the injected gold salts work in the body is not known. Nor is it known how the body reacts to them. Since gold therapy produces some relief of the symptoms it is believed that it acts as a stimulant on the vital processes of the body.

Gold injections, however, are known to be highly toxic and may produce many diseases and complications. Liver and kidneys can be seriously damaged, which may even cause death. Various skin diseases are a common result of gold injections. Stomach disorders, deafness, anemia, hemorrhages under the skin, neuritis, headache, eye impairments, ulcerations of the mouth and gums1B—these are just a few of the most serious diseases caused by gold therapy. In fact the toxic nature of gold salts and the dangers of gold treatments are so well recognized by physicians that it is usually recommended only in cases where other forms of treatment have completely failed.

As in the case of aspirin and cortisone, gold injections do not go to the bottom of the problem; they do not eliminate or alleviate the basic causative factors of the disease. Considering the grave risks involved in its use, gold therapy should have been abandoned long ago as a remedy for arthritis.

New drugs are constantly developed by pharmaceutical companies searching for a miracle drug which will cure arthritis. Indomethacin is one drug which is considered by the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases as the most promising at the present time. Other recently developed drugs are phenylbutazone and unpronounceable triethylene-thiophos-phoramide. All are potent pain-killers with equally potent side effects.

As I mentioned before, all these conventional treatments and remedies have failed to bring about a real, permanent betterment and cure for arthritis. The reason for this is obvious: Orthodox medicine, by its own admission, does not know the cause of arthritis. Since they don’t know what causes arthritis, it would then be logical to expect that they don’t know what to do or how to go about finding a cure.

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As was evident from the previous chapter, arthritis is a systemic disease which affects the whole body. Therefore, the only measures that can be successful in correcting the disease, bringing it under control, and accomplishing a lasting cure, must be ones directed at correcting its underlying causes. This can only be accomplished by treatments which help to overcome the systemic disturbances, normalize the metabolic processes, and help restore all normal functions of the vital organs and glands. That the conventional remedies fail to accomplish this is evident

While drugs and injections may relieve pain and modify symptoms, they do not go to the bottom of the problem, they do not eliminate the underlying causes, nor do they correct the systemic disturbances. What is even worse, these conventional remedies, being suppressive in nature and having undesirable toxic side effects, interfere with the normal bodily processes and actually inhibit restorative and healing efforts of the body. Eventually they cause more damage than good and lead to a complete invalidism.

It must be emphatically stated that drugs do not possess curative powers. The cure is always brought about by the body itself, and the most that a wise doctor can ever do is assist the body’s own healing forces. The drugs used in conventional treatment of arthritis—aspirin, cortisone, gold injections, etc.— only suppress and mask the symptoms of the disease. They do not promote the healing processes, nor do they provide any lasting benefits.

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