All disease has a single cause, the accumulation of 'foreign matter' (a self-poisoning of the body), and therefore a single cure: there is a unity of disease and a unity of cure, achieved without medicines and without operations.
Kuhne’s foundational claim was a doctrine of unity: that every disease arises from one cause, the accumulation in the body of “foreign matter” (a state of self-poisoning, which he and the period also called toxemia), and that because the cause is one, the cure is one. The book’s full title states the thesis directly: “the doctrine of the unity of diseases forming the basis of a uniform method of cure, without medicines and without operations” (The New Science of Healing). The Facial Diagnosis contents page names the same vocabulary throughout, with chapters on “Variations in the Shape of the Body Resulting from Deposits of Foreign Matter” and on front, side, back, and “Universal Encumbrance.” No endpoint was measured; the claim is mechanism-only.
The claim is recorded as refuted. The single-cause “foreign matter” / self-poisoning framework is a form of the intestinal-autointoxication theory that medicine examined and abandoned: experimental work in the 1910s found that putrefactive products are not absorbed from the gut in harmful quantity, and autointoxication faded from professional acceptance through the 1920s (Whorton, BMJ 2000; Sullivan-Fowler, J Hist Med Allied Sci 1995). Walter C. Alvarez characterized autointoxication as a diagnostic label applied where the real cause was unknown (Bested et al., Gut Pathogens 2013). The older “morbid matter” image on which it draws is classical humoral pathology (Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Humour”), a pre-modern doctrine scientific medicine does not employ. Disease does not have a single cause, and the unity-of-cure conclusion does not follow.
Appears in
Sources
- The New Science of Healing (Die neue Heilwissenschaft) — Kuhne, Louis. The New Science of Healing, or, The doctrine of the unity of diseases forming the basis of a uniform method of cure, without medicines and without operations: an instructor and advisor for the healthy and the sick. Leipzig: [Verlag von Louis Kuhne], 1901. English translation of Die neue Heilwissenschaft. Wellcome Collection catalogue work tcd7vnwe (English ed. 1901; an earlier English printing, work vn998nhd, is dated 1900). German editions published by Verlag von Louis Kuhne, Leipzig; the German scan Internet Archive dieneueheilwiss00kuhngoog is a 1908 printing (status NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT).
- Louis Kuhne's Facial Diagnosis (Gesichtsausdruckskunde) — Kuhne, Louis. Louis Kuhne's Facial Diagnosis. A free and abridged translation with notes by August F. Reinhold, M.A. New York: A. F. Reinhold, 1897. English translation of Gesichtsausdruckskunde. Held by the Library of Congress (item 06038744; record states 'in the public domain'); digitized as Internet Archive item louiskuhnesfaci00kuhn.
- Civilisation and the colon: constipation as the "disease of diseases" — Whorton J. 'Civilisation and the colon: constipation as the "disease of diseases".' *BMJ* 2000;321(7276):1586-9. doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7276.1586. PubMed: 11124189.
- Doubtful Theories, Drastic Therapies: Autointoxication and Faddism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries — Sullivan-Fowler, M. 'Doubtful Theories, Drastic Therapies: Autointoxication and Faddism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.' *Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences* 1995;50(3):364-390. doi:10.1093/jhmas/50.3.364. PubMed: 7665877.
- Intestinal microbiota, probiotics and mental health: from Metchnikoff to modern advances: Part I - autointoxication revisited — Bested AC, Logan AC, Selhub EM. 'Intestinal microbiota, probiotics and mental health: from Metchnikoff to modern advances: Part I - autointoxication revisited.' *Gut Pathogens* 2013;5(1):5. doi:10.1186/1757-4749-5-5. PubMed: 23506618.
- Humour (ancient physiology), Encyclopaedia Britannica — 'Humour.' Encyclopaedia Britannica (ancient physiology entry). The four cardinal humours of early Western physiological theory: blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile).