History Informs the Mystery

Thinking back to March of 2020, the quick response to mobilize a country, and a world, out of our cars, away from people, and into our homes, that was quite a feat.

This makes me ponder how far-reaching our efforts could be to mobilize around other aspects of our lives when our health is at stake. Why were some unaffected when infected? How do some bodies clear the virus and others cannot? What natural and systemic underpinnings (both inside our bodies and outside in the world) contributed to the varied results?

In this 3-part series, I want to explore these questions. Let’s first consider that the terrain of the immune system contributes to chronic conditions, and vice versa. Along this paradigm then, does the practice of ridding ourselves of “germs” help or hinder the overarching concerns of terrain and immunity? By terrain I am referring to, on one hand, the soil of our gut, the state of the microbiome (system of beneficial and harmful microbes), and also, the terrain in our outside world; the soil our food is grown in, the air in which we breathe, the diversity of microbes we’re exposed to, and more.

Let’s consider what a germ is and our relationship to it, by discussing the historical work of Louis Pasteur, Antoine Bechamp, Rudolf Virchow, and others, surrounding germs and microbes.

Microbes as “germs” are microorganisms, not of human-origin, that include bacteria, fungi, protozoa, algae, and all things considered microscopic.

Is a virus a microbe?

A virus is larger and considered non-living. That is because a virus requires a host. NIH, the National Institutes of Health, has published articles affirming viruses as microbes.

Moving on for now…Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch were advocates of the Germ Theory, the former known as the Father of this theory. Essentially the theory postulates that a pathogen is a vector for disease.

Contrary to this hypothesis, Virchow and especially Bechamps’ scientific experiments amassed a formative rivalry with Pasteur. Bechamp set out to prove that because microbes are opportunistic, and that it is the health of its host that determines its fate, not the other way around. Therefore, a microbe can only thrive and multiply in damaged, diseased, deprived environmental conditions.

Put another way, Bechamp discovered in his experiments that microbes cannot cause disease in a healthy body.

Pasteur, after his life-long work in establishing pasteurization (i.e. milk) to kill germs and bacteria and prevent infections, had this to say toward the end of his life: “The microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything.” It appears even Pasteur understood the influence the terrain has upon exposure to a microbe, yet even with his dismissal, this theory still dominates in conventional medicine as well as with most laypeople.

It’s more likely that the terrain is what lends itself to opportunists, like viruses or other microbes. Based on mounting evidence since the turn of the 19th century, the information is out there, we just have to look for it. Interestingly, most pathogens actually coexist quite peacefully with their human host.

We talk a lot about the terrain at Enroot Wellness. Terrain in the body is akin to soil for a plant. Let’s build a nourishing not feeble environment, to reduce risk of viruses proliferating in our cells. You might think of a nourishing bed with which plants grow as soil, whereas dirt is lacking in nutrients.

Do you want to explore your internal terrain, the soil of your gut, the status of your immunity? Consider an IMMUNITY WORKUP and we’ll personalize a plan for YOU. And, I invite you to…