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Students of iridology frequently complain that this interesting science has not been sufficiently systematized for purposes of intelligent study. In order to overcome this difficulty and to facilitate the study, I have divided the successive stages in the development of diseases into four well defined "stages of encumbrance."
Such a uniform division and classification of disease conditions and of the corresponding records in the iris, once established, will greatly facilitate the study of Natural Therapeutics and of the diagnosis from the iris. It will also serve to establish a well defined phraseology intelligent to the layman and especially valuable to students and practitioners.
We distinguish in the development of chronic diseases the following four distinct stages of encumbrance:
First, hereditary and congenital stage;
Second, or acute and subacute inflammatory stage;
Third, or chronic stage;
Fourth, or chronic destructive stage, accompanied by loss of substance.
All chronic diseases (not caused by violence or conditions uncongenial to human life) that end fatally, pass through these four successive stages of encumbrance.
Chronic disease never develops suddenly in the human body. Nature always tries to prevent its gradual development by acute and subacute healing efforts. If these, by any means whatever, are checked and suppressed, then they are followed either by fatal complications or chronic after effects, the mysterious "sequelae" of medical science. Thus we find that the unity of disease as to causes and manifestations, applies to chronic as well as to acute diseases.
Iridiagnosis settles forever in the affirmative the question as to whether or not tendencies to disease are hereditary.
Inherited tendencies are recorded in the iris of the eye in three ways, by color, density and hereditary lesions.
(1) The color of the iris indicates whether the vital fluids and tissues are pure and normal or affected by disease taints and foreign substances.
(2) The density, that is, the woof or grain of the structures composing the iris, gives us information about the firmness, vitality and general tone of the tissues of the body.
(3) Hereditary and congenital lesions in the form of shady, grey, usually ovoid or spindle form spots in the iris of the offspring indicate weakness or disease in corresponding organs or parts of the bodies of the parents.
For instance, if the lungs of the mother were affected by tuberculosis during pregnancy this may show in the iris of the child in the form of grey or shady signs or lesions in the areas of the lungs. I say, may show, because heredity is subject to many modifying influences. This we shall study more fully in the fourth volume of this series, entitled "Eugenics, or Man-Building on the Physical, Mental and Moral Planes of Being."
Under natural management certain organs or entire bodies, no matter how badly affected by abnormal heredity, may outgrow entirely the tendency to weakness and disease.
This is the message of great promise of Natural Therapeutics to those who fear to assume the responsibility of parenthood on account of weakness and ill health; provided, of course, that the parents properly prepare themselves, and that the offspring be treated prenatally and postnatally in accordance with the teachings of Natural Eugenics.
First let us consider the color of the iris. The question arises, is there a normal color of the iris, and if so, what is it, and what influences will change it and produce abnormal color effects?
The answer to this is as follows: There are two normal colors of the iris,--light brown and light blue. These are subject to change through various hereditary and acquired influences. In the previous chapter I have explained how the anatomical structure of the various layers of the iris accounts for the blue and brown color effects.
The influence of race heredity on the color of the hair and eyes is an intensely interesting subject, but I cannot discuss it in the confines of this volume. It will be treated more fully in the fourth volume of this series.
Concerning the subject of racial color I call attention here to only a few interesting facts. There really is no black color of the eyes. As before stated, brown and blue in various shades of lightness and darkness are the only two normal colors of the iris, and these were originally determined by race heredity.
According to esoteric history five great root races have come into existence so far on this planet. The third of these was the Lemurian root race which inhabited the continent of Lemuria or Pan, which occupied a large area of what is now the Pacific Ocean. The similarity of geological formations, flora, fauna, and of ethnological characteristics observed on the many thousands of islands in the Pacific Ocean which are supposed to have been the mountain peaks of ancient Lemuria, offer strong evidence in favor of the existence of such a continent. The remarkable ruins on the Island of Madagascar, built of immense blocks of stone, are remains of the gigantic architecture of the Lemurian giants, who were probably the prototype of the Cyclopes of Greek mythology.
The fourth or Atlautean root race is the first one about which we possess authentic knowledge. Its early sub-races were the yellow--Chinese and Mongolian--the black skinned African, and the red and copper colored Atlantean or Turanian branches. All these offshoots of the fourth or Atlantean root race were brown eyed and black haired.
The fifth or Aryan root race developed from the latest and most perfect offshoots of the Atlantean race. The first three offshoots of the great Aryan race--the Hindoo, Arabian and Iranian or Persian subraces--underwent a gradual change from the copper color of the latest Atlantean races to the dusky brunette of the most highly developed products of the Hindoo, Arabian, Persian, Chaldean and Semitic types.
The last two subraces of the Aryan root race, the Keltic and Indo-Caucasian branches, completed the transition from the Asiatic brunette to the blonde type of the Keltic and Indo-Caucasian branches. The fourth or Keltic sub-race emigrated southwestward from the cradle of the Aryan race in what is now eastern Siberia, conquered the countries around the Mediterranean, and founded the ancient Greek, Latin and Iberian civilizations. From Spain Iberian tribes emigrated into Ireland and Great Britain.
The last or fifth subrace of the Aryan root race took its course along the northern slopes of the Caucasus and tarried there for many thousands of years before it resumed its westward course into what is now called the continent of Europe. The offshoots of this subrace were the Germanic, Gallic, Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian tribes, whose outstanding racial characteristics were tall stature, egg-shaped skull, fair skin, yellow hair and azure blue iris.
If the founders of the Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Grecian, Roman and Iberian civilizations were of Aryan descent, why is it that their descendants have lost the ancient Aryan racial characteristics as regards physical and, to a certain extent, intellectual and moral traits? The answer to this is that in these countries there are left today few, if any, remnants of pure Aryan stock. Aryan blood and with it Aryan characteristics of body, mind and soul, have been adulterated and obliterated through mixing with fourth race peoples or with mongrelized descendants of earlier Aryan races.
Mongrelization, only, is the true key to the deterioration and degeneration of races and nations. There is not one exception in the history of mankind in the rise, decline and fall of nations and empires from the smallest and earliest to the latest and greatest. It is not so much the influence of climate, surroundings or any other local conditions that has changed the perfect contour of the Aryan skull or his physical characteristics and intellectual and moral standards into the lower, degenerate types of today. The principal agency in this process of deterioration and degeneration has been, and is now, the co-mingling of Aryan blood with that of older and inferior races and subraces. Nature everywhere places her mark of disapproval upon the hybrid, half-breed and mongrel.
This is true in the animal kingdom, as well as in the human. Darwin and all other students of flora, fauna and of the human species concur in the testimony that the hybrid and the mongrel are doomed to deterioration and extinction in nature unless they are gradually absorbed by a higher race and that the higher race can absorb them with impunity only by slow and gradual inbreeding.
The mule, the offspring of the horse and donkey, may seem strong and vigorous, but he cannot propagate his kind. The mongrelization of domestic animals is no proof of failure of the law which ordains purity of the species to insure normal development and improvement. The artificially bred hybrids and mongrels among our domestic animals would become extinct within a short time if deprived of the fostering care of man. These artificial products of man's breeding and training are not stable types. All the so called high-bred animals will quickly revert to the common level if not interfered with by man.
It is only by the enforcement of racial purity that Nature can develop and improve her genera, species and families in certain well-defined directions. If she approved of and allowed promiscuous intercourse and fertilization among various species and races, specialization and constant improvement as we witness it in the development of genera, species, races and subraces of animals and men would be an impossibility. All would be a wild and chaotic jumble of nondescripts and monstrosities.
As before stated, this interesting subject of racial descent will be fully discussed in "Eugenics," the fourth volume of this series.
Ancient history records that only a few thousand years ago, before the era of drug poisoning and hyper-civilization, blue eyes and blond hair were still the rule among nations of Keltic and Indo-Caucasian descent, Homer describes his Hellenic heroes as blue eyed and blond haired. The victors in the Olympian games were often so described. Caesar speaks of his brave foes,--the Gauls, ancestors of the brown eyed French,--as blue eyed and blond haired. The blue eyes and golden hair of the captive northern maidens were the envy of the dark eyed Roman beauties. It became the fashion for wealthy Roman ladies to wear the yellow tresses of the Teuton women, while the "peroxide blonde" was not an uncommon spectacle in the streets of Rome.
Blue eyed Caucasian regiments today form the cream of the Sultan's army. Circassian beauties are admired the world over for their abundant and luxuriant yellow hair and blue eyes. The regiment of giants collected from all over the world at great expense and trouble by Frederick William, the father of Frederick the Great, was composed of blue eyed men.
Observe closely first class companies of jugglers, circus performers, strong men, prize-fighters, animal trainers, singers and actors, and note how many brown eyed people you find among them. You will be astonished at the small percentage.
Visit an old people's home and count the brown eyed above 60 years of age; you will not find twenty-five in a hundred.
The following clipping from "Physical Culture" in an article concerning baseball is of especial interest in this connection:
"The reason why the Jew is not more prominent in the greatest of American sports--baseball--is due partly to a physical peculiarity of his race. The first requisite of a good baseball player is that he shall be a strong batsman. One of the methods employed by a manager in selecting his players is an examination of the eyes, for it is a singular fact, though little known, that the best batsmen are men with light-colored eyes. For some reason the dark eyed man has never been able to get his eye on the ball well enough to become a great and consistent batsman. As Jews, with comparatively few exceptions, are dark eyed, they cannot qualify in this important particular. The dark eyed man must have some remarkable special ability outside of batting to recommend him to the consideration of the baseball manager."
Observe school children in cold and stormy weather. You will find the blue eyed outside at play in spite of cold, rain, or storm, but the brown eyed will be in the house hugging the warm stove.
Our brown eyed patients, as a rule, shun the cold water treatment,--they have a perfect horror of it. Many would rather die than be cured by cold water, while the blue eyed usually take to it like ducks. Homeopathy says, '' Sulphur patients shun the water.'' Now sulphur patients are usually psoric patients, and psoric individuals are usually brown eyed.
Let me conclude my discussion of iris color with a few quotations from the writings of Major Woodruff, M. D., of the United States Army, who spent many years in the tropics and devoted much effort to ethnological research,--the study of racial customs and characteristics.
As indicated in the following excerpts from his writings, he fully recognizes the superiority of the blond type. He says:
"The blond Aryan type must have flowed south and asserted its supremacy early, for all traditions from pre-history show the aristocracy and royalty to be of this type, even in lands densely brunette.
"Most of Poland's great men, such as Kosciusko, have been of this type, but the mass of Poles are too inert for Aryan independencies. Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, was a blue eyed Aryan of the ruling aristocrats. His father was a lawyer 'of noble lineage and patriotic antecedents.' His struggle for Hungarian independence was typically Aryan--'equal rights for every class, freedom for religious belief, trial by jury, free public instruction, and the annual meeting of the diet.'
"Investigations show the general tendency to the blond, tall, long headed type among the upper classes of Russia and Poland."
Royalty and nobility of Russia, capitalists and captains of industry, if not Jewish, are of the blond type and of Aryan descent.
Major Woodruff believes that the first men were undoubtedly brunettes from whom blonds have gradually evolved with the acquirement of their higher characters. This coincides with my history of the descent of the races in "Eugenics". The third and fourth race people and the early offshoots of the fifth root race were dark colored and brunette. The Keltic, Germanic and Scandinavian races were normally blue eyed and blond haired.
Major Woodruff further says:
"The blue eyed and rufous (reddish haired) type was chosen in the early centuries for pictures of Jesus Christ.
"Brunettes live in cities, blonds live on the waters. The brunette is a landlubber. The blond is now and always has been the best sailor. He takes to water like a duck, even after several generations have lived on land. He is the yachtsman of the world, the boat-builder, and rules the sea. For centuries the Mediterranean man has been building fleets for the Baltic man's pleasure to destroy. Moreover, Havelock Ellis' studies in the National Portrait gallery lead him to suppose that England's power rests in great part on her blond sons. He says that the small group of prominent people springing from the working classes is among the darkest of the group. He says it is clear that a high index of blondness or an excess of fairness prevails among the men of restless and ambitious temperament,--the sanguine, energetic men, the men who easily dominate their fellows, and who get on in life; the men who recruit the aristocracy and who doubtless spring largely from the plutocracy. It is significant, he further notes, that the group of low class men, artisans, peasants, and the men of religion, whose mission in life is to practice and preach resignation to a higher will, are both notably dark. While the men of action tend to be fair, the men of thought show some tendency to be dark. (Author's note: Those with negative, psychic tendencies.)
"Blond Symbol of Aristocracy" "In the royal family Mr. Ellis found an early tendency toward fairness, but by later Tudor times there was a tendency toward darkness, while the light mixed type of eye, usually blue-yellow, has remained persistent. It is from the fair elements he observes that the aristocracy is chiefly recruited, though in the course of a few generations there is a tendency to brunetteness in these families, probably from the tendency of the blond men to marry brunette women.''
After thus acknowledging the physical and mental superiority of the blue eyed type, Major Woodruff becomes twisted in his deductions through not understanding how color of the eyes is influenced by mongrelization and by unnatural habits of living. He says "Blonds, despite their prowess, are a vanishing race," and he finds that Great, Britain's brunettes are absorbing the blonds, that the blond type is less resistant and that there are fewer instances of long life among the blonds; also "they form an undue proportion of England's invalids and are prone to certain mortal maladies which are withstood by the brunettes."
He reasons from the increase of brunettes in the cities that they are the stronger and more resistant type. If he understood the laws as revealed by the diagnosis from the eye he would perceive that exactly the reverse is true, that the increase in the number of brunettes is due to the degenerating influences of city life, that the rapidly increasing numbers of brunettes are blue eyed people, or their descendants, turned dark eyed under the weakening, degenerating influences of mongrelization, food poisoning foul air, confinement, over-strain, over-stimulation, luetic diseases, drugging, vaccination, lymph, serum, and antitoxin therapy. He would also understand that the preponderance of blue eyed invalids is due to the fact that they are the more resistant race and that they will survive adverse influences, such as dissipation, surgical operations, drug poisoning, etc., under which brown eyed people quickly succumb and die.
One reason why brown eyed persons sometimes outlive the blue eyed is because the latter are apt to squander their exuberant vital resources in dissipation and overwork. They feel and act as though there were no limit to their powers of endurance, while the brown eyed folk are usually well aware of their limited resistance and weakened powers of endurance and therefore instinctively husband their strength.
This explains why blond athletes and prize-fighters frequently fall victims to wasting diseases early in life. A recent example of this self destruction of a splendid Saxon specimen through overwork and dissipation is our genial, virile Jack London. In many of his novels he rhapsodizes over the excellent qualities of the blond superman. He was very well aware of the superiority of the type and portrays it in many of his characters.
We constantly find in our practice that as a rule the recuperative powers of the blond are much better than those of the brunette. The great men of history of Aryan descent, almost without exception, no matter to what nation they belong, have been and are now blue eyed. Statistics are being collected which confirm this fact in a surprising manner. As before stated, Columbus was a blue eyed Italian and Napoleon was a blue eyed Corsican.
Look at a map of Europe and note how, traveling from north to south, the size and strength of body as well as physical and mental vigor, positiveness and aggressiveness decrease with the increase of color in the eye. Compare, for instance, the vigorous, blue eyed Canadian and North American with the languid Southerner, the brown eyed, lazy Mexican; and still lower in the scale, the dark eyed natives of the Brazilian tropics.
From this evidence, is it not clear that the blue eyed type of humanity, as a rule racially as well as individually, represents physically and mentally the vigorous, energetic, aggressive, sanguine, positive qualities of human nature, while the brown eyed exhibit in a marked degree the weaker, negative, subjective, sensitive and emotional characteristics ?
However, do not despair, ye brown eyed folk, for in spite of the color of your eyes you may be better off physically and mentally than a great many of your blue eyed brothers and sisters, for as previously stated, three factors in the diagnosis from the eye determine health, strength and expectancy of life,--viz., color, density and hereditary lesions. An individual possessing dark eyes of good density may have much better chances for health and long life than a blue eyed person with an iris of poor density and with many hereditary and acquired lesions and signs of suppression and drug poisoning.
Another factor aside from race heredity which affects the color of the iris and which changes it from the natural light brown or blue color to darker tints and pigments, lies in encumbrance of the system with waste matter, disease taints and drug poisons and with gradual atrophy and death of tissues. The nature of these changes I have briefly explained in my comparison of inflammation to fermentation, in "The Making of a Chronic," and in other places.
As we have learned, the normal iris color of individuals of pure Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, Keltic or Scandinavian origin is a light blue without any signs, marks or discolorations whatsoever. Darkening of the iris color into blackish blue, ashy grey or brown among descendants of these Aryan subraces is always an indication of impure blood due either to an admixture of blood of darker races or to unnatural habits of living and the unnatural treatment of disease.
If children of Indo-Caucasian or Keltic origin are born dark eyed, with eyes of blackish blue or brown color, we find that under the influence of natural management as to feeding, bathing, breathing and under the natural treatment, of diseases, the color of the iris grows lighter and gradually returns to the original sky blue.
On the other hand, we find that under influence of unnatural management, after suppression of acute diseases (Nature's healing, cleansing efforts), and after vaccination, drug poisoning, antitoxin, lymph and serum treatment, the iris of the infant becomes darker and exhibits various signs, discolorations and pigmentations which we shall consider in detail later on.
To recapitulate,--darkening of the iris never takes place simultaneously with improvement, but always with deterioration of health. Lightening and clearing up of the iris color never takes place simultaneously with deterioration but always with improvement in health.
In seventeen years' practice and close daily observation of changes in the iris, I have never seen an exception to this rule. This is one of the revelations of Nature's records in the iris which make Iridology an exact science. The changes in color are the best indication whether or not the methods of living and of treating diseases are in harmony with Nature's laws.
If acute elimination takes place through certain parts and organs of the body, the corresponding areas in the iris often show much lighter in color than the remaining parts of the eye, indicating that the eliminating parts and organs have become more alive and active and comparatively purer than the rest of the body.
Instances like the following are of common occurrence in our practice. A few years ago we diagnosed in our college class a brown eyed man who had been suffering from childhood with a psoric constitution and from drug poisoning. While the eyes were dark brown, the areas corresponding to the lungs were comparatively blue. I questioned the students about the meaning of this phenomenon, but failing to receive a satisfactory answer I asked the man whether it was not a fact that of late years he had been eliminating from lungs and bronchi a great deal of phlegm and mucus. This he confirmed and told us that his "chronic catarrh" had been a great annoyance to him. He did not understand that this "chronic catarrh" had probably saved his life, and that, thanks to this continuous elimination, the lungs had purified themselves more thoroughly than had other organs of the body, He was physically based. His weakest organs were the kidneys and intermediate organs, the lungs. Therefore the lungs, sustained by strong digestive organs, had saved the kidneys from destruction. This is explained more fully in "Basic Diagnosis", pages 296, 297.
Luckily for him he had been under homeopathic treatment, which did not interfere with this form of elimination. Under suppressive treatment by means of quinin, opiates, coal tar products, etc., this cleansing process would have been checked and suppressed. Drug poisons would have been added to disease taints and under such unnatural treatment all sorts of complications, or death, would have been the inevitable result. If he had survived, the areas of the lungs instead of being lighter would have been much darker, and would have shown the black signs of chronic catarrh and of loss of substance (caverns in the lungs).
The question may be asked at this point, what has climate to do with changes in the color of the eyes and hair? It is quite generally believed that climatic influences have a powerful effect upon racial color, that sunlight and great heat tend to darken eyes and hair. This impression has arisen probably because brunette and dark races and nations predominate in the heated zones. As a matter of fact, however, climatic influences change racial characteristics only temporarily and to a slight degree. The descendants of the blue eyed Dutch retain their blond characteristics to this day in the hot African Veldt. Remnants of Vandal tribes in Northern Africa are still blue eyed. The Jew, after being acclimated for many centuries in northern Russia and Scandinavian countries, is brown eyed and black haired to this day, provided in his veins runs the pure Semitic blood.
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