Modern medicine is firmly founded on the “Germ Theory of Disease” promulgated by Louis Pasteur in the 1860’s. Pasteur’s 140-year-old theory is still the medical paradigm upon which Western medicine fights disease as we enter the 21st century. But with a huge increase today in infectious diseases and the rapidly rising epidemic of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses; we have to wonder if Pasteur’s theory is really that sound.Consider this alarming statistic from a report commissioned by the Nutrition Institute of America in October, 2003: 2.2 million hospital patients suffer Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) to prescribed medicine each year leading to the deaths of 106,000 people. In other words, over 2,000 Americans die each week from properly prescribed medicine in properly prescribed doses.
This is a serious indictment of pharmaceutical medicine which is inextricably based on Pasteur’s germ theory.
According to Pasteur:
· Germs, or microbes, cause disease
· Germs invade the body from the outside, i.e., air, water, or food
· Human blood is sterile and can only be infected by outside microbes
· Germs are monomorphic, i.e., they have only one form and can be identified by species
· Specific diseases are caused by specific germs
· Germs should be killed by pharmaceutical drugs
In the 1870s Pasteur’s germ theory was developed further by William Koch, a contemporary and rival of Pasteur, whose proofs of the germ theory are still known today as “Koch’s Postulates”. See Koch’s Postulates at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch’s_postulates)
Basically, Koch’s contribution to the germ theory was to prove that a specific type of germ caused a specific disease, that the germ would be found in all people suffering from that particular disease but not healthy people, and that every person exposed to these germs would fall ill with disease.
However, Koch had to abandon part of his first postulate when he discovered that healthy people could carry the germs of certain diseases and yet show no symptoms. He also had to revise his third postulate when it was shown that some people could be exposed to virulent germs yet not catch the disease.
The “proofs” of the new Germ Theory were already showing flaws.
Still, despite being highly controversial in the late 1800s, the Germ Theory was quickly adopted by the medical powers of the day. This new theory about germs invading from outside the body empowered the medical and pharmaceutical industry as guardians of human and animal health. People became dependent on the fledgling medical/drugs industry for information and protection from disease. Thus, Modern Medicine was born.
A number of eminent scientists opposed Pasteur and The Germ Theory, most notably the highly respected Professor Antoine Béchamp. Béchamp was a reserved, modest man and a much more distinguished scientist than the self-promoting chemist, Louis Pasteur. (It is believed today that Pasteur stole much of Béchamp’s work and passed it off as his own. This prompted R.B. Pearson to write a book in the 1940s called “Pasteur, Plagiarist, Imposter.”) See text at (http://www.whale.to/a/b/pearson.html)
Béchamp and other scientists believed in the theory of pleomorphism, that a microbe could evolve through many forms from virus to bacterium to yeast to fungus to mold and could even de-evolve back to a pre-virus again. Béchamp could see this evolution and de-evolution clearly in his microscope. Big Medicine rejected pleomorphism back then just as it will not even look at pleomorphic phenomena filmed and documented by scientists today, such as Dr. Robert O. Young in San Diego, California.
Another of Béchamp’s contemporaries, Claude Bernard, expounded on the pleomorphic theory and said that the inner terrain or “milieu interieur” was the cause of disease, and not microbes. It was discovered that acidic blood and tissue provide a terrain that is ideal for disease to develop. When the terrain becomes acidic, microbes evolve into pathogenic forms and carry out the work nature designed them to do – as cleaners and undertakers, scavenging inflamed or infected tissue.
The acidity or acid/alkaline balance of the blood is measured by pH, the potential of Hydrogen, see (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH) and is a very important marker for good health. The blood will do all it can to keep its pH at 7.365, or slightly alkaline. It will even strip alkaline reserves like calcium from the bones to buffer a rise in acidity. (This can lead to a condition labelled by modern medicine as osteoporosis.)
When the pH drops, even by .1, the increase in acidity is interpreted by the microbes, already present in the body in their billions, as a sign of a dead or dying body. This prompts them to morph from benign bacteria into virulent yeast and mold so that they can reduce the body to the dust from whence it came.
Even Pasteur eventually realized the truth of this and on his death-bed said that “Bernard was right… the microbe is nothing; the terrain is everything.” But Big Medicine now chose to ignore him. They sensed that the germ theory provided a gilt-edged opportunity to amass a huge fortune.
