Plan de Aseguramiento de la Calidad para Juegos CNeuro

(1859-1936)

Adolf Just was an enthusiastic follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and his philosophy of Naturism. He adopted Rousseau's battle cry "Return to Nature!" as the title of his main work and filled the book with statements reminiscent of Rousseau.

Man originally came from the hand of the Creator absolutely healthy and good, without any blemish in body and soul (Just 1903, 1).

This corresponds to Rousseau's famous words at the beginning of Emile (1762): "Tout est bien sortant des mains de l'auteur des choses, tout degenere entre les mains de l'homme"

(Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man) (Rousseau 1979, 37). Just shared Rousseau's contempt for civilization and science and indulged in the same romantic idealization of nature.

The voices of nature have always been true to man, but science is the cunning serpent in paradise which deceived man from the start, led him astray, and gave him false instruction.

Men who no longer listen to the voice of nature become the victims of a thousand different diseases and miseries. But the creatures of pure nature on the other hand, the animals of our forests, are free from sickness and from everything else as well that corresponds to the sins and vices of mankind.

In all cases, and in all diseases, man can recover and again become happy only by a true return to nature; man must today strenuously endeavor, in his mode of living, to heed again the voice of nature, and thus choose the food that nature has laid before him from the beginning, and to bring himself again into the relation with water, light and air, earth, etc., that nature originally designed for him (Just ibid., 4-6).

Just strongly influenced Benedict Lust, who translated and published an early edition of Return to Nature! and modeled his naturopathic sanitarium in the scenic Ramapo Mountains of New Jersey after Just's Jungborn in the Hartz mountains of Germany. Lust added a chapter about his "Yungborn" to Return to Nature!.

In its course of development, slowly casting off all its former defects, the Nature Cure Method has attained the stage of the uttermost simplicity and perfection in the Jungborn. I founded and established the Jungborn according to views that are fully and particularly described in the book "Return to Nature,"

and indeed from the first day of its appearance it met with a most enthusiastic reception (ibid., 297).

The American Yungborn ("Jungborn" means "Fountain of Youth") offered the same facilities and therapy program as its German counterpart; parks with light-air cottages for sun, air and rain baths, earth baths, earth compresses and the Just fruit diet. On the last pages of Return to Nature!, Lust advertised his naturopathic health store as the American depot of Jungborn articles, porous reform clothing, air shoes, clay packs and Jungborn Bread. He visited Just and his Jungborn in 1906 and 1926, and "each time it was an inspiration to us"

(Lust 1936, 69). On his last visit, he presented a lifetime membership in the American

Naturopathic Association to Just, and conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Naturopathy.

Adolf Just was born in Lüthorst, near Hannover in North Germany, August 8, 1859; the oldest of twelve brothers and sisters, five of whom died in childhood. His father was an innkeeper and small farmer and had great difficulty supporting his large family. Young Adolf grew up in the isolation of a simple country setting attending the village school. Prepared by the village pastor, a great nature enthusiast and follower of Rousseau, he later attended secondary school in Goslar.

Adolf was a lively, imaginative child, full of love for nature, but also beset by inner struggles. When older, his oversensitive nature led to attacks of neurasthenia and possible episodes of psychosis with religious hallucinations. "If the career of most nature cure practitioners is determined by the experience of physical illness," wrote Brauchle, "then the driving force behind Just's return to nature was psychic distress. The predominance of his own psychic difficulties gives his nature cure system quite a special flavor' (Brauchle 1951, 297).

In 1882, Just passed his high school examination in Goslar, but was unable to study of mathematics as he had hoped to, due to his poor health. Seeking a practical career, he became an apprentice in a bookstore in Leipzig, the German publishing center. However, a nervous breakdown forced him to return home and he sought recovery by doing simple farm tasks.

This strengthened him enough so he could start his own book business in Brunswick, maintaining it successfully for twelve years.

However, he suffered from repeated bouts of neurasthenia. Medicine proved useless, and a fattening diet combined with daily warm baths made his condition worse.

In my sufferings I naturally consulted, first, the old-school physicians. I called on celebrated doctors and university professors, but they could not help me. In the direst distress and despair I finally lost my high opinion of science.

What did I care for science; in my despair I wanted help and nothing but help (Just 1903, 2).

Only the Priessnitz wet sheet packs, recommended by a psychiatrist, gave him relief. At the same time he heard about Kneipp and started to walk barefoot. While this had a relaxing effect on his brain, the Kneipp cold gushes were too strong for his nerves. He used the Kuhne friction sitz bath with soothing effect, but found Kuhne's fat-free vegetarian diet to have a deleterious effect. Then he discovered Rikli's light and air cures which later played an important role in his own system. But, since none of these methods produced a lasting cure, Just was compelled, like Kuhne, to create his own system.

I placed my greatest hope in the nature cure method . . . . But finally my confidence was undermined and shaken. The realization of my hopes for a complete recovery was still delayed. Besides, I saw so much quarreling and controversy among the individual champions of the nature cure method (ibid., 3).

Finally Just concluded that he could only recover through a direct and intimate contact with nature. With a few like-minded people he attempted to live a truly natural life in the von Pawel Woods near Brunswick, trying out on himself all the future Jungborn cure methods.

Here he built his first light-and-air hut where he spent many nights. He also went on long barefoot hikes into the Hartz mountains, taking his special bath in a babbling creek. One of his early patients who accompanied him remembered:

He was a keen observer of people, animals and plants. He loved the silence and the solitude of the forest; he took lonely hikes for days observing fruit trees, shrubs, the wallowing of wild boars in the mud and other such events as nature had to offer. He drew quite a few conclusions from animal behavior for the treatment of illness and later announced them to the world with great courage.

His fellow-citizens jeered at Just as "the crazy bookseller " (R. Just 1934, 86).

The wonderful results of his return to nature elated him.

I soon recognized how wisely and easily Nature communicates her rules and prescriptions to him who harkens at her voice. When I arranged my mode of life according to her after such a long time of sickness and anguish, I perceived a real feeling of health, strength and freshness of youth, happiness and joy of life, repose and peace of the soul; a beatitude as never divined before. I had found the fountain of health (Just 1910, 643).

His recovery inspired him to write Return to Nature, and to establish a sanitarium in the Hartz mountains, in the beautiful valley of the Ecker, between Harzburg and Ilsenburg.

Here was the opportunity given to exhausted and suffering humanity to use the remedies of Nature exactly according to her prescriptions for a real, thorough strengthening of its health and the curing of its maladies. An entire return to nature was made possible here. . . . I called this institute "Jungborn," after the legendary fountain of youth (Just 1910, 643).

Just encountered many difficulties before he was able to open the Jungborn as a "Health Resort and School for Natural Healing and Living" on June 21, 1896.

From the first day on he had to fight against many strong opposing forces. . . . Moreover, banks did not give any credit for this "dubious matter." However, in an almost superhuman effort he prevailed against a world of enemies and

overcame all obstacles which were put in his path. (Rudolf Just 1934, 70-71).

He published the first edition of Return to Nature! in celebration of this event. The book was a guide to the nature cure methods practiced by Just, and at the same time an indictment of modern science and its alienation from nature and a manifesto for the return to nature as the only salvation from the ills of modern civilization. Following Kneipp's My Water Cure in 1886 and Kuhne's The New Science of Healing in 1893, it was the last nature cure best-seller with worldwide success. It went through many editions and, according to Lust, was translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian and Polish. "It has brought to millions of people throughout the world a message of health and happiness, and has prolonged the life of thousands" (Lust 1936, 69).

Lust's translation of the fourth German edition in 1903 was followed by H. A. Nesbitt's translation of the seventh German edition, published in England in 1912 and double in size.

The earlier edition was less burdened with philosophical reflections, polemics, and quotes from the Bible and Goethe. The later edition suggests Just was trying to find support for his nature religion in the teachings of Christianity, where his tormented soul sought peace:

My great longing drove me towards real healing and redemption. I therefore plunged deeper and deeper into the secrets of nature and of God . . . . I earnestly turned against the original evil, the just cause of all sickness and trouble: sin. I clung with my whole heart and will to Jesus the Saviour, and thus came for the first time into true communion with God (Just 1912, 433).

Unlike nature doctors before him, Just was not only concerned with health reform but also with the reform of other aspects of human life which he wanted to bring into harmony with nature. In a special issue of the "Jungborn-Blatter"

honoring Just's 75th birthday, his brother Rudolf wrote:

How greatly this man toiled! Night after night he wrote on the new editions of his books. Whatever the issues of importance to the public welfare were, he confronted them all: disease, immunization, vivisection, agriculture, alcohol, nutrition, clothing, housing and education (R. Just 1934, 73).

Just condemned everything that was not in accordance with a natural life: polluting automobiles, closed-in modern housing, deforming styles of dress and modern chemical agriculture. For every problem of life, he tried to find a natural and simple solution, including funeral procedures.

In nature, animals who die are devoured by beast of prey. Their bodies thus serve as food for other creatures . . . . I believe that the best and most natural way of proceeding is to give back the corpses of our dead to the earth without any coffin. The body would then dissolve into earth in the simplest and quickest way, without the evil arising from the process of decay, such as injurious gases (Just 1912, 200).

His comments about education speak to the heart of any restless student.

Much of our completely useless talking, disputing, writing, studying, meditating, investigating, etc., ought to be discontinued. Instead, we ought to approach Nature, devote ourselves to the pleasures she offers, practice brotherly love, and in this way gain joys and rich blessedness which will always promote health and elevate mind and soul (Just 1903, 260).

His greatest contempt was directed against medical science, especially vivisection and vaccination:

It seems to me that vivisection more than anything else tramples under foot all the nobler impulses of man . . . .

I have frequently shown how all vaccine poisons . . . destroy more and more all health among men, and are largely the cause of the misery that is abroad in the world (Just 1903, 256-257).

He also rejected any form of examination and diagnosis, because they might instill a state of unrest and excitement in the patient:

My observations of so many invalids have forced upon me the conviction of the injury and danger caused by diagnosis . . . . The patient can never become really healthy till he has entirely forgotten every diagnosis of his illness (Just 1903, 28).

Nor did he have high regard for homeopathy.

The homeopathic drops are quite innocuous, but they leave no room for nature and God, and in this lies the danger of homeopathy (Just 1912, 298).

Even the old nature cure methods did not escape his criticism if they used the forces of nature only as drugs.

I do not wish to consider water, light, air, earth and diet as a kind of medicine. My task is principally to point out how men may break with so many absurdities and unnatural proceedings . . . . Men will be astonished how even severe maladies pass away and . . . how the whole of existence may be made easier and more beautiful by a simple natural mode of life (Just 1912, 13-14).

He also rejected warm baths, vapor baths, electric light baths, and massage.

It is especially dangerous when these entirely artificial means are regarded as natural remedies. . . . Men are thus finally deceived and led astray (Just 1912, 59).

Even gymnastics did not meet his approval.

I for my part cannot see anything natural in all this artificial bending, winding, straining, stretching; in these gymnastic feats indoors . . . . To the physical culturists, therefore, I would say: "Return to Nature!" Come forth from your musty, dusty rooms and halls, out into free nature! (Just 1903, 261).

Despite his criticism of the nature cure methods which preceded him, Just's philosophy of health was almost identical to Kuhne's doctrine of the unity of disease and cure. Disease was caused by the introduction of unnatural food into the body. Insufficiently digested, it became "foreign matter" which "enters into fermentation, and becomes the cause of all disease, all pain and suffering of man" (Just 1903, 24). Negative emotional influences could also cause disease by disturbing the nervous and digestive functions and thus contributing to the formation of foreign matter.

The aim of the cure was to lower the internal heat caused by fermentation of foreign matter. This was achieved by the application of cold to the abdomen, and to the sexual organs, the center of the nervous system, and by stimulation of the patient's vitality through water, earth, light, air and correct diet, so it could throw off the foreign matter through the skin, urine and stool. So firm was Just's confidence in the benevolence of nature that he believed acute diseases were favorable healing events which became dangerous only when the patient was shut off from fresh air and treated with suppressive medicines.

Yes, the acute diseases, typhoid fever, cholera, and what not, which are mainly brought on by taking cold, and which are still today terribly dreaded by mankind, are wholly without danger. They prove to be of the greatest benefit when correctly treated (Just 1903, 109).

Just, however, contended that patients could avoid such unpleasant healing crises altogether if they carefully followed his prescriptions.

Among the many young and old people who . . . started going barefooted, taking the new bath in the open, sleeping in an open light-and-air hut or entirely in the open air and on the bare ground, and walking about naked, not one such crisis appeared (Just 1903, 111).

This quote names the important treatment methods used by Just. The natural bath" or

"new bath" strongly resembled Kuhne's friction hip-bath, except that the bather used his bare hands instead of a cloth to rub the body. Just claimed he got the clue for this bath from watching wild animals cool their sexual organs in the mud or water. He boldly stated that the natural bath united most of the nature cure methods of his day such as barefoot walking, light-and-air baths, abdominal compresses, Kneipp douches and massage.

Just followed Rikli's emphasis of the light-and-air bath over the water bath. Since man was born without clothes, Just argued, going naked was fully in accordance with nature:

Going naked temporarily, even in the room with as many open windows as possible, but better still in the open, in the woods, proves of wonderful benefit and efficacy, and is more strengthening than any other means (Just 1903, 55).

Just believed that the first concern of a nature doctor called to a sick room should be to free the patient from bed clothes and take him into the open air. If this was not possible, to let him lie naked in the room with the windows open, from one to three hours in summer and from fifteen to twenty minutes in the winter, even on the coldest days.

The main attraction at the Jungborn was the large, magnificent light-and-air parks with their light-and-air huts and cottages where the patients lived. Built according to Just's design without walls or with only lattice walls, they offered free access to light and air, yet protection against the rain. They were supplied with curtains for stormy weather, and by means of straw and special partitions, could be made habitable even in snowy winter weather. The separate parks for ladies and gentlemen were enclosed by fences and thick bushes where the patients could take their light-and-air baths naked and undisturbed. An early Jungborn patient who later became head of the ladies' park, wrote:

When I arrived, I was completely surprised by a sight which was beyond my imagination. I saw a group of female figures, picturesquely grouped on the meadow, in all shades from the usual light color to pink, Indian bronze and mulatto brown. I hesitated to accept their friendly invitation and to join them but after only an hour, having lost all self-consciousness, I was lying among them with indescribable pleasure . . .

Now and then a rain bath offered a pleasant change. Forgetting all our worries, we lived like children in a paradise, enjoying games, singing and exercises. There were no rules, no system; everyone sought out for himself what would be most beneficial and wholesome, completely giving himself over to Mother Nature (R. Just 1934,89).

Just always emphasized the patient's freedom to choose what suited him or her best. The nature doctor's highest mission was to teach people to be responsible for their own health.

It is of course always easier and pleasanter to let others think for us . . . . But if people wish to pursue a course that will certainly lead them to true health, to the springs of life, each must be his own doctor (Just 1903, 37).

It is of course always easier and pleasanter to let others think for us . . . . But if people wish to pursue a course that will certainly lead them to true health, to the springs of life, each must be his own doctor (Just 1903, 37).