Irreversibility is often due entirely to the fact that the original and sustaining causes of disease (to which drug poisoning is merely an addition) are not corrected or removed. No case of sickness should be classed as irreversible until after the full correction of all causes, it fails of recovery.

Another reason for failure of recovery is the failure to provide the sick organism with adequacies of the primordial requisites of organic existence. If drugging is discontinued and the physiological needs of life are neglected, many will fail of recovery who might speedily recover were these Hygienic requirements fully and adequately met. As the practitioners of the various schools of so-called healing both ignore causes and provide only inadequately and haphazardly for the physiological wants of the sick organism, while throwing monkey wrenches into the vital machinery, they can have no adequate conception of the marvelous efficiency of the body's self-healing abilities when operating under favorable or healthful conditions.

In the final analysis, then, it seems correct to say that irreversibility, which exists far less often than is popularly and professionally thought to be the case, is almost always due to maltreatment, ignorance and simple neglect of the most elemental needs of life. None of the schools of so-called healing can be exempt from the charge of contributing to the production of irreversibility, but it must be recognized that what Graham appropriately termed the "mere drugging cult" is by far the worst offender in this respect. Perhaps if correct care is inaugurated in the initial stages of disease, no such thing as irreversibility would evolve.

This brings us to a brief consideration of the question: what and when are the initial stages of disease? The Hygienist regards the first cold or diarrhea or skin eruption of infancy as representing an already established toxemia. This is the initial stage of pathological evolution that will culminate years later in apoplexy, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, Bright's disease, or cancer, etc. The time to begin to head off the evolution of advanced and irreversible pathologies is in infancy or even before birth. There is no time of life when it is safe to neglect the genuine needs of the body or to subject it to abuses.

There can be no doubt that there are irreversible pathologies--there are patients who are so badly impaired that they are past vital redemption. But there was a long stage in the life of these sick individuals before the irreversibility was reached, when they could have recovered health. We can say of these that failure to remove causes, failure to provide primordial requisites and the evils of drugging and enervating palliatives, have persisted so long that an irreversible stage has been reached. Correct means of care, even if now employed, come too late. Palliation of discomforts permits the evolution of irreversibility without the patient or his adviser realizing that it is developing.

There is no such thing as an insidious disease. All pathological evolution is accompanied by frequent warnings that all is not right within the body. Irreversibility does not slip upon us unawares. It evolves without our recognition only because of our ignorance or perversity. Either we do not understand the warnings or else we ignore them. Two questions must be answered concerning any alleged solution of the suffering of the sick. First, does it really remedy the state that is back of the distressing symptoms? Second, is the remedial work only temporary or is it permanent? The correct answer to these questions will determine the real, as opposed to the illusory value of the alleged remedial measure. If the apparent benefit is only superficial and temporary, the measure can provide no genuine benefit. In view of mankind's long experience with measures of this type and their invariably harmful effects, we may properly consider such measures as evils.

It is precisely here that there exists the most marked difference between the traditional drug systems and their imitators on the one hand, and Hygienic means on the other. Before we can consider the permanency of results flowing from these various measures, it becomes essential that we draw a sharp line of demarkation between those means provided by nature for the care of the body and the means that are in vogue for the cure of disease.

Many things are proclaimed as natural that have no normal relation to the living organism and serve none of its genuine needs. Many of these are effective as palliatives. But if such a system of cure is to be accepted as a natural system, it must be admitted that natural cures are not permanent; for it is assuredly true that the same individuals frequent these cures year after year, whereas, if the basic causes of their diseases were removed, this would not be found necessary. It should not be necessary to stress the fact that cures that have to be repeated over and over again are not satisfactory from the patient's standpoint. Cures that require that the patient spend the remainder of his life in the hospital or sanitarium are equally unsatisfactory. A cure that one has to carry around in his pocket and take at regular intervals cannot be accepted as real. If a man must nurse and indulge himself and abstain from the world's work, he cannot feel that he has been restored to health.

It is important for us to understand that removing causes does not heal the patient. It only ends the production of effects. It enables the body to restore soundness of structure and efficiency of function by its own intrinsic powers and processes. This is healing, not curing. This is natural healing; it is a biological process. It is not accomplished by the application of cures, but by processes of life. Another and common reason for failure of recovery is the inability or unwillingness of the patient to carry out instructions long enough and faithfully enough to effect recovery. "Just this one cup of tea! Just one last cigarette! Just this one more hot dog and tomorrow I will begin to live Hygienically. Today let me enjoy one last non-Hygienic fling." Words like these or actions such as these words describe are all too common and represent a common cause of failure. It is unfortunate that so many sufferers fail to recognize the harmfulness of their habits of life and are unwilling to radically and permanently correct these. Yet it is absolutely true that unless all enervating causes are corrected, full recovery is not possible.