But the actual worth or truth of any paradigm is found not in its “reality,” but in its utility.  Does an explanation or theory allow a person to manipulate experience and create a desired outcome.  To the extent a paradigm does that, it can be considered valuable.  Judged by this standard, the Theory of Toxemia must be far truer than the hodgepodge of psuedoscience taught in medical schools.  Keep that in mind the next time some officious medical doctor disdainfully informs you that Theory of Toxemia was disproven in 1927 by Doctors Jeckel and Hyde.

Why People Get Sick

This is the Theory of Toxemia.  A healthy body struggles continually to purify itself of poisons that are inevitably produced while going about its business of digesting food, moving about, and repairing itself.  The body is a marvelous creation, a carbon, oxygen combustion machine, constantly burning fuel, disposing of the waste products of combustion, and constantly rebuilding tissue by replacing worn out, dead cells with new, fresh ones.  Every seven years virtually every cell in the body is replaced, some types of cells having a faster turnover rate than others, which means that over a seven year period several hundred pounds of dead cells must be digested (autolyzed) and eliminated.  All by itself this would be a lot of waste disposal for the body to handle.  Added to that waste load are numerous mild poisons created during proper digestion.  And added to that can be an enormous burden of waste products created as the body’s attempts to digest the indigestible, or those tasty items I’ve heard called “fun food.”  Add to that burden the ruinous effects of just plain overeating.

The waste products of digestion, of indigestion, of cellular breakdown and the general metabolism are all poisonous to one degree or another.  Another word for this is toxic.  If these toxins were allowed to remain and accumulate in the body, it would poison itself and die in agony.  So the body has a processing system to eliminate toxins.  And when that system does break down the body does die in agony, as from liver or kidney failure.

The organs of detoxification remove things from the body’s system, but these two vital organs should not be confused with what hygienists call the secondary organs of elimination, such as the large intestine, lungs, bladder and the skin, because none of these other eliminatory organs are supposed to purify the body of toxins.  But when the body is faced with toxemia, the secondary organs of elimination are frequently pressed into this duty and the consequences are the symptoms we call illness.