“Suzie, make sure and wash your hands!” “Johnny, don’t go near him because he’s sick, you don’t want to get his germs!” ”Betsy, my goodness! Cover your mouth when you cough, we don’t want your germs!”
I seems like everyone these days has turned into a germaphobe. Everywhere you go everyone is squirting antibacterial hand wash in their hands and wearing masks. Even when Cindy and I went on a cruise a couple years ago (before Harper 
) with my family, there were “antibacterial stations” everywhere with workers from the cruise line constantly instructing us to wash our hands. Scary thing though is that research and lawsuits are coming out showing the chemicals in antimicrobial hand washes are dangerous. Take a look here.
So where did all this stuff about Germs come from anyway? Is it the truth? Are germs really the reason we get sick? Well….let’s look back a little bit.
The man responsible for championing the “Germ Theory” was Louis Pasteur, a german scientist. He is 
commonly referred to as the “Father of the Germ Theory” for his work with rabies. Pasteur’s theory after studying dogs infected with rabies was that these foreign invaders (germs) attacked the body from the outside and were the cause of all sickness and the cause of all disease. To combat these so called germs, he invented an injectable medication using the infection he was trying to kill off. He called the process Vaccination. He was given multiple awards and has been idolized as a hero to the medical profession as a whole because he created Antibiotics and Vaccinations.
But if his argument and findings were air tight, then why is it still considered a “theory”?? Well, that’s because it has never been proven. What?!?! We’ve established an entire medical profession on the premise of germs and their assault on the human body and it’s not even proven to be true?? Wow, that gives me a lot of faith in our medical system. So are their any other theories?? Glad you asked, as a matter of fact…..there are.
Another scientist was doing his own research at the same time. His name was Antoine Bechamp. Bechamp had found in his study of the cell, much smaller structures that he termed microzymas. His theory was that under the right circumstances, these microzymas could turn into pathological bacteria and cause sickness only if the health of the body had become weak enough to allow it to occur. So basically, it had more to do with the host than it did with the bug. He wasn’t the only scientist in their day that had come to this conclusion.
A french scientist, Professor Claude Bernard, who aside from immunity had received awards for his work with discovering the function of the enzymes of the pancreas, the glycogen pathway in the liver, and the vasomotor nerves (incredible, especially for the early 1800s!!). In his studies, Professor Bernard found that the health of the animal or individual had to do with what he called Milieu intérieur, otherwise known as homeostasis. In this theory, Professor Bernard said that ”The stability of the internal environment is the condition for the free and independent life.” He believed that the internal environment of the body had the ability to defend and protect itself and it was the breakdown of this system that created the potential for sickness and disease, not germs attacking from the outside.
Interesting huh? Two competing views on why people get so sick all the time and the difference in these two views determines your course of action on trying to stay well. I heard an analogy at a seminar one time that really summed this up well for me. It goes like this: “If you walk into an alley that is full of trash and see all these rats scurrying away from the trash, do you assume that the rats created all the trash and just eliminate the rats to help clean up the alley? Or do you recognize that the trash and rotting food left all over the alley attracted the rats and that’s why they were there in the first place and clean up the trash so that the rat problem goes away?”
Either the germ theory is truly right and medicine is the answer to everything because we’re just fighting off a foreign invader, or it’s not. If it’s not correct and the condition of your body has more to do with sickness and disease than medicine has given it credit for, then that puts the responsibility for our health back on us and the way we live our lives and treat our bodies.
Have you ever wondered why if germs were the only answer to all sickness then why does only one or two people get really sick in a group and the others not be effected at all if they drank and ate the same food, breathed the same air, or touched the same things?? That doesn’t make much sense does it? Not to say that medicine doesn’t help us tremendously! I’m not saying that at all. If I have a horrible blood infection that is going to kill me, by all means, give me the antibiotic….but I think we’ve gotten way off track with the amount of medications we take as a country.
Every year in the U.S. alone there are over 100,000 deaths from prescription drug use. And that’s from using them correctly!! So you can’t tell me that we’ve got it all figured out as a country…. Every day in the metroplex you can drive by an area hospital and they are expanding and building more rooms. If our current healthcare system was truly working, wouldn’t we need less hospital beds and not more?? It just doesn’t make sense at all.
Something definitely to think about. Like I always say in the office, I can’t make you decisions for you…I can only give you information and ask you questions to point you in the right direction to make an educated decision for yourself and for you family. So stay tuned.
Dr. JB
