Contribution of Louis Kunhe (1835-1901)

There are two major contributions of Louis Kunhe and they are the concepts of:

- Unity of disease- foreign matter
- Facial diagnosis
Louis Kuhne stands rightfully tall on the naturopathic landscape.
He contributed immensely to the philosophical and knowledge base of its practice.
His place in the front row derives from his understanding of healing.
This deep savvy came first hand from his personal suffering of stomach cancer and lung complaints.
When he was 20 years old, he experienced severe violent pains in the lungs and head.
These afflictions persisted for nearly a quarter of a century.
His experimentations upon himself led him to discoveries and conclusions culminating in two important books: The New Science of Healing (1891), and Science of Facial Expressionwhich would guide generations of Naturopaths around the world in the early 20th century.
Kuhne coined the term “Nature Cure” that became the basis of the New Science of Healing.This book in fact became the cornerstone for Henry Lindlahr’s Nature Cure paradigm
Kuhne identified the digestive system as the seat of disease which would later become a core theory for the Naturopaths within the first decade of the profession’s inception.
Kuhne introduced the concept of foreign matter as being responsible for the creation of disease. Foreign matter was anything that did not belong in the body. Over time, the accumulation of morbid or foreign matter that was not eliminated by the emunctories of the body lead to the formation of diseased tissues.
Louis Kuhne explain in detail the basic principle of his system that- “CLEANLINESS ALONE HEALS” (cleanliness is next to Godliness).
Not only external cleanliness in mind but also internal cleanliness.
According to him – it is the full cleanliness, both internal and external of the whole body and not merely of certain parts of the body which constitutes health. And it is the same complete cleanliness which one has to guard if he or she is to have health.
He stands rightfully tall on the naturopathic landscape because he indeed contributed hugely to its philosophical and knowledge base.
1883: according to him “the transmission of disease and infection is possible only when the foreign matter is present in the system”
The doctrine of the unity and oneness of all disease was explained by Louis Kunhe.

Books written by Louis Kunhe

The new science of healing in 1891
The science of facial expression in 1895.
Neo naturopathy
Facial diagnosis
The new curative treatment of disease.

His great book, “the new science of healing” which in the original German language passed through more than sixty editions, has been translated in over sixty languages of the world.

In India Shri D. Venkat Chelapati Sharma propogated Kuhne’s treatment in south India by translating his books in Telugu language in about 1894.
Shri Shroti Kishan Swaroop greatly popularized Kuhne’s method in north India by translating this book into Hindi and Urdu languages in 1904.
This gave a wide propagation to this system
Mahatma Gandhi was so much impressed by Kuhne’s book that he opened a Nature cure center at Uruli Kanchan (Poona) in 1946 and himself acted as the physician in charge.

International Establishment

On October 10th, 1883 he opened the ‘Lousi Kunhe international establishment for the science of healing without medicine and operation at Leipzig.
The sanitarium was rebuilt in 1892, 1901, 1904.
In 1891, he published, the Neo science of healing.
In 1946, Gandhi under his influence established a nature cure center at Uruli Kanchan, Pune.

Concept of Diet

He considered raw food to be the most digestible and nutritious.
Kuhne advocated a vegetarian diet and long before raw food was considered healthy, he also considered cooked foods as less optimal.
According to Kunhe, all kinds of processing of food like cooking, smoking, salting, pickling and putting vinegar affects the digestibility of the food. And in terms of vitality are inferior to the foods which are consumed in its natural form.

Unity of disease, unity of cure

Kuhne discovered that there were many manifestations of disease but only 1 cause for all of them. In treating disease, kuhne also determined that just as there was only 1 cause for disease, there was 1 cure for disease.
Called the “unity of disease” and “unity of cure”, this seemingly oversimplified concept of disease and cure had at its core immensely valuable tenets that actually worked clinically.
The last chapter in The New Science of Healing comprises 133 cases providing proof that Kunhe’s theories had merit.
It is important to note that Henry Lindlahr constructed his nature cure philosophy and his theories principally by borrowing from the work of Kunhe and expanding them in his own.
Lindlahr’s use of many of the same terms used by Kunhe lead a strong foundation for nature cure, and for naturopathic medicine.
The accessibility and approach of Lindlahr’s books had an immense impact on the traditional roots of early naturopathic and philosophy in America.

Facial Diagnosis

Louis Kuhne now set about studying the relation of various accumulation to the disease that followed as weil as the diagnostic value of the former.
All encumbrance that is the deposition of the fatty or effete material are either front, back or side encumbrance.

Front Encumbrance

Front encumbrance concerns mainly the front portions of the body.
With front encumbrance, the neck is usually toofull in front, and the face enlarged and clumsy.
Sometimes it is only the mouth that protrudes; the foreign matter having settled there alone.
The facial boundary line or jaw-line, is always a characteristic one. This is the line which sharply defines the face from the neck.
In a normal person, it runs directly from the chin, outlining the jaw, up to the ear.
In cases of front encumbrance, however, this natural boundary line of the face is either pushed back, or more or less obliterated. The deviation from the normal is in direct proportion to the degree of encumbrance
If front encumbrance predominates, the face looks bloated, and a fatty cushion may deposit in the forehead.
The neck is also subject to encumbrance- lumps forming on the side, under the chin, and the head cannot readily be turned or throw back.
In front encumbrance, the whole front of the body even down to the legs, is affected,
It is not always correct that the abnormal size of the abdomen is due to unwanted toxins deposited internally or externally and it indicates any disease.

Side encumbrance

It is present in neck or on the either side of the body, the encumbered side then appearing uneven and large than the other.
Kuhne suggested that this is frequently caused by the habit of sleeping on one side- the morbid material in the body having a tendency to follow the law of gravity.

Back encumbrance

Back encumbrance is considered the most serious of all, as indicating a disease condition more deep seated and of longer standing than any other form of encumbrance.
The back of the head and especially the nape line is particularly liable to this form of encumbrance.
Whenever a person’s neck, then instead of curving in from the back of the head and then out again to the body, descend more or less straight (this part being filled out with gross, puffy looking flesh)

Universal encumbrance

Besides these modes of encumbrance, there is also the mixed or universal encumbrance in which the body is throughout more or less evenly encumbered with effete material.
This is the most serious of all.
Other considerations must also be taken into account in this connection. The size of the accumulation is of course of cardinal importance, the greater the encumbrance, the graver the disease.
The texture is also of very great importance.
So long as the encumbrance is soft, it is easily and certainly cured or removed but “when the tissue begin to shrink and harden, recovery becomes more doubtful”.
As a result of the vast series of experiments and observations made by him, kuhne by simply observing the character and location of the encumbrance could determine with great accuracy the character of the disease.

The One Treatment

Kunhe with his experience said that the seat of all the toxin matter is the abdomen
From the abdomen, the toxins may spread to other parts of the body
Thus, this area is to be given utmost priority
For this, he introduced a treatment called, “massage Sitz Bath”
In this treatment the patient takes sitz bath with cold water and rubs the abdomen.
Kunhe believed that this cools the abdomen and also stimulates various nerves centres related to abdomen.
Maximum nerve centres can be stimulated by giving treatment to this area
Kunhe also experienced this treatment on himself before promoting to others or his patients
When he was taking sitz bath in the sun and accidently rubbed his abdomen, he could see small lumps in the abdomen.
The lumps increased with rubbing and at the same time Kunhe felt good.
This his how he discovered massaging of the area with sitz bath.
The friction sitz bath is the most original method of Kunhe.
The kunhe’s Sitz bath was followed by Vapour baths in which the patient was wrapped in a woollen blanket in a specialized apparatus

Summary

Kuhne defines disease as the presence of foreign matter in the body.
This the body tries to expel and get rid of in various ways design by nature- through the lungs in the form of exhalation, through the stomach and bowel by vomiting and diarrhoea, through the kidney as urine, through the skin as a violent perspiration or in the form of ulcers and open sores.
In this way what we have so far been calling disease are in reality the effort of nature in various forms to get rid of the one disease- the foreign matter.