In the presence of chronic diseases, modern medicine - despite what are often proclaimed as the great achievements of recent years - remains almost powerless.
By remaining modest gardeners of the two hundred hectares entrusted to our art, seeking to restore the energetic balance of the organism, improving the soil, regulating irrigation, ventilation, and drainage, we may obtain considerable results. Under such conditions the role of pharmacology becomes very modest indeed - and invariably harmless.
If we continue the invading pharmacological bacchanalia, we shall ultimately arrive at the complete collapse of a medicine that has become both dehumanized and excessively mechanized.
In chronic degenerative processes, in progressive atrophy of tissues and organs, chemotherapy will never enable us to arrest the sclerosing and deforming processes.
Hyperthermic baths constitute one of the most powerful and effective therapeutic measures in cases of arteritis, diabetes, glaucoma, and chronic rheumatism.
Bath therapy yields good results in the treatment of diseases which do not yield to modern drug therapy, or in which such therapy produces only temporary and illusory effects.
Among these conditions are:
- general or localized arteritis, angina pectoris, and arteritis of the lower extremities;
- sciatica, neuritis, and polyneuritis;
- deforming arthroses and rheumatism;
- sequelae of poliomyelitis and unilateral paralysis, as well as ankylosing spondylitis;
- the after-effects of myocardial infarction;
- arterial hypertension;
- the consequences of various injuries (accidents and war wounds);
- postoperative scars and adhesions.
Every chronic disease represents a form of premature ageing. Every genuine cure must therefore be accompanied by rejuvenation. We should - and we could - die at the age of one hundred while remaining comparatively young and active.
The turpentine baths which we employ gradually reopen the closed capillaries step by step, restore the blood supply to the desiccated islands of tissue, ensure the delivery of oxygen, and provide the drainage necessary for the elimination of metabolic wastes. In this way the life of the tissues and cells is gradually restored.