We natural hygienists have put on trial the very validity of manufacturing and dispensing drugs to sick people in order to restore them to health—the very foundation and cornerstone on which the medical profession rests its case.

"Medicine" is not now nor has it ever been a science. It is an erroneous, even deadly method of treating the sick. Physiology, biology and anatomy are sciences, based on demonstrable principles, but these are not medicine. Although medical students are required to study these sciences, medicine is not based on them.

Amidst all the sophistry and secrecy of this "divine right of drugging," the world is witnessing a breakdown of so-called "medical science." The best men in the medical profession have no remedy to reverse the decline of our health that is so obvious.

Hygienists contend that healing is a biological process and not an art; that healing takes place because of the inherent instinct of the body to preserve itself in good health and efficiency. A hygienist’s approach to disease is the antithesis of the medical. We seek not to harm or mislead the patient by masking symptoms with toxic drugs. Why treat the symptoms as opposed to eliminating the cause?

Drugs are toxic substances that have no power to "cure," but they do possess the power to "destroy."

When people take cathartics and laxatives, they do not realize how much damage they do to the membranes of the bowel. They may be sugar or chocolate-coated and deceive the palate, but their irritations will exact a toll later on. The constant irritation they induce will often produce congestion, inflammation and, finally, morbid changes in the membranes. Sufferers then develop colitis, appendicitis, proctitis, hemorrhoids, or other symptoms and seldom recognize the "wonder drug" they have been taking as the source of the problem. Instead, they start taking more drugs to mask the new symptoms. Professor Alonso Clark, MD, stated, "All our curative agents are poisons and, as a consequence, every dose diminishes the patient’s vitality."

When a toxic substance is taken into the system, certain changes are noted in organs and tissues. Since all drugs are poisonous substances, whatever action is induced by their use is the result of a vital action of the body against them (not the other way around) and the drug is classified according to that action.

Let’s use the example again of the cathartics. When they are taken into the alimentary canal, they set up irritation in the bowel and a copious amount of water is secreted by the system so the damage will be minimized. The result is that the contents of the bowels are evacuated in order to get rid of the irritation and the drug is said to have power to move the bowels.

The first thing a body does when drugs are ingested is to make an attempt to organize their removal through the bowel, skin, kidneys, liver, lungs, mucous membrane or by vomiting. These often painful processes are termed "symptoms."

That drugs are chemical substances that produce chemical "actions," no one will deny. But we refute that the actions attributed to drugs when taken into the body are chemical actions. Vomiting, sweating, diarrhea, diuresis, coughing, sneezing, sweating are not chemical actions. A blister after a mustard pack is not formed by chemical action, but as a safeguard against the chemical union of the oil of mustard and flesh. If arsenic combines with flesh, we get arsenate of flesh, and that flesh ceases to exist as a physiologically living organism.

Herbert Spencer declared that mankind never tries the right remedy until it has exhausted every possible wrong one. What is this barbarous concept that a little bit of poison is beneficial to the human organism? Supposedly an aspirin a day prevents a heart attack, even though it is enough to irritate the stomach to the extent that it bleeds and 80 aspirins will kill the average person.

A specified amount of sodium chloride (salt) is supposed to be beneficial, however, two ounces will kill the average person instantly. What is this wondrous process that makes a poison nonpoisonous when it is taken in smaller amounts, or has been prescribed by a physician?

Perhaps no other thing has cost mankind more pain, misery and real suffering than the idea that he should poison himself because he is sick.

A headache is normally produced as a result of the bloodstream being saturated with toxins (toxemia) in order to preserve brain cells which, unlike other cells, cannot be replaced. The body constricts the arteries to the brain, which produces a throbbing headache. Once the body has reduced the toxins in the blood, the headache will cease. This is a vital process.

If an aspirin or other so-called medication is taken the body is forced to dispense with this vital process (the headache vanishes) so the body can concentrate on eliminating the "medication." In essence the body has been delivered a double whammy because the blood is still toxic and you have added to the problem by increasing its toxic level with the "medication."

Next time you experience a headache, jogging for half an hour will certainly eliminate it. The ideal remedy for a headache would be to cease the causes—the consumption of denatured foods and animal products, the lack of fresh air, sunshine, natural light and exercise and exposure to environmental poisons.

Headaches are just one example of how understanding the true cause of a symptom leads to correcting the imbalances causing it. With this understanding comes the realization that we have the power to be the architects of our own miseries or the beneficiaries of exemplary health.

Herbs and their "actions" are frequently reported in the pages of The IO. Reread this article and substitute the word "herb" for "drug" and nothing is out of context—herbs are toxic to the human organism.

To prove my statement, do a leukocyte (white blood cell) test.

Do not consume anything for about six hours, then test your blood. You should get a count of about 5,000 leukocytes per cm of blood. Shortly thereafter, ingest a therapeutic dose of any herb. After an hour, retest your leukocyte count; it will have increased dramatically to 10,000 or 12,000 per cm of blood or more, depending on the degree of toxicity of the substance ingested.

Then try this test again after ingesting distilled water, organically grown fruits, melons, or raw nuts or seeds; there will be no increase in leukocytes.

[Note: Penick is right in the sense that therapeutic doses of medicinal herbs essentially act like "drugs" on the body in the process of providing relief to specific symptoms which are almost entirely the result of lifestyle choices. If we adopt the principles and observe the protocols of natural hygiene, which may involve the natural consumption of nutritive herbs in dietary doses, the symptoms will not develop. Unlike synthetic drugs, however, herbs are readily assimilated, metabolized and eliminated from the body. So, herbs are unquestionably the more beneficial way to remediate symptoms for those who are not willing to become natural hygienists. ~DWH].

The pharmaceutical establishment has owned the medical schools since the early 1900s. It teaches students to diagnose symptoms and prescribe drugs. More than two million Americans become seriously ill each year and 106,000 die from the prescribed use of pharmaceutical drugs. More than 15,000 people each year die from taking sleeping pills alone. Drugs are, at all times, under every circumstance, for every reason, under whatever name, patented or otherwise, toxic to human beings.

That drugs are poisons and lethal according to their toxicity is a fact that even the medical profession cannot deny. Natural hygiene has been a life science with the following formalized philosophy since 1822: There is no such thing as a safe drug and no amount of testing drugs on animals can make them safe for humans.

The validity of this is demonstrated in the following quote from Biochemistry by Kleener and Orkten (1966): "Drugs tested on animals cannot be administered to the human being with absolute assurance of safety since detoxification routes may vary in different species."

The cures come and the cures go. The medical/pharmaceutical industry cannot cure a ham, let alone a human. But the "curing" goes on forever at the expense of the patient. If the truth were to be told, "wonder drugs" would be referred to as "blunder drugs."

It seems as if the grand experiment of mankind has forever been to ascertain how far it can transgress the laws of nature, how nearly it can approach the very point of death—and yet, not die, or at least not die so suddenly and violently as to be compelled to know that it has destroyed itself.