DO WE CATCH HEALTH OR DISEASE?
By David Paulson, M.D.
THE idea has so long dominated us that the body is all the time catching disease, that this notion has become almost natural to us. In our minds, disease has been invested with a certain kind of personality that we either catch or it catches us. This is well illustrated by the anxious mother asking how long it will be before the fever is “driven out” or “driven in,” as the case may be. Some persons think that if they can only get sufficiently strong medicines, disease can be “broken,” much as an animal’s neck might be. These are all scattering remnants of that erroneous notion that has come down to us from the ancient days when a sick man, no matter what was the form of his malady, was supposed to be “possessed of the devil.” Therefore, consistently enough, the more distressing the physical condition, the more obnoxious and distasteful was the remedy employed to drive it out. And even to-day there are many who find it much easier to rest their faith on the contents of a vile-smelling bottle than on some simple remedy which would enable nature to right its physical derangement. As a matter of fact, from infancy to old age the body is constantly catching health. If this were not so, there could be no hope for the sick man ever again to recover health when once he had squandered it. It is the same healing, growing, and restoring power that is operating constantly in health that enables the invalid to recover health when it is lost; only the sick man becomes wonderfully enthusiastic, or else his friends or attendants do, to see that he comes in touch with healing forces, and has something done for him that gives this wonderful restorative power of nature a chance to operate. If he had taken half the care of himself before he was ill, he would have reaped a correspondingly greater degree of physical power. God certainly has no different dispensation for a sick man than He has for a well man. It is a part of His plan that we should constantly be catching health. “I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health.” 3 John 2. When God’s Word declares a certain thing to be His wish, we may be sure that there is an arrangement that represents exactly this desire; and while we are in health, we ought to show our gratitude for this arrangement by doing all in our power to come into harmony with it, thus reaching out for more and more health. In other words, like David, we should drink more and more deeply of the “cup of salvation” (Ps. 116:13), instead of doing what such a large proportion of humanity are constantly doing,—daily sipping of the cup which has in it their own physical destruction. The body can be made to take disease, just as an unwilling animal can sometimes be made to drink. The body can be trampled upon and crushed and weakened, until the microbes and other contending forces become its master; but as soon as it has a suitable opportunity, we find it again reaching out after health. To be absolutely certain that nature will make a success of curing a disease, it is best to give it an opportunity to cure before the disease begins. Instead of trifling with the question of health, continually violating nature’s laws, here and there treating this or that demand of nature with indifference, thus inviting disease, we should make it a part of our daily business to be laying up a greater and still greater store of physical energy. Every one of us can be engaged in curing diseases before they begin. It is rarely the case that typhoid fever germs, malaria germs, consumption germs, etc., can find a lodgement in the human body unless it has already begun to fall into decay. In other words, the body must be ill before the man can become sick with these diseases. Chicago, Ill. DAVID PAULSON, M.D.