ARTHRITIS

Symptoms:

Inflammation of the joints.  Arthritis is an ailment of the body that is an old chronic condition.  There are many forms: such as gout or rheumatoid arthritis which are different from the common variety of arthritis.  The joints become enlarged and painful, being very tender to any movement or pressure (the pain may be constant or intermittent).  Often the hands draw back or to one side, and in chronic conditions, the muscles shrink and will eventually wither away.  This affliction may have a decided effect on childbirth, both to the mother and the newborn child.

Cause:

Arthritis is caused by acids and waste matter in the body, which eventually become solidified and lock the joint.  This condition is caused and aggravated by improper diet.  Some of the worst intakes are eggs, bread, milk, meat, salt, sugar, etc., because they cause arthritic calcification.  The use of extremely hard water (generally of twelve or more grains in hardness) will often accentuate an arthritic condition where softer water will help relieve it.  Sometimes an individual with a good inherent structure can throw off the hardest water without arthritic effect.  The weaker person may drink water that is not very hard and absorb from it relatively larger quantities of the inorganic minerals.

Herbal aids:

For eliminating toxic substances from the bowels, one may use a high enema of slippery elm or white oak bark tea.  The system should be cleansed by a daily sweat bath with pleurisy root; massage (except the inflamed joints) with angelica, black cohosh, buckthorn bark, colombo, gentian root, skullcap, or valerian root.  One may use poultices such as cayenne, lobelia, mullein, slippery elm for relieving pain of the swollen joints; liniments of oils, such as cayenne, coconut, lobelia, origanum are also good.

Useful herbs:

Bearsfoot, bitter root, blackberry, black cohosh, buckthorn bark, burdock, hydrangeas, Irish moss, saw palmetto berries, skullcap, wintergreen, yellow dock.