"Disease" means poisoning. All so-called "disease" gives evidence of being caused by toxins. Trall said: "There are aside from accidents-- mechanical injuries--but two sources of disease in the world, viz, poisons or impurities taken into the system from without, and effete or waste matters retained." All the causes of "disease," he said, "may be summed up under the heads of impure or obstructing materials (toxemias), and exhausted nervous power" (enervation), due to "unphysiological voluntary habits." Thus, we see that he, along with Graham and Jennings, recognized the office of enervation and toxemia in producing pathology and in occasioning biogony. The chief difference between our present conception of cause and those entertained by these men is the greater emphasis which we place upon endogenous toxins, an emphasis credit for which justly belongs to Tilden. In the following elaboration of the development of enervation and toxemia I shall follow Tilden very closely, quoting and borrowing freely from his works.

Life is a master drama of nutrition and drainage under the control of the nervous system. The blood and lymph, which constitute one grand circulating medium of the body, carry food, water, oxygen and secretions to every cell in the body and carry away the waste from these cells. This ever-flowing river of life makes it possible for the cells to live and function. They cannot live if separated from such a medium.

Just as a dead body, deprived of its circulating fluids and functions, is no longer a body; so, an organ deprived of its nutritive medium no longer exists. All living cells depend absolutely on the medium in which they are immersed. They ceaselessly modify this medium and are, in turn, modified by it.

Everything that combines to make ideal health rests on a basis of normal blood and lymph and nerve-energy. As certainly as all the attributes of health rest on one fundamental physiological basis--full nerve-energy and pure blood--so, too, but conversely, all so-called "diseases" rest upon one fundamental physiological impairment-- enervation and toxemia.

If a piece of tissue is cultivated in a flask in the laboratory, it requires a volume of liquid equal to two thousand times its own volume, if it is not to be poisoned within a few days by its own waste. It requires, also, a gaseous atmosphere at least ten times larger than its fluid medium. The cells and tissues of the body have the same need for a fluid medium and gaseous atmosphere if they are to live and function.

However, due to the marvelous efficiency of the heart and arteries in circulating the body's fluids and gases, the lungs and digestive system in replenishing its nutrients, and the kidneys, lungs, colon, liver and skin in excreting its wastes, the body is able to live in a fluid medium of only about six or seven quarts instead of the 52,S35 gallons which would be required if it were reduced to small bits and cultivated in flasks. The importance of efficient respiration, circulation, digestion, and elimination--nutrition and drainage--are apparent; and, since we know their efficiency depends upon the integrity of the nervous system, the importance of maintaining normal nerve energy is doubly impressed upon us.

Waste products of the cells--catabolites--are set free by the tissues and organs in the course of function. These wastes are poisonous. This means that the normal functions of life give rise to toxic residues which poison the body if not rapidly eliminated. A normal human being develops enough waste products in a few hours to kill him unless they are eliminated. These wastes are constantly formed and constantly present, and, in normal amounts, are necessary to health, acting as physiological stimulants. For instance, carbon dioxide stimulates the respiratory center that regulates breathing; oxygen has a depressing effect on this center.

When, due to impaired excretion, these ashes of the body are allowed to accumulate beyond the normal amount they become foes of life. Their first effect is that of overstimulation. The retained toxin becomes an ally of enervating habits by overstimulating the organism. Overstimulation is always followed by enervation. Thus there is established a vicious circle, and the longer it runs the farther and farther the victim is carried from the normal healthy standard. Finally there comes a time when the intoxication overflows and resistance is crushed, natural immunities are wiped out, and--death.

The blood stream is being continuously fed by a stream of toxic material draining from the cells. It is true that poison is "never" found in it, except in "harmless" quantities. If the blood is not toxic, it is because the urine is; because the kidneys are incessantly removing toxins from it. There is less toxic matter in the blood than in the organs. That the urinary constituents are highly toxic has been shown experimentally.

Every twenty-four hours the blood receives from the cells half enough material to kill the entire body. Wherever the processes of life are being performed, toxins are found for they result from the normal or physiological processes.

The products of life without oxygen are especially toxic. An increase in oxygen, though it slightly increases the products of disassimilation (catabolites), renders the products much less toxic, due to better oxidation. Muscular work in the open air reduces the toxicity of the blood by three-tenths. Due to more thorough oxidation of organic substances when exercising in the open air, the blood is rendered less toxic and remains so during the repose which follows.

It is as essential to body health that systemic drainage be perfect, as civic drainage is essential to community health. So long as the bowels drain the stomach, liver and mucous glands, and thereby cleanse the blood; and the kidneys drain the blood in a direct manner, conveying the waste, with all its toxins, directly to the outside world; and the skin and lungs drain the blood of poisonous gases--so long as such drainage is adequate the body will remain purified. There will be no self-poisoning.

The term toxemia carries its own meaning. It is from the Greek, toxicon, 'poison,' and haima, 'blood'; poison in the blood. There are many ways for the blood to become poisoned and we do not employ the term, toxemia, to blanket all of these forms of poisoning.

Despite their efforts to find such, medical men have not discovered a specific etiology for most so-called "diseases." Even their so-called specific causes must have an ally and hence are not specific--indeed, they are not true causes at all. If a central cause can be found, to which all other causes are subsidiary, the confusion existing in the fields of etiology and pathology, and which now perplexes and leads into blind pockets, the best men in the profession, would end and order would be brought out of the present chaos. It is this central cause which we claim to have found and to which we apply the term, toxemia. Dr. Tilden's opinion that the medical profession would long ago have discovered toxemia had not Pasteur shunted them into the blind-alley of bacteriology may be correct; for, the germ theory has certainly blinded the profession to many important truths.