XVII
ON THE
foundation of the material of the preceding lecture I must
summarise some things calculated to throw light on the whole of what
we considered and indeed to make it fruitful. Although all this can
only be a preliminary outline, it is well that we are able to give two
days to this study. In continuing our yesterday's subject which
referred to the development and retrogression of the teeth I want to
put before you some facts which should throw light on man in the state
of health and sickness. It is inadvisable to take such explanations on
too materialistic lines; for we should really regard such external
occurrence, as, for instance, dental decay as the visible symptoms of
a certain inner process; this process hides itself from external
perception, but has consequences which are externally visible.
You will understand the whole process of dental formation, if viewed
in the light of other processes in mankind, which appear quite remote;
for instance, the phenomenon with which you are well acquainted but
whose correct significance can only be judged in connection with tooth
formation. Girls and young women have good teeth — and after their
first confinement and childbirth their teeth are defective. This
circumstance should help to explain the connection of toothache and
defective teeth with the whole bodily constitution. There is another
very interesting connection, between dental processes and the tendency
to hæmorrhoids or piles; this also needs study. A study of these
things proves that what has the most mineralising effect in the
body of man — for dental formation is our most mineralising process
— is also closely associated with the general process of organisation
and shows this association and interdependence in the human area most
distant on the mouth and teeth. Here is a significant fact with regard
the process of dental formation, which cannot be disputed. The
completion of this dental formative process — the external cusp of
the tooth which projects from the gums, is a region of the human frame
which is given up to the external world as something mineral. Here the
substance of the external layer (enamel) merges into the mineral
world, nutritive processes are eliminated and a piece of inorganic
substance is left. I indicated yesterday that the progressive
development of dental structure is perhaps less important than the
process of decomposition which accompanies the formation of the teeth
throughout life. For on the one hand, it must be admitted that at this
pole of the organisation at which the extremity of the tooth develops,
the internal organisation cannot contribute very much to the formative
process. But we must not forget that this internal organisation is
closely involved in the destructive process, and therefore the more
important and urgent question is how to retard the tendency in man to
the destruction of this process. It would be a complete mistake to
believe destruction and decay are purely the result of external
injuries. My remarks yesterday on the function of fluorine in the
formation of our teeth, refer mainly to the period of childhood, in
which the formative process takes place from inside towards the
surface and is in its preparatory stage. For it prepares itself deep
in the interior of the whole organism before the second teeth appear.
This formative process of fluorine reaches its culminating point in a
stable equilibrium — brought about in the substance on the surface of
the teeth; the fluorine becomes fixed here to the substance and is, as
it were, at rest. But this rest is disturbed by the regressive
development of the teeth, which approach gradual decay. This is a
subtle process, starting from the tooth and connected with a formative
process caused by the fluorine extending throughout the body, and yet
continued throughout the whole life of man.
What I have just maintained sets the stage for the whole prophylaxis
of the condition. Now I could say something of this sort: a
considerable part of what is included in the educational methods of
our Waldorf School, besides other things promoting health, is the
prevention of early dental decay in those who attend the school for it
is indeed remarkable that just in relation to the peripheral
structures and processes very much depends upon the right education in
childhood. It is regrettable that we are only able to work upon the
child at a time — even at the Waldorf School — when it is somewhat
too late for the prophylactic treatment necessary to dental formation.
we ought to be able to start this work on younger children. However,
as teeth do not appear all at once, but gradually, and the internal
process is of longer duration, it is still possible to do something
with children from six to seven years of age. Something — but
certainly not enough. For it is advisable — as I have already
emphasised — to ascertain the exact individual dental type. As soon
as the first tooth makes its appearance of course it is possible to
raise the objection that the dental formation is already prepared and
that the crown of the tooth is perfected and only thrusts itself into
the light. Yes, that is true, but it is possible to judge dental
formative process from other indications than the teeth themselves. If
a child of from four to six years old is clumsy and awkward with arms,
hands, legs and feet — or cannot adapt himself to a skillful use of
his arms and legs and especially of his hands and feet, we shall find
that he is inclined to an abnormal process of dental formation. The
behaviour of limbs and extremities reveals the same constitutional
type as is shown in the dental formative process. Therefore a great
influence is exercised on dental formation if we teach children as
early as possible to run with dexterity, with intricate movements of
the feet such as a kind of modified hopscotch in which the rear foot
is brought with some force against the heel of the front foot, or
similar exercises. If this is connected with an acquirement of skill
in the fingers it will promote the tooth formation very considerably.
Go into our needlework classes and handicraft classes at the Waldorf
School, and you will find the boys knit and crochet as well as the
girls, and that they share these lessons together. Even the older boys
are enthusiastic knitters. This is not the result of any fad or whim,
but happens deliberately in order to make the fingers skillful and
supple, in order to permeate the fingers with the soul. And to drive
the soul into the fingers means to promote all the forces that go to
build up sound teeth. It is no matter of indifference whether we let
an indolent child sit about all day long, or make it move and run
about; or whether we let a child be awkward and helpless with its
hands, or train it to manual skill. Sins of omission in these matters
bear fruit later in the early destruction of the teeth; of course
sometimes in more pronounced forms, and sometimes in less, for there
is great individual diversity, but they are bound to manifest
themselves. In fact, the earlier we begin to train and discipline the
child, on the lines indicated, the more we shall tend to slow down and
counteract the process of dental decay. Any interference with dental
processes is so difficult that we should carefully consider such
measures even if they seem to be far-fetched.
Now this question is before me: How is fluorine absorbed into the
organism; through the enamel, through the saliva, through the pulp or
by the blood channels?
Fluorine in itself is one of the formative processes of man and it is
somewhat beside the mark to speculate about the precise manner of its
absorption. As a rule, we need only consider the normal nutritive
process of everyday, by which substances containing various fluorine
compounds are incorporated. Now follow this normal process of
nutrition, which distributes fluorine to the periphery in the
directions and to the regions where it is to be deposited. It is
important to know that fluorine is much more widely distributed than
is generally supposed. Much is contained in plants of the most
different varieties — that is, comparatively speaking, for very
little is required by man. But the process of fluorine formation is
present in plants, even when fluorine itself is not chemically
demonstrable; we shall refer to this presently in greater detail.
Indeed fluorine is always present in water, even in our drinking
water, so there is no difficulty in getting at it. It is only a matter
of our organism being so constructed as to master and perform the
highly complicated process of fluorine absorption. In the customary
terminology of medicine, one may say that fluorine is carried to its
destination through the blood channels.
Then I come to the inquiry whether the enamel of the teeth still
receives nutrition after the teeth have been cut. No, this is not the
case, as may appear from what has already been stated. But something
else takes place, to which I would now call your attention. It might
be expressed as follows: from the standpoint of spiritual research,
around the growing teeth there is a remarkable activity of the human
etheric body which is freed from the physical organisation or only
loosely attached to it. This activity, which can be quite distinctly
observed, forms as it were a constant etheric movement of organising
around the jaws. Such a free organisation does not exist in the lower
abdominal region; in that area it unites itself most closely with the
physical organic activity, and thence arise the phenomena to which I
have already referred. Thus, when there is a separation of the etheric
body's activity from the physical organisation, e.g., during
pregnancy, immediately at the opposite pole of the organism,
pronounced changes in the teeth are brought about. Hæmorrhoids are
another consequence of separation between the etheric and physical
bodies, each “going their own way” But the fact that in this extremity
of the human frame, the etheric body becomes independent implies that
at the other pole the etheric body is drawn into the physical
organisation, and destructive processes come into operation. For all
things which increase organic activities — as for instance in the
normal way in pregnancy, and in the abnormal way in diseases — all
things which are stimulants to healthy functions have on the other
hand concurrent effects on the dental structure where they work
destructively. This is what should be especially noted.
What we do as an interplay between feet and hands is the macroscopic
aspect of the fluorine workings. The constitution arising if the
fingers and the legs become supple and skillful, is the working of
fluorine. This is fluorine — not what the atomistic theorists
imagine, but what is made manifest on the surface of the human
organism, and is continued and extended inwards. This internal
continuance of the process at the periphery is the essence of fluorine
working. But if the external fluorine workings are disturbed, then the
complexity of the human organism requires us to supplement education
with therapeutics. For we not only perceive the result of defective or
mistaken education in the condition of the teeth, but also in the
child's being awkward and helpless. In such cases we must bring
prophylactic influences upon the organism, and it is very interesting
that a regulative action on the preservation of the teeth may be
possible — of course if it has not been started too late — by means
of an aqueous extract from the husks of horse chestnuts; that is to
say Æsculin extract, in very high dilution and administered by the
mouth.
This is again an interesting connection. The juice of the horse
chestnut contains something of the same principle as that which builds
up our teeth. There is always some substance out in the macrocosm with
an internal organising effect. In Æsculin there is a force which
ejects the “chemism” from the substance in which it is active. The
chemism is so to speak rendered ineffective. If a beam of light is
projected through a dilution of Æsculin, the chemical effect is
obliterated. This obliteration is again perceptible if the aqueous
dilution of Æsculin is taken internally; but note that it must be a
very mild dilution and in a watery medium. Then it becomes evident
that this overcoming of the chemism and trend towards pure
mineralisation are essentially the same as the organic process which
builds up the teeth. Only the obliteration in the external experiment
is permeated still with the organising forces which are inherent in
the human organism.
In a similar direction but by another method, we may use the common
chlorophyll. The same force that is localised in the husk of the horse
chestnut and some other plants, is also contained in chlorophyll,
though in a somewhat different formation. But in order to use it we
must try to extract as it were the chlorophyll in ether and use it not
by internal dosage, but externally as a salve for the lower part of
the body. If we rub the lower abdomen with etherised chlorophyll we
shall produce the same effect on the preservation of the teeth,
indirectly, through the whole organism, as is produced by the oral
administration of Æsculin. These are things which need to be tested
and which would certainly make a great impression on the general
public if their statistical results could be made available. If the
whole pulp of the tooth is “dead” an attempt should be made to adapt
the whole organism to the absorption of fluorine. This is no longer a
matter of mere dental treatment.
So you see how greatly dental treatment — in so far as dental
treatment is still practicable — is related to all the
growth-forces of the human organism. For what I have explained with reference
to Æsculin and chlorophyll leads to the recognition of forces
connected with very delicate processes of growth-processes tending
towards mineralisation. The fact is that mankind has to pay for its
higher evolution in the direction of the spirit, with a retrogressive
development of the formative teeth process. And phylo-genetically the
same is true; compared with the process of dental formation in the
animals, our human process is one of retrogression. But it is not
singular in that respect; this character of retrogression in the
formation of the teeth is only one of many others in the organisation
of the human head.
With this we have reached forms of thought which may be of great
importance for our judgment of the whole process of dental formation.
More insight will still be attained when we add some other facts which
form a basis for it. I shall therefore include here a section which
may not seem immediately to the point, for it will treat of questions
of diet which are, however, closely related to our present theme.
Questions of diet are so important because they have social as well as
medicinal implications. One may spend endless time in discussing
whether the dietetic rules of Mazdaznan or other special schools and
creeds, have any justification or significance. But in all the
arguments pro and con, and the prescriptions which are given in these
schools, we must admit that a person is treated as an unsocial being.
But social problems combine with medical. The more we are compelled or
advised to have some extra kind of food, something special to
ourselves alone and not only in matters of food but in things from the
external world — the more unsocial we become. The significance of the
Last Supper lies in this: not that Christ gave something special to
each of his disciples, but that He gave the same to all. The mere
possibility of being together with others, as we eat or drink, has a
great social value, and all that might tend to repress this healthy
natural tendency, should — if I may say so — be treated with
caution. If man be left alone in individual isolation, not only as
regards conscious processes but also in all organic activities he
develops all manner of appetites, and anti-appetites. Attention to
these individual appetites and anti-appetites need not be given the
importance usually bestowed. I am speaking now with reference to the
whole constitution. If a man has become able to endure something
naturally distasteful to him — that is to say, if an anti-appetite
(in the wider sense, speaking of the whole organisation) has been
conquered, then that person has gained more for the efficiency of his
organisation than the constant avoidance of what is antipathetic. The
conquest of something distasteful means the reconstruction of an organ
which has been ruined or, in relation to the etheric, is a new organ;
and this in no symbolic sense, but in fact. The organic formative
force consists in nothing less than the conquest of antipathies. To
gratify appetites beyond a certain limit, is not to serve and
strengthen our organs, but to hypertrophise them and bring about their
degeneration. To go too far in yielding to the antipathies of the
organism, causes profound damage to the whole organisation. While on
the other hand gradually to accustom a man to that which seems
unsuitable to him always strengthens the constitution.
Almost everything we need to know in this division of our subject has
been covered over by our modern natural science. For the external
principle of the struggle for existence and natural selection is
really purely external. Roux has even extended these concepts to the
strife of the organs within man. But that too is really quite
external. Such a principle can only become significant if what happens
internally is actually observed and recorded. The strengthening,
however, of a human organ, especially an organ in the phylogenetic
line, always results from the overcoming of an antipathy. The
formation, the actual organic structure, is due to the conquest of
antipathies, whereas the continued growth of an organ already in
being, is due to indulgence in sympathies.
But there is, of course, a definite limit. Sympathy and antipathy are
not only on the tongue and in the eye; but the whole body liberates
through and through with sympathies and antipathies; every organ has
its special sympathies and antipathies. An organ can develop antipathy
to the very forces that built and formed it at a certain stage. It
owes its upbuilding to the very thing to which it becomes
antipathetic, when it is completed. This leads us deeper into the
phylogenetic realm; it leads us to take into world provokes all
antipathetic reaction from inside; there is an internal resistance, a
discharge so to speak of antipathy. But by this very reaction the
progressive perfection of the organisation is brought about. In the
realm of the organism he succeeds best in the struggle for existence
who is best able to conquer inner antipathies and to replace them by
organs. This conquest is part of the process of further development of
the organs.
When we consider this aspect we are offered an important clue for the
further estimate of actual dosage of remedies. You see in the process
of organ formation itself a continuous oscillation between sympathy
and antipathy. The genesis of the bodily constitution is dependent on
the production of sympathy and antipathy, and their interplay.
Moreover smaller dosages of substances used pharmaceutically have the
same relation to highly potentised dosages, as sympathy has to
antipathy, in the human organism. High potency has the opposite effect
from low potency. That is bound up with the whole organising force.
And in a certain sense it is also true that factors with a definite
action on the organism in the early periods of life, turn their effect
into the opposite in later periods; but that these effects in the
organism can be shifted out of place. On this displacement is based on
the one hand dementia precox as I have already stated, and, on the
other, the formation of isolated “soul provinces” which at a later
period of life wrongfully encroach on the organisation.
These matters will only be viewed aright if our science itself becomes
somewhat spiritualised and we reach the stage of ceasing to try to
cure so-called mental disorders by way of the spirit and the soul, but
ask ourselves: where is the organic disorder or inadequacy, as this or
that so-called mental or soul-sickness becomes apparent? And vice
versa — however strange this may sound — in sickness of so-called
physical kind there is even more need to examine the conditions of the
soul, than in a case of sickness of the soul itself. In the latter
class, the phenomena exhibited by the soul help little beyond the
diagnosis. We must study these soul phenomena in order to guess where
the organic defect can lie. The Ancients have provided for this in
their terminology. It was not without purpose that these men of old
time connected the picture of that mental disorder hypochondria with a
name that sounds wholly materialistic: the bony or cartilaginous
character of the abdomen. They would never have sought for the primary
cause of the psychological unbalance — even when the hypochondria
develops to actual insanity — anywhere except in some sickness of the
lower bodily sphere. We must of course progress to the point of being
able to regard all so-called material things as spiritual. We suffer
severely today, simply because materialism is the continuation of
medieval Catholic asceticism in the region of thought. This asceticism
despised nature, and sought to attain to spiritual realms by an
attitude of condemnation. Those who hold the modern world conception
have extracted from the ascetic point of view just what they find
convenient, and have no doubt that all the processes of the lower
abdomen are crudely material and need not be seriously considered. But
the truth is very different: the spirit works in all these things —
and we need to know just how the spirit works there. If I bring the
spirit which works within the organism together with the spirit acting
in some external object or substance — the two spiritual forces
collaborate. We must cease to despise nature, and learn again to
regard to the whole external world as permeated with the spirit symptom
and one of great value for the whole reform of medical thinking that
just at the high tide of materialism there has arisen the custom of
using hypnotic and other forms of suggestion in treating abnormal
conditions in the individual? Things which seem at the opposite pole
to materialism have come into favour in the materialistic age, when
people had lost the possibility of learning the spiritual aspects of
quicksilver, of antimony, of silver and of gold. That is the crux of
the matter; the loss of the power to learn about the spirit of
material things; and from this loss arises the attempt to treat
spiritual ailments as spiritual only, just as in the psycho-analytic
doctrines where it is attempted to direct the spirit as such. Sound
views must again prevail on the subject of the spiritual attributes of
matter.
It is one of the chief services of the nineteenth century to have held
alive this acknowledgment of the spiritual permeation of external
material things. One of the most important services; for external
medicine of the allopathic school has unfortunately tended more and
more to believe that one is only concerned with material, i.e.,
external-material effects and processes in the “extra-human”
substances. Today on the one hand, in the diagnosis of so-called
physical disorders, attention should be given to the state of the
soul, and on the other, i.e., in abnormal soul states, the physical
disturbances should be examined. Physical sicknesses should always
prompt the inquiry: “what is the temperament of the person in whom
they appear?” Suppose we find the sufferer is of hypochondriacal
nature, that alone should be an indication for treatment of the lower
organic sphere, with materially effective remedies, that is with low
potencies. If we find that apart from the illness, the patient is of
active mind or “sanguine,” it will be necessary to use high potencies
from the outset of treatment. In short, the state of the soul is
something that needs study and co-ordination when we consider bodily
sickness. The total constitution of the soul is up to a certain point
already obvious in the child; dementia præcox will not easily
supervene if the child does not exhibit a phlegmatic disposition, that
is to say the temperamental tendency appropriate to a much later stage
in life, and then only to a limited degree. But still more important
is it to recognise the disposition to inner activity or inner
passivity. Only consider — if we work through so-called psychic
treatment by means of suggestion we are placing the human being wholly
in the sphere of influence of another. We repress his activity. But
suppression of activity and of inner initiative gives rise to
something even in outer life, which is important for the whole course
of life. It appears externally in childhood and reacts on the whole
dental condition, in later years as well. We shall deal further with
this subject tomorrow.
Now I can come to the conclusion that for myself as an individual it
is necessary to avoid certain foodstuffs, and to partake of others; I
can choose a certain diet for myself — and it is important to bear
this in mind, following what has already been said regarding the
choice of food. And that diet can do me much good. But there is a very
appreciable difference according to whether I adopt this diet as a
result of individual experiment or simply accept what the doctor
prescribes for me. Please do not take offense at this rather blunt
statement. For the materialistic approach, it may well seem a matter
of indifference, and equally beneficial, whether the diet that suits
me has been instinctively chosen by myself, has been worked out
experimentally by myself, perhaps at the physician's suggestion, but
with individual initiative, or else has been prescribed for me by a
physician. The ultimate result is seen in the fact that the diet
prescribed by the physician will be of benefit in the beginning, but
will have the disadvantage of leading in old age to mental
degeneration more easily than would be the case with an active
collaboration in questions of diet; this helps to keep the mind active
and mobile into old age — of course, other factors play their part.
The interplay of activity and passivity is much impaired in all
“treatments by suggestion,” for such treatments imply not only giving
up judgment, and doing what another prescribes, but also even the
direction of the will itself. The guidances and impact on the will
should only be employed in cases where we can assure ourselves that
the impairment is not an injury to the person in question, because of
other factors; and in fact that it is doing them a greater service to
treat them for a while on “suggestive” lines. In general, however,
spiritual science finds it necessary to emphasise the healing elements
and effects in the material substances, in the atmospheric conditions,
and in the movements and functions of the human organism itself; in
short in all that cannot be termed spiritual influence proper, but
must proceed actively from the consciousness or subconsciousness with
the initiative of the patient himself. All these considerations are so
crucial because they are the most of all sinned against in the age of
materialism, and because the prevalent attitude has been so infectious
as to have extended to pedagogy, where we may already experience the
terrible abuse of all manner of hypnotic and suggestive tendencies.
Their introduction into pedagogy is of appalling augury; and perhaps
one will only be able to see clearly in this direction by answering
the question: What is the effect of such exercises on the human
organism as stimulate it to an awakening, instead of lulling into
sleep? Just as when man falls asleep, movements are carried out in his
imagination which are not followed by the will, just as the sleeper
sinks into repose so far as the external world is concerned, while his
consciousness is in motion, so the exact opposite occurs in the case
of Eurhythmy. In Eurhythmy the reverse of the sleep condition is
brought about; the consciousness awakens more vividly, as compared to
its usual state. The hypertrophies of imagination typical of the
dream, are dispersed and in their stead a sound and vigorous current
of volition is sent through the limbs. The organised will is driven
into the limbs. Study the different effects of Eurhythmic vowel
forming on the lower and the upper human being respectively, and then
again observe the effect of Eurhythmic formation of consonants on the
upper and lower man, and you will realise that we may also seek a
valuable therapeutic element in Eurhythmy itself.
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