| I had no idea what a can of worms (or "germs," | | | | thing and one thing only: to cause a particular disease; |
| more literally) I would open as I set out to determine | | | | and that every disease is associated with a particular |
| the most politically correct title for a new page on | | | | germ. |
| my website. It began with what I thought would be | | | | Pasteur apparently gave no regard to the condition |
| a quick definition look up on the internet and turned | | | | of area of the disease or of the person, in regard to |
| into an all night study. | | | | the likelihood of a disease striking them. His narrow |
| My starting premise about the type of health care | | | | focus led him to believe that to cure a specific |
| one would consider "the real health care" was formed | | | | disease a specific defense would have to be created |
| during childhood, and based on brief medically related | | | | ... by finding a drug that would kill off the germs |
| snapshots such as these: | | | | without killing the patient. |
| From my four-year-old perspective, it seemed that | | | | Bechamp saw a bigger picture, and noted the |
| our family doctor's concern over my allergic reaction | | | | "nanobe" as the basic unit of organic life, a unit with |
| to the miracle drug Penicillin meant that I was living in | | | | the capability of change. He believed that diseases |
| great danger. So concerned was the doctor, I was | | | | come from micro-organisms (germs) within the body. |
| denied the experience of attending Kindergarten. | | | | Normally these germs would be working to build and |
| (Apparently there aren't as many germs in first | | | | help the processes of the body, but when the body |
| grade.) | | | | or a portion of it dies or is injured - either chemically |
| The next medical memory was made a few years | | | | or mechanically - the germs stop what they are |
| later. That time however, I was present at a school, | | | | doing and change to help in the disintegration (getting |
| along with the entire community. We had come as | | | | rid) of the injured area. |
| families to wait in line for our sugar cubes on a | | | | More poetically put, his work showed that diseases |
| Saturday morning. The sense of relief and security | | | | are always processes of rescue or repair -- and life; |
| was evident with each family as they received and | | | | and are only serious when the medium is in poor |
| swallowed their cubes of vaccination against the polio | | | | condition to start. The conclusion from Bechamp's |
| virus and threat of a future in an iron lung. | | | | work is that disease is built by unhealthy conditions |
| Now, put my childhood memories together with the | | | | and that to prevent disease we have to create |
| fact that I tend to be a real left-brain thinker | | | | health. |
| (compartmentalized facts, details, logic - rather than | | | | So we see here in two different men of the same |
| getting the big picture first). I think you will begin to | | | | era, both members of the French Academy of |
| understand why I embraced what is now most | | | | Science, the very basis for the two schools of |
| commonly known as conventional practice as "real | | | | thought on health care. |
| health care". | | | | Conventional Medicine, which positions us somewhat |
| You know the conventional medicine I'm referring to | | | | like sitting ducks at the mercy of random raging |
| - you get "sick," go to the doctor, have some pills | | | | germs and focuses on beating back each illness or |
| prescribed, take them, suffer through any ill-side | | | | disease after the fact, is to a large degree based on |
| effects, and get "well" within a week. Perhaps | | | | the work and conclusions of Louis Pasteur. |
| conventional medicine was easy to accept because | | | | The studies and findings of Antoine Bechamp are the |
| we didn't have to work at anything, like learning to | | | | scientific root of what has come to be commonly |
| take better care of ourselves in the first place, or | | | | known as Alternative Medicine. Here's the concept: |
| worry about who to blame when we became too | | | | get the body healthy, keep it healthy, and facilitate |
| sick to repair. | | | | the body's work as its own best defense to prevent |
| I knew that not everyone would be as comfortable | | | | or cure disease. |
| as I was in omitting alternative medicine from the | | | | When I saw it stated in those terms, I must admit |
| "real health care" category. Therefore, I was not | | | | that a signal went off in my logical left brain. |
| surprised when the search engine results for | | | | I read further and found that Pasteur critics believe |
| definitions of "holistic," "natural," and "alternative" | | | | that his overshadowing of Bechamp's work is due to |
| medicine revealed a trail of controversy between | | | | his "genius of publicity and public relations." Some |
| two schools of thought. | | | | have gone further, citing Pasteur's own lab notes |
| What I was shocked to find is that this trail of | | | | (released only after his grandson died in 1975) to |
| controversy is not a "new age" split in thinking; but | | | | deem him a "fake scientist," and accuse him of |
| rather it leads to France, dives back into the late | | | | stealing ideas (mainly from Bechamp), falsifying |
| 1800s, and begins with two men of science. | | | | experimental data, and making claims which had no |
| The name I recognized was that of Louis Pasteur. | | | | basis in fact. |
| Pasteur did pioneering work for decades in many | | | | At this point I'm beginning to believe that my left |
| aspects of biomedicine. This brought him both | | | | brain has been duped into following accepted |
| accolades and lots of strong criticism from his peers, | | | | customs in health care that have little to do with |
| although he remained a relative unknown to the | | | | science or logic. My right brain, in this case, agrees by |
| world at large until he came up with a treatment for | | | | deeply resonating with Antoine Bechamp's thoughts |
| rabies in the mid 1880s. | | | | on Pasteur's theory ... |
| The other man, Antoine Bechamp, was also an active | | | | "The [Pasteur theory] is monstrous fatalistic doctrine |
| researcher and biologist. He taught in universities and | | | | which suppose that at the origin of the things, God |
| medical schools, and was widely published on cell | | | | would have created the germs of the microbes |
| biology, disease, botany and related subjects. | | | | intended to return to us sick" ~ Professor Antoine |
| While both Pasteur and Bechamp studied cellular | | | | Bechamp |
| biology and it's relation to disease, they worked with | | | | Footnote: Louis Pasteur, who avoided handshakes |
| markedly different theories. | | | | due to his fear of germs, died of a stroke at age 46. |
| Pasteur believed that the basic unit of any organic life | | | | Antoine Bechamp was still clear on his theory and |
| is the cell, and that cells are aseptic. In other words, | | | | giving interviews until weeks before his natural death |
| disease comes from micro-organisms (germs) outside | | | | at age 93. |
| the body. He felt that germs are designed to do one | | | | |