Live Well. Eat Well. Be Well. E-Book

Joanna Thomson

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Live Well. Eat Well. Be Well. provides a roadmap for those of us who are tired of the stresses and nagging illnesses of everyday life. The guidelines for a healthy life laid out by the Kingston Nature Cure are easy to follow, and designed with a flexibility that acknowledges how we really live. Joanna asks that we make radical changes, but in her explanations of why we are all so sick and tired she easily persuades us that they will be worth it, that they are essential, even. Live Well. Eat Well. Be Well. is a lively and informative read, and with an extensive and usable index it will also act as a reference book for many healthy years to come.

Leseprobe

JOANNA THOMSON was born and brought up at the Kingston Nature Cure Clinic. The Clinic in Edinburgh was established in 1938 by her grandparents, her father and her two aunts.

She has always been steeped in the Nature Cure way of life but chose to make her living as a jewellery designer and maker. After the clinic had closed, her father had passed away and her two children were old enough, Joanna studied the Nature Cure course and qualified as a practitioner. Her tutors were graduates of the Edinburgh School of Natural Therapeutics.

Living by Nature Cure principles has informed Joanna’s approach to life. Her two sons were brought up on Nature Cure principles and they enjoyed healthy and happy childhoods. Her productive vegetable garden is organic; her hobbies are mainly outdoor pursuits, whether it’s riding her two beloved highland ponies, walking her dogs or bird watching. Just when most people are thinking about retiring, Joanna is ready for a full and interesting third age. She is keen to spread the word about this long established way of healthy living.

Joanna is currently the Registrar of the Incorporated Society of Registered Naturopaths and the Secretary and Treasurer of the Tait Vision Fund. This charity provides funding for practitioners to enable patients in difficult financial circumstances to have treatment. She is a trustee of the Thomson Kingston Trust which delivers the educational aspects of Nature Cure. She is also the custodian of the Thomson Kingston Publications and looks after a large library of Nature Cure, Natural Therapeutic and alternative health books spanning some 150 years.

First published 2017

New updated edition 2018

e-ISBN: 978-1-910324-89-9

The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made from low chlorine pulps produced in a low energy, low emissions manner from renewable forests.

Printed and bound by

Bell & Bain Ltd., Glasgow

Typeset in 10 point Sabon by

3btype.com

The author’s right to be identified as author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts 1988 has been asserted.

© Joanna Thomson 2017, 2018

This book’s contents are not a substitute for direct, personal, professional medical care and diagnosis. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that Nature Cure practices are safe, readers should be aware that there are risks involved in any lifestyle change, particularly for those with pre-existing medical conditions. A medical professional should be consulted before any drastic change of lifestyle. Neither the publisher nor the author, or any related Nature Cure or Naturopathic bodies, accept any liability for injury or illness of any kind arising directly or indirectly from reference to or reliance upon the book’s contents.

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

The Nature Cure Approach

CHAPTER TWO

The Healing Crisis

CHAPTER THREE

Vital Capacity

CHAPTER FOUR

Water & Nature Cure

CHAPTER FIVE

The Fear Factor

CHAPTER SIX

Your Health & Your Emotions

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sleep for The Sleepless

PART TWO

CHAPTER EIGHT

Catarrhal Tendencies

CHAPTER NINE

Colds & Flu

CHAPTER TEN

Breathing High, Wide & Deeply

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Posture & Movement

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Living Skin

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Be Kind To Your Kidneys

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

High & Low Blood Pressure

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Healthy Human Gut

PART THREE

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Soil, Food & Nutrition

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

What To Eat For Health

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Somatotypes

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A Few Essentials In Your Food

Glossary

Aye But…

A Little Bit of History

Bibliography

I would like to thank the Tait Vision Fund for their support, my family for being different from the norm on both sides and for fighting all the battles so that I didn’t have to. I would like to give credit to all the Kingston trained Nature Cure practitioners and those following the lifestyle who have all added something along the way. I would also like to thank Jan, Jean and Lesley for being a supportive critic, flying the flag and prodding me when I got bogged down, respectively.

But mostly I’d like to thank my two sons Alan and Martin for being healthy, happy and communicative and finally Rosie and Sweet Pea, my two highland ponies for making me go outside whatever the weather and for keeping me sane.

All royalties derived from the sale of this book will be donated to the Tait Vision Fund.

Joanna Thomson

IN JULY 2013, having finished writing a book on the future of Scotland, I was exhausted. Not the usual kind of brain-dead lethargy that sets in after too many early mornings, late nights and prolonged sessions at the laptop but a real, deep-seated inability to get going or rouse myself to do anything. I’m no athlete but I always used to perk up at the prospect of getting outdoors on a bike or up a glen during the long days of summer. Suddenly neither prospect appealed. Even two weeks in North Uist on the Outer Hebrides – mostly writing of course – had failed to work its usual magic. I was, to use the parlance, knackered.

Passing through Ullapool on the way home, I stopped off to see my good friend, Jean Urquhart, MSP and proprietor of the Ceilidh Place. She sat me down, brewed some herbal tea – most emphatically not coffee – and started to explain Naturopathy. It seemed Jean had been using ‘Nature Cure’ for several decades – with occasional tumbles ‘off the wagon.’ My curiosity built. Flicking through the well-thumbed booklets on her shelf, I began to realise I had no idea how my body worked or what I really needed to stay healthy. I’d been running at full tilt for decades, piling on pressure, using coffee to stay awake, eating whatever came to hand and burning the candle at both ends – in other words, a fairly typical modern Scotswoman. But finally I was getting curious about living differently.

It was a genuinely life-changing moment.

Once home, I sought out Joanna Thomson – the daughter of the man who had so impressed Jean Urquhart a few decades earlier. Like father, like daughter.

I stopped using salt, coffee, tea, lemon, vinegar and painkillers. Started eating fresh fruit for breakfast, first thing every day. Planted lettuce, ate salad and stopped eating processed food. There are still pizzas in the deep freeze that pre-date this big change. Within four weeks I stopped having a slight wheeze and sinus problems. I grew long fingernails (despite typing) that were almost bulletproof for the first time in my life. I felt pretty good. Just as well.

A few weeks later at hospital in Kirkcaldy I was diagnosed with a potentially serious auto-immune condition, given a kidney biopsy and put on chemotherapy. Perhaps if I had been an apprentice Naturopath longer I might have thought twice about the treatment. But I went ahead – and concentrated on being the best, healthiest patient I could be. Mercifully, it seems to have worked thus far.

I realise the placebo effect is powerful. I understand there are many other dietary regimes. But Nature Cure makes sense to me, costs nothing and puts a premium on eating nutrition packed, home grown vegetables not empty, factory-made food.

It’s an outlook I could usefully have stumbled over a little earlier in life. And I’m delighted Joanna is making sure no future generation has that excuse.

Lesley Riddoch

THIS BOOK IS THE distillation, and a much abridged version, of the work of three generations of Nature Cure practitioners; James C Thomson, Jessie R Thomson and C Leslie Thomson – my grandfather, grandmother and father respectively – all of whom were published authors. But this is much, much more than a collection of historic writings, because, although this pioneering group established Nature Cure in Scotland back in the early 20th century, so much of what they wrote then is still pertinent today.

My grandfather, James C Thomson, was blunt, rude and a trailblazer. He had to be right; he had to believe that he was always right. Fortunately, he very often was. My grandmother, Jessie, followed quietly and graciously in his wake, unruffling feathers and being a very effective practitioner in her own right. My father, Leslie, was a talented amateur electronics engineer, photographer and author, but he was also a brilliant naturopath. His approach tended to be more mechanistic but he always acknowledged the emotional aspects of his patients’ problems and this made him a perfect co-director at the Kingston Clinic to my uncle Sandy. Alec (Sandy) Milne’s approach tended to have more emphasis on the psycho (of the mind) before the somatic (of the body). These four naturopaths have left a wonderful heritage of monographs and books, but they needed to be updated and edited. This book draws on the work of my family, both written and remembered. Live Well. Eat Well. Be Well. is intended to be a day-to-day handbook for those in need of a lifestyle change to regain, and thereafter maintain, their health.

The book covers a wide range of conditions and offers common sense solutions and advice for self-help and home treatments. The original works were written in a rather paternalistic tone, which was fine 50 years ago but goes over less well in 2016, so some revising and updating was required. However, the methodologies, information and advice of the Nature Cure have changed remarkably little in over 100 years, so it only needed to be presented in a more approachable style. The original wisdom and knowledge is still there, and as fresh and applicable today as ever. I did, at times, struggle with having to so severely edit my forebears’ work, often feeling like they were looking over my shoulder as I wrote, but there was a need for a fresh overview from the third generation. After all, this is good stuff and should be out there. Some passages have changed very little from the original – the message is clear and unambiguous.

The exciting thing is that although the beginnings of ‘modern’ Nature Cure date back well over two centuries it is still absolutely right for today. It is in tune with the need to take less from our shared planet, it chimes with the growing interest in where our food comes from, it concurs with the need to find a path to health other than via pharmaceuticals and it corresponds with the urgent need to seriously re-adjust what is currently the orthodox approach to health. And it’s been there all along – it’s just been a bit lost behind the clamour about the next exciting super food.

The more I researched, the more I found recent studies that underpinned what we had been teaching for years and years. Too often things that are heralded as amazing new discoveries are what we have been teaching for decades. You will find that some chapters have references, while others do not. This is because the ones without the references were the original research papers, the evidence of efficacy, based on 50 years of residential practice.

So, this book will help you to live more healthily and get more out of life without it costing the earth, or you a fortune. You will also discover ways to take control of your own health. Nature Cure is a way of life that is affordable, straightforward and very empowering. I know it is, because I live it, and when I don’t my body soon lets me know!

I asked J S, a long-standing Kingstonite, for her experience with the Kingston Nature Cure:

I have been a follower of Kingston Nature Cure since I was a baby, 78 years ago. My mother could not afford to pay so we saw the students, who were supervised by Miss Atkinson.

We were brought up the Kingston way – no medicine, no vaccinations and cold compresses when necessary. At school all vaccinations were refused and the doctor there said we were being neglected. As a result of this my mother had to go and report to the medical referee for health in Edinburgh. She explained why and told him about Kingston. To my mother’s surprise he told her that no one had told him she went to Kingston. From now on, he said, she would have no problems with school doctors!

ARE YOU FED UP reading about the ‘latest health cure’ in the popular press? Have you lost faith in miracle drugs that don’t produce the promised outcomes? Have you become a little skeptical about the latest proclaimed super food? Are you looking for something well established, tried and tested, that actually works and better yet, doesn’t involve any pharmaceuticals? Are you prepared to put in some real effort to improve your health?

Every generation thinks that they have found all the answers, and too often their claims are ridiculed by the next. But there is a lifestyle choice that is over 200 years old and is still effective and straightforward and has no gimmicks or unpleasant side effects. This is Natural Therapeutics or Nature Cure.

If you are new to Nature Cure the adjustments we will ask you to make to your lifestyle might initially prove to be rather challenging and more than a little daunting. They might appear to be too unconventional, too different from the norm. But if you can stick with it you will find that your new ways of living are really very basic and honest. We understand that changing your habits is difficult; we accept that it means leaving your comfort zone and being prepared to question the status quo.

You could look at it the same way as upgrading your computer or phone. It can be annoying and troublesome to learn the new systems, the buttons are broadly the same but the functions have changed subtly. You persevere and almost magically, with a little time, things are made easier, more fun and more flexible.

Living the Nature Cure life means being allowed and enabled to take a lot more responsibility for your own health, possibly for the first time. According to recent research only some 10 per cent of people in the UK take that responsibility, the other 90 per cent apparently being content to hand this duty over to their local health service. Nature Cure encourages you to ask questions and to do your own research and this book gives you some of the tools you need to make a start. We understand that changing habits can be scary, but it can also be both empowering and life affirming.

To follow Nature Cure means accepting that ill health rarely, if ever, happens without a reason, and there will always be cause and effect at work. The information and advice in this book is based on a century of observations in outpatient and residential practice by one extended family and is presented with a liberal dose of simple, good old common sense.

As James C Thomson put it nearly a century ago:

RUDE HEALTH

1. If someone is in rude health, they are very healthy - and they look it.

2. Disease never arises without a cause.

3. Anyone who offers a short cut to health, ignoring the cause, is a quack, no matter how well they may be acclaimed.

4. Belief that you can be ‘cured’ of your ailment without removing the cause is probably one of the most dangerous fallacies of the present day.

5. Only your own inherent vital forces can cure you, and while the causes of your disease remain these forces cannot succeed.

6. Although many ailing people seek out and appear to enjoy hogwash, Nature is not impressed.

James C Thomson

Global Health Crisis

We are reaching a crisis point in many areas of the human condition and not least in medical science. In the summer of 2013 The Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Dame Sally Davies, announced that antibiotics resistance is ‘as big a risk as terrorism’. In her book The Drugs Don’t Work1 she calls for new drugs to be developed by the pharmaceutical companies. In effect, Dame Sally would like to see more of the same thing that created the problem in the first place. Yet she also warns that we need to address our relationship with antimicrobials and goes on to paint an apocalyptic scenario, in which people will again die from routine infections.

Microbes

There is no quibble that viruses and bacterial organisms are out there, but they are also inside us – our alimentary tract is full of ‘helpful’ bacteria (weighing, in total, between 2–3kg in a healthy individual) and our skin has a fair population of them too – and it is also true that ‘bad’ bacteria and viruses ‘invade’ our bodies from time to time. Bacteria are around us all the time and every now and then a particular strain will start to dominate, but no matter how virulent they are, not everyone has the same response.

Our bodies are amazing self-regulating, self-repairing organisms. They are endowed with an incredible somatic intelligence and too often we try to override that intelligence by employing hugely toxic substances to suppress symptoms of disease. We blithely assume that our conscious (learned) intelligence has some superior knowledge of the situation. But as we attempt to suppress the uncomfortable symptoms we are also taking the commonly held erroneous view that we somehow ‘know better’ than our body. Our bodies, those amazing organisms that regulate the growth of a baby from conception to birth, all without any conscious interference by the mother. Our bodies, that can knit broken bones without our help (yes, it’s true that a skilled surgeon is needed to set broken bones, but thereafter it is the body that does the healing). Our bodies, that can adapt to all sorts of situations and environments, that regulate our heartbeat, cell replacement and a million other activities without any ‘helpful’ interference from our conscious minds.

Symptoms

Are you interested in listening to your body and working with its natural healing capabilities? Have you started to realise that treating the symptoms of illness has often brought you back to where you started, after only a temporary respite? Are you having nagging doubts that taking suppressive medicines is not the right way forward? Would you rather investigate the causes of your ailment and get to the root of the problem? Then read on.

So what do we have to offer to someone looking for a genuine alternative to medicine? We have no magic pills, no clever liquids in bottles, no creams, no lotions and no potions to sell. We have no gimmicks, nothing that you can take away in a pretty bag and administer to yourself. So what do we believe in?

In a nutshell, Nature Cure is all about a straightforward way of life; a whole way of life. The approach embraces and informs all aspects of your lifestyle, it teaches the importance of honest nutrition, believes that fresh air, exercise and sleep are vital to good health. Nature Cure accepts that your emotional life and your home and work environment are vitally important. It also uses water therapies to assist the body’s natural healing activities. Nature Cure does not promise to be a panacea, however we are here to guide you in a different way of living and to help you to look at your life – and illnesses – afresh. We do not claim to have all the answers, but then nobody does. We do have some excellent suggestions and advice and sound methods and many, many years of clinical experience to draw on.

In the words of C Leslie Thomson from 1975:

Thomson Kingston Nature Cure is not, and makes no pretence to be, a substitute for medication. It cannot be produced in doses for specific ailments, and although this may sound strange, it is not primarily a resort for people when they are ill. It is much bigger than that. Naturopathy is a way of life and a way of looking at life, and a way of applying reasoned interpretation to what is observed.

Alec Milne, on the other hand, considered that it is only in Nature Cure that there is a philosophical alternative to medicine, where the symptom is seen as a signpost to be followed and a condition to be understood, rather than an enemy to be defeated or quashed. It is essentially an all-inclusive approach to health and we really prefer it to be preventative. Nature Cure means what it says: that cure is to be sought by reaching back to nature; by recognising that the curative power is the vis Medicatrix Naturae, the Healing Power of Nature — (ironically the motto of the medical profession). The essential role of a Nature Cure practitioner is to create a situation where the individual gains the confidence to listen to their body’s somatic intelligence and to trust the body’s innate healing capabilities.

Chapters

Your body is not a collection of spare parts randomly put together, it is a finely tuned organism, an integrated whole. In much the same way that an active and self-sustaining community has resilience to shocks and changes, the body that is seen as a whole integrated organism, and is treated with respect, will withstand life’s knocks so much better. Although we Naturopaths don’t compartmentalise disease, for the sake of simplicity and to assist you to find the information you feel most relevant to you, this book is divided into chapters that sometimes relate to different parts of the body. As you read through the chapters you will see themes emerging. Even though the title of the chapter may refer to one particular organ, or group of organs, be under no illusions, if one part of your body is distressed then the whole organism is distressed. If you are sceptical about this aspect of our philosophy just think how difficult it is to concentrate on a task while you are suffering from toothache or a sore stomach.

Finally

So often it’s not what you add it’s what you take away. Medicating, suppressing or masking the negative effects of harmful habits does not add up to a genuine cure. You need to pay heed to the causes, and address these, before real health can be achieved.

1 Davies, Professor Dame Sally. The Drugs Don’t Work. Penguin Special. September 2013

PART ONE

This section lays the foundation stones. It explains our approach, methods and philosophy. It also illustrates why attention to every part of your life, and your lifestyle choices, is important to achieving a healthy life.

All the different aspects combine to build the complete picture, in that way life is a little like the simple nine-piece jigsaw below. Of course you can still function without all the parts – and most of us have to at different times in our lives – but for really good health each aspect should be valued as much as any other.

The philosophy and science of nature cure

NATURE CURE IS NOT, and makes no pretence to be, a substitute for medication. It is not primarily a resort for people when they are ill. It is much bigger than that. Nature Cure is a way of life and a way of looking at life, a way of applying reasoned interpretation to what is observed. By doing this, if you accept and practise Nature Cure’s philosophy, you too can give your body a better chance of maintaining normal function, or of regaining function when it has been lost. And, as with any worthwhile way of life, Nature Cure is not merely for high days and holidays but for every day.

A philosophical attitude to life, health and illness is an essential feature of the Nature Cure way of life, and our methods are logical, science based, well researched and tried and tested. We believe that illness, and the pain that generally accompanies illness, is no accident and it always has rational causes, so it is important that there is an understanding of illness processes. Bacteria and viruses are interesting and complicating factors in many conditions, but they are generally influenced by the pre-existing condition of the tissues of the body.

Our understanding is based on the same anatomy and physiology as any other medical model, but it is our interpretation of the information that so often differs. For us the physical aspects alone are not enough; your emotions and your mental state are every bit as important to good health as your diet, exercise choices or sleep routines. Your posture, and its effect on your musculoskeletal structure is an important factor and offer us useful feedback on your overall state of health. Our Nature Cure approach has evolved through decades of observation and the application of simple therapeutic methods.

So, although we are less interested in a diagnosis of a particular illness-with-a-name, what we have done for the last 100 years or so could certainly be described as ‘evidence based’.1 And this is very much something that is called into question by the critics of other alternative health approaches.

As Nature Cure practitioners we have always actively studied good health, rather than pathology, for the answers and this sets us apart from many of the traditional medical models, we also ask ‘why has the individual become ill?’ We seek the causes of the disease.

So what makes our methods different? This can be illustrated by considering, for instance, someone who has a persistent headache and seeks some relief. They may consult a variety of orthodox or alternative practitioners about their problem; the first might prescribe an analgesic, perhaps combined with an antidepressant. Another could offer to sell them herbal remedies, but essentially intend to have the same effects as the orthodox prescription. Still other advisers would propose to make them less aware of their distress, perhaps through hypnotism, or by some form of mental exercise or by suggestion.

On principle, the Nature Cure approach rejects all of the above methods. There is no doubt that all of them work in the short term, but the one thing they all have in common is that they are making no attempt to understand or to rectify the causes of the discomfort. Each one is treating the symptoms, the illness; they are not treating the whole person. The Nature Cure philosophy demands that before applying even so apparently obvious a remedy as a simple manipulation to relieve the tensions in the neck and shoulders the question must be asked: ‘Why does the individual have a headache?’. Headache and neck tension may be due to various primary causes, more often than not a combination of several. But, without seeking to understand at least something about these symptoms and how they came about, it is not possible to give advice or treatment that is likely to be of more than transient benefit.

Symptoms

It is a commonly held belief that a disease is the sum of its symptoms. Although this may seem like a reasonable conclusion, it is also a widespread misconception that is happily and profitably exploited in the sale of every kind of remedy and in encouraging many forms of suppressive symptom treatment. Nature Cure believes that any diseased organism is going to be disordered before the appearance of any symptoms or feelings of discomfort. Most illnesses are quite simply the result of the way we live our lives. If you are properly nourished by a well-balanced wholesome diet; well exercised by a daily brisk walk in the fresh air; rewardingly employed with a reasonable life/work balance; happy in your relationships and emotionally fulfilled; living in an unpolluted environment, then you have an excellent chance of enjoying good health. But even if all these factors are in place there is no guarantee that you can be completely free of illness because there are so many other influences that could undermine your constitution. However, it is possible to say with some confidence that if your life is lacking in one or more of the items on that list, your chance of enjoying good health is reduced. So basically we need to look at all those aspects, and more.

Causes

Our immediate aim is to discover what guidance or advice you might need in such routine matters as diet, exercise, occupational effects, emotional adjustment and the avoidance – as far as possible – of environmental pollutions. That all may sound like common sense today, but despite some enlightenment in orthodox medicine’s approach to health, much of the above can still be met with some level of scepticism and a call for scientific proof, or dismissed for lack of some randomised control trial.

We regard acute illnesses as having not only logical causes but also constructive purposes. That is, simple colds, fevers, rashes, sicknesses or diarrhoeas have eliminative or stress-reducing significance. We see them as analogous with spring-cleaning in a household, a time of disturbed routine, of discomfort and commotion, yet with a wholesome and positive purpose. A system that is allowed its occasional ‘spring-cleanings’ – as necessary to deal with accumulations of waste – has a far better chance of remaining in good working order throughout a long and useful lifetime. But if these unpleasant yet useful processes are promptly arrested by symptomatic treatment – by suppression of the symptoms – the system declines into a state of toxaemia, and the residual accumulations of waste in all the body’s tissues results in impaired function. This is the situation in which chronic disease is most likely to develop.

Pain and why it is good to avoid drug treatments

Although us humans usually seek to avoid it, pain serves a very useful purpose; it lets us know that something is wrong. That nagging low backache could be a pointer to over-worked kidneys or a mis-alignment in your lumbar spine and it is only through a thorough consultation that the practitioner can follow the signs to the cause. One big problem is that pain is so often accompanied by fear. Fear of what the pain might mean, what illness the pain might be indicating or fear that the pain might not stop; all these anxieties only serve to amplify your discomfort. If you can do some deep breathing and take stock it’s well worth listening to that pain rather than trying to silence it with analgesics, alcohol, recreational or prescription drugs. It is worth taking a closer look at why Nature Cure practitioners don’t recommend, ‘taking something’ for your pain.

We recognise that working towards the root causes of pain can sometimes be very painful in other ways, but it is only once those causes have been identified that positive action can be taken. Following those difficult signposts to the root causes, to the ‘why?’ of the disruption to your mental and physical health, can be the start of enabling the healing processes to get under way.

There is no doubt that some drug treatments do work, but probably not in the way you would imagine. Many more have dubious outcomes, some are used for conditions they were never developed to treat and a good number of them would not get a license for use if they were new drugs today. They all come with a broad range of side effects, many of which are listed on the labels, but the problem really is that most drugs seem to be developed primarily to make profits for the pharmaceutical companies rather than for the benefit of the sick and unwell. Interestingly, treatments can often be every bit as effective when the patient is given a placebo (a sugar pill) rather than an active substance. Perhaps more so, because in most cases there are no side effects to a sugar pill.

With the placebo effect a large factor in a patient getting better is a change in mental attitude, giving rise to the feeling of hope that can result in a more positive frame of mind. A relaxing of the tensions and fears that have been impeding any progress towards health go a long way to allowing a body to start vital healing processes.

Drugs do not cure; they suppress, mask or alter the symptoms. They do not address the causes of the pre-existing condition that allowed the virus, bacterium, waste storage or debilitating tensions to occur.

Nature Cure encourages you to reach inside yourself for the cure, not for the medicine bottle.

Intrinsic healing

With the Nature Cure approach the real cure will not be instant, but as we all know nothing really worth having is instant. If we are honest with ourselves we will be well aware that it has taken many years of less than helpful daily habits and many different stressors to get to the state of ill health that we find ourselves in. So it follows that it will take a combination of time, acceptance, understanding and effort to move forward to a better state of health in the future. But it will be time and effort well spent. And here it’s worth pointing out that time is probably the greatest cost in a Nature Cure lifestyle to achieving good health, all other expenses are minimal.

Fewer antibiotics being prescribed

It might sound like music to a Nature Cure practitioner’s ears that, theoretically, fewer prescriptions for antibiotics are being handed out in the doctor’s surgery. But let’s not get carried away, this is not a shining light from Damascus moment, it is simple expediency on the part of the medical profession. Years of overuse of these drugs by the food industry, and in medicine, means they no longer work as effectively because the bacteria have become more and more resistant to them. Although doctors are now telling patients that self-limiting conditions, like sore throats and even scarlet fever, will get better on their own, there is often a vital link missing. So although we welcome the acceptance by orthodox practitioners that the body can deal with these conditions, there is rarely any reason offered for the disease state arising in the first place or any real credit given to your body’s innate healing powers. The simple laws of cause and effect have been at work, but because the National Health Service has historically discouraged us from taking responsibility for our own health, and sometimes even actively dissuaded us from attempting to do so, in the past there had been little effort made to link lifestyle choices to your health. That, at least, is starting to change.

All ages

It may sound like an obvious statement but Nature Cure practitioners prefer to give help and advice to those still in good health. This is not to make the practitioner’s life easier, but to enable the individual to maintain good health and realise their true potential. We have much to offer people of all ages and physical fitness; the beneficial effects of proper dietetics upon dentition, general development and muscular endurance are but a few good reasons to establish a healthy way of life as early as possible. However, for people of any age, we also have a useful range of emergency aids, from reduction of pelvic strain, often misdiagnosed as a ‘slipped disc’, to treatment of injuries, wounds and burns. In the instance of the latter for over 100 years, hydrotherapists have, with outstanding success, treated burns with cold water; a method only now beginning to be partially adopted in orthodox circles. Hydrotherapy methods are, of course, much older than 100 years, and in its current form the therapy has remained relatively unchanged since Vincent Preissnitz (1799–1851) practised in Silesia some 200 years ago.

Accidental damage or essential surgery

At this point it should be stated that Nature Cure practitioners place high value on surgery in more serious-accident cases or in a case of vital obstruction. However, we have observed that convalescence can be markedly assisted by following simple Nature Cure routines, and in less urgent circumstances there has often been successful co-operation with surgeons, by promoting an improvement in the individual’s tissues before the operation, so that healing is rapid, neat and strong. Remember, the surgeon does not do the healing; after the bones are ‘set’ or the damaged part of the organ removed, the body, and only the body, does the rebuilding and healing work.

It is a sad fact of Nature Cure practice that those who have long been chronically ill, and who have suffered extensive degenerative changes, are likely to turn to our methods as a last resort. Given no hope of future improvement they turn to us for help. Although this could be seen as obliquely flattering, it is an unhappy truth that a true cure in such cases is often not possible. This is because some essential bodily tissues or a part of a vital organ has already been destroyed. Nevertheless, some good, workable recoveries can often be achieved and this is an impressive testimony to the tremendous self-healing powers of the human organism, especially when that healing effort is unopposed and understood. The successful cases are also evidence of understanding and determination on the part of the individual. And there should be no doubt about this; Nature Cure is demanding on the person involved. It calls not only for the effort of accepting routines of treatment and following practices which gradually merge into daily habits, but also for the acceptance of individual responsibility. This latter point is of supreme importance. The foregoing might make it all sound a bit burdensome and difficult, but it really isn’t. Nature Cure can actually be remarkably empowering and enjoyable.

No remedies

We must make one thing clear; we do not offer to ‘cure’ anybody. Our work is essentially educational, with the aim of enabling you to realise your own self-reparative and vital capacities. In the early stages there may need to be some treatments aimed at relieving physical or mental stresses; there will be some advice and guidance that could at times sound quite harsh or we might ask you to do certain things on trust. But until you gain real confidence in your own judgment, and start to believe in the inherent intelligence of your own body, our work is incomplete.

Nature Cure highlights the cumulative detrimental effects of widespread and seemingly innocent daily habits, such as drinking quantities of tea, coffee or soft drinks; all forms of smoking; the consumption of processed foods; the use of ‘simple remedies’ for constipation, stomach-ache or insomnia and the many other devitalising things we all do in what passes for a normal life. Now, that list might have a familiar ring to it, because these days orthodox medical practitioners have to acknowledge that the way you live your life directly affects your health. But please remember that my grandfather, James C Thomson, was pointing this out a century ago and never stopped saying it. One hundred years later his granddaughter is repeating it.

Our philosophy is very straightforward and we use no remedies, potions or clever devices. We have no place for expensive thermal baths, elixirs, brightly packaged synthetic vitamin concentrates and a whole catalogue of so-called ‘health foods’ or ‘super foods’. Our Nature Cure methods will not involve you in the purchase of such services or merchandise. Our income does not come from profit or commission on sales of remedies, ‘health foods’ or gadgetry. For many this may be quite disconcerting. Leaving the practice without a bottle or package containing a remedy or supplement leaves you with only one option – to believe in the inherent healing powers within your own body. For most people this means having to trust consciously, for probably the first time in your life, in your own innate somatic intelligence. This is so different from the orthodox approach where the credit for the ‘cure’ is given to the contents of the bottle or the cleverness of the gadget, not to your amazingly intelligent body.

So what treatments do we offer?

Manipulative therapy is a part of any treatment programme and it can be anything from a simple massage for relaxation to quite strong osteopathic adjustments. It will form an important part of any programme towards good health, but a Nature Cure practitioner does not work mechanically; each case will be individually assessed. Dealing with the causes of a disorder is often more important than giving immediate relief – even though, reasonably enough, you would prefer to get rid of your discomfort as soon as possible. In dietetics, practical information will be included as will the matter of the environment in which you eat. Also as previously mentioned, we draw on a century’s worth of practical experience in hydrotherapy supporting our use of simple and effective water applications. Many of which can be safely used in the home in a surprising number of circumstances.

We give equal importance to the psychological significance of symptoms and stresses. We are particularly alert to the ways in which negative emotions may be intensified or diminished by altered physiological states, and how the reverse sequence can occur. Closely linked with psychological influences are problems of poor posture – so often the case with hours spent bent over a computer screen – and this is a broad field in which your emotional and familial background can be every bit as significant as your current occupation.

To quote from an early publication by James C Thomson, one of the founders of The Kingston Clinic, which was established by the Thomson family in 1938 and closed in 1988, having helped hundreds of patients from all over the world to regain their health and embrace a natural, simple and common sense way of life:

High Level Health is not to be achieved by the efforts of any group of practitioners. There must be intelligent and wholehearted co-operation by the individual concerned and after it has been achieved it must be just as intelligently sustained by wholesome habits of mind and body.

For this reason, we deliberately avoid any form of treatment which may give dramatic but transient results, and concentrate on those which either can be easily continued at home or will relieve strains for a considerable time after their application.

That is to say, we offer no ‘cure’ to those who come to Kingston, rather we offer to expound to each individual the causes of his or her illness, and explain how real health can be cultivated.

Kingston, in fact, represents an attitude of mind.

1 Evidence Based Medicine.

According to the British Medical Journal Volume 312 January 1996:

Evidence based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research*.

By individual clinical expertise we mean the proficiency and judgement that individual clinicians acquire through clinical experience and clinical practice.

Increased expertise is reflected in many ways, but especially in more effective and efficient diagnosis and in the more thoughtful identification and compassionate use of individual patients’ predicaments, rights, and the preferences in making clinical decisions about their care.

THE HEALING CRISIS is an acute reaction by a normally healthy body to an unhealthy internal condition. It is an effort by nature’s positive life force to rid your body of the build-up of toxins causing your disease or distressed condition and to progress the body towards inner balance and healthy vitality.

Generally, the healing crisis is a much misunderstood activity – or range of activities – performed by your body when it seeks to maintain or to regain good health. The term ‘crisis’ is perhaps unfortunate as it tends to be synonymous with catastrophe; in this case it means nothing more than a turning point. There are other therapies that recognise the concept of the healing crisis but few, if any, of them see it as such a vital part of the body’s overall maintenance of health.

It can be difficult to comprehend that fevers, cold, sickness, and diarrhoea could ever be beneficial. How can these unpleasant episodes be seen as cleansing efforts? The last two more obviously can as the body ejects unwanted food from the alimentary tract but the first two can be explained as a ‘bonfire’ effect. A combustion or clearing away of accumulated rubbish that is hindering normal bodily activity. We believe that two common colds a year are as effective a guarantee as one can get against more serious illness – with the important proviso that you allow the waste to exit successfully and don’t attempt to suppress the clear out.

Cardiff University Common Cold Research1 Department found that:

Despite the fact that very few of us escape from at least a couple of common cold infections each year, common cold viruses are not very contagious. Under laboratory conditions when healthy volunteers are kept with others who are suffering from common cold infections it has proven remarkably difficult to spread infection from one person to another.

We often hear people talk of catching a cold but with our years of clinical experience and the above finding we can, with some confidence, say that colds are usually simple forms of healing crises and as such have a beneficial effect on your body if allowed to follow their full and natural course. The Common Cold research department doesn’t offer any cures – just a list of symptom suppressants. As we have already identified, the action of suppressing symptoms is not helpful to the organism, your body, as a whole, even if it might give you temporary relief from a runny nose or a stuffed up head.

The crisis, or turning point, is fundamental to your progress from ill health to vigorous rude health, particularly as it is possible that some symptoms can be exacerbated on the principle of ‘getting worse before getting better’ after a period of treatment. The Healing Crisis is a real test of confidence. My uncle says, ‘coax the patient to jump this fence and the race is theirs’.

Some people are incredulous when it is pointed out that the body prefers to be healthy and in balance and will, through the activity of our vital organs, do its level best to maintain optimum functionality despite our apparent worst efforts to thwart it. If everything is equal – which let’s face it, it rarely is – and if we come from a healthy family with a good genetic make-up, and if our nutrition is well balanced and wholesome, and if the air we breathe is clean, and if the water we drink is pure, and if our work is fulfilling and pays us enough to have a decent roof over our heads, and if our family relationships are harmonious, and if we are creative, and fit from regular exercise – preferably in the fresh air – then homeostasis (a state of internal equilibrium) can be maintained for some time without need for a healing crisis. But, let’s face it, how many of us are fortunate enough to enjoy a life with all those advantages? Not many of us can achieve all of the above during our lifetimes, never mind concurrently. The best we can do is to eat sensibly, to remember to breathe deeply, to walk when we can, make enough money to keep the bills at bay whilst, if we’re really lucky, doing something we love.