Definition

Abnormal and excessive accumulation or infiltration of diluted lymph serum in the interfibrillar spaces of the subcutaneous connective tissue or in the serious (peritoneal or pleural) cavities of the body which do not drain.

Symptoms

This condition is accompanied by swelling, scanty urine, poor appetite, sluggishness, and debility. The swelling usually begins in the feet and ankles and proceeds up the legs towards the abdomen.

Cause

Heavy salt users often have edema as do diabetics. We do not pinpoint the symptoms as to locality (hydrocephalus, hydrothorax, ascites, etc.), as does orthodox medicine, but the general problem is that fluid does not eliminate properly through the kidneys and skin.

Dr. Edward Shook had the following to say about dropsy (Edema):

“When sulfuric acid is generated within the organism, it immediately unites with water and swells up. This action produces heat, which expands the capillaries. The osmotic pressure forces the serum through the walls of the blood vessels, producing inflammation and dropsy (edema).

Hence the using of inorganic matter is always poisonous to the human organism in spite of all the apparent evidence to the contrary.”

What Can be Done for Dropsy?

This was a question put to Dr. Christopher in his newsletter. His answer: For mild or beginning forms of dropsy caused by urinary malfunction, we have the following:

For a severe case let us cite a good case of how it can be handled in most cases.

A lady came into our weekly Tuesday night lecture a little late, after we had barely started. She asked if she could interrupt and tell something that had happened to her since the last lecture, a week ago. We said we’d be happy to hear her story, so she told us the reason she was a little late was because of a long distance phone call she had just received.

Just after the last lecture, the Tuesday before, she received a call from her brother-in-law in Chicago. He told her that if she wanted to see her twin sister alive she had better fly back there immediately because the doctors had said she had only a day or two to live.

Our student took a few days off from work and arrived in Chicago on the following Friday. She went in to see her sister and would not have recognized her if she hadn’t been told who it was. Her sister was so badly swollen from edema (dropsy) that she seemed to be only a bloated, unrecognizable mass of flesh. She had been under doctors’ care for a number of months, and they had been unable to give her anything but temporary aid from the water accumulation. Now they were utterly baffled and had, at the family’s request, sent her home from the hospital to die (being given a day or two or slightly more grace).

The sick and suffering twin was in a coma, not recognizing anyone, and our student cried when she saw her favorite sister lying there helpless, with little school children needing their mother so much, so she asked the husband if he would allow her to use an herbal routine she had heard about at a lecture recently. He said the family’s doctor was just waiting for her to die anyway, so go ahead!

Our lady found a little health food store nearby and bought some parsley root and glycerine (this was animal glycerine, we now use vegetable glycerine which is superior).

When she got back she made up parsley root tea (one teaspoon of herb to a cup of water, or one ounce of herb to the pint of water), making up about one gallon of the tea. (Steam distilled water is 30% more efficient than tap water and is our choice.)

One quart of the tea was used straight to give to this patient orally, and three quarts of the parsley root tea was mixed with equal parts of glycerine (making six quarts of the mixture) for fomentations.

They would give a cup of parsley tea each one half hour to the patient to drink, and the heated combination (of parsley and glycerine) was used as a fomentation over the badly swollen legs, arms and abdomen. This was done by soaking white flannel cloths and laying them over the areas. (Use cotton or wool, never use synthetic cloth.)

As the patient lay there so helpless, her sister remembered instructions given to follow the progress of the treatment. She was to lift the corner of the cloth, after the fomentation had been on for a short time, and watch to see if the pores were starting to take the water from swollen areas. She said that as she looked it was like seeing hundreds of little springs coming from the body. She had made this trip and was walking by faith, using a formula she did not know about or had ever used before. She had just heard of it at our lecture that previous Tuesday. She had to fly back to work on Monday, so she left all the instructions with the husband to continue on with the program that had been started.

After work Tuesday she rushed home to get ready for the regular Tuesday night herb lecture and the phone rang. It was her brother-in-law from Chicago. He said, “There is someone here who would like to talk to you.” He put his wife on the phone. Even though she had laid helpless for months and part of the time in a semi-conscious condition, she was on the phone now, so happy she was crying. The swelling had gone down, and she was recovering rapidly–in fact she said she got the children’s breakfast and fixed their school lunches that day and was so grateful “to be a mother again”–not a dying patient. There were not many dry eyes in the lecture room that Tuesday night when she finished her story.