Pain arises from many diverse causes, such as traumatic injury--a cut, or bruise--acute irritation, inflammation, chilblains, crude substances passing through the bowels, nervous excitement, an abscess (throbbing pain), etc. It will be obvious at a glance that to administer a pain killing drug in these cases does nothing to remedy any of these conditions. Colic may be "relieved" by a narcotic, but the intestinal condition remains.

A large part of the practice of medicine among all schools has always been directed to suppressing pain--not by removing its cause, but by overcoming the power of the nerves to feel. It has been a killing practice. For the most part, the means employed to relieve pain have been poisons--anodynes. Often, as in the case of morphine, these poisons produce worse pains than they relieve. They are more correctly classed as odynes. The true anodyne is that which affords relief from pain by remedying the condition that gives rise to the pain.

Dr. Oswald rightly likened the suppression of pain to "muffling the alarm bells during a conflagration." But it is worse than this: suppression of pain not only muffles the alarm bells, it cripples the firemen. Opium, for instance, produces constipation, decreased heart action, and respiration, impairs kidney action, and depresses the whole system. Every process and function upon which the sufferer must depend for recovery is crippled. In some cases the depression of vital function is so great that death results. In proportion as the nerves lose their capacity to respond to deleterious influences and herald the extent and character of damage, in exact proportion will the parts become liable to further decay.

The continued employment of "pain killing" drugs greatly impairs the nervous system. The unthinking never realize what a terrible price they pay for a brief respite from pain.

Relief of pain! How? By methods that do everything else than correct cause! By methods which often produce worse pains than those they relieve, or that are the cause of the very pains they relieve. Who does not know that the poppy that grows with the wheat produces worse pains than those it is given to relieve? Who does not know that it relieves the pains it produces only to make these worse? Who does not know that coffee will relieve the headache it has caused? Or, that tobacco will steady the nerves it has unsteadied; and by steadying them makes them more unsteady than ever? And yet, all one requires to be permanently rid of the pains of opium or coffee or the uneasiness of tobacco is to refrain from the the use of these long enough for the body to repair the damages they have created.

"There is something like a charm", wrote Dr. Trall, "in the idea of sending down the sick person's throat a dose which silences his pains and quiets his distress with magical celerity. But the charm is at once dispelled when we look to ultimate consequences. The very pain which the potent and ill-advised dose of the doctor has subdued is generally (always) the warning voice of the organic instincts that something is wrong, or the effort of the organism to rid itself of an enemy. When the organic instincts proclaim to the whole domain of life, through the medium of the brain, that an enemy is present, that proclamation is felt, not heard, and its language is pain. It is one thing to silence the outcry of nature for help, but it is quite another thing to relieve her by dislodging the enemy."-- Hydropathic Encylopedia, Vol. 2, p. 11.

The best means of dealing with pain is to grit the teeth, clench the fists and "grin and bear it" until rational care and the processes of life have removed the need for pain. This plan will always mean more rapid and more satisfactory recovery. The plan of "relieving'-' pain not only hinders recovery and damages the body, but it encourages the patient and doctor to ignore cause.

A patient suffers with pain. Every time he eats, the pain increases. The pain inhibits secretion and impairs digestion. The result of eating under such conditions is more cause of pain. The physician "relieves" the pain (sandbags the nerves), the patient takes a meal and is not conscious of suffering. Both he and the physician are satisfied. This method of "relief continues until there comes a "sudden" break. The physician is surprised. So is the patient, his relatives and friends. They all thought he was doing so splendidly. The truth is, he was slowly and insidiously undermined, but due to fact that he had destroyed all of Nature's warning signals, neither he nor the physician knew what was going on. His fancied relief enabled him to continue those very practices that were responsible for the pain.

If his pain had not been "relieved" Nature would soon have forced him to stop eating long enough for her to repair the condition. "Relief" prevented him from learning one of nature's great health truths. "Relief" blinds both the sufferer and his doctor; it obscures the sufferer's true condition and prevents the discovery of the cause of the trouble.

"Pain killers" do not really save us from pain. The late Dr. Henry Lindlahr used to say, "suppressed pains are deferred pains". While he had reference only to pains suppressed by drugs, "suppressed pains are deferred pains," no matter how they are suppressed. All methods of "muffling the alarm bells", instead of removing the occasion for the pain, do so by depressing the nervous system and through this they depress the functions of life by which recovery is effected.

While I was still in the curing business, a lady was once under my care who suffered, at times, with considerable pain and congestion in the lumbar region. By means of radiant heat and massage. I easily managed, in a very few minutes, to relieve all pain and to break up the congestion and restore normal movement. But, and here is the crux of the whole matter, in two or three hours her back was as bad as ever. I temporarily broke up the local trouble, but as I did not correct its cause, it returned.

A man suffered with a severe frontal headache. It lasted four days. He resorted to zone therapy for relief. As long as pressure was applied the ache was practically abolished. The instant the pressure was removed the pains returned with renewed force.

Neuropathy was nest tried. Results were the same. Spondylotlierapy was employed. Same results. Then hot baths were used. Results identical. All these methods gave temporary relief but when the pains returned they came with renewed intensity, no true relief was secured.

A girl lay suffering with encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and inflammation of the optic nerve. Pains were intense. Efforts to relieve her were made. Hydrotherapy and neuropathy were both employed. Each brought temporary relief. But when the pains returned they were much worse than before the "relief" was secured. The period of increased intensity of pain was, each time, equal to the period of "relief". The girl was not saved any actual suffering.

That pains are increased after morphine wears off is known by every one. But this fact is usually thought to apply to drugs only. There is ample evidence that it applies to drugless methods, as well.

Suppression, per se, is the same by whatever means secured. Nature rejects all plans of vicarious salvation. Every effort to prevent an action from having its full reaction meets with defeat.

Relief, not merely of pain, but of all symptoms, harms more than the original cause, because it makes the sufferer willing to tolerate the cause. It breeds slavishness to cause, which is moral suicide. It is patchwork treatment, and patchwork treatment is but hewing at a hydra. Everytime one symptom is palliated seven others take its place. Penalties cannot be side-stepped by any means. Acts have their consequences. These cannot be avoided.

It may be urged that by the constant application of measures for "relief", pain can be kept suppressed until Nature has time to effect a cure, after which no pains return when measures for relief are abandoned.

Is this true? Can it be true? In a narrow sense it is true, but in a larger sense it is as false as we would expect it, on general philosophic principles, to be. What actually happens under such conditions is the prolongation of the period of the disease, if indeed, the patient is not killed outright, and the other sufferings of the patient prolonged and intensified. Recovery is not only delayed, it is not so complete, the patient is greatly weakened and his ultimate restoration to normal health is long drawn out. He is usually left with some sequalae or chronic after-effect, from which he recovers if ever, only after a long time has elapsed.

All the various means employed to secure immediate, though evanescent, relief of pain, react disagreeably on the nervous system and cannot be continued as a part of the treatment without seriously increasing the obstacles to recovery and compromising the patient's capacity for restoration.

Dr. Taylor says "the power of such remedies (pain killers) is limited to its postponement, ***. The nature of this effect appears to be in the main inhibitory; it continues during the presence and contact of the medicament with the source of pain. Being removed through the ordinary physiological processes, the pain returns. ***. The reappearance of pain is often in less bearable form, **** is denoted by the increase of disagreeable sensation; the cause of the pain has not been diminished; the action by which it is evolved has only been temporarily suspended." He adds that the "habitual requisition" of "sedatives in medical practice" causes "these (nervous) energies to assume more and more intense forms of pain."

Pain killers of all kinds lower resistance to pain and make cowards of their victims. In all cases it is also necessary to increase the size and frequency of the dose to secure the desired "relief". A time comes when nothing short of a lethal dose of a drug affords "relief", or when no amount of hot application, for instance, will "relieve" the pain. Both drug and drugless methods lose their inhibiting effects.

Outraged Nature demands the full payment of every debt against her. The law of compensation is one of strict justice. It rewards and punishes with the same exactitude. To return to full health after health has been impaired by wrong living, the full price must be paid.