Louis Kuhne is a familiar name among Naturopathy practitioners. For those unfamiliar - Mr. Kuhne was a genius in the art of healing, who revolutionized the concept of disease and health in the early 20th century. His discovery of the cause of all disease and the remedies therefore, created a veritable epoch in the field of drugless medicine. Along with Mr. Benedict Lust, in 1917, Mr. Kuhne published the famous treatise, ‘Neo Naturopathy: The New Science of Healing Or The Doctrine of Unity of Diseases’. In this book, he explains the process of disease formation; nature, origin, purpose and cure of diseases in children. He also explains in great detail about transmission of disease and the science of facial expression among other concepts. The point here is that this concept of ‘Unity of disease and Unity of cure’ was widely accepted way back in the 1900s. The first and only line of management of disease was the use of patient’s own self-healing capacity. But, unfortunately, with the discovery of insulin in 1921 and consequently penicillin in 1928, led to intense research in the field of artificial production of antibiotics and other drugs which was ultimately boosted by a number of pharmacy companies. Thus, lost was the basic science of natural healing and there arose a modern system of medicine! I am not trying to discredit scientists who have dedicated their entire lives and made such important discoveries and inventions. In fact, I acknowledge their contribution and pay a tribute to them in my own little way. What I want to say is that a new direction in research is now required, since after almost more than a century of serious research, complete health solution is still being sought! Thus, it is time to revive the neo naturopathy of Mr. Kuhne (that has actually become a little old now) and concentrate on getting to the bottom his perspective – scientifically! This movement or new beginning of clinical documentation can really be considered as a ‘re-launch’ of his doctrine of “Unity of disease”.
All practitioners of this system, followers, even non-teaching staff, and non-technical professionals (working in Naturopathy institutes / hospitals / organizations at various positions) should know the scientific basis of the following principles of Naturopathy:
1. Unity of Disease & Unity of Cure
2. Theory of self-healing capacity of the body
3. Theory of vitality
These principles form the basis of Naturopathy. Usually, patients are told to have a belief in these principles to have Naturopathy work for any condition. This is a big drawback. But, on the contrary, I feel even those people who do not believe in this system can benefit from it. Only thing required is proving this. Gone are the days of Louis Kuhne where only anecdotal proof was sufficient for people to practice Life Natural. In the present era, there is a need to provide evidence-based practice; only then people will be ready to accept this ‘science’ and adopt it in their daily lives. This article will try to briefly hypothesize (with a strong scientific basis) the mechanism of these theories.
1. UNITY OF DISEASE & UNITY OF CURE:
Most of us are familiar with this Naturopathic concept which says that all diseases have a common cause, i.e. accumulation of morbid/toxic matter (toxemia); and, thus, there is only one cure, i.e. elimination of these toxins from the various eliminative channels of the body such as skin, sweat, urine etc.
This concept has often been looked upon with suspicion and disbelief and criticized by the scientific community. Toxemia is accumulation of toxins in blood. This is an established definition. Less is understood and spoken about septicemia and bacteremia. Septicemia is nothing but a term used to describe the presence of pathogenic organisms in blood-stream that ultimately leads to sepsis. Sepsis is a medical condition characterized by systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) which is a whole-body inflammatory state and the presence of a known or suspected infection1,2. The body may develop this inflammatory response to microbes in the blood, urine, lungs, skin, or other tissues. Similarly, bacteremia is the presence of viable bacteria in blood-stream. Thus, bacteremia and septicemia together may be termed as toxemia. As it is evident, the eliminative organs play a major role in removing these pathogenic organisms / microbes (traditional naturopaths call it morbid matter or simply toxins).
When we explore further, we understand that once these toxins have lodged in the blood-stream, many unwanted symptoms erupt. For example, even an activity as simple as brushing of teeth introduces a detectable amount of bacteria into the bloodstream. From the blood, depending on the vitality of the person, these bacteria / toxins / morbid matter may lodge in any particular organ subsequently causing systemic disease. The typical signs and symptoms include hypothermia, fever, leucopenia (reduced white blood cell count), leukocytosis (elevated white blood cell count), increased heart rate (above 90 beats/minute) and increased respiratory rate (above 20 cycles/minute)2. If not controlled in the acute phase, it may progress to septic shock, organ dysfunction and finally death. An example of end-organ dysfunction affecting the brain could be encephalitis. Its common symptoms are agitation, confusion, altered mental state and coma. Now, when a patient presents with a simple fever, the treatment that will be given to him is anyone’s guess!! Right from antibiotics to sedatives and from sanjivani vati to chandanbala laxadi oil, everything is tried on the patient to ONLY reduce the body temperature. This may result only in the suppression of the symptoms, reducing the vitality and aggravating the long term consequences of ‘toxemia’.
Thus, Naturopathy rightly believes that elimination of these toxins should be left to the body itself. Body will automatically throw out the toxins through the eliminative organs, thereby relieving the symptoms. This process of how and why the body throws out these toxins (i.e. autogenesis and salutogenesis) is explained in detail under the next principle of Naturopathy.
2. THEORY OF SELF-HEALING CAPACITY OF THE BODY:
The second Naturopathy principle states that body has remarkable recuperative power when left to itself. This has to be done by water fast. It gives the body total opportunity to rest completely – both physiological and physical. There are two important mechanisms that we need to understand behind this principle – (i) Salutogenesis (ii) Growth hormone (GH).
(i) Salutogenesis
Every Naturopathy practitioner should be aware of not only pathogenesis, but also the concept of ‘salutogenesis’. The term was first used by Aaron Antonovsky in 1979. Modern medicine has always tried to understand the origin of illness. Antonovsky suggested that an equally important question to pose is: "what is the origin of health?" The term salutogenesis comes from the Latin salus = health and the Greek genesis = origin3. Recent molecular-biological and molecular-genetic research has shown that important cellular-based autoprotective mechanisms are mediated by heat-shock proteins (HSPs) or stress-response proteins, also called 'chaperones'. This can happen because cells react to extracellular stimuli by activating signal transduction pathways which result in activating the genetic program4. The phenomenon seen here is basically due to the body’s own defense mechanism which makes it capable of reacting to harmful influences and allows it to stabilize a structure and/or function of the body for a certain period. This is what Naturopaths mean by the ‘self-healing forces’ of the body. The traditional Naturopaths have, thus, aptly used this concept (or phenomena) in the past to define the concept of health and disease.
(ii) Growth Hormone
Growth hormone (GH) is released by somatotrophins from the anterior pituitary gland. In children, GH plays a very important role in their development like increasing the height, calcium retention and mineralization of bones, growth of almost all internal organs including brain etc. Research clearly indicates that exercise, nutrition and sleep are the stimulators of GH secretion, whereas, free fatty acids and hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) are implicated in the inhibition of GH secretion. Thus, adequate rest (sleep), exercise (yoga) and natural diet (nutrition – dietary proteins) are very essential in promoting health. In adults, GH secretion may help in the repair of any organ damage. Thus, the Life Natural principles of rest, natural diet and exercise play a crucial role in management of diseases.
4. THEORY OF VITALITY:
Every living being is born with certain amount of vital power. This power varies from individual to individual depending on various factors like lifestyle of parents and preceding generation and certain internal and external factors. This vital power may reduce with age and disease. It is this vitality that influences the auto-protective mechanism of the body and helps in the growth and repair. Thus, it becomes very important to maintain vitality. This is usually done by following the principles of Life Natural.
When we speak of vitality, the genetic make-up is always considered. Genetic composition is a very complex mechanism and is relatively new to the science world. Nevertheless, genetics is under intensive research and is rightly considered as the future of research. Thus, indirectly we are at a stage of returning back to what Naturopaths have been preaching all the time! It is after the revolutionary work of Gregor Mendel, Father of Genetics, (which took almost a century for the scientific community to comprehend), that we have now started talking about how the external forces influence even the genetic composition and is carried on from one generation to the other! The concept of vitality is a very interesting area of research and developing further the concept of health and disease at a molecular level.
Naturopathy principles, thus, hold a lot of scientific benefit which now need to be validated with documentation. It is high time that we need to realize the work of pioneering Naturopaths like Louis Kuhne, Adolf Just, Benedict Lust, J.H. Kellogg, Lakshman Sharma, V. Raju, Venkatarao etc. and establish the principles and practice ‘true’ Naturopathy. Only, this approach can mark a new beginning in the history of Naturopathy.
- Arankalle D.V.
