IMMUNITY, TOLERATION.
For many years past immunity and toleration have been perennial headliners in medicine. They have been subjects of an immense amount of research, discussion and publicity, all of which have been capitalized, commercialized and made the foundation of a system and an industry which has greatly enriched the manufacturers of drugs, serums and vaccines, and all who are connected with them.
Medical men-and their name is Legion-who are tied to the leading strings of the manufacturers and dominated by the organizations of “official medicine” have also profited by this exploitation. Many of these men know the falsity of the claims made for the system, but are too mercenary or too cowardly to oppose it. They are wilfully blind to its evil results.
Others, probably the majority, in common with the public, have never given the subject serious thought or investigation, but have simply swallowed the whole outfit, bait, hook, line and sinker. These are ignorantly but hardly the less culpably blind, to the evil results of the system.
The ranks of the gullible seem never to diminish.
“Whats in a name? That which we call a rose,.
By any other name would smell as sweet”.
So would a skunk; but there the parallel ends. A rose is beautiful and modest. Its delicate fragrance is scarcely perceptible a few feet away; but one can smell a skunk forty rods away and further, if the wind is right.
The exploiters of artificial immunity take very good care to see that the wind is just right when enter the field-an easy job because they make it themselves, like the mechanics behind the scenes in the movie-studio, who turn on a tornado to order, when the picture requires it. Both are fakes, but they make a tremendous impression upon the ever-gullible public.
P.T. Barnums famous dictum still holds true.
Narrowly viewed, artificial immunity as a product of serology, is not a rose. It is not modest, it is not esthetic and it smells to heaven. It contains almost infinite potentialities for ultimate biological degradation. But of that, nobody seems to be aware. No-body seems to be observing or investigating the kind, character or extent of the organic and physical changes which take place after the introduction of these protein poisons into the living organism. The medical profession has occasionally been sharply reminded of their dangerous qualities, as displayed in anaphylaxis; but after the first shock of surprise, they have merely modified their technical procedures slightly and continued as before.
FEW appear to see the immense biological significance of these phenomena. It foes not occur to the exploiters that substances which are so deadly in exceptional cases, must be more or less dangerous in all cases; that danger is a matter of susceptibility and degrees, varying for individuals according to time and circumstances, but always present.
Coming back to the subject of names, which I had in mind when I began this rambling discourse. The substitution of a new name for an old one sometimes makes a wonderful difference in the way a subject is regarded. It makes it possible, for instance, for discredited medical exploiters to resurrect an exploded theory, furbish up their processes and start a new campaign of specious propaganda, by which they may succeed in rehabilitating their tottering institutions, regain their rapidly disappearing power and prestige and replenish their treasuries. But at the same time, it affords a new and enlightening point of view for those who have previously given the subject little or no thought. Serological immunity is a case in point.
The little of this paper is “lifted bodily from a recent newspaper article in the New York Evening Graphic by Herbert M. Shelton, a popular writer on health topics, who is gifted with more than the usual degree of penetration into the medical shams of the day and is not afraid to say what he thinks. He has put the case against artificial immunity so clearly and so forcibly, that I quote him verbatim:.
“IMMUNITY, TOLERATION.
“Medical men talk a lot about immunity. They talk glibly about establishing artificial immunity. They talk learnedly about acquiring immunity by coming in contact with germs and by having mild cases of disease. For the most part their talk is only super-heated air and they do not understand what they say themselves.
“They have never realized that this thing they call immunity is the same thing that is known as toleration. Immunity to a cause of disease in the medical sense, is identical with the thing called toleration, when applied to the bodys ability to take opium or tobacco or arsenic or heroin, etc., without producing symptoms of acute poisoning.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.