Immunology and immunosuppression, prednisone
and corticosteroids are both major factors in the medicine of
the 21st century. Fifty years ago, it was penicillin. Today, it's
prednisone.
Actually, a host of later generation antibiotics and a bevy of
steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are the focal points of modern
medical management of a large number of ailments which reach the
clinic and a majority of those which present to the emergency
room and the hospital. It would not do to let the patient's defensive
mechanisms meet the "invaders" on their own when a physician
has an inkling that a patient may have an "infection."
Bring on the "artillery," bring on the antibiotics!
Likewise, should an acute or chronic inflammatory process occur,
an undefinable syndrome develop, an unpredictable immune response
arise in the body, steroids must be sent to the rescue.
One unfortunate aspect of the whole thing is that after all these
years of antibiotic and steroid administration, the medical community
still does not have a sound understanding of homeostasis and body
economy, immune actions and healing mechanisms with regard to
microbes, allergens, and the like. Symptomatic rather than scientific
medicine is the emphasis of modern allopathy.
New age medicine and healing call for scratching beneath the surface
and discovering new dimensions of the human frame: pathological
and physiological, energetic and symbolic as well. A deeper and
broader awareness of the function of the lymphocyte - one of our
lowly white cells - can give us not only greater understanding
of the healthy human being, but also enlighten us regarding many
disease and recovery processes.
Pathologist Jack W. Shields has stated, "With a surging interest
in immunology, most medical scientists believe the function of
lymphoid organs to be principally immunologic. All have yet to
fathom the true and deeper meanings of trophism!"
Well, Dr. Shields may have overstated his case. All and always,
never and no way are words which might best be spoken or written
rarely.
Shields penned those words 25 years ago. But, he was only one
in a rather long line of microscopists, pathologists, clinicians,
and seers who have detected an added if not greater function for
the lymphocyte than the common immune one.
As far back as 1824, Rene Dutrochet pointed to the work of "the
vesicular globules" producing cellular nutrition. They "add
themselves to the tissue of organs and fix themselves there for
growth and repair. . ."
William Addison (1840) summarized his findings writing, "The
globules of the blood are the sole agents of nutrition."
Kremiansky (1868) and Zimmerman (1871) concurred, contending that,
"All new formation was traceable back to extravasated
white blood cells."
One hundred years later, medical nutritionist Henry Bieler and
pathologist Jack Shields authored books supporting the feeding
function of the lymphoid cells. In his book, Food is Your Best
Medicine, Bieler concluded, "I believe that cells called
small lymphocytes carry food necessary for the growth and
reproduction of body cells."
Jack Shields performed detailed modern laboratory studies to validate
his thesis on the trophic function of the lymphoid elements.
Firstly, he verified the direct correlation between lymphoid activity
and cellular growth and renewal. Secondly, Shields
recognized the specific nutritive function of (1) intestinal
lymphoid tissue via its conversion of newly absorbed molecules
into mononuclear populations, (2) lymphocytic secretion of normal
and immune globulins and shedding of lymph, (3) lymphocytic donation
of nucleoplasm to feed other cells with substrate, information
and energy for growth, resilience to stress, and capacity to repair
cell damage.
Shields also noted the pathology of malabsorption, malnutrition,
and wasting which results when intestinal lymphoid tissue fails
to develop normally or become diseased. This notation correlates
with the well known effect of acute and chronic therapeutic steroid
administration: lymphocytolysis, poor wound healing, and increased
susceptibility to infection.
Further support for the feeding function of lymphoid tissues comes
from the unorthodox avenue of psychic channels such as Edgar Cayce.
The Edgar Cayce readings repeatedly point to "leucocyte plasm"
producing nutriment, "rebuilding or coagulative
forces." The Peyer's patches (mesenteric lymphatic nodules)
provide for "globular forces to cause the coagulation"
especially to create "perfect contact between sympathetic
and cerebrospinal activities of the body." The lymphoid and
lymphatic tissues provide for "emunctory" support to
the vital ganglionic junctions between the two great nervous systems
as they meet along the spinal column.
Alice Bailey has written that,"There is no symbol quite so
representative of the creative process as the human frame."
It naturally follows that the individual components - cells, tissues,
organs, and systems - of the human organism can be viewed as icons,
that their works image deeper meaning, and their dysfunctions
are truly metaphorical.
Lymphoid tissue can thus be seen energetically and symbolically
in its nutritive, trophic, and sacrificial role giving up self
for the betterment of the whole organism. Dis-ease of such tissues
suggests internal conflict and disharmony between organs, centers,
and energies which must coordinate to support the greater being.
Paul Solomon has said, "that all disease processes and syndromes,
not only are psychosomatic in their form (that is, built by the
thought process and the concerns of karmic conditions within the
self) but also are symbolic of that process clinging to that which
is obsolete for the nature and for the self." Consideration
of the lymphoid elements can help us see the unity of our own
being in body, mind, and soul as well as our continuing potential
to integrate and harmonize our selves when we practically and
symbolically move away from wholeness.
Going one step further, Edgar Cayce, Ray Stanford, and Paul Solomon
saw the therapeutic value of castor oil packs as an aid to lymphatic
circulation and lymphocytic function. "Castor oil packs .
. . enable an expansion of the various circulatory vessels of
the lymphatic system to an extent, particularly of the nodes of
concentration of lymphatic activities. They create a loosening
or division of such, by the nature of some of the factors absorbed
from the castor oil, whereby the lymphatic fluid may more freely
carry those factors for which it serves as a medium. Hence, rather
than a tightness of the lymphatic system, there comes a balancing
of the acid and the base factors in such, and this affects the
thymus in the freedom of its function." (Stanford)
William McGarey has suggested that castor oil emits white light
at an energetic level. Castor oil appears to "lighten"
the solar plexus center and the organs, tissues and cells within
the radius of its influence. The lymphatic nodules and lymphocytes
are secondarily affected. Castor oil applied to the abdomen undoubtedly
soothes that center, conditions its renewed activity and reflexly
benefits the heart center and the thymus.
Through the course of its often short life the lowly lymphocyte
gives of self toward the betterment of the greater being. It seems
that this microscopic white cell is both servant and savior, dying
that its Lord and fellows might live. In its example, we have
a pattern to follow. One day, we too may live and act much like
the lovely lymphocyte.