4. The Curability and Incurability of Diseases in Relation to Karma

In the nineteenth century this view was reversed into the exact opposite in medical circles, and indeed in distinguished medical circles. I may say that during the earlier years of my life many of these opposing views came before me in various forms. The opportunity for this came to all who followed the progress of the ‘nihilistic school of medicine’ which was started in Vienna about the middle of the nineteenth century and which won more and more favour. The commencement of a radical change in the views on the curability and incurability of diseases was due to what the renowned physician Dietel brought to light in regard to pneumonia and similar diseases. From all kinds of observations he came to the conclusion that fundamentally there is absolutely no real effect to be noticed from the use of various remedies on the course of this or that disease. Under the influence of the school of Dietel, the young doctors of that day learned to think of the healing value of the remedies which had been used for centuries in such a way that they almost outdid what is conveyed in the well-known saying:—‘When the cock crows on the dung-heap the weather will change—or it will remain as it is!’ They were of the opinion that it made little difference to the course of this or that disease whether one administered a certain remedy or not. Now Dietel was one who, for that period, collected very convincing statistics showing that in his so-called ‘wait and see’ treatment, approximately as many people who were suffering from pneumonia were cured or died as was the case in the earlier treatment with time-honoured remedies. The waiting treatment founded by Dietel, and continued by Skoda consisted in bringing the patient into a condition in which he was best able to stimulate the self-healing powers and to draw them forth from his organism. The doctor had little more to do than watch the course of the disease and to be at hand if anything happened, so that he could give practical help with human needs. For the rest, he confined himself to watching the disease come, so to speak, and waiting to see how the self-healing forces came out of the organism, until after a time the fever subsided and self-healing came about.