The Nature of Disease

“For, when once we realize the true nature of disease—that it is itself a curing process—and, as such, cannot possibly be cured!—to what has this theory of drugging, in order to “cure” the patient come? And this one single objection—the right understanding of the nature of disease—is, in itself, enough to condemn utterly and forever all drug-medication, without any additional or supplementary argument whatsoever. For what are drugs supposed to do? Obviously, to “cure” the disease: with that object they are administered, and for that reason they are taken. But this whole theory is based upon the idea that a disease is a thing that can be attacked, or driven out, or suppressed or subdued, or in some way affected by the drug; but when once we realize that the disease is in reality not an entity at all; that it is not, in fact, what we must fight or combat, but that it is itself the process of purification—of “getting well”—when this grand truth is once thoroughly realized and appreciated, its true significance grasped—then drug medication will take its rightful place in the history of science—and be classed with the other vulgar superstitions, than which it is no less pathetically amusing.”

Hereward Carrington in Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition