Terrain Medicine

Biological Terrain - The Body's internal garden — "An outdoor garden needs balanced soil, water and sunshine. Our own internal garden needs a balanced ecology..."

At Healing Arts Center we would empower Holistic Health and Wellness thru wisdom, understanding, and encouraging balance and harmony for the internal environment of the body.

This following article is to provide a more in-depth perspective:

"Biological terrain" is a concept that harkens back to the work of Drs Claude Bernard and Antoine Béchamp, contemporaries of Louis Pasteur. While Pasteur was formulating his germ theory of medicine where all disease is seen as being caused by "germs" introduced as a pathogenic factor from "outside" of the body,  Bernard and Béchamp formulated the theory that whether a germ was actually able to cause illness or not was actually determined to a great degree by its environment - the internal "biological terrain."

Some of the variables that determine the biological terrain can be measured in the blood, urine, and/or saliva: pH level, oxidative stress levels (re: antioxidants), mineral balance, healthy bacteria levels, heavy metal concentrations, and hydration level, to mention a few. An unbalanced, or unhealthy, biological terrain encourages bacterial, viral, or fungal life forms that can further poison the terrain.

Healthy Biological Terrain - The Basis of Overall Good Health

The difference between Pasteur's early belief and Béchamp's was that Pasteur thought of the 'bad germs' as external invaders, where Béchamp considered them to be natural inhabitants of the body's ecosystem. He felt they had the 'pleomorphic' ability to 'change' depending on the balance or imbalance in the body's internal environment.(Modern science is finally recognizing this to be true in many instances.)

In the end, just prior to his death after years of opposing Béchamp’s ideas, in way of confession, Pasteur stated: "I was wrong, Béchamp was right – Le Microbe n’est rien... Le Milieu C’est tout! [The Microbe is nothing... the Terrain is all!]"

Dr Enderlein and Homeopathic/Isopathic Remedies

At the turn of the twentieth century, Dr. Gunther Enderlein (1872 - 1968) followed the research of Béchamp and painstakingly described, through his expertise with the Darkfield Microscope, in detail, the description and theory of the developmental "stages" of microbial forms, including their dependence on the terrain in which they develop.

Eventually Enderlein developed isopathic and homeopathic remedies that have profound effects upon lineages of developing microbes. Although these remedies were natural and "probiotic" they have profound effects and in many cases more powerful effects than antibiotics on microbes and their toxins in the body. They certainly have effects more harmonious for the overall balance and health of the body. His remedies allow the microbes and their building blocks to either be brought into a cooperative harmony in the body or to be naturally eliminated from the system by the body's organs of excretion.

Parallels with Chinese Medicine

It is interesting and beautiful to me that biological terrain theories coincide and seem to run directly parallel to Chinese medical theory that has been tested in it's efficacy for thousands of years! They both recognize and affirm that health is established by bringing and keeping the body's systems in balance. Disease states are caused by imbalance and vulnerability in the underlying terrain. The modern medical approach addresses 'end results' and symptoms, as does Chinese Medicine and Terrain Medicine, but it is not able to address satisfactorily the cause of the disease state which ultimately must be addressed and corrected to return the body to optimal and true health.

Bozeman Acupuncture Healing Arts Center and "Terrain Medicine"

At our Bozeman Acupuncture Healing Arts Center, we seek to address the health of the individual's whole body, and the harmony, overall health, and strength of the individual's 'Biological Terrain'.

We like to foster the Art of Listening to the body, to its Wisdom. We seek to educate and promote understanding, and we promise to take the time necessary to do this.

Darkfield Microscopy

I like to have Darkfield microscopy available as an educational and communication tool for the benefit of our clients. It can be used to observe the overall condition and health of the blood. Although it is not used for "diagnosis," it is an excellent educational adjunct to our regular Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Holistic medicine diagnosis. It allows a window into observing the overall health of the blood, and thereby the body.

Darkfield microscopes differ from a "regular" microscope in that regular microscopes use an illumination system that requires staining for observing a specimen, thereby killing or damaging the "living" nature of the specimen. Whereas with the Dark Field Microscope cells and tissue can be observed with just light refraction without the cell specimen going through the dying process. You are able to fully witness the Cells and their Terrain in the fully "Living" state!