By ignoring the part played by the individual himself in the setting up of disease within his own body, and throwing all the emphasis on purely erroneous factors, such as germs, our medical scientists have succeeded in giving the word "germ" a significance and dread power, ludicrously all out of proportion to the part these organisms actually play in the life processes of the individual human being.

It is time the public realised what germs really are, and the part they really do play, if any, in the setting up and development of disease.

One would imagine, from the way the medical professions speak, that one tiny germ or bacillus (countless thousands of which would scarcely cover the head of a pin) has only to enter the body of a "healthy" individual for that individual to be stricken with some foul disease or other. Perhaps typhoid! Perhaps tuberculosis! And modern man goes around terrified out of his life because of the existence of these tiny creatures which he believes are always threatening him, and which only the most powerful microscope can reveal to his shuddering gaze.

What nonsense it all is! Our bodies are always full of germs: they play a most important part in the working of the body, especially in the destructive process—for constructive and destructive processes are always going on within the body, night and day, sleep or awake, whether we know it or not.

Where any living matter dies, it immediately begins to disintegrate into the simple chemical elements of which it is composed. It is in breaking down dead organic matter into its elemental constituents that bacteria are always employed by Nature.

We all know that a dead animal left lying about unburied will soon begin to rot. It is precisely in this rotting process—which is simply the reduction of the once living organic matter back into the elements of which it is composed—that germs are active. They are just as much a part of natural phenomena as anything else in Nature, and are brought into existence to do their allotted task by that omnipresent Power which, forever invisible, rules the workings of the universe.

All living matter must die and be reduced to dust again, and bacteria are the appointed agents! They are the agents of disintegration!

Now, the germs which help in the breakdown of dead organic matter—whether it be of dead bodies or of cell waste and other effete matter thrown off by the organism—are not very different in kind from the germ hysterically supposed, by medical science, to be the cause of disease in the human body. It is simply because they lamentably misunderstand the work these tiny creatures do, that the medical world attaches so much significance to germ action inside the body, when seeking for the solution of the problem of disease.

Germs take part in all disease phenomena because these are processes requiring the breaking down or disintegration of accumulated refuse and toxic matter within the body, which the system is endeavouring to throw off. But to assume, as our medical scientists do, that merely because germs are present and active in all disease phenomena, they are therefore the cause of the same diseases, is just as wrong as it would be to assume that because germs are present and active in the decomposition processes connected with all dead organic matter, they are the cause of the death of the organic matter in question. The analogy is absolutely just and fair! And equally ridiculous!

But no one would say that because the decaying body of a dead dog is full of bacteria, the bacteria are the cause of the dog’s death. We know they are there as a part of the natural disintegration process taking place as a result of the death of the dog. And so it is with germs and disease. Germs are a part of the results of disease, not its cause.

Germs are present in disease not as causes, but as superficial helpers brought there by Nature to rid the body of disease. They are the "scavengers" employed by Mother Nature to break up and "bring to a head" the accumulated internal filth of years of unhygienic and unwholesome living, which are clogging the tissues of the body and preventing proper functioning.

It is the elimination of this toxic accumulation of internal filth and waste material which is required if the treatment of disease is to be effective—not tinkering with germs. They will automatically disappear when the body filth and refuse have been disposed of, upon exactly the same analogy as that of flies and household filth, instead of bodily filth. Nature Cure practice proves this beyond doubt every day! (Treatment which is directed merely towards the end of killing germs is treatment that can never be really effective, because it ignores the real cause of disease.)

Thus, although germs are the very bugbear of orthodox medical science, they are of little account to Nature Cure, because the Nature Curist realises they are part of the effects of disease, and not its cause, and that they will disappear when the real cause has been disposed of. But that does not mean to say that disease may not be contracted through germ contact.

Germs may be the apparent cause of disease in certain instances, and people may "catch" diseases from each other, but only because they have within their systems the soil for the propagation of these diseases—in the shape of accumulated toxins and bodily refuse. No one who is clean and healthy inside can be affected by germs, or become the victim of germ infection.

When people understand this, they will be freed at last from the dread germ-bogey which medical science has created for them out of its imperfect and superficial knowledge of the real action and affect of germs within the body! It is the outcome of medical inability to distinguish between the real causes of disease and its superficial effects and manifestations.

In the face of the question, "What proof have you actually that the germ theory of disease is wrong?"—it may be said that even in the case of acute infectious diseases (where the germ theory seems to explain the facts most fully) it can be said that people in ordinary health contain within their bodies the same germs that are said to be the cause of the same infectious diseases in others. This proves quite clearly that there must be some predisposing factor present in the body before an attack of any acute disease is possible. Given this predisposing factor, the germs become active; without them they are harmless. This predisposing factor is in every case a lowered vitality and a body clogged with waste materials and impurities.

Members of the medical profession have themselves refuted the theory upon which practically the whole of present day medicine is based.

In an address on "The Falsity of the Germ Theory and Its Evil Results" given by M Beddow-Bayly, MD, at the annual meeting of the Anti-Vaccination League in 1928, Dr Beddow-Bayly said:

"I am prepared to maintain quite definitely that in no single instance has it been proved that an organism or germ is the primal cause of a disease. I would go further, and say that I have abundant evidence that the use of sera has resulted in incalculable harm and even death in man; that the discovery, manufacture, and testing of these sera are responsible for untold suffering among our younger brethren, the animals; and that the obsession of the minds of the medical fraternity with the clumsy and illogical germ theory has greatly retarded the progress of medical science by obscuring the real causes of disease."

During the course of the same address, Dr Beddow-Bayly quoted numerous extracts from records of investigations made by medical investigators and research workers, all showing the untenability of the germ theory, of which the following is a fair example:

"Dr Hamer, the late Medical Officer of Health for the County of London, in his report for 1915, dealing with the investigation of Dr Houston, the Water Examiner to the Metropolitan Water Boards, finds that the evidence supports the theory "that it is typhoid fever which leads to the development of the bacillus", and not vice versa, and "that the bacillus should be looked upon as the effect rather than the cause".

Perhaps the most striking illustration of all, given by Dr Beddow-Bayly in support of his contentions as to the unsoundness of the germ theory, is the following:

"The celebrated Professor Pettenkofer, to show his disbelief in the then recently mooted germ theory, swallowed a test-tubeful of cholera germs—supposed to be sufficient to kill a whole regiment of soldiers!—before a class of gaping students. Nothing happened! As Pettenkofer maintained, in support of his amazing act: "Germs are of no account in cholera. The important thing is the disposition of the individual."

These quotations and illustrations from authoritative medical sources themselves, regarding the instability of the germ theory, can be multiplied ad lib if anyone has the mind to. But why go further? Surely the reader has here sufficient proof of the inadequacies of that theory of disease upon which the noble fabric of modern medication is built.

To seek for the cause of disease in merely extraneous factors, such as germs and other outside agents, is to turn one’s mind, once and for all, away from the possibility of an understanding of the true nature and cause of disease. That is what the whole medical world is doing today. With what result? The state of our hospitals and general health of the nation are ample witness!

by Harry Benjamin^†