Ecology is a Home Science. Ecos means a house; in a wider context, this planet, which is our home. Ecology is the study of biosphere; the study of interdependence of atmospheric, terrestrial and aquatic life. Here, we are relating the word ‘ Ecology’ to human organism.

The outer Ecology teaches us that there is nothing redundant in the biosphere; all creatures great and small are here for a purpose. This purpose is not always clear to us, humans, and yet it is acknowledged; that is the reason we plan to save tigers and whales and rhinos that have seemingly nothing to do with us. IN the human system too, there is nothing useless or low; neither tonsils, nor appendix, nor any other organ. All are there for a purpose known or still to be discovered ; and we have to maintain their structural and functional integrity.

Just as in the biosphere, in the human system also, there are life-sus taining sphere. There is an inner environment - millieu interne - within our body ; and there is interdependence of the various organs and systems of the body.

We are "of earth, earthly," as a poet has said : "dust thou art" as scriptures have said. We are constituted of earthly elements ; but there is water also in the system ; in fact, two-third of us is water. And, of course, there is air too within us. According to Hindu Shastras, we are made of Five Great Elements the Panch Maha Bhut, viz. Mitti, Paani, Prakash, Hawa and Aakash. And life is sustained by ingestion of these five elements , directly or indirectly, mostly indirectly. For example, we do not eat Mitti, the earth as such; but we eat plants which draw their sustenance from the earth. We get nourishment from Prakash not so much by direct sunlight, but via the photo-synthesised nutrients which, again, the vegetable kingdom provides us.

Man - The Unknown

Let us study what Dr. Alexis Carrel has to say in his monumental work, ‘Man, the Unknown,’ regarding Bodily Ecology. Dr. Carrel won Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in transplanting of organs. He says :

"Functions of the body are less precisely located than organs. The skeleton, for example, is not merely the framework of the body. It also constitutes a part of the circulatory , respiratory and nutritive systems, since, with the aid of the bone-marrow, it manufactures leukocytes and red cells. The liver secrets bile, destroys poisons and microbes, stores glycogen and regulates metabolism in the entire organism. "

It may be pointed out here that in fact, liver is the most amazing of all organs. It does more than 500 jobs , producing over 1000 different enzymes for various chemical conversions. Besides, liver is also a safety valve for the heart. Like a sponge, liver can soak up extra blood which may otherwise jeopardise the heart’s normal function. There is direct connection between heart and liver via the hepatic vein. Liver is also a great detoxifier; in the twelve seconds which the blood takes to pass through liver; poisons such as alcohol, nicotine, caffiene, insecticides or drugs are rendered harmless to the heart. Dr. Carrel further says : "In a like manner, the pancreas, the suprarenals and the spleen do not confine themselves to one function. Each possesses multiple activities , and takes part in almost all the events of the body. IN illness the body preserves the same unity as in health. It is sick as a whole. No disturbance remains strictly confined to a single organ." We, in Nature Cure, have a principle called ‘Unity of Disease’ which is based on this concept. To quote Dr. Carrel again :

"Doctors have been led toconsider each disease as a speciality by the old anatomical conception of the human being. Only those physicians who know man both in his parts and in his entirety, physically and mentally, are capable of understanding him when he is sick."

This emphasis on the study of the total man is important . As I often say, it is more important to know what sort of patient has the disease,than what sort of disease the patient has. Dr. Carrel sums up this fact of the body -mind complex acting as a homogenous whole,in these beautiful words :

"Man thinks, invents, loves, suffers, admires and prays with his brain and all his organs."

Inner Pollution

We are being increasingly concerned, and rightly so, about the pollution of air and water. The biospheric pollution is a hazard not only to our health, but to our very life ! And not only to the human life, but the life of all flora and fauna! We ought to feel equally concerned about the pollution of our human system, this temple of God, which we defile time and again throughout the day, all our life. We ought to know that each cigarette smoked, pollutes the lungs and the blood ; every sip of alcohol pollutes the stomach and the liver; and every cup of coffee pollutes the nerves and the heart. These are medically acknowledged pollutants of the system. People do not know about the other pollutants that are available at the chemists. Each and every drug in allopathic pharmacopoeia needs to be cautioned against as much as we caution against marijuana and LSD.

Simplest Aspro or Saridon, right up to the antibniotics, all have side- effects ; mostly not immediately recognisable, but remote side-effects. As Rene Dubos, a medical scientist of the Rockefeller Institute, New York, in his monumental book Mirage of Health has said, in case of antibiotics, one harm is that with the belligerent bacteria, the beneficial bacteria are also destroyed. If medical men studied this Mirage of Health and other books such as Side Effects of Drugs by L. Meyler, they would be less inclined to draw our lengthy prescriptions for what ails their patients.

Drugs - Or Time-Bombs ?

There are usually several underlying causes for each ailment and illness; and drugs have no power to fathom these. For example, classified under three headings ; functional, toxic and mechanical, pathology lists 203 causes of the simple complaint of headache. All headache remedies usually have acetyl salicylic acid with caffeine or phenacetin. These drugs not only fail to deal with any of the causes of the headaches, they quite often engender kidney troubles.

Every drug - nay, every dose of every drug - diminishes our vitality. And some are likely time bombs; some show their side effects after twenty, thirty or more years! And some show the side effects in the progeny! In 1950’s, Stillbestrol was widely used for threatened abortion ; this resulted in vaginal cancer, not in the women themselves, but in some of the girls born to these women, when these girls were 15 to 20 years of age! Now these girls are suing the drug companies. A Times of India report from Miami, dated 12th May 1976 reads :

"A university of Miami student, Miss Barbara Sockanchak, 21, says in her suit that the drug, a female hormone known as diethyl-stilbestrol, or DES, was given to her mother, eight months before her birth in Camden, N.J. Miss Sochanchak became one of about 500,000 women, known as DES daughters ; the drug was blamed for the incidence of vaginal cancer in the female children of women who took it." Besides two and a half million dollars in damages, the suit asks that the 32 companies which marketed the drug twenty years ago, be ordered to locate and treat every person whose mother ever took DES!

Needless Surgery

What is true of drugs is also true of surgery. Truly surgical cases are few; surgery is warranted perhaps in one in a thousand of so-called surgical cases. And yet organs are excised most nonchanlantly without regard to the body’s total integrity.

In USA and UK, removal of tonsils is number one surgical operation, despite the fact that tonsils are important glands in body’s defence mechanism, and most cases of tonsillitis are spontaneously cured if surgery is avoided. Next come hysterectomies, many, if not most, of which are unnecessary as per a report of New York Times dated September 21, 1975. The report says : "Increasing number of surgeons are rushing their patients to the operating tables, more out of considerations of monetary gain than of sound medicine... ‘Some of us are not making a living ‘, admits one surgeon, ‘so out comes a uterus or two each month to pay the rent. "

That apart, it records a large number of salpingo-oophorectomies (removal of Fallopian tubes and ovaries) done " preventively where there is no evidence of disease." This "preventive surgery", is a lucrative idea, which, carried to its logical extreme of absurdity, would tempt surgeons some day to lop off our heads so that there is never a chance of headache ! In some cases, hysterectomies are done as a sure-fire family-planning measure ! The report also mentions a University of Michigan study of 12,000 hysterectomies, forty-eight per cent of cases requiring antibiotics, "which can themselves cause illness, or even death, in certain patients. " Depression is another aftermath; the rate of post-hysterectomy depression is high ; a third to a half of some group studies!

Iatrogenic Diseases

Very humbly, though with strong feelings, I put before readers this studied view that the prevalent epidemic of heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes and cancer , is as much as due to indiscriminate use of suppressive drugs for minor aches and pains, and colds, coughs and constipation, as to other acknowledged causes. Chronic diseases arise largely because of repeated suppression of acute troubles by drugs which simply mask the symptoms , without extirpating the underlying causes of the troubles. Iatrogenic diseases are on increase; ‘iatros’ means doctors ; iatrogenic means caused by medical men or medical methods. Most mod- ern diseases, in fact, are iatrogenic, directly or indirectly.

The fault is not of medical men, however, but of medical education. Most doctors are well-meaning, but good intentions are in no way helpful, if the administrations are obnoxious. Even the path to hell is sometimes paved with good intentions . A poison remains - and acts like - a poison, despite the practitioner’s sincerity and best wishes. More than three lakh Americans are admitted to hospital yearly, because of drug reactions. There are some 20,000 varieties of drugs in chemists’ shops; three or four hundred are added to these annually. Most drugs succeed by interfering with the psychosomatic intelligence. About this intelligence, Dr. Carel has said, " Each part of the body seems to know the present and the future needs of the whole, and acts accordingly."

He says, "The body perceives the remote as well as the present." Since this ingellingence within is so complete, having even the faculty of foresight, why should we bring in our brainy intellingence, which cannot foresee or perceive the remote ?

We thwart the ‘vis medicatrix naturae’ , the healing power of Nature, by trying to be smarter than Nature. We forget that we are part of Nature, and therefore, can never be superior to the whole which Nature is. Conquest of disease is impossible, though seemingly we may win victories. We suppress one disease, and out crops another, perhaps worse one. Give tranquillisers to the worrier, and add one more worry to his list : that of hepatitis. Give anti-coagulants to the heart patients, and cause bleeding fromthe bowels or urinary tract. Give cortisone for arthritis and induce gastric ulcer. Give antibiotics for streps and staphsand breed highly resistant strains of bacteria causing ‘super infections’ which ‘ in America alone, kills a hundred thousand hospitalised patients annually. In India, in Bombay and Kerala, typhoid bacteria has become resistant to antibiotics. We are creating a havoc, a chaos, within our system, by use of drugs, where other natural methods can cure by restoring harmony within.

The harm is not only physiological; it is psychological as well. Modern medicine is breeding escapists. I am no sadist, but I do feel that some suffering, physical and mental, is important for our growth, maturity and education. Naturopath James Thomson rightly said, " It is better to suffer than to diminish sensitivity. Pain can lead to improved habits. Unawareness enormously increases dangers. " Tribulations and stresses also help build character, and improve ability to cope with catastrophes. Habit of palliation by drugs makes psycho-emotional cripples of us.

Who Fails Whom ?

There was a report in our papers recently that ‘Indians are becoming increasing afflicted by renal diseases’; and that ‘30,000 people in India would need kidney transplants yearly.’ Why? Why are our kidneys failing ? Why are our hearts and livers failing ?

Basically, our organs are extremely strong. All organs have a built-in safety feature ; they have at least a hundred per cent extra reserve capacity. If one kidney is removed, the other does double-duty. In case of the adrenals, those tiny winy glands producing fifty hormones, even twenty per cent of their tissue can suffice for body’s needs. Heart is so strong it can pump blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels that you and I have. ( This is more than twice the distance round the world!). Heart is the strongest muscle in the body. But we wear it down by smoking and becoming overweight ; every pound of extra fat contains extra 200 miles of capillaries. Liver is not only a Jackof all trades, but master of most. These tough wonderful works of Nature are failing us, because we are failing them.

Let Your Food Be Your Medicine

We continuously assault our hard-working and silently-suffering organs not only by drugs, but also by wrong foods, foodless foods, counterfeit foods, which include soft drinks, the cokes, glucose candies, and all that junk! ‘Proper Eating Habits ‘ is an important rule of health. More people the world over die of overeating and wrong eating, than of starvation; this is an apt saying because, in a sense, even those who overeat, starve.

As a wit has remarked about gluttons, one-third of what they eat nourishes them; the remaining two-thirds nourishes their doctors. Many people do dig their graves with their knives and forks; instead of eatig to live, they live to eat.

It may be interesting to note here what Prof. Paul Bastenine, M.D., Ph.D., of the Ecole de Medicine in Brussels, Belgium, has to say in Pfizer’s ‘Diabetes Rounds" 1973 : "During World War II , diabetes disappeared in most of the patients who had the maturity -onset type of the disease. And it disappeared not only in terms of a urine that was sugar-free, but also the blood sugar tests became normal again ... Then when foods became plentiful, these same people became fat again, and after the war they had many opportunities to eat as much good food as they wanted. So, diabetes recurred." What is true of diabetes, is true of many other diseases. "Good Food" is bad food ; indulging in gustatory delectation of the goodies, harms our health. Our natural food is vegetarian ; our system resembles that of other primates or the higher apes such as gorillas which are vegetarian. Judicious vegetarian diet alone can help reduce the incidence of most killer diseases by at least a third. For example, the answer to cholesterol problem lies in chlorophyll, the green colouring matter of plants. Those who have high levels of cholesterol in blood should avoid meats and take more of leafy green, at least partly as salads without salt or dressings. Unfortunately , even vegetarians suffer from diabetes, cancer and heart diseases, because they take too much salt , sugar, refined starch or saturated fats.

Exercise

Movement is life ; stagnation is death. Lack of exercise is another disturber of inner ecology. We should be as hard-working as our organs, but we have, unfortunately, adopted a soft style of life. The body needs one hour of exercise daily. Most diseases, including cancer, can be prevented by exercise. Cancerous cells lack oxygen; better oxygenation of blood by vigorous exercise prevents this lack. Exercise is a preventive of high blood pressure and coronary arterial disease too; besides, exercise could help cure these conditions.

Jogging is a good prophylaxis against cardio-vascular and respiratory diseases. At San Diego State’s Human Performance and Exercise Clinic, Dr. JohnBoyer and Fred Kasch put high blood pressure patients on a walk, jog and stretching exercises programme, and found that the blood pressure thereby came down. IN one study in Boston, middle-aged and elderly hypertensive men took part in a schedule of exercises such as cycling, calisthencs, jogging and swimming for up to six months. The average level of B.P.came down from 155/95, to 133/85 . Of course, exercise could not help the arterio-sclerotic.

We have Yogasanas which too are a great help in many diseases, such as asthma, liver disorders, diabetes, digestive troubles and spinal defects. The surprise is that doctors do not prescribe exercise for most such diseases though exercise is a master conditioner for the healthy and a major therapy for the ill. Medicos talk of live-saving drugs. It is high time they started more note of life-saving exercises and life-saving diets.

Relaxation

Not only sound sleep, but also rest and relaxation are badly needed for optimum ecological balance of the body. Many unhappily, are half asleep by day and half awake by night. Apart from seven or eight hours of sleep, one needs to learn to relax in -between work, and even during work. What I mean by relaxing during work, is not that we sleep at the desk, but that the bodily energy should not be frittered away in unnecessary movements. Only those muscles which are involved in a particular type of work should be allowed to work, the remaining muscle groups being kept relaxed. Even pen-pushers have to bear this in mind. I so often see people at their desk, holding their pen tight, and using the whole right arm tensed, whereas writing could be more efficiently done with perhaps one-third the energy they expend. Same is true of waste of mental energy. Two-thirds of our mental energy is wasted in fears, doubts, jealousies, hatred and other negative emotions.

The Yogic relaxation posture, the Shavasana, made famous by cardiologist Dr. K.K. Datey, is of great therapeutic and prophylactic value in stress disorders.

Prevention Better Than Cure

There is an apocryphal story of a village which nested on top of a cliff. From the cliff was a precipitous drop of a hundred meters in a valley. At times people fell down from the promontory of the cliff; some escaped with broken bones, whereas others died. The Gram Panchayat decided to do something about these calamities. What do you think they did ? They had a nice little hospital built down in the valley, staffed with the nice doctors and nurses, and a nice little operation Theatre was there for them to work in ; and a nice little ambulance was kept ready round the clock, for all eventualities! Nobody thought of putting up a railing or wall round the cliff! The story of that village is the story of the world. We all are as foolish as the old men of the Gram Panchyat. We forget that ‘Prevention is Better than Cure." In fact, we are breeding diseases these days that cannot be cured. Why not prevent their onset by right living habits, and creating and contributing to a clean environment?

Extensive Cardiac Care Units

USA is the sickest nation in the world. Even the cats and dogs there are sick; ten per cent of these pet animals are diabetic ! That country can afford its ailments. But we cannot afford, say, kidney dialysis costing Rs. 64,000 per person annually. And even if we could , won’t we prefer to be enjoying good kidney health ? And, for that matter, enjoying good heart health, instead of being incarcerated in the Intensive Cardiac Care Units? These Units serve only the afflicted. Fortunately, there are many more still who have not suffered. They need extensive cardiac care i.e. , care of the heart over the years, care of a life-time, by exercise, right eating and mental poise. This may be time-consuming, and necessitating self-denial; but investment of time, energy and money in health, pays the highest dividends. Let us plan to have, therefore, Extensive Cardiac Care Units, where people learn right relaxation techniques and right types of exercises; and know about what to eat and what to avoid in food.

Physicians As Educators

Saving kidneys and hearts by weaning patients away from ACTH, hypotensive and other drugs is not spectacular , whereas putting a poor JP on dialysis is. Weaning a person from smoking or drinking , and thereby saving his heart, lungs or liver, is not spectacular , whereas heart surgery is . But the physician of tomorrow will have to be less of a drug prescribe or a surgeon, and more an educator or teacher. He will have to eschew violence on the human system , and seek to cure diseases without disturbing the psychosomatic integrity. As Thomas A. Edison said, " The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, and in the cause, and prevention, of disease." Perhaps, we should adopt the practice prevalent in ancient China, where physicians were paid by people so long as they remained healthy. No sooner a person fell ill, he would stop paying his physician till he got well. This motivated physicians to keep people in their community healthy. And this , ipso facto, made doctors educators. Our Health Minister rued some time back that he is more a Minister of Disease than a Minister of Health. Our doctors too, minister more to the diseased than to the healthy, ministering to the healthy would, of course, mean dissemination of health knowledge.

Rest and Fast

The book The Lives of Cell by Lewis Thomas, records at one place, "We pay too little attention and respect to the built-in durability and sheer power of the human organism. We ought to be developing a much better system for general education about human health, with more time for acknowledgement , and even some celebration, of the absolute marvel of good health that is the real lot of most of us, most of the time. The great secret of Medicine , known to doctors but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves.... Most things , in fact, are better by morning ." May one ask why is this great secret of Medicine still hidden from the public? For pecuniary reasons? That apart, it sounds like naturopath James Thomson’s advocacy for natural cure by ‘Intelligent Leaving Alone’.

Dr. Richard Cabot says, " Given rest, proper food, and ease of mind, ninety per cent or more of patients get well." He records in that excellent Reader’s Digest Publication, Book of the Human Body, the case of an elderly man who died in an accident, who was, as per his wife, never sick in his life. Autopsy however, recorded : "(1) Healed tuberculosis of both lungs; (2) Cirrhosis of the liver, with all the blood gong round by a new set of vessels, above and below his liver, (3) Chronic kidney trouble, but with reverse kidney tissues to function despite the destruction of parts of both kidneys; ( 4) Hardening of the arteries and compensatory enlargement of his heart. No doubt he had had high blood pressure for a long time. All this he never knew. He was a well man despite four potentially fatal disease inside him."

Such cases are not exceptional; all coroners happen to see dead bodies with organs grossly diseased, of which the person concerned hd no knowledge in their life time. Cases of pulmonary tuberculosis that once occurred and got spontaneously cured, are seen by coroners in our country. Makes us wonder if ignorance is not a bliss! Seems like there is some truth in the saying, "What you do not know , does not hurt you." Also we feel like asking ourselves if the usual recommendation for regular medical check-ups after a certain age, is a sound idea ! Forewarned may be forearmed ; but what if one tries to arm oneself with drugs, the baneful effects of which we have already studied? And what if one becomes neurotic or hypochondriac, as may do ? Cardiac neurosis is a prevalent trouble in our larger cities !

Nature Cures

There is one system of Medicine which really understands Bodily Ecology and puts it into practice. It is what is called Natural Hygiene in USA, and, as more loosely and accomodatively applied, is known as Nature Cure in UK, Indian and elsewhere.

Nature Cure actually is a way of life; but even when restricted to its meaning of ‘ a science of healing’, it is to be understood as a positive approach tohealth; in which the rules of health and hygiene are of the greatest importance to get cured - and stay cured. It is the only system that considers the vital power to be the curative power, and all healing the prerogative of Nature. Of course, all the ‘pathies’ do believe in the vital power, but not to the extent that Nature Cure does. No surgeon would dare cut open any body if he were not sure that Nature would finally heal the incision that he has made. Nature Cure , however, believes that the vital power is the only curative power and that it can be assisted in its healing work by removing obstacles from its path. If food is the obstacle, fasting is called for. If suppressive drugs are in the way,they have to be discontinued. If negative emotions are in the way, they have to be checked. In short, all those conditions which contribute to disease have to be altered so that state of health is gradually restored.

Natural Therapeutics

The therapeutic modalities often employed in Nature Cure, include Kinesiotherapy or remedial exercises, Massage Osteopathy, Hydrotherapy, Actino-therapy, Psycho-therapy, besides strict diets and complete fasts on water only, where necessary. Fasting is employed because a Naturopath holds that elimination of effete matter from the system can best be speeded up by more or less completely suspending the digestive processes. Fasting is physiological rest ; it is not to be confused with, or equated with , starvation.

Proper Study of Mankind Is Man

We should not lose sight of the fact that despite all the seemingly miraculous advances of modern medicines, the study of the patient is still more important than the study of his disease. And this is true not only of the better-known psychosomatic disorders,but of all conditions from the common cold to the fell disease cancer; Nature Cure takes into account the whole personality of the sufferer; its approach is never fragmentary. For, the humanbeings is not only the human body - his temporary tabernacle - but also the human mind, and the spirit that dwells within.

Dr. Kepler of the Mayo Clinic, U.S.A.has suggested as remedy for the psychosomatic ailments of modern times, the philosophy that our life should be equally influenced by Love, Work, Worship and Play. This is not to say that we devote equal - or seperate -time to these four factors; that is neither feasible nor desirable. The necessary thing is that our life should be equally influenced by these four essentials. And there canbe a healthy interplay of two, three or all four factors simultaneously. Since health is not just absence of disease, but a state of harmony among all the facets of our being, we must learn something about that plane of our being - the triumvirate being - which is variously named the spirit, the soul or the true self. In reality, this true self of ours is the one most neglected by us, though success in fathoming it is the only way to lasting peace in times of strife, stress and strain.

Exploring The Inner Space

Just as, at the bottom of the ocean there is always total calm, though violent storms may be raging on the surface, so also this centre within us is always tranquil, however much the body or mind be in agony or turmoil. A sage has compared this centre to a room within us, which he suggests, we should make a practice of entering fromtime to time. It may also be called the inner space. Man has made great advances exploring the outer space; it is high time he explored the inner space. Dr. Carl C. Jung, the great psychologist, in his last days averred that almost all of us can hope to resolve our conflicts permanently in only one way, i.e., by having a religious outlook on life. And he went on to explain that by religious outlook he did not mean outlook of any particular religion, but the quintessence of all religious systems which give a true perspective of life to the seeker of truth.

Yogic Discipline

In conclusion, it will be noted that Nature Cure approach being based on the trinity of our being, is an integral one; it does not believe in tinkering with symptoms to cure diseases ; it does not provide any short-cut to health, for there is none; it is logical, sane and scientific. If it be asked, " Why is Nature Cure not popular if it is so wonderful ?", the answer is that it demands much from the sufferer by way of sacrifice; sacrifice of time and sacrifice of harmful habits ; Nature Cure wants him to earn health by self effort; it asks him to exercise self-restraint and practice self-denial ; it prohibits baneful indulgences, such as smoking or drinking, which give temporary pleasure at the cost of lasting health and happiness.. Patients , however, are impatient; and nobody is prepared to change his habits. Self-denial and self-restraint are unwelcome imposi tions.

Ignorance in health matters is abysmal; and it is a greater task to enlighten the educated than the uneducated. Prejudices are stronger in the educated. Herbert Spencer said , " There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is condemnation before investigation." Nature Cure has met with such condemnation in the past ; it certainly will not meet with the same fate in future. Nature Cure has come to stay !