Scientific and anecdotal evidence that disease is not transmitted by microbes

The stubborn historical fact is that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that disease can be transmitted from a sick person to a healthy one by means of microbes. All experimentation focused on this question has shown the contrary. In his book, "The Hygienic System, Volume VI, Orthopathy", Dr H M Shelton presents various illustrations of this reality, including:

• a failed attempt at murder by feeding the victim with germ cultures of deadly diseases
• a professor swallowing a glass full of cholera bacilli in front of his students without any subsequent ill effect
• the doctor who succumbed to no disease despite being inoculated and fed with every manner of "pathogenic" germ
• extensive experimentation over an eight year period in Toronto involving feeding and/or swabbing the nasal cavity, mouth, throat etc with large quantities of diphtheria, typhoid, meningitis, pneumonia and tuberculosis germs, without any success in causing disease in the healthy subjects
• extensive experimentation at naval/military camps involving inoculation and swabbing with a bacillus thought to cause influenza and close contact with influenza patients where "in every case the results were negative, so far as the reproduction of influenza is concerned." Click here for the full original documentation.

"All efforts to produce so-called "specific diseases" in man by

introducing germs into the body have failed. There was the celebrated

attempt of Dr. Waite to kill Colonel Peck. Waite fed his victim cultures of

all the supposed "disease" producing germs that he could secure, both

home grown and imported. These cultures included cultures of the germs

of the most "deadly diseases" known, but Colonel Peck seemed to thrive

on them. Waite was finally forced to resort to chloroform and a pillow to

get his victim out of the way.

Dr. Pettenkofer, professor of bacteriology, at the university of

Vienna, reached the conclusion that germs do not cause "disease." One

day, while instructing his class in the bacteriological laboratory, he startled

his students by picking up a glass containing millions of living cholera

bacilli and swallowed the entire contents before the astonished students.

De Kruif says 'There were enough millions of wriggling comma germs in

this tube to infect a regiment, but Pettenkofer only growled through his

beard: 'Now let us see if I get cholera.' "

"Mysteriously, nothing happened and the failure of the mad

Pettenkofer to come down with cholera remains to this day an enigma

without even the beginning of an explanation."

Dr. Thomas Powell, who died a few years ago in California in his

eightieth year, is thought to have taken more germs than any other man.

Years ago he challenged his medical colleagues to produce a single

"disease" in him by germ inoculation. For years many of the germ

theorists did their best to silence this discordant note. Cholera germs,

bubonic plague germs and germs of every description were innoculated

into his body and fed to him in every kind of food. Again and again they

scraped his throat raw and painted it with diphtheria germs. But in all

these many efforts, not once did they succeed in producing a single

"disease" in him.

In Physical Culture (May 1919) John B. Fraser, M.D., C.M., of

Toronto, Canada, describes a series of experiments performed there, from

1911 to 1918, to determine whether or not germs cause "disease." They

spent the first three years in an effort to determine whether the germ

appears before or after the "onset" of the "disease." The verdict was "after

the onset." In 1914 the work of "incorporating fresh vigorous germs in

food and drink and then using that food in the ordinary way began. Dr.

Fraser says:

"The first experiment made was taking fifty thousand diphtheria

germs in water, and after a few days suspense and no sign of the disease it

was considered that the danger had passed. ***

"In the second experiment one hundred and fifty thousand diphtheria

germs were used in milk, and again no signs of diphtheria appeared.

"In the third experiment over one million diphtheria germs were used

in food without producing any sign of the disease.

"In the fourth experiment millions of diphtheria germs were swabbed

over the tonsils and soft palate, under the tongue, and in the nostrils and

still no evidence of the disease was discernible. As these results were very

satisfactory it was decided to test out some other kinds of germs. A series

of tests were made with pneumonia germs in which millions of germs

were used in milk, water, bread, potatoes, meat, etc., and although

persistent efforts were made to coax them to develop absolutely no sign of

the disease appeared.

"Another series of experiments were carried out with typhoid germs,

especial care being taken to infect distilled water, natural milk (not

pasteurized) ; bread, meat, fish, potatoes, etc., etc., with millions of the

most vigorous germs that could be incubated, and but for the knowledge

that they had been taken, one would have known nothing about it.

"Another series of tests were made with the dreaded menengitis

germs, and as the germs are believed to develop mainly in the mucous

membranes of the nostrils, especial pains were taken to swab millions of

the germs over the floor and sides of the nostrils, into the turbinated

sinuses, over the tonsils, under the tongue, and back of the throat. In

addition to these tests other tests were made in food and drink—millions

of germs in each case, and yet no trace of the disease appeared.

"The experiments with the tuberculosis germs were carried out in a

different way—more time was given between the experiments so as to

allow the germs to develop; for clinical evidence has shown that this

disease may remain latent, or imperfectly developed for months.

Consequently it meant months of watching and waiting before one could

be positive that the germs would not develop.

"Here again millions of germs were used in water, milk, and food of

various kinds; every variety of food and drink was concerned; and as

almost five years have elapsed since the experiment with T.B. began and

no evidence of the disease has appeared I think we are justified in the

belief that the germs are harmless. In addition to those experiments

combinations of germs were used, such as typhoid and pneumonia,

menengitis and typhoid, pneumonia and diphtheria, etc., etc., but no

evidence of disease followed.

"During the years 1914-15-16-17-18 over one hundred and fifty

experiments were carried out carefully and scientifically and yet

absolutely no signs of disease followed."

The London Lancet Medical Journal of Canada (June, 1916)

records some of the same or similar experiments by a medical man and six

others which covered a period of two and one-half years, and, in which

cultures of the germs of various "diseases" particularly those of diphtheria,

pneumonia and typhoid were used in all kinds of foods and under the most

favorable circumstances. The germs were administered in doses ranging

from fifty thousand to one million and five hundred thousand without

producing a single evidence of "disease." A number of experiments were

made in the Naval Detention camps during the influenza epidemic of

1918-19 to transmit the "disease" from the sick to the well. Several such

experiments were made on sixty-eight volunteers from the U. S. Naval

Detention Training Camp on Deer Island.

Several groups of volunteers were inoculated with pure cultures of

Pfeiffer's bacillus; with the secretions of the upper respiratory passages,

and with blood taken from "typical influenza" cases. About thirty of the

men had the germs sprayed and swabbed in the nose and throat. The

Public Health Report, sums up the results in these words: "In no instance

was an attack of influenza produced in any one of the subjects."

Ten other men were carried to the bedside of ten new cases of

influenza and spent forty-five minutes with them. Each well man had ten

sick men to cough in his face. With what results? "None of these

volunteers developed any symptoms of influenza following the

experiment."

Some similar experiments conducted in San Francisco are described

in another article. Here one group of ten men were given emulsifying

cultures of Pfeiffer's bacillus with no results during seven days of

observation. Other groups of men, in all forty, were given emulsions of the

secretions from the upper respiratory passages of patients in the active

stages of influenza. These emulsions were sent into the nose by a medicine

dropper and by an atomizer. The results are described in these words: "In

every case the results were negative, so far as the reproduction of

influenza is concerned. The men were all observed for seven days after

inoculation."

Similar experiments with the same negative results were carried out

in Philadelphia, at Camp Pike, and at other places. Surely such results or

lack of results do not speak well for the germ theory in general nor for the

idea in particular that the mucous membranes of lungs, intestines, etc., are

particularly susceptible to germ invasion. Rather, we would say, they

completely negative the whole theory. They show, at least, that germs

alone cannot cause the "diseases" which they are supposed to cause. Dr.

M. Beddow Bayly, M.R.U.S., L.R.C.P., writing in the London Medical

World, June 1928, says: I am prepared to maintain, with scientifically

established facts, that in no single instance has it been conclusively proved

that any microorganism is the specific cause of a disease."

In more than sixty years of intensive farming the germ idea, there is

not one "disease" that has been proved to be of germ origin, and not one

can be cured according to the germ theory. Unless a germ will cause a

disease every time it infects the body, it is not a cause. A cause must be

constant and specific in its influence, or it is not a cause. "Germs are

omnipresent—this is one of the fundamental truths Pasteur or his

contemporary, Bechamp, discovered; but he and his followers appear to

have overlooked the fact that germs fail to have a specific influence all the

time."       The Hygienic System, Volume VI, Orthopathy, H M Shelton, pp220-223