General Principles
The physician cares for the patient, nature cures him.
There is no direct healing power in medicines.
Things which are poisons to the healthy, are also poisons to the sick.
Anything indispensable for the preservation of health is a natural remedy for its restoration.
Air, light, water, nourishment, and exercise are indispensable to health; they should always be considered the first remedies to be resorted to in disease.
The worst place for a chronic patient to be cured is in his bed.
Help yourselves, and God will help you.
Life is change of matter: have more care to remove waste matter from your system than to supply its loss.
Waste matter retained in the system becomes poison.
It is through the complete removal of the waste peccant matter and the invigoration of the nervous system that harmony in the functions of the organism is restored, the body as it were rejuvenated.
No rejuvenation of the body can take place without the assistance of air, light, water, proper diet and exercise: we cannot buy health in the apothecary’s shop.
Excerpt from: Arnold Rikli, Physico-Hydriatic Establishment for the Cure of Chronic Diseases, at Veldes, Oberkrain, Austria, Trieste: Amati’s Sons. 1881