Two doctors meet for lunch in the hospital cafeteria.  Jan is an old hand, crusty, and a bit intolerant of silliness.  Jamie is a new intern, just out of university. They’ve been paired together for work, and thus, for lunches. As they sit down, Jamie feels the glow of excitement of becoming a doctor.

“I can hardly wait to start curing people,” Jamie gushes.

“Cure? What do you mean by ‘cure’?” Jan asks sternly.

“You know, to help them get rid of their diseases.  To free people from disease.” Jamie is speaking rapidly, enthusiastically.

“Maybe you should check a dictionary.” Jan replies curtly.

“What?“

“Well, if you check your dictionary, you might be surprised at the meaning of ‘cure’. You might take note of ‘disease’ as well.  If illness is what the patient has, and disease is our classification system used in diagnosis, not every illness can be diagnosed as a disease. And cured? That’s a real challenge.“

Jamie types into the phone for a moment and reads, triumphantly: “Cure: ‘the act of making someone healthy again after an illness‘ according to Webster.”

“Curing happens after the illness is gone?,” Jan challenges, “I thought that was healing? Doesn’t curing happen when the patient is sick? Are you sure that’s what Webster says?“

“Hmm”, Jamie is flustered, “Google shows the definition from Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary first“, she mumbles a bit, scrolling down.

“So, first we give learners a wrong definition for cure? Do they correct it when people learn better English?” Jan smiles sarcastically. “By the way, we don’t make patients healthy, we treat them for serious medical conditions, and send them home, to heal.“

“Here,” replies Jamie, attempting to move the conversation in a positive direction, “it says… well, it’s complicated.“

Jan provides a bit of support, “There are lots of different meanings for the word cure, in different situations. But you said you want to get busy ‘curing people’. Is there a definition like that?“

“It says ‘to stop (a disease) by using drugs or other medical treatments‘, that’s what I meant.” Jan smiles, then adds, shaking her head, “then it says, once more, ‘the act of making someone healthy again after an illness‘“.

“Curing someone is stopping their disease. That makes some sense, although they’ve switched from illness to disease. Do we cure the illness, or the disease, or the patient, the ‘someone’? What if we stop the disease, but doesn’t make them healthy, is it a cure?” Jan queries.

“You’re just getting technical now, being pedantic.” Jamie grins.

“We could look pedantic up too, but let’s stick to cure.  The first definition is simply nonsense- healing after an illness doesn’t cure an illness. Healing is part of growth, always active, before, during and after an illness. Healing progresses irrespective of the illness or disease, also irrespective of the cause, because healing repairs injuries, not diseases. The other definition is OK, except for the medicine restriction.“

“Restriction?” Jamie seems puzzled.

“It is, of course, possible to cure an illness, without a ‘drug or medical treatment‘,” Jan taps a knife on the tray for emphasis. “That definition is clearly medical chauvinism.”

“Medical chauvinism? Like, give me an example!” Jamie challenges.

“How do you cure simple dehydration? ” Jan asks, smiling.

“Hmm…technically, dehydration is cured with water – I guess it’s not a medicine, nor a medical treatment, except, when you are dehydrated, then it’s a medical treatment!” Jamie responds confusedly.

“Well, that’s nonsense.  What if you are only partly dehydrated, or undiagnosed dehydration – is it a medicine?  What if you self diagnose and self-treat, is it a medicine?  Is it a medicine if a doctor prescribes it, or if a medical person recommends it, but otherwise not? Is a bottle of water a medicine if it’s sold in a pharmacy with a label saying “can be used to prevent, treat, or cure dehydration‘, but not if it’s sold in a health food store, with a label saying ‘pure, healthy, spring water?‘ Lots of illnesses are cured without medicines. In addition, although many are cured by the presence of something, others by an absence, or by removing the cause. Obesity, arsenic poisoning, and shin splints are not cured by ‘something’, they are cured by ‘not something’.“

Jan continues, “Of course dehydration diagnosed is usually not a disease – it’s often a symptom of another problem like diarrhea and vomiting, so giving water as a medicine doesn’t address the cause. But it does address a present problem. Severe ongoing dehydration caused by lack of water is rare, because our bodies tell us when we need to drink water. Simple dehydration is normally cured by health, before any diagnosis is required.“

“An illness can be cured by health?” Jamie looks surprised.

“By actions that make you healthier. Lots of things are essential to health. If you don’t get them, or don’t get enough, you get sick – if you get too much, you get sick. Health is about balance and harmony, the ability to maintain and make use of the balances of life.” Jan replies, pausing to collect his thoughts, “Maybe we need a better dictionary.“

“I’ll check Oxford,” Jamie proposes, thumbing the phone again, “The Oxford Dictionary for English Learners: ‘to make a person or an animal healthy again after an illness’, duh – almost exactly the same as Webster’s.  Why do dictionaries think curing happens ‘after’ the illness?“

“Dictionaries don’t create language – they attempt to tell us how language is used.  Writing a learner’s dictionary is more difficult. They need to simplify, which can easily lead to simple errors. What does the full definition say?” Jan asks.

“I’m reading it, but I’m not liking it,” Jamie replies, “It says ‘relieve (a person or animal) of the symptoms of a disease or condition‘. But, we cure illness, don’t we –  not symptoms?“

“There’s often confusion between the symptoms and disease.”  Jan pauses, thoughtfully.

Jamie interrupts, “Then it says ”Eliminate (a disease or condition) with medical treatment‘. Oxford also misses cures without medicines. Is there no logical, scientific, medical definition of cure?“

“Well, lunch is almost over – why don’t you check some medical books. Maybe you’ll find a better definition.  Let’s talk more about this tomorrow.” Jan picks up the empty dishes and places them on a tray.

But before they leave the cafeteria, Jan has to ask “What do you think ‘cure’ means now?“

“I think cure means to stop the illness,” Jamie replies.

“That’s a good start,” Jan replies, “Let’s see what tomorrow brings.“

===========================================================

What do you thing CURE means? Where would you look to find a scientific or medical definition of cure?

to your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure

Do you know someone who has been cured by a chiropractor? Maybe you, yourself, have been cured by a chiropractor? What happens after a chiropractor cures your illness? You’ve been cured. Your chiropractor cured you. But nobody else cares.

A few weeks ago, I was having coffee with a friend, Dee. After catching up on friends, family, and old co-workers, the topic of chiropractors came up.  Dee’s voice changed a bit, and she began “I’ll tell you a story.“

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“About a year ago,” she said quietly, “I went to my doctor because I couldn’t raise my left arm.” 

She lifted her arm to about chest level, to demonstrate, and continued, “The shoulder was jammed and painful. When I tried to lift my arm any higher – it was very painful and not possible.“

She continued: “I went to see my doctor. He listened to my problem, and said ‘I could prescribe some anti-inflammatory medicines, but they won’t address the cause. I’d recommend you see a chiropractor.’ “

“I was surprised that a doctor would recommend a chiropractor,” She raised her eyebrows a bit, “When I visited the chiropractor, he manipulated my arm and shoulder, movement was improved, but not perfect. There was much less pain. The chiropractor gave me a series of exercises for my arm and shoulder.“

She concluded with a satisfactory smile, “I did the exercises, over the course of a few weeks. The problem went away.“

I noticed that Dee didn’t say “cure“, she didn’t say “I was cured” or “the problem was cured“, instead she said “it went away“.

I suspect, if I talk to the chiropractor, he wouldn’t say “I cured her” either. Claiming to cure can be dangerous.

And… if she talked to her doctor, a similar waffling phrase “The problem went away” might be used, rather than “The chiropractor was able to cure it.” Any doctor who suggests a chiropractor “cured” someone would risk serious admonishment by their peers.

Was Dee cured? Did the chiropractor cure Dee? Did the doctor’s recommendation cure Dee? These thoughts swirled in my mind, as Dee began again, thoughtfully.

“I think I know what happened,” she continued, “A few weeks before the problem, I was wearing a very tight one-suit.  I had to take it off quickly to go to the bathroom. I twisted my shoulder taking it off.  At the time, it was just a bit sore and I brushed it off.  Gradually, over a few weeks the problem got worse and worse.  So I decided to go to the doctor.” She was surprised to learn that the doctor made no attempt to cure her.

Now maybe you’re thinking “but that’s just an anecdote“.  After all, it wasn’t a clinical study, it’s just an anecdotal story. Know this. Every cure is a single case.

Every cure is an anecdote. Most clinical studies do not contain a definition of cure, and cannot document a cure if it occurs. Cancer research studies measure the positive effects and negative consequences, or risks of “treatments”. No study of a cancer treatment contains a definition of cured.

What happens after a chiropractic cure? It goes away.

The same thing that happens after any cure. It goes away. The illness goes away and the cure as well.

There are no cured statistics for any disease. If you had a common cold, or the flu, cured by health – “it went away“. Conventional medicine says “There is no cure for the common cold (influenza, measles, etc.)” There are statistics for influenza and measles, for deaths caused by influenza or measles, but none for influenza or measles cured.

If you get a sliver in your hand, and it gets infected, health fights the infection. Usually, “it goes away“, cured by health. If it doesn’t go away, you might visit a doctor, and be prescribed an antibiotic. If the antibiotic cures – the infection “goes away“. If you check the medical reference texts – and the product labels – for your antibiotic, you seldom find the word “cure“. Antibiotics are “treatments” for infections. There is a medical test for an infection cured, the dangerous bacteria is gone. But the word cure is rarely used. There are no statistics for infections cured.

And chiropractors? There are no scientific or medical tests for any medical condition cured by a chiropractor. When a chiropractor cures, the problem “goes away“. Was it cured?

Cured is not defined for frozen shoulder. A doctor might diagnose frozen shoulder, but they can’t diagnose “frozen shoulder cured”. There is no cure documented in current medical texts. WebMD documents Frozen Shoulder – exactly as it was experienced by Dee (except for the bathroom run). WebMD recommends treatments, anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen or aspirin or “a stronger medication“. WebMD says “Your treatment might also include going to a physical therapist for strengthening and stretching exercises to improve your range of motion.” But the word “cure” is not used. WebMD does not suggest visiting a chiropractor.

WebMD does not use the word “cure” for frozen shoulder. The word cure appears once on the WebMD page – in an advertisement offering “Shoulder Joint Pain Cure”, which leads to ads for chiropractors, naturopaths, and even aromatherapists. Can any of them cure?

The Mayo Clinic documents “Frozen shoulder, also known as adhesive capsulitis“. They also suggest a physical therapist – but not a chiropractor.  And the word cure is not mentioned. The Mayo Clinic documents symptoms, diseases and conditions, but not cures and not cured cases. What happens after a physical therapist cures a case of frozen shoulder? It disappears. Exactly the same thing that happens after a chiropractor cures one.

No authoritative medical reference documents a cure for frozen shoulder. No authoritative medical reference text documents a cure for any medical condition cured by chiropractors.

Of course there are lots of critics claiming that chiropractors are fake doctors and the practices of chiropractors are pseudoscience.  Is there any truth to these claims? Who can we ask? We might ask some major league baseball teams, like the Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, and the New York Yankees, or some top level basketball players like Micheal Jordan and Derrick Rose, or football teams like the Dallas Cowboys, the Denver Broncos, the Greenbay Packers, the Miami Dolphins and more, who have chiropractors on staff. These teams, many with values in the billions of dollars – choose to pay chiropractor salaries – for chiropractic results, for chiropractic cures.

What happens after a chiropractor cures a basketball player, or a baseball player? What happens to they cure? It goes away. The medical condition goes away.  The person goes back to their life. The sports superstar gets back onto the field of play. But, according to the official medical view, it wasn’t cured by an approved medicine or treatment, so it’s not important. The cure goes away as well.  It wasn’t really there.  It never happened. Nothing to see here. Look away. Look away.

A New Theory of Cure documents the three basic cures for any medical condition. Frozen shoulder requires two cures – exercise to stretch and transform the shoulder to a healthier state, and healing, aided by exercise, to repair the damage that occurs as a result of the injury and the transformation. The third type of cure – a causal cure, is not needed because frozen shoulder has no ongoing cause creating the injury.

When we study cures, it’s easily understood. But, our medical systems prefer treatments over cures, document treatments but not their curative successes. Many medical dictionaries do not contain the word “cure”.  No medical reference text defines cure, much less providing a scientific definition.

So cures disappear.  They “go away“. Undocumented. Their causes are also undocumented. And the patients? They go on with their lives. And the doctors? They go on to the next patient. Nobody cares about the cured once a cure has been accomplished.

to your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure

Do you know anyone who has been cured by a homeopath? What happens after a homeopath cures your illness? You’ve been cured. You care. Your homeopath cares. Maybe your family cares. But officially, nobody else cares. Officially, homeopathic medicines are “just water.”

What does the science say? We can find homeopathic cures in medical science, but, we need to look beyond treatments. Most clinical studies measure “treatments that don’t cure“. We might want to believe researchers are searching for “cancer cures“. But no. Cancer cured, for example, is not medically defined. We have no test for a case of cancer cured.  Of over than 70,000 current and past cancer clinical studies listed at ClinicalTrials.gov, not one contains an accepted, testable, scientific, medical definition of cancer cured that can be used in medical practice. When a clinical trial encounters a cured case – no cure can be recognized. Cancer clinical trials measure treatment benefits, but not cures.

Some clinical trials do contain tests for cured. Some clinical studies of homeopathic treatments find cured patients. What happens after a homeopathic cure is found?  It disappears. Over time, it disappears even more. But, let’s look at a simpler disease, warts.

Cure for Warts?

Is there a cure for warts? Conventional medicine has no cure for warts. Tests for warts cured are weak and inconsistent. However – we do have a clinical study that tested for warts cured.

In 1996 the clinical study Homoeopathic versus placebo therapy of children with warts on the hands: a randomized, double-blind clinical trial. treated 60 children with warts. According to the published research, 6 patients were cured in the study. Five of the cured were treated with the homeopathic medicine.

What happened to all of the cures?  What happened to the cures from homeopathic treatments? They disappeared.  The scientific, peer-reviewed, published research study conclusion simply ignored the cured, stating: “There was no apparent difference between the effects of homoeopathic therapy and placebo in children with common warts under the conditions of this study.”  Five cures (16 percent of patients) in the homeopathic treatment arm of the study were ignored.  There was no further analysis.  The same is true of the cure in the placebo arm of the study. No medical researchers made any attempt to understand the cause of any cure. The cures, the presence and number of cures – were at odds with the study conclusions, apparently at odds with the study goals, so they disappeared.

Disappeared Again

Two years later, homeopathic cures were more disappeared — is that possible? In 1998, some of the same researchers undertook and published a second study.  The same number of participants. The same homeopathic medicine. The same placebo arm. And the results? How many patients were cured?  We don’t know.

In the second study, designed – in scientific theory – to test if the results could be replicated, cures were not counted.  Cures not part of the study parameters, and thus did not appear in the published results. All cured cases were simply ignored.

What happens after a homeopathic cure?  Patients might be cured, but the cures disappear from the medical view. It’s not just warts. Cured is not defined scientifically for any disease cured by homeopathy. Warts cured are not medically defined for any disease cured by homeopathy.

It is possible to cure an infectious disease, and prove it was cured by testing for the infection after treatment. But…. those cases can be cured by an approved medicine. The test for cured is: treat with an approved drug, retest for infection. If the infection is no longer present – it’s a cure. But homeopathic medicines are not approved for infections, so the test is not valid. If an infection is cured by a homeopathic medicine, it doesn’t count.

It’s not just homeopathic cures that disappear. No doctor, clinic, hospital, or medical system COUNTS infections cured by any treatment. Cures are counted in clinical studies – but in actual practice, they aren’t counted. There are no statistics for cured of any disease, so there are no statistics of homeopathic cures. Patients can be cured, but their cures don’t count.

The clinical trial Homeopathic medicinal products for preventing and treating acute respiratory tract infections in children, published in 2018, clearly illustrates the confusion around the word cure in clinical trials.  This was a meta-study. Most studies found were excluded due to poor quality or poor fit for analysis. Although the study objectives are to evaluate treatments, the word cure occurs over 80 times in the report.

Cured was defined several different ways, depending on the study being evaluated. The following quotes, from the meta-study illustrate the different functional definitions of cured the researchers encountered.

• Cure: defined as the reduction or resolution of symptoms of ARTIs (fever/body temperature, cough, pain, malaise/feeling of illness, rhinorrhoea, etc.) in the short‐ (up to 14 days) and long‐term (up to 3 months).
• Cure was defined as no severe persistent fever or pain after 24 hours and no moderate persistent fever or pain after 48 hours.
• Cure was defined as a symptom score of zero and a Tympanic Membrane Examination score of zero.
• Jacobs 2001 defined cure as no symptoms or a significant reduction in symptoms.
• None of the time points for cure were the same across the two studies (Jacobs 2016; Sinha 2012)
• Sinha 2012 provided long‐term cure data for day 21 of illness, and Jacobs 2001 for week 6 of illness.
• in Jacobs 2001 the cure rate was higher among children receiving homeopathy, while in Sinha 2012 the cure rate was higher in children receiving conventional treatment.

It is interesting that researchers use the word cure but not cured to define the cured state.

It’s clear that there is no independent definition of cured. Cure is defined independently by specific researchers in each study.

We have no scientific definition of cured.  Conventional medical bureaucracies have no Theory of Cure. Phrases like long term cure and cure rate have little or nothing to do with the condition of the patient, their disease, or its causes. Use of the word cure, rarely references any present cause of illness. Instead, cure tests measure signs and symptoms – consequences of illness.

Most clinical trials of homeopathy measure treatments that do not cure. This is the standard for almost all clinical trials. Cured is rarely defined and cannot be tested. We, for example, research into Homeopathy for treatment of irritable bowel syndrome. Cured is not defined for irritable bowel syndrome. If a cure occurs – it cannot be recognized and thus cannot be documented. Cures, when they occur, disappear. They are outside of the scope of the study.

Cured is not defined medically for any non-infectious disease. When any cure occurs for non-infectious diseases, no cure can be documented. The cured illness simply disappears.

Homeopathy is not the reason for this blindness. It’s just another casualty. No clinical study can find a cure for irritable bowel syndrome – until cured is medically defined.

Although the common mantra of homeopathy is “like cures like” (similia similibus curentur), cured is not defined in homeopathy either. Most use of the word cured in homeopathic research refers to symptoms, not disease. For example, “Symptom distribution according to predefined classes (common symptoms increased in intensity and/or duration-, cured, old, new and exceptional)” – is a nonsensical homeopathic definition of cured.

Unfortunately, conventional medicine also has no definition of cured for most diseases. Therefore, it cannot rebut homeopathic claims of cured. Instead, conventional medical practitioners, researchers, and their followers claim “homeopathic treatments cannot possibly work“. Works, in medical science, generally means helps with signs and symptoms of disease, but does not cure. If it cures, we could use the word “cure”.

What diseases do homeopaths cure? 

Homeopathic doctors don’t rely on “just water,” but those who criticize homeopathy only focus on claims that the water cannot cure. Actual cures are simply ignored. We simply don’t know what diseases or medical conditions might be cured by a homeopath. We don’t even know what diseases or medical conditions have been cured by homeopathy. When a homeopath cures a patient’s illness – the cured status and the cause of the cure are ignored by conventional medicine. The cures are ignored by homeopathic medicine as well. We have no statistics for cured by homeopathy.

What happens after a homeopathic cure?  It disappears. Cured is not medically defined for most diseases treated with homeopathic medicines.  The cured status disappears from the view of conventional medicine. It also disappears from the view of homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy aims to cure symptoms, not illness, not disease. Cures, accomplished by homeopathic treatments, are not even counted by homeopaths.

When a cure occurs in most clinical trials, the cure disappears. Cures in clinical trials of non-infectious diseases disappear, because cured is not medically defined for any non-infectious disease.

In conventional medical practice cured cases disappear as well. It makes no difference if the medical practitioner is an oncologist, a psychologist, a dentist, an obstetrician, or a general practitioner. No conventional medical practitioner counts cured cases.

When a cure occurs in a chiropractic medical practice, the cure disappears, even though many chiropractic cures are trivial to prove cured. The cure disappears.

So, when a homeopathic cure occurs, the cure disappears, but it’s not about homeopathy, it’s about cured.

To find scientific answers about cures by homeopathy, or by any other conventional or alternative medical treatment, we need to study cure, cures, curing, and cured. Attempts to measure the non-curative effects of homeopathic treatments vs placebos or vs conventional medicine, only asks the question:

“which treatment FAILS TO CURE better”

It’s a nonsense question. Without a definition of cured – we have no idea if the treatment cured the illness, or moved the condition towards a cured state, or away from one – ultimately making a cure harder. We can’t tell. To count cures, we need to count cured cases.

To study cures scientifically, we need to study cured. We need a theory of cure. A New Theory of Cure defines cures in a comprehensive fashion, providing a solid foundation for studies of treatments that cure.

to your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure

It’s over 20 years since I met my first disappearing patient. A nurse in her early 40s, let’s call her Kate.  Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a nurse, she had often seen the results of treatments for breast cancer, and frankly, she was terrified, and determined. She was not having surgery, chemotherapy, nor radiation.

But, Kate worked in a hospital with the doctors who diagnosed her cancer. She worked with the surgeon, who urged her to schedule her surgery “as soon as possible.” At first she was furious “If it’s here today, it must have been here last year.  Why didn’t you find it last year.“

The next thing Kate did was slow down. Her cancer was small. She knew it not an acute illness. There was no need for immediate action. She had been tested for breast cancer last year. No cancer was found. She knew it took years for cancers to develop. It had not metastasized.  It was not growing rapidly, not affecting her health in any way. She knew, from experience, that she had lots of time. So, she took some time, to do some research.

We met in Canada. It didn’t take her long to remind herself that, in Canada and the USA, treatments for cancer are akin to law. No doctor, no clinic, no hospital dared deviate from the three Standards of Care for cancer. She new there were no Standards of Cure for cancers.

Kate didn’t look for magic cures.  She didn’t search for the latest conventional or alternative cancer cure. She wasn’t interested in curing herself. She was a nurse, not a doctor.

Instead, she searched for the cured. Of course there is a problem – our medical systems have no definition of cured for cancer. There is no medical nor scientific test for cancer cured. Modern medicine tracks cancer cure rates, statistical measures of “presumed to be cured” because cured patients cannot be medically recognized. This is still true today.

She wanted to find patient who were diagnosed with cancer, and no longer had cancer. She knew, from her work, from conversations with patients and staff, that these people existed, but they were invisible. No doctor, clinic, hospital nor medical system tracks cured for any disease. Cured patients don’t need medical treatments.

It didn’t take long to find patients who claimed they were cured. They hadn’t disappeared from life, they weren’t invisible. They were eating, drinking, living, loving, full, healthy and prosperous lives. But according to the medical records, cured didn’t exist. It’s as if they were never cured. Just like the common cold, influenza, measles, and COVID, there are no medical records of cured.

The medical system dismissed these cures anecdotal. Know this, every case of cured, for any disease, is a single case, a story, an anecdote. Cured patients are ignored. No doctor attempts to understand what happened to cured patients. They just move on. There are lots of sick people. Our medical systems diagnose sick people, treat sick patients, document sick patients. Cured patients were not sick.

Kate met with a few of them. She was not interested in debates about clinical science vs anecdotal evidence. Her interests were personal. She talked, listened, and compared stories. Several spoke about a clinic that made no claim to cure cancer; that did not use medicines to treat cancers. Yet somehow, many patients were cured. The clinic was not in Canada, not in the USA. Kate had to go to Mexico to learn more.

There are lots of so-called alternative medical clinics in Mexico, and in many other countries.  Are some of them curing cancers? Are some of them scams, just taking money from desperate patients? Do they only work sometimes, only in some cases? Would they work for Kate’s cancer? Kate didn’t know. She did more research. She called the clinic.

The staff made no claim to cure cancer. Claiming to cure cancer is not just forbidden, it’s dangerous, even for a clinic outside of North America. They suggested Kate visit the clinic, to see for herself what happens there. There was no charge for a visit, and no promises. Her only cost was to pay for travel to Mexico.  

Kate made her decision. She was familiar with cancer diagnosis in Canada. She had undergone a physical examination, a mammogram, that detected a lump in her breast. Then she’d had a biopsy, where tissue was taken from the lump and sent to a lab for analysis. The lab technician examined the sample and said it was ‘cancer.‘ Once a diagnosis is cancer, everyone swings into action. Kate also knew that mammograms have both a false positive rate and a false negative rate. Many people who are diagnosed with a possible cancer by a mammogram do not actually have cancer. She knew, from her medical experience, that cancer biopsies also have a false positive rate and a false negative rate.

She didn’t really know for certain if she had cancer.  Her surgeon, on the other hand, was pressing her to schedule treatment.

Kate knew one thing.  She had time. She cashed out some savings and booked a holiday in Mexico. A short visit to the clinic convinced her, an experienced nurse, without any desire to return home and consider the decision. She signed up, paid the fee and entered the clinic.

At the clinic, Kate was surprised to learn there was no attempt to validate the cancer diagnosis. The staff at the clinic checked the presence and size of the lump on her breast. But they didn’t repeat the biopsy. The clinic read her diagnostic reports, but did not investigate them further. In place of a diagnosis, there was a thorough analysis of her health of body, mind, spirits, and communities, by a suite of several different doctors. “Two full days of tests and interviews”, she told me “no waiting in line.”

Kate was asked about her family’s medical histories. She gave blood samples. She was questioned extensively about her diet. Doctors examined her lungs, her heart, liver, and other bodily organs with various tests. Her immune system was tested.  There were extensive interviews about her life, her work, her family and social relationships.

At that time, Kate, I didn’t realize this was not a medical analysis, it was a health analysis. The tests and the questions fit perfectly to the hierarchy of healthicine: genetics, nutrition, cells, tissues, organs, bodily systems, body, mind, spirits, communities, and environments.

Kate’s genetics were analyzed. Her nutritional status was analyzed, not just analyzing what she ate, and what she preferred to eat, but also by asking what she didn’t like to eat, what she deliberately never ate, what foods she was allergic to. Her cells and tissues were analyzed directly, through blood samples and physical examination, and indirectly through medical history. Many of her organs were tested for healthiness. Her bodily systems, immune system, circulatory system, respiratory system, hormonal systems and more were analyzed and assessed. Her physical body was measured, weighed, and examined carefully. Her mental health was assessed, as was her emotional, spirit, and spiritual healthiness. She was in good spirits, even in light of a potentially fatal illness. The doctors discussed her family, her relationships with her children, her spouse, her parents, her work communities, and more.

A few days later, Kate met with a group 6 or 7 doctors to discuss her health, not her illness, her healthiness. Diagnosing disease is difficult.  Analyzing healthiness is more complex. It took several hours for Kate to hear and understand what they had learned about her healthinesses and her unhealthinesses.

Then they prescribed two weeks of healthiness training, tailored to Kate’s specific situation. She spent the two weeks at the clinic, practicing, learning to be healthier, not in theory, instead, learning what Kate needed to do to make her diet, her body, her mind, her spirits, and even her relationships with her communities healthier. She said that, “after two weeks of learning and practice at the clinic, my breast lump had already started to shrink”.

Kate went back to Canada and put her leaning into action. The lump disappeared. Her diagnosis was still there, on paper, but her cancer had disappeared. She was retested at her hospital. Result: NED. No Evidence of Disease. No cancer could be found.

Then Kate began disappearing. 

When the surgeon asked, she explained that she was not going to surgery. He looked away and wouldn’t look her in the eye.

She didn’t disappear from her family.  She went back to her family. She didn’t disappear from her job.  She went back to her job. She disappeared from the cancer system.  Her cancer disappeared, so, as a cancer patient, she disappeared.

Was she cured? We don’t know. There is no scientific nor medical definition of cancer cured.  We have no medical or scientific test to prove a patient is cured of cancer or not. We have no cancer statistics for people who are cured of cancer. Patients who are cured are not counted.  No breast cancer patients are officially cured.  If their cancer goes away, they disappear from the system. Diagnostic statistics remain, cured statistics don’t exist. If their cancer is killed by radiation, chemotherapy or surgery, they are not counted as cured, they are counted as a survivor. Did they survive the cancer? Or the treatment?

Most cancer survivors live in fear of the cancer’s re-appearance, as if the disease is only hiding, never cured. Symptoms are said to be in remission, but their cancer is not called cured.

I met Kate five years after her experience. She still has no cancer. She paid, from her own pocket, for her trip to a clinic in Mexico. After the trip, her cancer disappeared. She had medical insurance. But her insurance wouldn’t pay for her trip. Insurance pays for approved treatments, not for cures, regardless of success or failure. Cured cases disappear.

There are three ways for a cancer patient to disappear. They might be cured by an approved treatment, they might cured by health. Or, they might be cured by a medicine or treatment that is not approved.  In all cases, our medical systems ignore the cured. If the treatment was approved, the patient is tracked. If it was not an approved treatment, only the approved portion of the treatment, the diagnosis, is documented. Cured is not documented for any patient, for any case of cancer.

I have since met several cancer patients who have disappeared in various ways. Not just cancer patients. I often meet people who claim to be cured of arthritis. I know one person who claims to be cured of myopia. Years ago, I talked to someone who cured their Parkinson’s disease in New Zealand. These cures, like Kate’s cancer, were simply ignored. I’ve met more by internet, email, etc. Maybe you have similar stories?

Medical Theory

In our current medical practice, cancers are treated like injuries – the cause is considered to be in the past. Treatments target the cancer cells, the result of the cause. There are thousands of potential causes in the past – which might be used to prevent cancers, but not to cure them.

Theory of Cure

In the new theory of cure, a cure addresses the present cause of an illness. In some cases, like a minor skin cancer, we can cure by removing the melanoma surgically. In other cases, like a slow moving breast cancer, the cause is present in the life of the patient. The cure is to address the present cause. But it can be very difficult to find and address different present causes of individual cases of cancer.

What to do?

The Mexican clinic used a shotgun approach. They identified as many health factors as possible that might be contributing to the cancer – and addressed as many as possible. If, or when they address the present causes in a specific case, the cancer is cured. Which was the cause? Because of the shotgun technique – we can’t tell. Is it important? The cancer is cured. And what about the causes of unhealthiness that were not causing the cancer? Well, they too were improved. The side effect of the shotgun healthiness approach is a broad swath of improved healthiness.

Once Cured

There is no way for me to determine if a disappeared cancer patient actually had cancer, if their treatment cured their cancer, if their body cured their cancer, or if they still have cancer. We can only tell if there is another cancer diagnosis.  The absence of a diagnosis is not considered a cure, medically, it’s just NED – No Evidence of Disease. In the theory of cure, a new case of cancer, not a remission, might occur if the causes reoccur. The prior case was cured.

Doctors, clinics, hospitals, and medical researchers have no tests for a cancer cured. We have no medical technique or technology to recognize, much less document a cancer cured. So, we have no statistics for cancers cured.

Many cured patients don’t disappear quietly. They speak out. They write books and newspaper articles. They blog. But it doesn’t matter. They still don’t count. Once cured, they disappear from the medical system. No medical system studies individual cured cases, their causes, their cures. We have no techniques to document cured cases for any chronic disease from cancers to arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, even obesity, and many more.  As a result, there are no statistics of cured cases of any chronic illness. For diseases where “there is no cure for…” like the common cold, influenza, measles, and COVID, we have no definition of cured and no ability to detect a cured case either, much less to identify the cause of the cure.

Once they are cured, they disappear. Health doesn’t cure illness, it disappears illness. Modern medicine doesn’t count people whose disease has disappeared.

to your health, tracy

ps. If you are, or if you know someone who disappeared their incurable illness, drop a note in the comments, or send me an email. I’m always interested in these cases, and I hope that someday, our medical systems will be interested in them as well.

The original version of post, published on Healthicine.org in 2015. It has been republished by several other sites – sometimes even without my knowledge, much less credit. This version has been brought up to date with the latest concepts of the New Theory of Cure.

Have you ever been cured? Were you cured by a medicine? or perhaps not?

Can you name a disease that can be cured, but cannot be cured with medicines? Can you name two? Five? More? How many diseases are there that are easily cured – but cannot be cured by medicines?

What is a disease? What is a medicine? Are medicines defined by the diseases they treat? What is a cure? A cure is the end of an illness.  

There are many definitions of disease – and many definitions of medicine.  For this post, I use a simple clear definition of disease, and the clear legal definition of a drug or medicine.

Disease: a medical condition that can be diagnosed and treated by a doctor. Bacterial infection, cancer, arthritis, Parkinson’s, hypertension, depression, COVID, the common cold. 

Medicine: a product approved by the government to treat a disease, recognized as a drug by the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration).

Cancer, arthritis, Parkinson’s disease, hypertension, depression, the common cold, and many other diseases have symptoms that can be ‘treated’ with medicines. But, according to current medical textbooks, none of them have cures.

Are there any diseases that CAN be cured by medicines?  Of course. Many bacterial infection, viral infections, fungal infections and other parasitic infections can be cured by medicines that kill the infecting agent. Notice the keyword “infection.”

Can we name a non-infectious disease that can be cured by a medicine? No, we cannot. Cured is not medically defined for any non-infectious disease, from arthritis and autism to cancer, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, gout, heart disease, hypertension, even obesity and scurvy.

Are multivitamins and supplements, on the other hand, ‘no better than a placebo,’ or can multivitamins and supplements actually cure diseases? Let’s look at a familiar example:

Nutritional Diseases

No nutritional disease can be cured by a medicine. Scurvy is severe deficiency of Vitamin C.  The only cure for scurvy is a healthy diet, containing sufficient Vitamin C.  We can cure scurvy with oranges, lemons, limes – and many other foods containing Vitamin C.  We can treat scurvy, (the word cure is not used) according to medical science with Vitamin C in food or supplements. But we can’t cure scurvy with medicines. Treating it with medicines ignores the cause, allows the disease to grow in severity, potentially to kill the patient.

Scurvy is only be cured by healthicines, not by medicines. Vitamin C is a healthicine, naturally present in many foods. It is not a medicine that fights our disease – it’s a healthicine, creating and improving healthiness. When Vitamin C is deficient, our health drops and eventually we can be diagnosed with a disease, scurvy. If our Vitamin C deficiency is extreme for more than a few months, damage to bones and teeth can be so severe that they cannot be healed – even with the best healthicines and medicines. Medicines, in general, do not cause healing, they attack disease.

Scurvy is caused by a deficiency of Vitamin C. Vitamin C is not just the cure, it is also the only preventative for scurvy. We cannot prevent it by taking medicines, nor by taking multivitamins that do not contain Vitamin C. Health is the best preventative.

Vitamin C an essential nutrient – a preventative when we get enough, and a medicine when we are deficient. If we have scurvy, or other symptoms of Vitamin C deficiency – do oranges and lemons, spinach, broccoli and tomatoes suddenly become a medicine? No, they are healing foods: healthicines. Such foods, including Vitamin C supplements are legally excluded from being approved as medicines. Medicines, symptomicines, sickicines, and deathicines can be approved as medicines. Healthicines, cannot.

There are many – perhaps most – illnesses and diseases that can only be cured by healthicines.

Vitamin A deficiency can eventually lead to blindness so severe it cannot be cured. Vitamin A deficiency can lead to many other health issues, symptoms, and diseases. If we develop a curable night blindness due to a Vitamin A deficiency, and catch it early, it is cured with Vitamin A.  We can’t cure it with a medicine. We can only cure it with a Vitamin A supplement, or foods that contain Vitamin A. Even the ancient Egyptians knew about this, and cured night blindness with liver.

Of course, the disease night blindness not that simple. There are different types of night blindness. Night blindness can have many different causes, from genetics and aging, poisons or toxins (including medicines), vitamin deficiencies, and many other causes. Night blindness can only be cured by Vitamin A – if it was caused by a Vitamin A deficiency. We might, treat 20 cases of night blindness with Vitamin A, and cure four of them, but not rest. The cured cases were night blindness caused by a deficiency of Vitamin A. The cure, not the diagnosis, proves the cause.

Vitamin A illustrates to another class of diseases that cannot be cured with medicines. Vitamin A is toxic.  When we consume too much Vitamin A, we develop the disease Vitamin A toxicity, with symptoms of headaches, drowsiness, irritability, vomiting, abdominal pain, nausea, peeling skin – and even death. The solution to Vitamin A toxicity? Stop consuming so much Vitamin A. Medicines can’t help – only healthy actions. Of course, Any complications that occurred from the excess vitamin A, such as damage to the kidney or liver damage, must be cured, if possible, independently.

Now we might see hundreds, possibly even thousands of diseases that cannot be cured by ‘patent medicines’, but can only be cured by healthicines, or by healthy actions.

Each vitamin has one or more corresponding diseases that result when they are deficient, and other illnesses (not all are classed as diseases) that result when excessive amounts are consumed. There are 13 clearly recognized vitamins. Each of the diseases caused by deficiency, or by excesses of vitamin consumption, cannot be cured by medicines – they can only be cured by more, or less of the foods containing the vitamins – by healthy actions.

Vitamins are not the only essential nutrients. There are many other nutrients essential to the health of humans. There are two essential fatty acids, and a few more that are ‘conditionally essential’. When we are deficient, we develop symptoms and diseases of fatty acid deficiency.  These symptoms and diseases can only be treated with foods containing the fatty acids – medicines cannot cure. There are also diseases of fatty acid excess or imbalance. There are nine essential amino acids, or proteins, and six more that are essential to health and freedom from disease. Symptoms and diseases resulting from protein deficiencies cannot be treated by medicines, only by foods. Excess protein consumption has been linked to kidney disease, cancers, and osteoporosis.

There are fifteen dietary minerals essential to health.  A deficiency of any of these minerals will gradually result in symptoms followed by diseases that cannot be cured by medicines. Only foods, or supplements containing these minerals – can cure these illnesses.

How many other foods are essential to health? We’re not sure. We need water, which does not fit into any of the above categories. A deficiency of water leads to the disease of dehydration, which can only be cured by consuming water. An excess of water can lead to water toxicity – which can lead to death.

There is uncertainty about the total number of essential nutrients – and there is also little science about how our needs for different essential nutrients might change as we grow from a baby to an octogenarian.

In summary, there are at least 40 essential nutrients. Some estimates range to over 100 nutrients essential to health. Deficiencies in any of these nutrients leads to diseases that can be cured – but not by medicines. Excesses of the nutrients can cause different diseases.

Diseases caused by excess – even those caused by excesses of essential nutrients – cannot be cured by medicines. There are also hundreds – thousands, perhaps millions of toxic chemicals in our foods and our environment. In many cases, these chemicals cause diseases with a name, that can be diagnosed – lead poisoning, mercury poisoning, chlorine poisoning – and many more.

Many toxic chemicals cause minor, or even severe symptoms – without the severity of a named ‘disease’. Most medicines are toxic. Most medicines have ‘side effects‘, many of which are symptoms of toxicity- many of which can lead to disease or death in excess. However, side effects, are rarely categorized as diseases, even when they kill. The symptoms of these diseases might be, and often are ‘treated‘ by more, different medicines. These illnesses can only be cured by removing the toxic chemicals from our foods, medicines, and our bodies.

When a toxic chemical is consumed or encountered on an ongoing basis, even in low amounts, it can cause a chronic disease. This chronic disease cannot be cured by medicine – it can only be cured, if it can be cured, by removing contact with the toxic chemical. In some cases, where the toxic chemical has built up in our bodies – it may be necessary to consume another food, or a medicine, that helps remove the toxic chemical.

Our list of diseases that can be cured, but not by medicines, continues to grow. There are clearly hundreds, possibly thousands of diseases we can cure – but not with medicines. Some are cured by healthicines, others are cured by healthy actions of restraint, a variation of fasting.

There are more, we don’t know how many more, diseases that can be cured by healthy actions, but not by medicines. A cure is an action, not a product, not a drug. Even a drug that cures doesn’t cure without the action of taking the drug.

Compound Illness

What about diseases are caused by several minor nutrient deficiencies acting at once? Today’s nutritional science operates, for the most part, using a reductionist methodology, studying one nutrient or toxin at a time. But health is whole. Our bodies and our health are not reductionist – they are holistic. When we have a minor deficiency in several essential nutrients – we might suffer symptoms, illnesses, and diseases that are hard to understand.  We might be diagnosed with a disease where the causes are difficult, almost impossible, to identify. In these cases, like night blindness caused by Vitamin A deficiency, we can only prove the cause with a cure.

Cure Cause – Present Cause

There are many diseases that are diagnosed without identification of a cure cause. Cancers, arthritis, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and many more are diseases without a cure cause. We track statistical causes for these diseases but statistical causes cannot be used to cure, they are past causes. It is a failure of medicine that medical textbooks, medical science, has not developed techniques to identify the causes in individual cases, to work towards actually curing these diseases. Instead, medical textbooks and medical authorities recommend treating the symptoms. Even when a case appears to be cured, the cure is ignored. These diseases are considered incurable – so cures are not important.

Many diseases with unknown causes are chronic diseases. This fits perfectly with the types of disease that are caused by ongoing (chronic) nutrient deficiencies or toxicities. These ongoing deficiencies ongoing toxicities might be minor, but damage accumulates gradually, over long periods of time.

How many chronic diseases are caused by minor multiple nutrient deficiencies?  We don’t know. How many chronic diseases are caused by long term, minor multiple toxic excesses? We don’t know that either. How many diseases are caused by combinations of minor multiple nutrient deficiencies and minor multiple toxic excesses? We have no idea.

Other Causes of Illness

What about diseases, like depression, that can have causes in the mind, the spirits, even the community? Depression can  be caused by many things. It can be caused by nutrient deficiencies, caused by skipping meals and lots of sugary snacks – medicines can’t help. But healthy food can.  Solitary confinement can cause and exacerbate depression – should we be surprised? If our depression is caused by social isolation, taking medicines can’t make it better. But, hugs can cure. We might get better results by going out to a blues music bar, listening to someone else complain about their problems in song, and getting up to dance anyway. How many diseases caused by physical or emotional stress, or by physical or emotional abuse, can be cured with a medicine. None. They are cured by addressing the cause. But our modern medical system, with its dependence on medical cures, cannot find any cures, cannot even recognize a case of depression cured.

Any disease caused by unhealthiness, by a deficiency of healthiness or by an unhealthy excess, can only be cured by healthy actions, not by medicines. Each of these diseases can only be prevented by healthy actions, healthicines, but not by medicines.

Incurable Diseases?

How many diseases are identified as  incurable by medicine today? Thousands. The ICD, the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases and related medical conditions, has over 70,000 entries. Most are considered incurable. What happens when a cure occurs? What happens when a case of cancer, depression, hypertension, obesity, or even scurvy is cured? Nothing. Nobody cares.

Cures are not counted. Cures don’t count. No doctor dares claim to cure – they would be called a quack. No medical clinic, hospital, or medical system keeps track of cures. We have no statistics for diseases cured.

How many are cured with health? We simply don’t know, we can’t know – because we don’t count cures. Health treatments are not billable. Medical systems (often marketed as health systems), ignore healthy cures because they ignore all cures. In many cases, we don’t know because we are busy searching for a medicine to cure a disease that cannot be cured with a medicine.

A healthicine is an action that increases our health.  A medicine is something that fights our disease. Essential nutrients and healthy exercise and rest of body, mind, spirits and community aspects of life are healthicines. They don’t fight disease, they improve healthiness and disease disappears. Antibiotics and painkillers are medicines.

When we treat a disease without finding the cause, we usually reach for an approved medicine. However, approved medicines rarely improve healthiness and most cannot cure any disease.

When we treat a disease that can only be cured with health – with a medicine – it gets continues to grow. In some cases it gets worse, even while the patient feels better. The medicine might be a success, as the patient’s health continues to deteriorate.

To find cures, we need to search for health, and for healthicines.

to your health, tracy

Author: A New Theory of Cure
I have had mumps, measles twice, dozens of colds, the flu a few times, and COVID. All are cured. None were cured with a medicine.

I am currently in living Arequipa, Peru, and working on a translation of the Theory of Cure – into Spanish.

Actualmente vivo en Arequipa, Perú, y trabajo en una traducción de la Teoría de la Cura al español. ¿Puede usted ayudar? Necesito ayuda de personas que hablen español e inglés para que me den sus opiniónes.

Thanks for reading Theory of Cure! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Can you help? I need help from people who speak Spanish, and English to give me feedback. You can provide feedback here in the comments, or by emailing me at tracychess@hotmail.com.

The draft paper, in Spanish, can be accessed at this link – Teoría de La Cura. If you wish, you an also view a version that contains both Spanish and English for each paragraph.

Any feedback you can provide is important to me. It might be useful to understand some of the challenges – even in the English version of the theory.

A Summary of the Translation Process

The first problem in creating a theory of cure is simply the meaning of cure. In English, most medical references have no definitions for cure, cures, curing, and cured – much less any standard medical definitions. Most medical references do not even provide a definition of cure. It turns out the same is true in Spanish.

CURA

These dictionaries do not contain an entry for cure (cura)

• MANUAL DE TERMINOLOGIA MÉDICA, Prof. Edwin Saldaña Ambulódegui, 2012
• Diccionario Medico Título original: Concise Medica/ Dictionary de Oxford University Press,
• Traducción y adaptación: Dr. Rafael Ruiz Loro, 1988.
• Diccionario Médico (Barcelona) )by Bello, Jorge, 2001
• Diccionario Espasa medicina by Universidad de Navarra. Facultad de Medicina, Madrid, Spain, 1999.
• Libro De La Vida Diccionario De Medicina Abril 1973
• Diccionario de términos técnicos usados en medicina by Garnier, Marcel, 1918
• Diccionario Médico, Chris Brooker, 2008
• Diccionario Medico Completo, Engais-Espanol, Jorge Carlos Berriatúa Pérez, 2013

The definition for cure in Nuevo diccionario médico by Ruiz Lara, Rafael Publication date 1988 says simply “cura: Ver TERAPÉUTICA“, but there is no entry for TERAPÉUTICA.

I did find Spanish medical reference that claim to define cure. The first is a Nursing dictionary, Diccionario de Enfermería – Segunda Edición (Spanish Edition), Rojas Núñez, Silvia, 2003 which defines cure and curable thus:
“Cura > (Del lat. cura, cuidado, solicitud). Curación.
Curable = (Del lat. curabĭlis). Persona que es susceptible de curar.“

The only Spanish Medical reference where I could find a meaningful definition of cure was written in 1805. which identifies four classes of cures:

1. la conservativa ó vital, baxo la qual se halla también comprehendida la analéptica:
2. la preservativa ó profiláctica:
3. la paliativa ó mitigatoria, que comprehende la urgente; y
4. la radical, que es con toda propiedad el tratamiento terapéutico ó curativo.” –

In English
“1. the conservative or vital, under which the analeptic is also included:
2. the preservative or prophylactic:
3. the palliative or mitigating, which includes the urgent; and
4. the radical, which is properly the therapeutic or curative treatment.”

Has there been no change the medical definition of cure since 1805.

Of course normal Spanish dictionaries define cure, and Spanish-English dictionaries defined cure, but these cures are based on general language usage, not on medical theory, practice nor science.

The second problem to defining a theory of cure, is the question: “What is cured by a cure.” Working in English, I quickly learned that we cannot begin by studying cures of diseases. Most diseases, officially – according to our medical systems are incurable. Even “there is no cure for the common cold.”

In English I chose the word illness. The concept of illness is broader than disease. It is possible to be ill without a disease. It is necessary to have an illness before any disease can be diagnosed. In addition, it is possible to have an illness – and a cure – without any diagnosis of a disease. The common cold is a perfect example. We get a cold. We suck it up. And we are cure by health and healthy actions, without seeing a doctor, without a diagnosis, without a officially recorded case of disease.

What is the Spanish word for illness? I’ve chosen dolencia. In Spanish,

“Una dolencia curable se curaba con una cura.”

Writing the Theory of Cure also required the creation of several new concepts. Modern medicine has no clear definition of cure, much less an agreed scientific definition. As a result, many of the concepts required to support an understanding of cure are poorly developed in English.

My Theory of Cure goal is to create a comprehensive view of cure that can be applied to any type of illness or disease. Starting with a process of simplification, I was able to accomplish much more. The resulting general theory of cure is not limited to diseases – it can be applied to any problem in a goal directed system, like a flat tire.

Because I speak English reasonably well I was able to make effective use of current words and language by selecting some clear definitions already in use and combining well known words to create new ideas.

For example, I have defined cure – in the theory of cure – as

Cured: “the cause has been addressed,” a definition that applies to an elementary illness, one with a single cause.

But, what is to be cured? Many diseases – I eventually learned that most diseases – have multiple causes. Does that mean most diseases require multiple cures?

This required a change in the definition of “cause“. The epidemiological cause of dehydration, or scurvy, or a broken arm, or COVID ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) is in the past. Going back into the past to address the failure to drink water, eat healthy foods, to fall down the stairs, or to avoid be exposed to the virus, is not possible. We cannot cure “past causes.” A cure requires addressing the present cause. Drinking water now, consuming Vitamin C new, healing the injury now and addressing the respiratory distress. The concept of present cause does not exist in modern medicine, but it is required to understand cure.

So the definition of cure became an elementary case of illness is cured when its present cause has been successfully addressed.

After more than a year of researching concepts of cause and effect, I made an interesting discovery. There are two basic types of causes, which we can view as nouns and verbs, the words used in the theory of cure are attribute causes and process causes. This is most clearly understood by studying elementary illnesses.

Translating to Spanish, therefore, is quite a challenge. I started over a year ago with Google Translate, and then let it sit for a year. Google translate has problems with new ideas – the words and concepts don’t exist yet. I have similar problems when I try to use Grammarly to edit my content. It simply doesn’t understand new word usage. In Peru, I found someone to help me with the translation and corrected a lot of the Google problems.

I’m looking for Spanish speakers to give me some input on this draft.

to your health, tracy
Tracy Dean Kolenchuk
tracychess@hotmail.com

Modern medicine suffers from many different and severe cases of curanoia, fears of cures, based on failures to understand cure. It’s not cure phobia, a phobia is an irrational fear without blame. Curanoia is easily and often rationalized and curers are often blamed. Curanoias exist in many forms, in every layer of our systems of modern medicine.

Why Curanoia? Why fear of cures?

Modern medicine has no functional definition of cure, no theory of cure, and is simply unable to cure most diseases – unable even to recognize a cure when it occurs. Doctors are often not permitted to cure, restrained to a Standard of Care which makes no attempt to cure. Few diseases or medical conditions have a Standard of Cure.

A cure is a change in status. An illness or disease was present, and now it is not present. We often think of an illness as a thing, but no. An illness is more like the wind. Illness is something we can neither see nor touch – we might only see or touch its causes and consequences.

An elementary illness consists of a single present cause and the negative consequences of that cause. A cure is an action, not a medicine, that addresses, changes the cause such that the negative consequences fade and disappear, no longer occurring, the illness is cured. Sometimes, an illness passes, like the wind, when the cause fades away. A complex case of illness or disease has multiple causes and thus requires multiple cure actions, one to address each cause.

A cure is a change of cause, producing a change in consequences. However, we often fear change for for good reasons, changes can be dangerous. So we fear cures many.

In the theory of cure, there are two elementary types of cures. We fear them both.

An attribute cure is a one-time cur. It is the result of a change to an attribute. Broken tooth is cured by an extraction, or a filling – both potentially painful and risky. An infection might be cured by a dangerous medicine, or perhaps a surgery. A cancer might be cured by a surgery – with potential for pain and risk based on its severity. Some attribute cures are simple – trivial – so trivial we don’t consider them cures. A minor bruise or cut heals without conscious attention, sometimes without us noticing any illness. An ingrown toenail that we can easily clip ourselves, is hardly considered a cure. If it becomes infected and a medical surgery is required. However, our medical systems generally avoid the word cure, even though surgeries are considered cures. Most attribute cures are not recognized by our current medical systems because they are not brought about by approved medicines or medical treatments.

A causal cure is a result of a change to a life process or habit. Smoker’s cough is cured by stopping the habit of smoking. The changed process (in this case the absence of process) must be maintained to maintain the cure. A scorbutic status illness (an absence of Vitamin C, an attribute) is cured with Vitamin C supplements that change the attribute – although our medical systems refer to this as a treatment, avoiding the word cure. However, a patient who is scorbutic because of poverty, addiction, or an unhealthy diet cannot be cured with supplements. A causal cure, ongoing cure actions are required. But we rarely consider ongoing processes or actions to be a cure. We don’t think of curing alcoholism as a cure for malnutrition, even when it cures. And besides, cured is not medically defined for alcohol nor malnutrition. Like all cures, causal cures also have potential for negative consequences. The cure for smoker’s cough might result in unwanted weight gain. Changing our life processes and our habits is difficult – and we generally avoid such cures. Many doctors know that advising an obese patient to lose weight to cure a skin condition or gout is generally futile, even if the patient believes it will work. There are no placebo cures.

Modern medicine recognizes attribute cures for infectious diseases, where the infectious agent is killed or removed by an approved medical or surgical treatment. Cases of disease cured by non-approved medicines are anecdotal and generally dismissed as unimportant. In all other types of cures, modern medicine has no definition of and no test for cured. No causal cures can be recognized medically, the cure actions are not medicines nor approved treatments.

Why do we Fear Cures, Curing, and Cured?

Patients fear cures because a cure changes the patient. The illness cause is often seen as an essential part of the patient, their life and lifestyle. Changing the cause, addressing the cause, transforming the cause, often transforms not just the illness, but also the patient. Alternative practitioners often refer to transformation as a curative.

Patient curanoias can also emerge from being encouraged to learn to live with your disease. Some patients gradually identify themselves with their disease. Some refuse to acknowledge the disease (thereby avoiding cures) or refuse to acknowledge the cause (thereby avoiding curative actions). Smokers might acknowledge that their smoker’s cough is caused by smoking, but may also believe their overall health, of body, mind, and spirits will drop if they stop.

There are other important reasons why patients fear cures. Searching for cures is shamed, patient are advised:

• “don’t use Dr. Google as your doctor,”
• “don’t trust alternative cures (even in cases where there are clearly no non-alternative cures)“
• “trust your doctor,” “ask your doctor,” (never mind if you don’t actually have a doctor, or if the disease or the cure is outside of your doctor’s area of knowledge.)

Patients also fear cures, even fear claiming to be cured, and claiming to be cured by X, because most doctors dismiss most cures and most cure claims. Doctors treat diseases, but have little experience curing.

Doctors fear cures because curing is medically forbidden. Medical training teaches doctors to avoid the word cure. Medical internship shames doctors that use the word cure. Modern medicine gives lip service to cures, but doctors who dare to cure – and to publicize their cures can be ostracized, can lose their license to practice, or in rare cases imprisoned or run out of town. There are many historical examples where this has happened, the most recent being doctors who dared attempt or succeed in curing COVID. According to WorldMeters.info, over 670 million cases of COVID are recorded as RECOVERED. There is not a single case of COVID cured, much less COVID cured by X. Our medical systems have no techniques to judge a case of COVID cured, much less a case of CURED BY.

Modern medicine has no medical concept of present cause , of cure cause. The present cause of an illness is the cause, which when successfully addressed, results in a cure. But, without a medical theory of cure, there is no need for an understanding of present cause. Modern medicine studies proximate causes, distal causes, ultimate causes, future causes, past causes, but not cure causes. Why? Modern medicine sees cause and effect as past (cause) and effect (future). However, the cure cause of an illness is present, presently causing the signs and symptoms of illness.

Absence of a scientific or medical definition of cured creates inability to prove a cure and reluctance to claim cured for most diseases.

In addition, confusion around the concepts of remission and reemergence (vs cured and recurrence) increases medical curanoias. A second instance of cause is often describe as the “return of the disease” as opposed to “a new case of the disease.” When cure is defined and attained, the second case is due to a new occurrence of the cause. In most diseases however, there is no distinction between the two concepts, because cured is not defined. For some illnesses – the cause is always present and risk of a new illness is high. As a result, when a doctor claims a cure, a new case of the illness is often judged remission, as a cure failure, as if the cure claim was simply wrong. This focus on disease facilitates causal ignorance. It’s safest to avoid the word cure – to make no curative promises, and avoid potential for any lawsuits.

“Ask your doctor about X” is a common advertising trope, but don’t presume to ask your doctor “How many people did you cure last week? Month? Year?” The answer will likely be denial of cure.

Even though surgeries are commonly described as cures, most surgeons avoid the word cure. No one discusses cataract surgery as a cure for cataracts – although it clearly is so. Cleft lip and hernia cures, are often easily accomplished with surgery, but rarely described as cures. More than half of cancer cases are cured by trivial actions – and thus considered trivial, not even considered to be cancers, much less cures. Part of the problem with surgeries, perhaps, is that almost all surgeries require healing to complete the cure process, so the surgery was not the complete cure. In the theory of cure, only elementary illnesses can be cured by a single action, and most cases of disease are not elementary illnesses. Most diseases require multiple cure actions.

Healing is generally recognized as a cure, but medical and nonmedical actions that facilitate and promote healing are rarely, if ever, considered cures. Rehabilitation is considered to be a treatment or a sequence of treatments, even as it cures with the aid of healing.

No nutritional disease can be cured, simply because they cannot be cured by any approved medicine. Absence of medicine is not a nutritional disease. Cured is not medically defined for nutritional diseases, even when the cure is obvious. Addressing nutritional deficiencies is a treatment for scurvy. The word cure is avoided.

Most alternative medical practitioners also fear curing, or at least the word cure, perhaps in their efforts to appear professional. Professional doctors don’t cure, so an alternative practitioner who dares claim to cure cannot be professional.

The theory of cure defines elementary illnesses as those having a single present cure cause, and being cured by addressing that cause. Compound illnesses have multiple cure causes and require multiple cures. Each of those cures addresses a single element of the illness. A complex illness is present when one illness is causing another, and two cures are required. If the primary illness is not cured, curing the secondary illness might simply result in it being recreated by the primary illness. However, these illness concepts and their associated cures simply do not exist in modern medicine – so none of their cures can be recognized, much less proven. Even with the simplest compound or complex illnesses, doctors avoid the cure word. As a result, a case of depression with multiple causes cannot be seen as partially cured when any single cause is addressed, nor seen as completely cured when all present causes are addressed. Elementary cures of compound or complex illness cures are often perceived as failures because the cure is partial. Modern medicine has no concept of an illness element, nor of a partial cure.

There is another important reason why doctors fear cures – its because medical associations and organizations fear and dismiss most cures.

Medical Associations and Systems fear cures, curing, and cured. Most cancer doctors, surveys have shown, avoid the word cure entirely and advise their staff to do the same. The same is true of many other medical practitioners. If we presume to ask any hospital or medical clinic staff if your illness will be cured – the response might be a blank stare, or perhaps an apology. Their job is to care, not to cure.

Even though over 9o percent of cases of common cold, influenza, measles, and COVID are cured, medical associations proclaim, almost with pride “there is no cure for…“

Medical associations represent the community of doctors. Someone who cures diseases is a threat to the community, because most doctors dare not cure most diseases – and cannot cure most diseases using approved treatments. Even when a case of disease is cured, the cure is rarely recognized. No doctor, medical clinic or hospital keeps statistics on cures and cure failures. Medical associations have no definition of cured for most diseases. As a result, all cure claims, especially non-medical cures or so-called alternative medical cures can be easily dismissed. Proof of cure is simply not possible without a functional definition of cured.

Medical associations often create and maintain a Standard of Care (not cure) for a disease or medical condition, under the assumption that a cure is not possible. The standard of care can become a roadblock against cures, because a cure requires actions different from the standard. Doctors who dare to cure can be accused of ignoring their responsibility to their medical associations. This is nothing new. The history of the Hippocratic Oath reveals similar regulations, “the creation of the (Hippocratic) Oath may have marked the early stages of medical training… by requiring strict loyalty” (National Library of Medicine).

There is another important reason why medical associations fear cures – it’s because governmental organizations ignore cures and dismiss most cures claims.

The USA/FDA forbids cures. Neither the CDC nor the FDA has a useful definition of cure. In FDA language, the word cure refers to products not actions. Products that claim to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent diseases are forbidden unless specifically approved. Such products must be withdrawn, or they ill be confiscated – as if they present a danger to the public. In government, cures simply do not exist unless they are approved products. However, the approval process functions without a definition of cured. Technically, all curative treatments are illegal unless they have been approved by the FDA. However, the FDA has no definition of cured to guide approvals. Submissions by product manufacturers that claim to cure provide clinical studies – each with their own specific definition of cured.

There is a reason for this simplicity. The FDA control of medicines, of medicine approval was a response to medical hucksters, sellers of fake medicines, snake oil medicines, having no ability and no intention to cure. The FDA set up a system of approval that required scientific analysis. However, this was done without any definition of cure. The deficiency – of a definition of cure – still exists today. In addition, no-one in industry, education, or government is working to address it. What is missing – the absence of a definition of cure – is simply not noticed.

There is another important reason why the FDA fears cures – the FDA is largely funded and staffed by drug companies and their representatives – who fear cures. In some ways, it make sense. Who would know the most about drugs – but the drug company representatives. However, it also creates a powerful lever for big money drug companies to control which treatments are approved and which are not approved. Simple cures will not be approved – because are no patents available, so there is no profitable market for simple cures.

Drug Manufacturers fear the word cure, and avoid theoretical or scientific discussions of cure. The simple truth is that most drugs make no attempt to cure any case of disease and cannot cure any case of disease. Another pharma truth is, drugs that do not cure are more profitable than drugs or other actions that cure. People who are cured don’t need drugs. Most cures are trivial. Most cures do not require any drugs. Cures, real cures, are a threat to the drug industry. The word cure does not appear on the product label or information insert of most prescription drugs and most OTC (over the counter) drugs. Curanoia can be profitable.

There are four basic types of drugs, only one of them can cure:

symptomicines – medicines that address the signs and symptoms of diseases like the common cold, but make no attempt to cure.

forever medicines – like insulin for diabetics drugs for depression, and statins for high cholesterol, intended to be taken regularly until the patient dies because they cannot cure.

preventatives – like vaccines, which can be marketed to anyone and everyone who fears diseases that cannot be cured. Note: preventatives that can cure, like foods containing Vitamin C, are not recognized as cures and cannot be marketed as drugs.

anti-infectious – antibiotics, antifungals, and anti-parasites, that cure by killing an invading parasite.

The problem with drugs that cure is easily understood. They are bought once, and if they work, there is no more need. The product works itself out of future sales. The market for medical cures is limited by the fact that they cure. The market for symptomicines, forever medicines, and preventatives, on the other hand, is huge.

Because drug companies fear cures – clinical researchers also ignore and dismiss most cures. Most clinical studies are funded by drug companies.

Clinical Researchers generally avoid the word cure. Most clinical studies do not contain any definition of cured for the disease being treated. These studies are looking for products that provide improvements in the condition of the patient, as opposed to cures. Products that improve the condition of a patient have potential to become forever medicines.

As a result of the absence of a definition of cure in the study plan, if a cure occurs, it cannot be officially documented. Cures are simply out of scope in most clinical studies.

Cure Rate, often measured in clinical studies – is a concept based on curanoias, based on the belief that “cured” should not be claimed, cannot be proven, and should not be documented, in individual cases of disease. Cure rate statistics count cases presumed (but not proven) to be cured. In cases, when cure rates are calculated, cured cannot be proven because no independent test of cured exists.

Clinical studies of preventatives must discount cures. If an illness is easily cured, there is little need for a preventative. The cost and risks associated with the preventative might outweigh the costs and risks of the disease and its cure. Better to simply avoid the question: ignore cures, dismiss cures, fear cures.

Clinical studies of forever medicines, like statins or diabetes medicines, must ignore cures. What if high cholesterol or diabetes can be cured? Every cure shrinks the market for forever medicines. Cures must be ignored, feared, dismissed.

Clinical studies of cures for infectious diseases can accept some cures – those caused by the medicine. However, cures of these diseases that are caused by “not the medicine” must be ignored. There is a perfect historical example of treatments for warts, where the first studies found cures on both the placebo and treatment arms of the study. An embarrassing result. What to do? The study was simply replicated without the test for cured. No cures were found, and the results were secure.

The Media, and Publishers fear cures, curing, and cured. This is easily seen when cure claims are made public. Large media organizations have huge income from pharma advertisers. Discussing cures, opposed by pharma companies, is a serious risk. Drug companies, the FDA, medical associations, doctors and patients all agree. There are no cures for most diseases. There are no cures for chronic diseases. There are no cures for mental disorders. There are no cures for most diseases caused by viruses. So news stories about cures, curing, or cured must be ignored, or dismissed, or opposed. Or, they can be relegated to anecdotal cure status, which translates to must be ignored.

At the same time, the media promotes faith in pharma by publishing frequent reports of potential cures for, of moving closer to a cure of, and other new research suggesting that cures are just over the horizon (which in actuality is constantly receeding.)

Doctors who write medical books are often required to publish cure disclaimers that range from mild advice of “consult with your physician” to wholesale statements like “the material in this book is not intended to prevent, treat, or cure any disease.” I suspect that, in part, this is because publishers do not want to be sued for damages caused by a cure that didn’t work. I currently have a book about cures in Amazon’s publishing platform that is BLOCKED from publication. The book does not recommend a cure, rather it is analysis of curing covid from the perspective of the theory of cure. Publishing information about cures can be forbidden without serious analysis, without any definition of cure..

Summary and Conclusion:

In summary, all of the players in our medical systems, from patients to the most prestigious medical organizations, to and the highest level of government, no-one has a theory of cure. There is no general understanding of cure for the simplest illnesses, much less a definition that covers all types of diseases. This ignorance of cure leads to ignoring cures and over time, to fear of studying cures, curing, and cured logically and scientifically: curanoia.

An illness might be simple. A simple illness has a single cause and is cured when that cause is successfully addressed. However, our current medical establishment has no concept of a simple illness, much less any concept of a simple, compound, or complex cure. Because complex and compound cures are not understood, there is also no concept of a partial cure. All cures, in current non-theory, must be perfect and complete to be valid. So few cures are valid.

What little discussion of cure exists – mostly in fundraiser organizations, not medical organizations, is about single cures for complex diseases, sometime in the distant future. We simply do not understand. It is not possible, by definition, to cure a complex illness with a simple, one-time cure, a complex cure is required, one that addresses multiple connected causes, often in a specific sequence depending on the case.

As long as our medical doctors and organizations fear cures, we will find few, if any cures. It is worth noting that the most prestigious award in medicine, the Nobel Prize, has only once – in its 130 plus year history, given the Noble Prize for a cure. And that was over 70 years ago. Even the Nobel Prize committee appears to have a fear of using the word cure. Since the 1940s, no cure has been recognized by the Nobel Prize Committee.

To your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure

Is a headache a symptom? or is it an illness, or a disease? Do we cure symptoms? Illnesses? Or only diseases?

Does aspirin cure headaches?

“A headache for example might be the result of a cold, a migraine, high blood pressure, meningitis or a brain tumour, each requiring a different treatment rather than a “cure for headache“. – Craig Thornbur – Theories of Medicine

What does the Theory of Cure say?

In the theory of cure, we cure by addressing “curable cases of illnesses.” A cure is an action, not a thing, that addresses a cause of illness. An aspirin cannot cure – but the action of taking one might cure.

An illness is the intersection of a cause and its negative consequences, the signs and symptoms of the cause. If we successfully address the cause with an action – the negative consequences will disappear. The illness will be cured. If the illness also caused damage – that damage is another illness, requiring another cure. However, a simple headache is just a symptom, not an indication of other damage.

When we only address the negative consequences, the cause is still present. In many cases, the cause will recreate the negative symptoms. The illness was not cured, or perhaps it was only temporarily cured. In today’s medical theory, temporary cures do not exist. In the new theory of cure, temporary cures are common, sometimes effective tools on the path to a permanent cure.

In the theory of cure, an illness is cured when:

• the cause has been successfully addressed,
• when signs and symptoms have disappeared or dropped below the level of an illness, and
• no more medicines are needed for that illness.

Is cured vs Has Been Cured

Sometimes a case of illness “is cured” without conscious actions. Sometimes an illness “has been cured.” The phrase “has been cured” indicates that the cure was a consequence of intentional actions – by ourselves, family, friends, or others – perhaps professional medical assistance. Healing is unconscious, unintentional curing. Curing is a conscious action to cure. “Is cured” is a statement that the cause is no longer present, no longer causing illness. “Has been cured” refers to intentional curative actions to address the cause.

The common cold is cured when
– the infection is gone,
– when the signs and symptoms have disappeared, and
– when no more medicines are needed.

However, we can only say that a case of the common cold “has been cured by…x” when we believe that the action x is responsible for the cured status. At present, our medical systems claim “there is no cure for the common cold” because they do not believe any action can be responsible for a cold cured. Most cases of the common cold are easily cured, without medicines. The same is true of most illnesses.

Most cases of headache are easily cured, without medicines.

In many cases, the signs and symptoms of a headache are the only present cause of the illness. The other causes are stresses in the past, not accessible to present cure actions. Some cases of headache are best viewed as simply symptoms of distress, without a cure cause. When our health, healing, or time, addresses the stress – the headache is gone. Cured. In these cases, an aspirin cares for the pain as the headache passes.

Some cases of headache have a present cause, causing signs and symptoms of the illness. Addressing the signs and symptoms, without addressing the cause, does not cure.

Healing is curing. Curing intentionally, is not healing. Curing and healing address the present cause of the illness. Caring only addresses signs and symptoms, but not cause, as illustrated in this image.

The overlapping areas indicate situations where a single healing, caring, or curing accomplishes multiple goals . Sometimes, caring addresses cause – with or without intention. The distinctions between healing and curing are not always clear. Sometimes, a single action might be healing, curative, and caring.

Let’s look at a few examples.

Dehydration Headache

The presence of dehydration can cause a headache. If we take an aspirin to deal with the pain, but do not address the dehydration, then once the aspirin wears off – the headache will reoccur. In this case, the headache is the symptom, dehydration is the cause. The illness is only cured when the cause is addressed. In this case, the aspirin is only a temporary cure.

Dehydration can be caused by excessive consumption of alcohol in the past “the morning after the night before.” A hangover is often cured by healing and our natural life processes. We wake up in the morning, drink some water, juice, coffee, or tea, and gradually, the dehydration fades away. We might take an aspirin to diminish or stop the pain – but we don’t expect it to cure the headache, nor to cure the dehydration. We take the aspirin – and see that the headache is cured. But we understand that taking the aspirin was not the cure. If it helped us to get moving, helped us to re-hydrate. Perhaps it was a part of the cure, an action of caring for the sufferer, alleviating the suffering as the natural cure progresses.

Like the common cold, many people want to find a miracle cure for a hangover – even though most hangovers are easily cured by healthy actions, and few by medicines, and none by miracles.

The dehydration that causes a headache often causes other negative signs and symptoms. We ignore the dry mouth, the muscle aches, the nausea, because the headache is the most severe. If we cure the dehydration illness – all of the signs and symptoms will disappear. But an aspirin can’t do that.

“Diseases which arise from repletion are cured by depletion; and those that arise from depletion are cured by repletion; and in general, diseases are cured by their contraries.” (Hippocrates)

The only dehydration cure is re-hydration.

Injury Headache

A whack on the side of the head can cause a headache. In this case, the “whack on the side of the head” is in the past. We cannot go into the past to address it. The head is aching because it is injured. It may take time for the injury to heal – and depending on the damage, it might never heal completely.

In this case, taking an aspirin is a palliative treatment, a symptomicine, caring – not curing. We don’t expect it to cure. It makes us feel better. We understand that the aspirin will wear off and we will decide to take it again, or not, as the symptoms fade.

Stroke Headache

Having a stroke can cause a headache. The stroke that causes a headache might be mild, almost invisible, moderate, or severe and deadly. Taking an aspirin for the headache not only cannot cure – it might cause the patient to avoid medical attention for some time. The aspirin might allow the condition to grow worse by making the person feel better.

Can stroke be cured? The short answer is yes, stroke can be cured — but it occurs in two stages. First, doctors administer specific treatment to restore normal blood flow in the brain and stop further damage. Then, the patient participates in rehabilitation to cure the secondary effects that result from the stroke.
Flint Rehab: Can Stroke Be Cured?

In this case, the stroke is the illness to be cured. A headache is a sign or symptom. An aspirin might appear to cause a temporary cure, but it does not address the cause of the pain, the damage of the stroke.

Unknown Cause

What if we don’t know the cause of the headache, and we take an aspirin, and it goes away?

When we view the headache as the “cause of our discomfort” and the aspirin addresses that cause, then taking an aspirin is a cure. If there is only one headache – and now it’s gone, that’s sufficient. Some might argue that the cause of the headache was not addressed by the aspirin, but such debate is moot. The headache is gone. Maybe it was just a temporary status, a temporary pain, cured by the aspirin.

Chronic Headache

When a headache is chronic, or repeating, we can view the series of headaches as a higher level illness with a higher level chronic or repeating cause.

The cure of a chronic or repeating illness is to address the chronic nature of the cause.

If, for example, someone gets a hangover headache every Sunday morning, we might guess the cause – excessive drinking on Saturday night. If we successfully address that cause, by eliminating the Saturday night excesses, the chronic or repeating headaches will be cured. This cure does not fail when -next year – the patient drinks too much and gets a headache. A single case is not a chronic or repeating headache. The chronic headache was cured.

The cure for chronic or repeating headaches does not cure any specific case of headache. It also does not stop the patient from occasionally overindulging and getting a new, non-chronic headache.

Cure-ious Quotes

The theory of cure gives us a wider perspective, a way to look at quotes about cure in different ways, from a broader perspective, helping us to develop a more comprehensive view of cure.

The Theory of Cure website has a random “cure quote generator” that presents a random cure quote from a growing library of over 2700 quotes about cure from hundreds of different authors. Cure-ious quotes is a set of posts that explore those quotes from the perspective of the theory of cure.

To your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure

We can compare a flat tire to an illness, and its repair to a cure. Why should we make this comparison?

Medical cures are, frankly, full of baggage. It is illegal, for example, to market a cure in the USA unless it has been approved by the FDA. The FDA, however, has no guidelines for approval – nor for refusing to approve any cure. The FDA does not even have a complete definition of a cure for most diseases, nor for many cases of curable diseases. Neither does any current or historical, conventional or alternative, medical theory or practice. Perhaps this is the reason many, perhaps most doctors avoid the word cure, are uncomfortable talking about cures with their patients, and advise their staff to avoid the word.

The concepts of the new theory of cure (there is no old theory of cure) are general enough to be applied to any intentional system and to any component or process of an intentional system. Living things are intentional systems. Humans create use, and take advantage of intentional systems ranging from short term creation and use of a stick tool to complex interconnected economic systems of countries. Any physical or process component of an intentional system might be faulty or broken, judged sick and in need of a cure.

The theory of cure applies to intentional systems, not to things. We cannot cure a rock. It dead. It’s not a system, much less an intentional system. We cannot cure the solar system, nor the system of air movement that creates a tornado or hurricane either. We call these systems because of their complexity, but they have no life intentions.

A tire is part of a transportation system, has many components, and is connected to many other components. It might function poorly or fail for many reasons. In each case we can view the problem as an illness to be cured.

By studying flat tire illnesses, their causes and cures, we can better understand many illnesses and their cures, without encountering the contradictions and the baggage of our current medical systems. Let’s begin.

Most illnesses are trivial, easily cured. We get a cold, a cut or bruise, minor indigestion, or the flu – and our body cures it with little conscious attention. We might scratch it, patch it for a while, rest to recover, or exercise to loosen up a stiffness. It is cured. We forget about most of our illness. They are cured so easily we rarely call them a cures. We think all cures are hard, impossible, miracles.

As we study flat tire illnesses, we will learn that most flat tires are also trivial, easily cured. We might even design, or buy “self-healing” tires. Some flat tires cures are more difficult, requiring assistance from our communities, and some require the work of a professional, a tire doctor. Some are only cured by replacement, or transplantation. Some are not worth curing, or incurable. The same is true of our illnesses.

1. Jen’s Tire is Flat: An Illness

Last Tuesday, Jen noticed her front bike tire was flat. A quick examination revealed a thumbtack. Jen, a serious biker, has seen flat tires before.

The Cure – Jen took out a patch kit. Removed the tire and tube, found the hole, roughed it up with the sandpaper, brushed it clean, applied the glue and held the patch to the tire for a few minutes while the glue cured. She put the tube and tire back on the wheel and pumped it up with a hand pump. It held. After a short ride, , no problems. A few days later, Jen had completely forgotten the flat tire and its cure. It was gone. Not important. It was no miracle cure, just a fact of life and bikes.

Discussion:

1. Most flat tires, like most illnesses, are trivial, easily cured. Many illnesses are cured by our own actions, often aided by unconscious processes or actions. Unconscious growth is a powerful curative. Jen diagnosed and cured her flat tire illness without a second thought.
2. There were many possible cure alternatives. There are manufacturing standards for tire patch kits – or Jen, being resourceful might have made one from an old inner tube and some adhesive from a hardware store. Jen might have decided to use a glue patch, or a non-glue patch, faster but not as effective. Maybe it was time to buy a new tube – a more expensive, time consuming cure – but perhaps more reliable and effective in the long term. Every case of illness has many potential cures.
3. The cure is to address the present cause or causes. In this case – the causes were simple, elementary – a tack that caused a hole in the tire. This is similar to a small skin puncture or wound from a thorn or a nail. Remove the tack or thorn, if it is still present, and promote healing. A bodily cure takes longer because it is accomplished by healing, but the process is the same. We clean it off, maybe apply some approved antiseptic, or perhaps vinegar or moonshine, protect it with a bandage while it heals, cures. The injury is the present cause of our problem, the cause of the illness – when the injury is addressed, healed, the illness is cured.
4. We might use the phrase “has been cured” when the cure was a result of conscious actions. Many illnesses “are cured” entirely from unconscious actions or processes. Jen didn’t have a self-healing bike tire – so the tire puncture required conscious actions. Even a self-healing tire might require some assistance from an air pump.

2. Jen’s Granddaughter’s Cure: A Sickness

A few weeks later, Jen’s granddaughter, Joey (short for Josephine) had a similar flat tire, but she kept riding the bike, unaware, unconscious of any problem. Jen saw the bike swaying wildly and took a closer look. The tire was deadly flat.

The Cure: Jen took the time to show Joey the problem, the flat tire illness, and how to cure it. First, she asked Joey to find the nail, the cause of the flat tire – which Jen had already seen. She gave Joey a pen to mark the spot and then asked if Joey could pull it out with a set of pliers. Done. Then they took the bike into the garage and Jen explained how to remove the wheel and the tire, and watched as Joey did it herself. Jen explained how track the hole to the tube, and how to find it exactly by rubbing some spit on it. Joey roughed up the tire, picked a patch, and spread some glue, as Jen advised – not to thick, but covering an area wider than the patch. Joey applied the patch – getting some glue on her fingers – not a problem. Tire repair glue is not crazy-glue. She held the tire and patch together it for a few seconds and left it to cure for a few minutes.

Joey already knew how to pump it up. Jen explained the need to check the patch before putting it all back together. It held. Let the air out, and put the wheel back together. Joey was off again, wiser for her tire’s illness. She had hardly noticed the flat tire, and now she understood the symptoms, the signs, and the cure.

Discussion:

1. Many diagnoses and cures come from individual actions. Some come from our communities. It’s hard to understand everything by ourselves – our communities bring intelligences together.
2. In the theory of cure, an illness is what the individual suffers from and wants cured. A sickness, on the other hand, is an illness judgment by someone else and a disease is an illness judgement by a professional. Joey didn’t even know her tire was flat, much less how it was cured. No mechanic was consulted. Grandparents often cure ignorance – as well as illnesses – with knowledge and vision gained from life experiences.
3. Most illnesses are so trivial we don’t go to a doctor. Many cures come from personal and community actions – without assistance from a professional or medical community.

Bob’s Flat Tire: A Disease

Bob learned to ride a bike as a child, but never really spent much time at it. Now, as an adult, he decided to buy a new bike and explore the parks near his home. One day, when he was nearing home, he noticed his rear tire was making a strange noise and dragging. Flat tire. Knowing nothing about bike tires – he took it to the bike doctor at the store. There were lots of people there, buying bikes and bike parts. Bob was asked to leave the bike for repair. He walked a short way home.

The Cure: The mechanic examined the tire, removed a nail, and made a phone call to Bob.

Bob: “Hello?”

Mechanic: “Hey, this is Judy, at the bike store. Your bike tire has a hole from a nail. I’ve removed the nail. I can recommend two alternatives.“

Bob (wondering what’s to come): “Yes?”

Judy: “We can patch the tube, and it will hold up quite well. But patches are not perfect cures. Sometimes they work loose, or stiffen up and cause other problems. Alternatively, I can replace the entire tube and it will be as good as new.“

Bob: “What’s the cost?“

Judy: “Patching is $22. The tube is a bit more expensive, but not a lot. Installed, it’s $25.30 with tax.“

Bob: “That’s hardly any difference. Go ahead with the new tube. Thanks.“

And the tire is cured – good as new, just as Judy promised.

Discussion:

1. Sometimes even a simple illness prompts the attention of a professional. This is more likely to occur for problems we haven’t yet experienced or don’t understand.
2. Most flat tire illnesses – even those at the bike shop – are trivial, easily cured.
3. The bike shop, however, is in the business of selling things. A flat tire has many alternative cures – and some of them are more profitable. By replacing the tube, Judy can make money on the repair and on the tube as well. Replacing a tube is faster than patching a tire, less error prone, and less likely to lead to side effects or remission in the short term or the long term. The sale is easily justified. In Jen or Joey’s case, replacing the tube would have necessitated a trip to the store, some extra expenses, and a longer wait, but for Bob – it’s the best cure.

Summary: Illness, Sickness, Disease

We’ve seen three similar illnesses from three perspectives – an illness (cured by Jen), a sickness (cured by Jen, a grandparent) and a disease (cured by Judy, a professional, a bike doctor). This diagram illustrates the three perspectives – and the agreement reached by different participants.

This diagram helps us to understand that an illness is not a “thing” it is something we observe and judge, which can also be judged cured. In the first case, no agreement was required. In the second, the child came to an agreement with Jen. In the third, the rider and the bike mechanic came to an agreement. If it was a car tire, and Bob had insurance – an additional agreement would be require to reimburse the expenses. Most of our illnesses are minor, not requiring community involvement, never seen by a doctor.

Although the past cause – the nail, and the initial signs and symptoms of these three illnesses were identical – the tire was flat -the perspectives, the specific situations, and the cures varied. In the case involving the bike mechanic, a new cure appeared. In many cases of illness, there can be disagreement about the actual illness and the best cure. Joey, for example, did not consider her bike to have any problems until it was pointed out by Jen.

There were also three different cures for the illnesses. Jen’s tire was cured with a simple patch. Joey’s tire required external advice and assistance. Bob’s tire was cured by a professional, with a new tube. Of course, all three needed to be reinflated as well. These curative actions addressed different causes of illness and different cure expectations.

Theory of Cure

In each case, the cure was to address the present cause and causes. Once an illness, or a flat tire occurs – prevention is of no use, a cure is needed. None of the riders could go back in time and avoid the nail. A flat tire might function badly for a short time, but failure to cure can result in more damage. The cure improved the healthiness of the tire, improving the bike’s functionality.

As we explore 101 flat tire cures, we will see many more types of flat tires – and encounter many types of cures.

to your health, tracy

Author: A New Theory of Cure

“It has been observed that scientific medicine is being replaced by scientistic medicine, with an accompanying collapse in the imperative to care as well as to cure, so that the human dimension of medicine is becoming lost and with it the fundamental purpose of medicine.”
J.P. Sturmberg and A. Miles, Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Health , 2012

What does the Theory of Cure say?

Modern medicine, for all it’s claims of “scientific” has no theory of cure, and little interest honest in cure, cures, curing nor cured. In reality, we have neither “scientific medicine” nor “scientistic medicine,” we have commercial, corporate, medicine for profit. Cures are not profitable. Modern medicine tracks payments for treatments. No doctor, medical clinic, hospital, healthcare system tracks cures. The World Health Organization has no statistics for cures.

In modern scientific (or scientistic) medicine, cured is not defined for most diseases. No cures can be detected, much less proven or disproven.

In the theory of cure, every curable illness can be cured. A cure occurs when we successfully address the cause of an element of illness. Healing is a cure without conscious intention.

Understanding Cure-ious Quotes

The theory of cure gives us a wider perspective, a way to look at quotes about cure in different ways, helping us to develop a more comprehensive view of cure.

The Theory of Cure website has a random “cure quote generator” that presents a random cure quote from a growing library of over 2700 quotes about cure from hundreds of different authors. Cure-ious quotes is a set of posts that explore those quotes from the perspective of the theory of cure.

To your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure