HEART DISEASE: ORIGINS OF DISEASE - SPECIALIST ABOUT CRISIS

A.S. Neill, the world-renowned educationist, and founder of Summerhill School, was once asked: 'What would you do with a child who won't take medicine?' His reply was:

I don't think we should worry much, for medicine is a doubtful benefit. I question if medicine ever cured anything. I look upon children's illnesses as spring cleanings, and if I were in charge of sick children I would see to it that the sweeping (colds, measles, scarlatina, whooping-cough) took its natural course.

I believe that the Nature Cure people are right when they apply to physical diseases the same method that we apply to physical disease. Just as a buried wish should be lived out, so should a buried poison be allowed to find its way out.

When a child has a temperature we always make it fast on orange juice and water until the temperature is normal. The children complain, but we are adamant about it. Our feeding is so balanced that illness is not one of our school pests.

Mr. Neill's answer provides an excellent synopsis of the nature cure point of view on children's acute illnesses. We believe in similar handling for the fevers and healing crises of grown-ups (with perhaps a little reserve about the use of citrus juices in cool climates). When acute conditions are handled in this way, there is no risk of youthful patients developing rheumatic fever, and certainly no later heart complications as happens so often after medication for fevers.

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Cardio & Blood