Pulmonary tuberculosis (or Consumption) is one of the most dreaded diseases. The cause of the disease is described as infection due to tubercle bacillus, which affects the lungs and slowly starts consuming their vitality.
Infection apart, the real cause which leads to germ development is devitalization, that is, loss of vitality due to deficiency in the taking of foods. The orthodox belief is that the cow’s milk has greater affinity for germ infection, but the main culprit is the deficiency of calcium in the food.
Treatment
In Nature-cure treatment, however, the use of milk, being rich in calcium is given great importance. To begin with, the patient should be kept in fresh air or in a shade.
If his bed is in a room, it should be well ventilated and equally airy. The patient should be kept segregated from other members of the family. For 3 or 4 days he should be kept on milk diet and then fruit and milk diet for six to eight weeks.
A 40-days milk-course (or Dugdha Kalpa) is also advised, as explained for the treatment of stomach ulcers. All Nature-cure applications and precautions as described there, should be followed.
Pleurisy
It is the inflammation of the pleura, that is, the membrane covering the walls of the chest cavity, in which are the lungs located or contained. It generally develops due to wrong treatment of pneumonia through drugs, which suppress or prevent the elimination of toxic matter causing harm to the pleura.
The treatment is almost the same as described in the case of pneumonia, which should be followed also for the cure of pleurisy.