By Deni Blaisch, RN
In their May 5, 2020 online edition, Medscape Nurses published a quiz: How Much Do You Know About Flo? They are referring to Florence Nightingale, “the founder of modern nursing”. May 12 was the 200th anniversary of Nightingale’s birth. The picture associated with this article shows a young Nightingale wearing a powder blue dust mask.
“What would Nightingale say about our current era?” the author asks.
Did Nightingale foreshadow our social distancing? After all, she brilliantly advised that hospital beds be 6 feet apart and that nurses wash their hands frequently. Jumping ahead 200 years, our Germ Theory has mutated. Six feet distancing of ill hospitalized patients has now transferred to healthy people fearfully distancing themselves from any other living human.
Germ Theory states that germs invade and infect the body; they are the invisible enemy, and we need to be vigilant in identifying them and killing them off. Our arsenal includes drugs and surgery to combat an existing sickness, and tools to prevent germ invasion, such as vaccines. This theory was originally developed in the early 1800s by, among others, French researcher Louis Pasteur.
There is another disease theory about which few modern readers have heard: the Terrain Theory.
The Terrain Theory suggests that if the body is well and balanced, then germs — a natural part of our life and environment — will be dealt with by the body without causing sickness. This theory suggests our body’s internal environment and general condition plays a large roll in how a germ will affect us. At least one noted biographer claims that Pasteur recanted the Germ Theory on his deathbed, writing, “It is not the germ that causes disease but the terrain in which the germ is found.”
- Germ theory vs. Terrain theory
- Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895) vs. Antoine Bechamp (1816 – 1908)
- Allopathic vs. Naturopathic
- Kill the bad vs. Strengthen the good
- Antibiotic vs. Probiotic (Both of these have their place)
- Expensive big business vs. inexpensive
A theory gives a framework for explaining observations; the explanations are based on assumptions. These we can test and challenge. (Wikipedia). Long ago the scientific community came to a consensus, determining that the Germ Theory was correct. Since then humans have charged ahead fighting a war against viruses and bacteria.
In 1820, when Louis Pasteur, Antoine Bechamp, and Florence Nightingale were alive, our world was different. In France, hospitals were about to change and modernize. Hospitals were a place to lock up the poor, the sick were crammed into large dirty rooms. Male doctors were taking over the ‘Christian Charity’ of women healers. Science was the new norm. Dead patients were used for education value and their germs were often transferred to the hospitalized ill via lack of hand washing, hence keeping the medical students supplied with cadavers.
Nightingale’s family was from Great Britain and she played a role in hospitals during the Crimean War. Initially she found fatalities during the war were ten times more likely to be caused by disease, as by war injuries. She believed that death rates were due to poor nutrition, lack of supplies, stale air, and overworked soldiers (Wikipedia.)
Skipping ahead two hundred years to 2020, it appears we have gotten our wires crossed. Nightingale’s 6-foot rule was very specific to hospital bed placement, located in disease ridden hospitals with patients too sick to care for themselves. She might be been very concerned to find whole countries sheltering indoors for months, with stale air and chemically enhanced foods to eat. If Pasteur were here in 2020, he might have had his revelation much earlier than on his deathbed. Hippocrates, looking toward balance stated, “It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”
And for me? I think the terrain theory needs to be looked at much more closely.
Deni Blaisch is an entrepreneurial RN massage therapist building a new massage model that allows for 6 foot social distancing, while giving a superb massage. After each massage she now moves her trailer 6 feet! She is the creator of Esmeralda, the Silver Trailer massage studio.