Germ Theory & More – NaPodPoMo

In today’s episode, I’m going to talk about germ theory as well as another theory that is still considered a rival to germ theory today. 


As long as humans have been around, there’s been illness and disease that travels from person to person, and so they have been looking for why, how that happens, for over 2, 000 years, even longer. 


Germ theory has proven to be one of the most persistent theories for disease transmission, and it basically is the current accepted scientific theory for many diseases. It states that microorganisms that are known as pathogens or germs can cause disease. And it considers that disease is caused by specific microorganisms that invade the body from outside. 


Western medicine has fully embraced the germ theory and its dependence on drugs to treat symptoms, effectively minimizing the importance of nutritious food, fresh air, hygiene, and sanitation. 


It’s basically the theory that, you know, if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. If all you have is a drug or a vaccine, then everything looks like a germ. 


But I want to point out something important. We need to understand that not all germs are pathogens. In fact, most are good. Roughly half of the cells in the human body, including your own, beneficial bacteria. We cannot live without them. 


Louis Pasteur is credited as being the father of the germ theory. He didn’t come up with a theory, but he did popularize it. He was a French chemist and microbiologist who lived during the 1800s.

He coined the term “germ theory,” and his motto could have been kill the pathogen, kill the germs or invaders at all costs. And that cost meant up to including destroying our good and necessary bacteria. 


There was a contemporary of Pasteur’s named Antoine Béchamp. He was a French scientist, and he maintained that disease developed in the presence of an unhealthy environment caused by an unbalanced state of the body. He held that disease could not take hold without pre existing weakness. Béchamp stressed the importance of supporting a strong internal defense system to ward off disease and attain true health rather than relying on drugs and vaccines as a sledgehammer to treat symptoms and attempt to destroy germs. 


In stark contrast to Pasteur, he wanted to work on our microbiome, urging physicians to work on the interior terrain of the body. He believed that when cells and tissues were healthy and not diseased, when they had the nutrients they needed for optimal function, that the germs would be unable to gain traction in the body. 


There was another man, a German doctor and pathologist named Rudolf Virchow, who is known as the father of modern pathology. He was also an early opponent of the germ theory of disease. He believed that germs do not cause disease, but instead gravitate to the diseased area as scavengers, to feed on and clean up the dead tissue caused by the pathogenic process. Virchow stated in his later years, “If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat, diseased tissues, rather than causing disease.” 


There’s also one interesting little footnote, if you will, regarding Louis Pasteur. His son in law wrote a biography and told that he had recanted his theory in his final days. He had said that Bernard, who is Claude Bernard, a colleague of Béchamp, was right. The pathogen is nothing, the terrain is everything. There are some that suggest that Pasteur’s ego would not have permitted him to recant his term theory. 


So which theory is the real theory? Is it term theory? Or is it terrain theory? 


Or could they both exist? 


I think there might be room for both. There are those that suggest the same bacteria found in diseased individuals are also found in healthy individuals. And also that sometimes a pathogen is not always found in the diseased individual. All of which suggests that Béchamp’s terrain theory might be correct, at least some of the time. 


But nothing is ever so cut and dry. I think there may be room for both theories. 


Either way, Béchamp’s suggestion that we work on keeping that inner terrain healthy and providing the inner terrain with the nutrients needed for optimal function should be a part of any healthcare system. 


Thanks for listening today. If you have any comments on this episode or on the whole NaPodPoMo concept in general, you can visit this page to leave comments either on this page or at SelfPoweredHealing.com/November2024. You can also find a listing and link for all November’s episodes on that same page: SelfPoweredHealing.com/November2024. 


By the way, Self Powered Healing is still looking for interviews with people who want to share a story of healing. Do you have a healing story? I would love to hear about it and see if maybe you could share it on our show. So if you’re interested in sharing, then visit selfpoweredhealing.com/share to schedule a chat. 


You aren’t committing at this point. You’re just having a chat with me to see what’s going on. It will be confidential unless or until you decide you want to share. And if you get there and there’s not a convenient time for you, send me a message because we’ll always find a time. 


And remember this always, 


You are a magnificent being with powerful innate healing abilities.