Parasites --- One Doctor's Opinion

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Impaired Health Vol II

Diseases Due To Intestinal Parasites

Dr. J.H. Tilden

 

COMMON FORMS.--(l) Ascaris Lumbricoides; (2) Oxyuris Vermicularis; (3) Tenia

Saginata; (4) Tenia Solium.

 

(1) Ascaris Lumbricoides.--This is a long, slender worm that inhabits the

small intestines and stomach. It is one of the characteristic forms, and is

frequently found in children. It looks like the common garden or angle worm,

and infests children that are fed improperly. Children that are fed largely on

bread, butter, syrup and sweets of all kinds, and are allowed to eat between

meals until digestion is impaired or broken down, will develop these worms. It

is impossible for parasites to develop in the intestines of a child or adult

unless the digestive secretions are weakened to such an extent that they have

no destructive influence on the ova, or eggs, of the parasites taken in with

the food. It is impossible for food to he so perfectly prepared that the eggs,

or ova, of parasites will not occasionally get into the alimentary canal.

 

(2) Oxyuris Vermicularis.--This is a small worm that infests the rectum and

causes children to be very nervous. They will be continually rubbing and

scratching their fundus. Such children are troubled a great deal with

indigestion. Their nutrition is very poor. Their rest at night is broken.

Through the day they are restless and irritable, cry easily, and are troubled

with much gas and stomach derangement.

 

(3) Tenia Saginata.--This is the common beef tapeworm.

 

(4) Tenia Solium.--This is the tapeworm of pork. The same may be said of

these worms as was said regarding the common worms of children. They are

developed from the eggs of parasites taken in with the food, and would be

digested if the digestion were perfect. It would be unreasonable to believe

that those who are afflicted with tapeworm are the only people who have taken

into their stomachs the ova leading to the generation of tapeworms.

 

Treatment.--The common treatment for worms in children is to give santonin,

followed with a laxative. It is not necessary, and besides, this drug is a

poison and has been known to kill. All that is necessary to get rid of these

worms is to correct the diet of the child, and to give it the necessary rest by

keeping it in bed until fully recovered. At first it should be kept on

fruit--all the fruit it wants morning, noon, and night, but no eating between

meals. This should be kept up for a week. The second week it may have toasted

bread and butter, with a combination salad. As the health improves and all

symptoms disappear, the fruit meat in the evening may be dropped, and toasted

bread and butter, followed with milk, substituted. This should be the diet of

the child until full health is established, and should be the diet of all

patients suffering from intestinal parasites of any kind, Those troubled with

tapeworm should fast for three days, then take the juice of a lemon in a glass

of water three times a day for three days, and then live on fruit-any kind of

fresh fruit-three times a day for three days. After this, have fruit for

breakfast; toasted bread, butter, and fruit at noon; and a combination salad

and cooked, non-starchy vegetables for the evening meal. This style of eating

should be kept up until the patient can be pronounced cured--in full health.

 

~~~

 

Everything points to the fact that so long as the human body is normal, and

not overtaxed by care and bad habits, parasites are either suppressed entirely

or held down to inoffensive guests of the body. But when enervation is

established, the body loses its immunizing power; then, and not before, do

germs become the allies of bad habits in destroying health.

 

~~~

 

When the parasite causes death, it is more accidental than otherwise. The

intestinal worm causes death by finding its way into the lungs. The hydatid

disease of the liver (a parasite belonging to the dog) is fatal. The parasites,

when they kill, do so by causing tumors, which cause pressure or obstruction.

 

Both parasites and infection produce toxic substances; it is a question of

more or less. The poison is that of intoxication. In parasites, intoxication is

reduced to the smallest amount.

 

The definition of infectious disease is: Disease developed from toxins

produced by parasites. The word " parasite " in this case is made to cover all

animate agents.

 

Infection, defined, is a history of intoxication.

 

~~~

 

Germs that are said to cause disease do so only when resistance is broken.

At most, germs and parasites must take their place among auxiliary or secondary

causes.

 

The prime cause of all diseases is enervation; and enervation has as many

causes as there are influences in man's environment.

 

~~~

 

Stopping food allows the enzymic secretions to catch up with the pathologic

tissue change brought about by bacterial fermentation, and as soon as the

enzymes are equal to the digestive requirements the germs subside.

 

It should be known that the reproductive products of all parasites are

digested by normal digestive secretions, and the power to start fermentation by

the bacteria is made impossible by a full and normal enzymic secretion.

 

~~~

 

    If too much fertilizer is furnished plant life, there will be overgrowth,

with arrested germination--sterilization. In animal life an oversupply of

nourishment produces plethory and sterility. The enervation brought on from

overwork renders the body a prey to germs and parasites. Those who eat beyond

digestive power weaken the digestive secretions to such an extent that germs

and the germinal seeds of parasites, which enter the stomach and bowels with

the food, instead of being digested as they are in a normal state, find a

kindly host who allows them to germinate and develop. This is why some people

are infested with parasites and why others are not. When the body's enzymic

protection is below par from general enervation, then the ubiquitous bacillus

mixes up in all the affairs of life and gives plausibility to the idea that

germs cause disease.