In her book, Béchamp or Pasteur? A Lost Chapter in the History of Biology, Ethel Douglas Hume cites an observation by Florence Nightingale, the famous pioneer of nursing, who worked long hours in sick wards. As she observed people’s symptoms, she noticed them changing spontaneously form one “disease” to another. As a result of her observations, she wrote: “The specific disease doctrine is the grand refuge of weak, uncultured, unstable minds, such as now rule in the medical profession. There are no specific diseases; there are specific disease-conditions.” What this means is that a single underlying condition can bring about a variety of outward signs and symptoms, depending on the individual. You see, this is so logical and explains a lot. But the specific disease doctrine, like a plague itself, infests the power structure of mainstream Western medicine.
Hume’s book is a masterwork of history. It carefully verifies the details of the life and research of Antoine Béchamp (1816-1908): Master of Pharmacy, Doctor of Science, Doctor of Medicine, Professor of Medical Chemistry and Pharmacy, Fellow and Professor of Physics and Toxicology, Professor of Biological Chemistry, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. In spite of the historical and scientific importance and many accomplishments of Béchamp, relatively few people are aware of him. His story is a prime example of genius and profound discoveries reaping ignorance. This usually happens when information threatens the statues quo or special interests.
Béchamp attained so many achievements that it took eight pages of a scientific journal to list them when he died. Among many other things, he saved the French silk industry form devastation by silkworms (although some historically incorrect publications attribute this to Pasteur). Also, he clearly described the process of fermentation for what it is: a process of digestion by microscopic beings. He was the first to assert that the blood is not a liquid, but a flowing tissue. And he developed a cheap process for the production of a chemical (aniline) which was the foundation of the dye industry.
His biological work might then have revolutionized medicine with profound insight into the nature of life. But, in a political world, he found himself up against a skillful politician with wealthy connections – Louis Pasteur. Unfortunately for himself and the world, Béchamp was a man of science and not of politics. According to Hume’s book, Pasteur, a chemist with no education in life sciences, repeatedly plagiarized Béchamp’s work, distorted it, and submitted it to the French Academy of Science as his own! This accusation is supported by dates of entry in the annals of the Academy (Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences). Provocation for this activity may have come when Béchamp solved the silkworm problem and saved the day right under the nose of Pasteur, who had been commissioned to solve it. The whole story is too complex to tell here, but he earned the undying ingratitude and hate of the apparently vindictive chemist. Ultimately, the well-connected manipulator and plagiarist “won the day” in a world and a scientific community content to be swayed by superficiality.
In Hume’s book, Béchamp is said to have stated the following in regard to germ theory: “There is no doctrine so false that it does not contain some particle of truth. It is thus with microbian doctrines.” He is later quoted, “Above all, men of the world are carried away by a specious easy doctrine, all the more applicable to vague generalities and vague explanations in that it is badly based upon proved and tried scientific demonstrations.” In other works, although they were drawing the right conclusions from scientific demonstrations, these demonstrations were based upon a false premise. What makes the germ theory so dangerous is that it seems so obviously true. But it is true only secondarily, as we shall see.
Pasture made his theories seem correct by promoting the practice of injecting animals. In fact, Pasteur was responsible in large part for the onslaught of animal experimentation in medical research. (One note here: though animal experiments are used as references in this book, this is done to appease doubters and professionals who live by this sort of thing, but it is by no means a sanction.)
Pasteur used preparations made from the diseased tissues of previously sick animals, thus making the injected ones sick. This gave the appearance that a germ caused a disease, when in fact these preparations were extremely poisonous. This is not a scientific procedure, but simply demonstrates the fact that you can make someone sick by poisoning their blood. The attentive reader will see the errors here: first, Pasteur was confusing disease with its symptoms. Second, the method of injection can by no means be said to duplicate a natural “infection.” Based on his theory of microzymas, Béchamp warned emphatically against such direct and artificial invasion of the blood.
Thirty years prior to the rise of monomorphism, Béchamp brought his attention to tiny “molecular granulations” found in body cells, which other observers had noted before him. They had been scantily defined, and no one had identified their status or function. After 10 years of careful experimentation, Béchamp brought to the world in 1866 the profound revelation that the granules were living elements. He renamed them microzymas, meaning “small ferments.” During the following 13 years, Béchamp, with his devoted co-worker, Professor Estor, developed and refined the Theory of Microzymas. The essence of this theory is that the microzymas, an independently living element, exists within all living things, and is both the builder and recycler of organisms. It inhabits cells, the fluid between cells, the blood and the lymph.
Béchamp’s microzymas is capable of multiplying, and, like Enderlein’s profit, it reflects either health or disease. In a stare of health, the microzymas act harmoniously and fermentation occurs normally, i.e., beneficially. But in the condition of disease, microzymas become disturbed and change their form and function. They evolve into microscopic forms (germs) that reflect the disease and produce the symptoms, becoming what Béchamp called “morbidly evolved” microzymas. Again, this occurs due to modification of our terrain by an inverted way of eating and living. Béchamp observed granules linking together and “lengthening into bacteria.” He therefore observed, explored and expressed the concept of pleomorphism as its earliest, and certainly its most eloquent, spokesman.
Thus, being at the foundation of organization in the body, microzymian transformations build up cells and eventually the whole organism in which they exist. However, as noted, their function is twofold, and they are poised to recycle the physical body upon death. I describe the microzymas as matter which cannot be created or destroyed and is the precursor to all living organized matter. Now we can answer the question: “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” The answer is neither: it is the microzymas. Our Creator describes the microzymas simply as: “from dust you are and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). This will be further discussed below.
The microzymas is a ferment: a living element capable of fermenting sugar. This is a digestive (chemical) process carried on by enzymes (from a Greek word meaning “to ferment”), the directors of chemical reactions. There are various classifications of fermentations, based on the final products. Alcohol is one such product, so there are alcoholic fermentations. There are also lactic fermentations, resulting in the production of lactic acid. This kind of fermentation happens in muscle, creating the fatigue and pain we’re all familiar with. Béchamp saw the life process as a continual cellular breakdown by microzymian fermentation – even in a healthy body. Of course, renewal is happening as well, which is also being done by the microzymas, as we’ll see. Where illness is concerned, my position is that in an unbalanced terrain, fermentative breakdown is not only accelerated, but is taken over by morbid evolutions, including bacteria, yeast, fungus, and mold. These are the upper development forms of the microzymas, which feed on vital body substances. This results in degenerative disease symptoms, as we shall also see.
Not only fermentation, but nearly all chemical reactions in the body are done, or controlled, by enzymes. Enzymes are catalysts – substances that assist chemical processes. They are complex proteins and perhaps the most amazing body substances. They quickly accomplish complex reactions at body temperature that would take days in a lab with very special equipment, or would be impossible altogether. But here is an astounding aspect of Béchamp’s discoveries: it is possible that enzymes create, or themselves become, microorganisms.
This explains a lot, because it is known that enzymes take part in repairing damaged genes – the elements that define and control our heredity and function. (Béchamp suggested that microzymas coagulate to become genetic material.) Enzymes, then, are quite magical and mysterious substances. Think about something that can repair the molecule that controls what you are! Of course, there is always the possibility that behind every enzyme is a microzymas. In one sense, the gene may be seen as the tool of the microzymas. The mechanism for repair could be that enzymes construct or become repair proteins, which are then spliced into the gene. There is a good possibility that this is what “viruses” actually are – repair proteins, or structures that do gene repair, not forms that cause symptoms. Most viruses are made of a core of genetic material surrounded by a protein coat. The repair process has probably been misconstrued by mainstream bioscience as a disease process, and its tools, the repair proteins, have been called viruses, particularly retroviruses. Retroviruses have the ability to insert themselves into our DNA (genetic material). Supposedly, this is what the retrovirus HIV does. Observers with a certain bias could easily assume the thing shouldn’t be there. Such is the kind of error to which the conditioned scientific mind can be led by germ theory. But maybe viruses are good guys, not bad!
Since viruses don’t have a reproductive mechanism, they must use the host cell to reproduce. But perhaps the reason they can’t replicate outside the cell is that they’re not intended to. Perhaps something in the cell is producing or becoming a virus for a reason. There is the possibility that a virus may have a complex of microzymas in the center. And, as with bacteria, monomorphic medical science offers no explanation as to where these forms come from in the first place. Pleomorphism, however, easily suggests and answer.
To speculate further, what if the disease condition weakens our enzyme system so that “improper” repair structures result? Since enzymes (and vitamins) must have minerals to function, even a simple mineral deficiency could be involved in the failure of gene repair. A faulty protein structure may still have the ability to get into the DNA, but it may “have a screw loose.” If so, it would fail to fulfill properly its original purpose, and possibly instigate another morbid situation in the cell as well. Another possibility is that even if the repair structure is correct, nutritional deficiency or depletion of the enzyme potential may prevent proper function.
To make matters more interesting, once a protein structure is floating around, it could evolve into a higher morbid form itself, depending on circumstances. It may evolve into a bacterium. This has been well documented in the lost, ignored, suppressed chapter in the history of medical biology. And in a compromised terrain, today’s bacterium (which can be bad enough itself) can be tomorrow’s terrain-poisoning yeast, fungus, or mold.
Pasteur denied that bacteria could change their form. Only the unchanging, specific germs of the air were the cause of disease, he said. Béchamp, on the other hand, never denying that the air carried germs, maintained that airborne forms were not necessary for disease. So you see, the well-connected politician wished to establish that we must be invaded (and therefore be protected by profitable vaccination). But the true scientist showed that an independently living element, which could morbidly evolve, already exists in all cells of the body, and showed evidence that it is all that is needed for the appearance of symptogenic organisms.
For us now, this is the important thing: whatever that living element may or may not be, the body naturally has within it the factors and potential necessary to produce the symptoms of disease, including microorganisms. This may seem a little scary, but it is empowering at the same time. It means we also have the innate ability to become, and to stay, healthy. So, how’s that for a gem of a theory?
Whether Pasteur or Béchamp is correct may still be an issue for some people. It does seem unusual, though, that Antoine’s name, and the controversy itself, have been omitted from history, medical and biology books – even encyclopedias. Given the magnitude and number of Béchamp’s discoveries, it is fair to ask if this omission is more than oversight. What is someone afraid of?
Based on my personal research and that of others, it seems that the historical/scientific “assassination” of Antoine Béchamp resulted in medical science drawing conclusions from a half-truth. This has meant untold misery for the human race, especially in the West. The resulting concept of diseases as entities that attack us is highly questionable (even without Béchamp) and is a major block to resolving health care issues today. The odd thing is, Pasteur himself was reported to have admitted on his deathbed that, “Claude Bernard was right – the microbe is nothing, the terrain is everything.” But, even as he was dying, he would not give credit for the demonstration of this fact to whom it was due – Antoine Béchamp.