Day 39: The Seven Stages of Disease

The Seven Stages of Disease by John Tilden MD and The Unity of Disease by Herbert Shelton

Welcome to Day 39!

How many times have you heard someone say that they “got” diabetes or that you heard someone “got cancer?” What notions about human health and disease lie behind those statements? For many years, modern medicine has led us to believe that the diseases and ailments of contemporary society suddenly manifest without warning, and without apparent or understood cause. The term often used is idiopathic:

Idiopathic is a medical adjective that indicates that a recognized cause has not yet been established.

Yet everything has an underlying cause – dis-ease is a developmental process – and we can address and remove the underlying causes if we understand the stages of disease, that there is a Unity of All Diseases, and how to fast, eat, and care for our health.

The Seven Stages of Disease with John Tilden, M.D.

1. STAGNATION (ENERVATION)

Enervation is simply insufficient nerve energy, or vital energy, to carry out the needed and necessary daily functions of the living organism. An insufficiency of energy coming in contributes to enervation. So does excessive energy expenditure. Burning the candle at both ends leads to enervation. Excesses of all types can enervate a person. So does stress. Enervation is then a double-edged sword. Not enough energy coming in, or too much energy going out.

2. TOXEMIA

Toxemia to the Orthopaths meant a foul or morbid state of the blood and tissues resulting from the accumulation of un-eliminated toxic matter. As a consequence of the rising toxemia, the vitality of the body drops as energy is drained to combat the inflow. All this sets the stage for disease. John Tilden in his book Toxemia Explained said he was convinced that toxemia is the universal cause of all disease, either from within or without (endogenous or exogenous toxins).

3. IRRITATION

As the enervated body becomes more and more polluted with the accumulating un-eliminated wastes, the interstitial space between the cells begins to resemble a toxic waste dump. In addition, water is used to dilute the effects of these wastes, causing the tissues to become water laden. Guyton ( Textbook of medical physiology) explains that the “dry cell” state is the state of healthy tissues. The “wet cell” state, or the “hydrated cell” state is the state of the tissues in disease. The body tissues are then very much like a sponge. While the dry cell state is the state of health, the tissues can absorb a great deal of water and toxins, just like a sponge, if it is forced to in order to extend life. These waste products interfere with the proper oxygenation and feeding of the cells as well as causing the accumulation of excess water in the tissues.

Pain signals coming from the tissues have at least three causes: Lack of oxygen, lack of nutrition (cellular food), and pressure. The cells, subjected to the lack of oxygen, the lack of food, and the increased pressure from the retained water, begin to send out pain signals. The cells are hence “irritated.” Modern man’s answer is either to ignore the pain and discomfort, or to take a “pain” pill, which just adds more toxic stuff to the load, and keep on going on. This leads to the next stage of disease and body degeneration, Inflammation.

4. INFLAMMATION

The enervated body is now suffering the results of toxemia. The cells have initially become irritated. The next step of cellular changes and body degeneration is inflammation. The inflammation process produces the common “-itis.” With the skin it is dermatitis. In the throat it may be tonsillitis and further on esophagitis. In the stomach we find gastritis. In the small intestine ileitis. In the colon colitis. The heart may have carditis. With the liver it is hepatitis. (We how have types a, b, and c. Given enough time we will no doubt have a through z.) You can have an inflammation ( an -itis ) anywhere within the body.

It is not uncommon to have bacteria involved in the inflammation process. The bacteria have not caused the inflammation and the “-itis” any more than flies cause garbage. By allowing the accumulation of toxemia to continue, the body will continue to decline in energy and vitality. Further cellular changes will be found (pathology proves this ). Left unchecked and unheeded, the next stage of disease is ULCERATION.

5. ULCERATION

The body has undergone the successive effects of enervation, rising toxemia, irritation, and inflammation. The next step in body degeneration is ulceration of the tissues.

Ulceration can occur with any body tissue, but the usual connotation of ulcers has to do with the skin or the digestive tract. One can develop ulcers on the skin, in the nose, in the mouth, in the throat, in the stomach, in the small intestine, and in the colon. These conditions are painful and serious. The sufferer usually seeks medical assistance at this point. The allopaths of today will offer lotions, potions, and medicinals to alleviate the pain and swelling but offer little else other than anti-biotics.

An ulcer can then be viewed as a consequence of body degeneration, or the action of the vital organism to prolong life and maintain its remaining health.

6. INDURATION

The enervated body is now carrying an un-eliminated toxic load creating toxemia. The cells of the tissues are experiencing irritation, inflammation and ulceration. The next step is for the cells to indurate. Induration is a thickening and hardening of the tissues in an effort to protect themselves. The continuing accumulation of un-eliminated toxic waste causing toxemia leads to the final stage of cellular degeneration… FUNGATION.

7. FUNGATION (Cancer)

The living organism, living with an ever increasing amount of toxemia, has expressed its internal discomfort with irritation, inflammation, ulceration and induration. The final stage of the expression of its discomfort is FUNGATION, more commonly known as CANCER.

When the internal conditions have deteriorated to the extent that normal aerobic, oxidative processes are no longer possible, the cells can revert to a more primordial means of surviving. The cells can carry on their life processes by anaerobic processes, the same processes that many bacteria use. When the cells have changed in form and function to this extent, this is when your oncologist will tell you that you have the big C…Cancer.

Lastly there is the concept of retracing. When a person supplies the body with superior building materials, begins to lower the level of toxemia, and increases their vitality, the body will begin to repair and rebuild. Previous complaints may surface once again as the body “retraces” and heals.

You may feel worse rather than better for a time, particularly if you detoxify too rapidly and load the blood with the stored toxins. The road back to health is not so smooth as one would hope. Herring’s law of healing states that the body will heal itself in the inverse ( or reverse ) order that it degenerated, and the healing will occur from the head down.

For those of you interested in alternative medicine and your own health and healing, I do hope you found this effort beneficial and informative. When dealing with an acute disease process, all systems of medicine and treatments work to some degree but over treatment (as in allopathy ) can kill.

The true test of any theory of disease is how well it can handle the chronic diseases like lupus, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and cancer. Few succeed and most fail since they violate the seven stages of disease and do not understand nor recognize the underlying physiological processes.

The Unity of Disease with Herbert Shelton

We are confronted with a woman who has been sick for years and has “suffered many things of many physicians.” She has asthma, colitis, a gastric ulcer, neuritis, inflammation of the neck of the womb (endocervicitis), headaches, backaches, and does not sleep well. Has she many diseases or is she merely a sick woman? Are we confronted with a number of separate and distinct entities or with varied local states of one systemic impairment? Is there one cause for metritis, another for colitis, another for ulcer, another for asthma and still another for insomnia? If we are going to treat her for several diseases, where do we begin? Do we treat the neuritis first or the asthma? Do we treat the uterus first or the stomach?

Do we treat her for a variety of different diseases, each having its own cause and requiring a different treatment; do we farm her out among a variety of specialists, or can we think of all the so-called diseases as having a common cause, as being in other words, successive and concomitant evolutions out of the same persistent and increasing toxemia?

You are doing so well!!  We are very proud of you.

The nutrient dense and living juices you are providing your body are the right tools for the jobs that your body, in its infinite wisdom, has wanted to do for a long time. Your commitment to this fast—and to yourself—will derive benefits without limit.

See you in The Green Room!

Today’s Downloads

Online Articles

Science proves that garlic kills cancer cells by Mike Adams

Here’s the real story about this: people have been using chopped up garlic for hundreds of years to defeat surface tumors. Make a poultice of garlic and castor oil, paste it onto virtually any skin tumor, and the tumor will shrivel and die (or fall off) in a matter of days.

Modern Medicine Picking Up on Inflammation: But Not the Whole Picture Yet by Judy Forman, The Boston Globe

The idea is as simple as it is radical: Chronic inflammation spurred by an immune system run amok appears to play a role in medical evils from arthritis to Alzheimer's, diabetes to heart disease.

There's no grand proof of this ''theory of everything." But doctors say it's compelling enough that we should act as if it were true -- which means eating an ''anti-inflammatory diet," getting lots of physical activity, and losing the dangerous, internal belly fat that pumps out the chemicals that drive inflammation...

Great Books

Media, Films, & Documentaries

Understanding Toxemia and The Seven Stages of Disease | D.D. Mayfield

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