This is a small sample of questions among which you will certainly find more than one having crossed your mind. To vary, we will quickly view following fields:

Why do we get eczema, sciatic neuralgia or that painful inflammation of the shoulder called scapulohumeral periarthritis? The simple fact of being affected already seems a mystery but other, even so legitimate, add to it. First of all concerning the importance of the affection: why an eczema, a sciatica or a periarthritis of the shoulder lasting a few days, weeks, months or years; or relapsing at so diverse rates? Then – when tissues spreading over the whole body are concerned – an even so sharp question arises as to its localisation: why eczema (or a furuncle, a wart, etc…) in the face, on the thorax, on the thigh or on the foot?Why a sciatica or a periarthritis of the right or the left shoulder?

Why do bronchitis, peptic ulcers or myocardial infarctions much more often affect men than women? One may have different reasons to cough: secretions of a cold running down in the back of the throat, pharyngitis, laryngitis, tracheitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc… Do you know a lot of men who, during their cold, loose their voice, meaning an affection of the larynx? Men and women have a bladder, why is cystitis so seldom seen in men, when, in women it is so current? Why are women much more affected by thyroid diseases (and more in particular of the "cold nodes" i.e. the non-functional one’s), by phlebitis or by rectal lesions?

A little enigma: why do people considered "insane" – and here, I think in particular, of autists – almost never develop diseases anymore; and why do the few getting out of it start becoming ill again as do the others? This fact is well known by the psychiatrists.

 

Decades of research did not respond to the elementary questions: why does it, one day, invade us, and why that organ? We will go more fully into the details of the conception of this disease and, to take over the expression of a French cancerologist, using "a medieval approach: that of the devil". But let us linger over one terrifying characteristic of the "malignant" tumour. This one, in contrast to the non-malignant tumours, has the property to spread. This means that, considered as the original tumour, the primary tumour or "the mother tumour", enables cells to evade from it forming, in turn, secondary tumours or "daughter tumours" also called metastases. This phenomenon is able to lead to generalised cancer.

If you have had cancer some years ago and if a new tumour localisation is discovered, they might very well speak ex cathedra of metastases. What comes to explaining a hazardous phenomenon (the daughter tumour) as a consequence of another phenomenon (the mother tumour) itself not understood. At this stage, an assault of questions arises before this concept of metastasis, a concept that is one of the intangible foundations of cancerology. Why does a cancer develop metastases in one diseased and not in another one? Why metastases at that particular period: at the moment of the discovery of the original tumour, six months, two years or ten years later? Why an eventual excellent health during years separating cancer from its metastases? Why metastases in that organ and not in another one? Why such a variation in the evolution of those metastases? How can a metastasising cell transform itself since one can, supposedly, detect a difference in structure between the original tumour and the secondary tumour? Let us illustrate this last question, which is a little more complex, by means of an example. One speaks of metastases in the brain following a lung cancer. The lung cells, however, have a pavemented structure (hence the term epithelioma in the medical jargon) and all samples of the tumour cells of the brain only show cells of a glial nature, being a totally different structure. By which miracle can a cancerous cell change structure during its migration?

 

Leukaemia is described as of form of bone marrow cancer. The bone marrow is responsible for the making of blood. Thus the marrow can enormously multiply the blood corpuscles circulation in the blood vessels. The "malignant" blood cells are especially the white corpuscles or leukocytes, hence the term leukaemia (from the Greek leukos meaning white). This peculiar type of cancer adds to the incomprehension of the cancerous phenomenon and raises additional questions (next to all the others proper to every cancer: why its appearance, its evolution, etc…). The malignant cells being spread within the blood in this case, why are there not infinitely more cases of metastases than in other cancers? On the contrary, there are almost none. Why does this cancer evolve – and is treated and followed up accordingly – following such a peculiar scenario: one always speaks of "remission" when the treatment has reduced the leukocyte count, while awaiting a subsequent "relapse"? Why is the situation alarming when the leukocyte count lies between 50 or 100,000 (norm: between 4 and 10,000) while the entirely normal physiological variations of the erythrocytes or red corpuscles lie between 4 and 5.8… million? Or else, what can be the danger of having 100 or 200,000 leukocytes more when the total variation of all our corpuscles may near 2,000,000? We will explain the origin and the precise mechanism of what is called leukaemia.

 

Let us resume the essential content of this diagnosis: a degenerescence of the nervous system through sclerosis of the medullary sheath. The affection is of an unknown origin, incurable, evolving by upsurges the frequency of which being so whimsical and variable that the spectre of crutches and of the wheelchair within a delay depending on the classification in more or less severe forms is hanging around. This classification results … from the extent of the symptoms observed. Answering some essential questions would radically change this dark situation. Why does one start a multiple sclerosis? What sets off an upsurge? Why is cortisone often effective but might as well worsen the symptoms? Why is the evolution very often worsened after the diagnosis? This latter fact is much easier to establish as diagnosis has been put long after the first outbreaks.

 

Here again, the diagnosis is so heavy that we will dedicate an entire chapter to it in the second part of this booklet. Fifteen years of intensive research did not succeed in giving answers to some key problems calling into question again the basis of this acquired immunodeficiency theory. Why does long-term survival stretch proportionally with the time rolling by since the description of this affection with such a pessimistic prognosis? In the same sense: what are the reasons to survive it rather than to die from it? What provokes the passage from a simple asymptomatic seropositivity to the declared disease? Why this opportunistic infection rather than another? Or why, for instance, a Kaposi tumour and why at this localisation on the body ?

 

Why do we find peptic ulcers almost exclusively at the exit of the stomach (antrum and pylorus, next to the localisation at the duodenum, one speaks then of duodenal ulcer) and not within the largest part of the stomach being the bottom and the large flexure? Why is this largest part the place for large cauliflower-like tumours, which do not occur at the exit of the stomach where, however more seldom, the tumours have a flat and ulcerated aspect? And why ulcers where there is less acid and not at the bottom where there is more? If the peptic ulcer is commonly recognised as being a psychosomatic disease, then why does stress limit itself to the provocation of ulcerous lesions (i.e. destruction of substance) when a lesion, considered more severe, such as stomach cancer has nothing to do with an even stronger stress? Did the cells find a way to immediately preserve themselves against too strong stress in order only to be disturbed within the narrow frame of a few so-called psychosomatic affections; and thus not in a too severe manner and for a limited stress?

Breast cancer is always considered more or less hormone dependent (i.e. that may be encouraged by female hormones), the proof is that a woman should not use contraceptives anymore and that she often sees her intervention completed by an anti-hormone substance such as tamoxifen. But then, which is the incriminated hormonal influence in breast cancer with a woman in her menopause since ten or twenty years?

Why is a woman threatened by osteoporosis in her menopause when her hormonal decrease should be compensated by an external administration? And why a man, having a fortiori much less female hormones, is he not threatened by the same risk? There was, though, never established that the good bone density of man was depending on his own male hormones. It is even the opposite when "bone metastasis" of his prostate cancer is diagnosed. Female… hormones are then proposed to him. It is true that the logic in this case is to fight the cells issuing from a cancer, considered to be hormone dependent. But the facts remain disconcerting: these bone metastases of prostate cancer express themselves by decalcification phenomena, by destruction of bone tissue and testosterone does not protect from these lesions. Finally, the basic question remains: why this difference in relation between both sexes as far as their respective hormone levels and their bone pathology are concerned?

 

From the therapeutic point of view, one may ask oneself why two persons presenting an affection having the same intensity will have to be treated in very varying time intervals. For example, why will one cystitis be cured after one pack of antibiotics while another will require two or four because a relapse occurs at each treatment arrest? Or else, a lumbago will be cured in one treatment at the specialist in osteopathy who, for another patient, will have to perform some ten manipulations in four or six weeks. But this links to the question of the intensity of the affection in general. Another question is sharper however: how can diseases be treated with an equal success rate by so different means i.e. drugs from the classical pharmacopoeia, homeopathic remedies, acupuncture needles, and even magnetism or a placebo? Could these methods have something in common? The answer is very important since it would largely contribute to throw a light on the recovery mechanism.

 

The problem of contagion in infectious disease also entails a swarm of questions out of which we will only pick a few representative one’s representative for the lack of explanation of this phenomenon.

Why is an affection as banal as a cough described as being far more contagious than much more severe infections such as bronchitis, hepatitis or tuberculosis? In the latter example, one may work for over twenty years in a sanatorium where one lives in an environment very rich in tubercle bacillus without getting it whereas one finds cases of tuberculosis without any kind of favourable environment.

We are literally full of milliards of germs inside a large number of our organs, some of which, such as the intestinal germs, are even essential for our lives. So on our skin, in our throat and our urinary passages live respectively staphylococcus, streptococcus and colon bacillus. When an infection declares in one of these organs (furuncle, angina, cystitis,…), we find, most of the time, those same microbes in a much larger number; and it is them we are fighting by means of antibiotics or antiseptics. Why these microbes, being fully normally part of us, do they proliferate and become harmful? I do state here that I am referring to our microbes and not to those prevailing in far away regions such as Africa or Asia.

Why are all persons in contact with infected persons not contaminated? And when they are, why such a difference in the extent of the infection they are going to develop?

In an infection, considered very severe, such as A.I.D.S., how is it possible that numerous and unprotected sexual intercourse may be compatible with such diverging fate for each partner: one may die from A.I.D.S., while the other might even never be seropositive?

Trying to explain contagion, or the absence of it, a very sophisticated defence system is referred to which is the subject of numerous studies, called the immune system. If this immune system is the answer to infection, how are such strange situations possible then? Bed-ridden patients or patients weakened by end-stage cancer or another severe disease stay months without getting any other affection (e.g. a whole winter) while, during the same period, persons in excellent health cumulate two angina’s, a cold and the traditional influenza? In which of both groups would we expect to find the best immune system?

How explain the daring experience realised around 1900 by Metchenikoff in France and Pottenkoffer in Germany? Those researchers and their teams ingested cultures of germs taken from patients deceased from cholera. One really found large quantities of germs (cholera vibrio) in their excrements, but none of them developed the disease!

The mystery of contagion can be resumed by means of two questions: what is the real relation between the immune system and the infectious disease? Does a reliable criterion exist to define not a simple risk, but the reality of an eventual contagion?

 

The immune system, described as our defence system against our lifelong microbial enemies, its properties and pathologies still give rise to lots of questions.

Allergy is considered as an unsettlement of this system leading to an excess of substances – such as histamine, hence the recourse to antihistaminics – generating the most varying disorders. These biological modifications are well described but the question lies elsewhere. Animal hairs, aliments, pollen, acarids and other various elements have never changed over thousands of years; they are part of nature and are harmless for most of us. Allergy though starts and reproduces itself at a precise and personal time in our life. Change may consequently only be inherent to ourselves: what made us allergic one day and to that very element?

What is worse: why can this defence system come to round on our own organs and destroy them? This is the extensive field of the so-called autoimmune diseases, in full expansion. If it is recognised as a disease of the immune system, what is the origin of this sudden change of nature leading to self-destruction? And why the self-destruction of that organ rather than another one?

Why did vaccines never succeed in decreasing the incidence of the diseases they were conceived for? (I have this information from the WHO official curves but also by having studied them before the start of the vaccinations.)

 

In the absence of a precise cause for a disease, medicine often uses two elements that are not explanations but influencing agents: the "risk factors" and the statistics. Both elements are, however, themselves sources to questions. As far as the risk factor concept is concerned, let us take the so widespread case of breast cancer. A woman having, for instance, her mother, her aunt and one of her sisters affected by this tumour is considered at high risk. Hence, prescription of repeated examinations, the consecutive concern and even at present projects of anti-hormonal substance intake (such as tamoxifen) merely preventively. But the right question is: what is the reliable risk criterion as this woman, and her other sisters, will not necessarily develop the same cancer?

As to the use of statistics, the case of lung cancer is so well known that it is often called the smoker’s cancer. Whatever the statistics the interpretation of which is known to be determining, the real question for the patient is to know according to which criterion he will be. Will he be situated among the 60 or 70 % risk – and in this eventuality, to him, it is 100 % - or among the 40 or 30 % escaping from it, what, in fact, comes to 0 %. Another way to put the question: why so much lung cancers with non-smokers and so much smokers who will never have this cancer? By means of a rigorous explanation of the disease, we will see that all breast or lung cancer cases have a respective launch factor; and this whatever the family antecedents or smoking habits.

 

Epidemiology studies the different factors interfering with the appearance of the diseases: age categories, geographical distribution, socio-economic conditions, etc… But these findings are essentially of a statistical nature and do not explain the observations raised.

In our western societies, why such a raise in incidence of breast cancer, while the uterine cervix cancer is regressing? As to A.I.D.S.: why does only a negligible percentage of contaminated (para) medicals develop the disease afterwards? Within the large variety of symptoms attributed to this disease, why the very different prevalence of those symptoms according to the regions of the world, the "risk groups" and the life style?

Epidemiology only leads to concrete questions: why is such a pathology prevailing in this age category; why a more important frequency in that region, etc…?

One could lengthen the list of "why" (how many did you count up to now?) proportionally to all the health problems. One could wonder about all the diseases, starting from a cold, a tendinitis or a haemorrhoid up to the most severe cases of metastasised cancers or very invalidating multiple sclerosis through psoriasis, polyarthritis, asthma, diabetes, infarction … or megalomania. One could screen the coherence and the foundation of all the theories, hypotheses, risk factors and others. But it would only lead to a book of questions whereas, on the contrary, the object of this small work is to lay the bases of a tool allowing to obtain answers.

The explanation is important and the patients wish to receive it. A non-malignant affection – next to its symptoms – already creates a feeling of discomfort: why did one "catch" the cold or the influenza of a person and not one of the other persons who, however, visited him? Why now, while one was much more tired a few months ago? How long will the rheumatism last they promised to relieve but about the duration of which they could not give an answer? With dramatic diagnoses, most often anxiety adds to the treatments. One had already enough suffered some years ago from that cancer for which one had had a hard treatment. And now metastases are discovered elsewhere. What is all one has endured been good for if everything starts again and worsens? And nobody can say if this time bomb is not going to strike again later.

Understand the origin of their disease, the nature and the evolution of its manifestations enables them to better tackle and manage their affection. The disease does not faint for all that but the need to find a sense to what one is living in that period of physical suffering is as imperative, if not more, as this usual search for a sense that is a general characteristic of a human being. We will see that the comprehension of disease may replace its fatality by working on its process, what considerable raises the assets and the hope before what only seemed to a strike of fate.

Let us remain humble: the explanatory system developed here will give a good answer to all questions in this introduction but it is not an exhaustive answer to the problem of suffering and death. This "search" – as all the important interrogations of life (the classics "what are we", "where do we come from", "where are we going", "what free will", etc…) – largely goes beyond the frame of our intention that is not meant to be an essay on philosophy nor on metaphysics. Our goal will be reached if the reader finds in it all the help conveyed by liberating informations.