with silent step

Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears.

Night and the Dawn, bright Day and thoughtful Eve:

All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,

As one vast mystic instrument, are touched

By an unseen living hand, and conscious chords

Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.

The dying hear it, and as sounds of earth

Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls To mingle in this heavenly harmony."

The prospective triumph of knowledge over ignorance, of wisdom over folly, of Harmonial Philosophy over Discordant Theology, seems universal and complete. Substantially built temples of attractive industry, the thoroughly organized homes of happiness and distributive justice, will occupy acres now covered by massive structures of mythology and bigoted superstition ! The social wilderness of vice and misery will become a landscape of life and loveliness unsurpassed. Eternal Use and its spirit bride, Beauty, will dwell in every habitation. Birds and animals, no longer fearing, will love their lord and master ; and instead of the old heavens of storm-clouds, and the old earth of thorns and thistles, " all things shall be changed."

Who, let us now ask, can resist the aggressive march of truth ? What power do you know of, either in Church or State, that can roll back upon Nature's heart the outward flowino' tides of wisdom ? Who can lacerate and cripple the beautiful feet of the Arts and Sciences ? Do you fear ? " 0, ye of little faith!" Do you not see the majesty of truth? Surely, the churches will float upon the deluge of eternal principles that is to come ! La the Arts and Sciences flow forward ; the " gates

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of hell " (discord and ignorance) " shall not prevail against them." Priesthoods must eventually disappear beneath the sun-flashes of justice and truth.

Truth is incessantly speaking from the inner temple of human life. Ignorance is the only misfortune and mystery ; for that which is perfectly known is neither hurtful nor mysterious. If a strong man be ignorant of beauty, and in the haste of his blood, his tongue knoweth no emphatic language suitable to ears refined, he belches forth the words of profanity — even in such a mind the truth will out ; so the ways of God are not " past finding out." In a fine sense, He is " as full, as perfect, in hair as heart." His ways come out daily, hourly, momentarily — in the bright and black, in the wise and foolish, in the ugly and beautiful, upon great mountains, and in all the valleys, in all human history, and upon every star in the bending firnianent — and thus He is " All in All ! "

ill not error and delusion vanish in proportion to the approach of truth and reason ? It is our great happiness to believe that the inharmonious and conflicting elements of society will one day obey the commandment, "Peace, be still." This is the voice of the Eternal Spirit. It attaineth utterance through the mouth of every inspired soul, who loveth justice and harmony between man and man. The good-minded everywhere, who fill high stations in Church and State, will, in due time, join the army of the Free ! There is no freedom outside of truth.

Absurd and vain is the attempt of bigots to stay the advancement of eternal principles. Truth will out ! God is absolute Truth, and Nature is absolute Truth ; and one is no more divine and eternal than the other ; both are unchangeable and irresistible. Behold ! ye faithless ones of earth, the world of mind is in energetic motion. Its life is throbbing and yearning for harmonious and peaceful expression. The whole heavens are teeming and beaming with spiritual intelligences. They must speak, and their voices will be heard (0, how gladly !) by the listening ear of the millions. But the very proud, the noble of earth, the so-called educated— how slow, how conceited, how large with emptiness, how incapacitated for the simple truths of wisdom !

But to reach the thronging multitudes of every country, to educate the masses in the natural ways of spiritual truth, to convert the sectarian churches, to simplify and elevate the systems and principles of government — what an easy task, indeed, when man's reason begins fully to realize the true philosophy ol Nature and destiny.

We look with joy unspeakable for the triumph of Science over silliness ; of Reason over ignorance, which holds its sessions of superstition in every land. When untrammeled and reverent Reason shall sweep the boundless horizon of Progress — just as the telescope describes the measureless abysses of starry worlds — then will astounding discoveries be made in all the kingdoms of Nature. Labor-saving machines will bring at once relief to muscle and growth to mind. Then will mankind's earthly condition, both physical and mental, be ameliorated and improved. And the paths of progress will not lead, as now, through gloomy forests of error and bloodshed; but, instead, each soul will be attracted righteously by the celestial rays of eternal Truth. " Truth is mighty, and will prevail ! "

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISEASE.

Chapter II. The Philosophy Of Disease

The Philosophy of Disease is given in the first volume of the Harmonial series. We are not fond of re-writing our positions on any subject ; yet it may be profitable to make a new statement of a momentous question. Judging from the number and singularity of the letters we have recently received, a large proportion from several well-educated physicians, we conclude that, even at this late day, the Harmonial Philosophy of disease is not very well understood. For the purpose of further explaining our positions, and particularly to erect a standard, or standpoint, from which to analyze the different theories of popular schools, we proceed to define our philosophy of disease. We would invite the candid-minded, whether physicians or not, to give the following statements more than a passing perusal.

The human body is constructed double throughout. Binary compositions, both solid and fluid, are everywhere visible. The right and the left, the perfect adaptation of structures exactly opposite and dissimilar in function, are facts within every man's observation.

Now, let it be observed, each operation within the human body occurs upon the same general plan. Reciprocal actions are perfectly exhibited in every part. The reciprocal operations are attended with periodical changes. These periodical 2*

IS

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changes are attended with either an increased or else a diminished degree of temperature. This temperature exert3 one of two influences : first, it either agrees with and promotes healthyconditions, or it does not. If the hodily temperature does not accord with that balanced state which we term "Health," the result is a change among the atomic motions of the parts most affected by the disturbance ; and the next, or succeeding effect, is either too much or too little heat (or vital fire) in the assailed organs or functions. If too much heat exists in a particular part, then the atoms of that part are in too rapid motion for health, and the first development is an " inflammation." The part or parts are "on fire;" while in some part or parts, the atomic motions are at the same time too slow, to a corresponding extent, and the result in those localities is the development of a " chill " — all because those departments are deprived of cheir appropriate quantity of the vital fire, which is the soul principle, or rather the ultimate organization of the immortal and far more interior spirit.

Extreme Extreme

chill. HEALTH. FEVER.

Negative. Positive.

Of course, as you readily comprehend, no substance is moved without being first actuated by some adequate principle or force. Wherefore let the doctrine be established that, whenever the body is disturbed from its center of gravity, whenever it is made to wabble in its orbit, or caused to vibrate in the sphere of life, the producing causative power may be traced primarily to that soul-principle, which animates the physical temple, and which clothes the mind, spirit, or understanding— in shortest word, the whole interior individualized MAN.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISEASE.

I. ORIGIN OF DISEASE.

All diseases, therefore, aro referable, as to their origin, to tho soul principle. The moving principle is first disturbed; then, in the lower scale, the material parts take on a corresponding disturbance. Suppose, for example, you absorb a dose of arsenic. This mineral is a deadly poison. But would it poison a stone jug ? Put the portion of poison down a leaden pipe, instead of consigning it to your stomach, would the pipe experience death by arsenic ? The question answers itself. But why is the pipe not poisoned ? Because, we reply, the lead is not animated by a principle that can be thus disturbed. Man's dead body could not be poisoned by calomel, nor awakened by the thunders of a nation's artillery, because the soul-principle is not within it.

Matter will not respond intelligently to any appeal, neither will it, separated from the vital intelligence, generate either pain or pleasure. Therefore, it is the hight of absurdity to expect physical results to follow the lead of mere material bodies. Bodies without souls are dead. If you drink a glass of brandy, the soul-principle is first disturbed by the spirit within the fluid ; then, as a natural and inevitable sequence, the body itself, with its varied parts and functions, receives a record of the disturbance ; and the magnitude of such disturbance is always proportional to the extent to which the soul-principle is thrown from its accustomed equilibrium. A cup of tea or of coffee, a dinner of beefsteak, and the like, exert each a direct influence on the animating principle to begin with ; and then the condition of the physical organs and functions, subsequently, will ever be an exact index of the kind and extent of influence that was generated by and within the principle.

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II. PERIODICITY OF DISEASE.

By virtue and in pursuance of the soul-principle, which is composed of positive and negative attributes, all disturbances have ups and downs, or seasons of exacerbation and severity, followed by corresponding periods of mildness and diminution. There is a perfect system of vibration between two opposite points, or rather a swinging of the health-pendulum from one extreme to the other ; and the number of changes in the atoms of the body may be mathematically determined by the velocity of the vibration. Suppose, for illustration, you drink a bowl of strong coffee. The soul-principle will very rapidly respond to the spirit within the beverage. Without detailing the chemical facts in the premises, we will mark the effect upon the ganglionic centers, and in the throbbings of the heart. The ganglia are larger, and the pulse beats faster than before you imbibe the coffee. This condition is what we term the exacerbation — the hight of the action — the maximum state of the disturbance. But reaction will, sooner or later, succeed to a corresponding degree ; when the condition of the body will fall as far below the sphere of Health as the previous physiological operations were exalted too far above it. Both disturbances are diseases, or rather they tend to establish and promote those fictitious soul-alterations which invalidate the integrity of the vital energies, and thereby generate the conditions of disease.

The importance of this periodicity in disease is not likely to be apprehended without due reflection. Take experience for your teacher, try this philosophy by its lessons, and see whether we do not report Nature faithfully.

Say, to begin with, you are in a perfect state of bodily health. You do not think of your body, either while resting or working. It is without pain and fatigue. The river of energy flows over rocks or along grassy margins, all the same

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISEASE.

without awakening bodily ills, or allaying pains you do not possess. But your system is perfectly and mathematically periodical during all this life of health. Observe ; Are you not sleepy at a particular hour of the evening, and do you not arouse from slumber at a particular hour on the subsequent morning? Does not your healthy appetite call for food, day by day, at a certain never-varying notch in the sun-dial ? All the natural functions go forward with the beautiful regularity and precision of the completest clock-work. If you till the soil, there is a particular portion of the day which contributes more to your labors than all other portions. You can work more, easier, and better, at some special section of the diurnal circle. If this time came on yesterday at 11 o'clock, then to-day at that hour, you will feel similarly inclined and energetic. Or, suppose you should retire from your work at 10 o'clock to-day, and then engage in quiet conversation till dinner-time ; the chances are that, if you watch your sensations, you will feel disinclined to continue your labor at precisely the same hour to-morrow. A close observer will fully indorse these affirmations.

Again : Suppose you indulged last night in some delightful amusement, the excess of which brings weariness upon you through all the early hours of to-day, the natural effect will nevertheless be to cause you to realize an undefinable wish for a repetition of the same indulgence to-night at about the same hour. On this principle of periodicity, you will observe strong-minded men giving themselves in utter abandon to the wine cup, to reckless intemperance, and voluptuous debauchery, at particular parts of the year or month, while the same men are examples of sobriety and good citizenship at almost all other periods. Children wish to play periodically ; that is, at the same hour every day. Artists are inspired at some marked portion of the twenty-four hours. Each mind chooses its own period, either day or night, and is influenced accordingly.

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Nature is thus full of physiological and psychological antitheses. She brings the rhetoric of Health before the imagination of her children in no other way. It is. natural for rhetoricians to point an argument with a brilliant antithesis ; such as aversion, as opposed to desire; past, as the extreme other end of future ; identity, as the opposite of contrariety; truth, as the antagonist of error ; and so, in physiology, we use inspiration and expiration, endosmosis and exosmosis, secretion and excretion, action and repose, chill and fever, because it is the instinct of reason to look for the counterpart, or for the other end, of that which is felt or seen.

III. THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE.

In treating with disease, two things are to be kept in mind : first, the fact that all disturbances of the physical structure originate in tbe soul-principle ; and second, that the laws of equilibrium make it certain that all disturbances shall pass periodically from one extreme to the other.

Medicines, therefore, are appropriate only when they meet the wants of the disturbed principle — at the period when it is struggling hardest to restore the material parts to their own places in the temple. To give medicine or magnetism when the soul-principle is comparatively quiet — that is, when it is about midway between the two extremes — is exceedingly false to the requirements of either body or soul. For example : Suppose you ascertained last night, for the first, that your lungs are covered with " a cold." That is a sufficient proof that you will feel the same thing more severely to night than at any time during the day. Therefore your soul-principle is not very much disturbed, is not struggling vehemently to expel the invader, except at that particular period of the evening or night. But at the appointed hour, prompt and true as the clock on the mantle, your soul-energies summon all their available forces to overthrow the enemy. The Self-Healing principles exert their wisdom and their power alike for the reproduction of harmonial conditions. But suppose you— the yet more interior Manneglect to " second the motion." What then ? Suppose you, either thoughtlessly or culpably, withhold your encouragement'. Suppose you do not exert your Will to cheer on the struggling soul in its gracious efforts to abolish the " cold," what will be the consequence ? Answer : An increase of the original disturbance, a deeper penetration of the enemy, a more hampered condition of the physiological functions, a more complete overthrow of the soul energies.

This is the biography of every case of chronic disease. Consumption, dyspepsia, &c, are generated in no other way — namely, by a disregard of the -periods when the Self-Healing Energies (the soul-principle) exert themselves for the re-establishment of right physiological conditions. Look out in the fields. The earth performs her functions periodically. She joyfully receives the prolifications of the sun every spring ; her beautiful bosom enlarges from month to month ; the rivers of life flow through all her veins and arteries ; she becomes pregnant with a million harvests ; they are born amid thunder, and lightning, and storms ; she then throws her autumnal and winter garments upon her offspring, clasps her myriad darlings yet closer to her bosom ; then she feeds them lovingly till spring returns with all its impassioned smiles, when she again responds to the engerminating visitation of the sun and the showers. All is periodical. Night and day, seed time and harvest, disease and health, reciprocating each the other's life. Disease is but the disturbance of the soul-principle. But the effort at equilibrium is made squarely to the law of periodical changes. And we hold that all true treatment for the healing of all

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diseased organs or parts will be governed by the kind, period and degree of effort which the soul is putting forth in the physical economy. When you suffer most, the Soul is then making the strongest effort in the direction of Health. Of course, therefore, your soul-principle is struggling less with the disease whenever the disturbance is least realized. The middle state is a sort of temporary health-period. During such a period never take either medicine or magnetism. Be very still, or else resume your occupation, but always do everything with reference to the period of struggle.

THE MEDICAL VALUE OF CLAIRVOYANCE

Chapter III. The Medical Value Of Clairvoyance

The judicious employment of Clairvoyance, in the diagnostication and treatment of Disease, is a legitimate use of the power. The best natural judgment, though crowned with the diplomatic glory of a scientific education, is often incapable of reaching with certainty below physical disturbances to their primal causes. In the detection of the hidden sources of human misery, and of the conditions that generate corporeal discords, no sight less penetrative than that of the genuine clairvoyant can ever avail much. No professional man is more willing to acknowledge and publish this incapacity among medical men, than the vigorous editor of the Scalpel. We are ever and anon refreshed with his Carlylish style of proving and showing up the emptiness of the pretensions of the regular Faculty. The impossibility of discerning the deep-seated causes of many diseases, by mere sensuous observation of symptoms, is very generally confessed. The ordinary inferences, drawn from indications external, are frequently erroneous. The world of sick and suffering people can attest to the truth of this assertion. They groan day and night, or hobble about with congenital deformity, because their parents were once patients.

And yet the careful instructions of the scientifically-trained judgment are to be preferred as superior, and as being more in 3

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harmony with rational sense, than the blunderings of undevel oped or non-medical clairvoyants. There are many and various kinds of seers and seeresses. Only the few, however, of a certain kind, can truly diagnosticate and divulge the causes of Disease. The real "sources and philosophy of human suffering are discoverable only by such of the seers as possess an appropriate faculty. The condition of seership is one of the greatest impressibility. It is too apt to take on and reflect the fears," surmises, or established convictions, of the patient. Every sufferer, whether blessed with intelligence or not, will entertain some definite conclusions regarding the nature and probable cause of his misfortunes and diseases. And the clairvoyant is very certain to become involved therewith, and will be misled by contact with the dominant feelings and judgment of such a patient, unless, as above mentioned, the seer or seeress be in the full self-possession of the faculty of sight, while in the act of diagnostication.

It is unphilosophical to suppose that all clairvoyants are equally or similarly endowed. It is rarely the good fortune of any one genuine medical-clairvoyant to possess abilities commensurate therewith in other departments of investigation. In fact, a first rate seer of disease is seldom more than a second or third rate prescriber. This incapacity is sometimes manifested immediately subsequent to an examination and prognosis which have been pronounced satisfactory. On the other hand, i' sometimes happens that only the faculty to prescribe is perfect That is to say, certain seers and clairvoyants can survey thn field of nature and detect the exafct remedy for a disease, the origin, location, or symptoms of which they professed no power to discern. In such case it is wisdom to obtain your diagnosis from one seer and your remedy from another. But this course presupposes your belief in the existence of the power. With