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CANCER is a chronic, degenerative disease, where almost all essential organs are involved in the more advanced cases: The entire metabolism with the intestinal tract and its adnexa, the liver and pancreas, the circulatory apparatus (the cellular exchange supporter), the kidneys and bile system (as main elimination organs), the reticulo-endothelial and lymphatic system (as defense apparatus), the central nervous system and especially the visceral nervous system for most metabolic and motoric purposes.
Dr. Nichols was probably one of the first in our time who recognized the "concept of totality" as applied to disease. He combined the following clinical appearances: Emotional, nutritional, poisons, infections, accidents and inheritance as underlying causes for diseases: "No wonder we are all sick ... and science is no longer science when it attempts to violate God's natural law."14
He did not mention degenerative diseases in general, and did not approach the cancer problem in his article. However, his idea shows in many respects progress in the concept of acute and chronic diseases.
Some cancer biologists are of the opinion that "cancer is a phenomenon co-existent with the living processes", that "the cancer cell is not something living exclusively from the body", and that the cancer cell is not a special "system isolated from the living organism." They are united with and part of the whole body. There, all is arranged according to the fundamental rules of nature, where dynamic forces are combined and arranged in harmony in a well functioning body.
The vitamins work together with the enzymes; therefore, they are called co-enzymes. The enzymes function only when the other conditions in the cell are normal and active. They are combined with reactivated hormones and united with the right mineral composition.
It has been emphasized before that cancer develops in a body which more or less has lost the normal functions of the metabolism as a consequence of a chronic daily poisoning accumulated especially in the liver.15 It is important to realize that in our body all the innermost processes work together, depend on each other, and will be deranged with each other in diseases. That is the reason why all of them together have to be attacked for healing purposes at the base and in combination. My clinical experiences revealed that this is the surest way to the success of a therapy. Most parts of the general metabolism can be found concentrated in the liver. The biological function of the liver itself, however, depends on the proper activity and correct cooperation of many other essential organs.
I found the ideas of totality more profoundly developed in the ancient work of Paracelsus, and many other physicians of long ago.
It is not only in biology where the idea of totality is to be regarded as an entity of the natural processes; it is also the rule in art, in philosophy, in music, in physics, where the most learned scholars found the concept of totality alive in their fields of research and work. As a few samples, I would like to mention first Henry Drumond's philosophical work Natural Law in the Spiritual World (1883). The basis of it is expressed in his words: "The continuity of the physical world to the spiritual." This means the coherence of the physical inorganic powers as they are transferred basically into the organic world of plants and animals. In man, there are the electrical potentials outstanding in the life of the cells. They are especially accumulated in the nervous system, which is ultimately our "spiritual organ" capable of creating progress and great accomplishments.
In physics, Albert Einstein's first great work was Relativity of Space and Time. At first the theory was considered fantastic. Later it was generally accepted. Einstein's advanced studies dealt with a transformation of light and the photoelectric effect. Finally, his "transformation theory" attempted to include gravity, magnetism, and electricity into one basic physical system, which he called the Unified Field View - most difficult to prove.
In art, as an example of this concept, is the work of Schaefer-Simmern, who took the explanation of art out of the narrow limitations of the old rational principles and demonstrated that art is a "creative power," inherent in our brain functions, developing according to the body's growth, mental, emotional and intellectual maturity. Schaefer-Simmern said that "The creative potentialities in men and in women, in business and the professions, are always present as an entity," united with all other powers of the body, Schaefer-Simmern used art to "unfold the inherent artistic ability in the education of children," since it may become the decisive factor in the groundwork of a culture that rests on the creative nature of man.16
Norbert Wiener, Professor of Mathematics at M.I.T., writes: "There are fields of scientific work which have been explored from the different sides of pure mathematics, statistics, electrical engineering and neurophysiology, in which each single notion receives a separate name from each group, and in which important work has been triplicated or quadruplicated; while still other important work has been delayed by the unavailability in one field of results that may have already become classical in the next field."17
Medical science has eliminated the totality of the natural biological rules in the human body, mostly by dividing research and practice into many specialities. Doing intensive, masterly specialized work, it was forgotten that every part is still only a piece of the entire body.
In all textbooks , we find that single biological processes have been studied and overestimated statements made about them. The symptoms of a disease have become the main problem for research, clinical work and therapy. The old methods which sought to combine all functional parts in a body into a biological entity, have been pushed aside almost involuntarily, in the clinic, and especially in institutions of physiology and pathology. Finally, that idea became very remote in our thinking and therapeutical work. The opinion of the best cancer specialists is, as Jessie Greenstein stated, "Emphasis must be laid on a direct study on the side of malignancy itself,"18 despite the fact that his book is an excellent collection of physiological changes in the other organs, especially the liver. In my opinion, the application of the concept of totality can help us find the true cause of cancer; it could be best worked out in practical examples, not in animal experiments where every little symptom is observed singly (by itself).
In the nutritional field, observations for centuries have shown that people who live according to natural methods in which plants, animals and human beings are only fragments of the eternal cycle of Nature do not get cancer. On the contrary, people who accept methods of modern nutrition on an increasing scale become involved in degenerative diseases, including cancer, in a relatively short time.
In later medical history, the best known cancer-free people were the Hunzas, who live on the slopes of the Himalaya mountains and who use only food grown in their own country and fertilized with natural manure. Imported food is forbidden. Very similar is the story of the Ethiopians who also have natural agriculture and living habits which seems to prove that this type of agriculture keeps people free of cancer and most of the degenerative diseases.
The damage that modern civilization brings into our lives begins with the soil, where artificial fertilization leads to the displacement of mineral contents and changes in the flora of microbes combined with the exodus of the earthworms. Consequently, frequent erosion of arable land takes place. These changes bring about, at the beginning, an irritation of the plants; later they cause their degeneration. Spraying with poisonous substances (insecticides) increases the poisons in the soil, and these poisons are transferred to plants and fruits.
We must conclude from these and many other observations that the soil and all that grows in it is not something distant from us but must be regarded as our external metabolism, which produces the basic substances for our internal metabolism. Therefore, the soil must be cared for properly and must not be depleted or poisoned; otherwise, these changes will result in serious degenerative diseases, rapidly increasing in animals and human beings. The soil needs activity - the natural cycle in growth and in rest - and natural fertilizer, as we have to give back that which is necessary to replenish the consumed substances. This is the best protection against erosion; it also maintains the soil's microbic flora, productivity and life. Food planted and grown in this way must be eaten partly as living substances and partly freshly prepared, for "life begets life". Very significant are reports about Eskimos who get degenerative diseases and cancer in those parts of their country where canned food and unnatural nutrition were introduced and accepted.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who built a hospital in Lambarene, Central Africa, 40 years ago, reported in his letters of October, 1954, the following:
"Many natives, especially those who are living in larger communities, do not live now the same way as formerly - they used to live almost exclusively on fruits and vegetables, bananas, cassava, ignam, taro, sweet potatoes and other fruits. They now live on condensed milk, canned butter, meat- and fish-preserves and bread." Dr. Schweitzer observed in 1954 the first operation on appendicitis on a native of this region. "... The date of the appearance of cancer and other diseases of civilization cannot be traced in our region with the same certainty as that of appendicitis, because the microscopic examinations have only been in existance here for a few years. ... It is obvious to connect the fact of increase of cancer also with increased use of salt by the natives. ... Curiously enough, we did not have any cancer cases in our hospitals before."
Dr. Salisbury reported, concerning the Navajo Indians, that he had, in 28 years, 35,000 Indian admissions in the hospital, with only 66 cases of cancer. The death rate among these Indians is one out of 1,000, while it is about one out of 500 among Indians who have accepted part of the nutrition of modern civilization.
The Bantu population of South Africa has 20 per cent primary liver cancers. Their diet, of a very low standard, consists chiefly of cheap carbohydrates, maize and mealy meals. Seldom do they have fermented cow's milk. Meat is eaten only at ceremonies. Two physicians, Drs. Gilbert and Gilman, studied their nutrition habits in animal experiments and placed stress on the diet of the Bantus as a cause of cancer. The result was that in almost all animals the liver was affected and 20 per cent developed a cirrhosis of the liver later. When an extract of the liver of a Bantu man was painted on the back of mice, benign or malignant tumors developed.
At the conclusion of this chapter, the reader may well ask: "What should I do with the idea of the concept of totality in understanding the cancer problem and treatment?" The answer is: the "premorbid damage" goes down to the basic vital processes by poisoning the entire metabolism as it was acknowledged in Germany at the International Congress for Ganzheitsbehandlung der Geschwulsterkrankungern.19 Professor Siegmund, of the University of Muenster, explained that this poisoning occurs now as a general constitutional condition which is caused by modern civilization and which is not only a preneoplastic stage but also a premorbid general condition of the human body.20
Therefore, the treatment also has to penetrate deeply to correct all the vital processes. When the general metabolism is corrected, we can influence again retrospective functioning of all other organs, tissues, and cells through it. This means that there should be a treatment applied which will fulfill the task of totality in every respect, taking care of the functions of the whole body in all its different parts, thus restoring the harmony of all biological systems. The treatment which will fulfill this complex problem is described in detail later. Here it should merely be emphasized that the treatment has to fulfill two fundamental components. The first component is the detoxication of the whole body which has to be carried out over a long period of time, until all the tumors are absorbed and the essential organs of the body are so far restored that they can take over this important "cleaning function" by themselves. If that is not effected to the necessary degree, the entire body becomes the victim of a continuously increasing poisoning with dire consequences (coma hepaticum). Secondly, the entire intestinal tract has to be restored simultaneously; with the restoration of the intestinal tract, the most important secretory functions will be repaired, as well as its circulation and motility regulated by the visceral nervous system. In that way we can activate, together with other functions, defense, immunity and healing power in the body. Immunity does not mean here that the body is protected against a special bacterium; as in an infectious disease, it means that no abnormal cell can grow or develop in the body with normal metabolism. For that purpose, the degree of restoration of the liver plays a decisive role. We should not forget that a body detoxified constantly through the liver and the best nutrition can maintain an active metabolism with the help of the liver. Thus, the concept of totality will be obeyed in medicine as it is active in other living and non-living processes of nature. The same is true in the field of nutrition.
According to a report at the third Intemational Congress of Biochemistry, "A knowledge of the interrelationships among nutrients in a diet is essential for an understanding of their quantitative requirements for the animals. Utilization of one nutrient may be profoundly affected by the presence or absence of another. For instance, under certain circumstances the toxicity of zinc in rats may be corrected by copper, the presence of both molybdenum and zinc in any diet may result in significantly poorer growth than was caused by the addition of these elements separately (20). Selenium poisoning may be reduced by arsenic (7); molybdenum poisoning in cattle may be corrected by copper (12). Intravenously administered methionine prevented the toxicity of high doses of cobalt (21). There is less absorption of iron from the gastro-intestinal tract in rats deficient in copper than in rats supplied with copper (22)."
"These observations and many others reaffirm the finding that an abnormal condition of the animal may not reflect merely a low or a high level of dietary essential, but an excess or a shortage of one or more other nutrients which interfere with the normal metabolism of the essential dietary constituent.
"One of the most striking examples of this kind concerns the assimilation and storage of copper in sheep (23). It was found in Australia that the addition of ferrous sulphide to the diet lowered the expected copper accumulation in the liver by 75 per cent. Zinc given in an amount of 100 mg. a day had an effect which was significant at the five per cent level, but when added in smaller amounts which would be available to sheep grazing normal pastures, it had no effect on copper retention."
"Molybdenum given in the form of ammonium molybdate was found to have a severly limiting effect, but this effect was only observed when the diet also contained a sufficient quantity of inorganic sulphate. ..."
"The nature of the interrelationship of one microelement with another and with other food constituents is still imperfectly or not at all understood. It is my opinion that it is within the scope of the biochemists' and nutritionists' major duties to clear up the obscurity in this domain as soon as possible."21
These examples are chosen to illustrate the biological fact that not one factor alone or a combination of single factors is decisive, but what is decisive is how they influence the whole body, mind and soul in their entirety.
To the great complexity of the biological functions of the body belongs also its capacity of adaptation. A healthy body can adapt itself to different types of nutrition. It reabsorbs the necessary minerals, vitamins and enzymes as we know from experiments to determine the time for the clinical appearance of one or another vitamin deficiency. A sick body has lost this capacity. The deficiencies cannot be restored as long as the essential organs are poisoned. That is true in cancer also, as demonstrated by clinical observations.
Cancer, the great killer, will be prevented and can be cured if we learn to understand the eternal laws of totality in nature and in our body. Both are combined and have to be united in an effective treatment for cancer; in that way we can learn to cure cancer in a higher proportion, even of advanced cases. The limitations of the totality of functions of the whole body, however, also come into action here. The totality of functions is lost if one or another vital organ is too far destroyed. I saw, in several patients, tumors in the abdomen absorbed, and in others, hundreds of nodules and nodes on the skin and some at the base of the brain eliminated, but the patients died of cirrhosis of the liver in a period of one to three and a half years afterwards.
The role of the liver in cancer, according to Ewing, is seen in the fact that there are about 85 per cent of primary hepatomas and 50 per cent of primary cholangiomas associated with cirrhosis of the liver. The majority of authors think these changes in the liver have arisen independently of, and probably before the growth of neoplasm, as changes are diffuse and far removed from the local tumor. Dr. Ewing states, furthermore, that there is a uniform gradual process between nodular hyperplasia of the liver, multiple adenomas, and multiple carcinomas. The usual progress from adenoma to carcinoma is abundantly supplied in literature. These observations were verified in experimental work with carcinogens which brought about an apparent progression from regenerative tissue of the liver to hyperplasia and finally to neoplasia. Rats fed butter-yellow with a rice diet showed cirrhosis of the liver in sixty days and benign cholangiomas and hepatomas in ninety days, and, in 150 days, carcinomas in nearly all rats, damaging especially the liver, producing high anaerobic glycolysis, alkaline phosphatase and other abnormalities. The protective effect of a diet, consisting of B vitamins and casein on formations of experimental hepatic carcinoma, may permit some comparison with the human disease. It was found, however, that all these results greatly vary with the type of animal and also whether tumors were grown as induced or appeared as spontaneous hepatomas, and vary even more so in human hepatomas. Therefore, it became impossible to find a decisive factor in the vast literature of the production of these malignancies, as physicians looked and are still looking for one specific factor only. The solution is that it is not a single factor but generally one of many factors or an accumulation of one poisoning for a long period of time as the experiments of Itchikawa and Yamagiva show. They needed about nine months first to damage the liver, kidneys, etc. - another proof of reactions in their totality. That a very strong poison can damage the liver in a few days and produce a hepatoma in ten days does not speak against it. This cannot be compared with the slowly progressive deterioration in our system caused by modern civilization.
From work in our clinic, we know that many diseases do not appear independent of each other, but more as nosological "entities". A few examples: (A) Sinus inflammation is frequently combined with chronic bronchitis or bronchiectasis, also with laryngitis, nephritis, and other distant infections. (B) Chronic cystitis is frequently united with appendicitis. Surely, cystitis is associated with a combination of disturbances in the digestive organs. (C) Gall-bladder diseases, mostly combined with liver alterations, appear together with myocardial changes and later cause cirrhosis of the liver. Consequently, where the defense of the body is essentially reduced there frequently are bacterial infections of one or several organs. These clinical findings bring us to the conclusion that several different types of pathological changes may occur as the consequence of a deep general cause in the body which we can subordinate under one leading idea, the law of totality or the loss or diminished degree of "healing power" in a more clinical sense. Despite our great progress in modern biochemistry, we cannot depart from the old Hippocratian doctrine of direct and objective clinical observation: to coordinate them under one clinical picture. In infectious diseases, there would not have been transmissions to neighboring or distant organs, in malignancies not metastases, if there were enough healing power present. Thus, the development of disease, its course and healing process, do not depend so much on the type of tissue or organ involved, but more on the general healing power of the entire organism, united or centralized in all its metabolic processes for the most part concentrated in the liver.
Contrary to this concept, our textbooks and journals have separated different diseases and even cancers as malignant tumors of the nose and paranasal sinuses, malignancies of the stomach or the kidney, cancer of the lungs, etc. There are, of course, differences in the type, development, complications, prognosis, etc., but the basic idea must be maintained that the defense and healing power is an essential part of the whole body and must be restored, whatever organ or organs may be involved or whatever cause the malignancy may have had. I repeat: In general, the recovery from a malignancy means the restoration of the whole body from a kind of degeneration. In some cases of external cancera - skin and breast - the local treatment may be sufficient, but the concept of totality is a superior and farther-reaching approach as the facts indicate in cases listed in this volume. (See part II)