Disease
"Disease is a condition that prevents full, free and regular action. All that is necessary to bring relief and establish order, is to remove obstacles to this action, and excite the organs to their proper motions. Whatever will invariably, promptly, powerfully and permanently relax, contract and stimulate, will remove all obstructions to vital action, and cure all forms of disease, is a true medicine. As stimulation is nothing more than rapidly alternating relaxation and contraction [an interchange of activity as in the storage battery], it follows that the two motions in different ways and degrees of rapidity, sometimes relaxing, sometimes contracting, with greater or less velocity, are all that is necessary.
THE INTERNAL BATH
ALSO KNOWN AS INJECTIONS OR CLYSTERS
This manner of administering medicine (or food) is of the greatest importance in the eradication of disease and the maintaining of strength, and will frequently bring relief when all other methods fail.
According to the plans which I have formulated, there are certain objects aimed at in the administration of substances termed medicines for the elimination of disease: To raise the internal heat and maintain it; to promote perspiration; to remove morbid matter from the surface of the mucous membrane; to guard against mortification, and restore the powers of digestion. To best accomplish these objects, the medicines necessary to remove the complaint must be applied to that part where the disease is located. If in the stomach only, then by taking the medicine through the mouth the disease may be reached; but if in the bowels, the same combination should be administered by injection. Whatever is good to eliminate disease when taken into the stomach, is doubly beneficial for the same purpose when given by injection for then it is not changed by the process of ordinary digestion—the interaction on it of alkalies and acids. In all cases the grand object is to create a natural heat and remove congestions and morbidity.
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