Herbal remedies, Biochemic tissue salts, Homoeopathic drugs, and the thousands of remedies sold as natural remedies are all almost valueless. They have no place in a natural system of healing. While some of these remedies are much less harmful than orthodox drugs, they cannot remove the causes of disease nor can they supply any of the biological requirements of the body or be used by the body to build normal tissues. By their very nature they are either mild poisons or non-food and therefore should not be consumed by well or sick people.

Herbalism is a system of botanic medicine. Plants are treated in many ways to make them into medicines. The body recognises these substances as unwanted material and make more or less violent efforts to expel them. Most herbs, if eaten in the natural state, are wholesome foods and should be regarded as such. When converted into medicines by roasting, boiling, frying and mixing with harmful ingredients, they lose any value they originally possessed. Biochemic tissue salts and Homoeopathic medicines are all highly diluted drugs.

Here again the body will try to expel these mild poisons and so produce a reaction. But, as these drugs do not remove the causes of disease and simply mitigate the effects of wrong living habits, they do not qualify as natural methods of treatment.

Many modern Naturopaths give medicines because they feel that most people are not yet ready for the pure teachings of Nature Cure and because there is a demand for something to take. They have even gone so far as to rationalise this procedure by claiming that people suffer from certain deficiencies which these natural remedies supply. The medical profession has used placebos for many years. A placebo is defined as medicine which contains solely inactive ingredients. The only possible benefit gained would be produced by the faith patients have in these remedies. Early hygienists made use of coloured water and bread pills. People were encouraged to believe that these so-called medicines contained some powerful and mysterious healing powers. Today this faith has been transferred to vitamin pills and food supplements.

In great Britain, the situation has become so serious that an organisation known as the British Register of Naturopaths accepts as members only those practitioners who practise pure Naturopathy. In order to gain membership the applicant must promise not to prescribe remedies of any kind. This is a step by members of this organisation.

There have been other methods used from time to time. Each has had its day. Some of these survive today and are used by a few practitioners. Under this heading we find Nerve-pressure, Zone Therapy, and Radiethesia, including the so-called Color-therapy.

The first two I have mentioned constitute a group of methods which depends upon pressure at strategic points on the body to produce effects of stimulation and inhibition. They either speed up or slow down the flow of nerve-force and do on occasions, produce effects. Their value is minute, brief and not worth the trouble involved. At best, they do little harm. At worst, they suppress slightly some symptoms of disease. They are all unnecessary.

Radiesthesia or Radionics is based on the claim that disease is caused by unfavourable radiations and that inducement of favourable radiations can improve health. Radiesthesia is quite useless for the purpose of making changes in the body structure or body chemistry. It has the saving grace that it does not do any harm except to convince the patient that there is some magical quality of healing in the little black box.

The truth is that the inherent healing power within the cells of the body alone can bring about a return to health. You will get good results with Nature Cure, with or without Radiesthesia, but you will not get results without that force known as the Vis Medicatrix Naturae, or the healing power of Nature.

Acupuncture and chicken embryo injections are methods which have become popular in recent years. They have the glamour of the East about them. Acupuncture makes use of needles which are thrust into the skin in certain well-defined areas. It is highly unnatural and quite useless. The embryos of unborn chickens are used to provide the raw material which is injected into dupes who believe it will confer some benefit on them. It is supposed to produce rejuvenation. Another most unnatural and useless procedure.