Treatment of Diseases

ACNE

This is a common condition in which the face is covered with pimples. It is caused by blockage of some of the sebaceous glands. It is seen most commonly in young people of both sexes at the time of puberty. It is a chronic skin disease affecting the sebaceous glands of the face.

Constipation makes it worse. In many it is associated with dyspepsia and other irregularities. Want of effective washing with insufficient exercise and perspiration, causing sluggish action of the skin glands, renders it much worse.

The mouth of small sebaceous ducts gets choked with dust or dirt. Then a wormy-looking fatty mass can be squeezed out from the gland.

The cause is wrong feeding habits and chronic constipation. The waste matter of the bowels that is not eliminated by the bowels is vicariously eliminated through the sebaceous glands.

Treatment

The general health must be looked into. Dyspepsia, constipation and similar errors should be treated.

Active exercise should be taken in the open air. The hygiene of the whole skin should be attended to by cold baths, rough towels etc.

The most important point in treatment is the daily washing of the affected areas with soap and hot water, after which they should be quickly immersed in cold water. After washing, the skin should be well rubbed with a fresh brush or towel. The contents of the sebaceous glands, wherever a “black-head” shows, should be regularly squeezed out by gentle pressure.

The treatment is chiefly dietetic. Take all fruit diet for five or ten days. Take the juice of lemon mixed with honey every morning.

Correct constipation. Take warm-water enema.

Give hot fomentation and squeeze out the matter. Take sunbath in the early morning and evening.

Give up white, refined sugar. Take a small quantity of black sugar.

Give up strong tea or coffee, condiments, pickles, savories, etc. Avoid salt for sometime. Chew a few bitter Nim leaves daily.

Anaemia

The normal average human body contains about 8 pints of blood, which is pumped round by the heart and nourishes the tissues of the body.

A large part of the blood is composed of small particles that are red in color. These are called the red blood cells or corpuscles. These red cells carry oxygen, which is taken into the lungs from the outside air to all the tissues of the body. This oxygen is needed to keep the tissues alive.

Anaemia is a condition in which the number of red cells is reduced below the normal. In this state the body is not able to work as efficiently as it should.

The patient is pale in color. He is very easily tired. He gets headache, palpitation, giddiness, and swelling of feet. He has difficulty in breathing.

In anemia there is shortage the iron the diet. Iron is needed for the production of the red cells.

Anemia means want of blood. There is reduction in hemoglobin. The red cells are reduced in size and volume.

Deficiency of food either through actual want or from inability to take food, deficient absorption and utilization of food as in dyspepsia and cachectic conditions such as tuberculosis, cancer, loss of blood as a result of injury, excessive loss of blood in menstruation, childbirth, and bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract are the causes of anemia.

Treatment

The daily requirement of iron for an adult is 12 mg. This is well covered by an ordinary diet. If there is a steady loss of blood as a result of heavy menstrual loss or bleeding piles, the intake of iron in the diet may not be sufficient to maintain adequate formation of hemoglobin.

Rest in bed is essential. Take an all-fruit diet for 4 or 5 days. Afterwards take fruit and milk diet. Take spinach, tomatoes and grapes in abundance. Take as much fresh air and outdoor exercise as possible. If there is constipation take an enema. Take hipbath in the early morning.

Blood Pressure

The cause is, excessive worry, irritability, anger, jealousy, hatred, indulgence in tea, coffee, alcoholic drinks and smoking. Avoid the cause.

Avoid rich food, overeating, constipation and anxiety.

The rest, relax. Have sufficient sleep. Go to bed at 9 p.m. and get up at 4 a.m.

Take light exercise, walk a mile daily; practice deep breathing in the open air 5 to 10 minutes.

Take hipbaths daily for five minutes. Take warm footbath.

In the morning, take juice of one lemon with a cup of water. Before going to bed take warm water.

For a day fast with diluted lemon juice. For the next week live on fruits and milk. For the subsequent week, take the usual daytime meal but at night take only milk and fruits. Then return to your normal diet. Take enema daily during the period of fasting.

Never worry. Leave all your anxieties to God. Depend on Him entirely. Rely on Him. Trust in Him. Dispel hatred through forgiveness. Remove jealousy through negation of your personal entity. Trust in your own self. Trust others. Have occasional change in hill stations (altitude not very high) or seaside. Go only with one personal attendant. Relax and spend your days quietly. Do not crave for sightseeing. Spend one month a year in a body Ashram or monastery where activities are peaceful.

Cough

Cough is a symptom in consumption, pneumonia, bronchitis, pleurisy, influenza, sore throat, etc. Nature wants to throw out through coughing any irritable matter from the throat, the breathing tube and the chest. Anything that irritates the throat and the lungs will result in cough. Impure air containing irritable dust, etc., may cause irritation in the throat and cough.

Interference of breathing caused by diseases of heart, growth, and collection of serous fluid in the chest cavity will produce cough. Excess of phlegm, bile or gas owing to bad food and bad digestion may also cause cough.

   Treatment

Rest in bed is the first treatment. The patient should remain in a well-ventilated room. Treat the cause of cough.

Apply hot poultice of linseed meal or rice to the chest. It will remove pain. It should be renewed. Foment the chest.

The bowels should be moved by a dose of castor oil or Triphala. An enema is also beneficial.

Fast for one or two days. Drink water. Warm Sago or barley water may be given. Take fruit diet.

Stimulate the action of the skin by gentle massage and warm sponging. Take steam bath daily. Use warm packs to the chest.

Take a decoction of ginger, pepper, licorice and long pepper with a little black sugar or honey. A teaspoonful of ginger juice mixed with a teaspoonful of Tulasi juice and honey is beneficial. Chew licorice or mulatti. This will relieve cough. Avoid indigestion and over-eating. Use enema.

In empty stomach take the juice of a lemon in warm water with honey twice daily.

Take long, brisk walks. In lieu of the evening meal, take milk and fruits. Add ginger powder in the milk.

Drink Tulasi decoction prepared as follows: Boil a little ginger, pepper, Tulasi (holy basil) leaves in a glassful of water. Strain. Add milk and a little sugar. Bhanapshaw decoction is beneficial.

A small pill made up of black pepper powder, sugar-candy powder and ghee is highly useful. Vasaka or Adhatoda is a herbal cure. Syrup of Vasaka and decoction of Vasaka are highly beneficial. They soothe, comfort and relieve the cough. This is a remedy of great repute and efficiency.

Practice Bhastrika Pranayama and deep breathing gently. Have normal breathing in the intervals.

Diarrhoea and Dysentery

In diarrhea the stools are abnormally fluid. The contents of the bowels are thrown out more quickly than is normal. The mucous membrane of the bowels is in an inflamed condition. It is really a symptom of some disease. It is a mistake to imagine that by checking the diarrhea, the disease is of necessity successfully treated.

In dysentery there is blood or mucous in the stools. There is colicky pain. There is intense griping, too. There is frequent tendency to answer the cells of nature.

Bad, unwholesome, stale food which contains impure, irritable matter and too much food are the chief causes of diarrhea and dysentery at a time when the body is weakened and the digestive system is upset. These are the signs of impaired digestion and assimilation.

Treatment

Correct your diet. Avoid bulking indigestible food. Fast with plenty of cold water. Take sips of some buttermilk, coconut water and bran water prepared by boiling rice bran in water. Fast for 24 or 36 hours. You can take orange juice.

Take an enema. If necessary, take half an ounce of castor oil. Take fruit juice, curd and rice. If there are severe pain and bleeding, apply wet pack or mud pack to the abdomen.

No solid food is to be taken just after recovery. Isafgul or Methi seeds soaked in curd is useful in dysentery. Bael Sherbet is beneficial.

Ajwain water is beneficial in diarrhea. Barley water is useful in diarrhea and dysentery. Whey also is good. The powder of the bark of pomegranate and mangosteen is useful.

Fry gently a few Neem leaves, black pepper and a little asafetida in ghee. Powder it; add a little salt. Put this in rice, add hot ghee and take. This is highly beneficial.

Gentle massage of the abdomen is beneficial.

Fever

The temperature of the human body is very carefully regulated, and under normal circumstances varies very little. It is usually about 98 degree Fahrenheit. The condition of fever is one in which the temperature is raised above the normal.

The temperature is liable to slight variations from such causes as the indigestion food, the amount of exercise done and the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere.

When the temperature reaches as high a point as 106-degree F., the term “hyperpyexia” or excessive fever is applied, and is regarded as indicating a condition of danger. If it exceeds 107 or 108 degree F., for any length time, death almost always results.

Fever is a symptom. All fevers have a common cause and a common treatment in naturopathy. Fevers are of different types according to their severity, signs and symptoms. Loss of appetite is the one common symptom in every fever. Impaired digestion is the one main cause for every fever and every other disease. Fever is caused by decomposition of tissues of the body due to bad food, bad digestion and bad assimilation. In fever the tongue is coated or furred. There is constipation. The urine is scanty and high colored. The skin is dry.

Treatment

Rest in bed is essential.

Remove constipation. Stop every kind of food. Fast completely for two or three days. Take plenty of cold water.

Have a steam bath if there is no free perspiration.

Place the patient in a tub. The water is somewhat below the febrile temperature. Cool the water down gradually by the addition of cold water till a temperature of from 60 to 70 degree F., reached. This process when continued for only a short time and frequently repeated produces most valuable results in many cases of high temperature, e.g., in typhoid fever. The patient gets remarkable relief. The temperature comes down. The effects last for hours. The cooler the bath, the longer the effect lasts.

Sponging with cold water and the wet pack are other methods frequently used to reduce temperature and exert a soothing influence.

Mudpack to the abdomen produces marvelous results. Make a semi solid paste of mud, apply it to the abdomen and put on tight bandage. This is a very good substitute for ice and wet pack. Do not keep it for a very long time. As soon as the temperature comes down remove it.

Do not give any milk in fever. Give hot rice water or barley water. Give a hot decoction of black pepper, two teaspoonfuls to a pint of water. Add a few leaves of Tulasi to the decoction when it is boiling. Gives 3 or 4 ounces.

If there is local inflammation, apply fomentation and poultice. Hot linseed poultice to the chest and back is beneficial in pneumonia. Hot boiled rice also can form a good poultice.

After recovery do not take solid food all at once, gradually return to your normal diet. Be very moderate in eating or drinking. During convalescence take fruits, fruit juice and vegetables soup.

Headache

Headache may accompany acute fevers. It may be due to digestive troubles, constipation, bad food, excessive eating, blood pressure, eyestrain, eye trouble, etc.

Worry, excessive drinking, too much smoking, too little of sleep, or some minor illness such as cold, mental overwork and derangement of bile may also cause headache.

Treatment

Treatment of headache is the treatment of the morbid state on which it depends.

Have plenty of physical and mental rest. Have light, nourishing diet such as gruel or milk. Sleep well. Avoid worry and mental strain.

Massage the muscles of the scalp when headache follows excessive work or anxiety. Give up coffee, tea and similar stimulants. Keep the action of the bowels regular.

In very severe cases clothes wrung out of ice water may be applied to the head and renewed every five minutes. You can apply ice bag to the head and the sides of the neck.

Apply mud plaster to the forehead. Fast for one or two days. Drink plenty of water. Have steam bath once or twice a day. Give rest to the eyes. Stop reading for sometime.

Hot bath will act as a great soother. Remain in a quiet place in a dark room. Dip the feet in hot water and apply cold compress to the head.

Apply mustard plaster to the nape of the neck. Remove it when some burning sensation commences and dry the part with a towel.

Take daily long walks. Do not take evening meals after 7 p.m. Have light diet-milk and fruits. Take the juice of one lemon in a cup of hot water before retiring to bed. You may also take an enema.

Sleep in a well-ventilated room. Use a comfortable bed. Remember God before going to sleep.

If there is headache that originates in the teeth, eyes, nose and ears, attend to those parts. Treat the cause first.

So long as the cause remains unattended the headache remains despite any kind of treatment.

Wrong glasses, lack of glasses, errors of refraction and straining of eyes cause headache. Attend to the eyes. Wear suitable glasses. The headache will vanish.

There is a kind of headache, viz., migraine that commences with sunrise and goes off at sunset. In this case make a paste of the leaves of Drona Pushpa and apply it thickly over the affected area before the sun rises. This is highly beneficial and effective.

You can take recourse to the same treatment as in the case of headache for treating pains also.

Fasting, fomentation, steam bath, adjustment of diet and light exercise are beneficial.

Impotency

Impotency is the inability to perform the sexual act on the part of the male. Impotency is loss of sexual power. It may be partial or complete, temporary or permanent.

Hormones or internal secretions of anterior, pituitary thyroid and supra-renal glands, which help the sexual desire or libido, irrigate the brain, spinal cord and sex apparatus through the blood. But hormones are able to exercise this effect only when the body contains a certain amount of mineral salts and vitamins, which render the tissues receptive to hormones. Acute infectious diseases, diabetes and metabolic disorders (like obesity), excessive indulgence in alcohol, smoking, morphia and other narcotics will disturb the excitement by upsetting the mineral salt and vitamin metabolism of the organism.

The male organ may be deformed. There may be some interference with the nervous control, which is responsible for erection.

Cause

General debility due to some other diseases such as influenza, excessive drinking of alcohol, mental strain and worry, may all cause temporary loss of potency. The patient will become better when the cause is removed.

A tight foreskin, disturbances of the endocrine glands such as diminished activity of the gonads, thyroid gland or pituitary gland, diseases of the central nervous system a severe disturbance of health such as diabetes mellittus, etc., will cause impotency. These are all organic causes.

In many cases the cause is purely psychological. The patient for some reason becomes worried about his ability to perform the act. The more worried he becomes the less successful he is in his effort.

The patient should get confidence. Then his condition will rapidly improve. Fear, weakness of sexual desire or abnormality of such desire also will produce impotency. These are all psychological causes. The taking of bromides will produce loss of sexual power temporarily. Self-abuse and immoderate intercourse are other causes.

Treatment

Give up the vile habit of self-abuse at once. It is dangerous and pernicious. It will undermine your health and sap your vitality.

Build up your general health through regular exercises, wholesome, nutritious diet, open air, cold bath, etc., a course of Chyavanaprash. Take walnut, black gram, radish, jalamisri, asafetida, date, cashewnut, lady’s finger, betels and methi seeds.

Pranayama, Sarvangasana, Srishasana, Bhujanga, Salabha and Dhanura Asanas are highly beneficial. Japa, Kirtan, meditation are wonderful tonics.

Allopaths give Sexamin Pearls one tablet thrice daily, injection of Perandren 10 mg. Per ampule twice weekly, Yohimbin tablets, liquid Extract of Damiana, Lqr. Strychnine, Lqr. Testicularis and tablets of Didyamin.

Do not run after pompous advertisements of quack and charlatans who glibly promise you all kinds of miraculous cures. They will undermine and ruin your health.

Jaundice

One of the functions of the liver is to manufacture bile, which is a dark yellowish liquid, stored beneath the liver in a little sac or bag known as gall bladder. It is then poured into the bowels where it helps the digestion of fats.

If for some reason the bile cannot escape into the intestine, it is forced back into the liver and enters the blood. The tissues of the body and the skin become colored yellow by the bile. The patient passes yellow colored urine. All objects appear yellow to his vision. This is the condition of jaundice.

Symptom

Jaundice is really a group of symptoms rather than a disease. It is not so much a disease in itself as the symptom of other diseases. The cause of obstruction to the passage of bile from the liver may be a simple catarrhal or inflammatory condition occluding the bile duct, or a gallstone, or a tumor, or other toxic matter.

The whites of the eyes assume a yellow tint. The faeces are white or clay colored. There is a butter taste in the mouth. The tongue is coated. There is nausea, especially in the morning.

Treatment

Find out the cause of the obstruction to the outflow of bile.

Rest in bed. Fasting is highly beneficial. Give orange juice and water. Orange juice sweetened with glucose is beneficial. Apply hot fomentation over the liver. A hot bath can be taken daily with great benefit. Keep the bowels freely open. Give plenty of fluids to drink.

The diet should be light. It should be a fat-free diet, as fat cannot be digested properly without the presence of bile in the intestine. Avoid all heavy, fatty and spiced food. Give up alcohol entirely.

Put the patient on fruit diet, fruit juice and vegetable soup. You can give sugar and starch freely. When milk is given, it should be skimmed.

Exercise patience in waiting for the disappearance of the yellow color from the skin. In marked cases it generally lasts for several weeks. The condition usually clears up in two or three weeks without leaving any ill effect.

Loss of Appetite

This is the first symptom in every disease. Nature gives a warning to man that the digestion is upset and that food should be stopped completely or changed in quantity and quality. This is also an indication that the system is loaded with impurities like stools, gases, urine, sweat and phlegm, and that there should be elimination quickly.

Bad food and bad digestion are the main causes for every disease. Control tongue and food. You will surely control every disease.

Health is maintained by healthy food only when it is properly digested and assimilated. Wrong food that cannot be properly digested and assimilated, though of best nourishing quality, produces disease. The health depends not on how much of food is introduced into the system but on its quality and the extent to which it is digested and assimilated.

Appetite and hunger are the dictators to every individual as to what to eat, when to eat and what not to eat. Hunger and appetite are the true tests of digestion. Good hunger and appetite are necessary for good digestion and assimilation. The slightest change in the taste of the tongue indicates that digestion is upset. Hunger and appetite are necessary for taking of food. There is false hunger with loss of appetite and false appetite without hunger.

Digestion, absorption and assimilation are the three processes by which food is incorporated in the living body. In digestion the food is softened and converted into a form that is soluble in the watery fluids of the body. In absorption the substances formed are taken up from the bowels and carried throughout the body by the blood. In assimilation, these substances are united with the various tissues for their growth and repair. For the maintenance of health each of these must proceed in a regular manner.

The eating of food without regard to its suitability as food for the body is doubtless the main factor at work in the causation off disease in general.

Treatment

Complete fasting for 2 or 3 days with plenty of cold or tepid water will cure loss of appetite and cleanse the body. Take a small enema. Use Triphala, Refined foods, stomach powders and appetizers, hurried or careless chewing should be avoided. Drugs to stimulate appetite should not be used.

When natural hunger returns, usual food may he taken in moderate quantity. Bulky food, which is hard to be digested, meat and alcohol should be avoided.

Green. Leafy vegetables and fruits can be taken with much advantage. Foods which cause constipation and which will help accumulation of impurities in the system must be avoided. Variety in diet is essential. If a little time and ingenuity is expended upon making changes in the dishes, the resulting improvement in appetite is usually most gratifying. Mint or Pudina, fresh ginger, coriander leaf and sweet neem leaf will remove loss of appetite and help digestion.

Malaria

Malaria (Italian: mala aria or bad air), also known as Ague, Paludism, Jungle Fever, Periodic Fever, and Marsh Fever, consists at first of a series of febrile attacks, which may come on every day, every second day, or every third day. Later on it assumes a chronic form in which a bad state of health known as malarial cachexia is developed and there is a tendency towards frequent relapses.

Cause

If a man leads a well-regulated and disciplined life, if he observes the laws of health and hygiene, if he is moderate in everything, if he takes wholesome food, if he adopts right living, he cannot catch malaria even if the malarial mosquito bites him several times daily.

The malarial parasite will develop only in a blood-stream which is loaded with toxic impurities caused by bad food, bad digestion, bad elimination, wrong living, wrong food, meat, tinned and other denatured food, alcohol, wrong unhygienic habits, etc.

Symptom

The first symptoms are headache, chillness and a slight rise in temperature. The symptoms increase. The patient has to go to bed with shivering (cold stage). He shivers though blankets may be heaped on him and hot water bottles applied. High fever follows with sickness and pain all over the body and perhaps delirium (hot stage). Profuse perspiration breaks out (sweating stage) and the headache and general fever subside. Within a few hours the patient has recovered though general weakness will be experienced for days. Spleen and liver get enlarged.

Treatment

Stagnant water is the great breeding ground for malarial mosquitoes. Pour crude petroleum over the water. Bury all broken tins and mudpots. Use mosquito net. Fix the windows with wire-gauze screen. Fumigate the room with tobacco smoke or benzoin. The mosquitoes will run away.

Give the patient as much fluid diet as possible. Give juicy fruits, oranges, mossambi, etc. Fasting is beneficial. Open the bowels by a warm water enema. Have cold or tepid sponging or cold pack when the fever is high. Rest in bed is essential.

Cold stage: Warm blankets. Give Tulasi tea with a little black pepper.

High fever: Cold bath, ice water to drink, ice to head, and enema.

Collapse: Glucose water.

During convalescence gives oranges, tomatoes, apples. Take one pineapple daily. This will reduce enlargement of spleen.

Obesity

Perform Padahasta, Paschimottana, Sarvanga, Matsya, Hala, Bhujanga, Dhanur and Trikona Asanas. Practise deep breathing in the morning breeze. Take light exercise. Have long brisk walks. Lead a hard well-regulated life.

Live on milk and fruits for 40 days. Have only two meals, each consisting of half a seer of fresh cow'’ milk, one apple, a few grapes, two ounces of pomegranate juice, a few slices of tomatoes with honey. Do not take anything else in the intervals except plain water and water mixed with lemon juice. Carry on your day-to-day work. There is no need for extra rest on account of your diet.

When you resume your usual menus of diet, take only a quarter of the quantity of what you were taking previously. Hereafter the diet should be starch-free, very small in quantity, but highly nutritious. Avoid butter, ghee and sugar. Instead, take tomatoes, dry fruits and honey.

Fast every fortnight. Take salt less diet once a week. Have plenty of green, leafy vegetables, fruit juice and diluted buttermilk. Lettuce reduces obesity. Be ever active and brisk. Do all your work personally. Do not depend on servants. This body is meant for doing service to the needy and for God-realization. For bodybuilding and enjoyment of dainty dishes you are not born. You have other higher purposes to fulfil. Therefore, lead a frugal, simple and hard life, dedicated to the service God.

Pneumonia

Fever is Nature’s endeavor to throw toxic or poisonous matter from the body.

Pneumonia is inflammation of the lungs. There are two varieties, viz., broncho-pneumonia and lobar pneumonia. The first is the common form seen in children; the latter is seen in adults.

Exposure to cold or wet is generally the exciting cause of an attack of pneumonia.

Influenza, debility, lack of free ventilation, exposure to chills and alcoholism are predisposing causes.

Symptom

The onset is abrupt with rigor. There are general sensations of a severe febrile attack. There is short, dry cough. The respiration is very, very rapid and short. There is severe pain in the side of the chest. The face is flushed. The expression is anxious. The nostrils dilate. The pulse-respiration ration is often 2 to 1.

The attack usually commences with shivering, or in young children with convulsion. This is speedily followed by pain in the chest and sometimes by vomiting. Cough is an early symptom. The temperature rises to 101 degree or even 104 degree F. The sputum is rusty (blood stained) and tenacious. The crisis generally takes place between the seventh and eighth day of illness.

Frequently several attacks occur. One attack probably predisposes to a second.

Treatment

Perfect rest in bed is very necessary. Good and careful nursing is all-important.

There must be free ventilation in the room. The clothing must be warm but not heavy. Do not keep the patient in a confined room. Pneumonia patients recover quickly when they get fresh air and light. Keep the windows open.

The same treatment and diet recommended for fever generally should be adopted. Apply hot water bottle to feet. Daily sponge with cold water. The mouth should be carefully cleansed. Frequent sponging of the body gives relief, especially if the temperature be high. If the temperature goes over 105-degree F., apply cold pack.

Pain and difficulty of breathing may be relieved by the application of hot fomentation, and hot linseed poultice. Give Arjuna from the very beginning. This can be continued without any injurious effect. It strengthens the muscles of the heart in a remarkable manner.

The patient’s power of resistance should be stimulated. The power of the heart must be conserved. Give daily garlic juice, 1 to 2 teaspoonfuls. It relieves the pain in the chest and also cleanses the system of impurities.

Fasting is highly beneficial. The patient can drink water. He can take orange juice. Water or bland fluids such as barley water, whey, fruit juice, etc., can be given freely. Glucose may be added. Give enema and combat against constipation.

After acute symptoms vanish, the patient must remain in bed for some time. He should not sit up before at least ten days have elapsed after the crisis. He should not go about until a convalescence of three weeks has taken place.

During convalescence lung exercises, deep breathing, and Bhastrika can be practiced gradually, slowly, mildly and gently to restore full expansion of lungs.

After recovery is complete, the health should be watched for some time with great care, because a recurrence of acute pneumonia is liable to take place.

Rheumatism

This is a term that covers a number of conditions, which are associated with pain in the joints or limbs.

Rheumatism, which affects the joints, is known as arthritis. Rheumatism, which affects the muscles, is myalgia or muscular rheumatism.

Rheumatism is divided into two classes, viz., acute rheumatism: a kind of high fever, and chronic rheumatism: a condition more or less always present with the sufferer. Gonorrhea also produces gonorrheal rheumatism of joints. Lumbago, sciatica, osteoarthritis and gout are forms of rheumatism. Exposure to cold and damp, wrong feeding and living are the causes.

There is fever in acute rheumatism. There is a feeling of stiffness or pain in one or more joints, generally those of larger size such as the knee, ankle, wrist or shoulder. The patient lies helpless in bed. The affected joints are red, swollen, hot and excessively tender. The most frequent and the most serious complication is heart disease.

Treatment

The patient should be placed in bed between blankets. He should wear a flannel shirt. Movements of all kinds should be avoided.

Have a short fast for 3 or 4 days. Take milk, glucose and fruit juices. Give up meat, sugar, etc., which are the acid formers. Give up rice, starches, sugar, fried foods, pickles, sauces, highly spiced dishes, potatoes, pumpkin and all fruits whose names end in the word “berry”.

Take vegetables soups, fruits and milk. Take fluids in large amounts. Take barley water for thirst. Take warm water enema. Avoid exposure to damp and cold. Have general massage and manipulation of the joints.

Bathe the affected joints twice daily in hot water. Foment them. Take Turkish bath or ordinary hot bath. Massage the affected part with lemon juice and gingily oil (equal parts) mixed together.

Wrap the limbs in warm cotton wool. Protect the heart specially. Improve the general health. Take gentle exercise later on to remove the stiffness of joints.

The patient should remain in bed for at least four weeks. If the heart is involved, he should remain in bed for three months.

Sunstroke

Sunstroke is a brain trouble brought on by exposure to the direct rays of the sun. Liability to sunstroke is increased by fatigue, excitement, by want of ventilation and by the use of alcoholic drinks.

It is preceded by headache and dizziness. The onset is sudden. The symptoms are headache, sickness, pallor, feeble pulse, confusion of thoughts, an inability to take food, loss of consciousness and rapid failure of the heart and respiration.

There is snoring breath. It is noisy, quick and laborious. Convulsions are present. The patient becomes unconscious but can usually be partly roused by shouting at him. The worst cases are accompanied by shock.

Treatment

To prevent sunstroke, the back of the neck must be protected from the direct rays of the sum by a cloth or hat. Remove the patient to a cool place or a cool, dark room.

Undress the patient. Do not give him any stimulant. Pour cold water over his body, also over the head. If there is collapse, put the patient to bed. Cover him with blankets.

Cold sponging is beneficial. A stream of cold water is allowed to play on the patient’s head from a distance of about 18 inches. This stream should not be continued for more than a minute. An ice cap may be placed. The body may be placed in wet pack.

Relieve the bowels by an enema. If the extremities are cold, they can be rubbed.

Apply hot-water bottle to the feet so that blood may leave the brain. When the patient comes to consciousness, give him plenty of water to drink. Nurse him with great care.

A change to a cool climate is often followed by marked benefit in cases, which show chronic effects of the sunstroke.

Vomiting

Vomiting is the expulsion of the contents of the stomach through the mouth. When the effort of vomiting is made, but nothing is brought out, the process is known as retching.

Vomiting or sickness is brought about by a contraction of the stomach muscles that empties the stomach of its contents.

Vomiting is a common symptom to most of the diseases of the stomach, but it occurs also in number of other diseases, such as cholera, whooping cough, phthisis, uterine diseases, hysteria, fever, etc. But, at times, vomiting occurs by itself as a disease, for example, in seasickness, mountain sickness and plane-sickness.

Cause

The most common cause is irritation of the stomach by unsuitable or excessive amounts of food. Under these circumstances vomiting is a blessing. It serves to protect the system from the unpleasant effects that may result if the irritating material is not eliminated.

The art of vomiting is contributed by a definite center in the brain and if this center is irritated, vomiting may take place without the stomach itself being irritated in any way. This type of vomiting is seen in migraine or unilateral headache. The vomiting in seasickness is also due to reflex irritation of the “vomiting-center”.

Various are the causes of vomiting. But digestive disturbance with improper food and collection of impurities in the stomach and body are the chief causes. Vomiting may be the symptom of any disease with these as the causes.

Treatment

The cause of vomiting must be sought for and removed. If an indigestible meal has been taken some time previously and its remnants be still loading the stomach, a copious draught of warm water has the effect of getting rid of the indigestible material and allowing the irritation to subside.

The application of some counter-irritant such as mustard leaf over the pt of the stomach has a very beneficial effect. In irritable stomach conditions posture is an important factor. The patient should be with the head on a pillow and on his left side, so that the ribs support the stomach.

When nothing can be retained in the stomach, the sucking of small lumps of ice often gives great relief.

In order to soothe the nervous center that excites the vomiting, fresh air is of great importance. The drawing of deep breaths has a distinct effect in checking the tendency to vomit. Mental quiet and a dark room also help in soothing the nervous system.
 
Correct loss of appetite, constipation, dyspepsia, etc., by fasting, cooling drinks and restricted diet. Complete fasting for 3 days with plenty of plain water will cure even the worst kind of vomiting.

Take easily digestible and antibilious food. Freely take fresh ginger. One or two teaspoonfuls of the juice may be taken in the early morning. Mix it with a little black sugar or honey. Fresh limejuice may be freely taken. It may be mixed with fresh ginger juice.

Eye Diseases

Avoid strain on the eyes. Relax the mind. Do not read in artificial lights, or in bright sun light. Daily wash your eyes with cold water as soon as you get up. You may also wash the eyes as often as possible in course of the day.

Practice eye exercises. Cultivate the habit of blinking, turning the eyeballs side-wise, cross-wise and in revolving motion. Do Trataka gently on OM or on a black spot. Gaze at the early morning sun with closed eyes and then do palming in the shade. Detailed instructions about the care of the eyes can be found in my book Health and Happiness.

Diseases of the Throat

Improve the general condition of health. Fast for 3 days. Avoid indigestion. Take daily enema until the heat in the body is reduced. Take easily digestible, simple, nutritious food. Avoid tea, coffee and alcoholic drinks. Avoid smoking.

Apply cold pack on the throat. Gargle with warm water mixed with lemon juice or common salt. Take lemon juice morning and evening with warm water. Expose the throat to sun rays.