FEVERS- THEIR CAUSES AND REMEDIES
Spirit of Health Newsletter Volume 4 Issue 6D
FEVERS- THEIR CAUSES AND REMEDIES
*Fevers serve a purpose.
*What are fevers for?
*What should we do about fevers, if anything?
This newsletter features Dr. John Christopher on the subject of fevers.
Dr. Christopher was a Master Herbalist and
Naturopathic Doctor of great renown here in America and
even abroad. His teachings were learned by so many and
his influence was so great, that most would agree that
he stood out amongst the three largest promoters of natural
healing in the latter half of the 20th Century.
The following excerpts of his writings are reproduced with
written permission of the Publisher, Christopher
Publications, PO Box 412,Springville, UT 84663
1-800-372-8255.
Here is Dr. Christopher:
FEVERS: THEIR CAUSES AND AIDS
When excess mucus, toxic materials, drug accumulations, poisons and other
undesirable materials accumulate within the body, the body’s natural reaction
is to unload this material before it reaches a high enough level to cause
death. The body then reacts with colds, smallpox, measles, chicken pox, or
some other childhood disease. The first indication of disease that generally
appears is a fever. An adult’s first thought, when he sees that his child has
a fever, is to hurry and lower the temperature to normal. This is a mistake
because the fever is nature’s way of letting us know the child has toxic
material in his body which should be removed quickly. The fever should not be
ignored, but we should work with it.
Fevers work in several ways. One is to raise enough temperature to move
the body-building materials from one part of the body to a malfunctioning area.
A good example of this is when a baby is trying to cut teeth. The tooth bud
appears, becomes swollen and red, painful and irritating; but there is not
enough calcium in the mouth area to help get the tooth through. When there is
no surplus calcium available, the fever goes higher and higher, and the infant
often goes into convulsions. Time after time we have seen the fever drop
quickly as organic calcium has been given to the child. The convulsion stops,
and the child falls asleep (from fatigue). In a short time the tooth or teeth
start "popping through." If the parent uses medication to lower or suppress the
fever and nothing else is done, he is merely working on the effect, and not
going into the cause. In other words, he is stopping the attempt of a building
process without assisting it to accomplish what the body is trying so hard to
do.
A fever can be an aid and a blessing if worked with intelligently. But if
it is fought against ignorantly, or ignored–it is a killer. Our job in
wholistic healing is to praise the fever and work with it, not fight against
it. Fever is the thermostatic control of the body, letting us know a dangerous
level of toxins has been reached. One should assist the fever to rebuild a
malfunctioning area with the cleaning-feeding process. As the child develops a
fever with a childhood disease, the body is doing two things; one is to draw
healing aids from the body (if they are there), and the other is to discard or
burn up unwanted materials. True, a fever must not be allowed to reach too
high a level, so we will now show simple ways to help it to unload the unwanted
toxic poisons, filth, and surplus mucus from the body.
When a child starts a fever, you are being given a signal that there is
trouble in the child’s system–something that needs attention. Trying to stop
the fever without going to the cause is like bailing the water out of a sinking
boat without plugging the hole in the bottom, which is, of course, the "cause"
of its sinking. The water coming in is merely the effect.
The effect (or the fever) stems from the accumulation of toxins the child
has received over a period of time, and these toxins must be neutralized and/or
removed. The only thing we recommend as a natural way of gaining health are
foods (herbs, which are foods) and helpful therapies that have been used for
centuries. A pleasant herbal tea (red raspberry leaf and yarrow are specifics
here) can be the answer when the fever is just starting, because it may be a
minor condition or just a common cold. There may be a larger amount of toxic
materials in some cases that require more help than just the herbal tea, and we
"tea party," drinking the tea together. Both will benefit.
The red raspberry-leaf tea is high in a number of organic (natural and
healing) minerals and vitamins and is a fine herbal liquid food for the body.
This contains the wonderful nitrate of iron which has remarkable blood-making
and regulating properties as well as astringent and contracting action on the
internal tissues and membranes. It also contains pectin, malic and other
organic acids, calcium, and potassium chloride, and sulphates. Here is a
wonderful healing tea that is a great blessing.
This simple routine has aided many in cleaning up the body to a point that
the fever drops back to normal before the day is over. Keep the child on juice
and ripe fresh fruit for a day or two and then gradually onto the mucusless
diet. (Dr. Christopher, Three Day Cleansing Program.) If the child is restless
at night and does not sleep soundly, give the following warm herbal drink a
short time before going to bed. Equal parts of catnip, peppermint and
spearmint tea, sweetened with honey. Yarrow tea will break up a fever that is
high and dry, by causing the child to sweat.
Red raspberry leaf tea has been used and proven by many people, as
explained above, but if not available, use yarrow or some other diaphoretic
herb.
SKIN ERUPTIONS
When rashes and pus eruptions of disease break out on the body, do not
stop them. This is poison in the body that should be released. Keeping the
skin from breaking out is again defeating nature’s efforts for a complete
healing and housecleaning. The larger the breakout of rashes (chicken pox,
measles, etc.) the better off the child! If the body is in a fairly clean
condition and you follow these suggestions of natural therapy you may see that
the rash is not as heavy as you might expect–because there was not that amount
of toxic waste to eliminate. In other cases the body can be well covered with
the dermal or dermatitis breakout. There is nothing to fear as long as you are
willing to work with nature.
To speed up the cleaning of the body, we work with the fever by assisting
it to do its job. A moist fever is a healing fever, and a dry one can be a
killing or crippling one. Here is an explanation from Dr. Christopher’s The
Cold Sheet Treatment.
This program (or idea) is to build an artificial fever or increase the
fever they already have to a higher degree. This is being done to bring an
incubation condition into place, to cause the disease germs to multiply as
rapidly as possible. The germs are God’s gift to the sick to be used to speed
up a healing. The germ is a scavenger that lives on toxins, mucus, poisons and
filth. They are nature’s perfect garbage men. We should work with them, not
against them. With the moist incubation they multiply faster and faster. To
live they must eat and the only thing they can consume is the filth of the
body. When all the garbage is cleaned up they leave, because they have nothing
more to live on.
A germ cannot consume or live in good live cell structure. If they could
then we should have a great fear! But after cleaning out the body of our
sickness, which is accumulated waste, the germ finishes its job and leaves us
with a healing climax.
If we take shots, inoculation and/or oral medication to kill the germs, we
have defeated the purpose of nature. It is like having a garbage man’s strike
in a large city. We have seen this several times in our travels, and in one
large city it was estimated that three thousand tons of garbage was stacked up
on the streets each day. What stinking filth! When we kill our garbage men
(germs) in the human body, we still have the original filth they were trying to
consume, plus continual additions, plus the corpses of all the germs we have
killed.
This causes the heart to labor, trying to pump the sludge through the
system, pulling calcium from wherever it can to help in this extra labor. Then
when we are faced with a calcium deficiency we can develop rheumatic fever
(causing a rheumatic heart and a weakened body) that can even (one day) go into
polio, stroke, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, etc., etc. The
rheumatic fever condition leaves a calcium weakness that can lie dormant for
years and then with a new loss of calcium at some future date, can develop into
him sweat a lot. This will bring the poisons to the surface faster. A fast
breakout on the skin will shorten the sick period by a number of days.
When it is time to take the child out of the tub, sponge him off with cold
water, and, while still damp, without drying the child off, put on night
clothes and bundle off into bed. (Dry the head unless a nightcap is used.) The
dampness will keep the poisons coming to the surface, generating an artificial
fever which will insure the drying out of the clothes by the time the child
awakens in the morning. (See the booklet on Cold Sheet Treatment.)
In the morning, sponge the child off with warm apple cider vinegar and
distilled water, mixed half and half. Put him into clean night clothes, change
the bed linen and give him some vegetable or fruit juice and let him go back to
bed for awhile. When he feels well and energetic enough, let him go back to
his activities. Keep him on juice and/or ripe fruit, distilled water, slippery
elm gruel, comfrey green drink or comfrey tea. (See Dr. Kirschner, M.D.’s
Nature’s Healing Grasses, H.C. White Publications, page 116.)