Dr. Trall says: "*** We must never forget that nature is the true physician. The restorative power is inherent in the living organism. All that the true healing art can do is to supply favorable conditions, remove extraneous materials, and regulate hygienic influences, and. thus place the system as fully as possible under organic law."-- Hydropathic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, p. 6. Again: "All morbid actions are evidences of the remedial efforts of nature to overcome morbid conditions or expel morbid materials. All that any truly philosophical system of medication can do, or should attempt to do, is to place the organism under the best possible circumstances for the favorable operation of these efforts. We may thwart, embarrass, interrupt, or suppress them, as is usually the case with the allopathic practice, or we may direct, modify, intensify, and accelerate them, as is the legitimate province of hydropathic practice."-- Hydropathic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, p. 64.

Remedial efforts are always going on in the organism when it is in any way morbidly affected even where the morbid influence is unknown to the individual and its effects are so slight as to be unrecognized by him. When these morbid influences are greater than the organism can overcome, their effects accumulate until a formidable pathological condition develops. When this stage is reached unusual effort is required to preserve vital integrity. It is then that the efforts of the vital organsism are disproportionately manifest in one or more of the eliminating organs, and we call this "disease."

Discussing the "renovating economy," Graham points out that "Pure healthy chyme is produced exclusively by the healthy function of the alimentary canal, and the alimentary canal can perform this function healthfully only while itself is in a healthy and undisturbed condition. Pure healthy chyle can only be produced by the healthy function of the lacteals. Pure healthy blood can only be produced by the healthy function of the lacteals, lungs, and other organs concerned in hæmatosis, or the formation of blood. Perfectly healthy bile can only be produced by the healthy function of the liver; and so on, of all the other fluids and humors of the whole system. Now then, suppose the chyme, or chyle, or blood or bile or any other fluid or humor of the body to be unhealthy and impure; is it possible for any physician, or any other human being in the universe, to apply such a remedy as will of its own intrinsic virtues, directly and immediately impart health and purity to any of these substances? Most certainly not. There is no possible way in nature of producing these effects, but by the healthy function of the organs constituted for that purpose. If the bile is unhealthy, no medicine in the universe can make the bile healthy; and while the function of the liver is perfectly healthy, the bile cannot be unhealthy. If the blood is impure, no medicine in the universe can, by its own intrinsic virtues, directly and immediately impart purity to it. There is no possible way in nature by which it can be purified, but by the healthy function of the appropriate organs of the body.

"If, then, by any means the blood becomes impure, the healthy functions of the appropriate organs will very soon purify it. But whatever may be the quality and potency of the medicines used to purify it, so long as the functions of these appropriate organs are unhealthy, the blood will and must remain impure; and this is true of all the fluids and humors of the system."--Science of Human Life, p. 424.

Pathology is not only due in the first place to impairing causes, but it is perpetuated by the continuance of such causes. When these causes have brought about a change of structure in the body; this, while it remains, will, in the absence of pathogenic causes, keep up the impaired action to a greater or less extent; but we may set it down as a rule, that in chronic "diseases," where degenerative changes have not advanced too far for vital redemption, the impaired action will not long continue after the complete removal of the primary cause. Hence, chronic "disease" is in almost every instance, perpetuated from day to day, from year to year, by the continued action of the impairing influence. Chronic "disease" represents chronic provocation.

The Hygienic plan has been from the beginning, to (1) Remove the cause of pathology; and (2) Build health with the causes of health. We recognize health as being as much an effect of causes, as is pathology, or "disease." The causes of pathology may, for convenience, be divided into two general groups, namely; (1) Immediate causes--enervation and toxemia; and (2) Remote causes--all enervating influences of whatever character. Obviously, since the first or immediate cause depends upon the second or remote causes, the correction or removal of the two groups must proceed together. However, for convenience, in study it is necessary to break these up into separate procedures. In this I shall follow the outline prepared by Dr. Robert Walter, in Exact Science of Health, as follows:

1. "The removal of the occasions of the disease." Dr. Walter correctly observed that vital power is the cause of "disease"; cause being defined as the power by which a thing is, while agents and conditions that are usually called causes, he called occasions or conditions of "disease." It should be obvious to all that if we persist in supplying the conditions of "disease," the "disease" will most surely persist, even though its form may be changed or the symptoms suppressed, by treatment.

By virtue of the living organism's inherent power of self-repair and self-maintenance, all the healing that is ever done is accomplished when the causes of the damage are corrected or removed.

A rational system of care cannot be based on haphazard and guesswork. Effects are impossible, even inconceivable in the absence of the causes upon which they depend. Pathology exists potentially in its sources, rather than in its symptoms. The means of "cure" in vogue have no possible relation to the cause of pathology. One of the outstanding blunders of the therapeutics of all "schools of cure" is that of attempting to cure without giving a thought to the removal of cause.

Whatever occurs presupposes the existence of preceding forces and conditions which determine the course of subsequent events. Everything that uses up nerve energy produces enervation and serious deficiencies arise out of the resulting deterioration of function; the faulty elimination produces toxemia, which is the fundamental and universal cause of all pathology. The many different so-called "diseases" represent merely different effects of the same cause operating through different anatomical structures, as well as functional channels.

The difference between good health and impaired health is the difference between a healthy and a morbid circle of affinities, based upon a good and bad metabolism respectively. There seems to be neither beginning, nor middle, nor end in the series of causes, so that it is often impossible to determine the true beginning of a vicious circle. The chain of causation is too intricate to ever be completely unraveled in any particular case; and the power of the ensemble of antecedent factors is too stupenduous to be controlled by mere treatment.