NH: INHS Classic - HM Shelton - Enervation - Toxemia

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Bob!!! Thank you So Very Much, for sending all these articles. I'll be

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[Enervation — Toxemia

 

Hygienic Review

Vol. XXV August, 1964 No. 12

Enervation — Toxemia

Herbert M. Shelton

 

In line with the old concept of disease as something imposed from

without, an attacking entity, medical men and the public have been

taught to think of causation in terms of germs, viruses, parasites;

resistance as the capacity of the body to marshal its phagocytes to

overcome or repel an invader or to marshal antitoxins to neutralize

the toxins of germ activity; cure in terms of antagonists, antidotes,

antitoxins. They employ the term toxemia, but they mean by it

poisoning by germ activity. No germs, no toxemia, is their general

attitude.

 

Our concept of toxemia is fundamentally different from that held by

the medical profession. To us toxemia is the result of the

accumulation in the blood, lymph, and tissues of retained metabolin—

metabolic waste. It is an autogenerated state, the toxin arising as a

normal by-product of the regular and necessary activities of life.

Toxin accumulates as a result of inhibited excretion (checked

elimination). Basically, we hold that any influence, whether physical

or mental, that results in an excessive expenditure of nerve energy

leads to toxemia. This means that the chief causes of enervation are

found in the voluntary habits of the individual.

 

What is meant by the term enervation? It means the reduction of nerve

energy sufficient to interfere with or reduce the organic activities

of the body. The nervous system presides over and controls the

functions of the many and various organs of the body—secretion,

excretion, circulation, digestion, respiration, absorption, etc.,

etc. Hence the term enervation simply means a reduction of the

capacity of the nervous system below the level required to maintain a

normal level of physiological activity.

 

As man in civilized life does not possess perfect health, we hold

that everyone is more or less enervated, hence more or less toxemic.

This lowering of the body's capacity to function on a high

physiological level is what we mean by lowered or broken resistance.

But we have a different concept of what is resisted. We resist heat,

cold, poisons, fatigue, and other inimical influences. When our

energy is sufficiently low that we present inadequate resistance to

cold, for example, exposure to severe or prolonged stress by cold,

results in a sufficient added check being placed upon excretion that

there is a sudden increase of the body's toxic load, thus

precipitating a crisis.

 

A gradual accumulation of waste (toxin) occurs when continual

draughts upon the nerve energy of the body are made by various

activities, stresses and exigencies of life that prevent the

maintenance of complete elimination. This accumulated waste

constitutes what we understand as toxemia. This is not to say that

there are no other sources of intoxication (such as drug poisoning,

toxins absorbed from decomposition processes going on in the

intestine, etc.) but we prefer to differentiate between poisons of en-

dogeneous origin and those of exogeneous origin, by calling the one

toxemia and the other poisoning.

 

Poisoning from any source causes suffering-disease—so that we have

also defined toxemia as the presence in the fluids and tissues of

toxins from any source. Tobacco poisoning causes disease; acute

disease when the tobacco is first taken, chronic disease after

toleration has been established. The same facts are true of all

poisons. Bacteria produce toxins in their activities, but they are as

helpless as a feather in a whirlwind in a healthy body. The body must

first be enervated and toxemic before bacteria can gain a foothold

therein and thrive. This means that we must first be sick before

bacteria can add a complicating and, perhaps, differentiating toxemia

to the primary or metabolic intoxication.

 

It should be borne in mind that there can be no toxemia, as we have

here defined it, without a previous checking of elimination and that

this is due to lowering of functioning power-enervation. The order of

events (sequence) in the evolution of cause is habits of mind and

body and environmental influences that use up nerve energy in excess

of the body's power to regenerate it during the hours allotted to

rest and repose, enervation, checked secretion and excretion (indeed

a lowering of the power of function in general), retention and

accumulation of body waste, toxemia. In the last analysis toxemia is

the result of fatigue of the nervous system to a sufficient degree to

lessen the functioning power of life and cripple the effort to

maintain normal functions.

 

While we may speak of an absorptive-toxemia arising from gastro-

intestinal decomposition or from an abscess, or we may speak of a

toxemia resulting from great emotional stress or from profound

physical fatigue, in the final analysis these are results of

enervation. Intoxication (alcoholic, narcotic, tobacco, etc.) may

occur even in those of perfect health, if poisons are deliberately

introduced into the body, but let us keep this variety of poisoning

separate in our thinking from the toxemia that is the result of

habits of life and environmental influences that reduce nerve energy;

all the while keeping in mind that indulgence in poison habits add a

profoundly enervating influence to their poisoning.

 

Enervation may grow out of any possible combination of the following

practices and influences:

Such emotional stresses as fright, grief, worry, apprehension,

anxiety, hurry, anger, irritability, hate, resentment, jealousy, over

ambition leading to overwork (mental or physical); physical

overexertion, excessive venery, lasciviousness, pain and shock,

injuries, loss or blood, surgical operations, disease processes,

constant coughing, loss of sleep, lack of rest and relaxation, drug

treatments, the stimulations and inhibitions of osteopathic,

chiropractic, naprapathic, hydropathic, electrical, thermal (heat and

cold), and similar treatments, the digestive strain caused by

overeating, wrong food combinations, condiments, drinking with meals;

exposure to cold, and wet, exposure to heat and humidity; eye-strain,

malpositions anywhere in the body; a lack of exercise, of fresh air,

of warmth and comfort, lack of cleanliness, lack of sunlight,

inadequate food; in short, the universal excesses and deficiencies of

which mankind is guilty and the treatments which are heaped upon the

sick, are the most common causes of enervation.

 

Another great source of enervation is the almost universal indulgence

in poisons of one kind or another—the various alcoholic beverages and

soft drinks, tobacco (smoking and chewing), betel chewing, arsenic

eating, drinking of tea and coffee, the taking of narcotics and other

drugs, poisons absorbed from the intestinal tract, chemical and

bacterial poisons taken in by mouth, lungs, mucous membrane or by

injection. Poisoning of any nature and from any source causes a waste

of nerve energy in resisting and expelling the poison. Toxemia, once

it is established, causes a waste of nerve energy in the activities

needed to resist and expel the toxin.

 

Thus it will be seen that enervation results in toxemia, toxemia

increases enervation, thus increasing the toxemia; enervation causes

the individual to resort to enervating depressants and stimulants for

relief of discomforts and the enervation thus caused calls for more

enervating means of relief. Soon the individual finds himself in a

complex of vicious cycles, from which he sees no way of escape. The

more he resorts to the treatments, the more enervated he becomes. The

more enervated, the more toxemic and the more he thinks he needs

treatment. The more he lashes himself with stimulants, the weaker he

grows and the more he resorts to stimulation.

 

How do we break up this complex of vicious cycles? Certainly not by

resort to more enervating treatments, not by surgical vandalism, not

by more of the hair of the dog that bit you. A radical, a

revolutionary change in the way of life is the only way out. Every

cause of enervation must be abandoned or corrected. Every bad habit

of mind and body must be abandoned and good habits of life

substituted therefor. Anything short of a radical change in the way

of life will fail to enable the man or woman to evolve into a state

of good health.

 

A housecleaning is in order. Toxin must be eliminated. This is not to

be accomplished by the artificial and forcing methods that have been

employed for ages by the curing cults, for the effect of these is to

produce more enervation while failing to secure toxin elimination.

The body has its own blood purifiers and these will do the work if

they are given an opportunity and supplied with adequate functioning

power. Where is functioning power to come from in a body that is

already profoundly enervated? It can come only by hoarding what one

has; this is, by ceasing all unnecessary expenditure. Energy saved

from one activity is available for use in other activities. This is

the reason physical and mental rest result in an immediate increase

in excretion.

 

It is also important that we look toward stopping the absorption of

toxic materials from the digestive tract and from drug habits. An

empty digestive tract and discontinuance of all drug habits enable

the body to free itself of poisons already accumulated. The

fundamental error of all the curing systems lies in their effort to

force the sick organism to act in accordance with the practitioners'

conceptions of how it ought to act, ignoring all study and

observations of how it is constituted to act. They try to force

healthy action upon the sick body and cause more suffering by their

very efforts.

 

Herbert M. Shelton]