If you have done much digging into the subject of holistic Lyme disease solutions, you have probably heard of the controversy between Louis Pasteur (from which the name “pasteurization” comes) and Antoine Bechamp – two 19th Century French scientists.

The debate goes something like this…

Pasteur theorized that microscopic organisms clearly visible under the newly invented microscopes of the day were the “cause” of virtually all diseases. The proof was that every time he looked at diseased tissues under a microscope, sure enough…there were the bacteria. It was theorized that the more virulent and nasty the bug one had come in contact with, the worse their disease was.

Bechamp on the other hand taught that the cellular terrain was everything. That is – the strength of the host was the primary determining factor in disease. As this definition of terrain evolved, it came to mean that at the microscopic level, the health of individual cells, robust activity of immune cells, and a vigorous flow of nutrients into cells and waste products out of cells determined disease more than the nastiness of the bugs.

Basically, Pasteur’s camp won the debate and it shaped modern medicine. The practice of “find a bug – use a drug” was born. The notion of improving host resistance, a prospect that is quite a bit more difficult than taking a pill (and not very profitable) faded away. But the controversy still rages on, and has degraded into name-calling. Some would paint Pasteur as an evil villain who committed various evil and treacherous acts throughout his life (not the author’s view.)

“Okay”, you might ask “Why should I care?”

Good question!

You may not have much interest in medical history, but it does very much affect people’s lives to this very day, both yours and mine. When you get a cold or flu and walk out of a doctor’s office with a prescription for an expensive antibiotic (that actually has no affect on your viral infection), you are living the outcome of this debate. If you are struggling to overcome chronic Lyme disease or almost any other chronic illness the debate becomes quite a bit more personal. In fact your future health could depend on an accurate comprehension of these important principles. So which one was right? Is disease determined by the nastiness of the bug or the strength and resistance of the host?

You probably guessed that being a traditional naturopath, I favor Bechamp’s philosophy, but it’s not that cut and dry. It really can’t be 100% one way or the other. Terrain is so very important but also some bugs like Borrelia Burgdorferi can obviously be quite nasty. In order to deepen your understanding of this important health concept and controversy I want to give two illustrations. The first is an embellished version of an illustration on the importance of healthy terrain that I have heard holistic Lyme disease expert William Lee Cowden M.D. give at several A.C.I.M. medical conferences. It goes something like this:

What would happen if all the garbage collectors in New York City went on strike? …Imagine the scenario in your mind for a bit. To begin with, folks would start bringing their sacks of garbage out to the curb and the piles would grow larger day by day. Then it would begin piling up in allies, vacant lots, and finally the streets themselves. Basically everywhere.

Eventually, there would be no place to put it outside and peoples’ homes and apartments would overflow with stinking garbage and yep, you guessed it, now come the vermin! Rats, mice, roaches and flies would have a heyday. They are everywhere and people are complaining, so the city leaders have an emergency meeting to address the problem. After an all night brainstorming session they announce the solution to the press: they will hire a crack team of professional rat and mouse snipers and bug exterminators! Over the next few weeks the rat-killers scour the city shooting rats and mice, and the exterminators fumigate the whole city with pesticides. What is the outcome? ….piles of garbage with dead bugs and pesticide residue on them, and dead rats and mice everywhere. But after a short time the vermin are all back and another emergency meeting is needed. Solution: more powerful pesticides and hire additional rat and mouse snipers.

Do you see the correlation here to human health? New York City represents your body – the garbage collectors represent all the pathways by which you literally eliminate garbage from your body, such as the bowel, liver, kidneys, and lymphatic system. When these fail at doing their job properly or fast enough, bad things begin to happen, including the methodical appearance of one chronic infection after the other. Waste products and toxins like heavy metals, chemicals, metabolic waste products, and microbial biotoxins begin to back up in your city as it were. This is why holistic practitioners such as myself routinely recommend liver detoxification therapies and flushes, kidney cleanses, lymphatic drainage, and homeopathic Terrain remedies to clear the fluid between the cells of debris, and so forth. The notion is that yes, people with chronic illnesses do have chronic infections, lots of them. And yes, they are making people sick, but what really is the solution, especially when these are chronic and entrenched, such as the case for example with chronic Lyme disease? The ludicrous illustration above highlights the futility of hammering infections with one antibiotic after the other and/or natural bug killers, while neglecting unhealthy terrain, and a broken detoxification system.