Questions Regarding Health in Light of Spiritual Science

In many respects, the achievements of conventional medicine in recent times are admirable. Let us consider how subtle and detailed the research on yellow fever is in relation to the way it is transmitted from person to person by certain insects. How excellent are the studies on malaria and similar diseases! But on the other hand, we can see that the justified demands of conventional medicine can very easily interfere with our entire lives, which in a certain sense can lead to tyranny. Let us consider the claim — which is made with a certain degree of justification — that in a disease that has been occurring frequently in recent times, namely stiff neck, the pathogen is by no means transmitted from one sick person to another, but that people who are completely healthy, who are completely unaffected by what is known as stiff neck, could, in a certain sense, carry the germs within themselves and transmit them to other people, so that people walking among us are carriers of germs, from which those who are susceptible can then contract the disease, while the others who carry the germs do not necessarily have to be affected by the disease. — This could lead to demands to isolate carriers of germs, because if someone has contracted stiff neck, they are not as dangerous as those who care for them, who may be the actual carriers of the disease. The consequences of making it difficult for these people to interact with others can be seen from the following example: It can be argued, and has already been argued, that at some school a large number of children suddenly fell ill with this or that disease. No one knew where the disease came from. It turned out that the teachers were the actual carriers of the disease. They themselves did not contract the disease, but the entire school was infected by them. The term “germ carrier” or “germ catcher” is a term that can even be used with some justification by a certain side. It is almost self-evident from the little we have been able to cite that those who are laymen in this field have very little knowledge of everything that may confront them from one side or the other.