Therapeutics is the art of meddling with the functions and operations of an organism, that is struggling to throw off a pathogenic influence, on the absurd idea that the meddler (doctor) knows more about how the organism should act under the condition than the inherent power of the organism itself. Such meddlesome operations are not always the harmless or helpful things that they are thought to be.

The facts and principles set forth in these volumes naturally suggest a new order of remedial sources; and, since these will differ . so radically from the medical measures and appliances in common use, some may be inclined to question their value or perhaps even to condemn them outright. However, natural and more effective remedies for extensive and often fatal pathologies can afford to wait for recognition, certainly as long as those who need them. Eternity is before them and we may be sure that when these remedies are found to be more direct, more appropriate, more rapid and permanent in effect, useful alike in all the multifarious forms of pathology and biogony and when it is recognized that they do not leave behind an aftermath of trouble worse than those they are intended to relieve, these procedures will be universally employed.

The Hygienic System holds that pathology can be remedied only by the employment of such agencies and forces as conform to the laws of life and meet actual needs of the body, and rejects all poisons of all kinds, and refuses to place in its materia hygienica anything and everything that tends to produce pathology. It denies that the knowledge and skill of any man can impart a curative power to any agent that is stamped with the power to destroy.

The medical profession having, hitherto, arrogated to itself all knowledge having any important relation to health, saying, in effect, we and we alone, are the conservators of the bodies and health of men, have withheld the little knowledge they possessed from the people. However useful so important a general diffusion of such knowledge as relates to our very existence, as the means of influencing and developing the forces concerned therein, might be considered; yet it was to remain the behoof of the learned dignitaries of this elect and holy profession--too sacred or too occult for the common understanding. Their prescriptions being supposed to be of a character that defies the scrutiny of popular inquiry, demanded a confidence almost unqualified. The public was asked to place the same faith in the physician--who concealed his prescriptions in corruptions of a dead language--as they were supposed to impose in their god. The patient knew enough if he could open his mouth and swallow the prescription without demur or refusal.

No inquiry was instituted to determine whether a person ought or ought not to be sick under given circumstances. That he ought to keep from getting sicker while he is trying to get well was never dreamed of. The enchantment of the magic dose was--nolens volens--to charm him into a condition of fresh vigor and manliness; and as recovery in the vast majority of cases succeeds an "attack" of "disease"; and as a remedy, or a supposed remedy, was always given, the inference continued to be drawn that there was a useful connection between them; both physician and patient laboring for ages under a delusion from not understanding fully enough the true relation of such things.

A man hits his finger with a hammer. A painful bruise results. In a few days, without treatment of any kind, the bruise is healed and forgotten. No one but a fool would, after striking his finger, bandage it up in liniment or ointment or use some form of drugless treatment, and resume striking his finger and expect the finger ever to heal. It can never recover until the mashing is ceased. When this is done it will speedily and quickly heal without treatment.

This simple fact is applicable to all the disorders to which our system is susceptible. Take, for instance, the man who, by gross dietetic habits, or by indulgence in alcohol, or in some other way, has weakened his digestive powers so that he is no longer able to digest his food. He can no more recover from this condition through treatment, drug or drugless, while continuing the abuse, than he can fly. Yet this is the very thing he will attempt to do, if he is an average man, and the healers of all schools encourage him in it. Mr. Average man goes down to the corner drug store, buys a bottle of Dr. Dopem's Syrup Pepsin, shakes it well before taking and goes right on in the same old manner. He does not correct the habits of life that are responsible for his condition. He expects the drugs, or, if he employs some drugless practitioner, the metaphysical formula or the adjustment, to cure him in spite of his pathoferic habits.

He may succeed in palliating his condition for a time, but real cure can never be accomplished until cause is removed. Nature demands that cause be removed first, and then, she can do her own curing. If the individual gives up the abuse of his digestive organs they will recover without treatment. If he persists in his evil practices, no amount of treatment, whatever its nature, can save him from the consequences. All that nature asks, or can receive, from human skill in "disease" conditions, is the removal of disturbing causes, after which, she will of her own accord, as naturally as a cast stone returns to earth, return to health. Repair of tissue, elimination of toxins and recuperation of health are specialties of the vital power working through the organs and functions of a living organism. Given an opportunity, this work is done well. Success often comes in spite of obstructive and destructive treatment.

Jennings says: "From what has been said, the attentive reader will infer that the fundamental principle by which I was governed in practice-- a principle directly antipode to the one in common use--was to give free and full scope to the action of the law of the vital economy, irrespective of immediate consequences, no matter how appalling or alarming the developments or symptoms might be; nothing would induce me to interfere with the law and operations of nature, further than to remove opposing obstacles, when such were discovered to be present, and their removal was practicable, and supply wants.

"If a man was in a fit, I would let him lie in a fit until he was brought out of it by due course of law.

"The general result of this 'let-alone' principle, in comparison with those of the perturbating one in common use, in any and all of its multitudinous forms, were such as to convince any sober-minded and common sense man, of the superiority of their claim to soundness, over that of the latter. Diseases were more uniform and regular in their progress, and shorter in duration; recoveries were proportionately greater in number, and more permanent and enduring in the end. Sudden and remarkable cures were a matter of notoriety, and the wonder was often expressed how such astonishing results could be compassed by such apparently trivial means. It came to be well known that the weapons which I used were few in number and of small dimensions, but it was conjectured that they made up in power what they lacked in number and size, and especially that their peculiar efficiency consisted in the skillful direction of them to the very seat and centre of disease."-- Philosophy of Human Life, p. 39-40.