Does our body adapt to
poison or does your body destroy it?
When you read this,
think of what the media has been telling you about the coronavirus.
We are told that there is a virus out there that you can catch. That
the only cure is a vaccine that has the coronavirus in it (along with
a lot of other pathogens) and that we must take this so our body can
build a resistance to it.
by Herbert M.
Shelton
Some confusion arose in
early Hygienic circles from the mistake of considering adaptation and
toleration as the same thing. Some Hygienists declared that there is
a law of adaptation and others rejected the idea altogether.
The Law of Vital
Accommodation is usually interpreted to mean that the living organism
adapts itself to poisons so as not to be harmed by them. This the
Hygienic school considers a misinterpretation of the law. As Trall
said of it, this interpretation of the law "is one of the
vagaries of the Dark Ages." He said that he "could as soon
believe in a moral law of accommodation by which the mind or soul
adapts itself to moral evils—to lying, cheating, stealing, profane
swearing, Sabbath-breaking, idolatry, adultery, etc., etc.—as to
believe in a physiological law of accommodation by which the vital
organism so adapts itself to poisons and impurities as not to be
injured by them."
Dr. Jennings did accept
this interpretation of the Law of Vital Accommodation, but he went
even further. He assumed that the use of noxious agents, by
occasioning a "reinforcement of vitality" to a part, is
actually a source of strength and invigoration. He propounded what
Trall designated the "monstrous absurdity" that the very
poisons which are antagonistic to life actually increase the force of
life locally, at least. That this is a monstrous absurdity is shown
by evidence which exists all around us.
It was notoriously true
in the days when the practice of "snuffing" tobacco was in
flower that, old snuff topers could fill the whole nasal cavity with
the strongest and most pungent kind of snuff without being able to
raise the smallest specimen of a sneeze. The merest particle of the
same snuff placed in the nasal cavity of the non-user would occasion
prompt and violent sneezing.
Sneezing and snuffing
were in inverse ratio to each other. An examination of the nasal
membranes of the habitual snuffer revealed that they were inflamed,
thickened, toughened, even ulcerated. Their sensibilities were
reduced to the lowest point short of actual paralysis.
It is a fact that may
be easily verified that the more sound and vigorous the organism or
any part of it, the more prompt and vigorous will be its action in
resisting and expelling a poison of any kind—the more acutely will
it feel, the more readily will it resent, and the more violently will
it resist and expel the tobacco, alcohol, arsenic or other poison.
Try it when, where and with whom you please, you will find no
exception to this law of organic life.
We do not deny a fact
that everybody knows, that the more the living organism is exposed to
contact with a given poison, the less disturbance is occasioned by
such contact. But this does not mean that the poison has ceased to be
noxious. It means, on the contrary, that the enervation induced by
such continued and repeated contact with the poison has reduced the
body's power to violently resist it. The vital powers are enfeebled
by the constant struggle against the poison. In resisting and
expelling the poison, the powers of life are exhausted precisely in
ratio to the amount and frequency of the doses of poison they have to
resist. It is obvious that if the resistance is always thus violent,
complete and rapid, exhaustion would soon ensue and death would soon
put an end to the struggle. Hence, to conserve the forces of life,
the organism brings up some of its reserve means of defense. It does
throw up a kind of fortification, but this is not of a kind that adds
to the powers and capacities of the fortified part. Less violent
means of resistance are brought into play.
When tobacco is first
taken its use is followed by vertigo, nausea, vomiting, prostration,
drowsiness and stupor. Tobacco applied to a sore or placed under the
arm-pits will soon poison and sicken the whole body. But if the young
hopeful continues his use of tobacco, the violent symptoms of
nicotine poisoning abate and, although he slowly increases the
quantity taken each day, he does not realize much if any apparent
evil from it. Is it, then, to be supposed that what was poison before
the habit was formed, has ceased to be poisonous now that the habit
has been formed? Has the relation between tobacco and the living
organism changed? Is nicotine now innoxious? Instead of habituation
rendering the poison less poisonous, it actually becomes more
injurious.
Because the body
struggles violently against the poison when it is first used and does
not struggle violently against it after the poison habit is formed,
are we to conclude that the organism is reconciled to it? It would be
more sensible to infer that it has been overcome by the poison. We
may logically infer that the signs of rebellion and resistance have
ceased because the struggle has so exhausted the body that it is no
longer capable of such resistance. And, as the resisting power of the
body is lowered more and more by the continued use of the poison, it
becomes less and less disturbed by even more grievous in- roads upon
the citadel of life.
The alternatives are
either a violent and heroic effort to expel the poison or, failing
this, a weak compromise by pathogenetic adaptation with ultimate loss
of healthy structure and function. So far from toleration being
established, a mere expedient devise is exercised which barely and
woefully maintains a kind of status quo. Genuine power, rapidly or
slowly (depending upon the amount of indulgence), is steadily waning.
As every adaptation to
inimical substances is achieved by changes in the tissues that are
away from the ideal, commonly by dystrophic changes in the cells and
tissue elements, they necessarily cripple the normal or legitimate
functions of the altered part. We have in the instance of adaptation
to arsenic eating, the building up of impediments and units which are
incapable of response either to wholesome foods or to virulent
poisons. Toleration is merely a slow method of dying. Instead of
seeing in the phenomenon of toleration something to be sought after,
it is something to seek to avoid the necessity for.
Because the organism is
enervated by the continued use of the poison, the user must
frequently increase the size of the dose-whether the poison is
tobacco, alcohol, tea, coffee, arsenic, salt, pepper, or other
noxious substance—if he is to continue to induce the same apparent
effect.
There is but one way to
preserve the integrity, functioning ability, fortitude and endurance
of the vital machinery and this is to keep poisons of all kinds at as
great a distance from the organism as possible. Indeed, if we never
saw, touched, tasted or smelled poisons of any kind, we would be all
the stronger and live all the longer for it. Every dose of the
poison, every cigarette, every drink of alcohol, every particle of
arsenic, every cup of coffee, reduces the powers of life by as much
as the body is forced to expend its powers in resisting and expelling
the poison.
To compel the body to
build "toleration" against all known poisons and all known
causes of disease would, indeed, insure us against disease, but it
would be the security of death. For long the world has been so
infatuated with this nonsensical theory of "adaptation,"
that it is leading the race to its destruction. Are men so
incorrigibly muddled with the false philosophy and nonsensical dogmas
of the ignorant past that they cannot see that their very theories
and practices are at variance with every known fact of existence and
opposed to every demonstrable law of nature? Are they so ingrained
with life-long prejudices or so deluded and infatuated with their
favorite theories that they cannot understand that their theories and
practices are leading the race to destruction?
If it is true that the
use of a poison "fortifies" any part against the noxious
substance, then all we have to do to be fully fortified against all
causes of disease is to use all of them long enough to become
"fortified" against all of them. To say that tobacco,
alcohol, opium, etc., are all very destructive at first, but after we
get used to them, that is, after we have accommodated ourselves to
them, the mischief they do is either nil or comparatively slight, is
to teach, in effect, that the more poison a person takes, over a long
period of time, the less damage it does him. This is to say, the more
poison, the more adaptation, so that bye and bye the sum total of the
accommodation should be so great that the poison would have no bad
effects at all.
The law of
accommodation does not mean that the living organism adapts itself to
poisons so as not to be harmed by them. I doubt very much that this
law should ever be applied to what we call "toleration" of
poisons; for, while there may be a certain sense in which adaptation
does take place, it is really a form of defense. It should not be
supposed that by the power of toleration or adaptation the body is
capable of rendering that which is constitutionally noxious
practically innoxious or wholesome. It is only that it bends itself,
like the tough but limber oak to the force of the storm, instead of
standing stiffly against it only to be uprooted.
Let us once understand
that it is not possible for the vital organism to adapt itself to
poisons so that they are no longer harmful to it, and we will readily
understand that any and every use of these substances, for any
purpose whatsoever, is injurious to the body. What is known as
adaptation to poisons is always and necessarily of a retrogressive
character and the greater the "adaptation," the greater the
retrogression. Graham was eternally right when he said that this
"adaptation" occurred by virtue of physiological depravity.
Just as the body cannot
adapt itself to noxious substances and render them harmless, so it
cannot adapt itself to abuses of useful substances so that these
abuses become harmless. Because the digestive tract of the habitual
glutton has so adapted itself to the customary load of food that it
no longer groans and complains, it should not be thought that the
gluttony has been rendered harmless. As digestion is so vitally
important to the preparation of foodstuffs for entrance into and use
by the body, it should be readily seen how any impairment of the
general integrity of the digestive system must in turn impair the
functions of the body generally.
