No current medical text defines a scientific, medical, or philosophical theory of cure. I have just published the book, A Theory of Cure on Amazon in print and Kindle format. The theory covers the three fundamental or elementary types of illness elements and their associated cure actions.
As I wrote it, over a period of 5 years, I gradually became aware that cures are everywhere. Why don’t we already know this? I’ve had dozens of colds. All cured. I’ve had measles twice. Both cured. I’ve had influenza, appendicitis, and mumps. Cured. But cured is not defined. As I grew older, I had a hernia. Cured. Cures are everywhere – if we know how to look for them. Is it any wonder we can’t find a cure for cancer? No. We can’t even recognize a common cold cured. Millions of people are “RECOVERED” from COVID-19. But, not one is cured?
The book A Theory of Cure has a long history, It is a result of a long series of blog posts, research articles and books:
In early 2015, while working on an update to the book Introduction to the Arts and Sciences of Health and Healthiness, I realized that I did not have a useful definition of cure or cured. I began to search through many medical texts, including the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Harrison’s Internal Medicine, and Lange’s Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment. Not one contains a medical definition of cure. I began collecting definitions of cure from dictionaries, but there was little consistency.
In June 2016, I was in the basement of a local used bookstore when I noticed a used copy of Webster’s New World Medical Dictionary 2008. I turned to the letter C and quickly saw there was no medical definition for CURE. The next day, I visited a local Chapter’s bookstore, where I checked five different medical dictionaries. Two had definitions of cure – those matched definitions from their non-medical editions. Three did not contain a definition of cure. One of them defined incurable, using the word cure, but did not define cure.
I began an in-depth search for a medical definition of cure. In my local university, I examined the Merck Manual, 8th edition from 1950. On the internet, I found the first edition of the Merck Manual, published in 1899, the Merck Manual of Materia Medica. While in Australia, I sought out and collected definitions of cure from the Oxford Nursing Dictionary (not present), Barron’s Dictionary of Medical Terms, Black’s Medical Dictionary. I could not find a useful medical definition of cure. I also searched through more medical references, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and Ferri’s Clinical Advisor. Neither defines cure. I went back in time to search the writings of Hippocrates, and forward to WEBMD.COM – both via the internet. It gradually became clear that no scientific definition of cure exists.
So I began to write one. At first, I worked to summarize and understand what I did have – not much.
In June 2018, after extensive work while travelling in Peru, I published A Calculus of Curing: Cure, Cures, Curing, and Cured. It took about 8 months of writing, researching and editing – almost 300 pages. Too big. I needed a smaller version.
In July 2018, I published the paper A Definition and Exploration of Cure, freely available on Academia.edu.
In January 2019, I published The Elements of Cure, a smaller book, based on the same concepts, with some additional analysis and research. I managed to get it down to half the size – just over 150 pages. Due to what I had learned in the interim, I had to go back and update A Calculus of Curing.
In November 2019, I published the paper A Theory of Cure, a much more concise and comprehensive theory of cure, with many research references, also available for free on Academia.edu. I continued to blog and explore the concepts of cure, leading to a clear concept of “present cause“. To cure is to address the present cause of an illness. Past causes cannot be accessed to cure. This knowledge forced me to go back and update each book and paper.
Then… COVID struck. I spent 8 or 9 months researching COVID-19, from a cure perspective – something no-one else was working on. Cured is still not medically defined for COVID-19. I set out to better understand the concepts of cure, by relating them to a complex disease. This work led to a better understanding. The paper A Theory of Cure and the book The Elements of Cure needed to be updated again with a new understanding. Unfortunately, Amazon blocked publication of the COVID book, rationalizing that I was not “an authority on COVID.” They didn’t notice that there are no “authorities on cure“. This blockage frustrated me, and gave me some time to think. I did publish the book: COVID-19: Defining Cured, on Google Play books. I also re-re-published the book The Elements of Cure on Google Play books and on Amazon, under the title A Science of Cure, in early 2021, with some changes to match the new title, in hope that the new title would gather more attention.
This work and research prompted me to go back and analyze the paper A Theory of Cure. I realized it needed a re-working. A lot of what I learned since it’s initial publication was missing or poorly explained. I decided that the re-write was too big to be a paper, and began work on the book A Theory of Cure.
A Theory of Cure has now been published as a book, on Amazon, in print and Kindle formats. It is the summary I tried to write from A Calculus of Curing in 2018. At just under 50 pages, it clearly defines the concepts of cure, from a general perspective, not limited to medicine. The same concepts can be applied to studying cures of flat tires, trees, and our economy. In summary, “break the illness down into curable elements cure each element one at a time by addressing its present cause“. In theory, it’s almost trivial.
To learn the truth about cure, we need to practice curing.
to your health, tracy
Author: A Theory of Cure, February 2021
A Science of Cure, November 2020
The Elements of Cure, January 2019
A Calculus of Curing, June 2018
COVID-19: Defining Cured, October 2020
Paper: A Theory of Cure, November 2019
Paper: A Definition and Exploration of Cure, June 2018
