Peritonitis, as Aajonus consistently defined it across dozens of workshops and writings, is a condition involving the perforation and bleeding of the intestines, specifically the small intestines. He described it as an infection of the intestinal lining that can involve perforated, ulcerated, and bleeding intestinal walls, accompanied by severe swelling and gas moving back and forth in the gut, causing excruciating pain far exceeding what would be experienced in an ordinary appendicitis.

He stated explicitly and repeatedly: "Peritonitis is a perforated and bleeding small intestine." In one workshop he elaborated: "The peritonitis was a bleeding and ulcerated intestine. It was swelling and going back and forth in gas and I was excruciating much more than somebody with appendicitis."

He also described it as an acute intestinal infection, calling it in one passage "deadly peritonitis" as the conventional framing, while simultaneously challenging that characterization through his own survival, his girlfriend's survival, and his analysis of medical statistics.

In the context of his terrain theory framework, peritonitis is not a random disease or spontaneous catastrophe, it is the body's response to an accumulation of poisons that have been introduced into the intestinal tissue, causing damage beyond what the body can quietly manage, culminating in perforation and bleeding as the system attempts to cleanse and eliminate the toxic load.

In one workshop he stated: "I had peritonitis, which was a perforated bleeding intestine because of all the medication I was constantly taking." This is the foundational definition, the condition is created by toxic accumulation in the intestinal walls, not by dangerous bacteria that must be destroyed.

He also situated peritonitis within a broader list of intestinal conditions, describing it as one of the possible manifestations when toxins accumulate in the intestinal tract: "If it's in the intestinal tract, it could be IBS, inflammatory bowel disease. It could be Crohn's. It could be colitis, peritonitis, ulcers. Any one of those if it happens in the intestine." (the reference entry), Aajonus simply directed readers to pages 36-43 for the full account of peritonitis, noting at the listing: "Eating a raw diet restores health." This is his complete formal remedy statement in print, the disease is treated by eating a raw diet.

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Aajonus identified multiple specific causes for peritonitis across his various accounts, all rooted in his framework of toxic accumulation damaging the intestinal walls:

The most detailed and frequently repeated cause Aajonus attributed to peritonitis was vaccine damage. He described his own case with specificity:

"Mercury went into my intestine, burned a hole in my intestines, and the formaldehyde and ether, and caused the damage."

He identified the specific poisons in the vaccines as: liquid mercury, liquid aluminum, formaldehyde, ether, and detergent. He stated that every vaccine contains these five basic poisons, and that even those claiming to be mercury-free or thimerosal-free still contain liquid mercury under other names.

He connected the polio vaccine directly to his peritonitis: "After the tetanus shot, the poisons had gone into my intestinal tract and damaged it." In another passage he said the vaccine ingredients "burned a hole in my intestines", meaning the mercury literally cauterized and perforated the intestinal lining, creating the condition that was then misdiagnosed as appendicitis.

He was specific about the timing: "It was about probably 4 days after I had my second polio shot. And I had intestinal cramps that I couldn't move."

In one detailed account he explained why his injury from the vaccine was more severe than it would have been under his normal doctor: "That was because that particular doctor was not the normal doctor that I went to. My father was an inventor for General Electric, military division in Cincinnati, Ohio. So we were taken to his particular, that particular doctor for General Electric, was on vacation when this happened. So I was taken to a different doctor for the first time." The implication is that the different doctor may have administered the vaccine differently or used a different batch.

Aajonus also named ongoing medication use as a root cause of the intestinal damage leading to peritonitis: "I had peritonitis, which was a perforated bleeding intestine because of all the medication I was constantly taking."

The body's inability to process and eliminate medical drugs, combined with the drugs' caustic effect on intestinal tissue, produces the kind of damage that results in perforation.

In his broader framework, Aajonus described peritonitis as the end-stage result of toxin accumulation in intestinal tissue. He explained in one workshop: "The more toxins accumulate, the more breakdown you're going to have in a particular area where those toxins are collecting. And that will be your disease. That will be your named diagnosed disease. If it's in the intestinal tract, it could be IBS, inflammatory bowel disease. It could be Crohn's. It could be colitis, peritonitis, ulcers."

This positions peritonitis not as a suddenly appearing disease but as the result of a progressive accumulation process that has reached a critical threshold in the intestinal region.

In Aajonus's framework, the bacteria associated with peritonitis are not the cause of the condition, they are the body's response to it. The bacteria are present because the body has called them in to help address the damaged, toxic tissue. He consistently opposed antibiotic use in cases of peritonitis on the grounds that destroying these bacteria removes the body's cleanup crew, leaving the toxic damage unaddressed and the system unable to complete the healing process.

This was made explicit in his account of his girlfriend's case: "You take the antibiotics, it destroys digestion, you can't get well, it doesn't make any sense."

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Peritonitis spans multiple philosophical pillars in Aajonus's framework:

Root Cause / Terrain Theory: The foundational claim is that peritonitis results from toxin accumulation, specifically vaccine toxins (mercury, formaldehyde, ether, aluminum, detergent) burning holes in the intestinal lining, and/or ongoing medication damaging the gut tissue. This is a terrain theory argument: the tissue is poisoned, it breaks down, and bacteria arrive to address the breakdown.

Cooked Food: Peritonitis is listed alongside IBS, Crohn's, colitis, and ulcers as conditions arising from the toxin accumulation caused by eating cooked and processed foods, which produce contamination requiring white blood cells to manage, leading to progressive intestinal degradation.

Microbes: Aajonus reframed the bacteria in peritonitis as beneficial agents, not causes, but responders. He argued that antibiotics, by destroying these bacteria, guarantee that recovery becomes impossible or takes far longer, while allowing them to work enables rapid healing. This is the cornerstone of his microbe principle applied to peritonitis.

Detoxification: When Aajonus described peritonitis as his own body's response to vaccine toxins, and when he described the condition arising after toxic meals (the shrimp incident with the shooting abdominal pain at age 59), he situated it within the detoxification framework, the body attempting to expel stored poisons through the intestinal route.

Sovereignty: The confrontation with the doctor in the emergency room over Monica's peritonitis is one of Aajonus's most detailed examples of the sovereignty philosophy in practice. He challenged the doctor's authority by using the doctor's own statistics against him, invoked R.B. Pearson's research showing a 93% survival rate with nutritional care, and took personal responsibility for Monica's recovery outside the medical system.

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Aajonus described the pain of peritonitis as so severe that he could not straighten his body, could not move, buckled over, and screamed. In his words: "I had intestinal cramps that I couldn't move. I just buckled over at school and on the playground or outside the church and could not move. I was just buckled up in such pain."

However, within his framework, this pain is the body's signal of a severe toxic crisis in the intestinal region, not evidence that bacteria are destroying the body, but evidence that the intestinal tissue is perforated and the body is attempting to initiate a massive healing response.

He described his fever reaching 107 degrees during his peritonitis episode. The medical response was to pack him in ice to bring the fever down, a procedure he described as agonizing. In his framework, fever is the body's mechanism for accelerating detoxification and metabolic healing processes. Suppressing it with ice or medication interrupts the healing and can cause greater harm.

He noted in the Q&A section on appendicitis/peritonitis: "All detoxification can cause nausea, vomit, pain and fever. Usually, if the appendix or peritonitis is involved, the fever will reach and..." (the passage trails off in the source).

The bleeding of the perforated intestine is, in Aajonus's framework, the body's attempt to flush and cleanse the area, not evidence of bacterial destruction of tissue, but evidence of the damage done by the original toxic agents (mercury, medication, etc.).

He described the intestines as swelling and moving gas back and forth in the gut during peritonitis. This is the body's inflammatory response, increasing circulation to the damaged area to deliver nutrients and cleaning agents.

Aajonus noted that his peritonitis pain was "excruciating much more than somebody with appendicitis", this distinction is relevant because the doctors misdiagnosed the condition as appendicitis precisely because of the abdominal pain, but peritonitis produces a qualitatively different and more intense pain.

Aajonus described a possible peritonitis recurrence at age 59 after eating raw shrimp marinated in lemon juice for almost 4 hours with raw shrimp cocktail sauce: "A shooting pain passed through my lower abdomen. It reminded me of the peritonitis I suffered at age 12." He considered whether it could be peritonitis again.

His interpretation: the pain did not result directly from the food, but the meal had added pressure to his abdomen. He forced vomiting to relieve pressure, which worsened the pain. He then realized he needed to urinate but without the normal pressurized sensation. After very slow urination over 5 minutes, most of the pain subsided. He concluded he had bladder swelling. He interpreted this swelling as: "Since swelling always indicates increased circulation to deliver more nutrients to swollen areas, I surmised that my bladder cells were detoxifying.", demonstrating his consistent application of the detoxification reframe to all acute painful symptoms.

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Aajonus's stated protocol for peritonitis is a raw food diet, completely raw, no cooked foods of any kind. He did not provide an extremely detailed formula-by-formula breakdown for peritonitis in the surviving sources beyond the general raw food approach, but he was explicit about the principle:

"I just put her on a raw food diet." (referring to Monica)

"I fed her only raw foods during that process." (referring to his girlfriend Laurie)

The We Want to Live print listing states: "PERITONITIS: See pages 36-43." The remedy sentence in the Food as Remedy section states: "Eating a raw diet restores health." This is the complete printed remedy, a raw diet.

In the confrontation with Monica's doctor, Aajonus cited a specific statistic: "According to R.B. Pearson's research and statistics listed in his book Man's Correct Diet, you have a 93% chance of living if you let me care for you nutritionally." This 93% survival rate under nutritional care was contrasted with the 60% death rate (24 out of 40) that the treating physician reported in his medically treated cases.

This citation establishes that Aajonus's nutritional approach to peritonitis was not invented on the spot but was grounded in pre-existing research that he had studied.

Aajonus's girlfriend Laurie was told she would die from peritonitis if she did not stay in the hospital and take all medication. He stated: "I said, Laurie, it's not going to work. You're going to end up dead. You know, because they'll destroy the bacteria in your intestines. You won't be able to eat anything."

She left the hospital. He fed her only raw foods for three weeks. She recovered in three weeks. She was back to ballet class in six weeks.

The doctors had told her: if she survived, it would take a year and a half to get back to exercise and ballet class. If she didn't follow their procedures, she would "absolutely, definitely, without question, die."

In one passage the timeline is given as "six weeks" for recovery and "ten weeks" for return to ballet. In another it is "three weeks" for recovery and "six weeks" for ballet. Both versions are present in the sources without resolution.

In Monica's case, Aajonus brought a "jar of ground beef, butter and honey" with him to the hospital, these were the foods he had ready for her care. This specific combination (ground beef, butter, honey) appears as the foods he intended to use for her recovery, though the sources do not break down precise quantities or timing for peritonitis specifically.

In the Q&A sources, when discussing symptoms that could be appendicitis or peritonitis, Aajonus recommended: "You should continue the honey/butter but also consume the tomato mixture I suggest for appendicitis in my book, We Want To Live." This indicates that the honey/butter combination and the tomato mixture from the appendicitis section of the book are applicable when peritonitis is a possibility.

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Aajonus's personal recovery from peritonitis was prolonged because he remained within the medical system, received continuous antibiotic and painkiller injections every 2-4 hours for five days, and did not access raw food care. He resisted injections to the point of knocking the hypodermic tray out of the nurse's hand and into her head: "I was out of the hospital in 24 hours after that."

But the lasting damage from the peritonitis episode and the medical treatment persisted for decades: - Fibromyalgia immediately following the hospital stay, lasting for decades - Colds increasing from 2-3 months per year before the episode to 3-5 months per year after, then year-round - Water retention and weight gain of approximately 60 pounds from injections - Bruising across his entire body - Angina pectoris developed by age 13-13.5 - Diabetes developing by age 13.5-15 (accounts vary) - The bone cancer he subsequently developed he attributed in part to the extreme cold from the ice packing during the peritonitis hospitalization

He noted: "I had colds and flus three to five months a year, bedridden about three months a year. And from the time I can remember, three years old, lifting my arm, I had fibromyalgia. If I held that arm for ten seconds, I would ache and burn... After that peritonitis episode, I was having colds and flus three to five months a year, bedridden about three months a year."

He also stated: "After the episode of peritonitis at 12 years old, I was sick the year round. I was bedridden at least 3 months a year."

Monica's recovery under Aajonus's raw food care: - Three weeks to recovery from peritonitis (one account says six weeks, both are present in sources) - Back to ballet class in six weeks (one account says ten weeks, both are present) - Doctors had predicted: year and a half minimum to return to activity if she survived

Laurie's recovery under Aajonus's raw food care followed the same general timeline as Monica's. He stated: "I took care of her for that three-week period for her to recover. And she recovered." He then declared himself a raw fooder for life in February of 1972.

Aajonus presented a stark comparison: - Medical treatment: 60% death rate (24 out of 40 cases treated by the emergency physician), with survivors facing year-and-a-half recovery periods - Raw food care (per R.B. Pearson's research): 93% survival rate - Actual observed outcome in Monica and Laurie's cases: full recovery in 3-6 weeks, return to strenuous activity (ballet) in 6-10 weeks

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