As was with many Nature Cure of the 18-19th centuries James C. Thomson (1887-1960) came to nature cure when nothing else worked. As a young man he became seriously ill with an acute lung condition (Tuberculosis). He was given three months to live by the hospital and sent home to die. He went to his cousin’s farm with a few popular natural cure books and hoped to cure himself. He succeeded and became a devoted disciple of natural health disciplines.
To expand his education in nature cure Thomson traveled to America. Settling in Battle Creek, Michigan where he worked for McFadden’s natural health sanitarium where fasting and enemas were the main practice. Not satisfied with the long term results of those therapy’s he then moved on to Chicago to Henry Lindlair’s where he found a comprehensive system of natural methods of treatment anchored by philosophy and science.
Thompson became manager of Lindlair’s sanitarium, and then moved on to his own practice in Missouri and finally Florida in the USA. Then he moved back to Scotland and made a name for himself in Scotland. Although persecuted by the medical doctors he became one of the greatest nature cure philosophers of the mid twentieth century. He followed these principles:
o Healing comes from within, not without
o People heal themselves
o Homeopathic remedies
o Herbal remedies
o Nutritional adjustments
o Hydrotherapy
o The body creates sickness to cleanse accumulated toxic material
o Disease is not in separated parts, It expresses symptoms in the parts
Without Thomson natural cures would have been overlooked in Scotland. Thanks to his perseverance and successful outcomes nature cure is still a powerful treatment model in Scotland.