book by Harvey Bigelsen, M.D. | reviewed by June Milligun, M.Ed., CCHt |
Doctor Bigelsen was astonished when he saw an example of live human blood for the first time. That was not during medical school here in the US, however. It was years later when he and a few other doctors were chosen by a private foundation to study European leading edge diagnostic, treatment and research procedures. He was eager to learn new ways of looking at disease, because after completing his residency in California, he realized that he was woefully unprepared to practice medicine. This trip, which ended up in Quebec, was just the beginning of his research into other ways of looking at things. While in a CERBE laboratory run by Dr. Naessen, a French biologist, he observed live human blood under an optical microscope, capable of magnifying images up to 30,000 times.
A little history here: in the 1950s, modern, scientific medicine did away with the optical microscope in favor of the electron microscope, which can display specimens in greater detail at far higher resolutions. However, those specimens must be dehydrated. To a biologist, this presents a significant problem, because the idea is to study living material in order to gain a better understanding of life.
Dr. Bigelsen did not realize it at the time, but his life was about to change. He says, “I still remember the moment that I looked into that microscope. Goosebumps arose all over my body and I felt a shaking inside of me. When I was in medical school, no one had ever looked at a drop of blood under a microscope without first having stained the sample, poisoning it and fixing it for immortality. Staining blood kills is much the same as dehydration does. Before walking into Dr. Naessen’s laboratory, I had never even heard of the concept of “living” blood. When I looked at living blood under that somatoscope, all the standard cells were obvious: red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. However, the plasma, the fluid portion of the blood, was fascinating. Many little particles were vigorously moving around inside it. What I saw was astonishing to me. Not only had my medical education never mentioned the concept of living blood, but all this activity, those particles and their meaning were beyond words.”
All the tiny particles in between the platelets, in between the red and white cells, were called somatids, and Dr. Naessen explained that the somatid is the essential building block of life and it is a plant. It works in harmony with our current state of being (our terrain) and has its own life cycle. That opened up a whole new universe that modern, scientific medicine had never even mentioned. The author continued to study living blood, and in doing so, aligned himself with doctors from Europe who had been trained in the use of the optical microscope, where they used living blood (from a finger prick), to diagnose patient’s ailments every day.
Over the years, Dr. Bigelsen, like many other doctors, realized that inflammation is the cause of most disease, hence his quest to find the major causes of inflammation. He came to the conclusion that any invasive medical procedure creates inflammation in the body, leading to serious and long-lasting health problems, mainly through scar tissue. He feels that inflammation is the real cause of all chronic disease and notes that Western medicine has yet to “cure” a single chronic disease. He asks that we look at a new paradigm: one that treats each patient as an individual rather than as a set of symptoms.
He suggests we avoid further surgical damage to our bodies and look for the root causes of chronic disease in past damage done, whether through accidents or surgery. He says that surgery damages us, leaving scar tissue behind that disrupts the flow of essential fluids. Scar tissue is denser than regular tissue. It is tight and does not stretch well like normal tissue. As a result, blood and other essential bodily fluids cannot flow through it. Natural inflammation from any wound (whether surgical or accidental) relies on those fluids to provide nutrients and remove waste from the injury site.
He asks, “Are you tired all the time? That exhaustion is a direct result of your body using up its energy reserves trying to heal the surgical injury. The only “off” switch the body understands is death. So long as you are alive, the body will expend energy trying to heal. But scar tissue is like a brick wall trapping the inflammation. No nutrients can get through to it and the wastes just circulate around and around, depleting your energy and causing you to feel twenty years older after surgery.”
Dr. Bigelsen has the highest respect for doctors who are open minded and who follow the latest developments in their field; professionals who are dedicated to helping others and are not afraid to look at alternative ideas and possibilities. Creative research is flooding every field with additional knowledge; in so much that it is impossible to rely on just what we were taught years ago, in any profession. We are also finding that certain ancient teachings and techniques are often as efficient as anything we consider “new.” Bigelsen has no respect, however, for those who convince their patients to submit to unnecessary surgery for financial gain, or those who get all their new information from the pharmaceutical representatives who constantly call on them. He feels that the massive financial power of Big Pharma is a deterrent to the medical profession in every way.
Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs is provocatively written and is fairly radical in its approach, but it challenges the reader to rethink everything they believe about illness, and how to treat it. Harvey Bigelsen helped found the American Holistic Medical Association in 1978 and helped to write the Arizona law allowing alternative medical practitioners to be licensed and judged by their peers rather than by mainstream doctors. He was the first medical doctor to practice Biological Medicine in North America. He is a frequent lecturer for alternative health organizations and he practices medicine in Nevada City, California. His website is www.drbigelsen.com
For more info, contact June Milligan, specializing in helping people learn how to let go of unproductive thinking. (775) 786-9111 www.joyfulchanges.com
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