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Handbook of Natural Hygiene Volume 1 John L. Fielder, D.O., D.C., N.D., editor Dr John Fielder,
Osteopath, Chiropractor, Lifestyle Consultant, author, and broadcaster lives
on his 300 acre farm in the hinterland from Cairns in North Queensland
Australia where he has been demonstrating the principles of Natural Living
and Natural Hygiene for 'more than 30 years. During that period he has helped
hundreds of people regain their health, many from so-called incurable
diseases, as much by his own personal example as by the advice he has
offered. Dr
Fielder eschews the use of all forms of medication whether they be so-called
'natural' or otherwise, including supplementation. He believes solely in the
self-reparative nature of the organism and its ability to heal itself given
the necessary care, attention and environment. The only exception being in
the case of major trauma where reparative surgery is necessary. Dr
Fielder describes the natural approach to healing as being "An
Alternative to Medicine, not Alternative Medicine". Copyright © 2001 by John L.
Fielder All
Rights reserved. No Part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording,or by any information retrieval system, without the express written
permission of the publisher,except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a
review Academy of
Natural Living www.iig.com.au/anl ISBN 0 9586611 5
4 DISCLAIMER: The
information in this book is not intended as medical advice. The author does
not recommend standard medical practices. The authors, publishers and/or
distributors will not assume responsibility for any adverse consequences
resulting from adopting the lifestyle described herein. Contents One Disease—A Vital Process Two Organic Unity—Its Relation to Cure Three Foci of Infection Four Allergy Five The Fallacy of Diagnosis Six Rational Care of the Sick Seven Reform vs. Cure Eight Avoiding and Remedying Colds Nine Bronchitis Ten Sinusitis Eleven Hay Fever Twelve Goitre Thirteen Colitis Fourteen Peptic Ulcer Fifteen Diabetes Mellitus Sixteen Arthritis—Rheumatism—Gout Seventeen Acne Eighteen Neuritis Nineteen Fasting in Heart Disease Twenty Gluttony a Neurosis Twenty-one Fasting and the Teeth Twenty-two Exercise and the Heart Twenty-three Rational Fasting Twenty-four The Causes Of Health Twenty-five Is Illness A Medical Problem Or A Personal Matter?
Vital
actions may be grouped under two heads as follows: 1. Normal—the
regular ordinary actions of life in the conduct of its ordinary functions,
commonly called physiological; and 2. Abnormal—such
modifications of the regular or ordinary actions of life as are essential to
meet, overcome, destroy or adjust the body to abnormal, unusual, or harmful
conditions and agents; and usually called pathological. The
first we call health; the second we call disease. It is necessary, however,
if we are to clearly understand what disease is and, as a consequence of this
understanding, properly care for the sick, that we recognize the essential
unity of the actions of the body in health and its actions in disease; that
back of both groups of actions are the same powers of life and the same
effort to preserve and enhance life. Physical,
chemical, thermal, electrical, and vital agents are capable of damaging the
body. Their effects may be grouped as chemical and mechanical. Doctors and
laymen alike commonly confuse the effects of injurious agents with the
efforts of the living organism to meet and overcome or destroy them and to
repair damages. If we briefly glance at a few of these agents and their
effects it may help us to separate the one from the other. Cut the
body of a living man and there is pain, bleeding, fibrin-formation,
blood-clot, redness, swelling, healing, and sloughing of the scab. Cut the
body of a dead man and none of these things follow. Strike your finger with a
hammer and there is pain, hemorrhage into the tissues, blood-clot,
inflammation, healing, and removal of debris. Strike the fingers of a dead
man and none of these things follow. The cut is the only effect of the knife.
The bruise is the only effect of the hammer. This is
a Universe of law and order. Every law is the expression of a force behind
it. Every force must act lawfully, being unable to act in any other way. The
laws and forces controlling the body, are the same in disease as in health,
and their action is always for the same purpose—harmony, betterment,
improvement. Disease
action, no less than health action, is right action; yet it
occasions suffering because of adverse conditions that have been imposed upon
the body. So, by the term Orthopathy we mean right suffering. The individual
suffers, not because the action of the body is wrong, but because the body,
under control of law, is struggling in the only way it can struggle, to free
itself from impending dangers resulting from bad habits—misuse and
abuse. Let no
man deceive you; let no man lead you astray. The actions of the body are always
right, and in disease are as true to the pole-star of health as the needle is
to the pole-star of direction. The so-called symptoms of disease which puzzle
eminent physicians, are not destructive processes; they are not evils to be
resisted, combatted, suppressed, subdued, or subverted. They are merely
external evidences of a body's striving under control of law to preserve its
integrity and existence; and the physician who regards them as anything else,
reveals his abject ignorance of the most fundamental facts of life. Shun him
as you would a poison.
The
only correct way of viewing the body is to view it as a whole. The organs of
the body are co-equal factors in a vital reciprocity. Division of labor, as
seen in the complex organism, is an internal adaptation. In an evolving
organism the differentiating process is accompanied by integration of the
parts (organs and tissues), the whole remaining a unit. Borrowing
a phrase from biology, the separate organs of the body collectively
constitute a "web of life," in which all must do their work and
labor together all, alike, being made of one "stuff," though
"modified" and "specialized" to form a hierarchy of
organs—an organism. The greater organic complexity of the higher
animals means increased symbiotic support for the higher functions performed
by these animals. The
specialization of organs in the body is for mutual service and general
welfare and involves industry, frugality and regularity on the part of each
and every organ. The co-operate efforts of the totality of organs making up
the body tend to produce a resultant equal to their combined value and
greatly enrich each organ thereby. An organ is richer the more it contributes
to the sum of organic (body) well-being. In
order to a wide physiological usefulness there must be a rhythmic performance
of well regulated functions and a permanent and complex system of division of
labor with systematic cooperation between the organs of the body resulting in
such mutual "stimulation" and mutual enhancement as to produce and
maintain a stable relation and, in general, such fortification of the body as
to lead to considerable permanence and to a high degree of efficiency and integrity
of the compound organism. Physiological
wealth is due to the co-operative efforts of all of the organs of the body.
The better each organ does the work for which it is specialized, the better
can every other organ perform the work for which it is constituted and the
better will be the valuable substances that are stored up in the organism for
domestic and reproductive uses. The
first requisite of organic solidarity is loyalty to the principle of
cooperation. The concord existing between the various organs and systems of
the body must be adequately maintained. In a broad, general sense, every part
of the body acts for the good of the whole, rather than for its own selfish
advantage. Good functional behavior and loyalty to the organism on the part
of each organ of the body are fundamental and constitutional virtues. The
blood, glands and nervous system have the chief responsibility of directing
and co-ordinating the functions of the organism. There is here a deputing of
inter-dependent functions, involving the necessity for a loyal discharge of
duties, to special organs and systems. Such a case of division of labor, plus
the loyal disposition for mutual accommodation and mutual support, is a
splendid example of what H. Reinheimer has called "internal
symbiosis." Every
gland depends upon the cooperation of the others, while the whole organism is
dependent, for its well-being, upon the subtle and coordinated inter-organic
"stimulation," requiring a high degree of subordination of the
parts to the common good. For, an organism is a complex of differentiated,
co-ordinated, unified, integrated and semi-independent entities (organs),
which reciprocate with and compensate each other in the performance of
duties. The organic units of such an organism have been specialized in order
that they may better perform the particular specialized duties imposed upon
them. As specialists, they are forced to rely upon the integrity and industry
of the other organs of the body. Without co-operation nothing can be
achieved. Specialization
in medicine, which looks upon each organ of the body as an independent
isonomy and treats individual organs or parts without the least regard for
this inter-organic dependence and co-operation, is a false principle. Surgical
interference with the integrity of the organism upsets the nicety of
physiological balance upon which the highest physiological efficiency
depends. The
organic community goes forward as a whole. Nothing short of a general
integrity, based on the evolved harmony between physiological partners, will
avail. We must rely upon the laws and conditions governing the interdependent
operations of the organs of the body and not upon interferences with the
functions of one organ. Instead
of trying to compel Nature to conform to our petty ends, we should adapt
ourselves to her larger purposes and greater ends. We must put our
physiological house in order; not by myriads of local treatments, as
physicians with a financial interest in our suffering are bent upon doing,
but by duly adjusting ourselves to the ordered harmony of Nature upon which
every organ and function in the body depends for its very existence. We
cannot expect Nature to alter herself and accommodate herself to our morbid
appetencies and selfish ends. We must conform to her. Law and order cannot be
set aside for your special benefit, or for mine. Whatever
occurs presupposes the existence of preceding forces and conditions which
determine the course of subsequent events. Degenerative elements within the
organism exist only because they have been produced by antecedent causes. The
elements introduced by degenerative tendencies become variously blended with
and superimposed upon the elements of health. Our preference for watertight
compartments causes us to look for breaks in the degenerative process and
prevents us from recognizing the unity of disease. Not
only have we created many diseases, but we also have failed to differentiate
between the degeneration on the one hand and the vital struggle against the
degeneration on the other. Thus defensive and reparative physiological action
is classed with degeneration as disease. We have failed to distinguish
between physiology and pathology; between life and death. As a direct
consequence we direct our supposed remedial measures, not at the causes of
degeneration, but at the vital efforts to restore health. This is true not
only of the older schools of medicine, but of the newer or drugless schools
as well. In
every essential particular, except in their respective modalities, the newer
schools of so-called healing are Allopathic from the ground up. Their whole
conception of life, health, disease, causation, cure and treatment is
allopathic: which means that their conceptions are essentially those of the
savage medicine man. Cures, miracles, magical potencies, thaumaturgic
incantations, "drugs, fake anodynes, and consolatory buncombe,"
metaphysical nonsense, spiritual rubbish, and psychological tom-foolery take
the place of rational care. To hammer,
maul, twist, pull, electrocute, freeze, roast, stew and blister the body and
ignore causes; to resort to mental, physical, mechanical, electrical, thermal
and chemical means of stimulating and inhibiting the functions of the body
and neglect to conform to the ordered harmony of Nature—such treatment
cannot be palmed off on the public as Nature Cure. Great numbers of people
are outgrowing spurious "natural methods" and the doctor who does
not keep ahead of these people will ultimately be left behind. The
so-called science of medicine is composed of a super-abundance of unsolved
muddles. Only by years of sad failure do doctors learn to free themselves
from the blind, unreasoning confidence instilled into them during their
college training. Many of them, unfortunately, due to commercialism, brain
laziness or credulity, never free themselves from their blind faith in the
power of "remedies" to cure. Those
of us who profess a belief in the principle that only Nature cures are going
to have to accord to Nature the opportunity as well as the power of cure.
When we do so, our success will be much greater. We have too many
"cures" to substitute for Nature Cure. The
intelligent portions of our population are growing tired of being fooled by
pseudo-discoveries and pseudo-remedies constantly dangled before the eyes of
a gullible public by the professionals. There are still plenty of men and
women who "would rather die than think" and who will continue to
pursue the fool's policy of buying for a few dollars, a
"patch-up-cure" to relieve them of the penalties attached to their
continued indulgencies. This group is daily growing fewer in number as
knowledge of correct principles spreads.
What is
called the Modern Science of Medicine is given to fads and faddishness. It
changes fads with great rapidity, although seldom entirely abandoning an old
one when taking up a new one. When it was agreed to accept microbes as the
cause of disease they spent years in trying to find a germ for each so-called
disease, old and new, in the nosologies. This led to the immunization fad and
the attempt to find a serum or a vaccine to prevent every so-called disease
and to an effort to cure every so-called disease with serums and vaccines. Later
the discovery of the importance of the ductless (endocrine) glands,
previously declared to be useless survivals (vestiges) of man's hypothetical
anthropoid stage, led to a frenzied effort to prove all so-called diseases to
be the results of endocrine imbalance and to the fad of treating all diseases
with gland extracts, powdered glands, operations on the glands, etc. Then
came the discovery of vitamins and of deficiency diseases and the effort to
prove all diseases to be due to vitamin deficiencies and the fad of giving
vitamin for what have you. Even the harmful effects of chronic alcoholism
were declared to be due to vitamin deficiency and not to alcohol. These
three fads now vie with each other for first place in the medical show
window. They are forced to compete for honors with surgery and the new drugs
that are frequently announced. A few
years ago some medical nit wit hit upon the idea of using snake venom to cure
some so-called disease. "Success" crowned his efforts and soon
snake venom was reported to be successful in the treatment of a wide variety
of "diseases." For a time it seemed that the snake venom was
destined to become the long sought panacea. Perhaps
snake venom would have achieved the enviable distinction of a cure-all had
not artificial fever come into the limelight with remarkable cures for
a wide variety of "diseases". Another cure-all seemed to be in the
making. But,
alas! and alack! Every time "medical science" thinks it has a
cure-all in its hands, another contender for the place bobs up to distract
attention. Artificial fever had to yield the front page to sulfonalamide.
Just now this new poison bids fair to reach the pinnacle that snake venom
just missed. "Frozen
sleep" came in a couple of years ago and made a good start for stardom
but fell by the wayside. Its promoters must have picked a poor press agent. None of
these modern cure-alls have ever succeeded to such widespread use or cured
as high a percentage of cases as the old fad of blood-letting that
persisted for two thousand years. Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, seems
to have started this fad and it persisted to the days of our fathers. Some
years ago a medical fad was started and its heyday of popularity lasted
longer than that of many of the modern fads, while it is still in great favor
with the sons of Hippocrates. I refer to the fad of tracing all so-called
diseases to some focus (plural, foci) of infection and curing the
disease by removing the "focus of infection". They sought to
explain most diseases on a basis of focal infections and sought to cure them
by removing organs. What is
a focus of infection? It is a center from which infection is spread. What is
infection? It is defined as the invasion of the body by pathogenic microbes;
although, the "focal infection" faddists often made it mean either
"germ infection" or "pus infection", by which they meant
pus absorption from an abscess. Heart
disease, insanity, indigestion, kidney disease, anemia, rheumatism or
arthritis, neuritis, epilepsy, and many other conditions were traced to
"foci of infection." Teeth
were pulled, tonsils were extracted, sinuses were drained, gall bladders were
cut out, appendices were excised, ovaries and tubes were extirpated, prostate
glands and seminal vesicles were removed to cure "disease"
elsewhere in the body. The fad for removing "foci of infection"
became a national menace. The frenzy became so great that whatever
"disease" a man or woman had, called for an operation. An
organ did not have to be abscessed to be removed as a focus of infection.
Tons of sound teeth were sacrificed in the search for pus foci. Dr. Walter C.
Alvarez, of the Mayo Clinic, writing in the Journal of the American Medical
Association, in 1920, says that, "In practice they pull the teeth first,
and if the patient returns unbenefited they can then look to see what is the
matter with him." Many
epileptics gave up a mouth full of teeth without benefit. Thousands of
sufferers from rheumatic arthritis suffered the loss of all their teeth
without help. The tragedy of the procedure lay not so much in the fact that
badly ulcerated teeth were removed but that perfectly good teeth were
sacrificed indiscriminately. Tonsils
were slaughtered as freely as the teeth. In the army hospitals during the
"war to end war," tonsils were carried out each day by the buckets
full. Adenoids, which are also tonsils, came out as freely. All of
the other organs mentioned above were freely sacrificed on the altar of the
focal infection fad, and the end is not yet. The practice is still profitable
and the public is still gullible. It is
everywhere admitted that "radical treatment of loci of infection
(extraction of teeth, removal of tonsils, gall bladder, appendix, ovaries,
etc.) is frequently of little or no benefit, and, besides this, many cases
are seen in which no focus can be found." Dr. Alvarez says in the
article previously quoted from, "In view of the fact that the most thorough
removal of focal infection often fails to cure arthritis and other diseases,
let us be more honest and conservative with our patients." It is
not only true that the removal of one or several "foci of
infection" fails to cure, but it is equally true that many apparently
healthy people possess "foci of infection" that appear to cause no
harm. Dr. Alvarez says: "certainly the thousands of people who for the
last thirty or forty years have been chewing contentedly on dead teeth
(without signs of root infection) should be grateful that these radical ideas
did not prevail when they were young." T.
Swann Harding said in an article a few years ago: "But several things
must be remembered. Time and again powerful and healthy looking men appear
with large alveolar abscesses they have carried for years. They maintain that
they have never had a headache, a twinge of rheumatism, nor needed a
physician." Doctors
lack a knowledge of the true cause of disease and this, plus their snapshot
and indiscriminate diagnoses, caused them to send their patients to the
dentist for teeth extraction or to the surgeon for removal of other organs.
Classical medical knowledge required searching for and removing "focal
infections." Often a
patient had several "foci of infection" removed in the course of a
disease, all to no avail. Here are the highlights of a case of polyarthritis
in a woman that came under our observation in 1929. Almost every movable
joint in her body was affected. She had been in this condition for six long
and weary years, growing progressively worse during the time. During this
period she had been under the care of several physicians and in three or four
hospitals. The
trouble started in one ankle. The physicians began by removing one ovary and
the appendix. Later, she having grown worse, they removed her tonsils. She
grew still worse and other joints became affected. They now removed sixteen
teeth. She grew still worse. They removed her gall bladder. This was followed
by increased disease. As a final effort at saving her they performed a
pan-hysterectomy, which means they removed her womb, both tubes and the
remaining ovary. After this last operation she grew still worse. Her
physicians then told her that they had removed every cause of her trouble and
that they could not understand why she did not get well. They could do
nothing else for her. What
can an inflamed or enlarged tonsil have to do with the causation of pathology
elsewhere in the body? Primarily nothing. To have tonsillar trouble we must
have something else first and removing the tonsils does not remove this
something else. Can you believe that enlarged tonsils and adenoids are their
own cause? If they are not their own cause, then removing them does not
remove their cause. If
abscessed teeth cause rheumatism, what causes abscessed teeth? If the teeth
are not the cause of their own abscesses, then removing the teeth does not
remove cause. If
there is pus in the gums, are the gums, themselves, the cause of it? If the
gums are not cause how can "checking" the "disease" in
the gum-tissue cause "disease" elsewhere to disappear? We do
not deny that abscesses do form, nor that pus is sometimes absorbed, nor that
its absorption is fraught with harm. Have we not seen the harm produced by
cowpox pus? So-called
immunization by vaccination and serumization is a form of infection.
Infection from vaccination is no more to be desired than auto-infection from
"foci." No mode of infection is better than another. All
infections are a form of septic poisoning. They are products of protein
putrefaction. Call it vaccine (pus), intestinal infection, pus pockets,
gonorrhea, "syphilis", etc., it all results from protein
putrefaction. Pus
formation in the body may contribute to "disease" elsewhere in the
body, if resistance is so low as to invite general disintegration. But its
removal does not remove cause nor is it necessary to remove the organ in
order to clear up the abscess. Removing the "focus of infection"
only puts a temporary check upon the overwhelming absorption, it never
removes the real cause, which cause is responsible for the abscess in the
first place. Suppose
the germ theory is correct. Suppose germs have infected the tonsils. Suppose
from this "focus" they have entered the circulation and reached the
knee, ankle, and shoulder. Suppose arthritis exists in each of these joints.
Each infected joint is now a secondary "focus of infection." From
each of these joints germs may sally forth to infect other joints or other
organs. This being true, can the arthritis be cured by removing the tonsils?
Will it not be necessary to remove each infected joint also? If it is the
heart that is infected will the disease be cured without removing the heart?
Is it not necessary to remove all "foci of infection"? Tilden
very correctly says: "To treat foci of infection as the sole originating
cause of these diseases (heart disease, arthritis, etc.); and to ignore the
big things in the life-habits of the patient that break down resistance and
debase nutrition, is to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. If the ardor
displayed in ferreting out minute collections of pus in the body were
exercised upon locating and correcting definitely harmful habits, the
advantage to the patient and to the community would be immeasurable."
The
press of the country has recently been full of items and articles about what
is called allergy, which is defined as an abnormal sensitivity to substances
which are harmless to most people. Hay fever, asthma and hives are among the
most common forms of suffering that are said to be due to allergy. Migraine
headache is also classified as an allergic phenomenon. The American
Weekly, which is the Sunday magazine supplement of the Hearst papers, for
Sunday, Sept. 20, carries a lengthy article on allergy under the title:
"Maybe It's Your Wife Who Makes You Sick." We
learn from the article that most microscopic fragments of a woman's hair,
specks of skin, or powder, and dandruff scales may cause cold symptoms,
sneezing and other discomforts, and that cold water (as in cold bathing) can
bring on allergic reactions. The
author of the article informs us that between 10,000,000 and 13,000,000
people in the United States (about one in ten of our population) have hay
fever or other allergic symptoms. Many of these "have been suffering
since early spring from the pollen of successive plants which have come into
bloom such as the grasses, trees and weeds, the peak of misery has come to
them since the middle of August." In August, ragweed and cedar trees
begin to shed their pollens. The
writer tells us that while the rich can get away to less-pollen infested
regions, or install air-conditioning plants with pollen filters, in their
homes and go "into virtual retirement during the annual hay fever
season," most of the victims of hay fever have been tied to their jobs
and to their everyday way of life and have sneezed and suffered and cursed
their fate." Others, he reminds us "have tried the nose filters
which cut down the amount of offending pollen inhaled at each living
breath." The
article contains a brief outline of a fantastic and chimerical theory of the
cause of allergy, which seems to be taken from a recent book, Your Allergy
and What To Do About It, by Dr. Milton B. Cohen and his daughter, June
Cohen. Briefly
stated, this theory is, that the body manufactures antibodies
(bacteriolysins) to destroy germs and the toxins these produce. Once the body
has discovered the ability to produce antibodies it will react to any foreign
substance—whether "dangerous living disease germs," or
"substances that are inanimate and of themselves harmless"—by
the production of antibodies, and thus make us sick. Let me quote the
following from the article: Whatever
the reason it is unfortunate that in certain people some non-living harmless
things cause the cell of the body to release a substance which is poisonous.
This kind of poisoning, resulting from the action of antibodies on harmless
non-living things, is called an allergic reaction. In
hay fever this harmless thing attacked with ferocity by the body is the
pollen of various plants, particularly ragweed. "What
has been said about the development of immunity from a disease like typhoid
fever, applies in the development of an allergy except that it is the
second-rather than the first-exposure to the allergic material which creates
the symptoms. Let
us go back to Mr. Smith again—or to you—and see what happens if
it develops that you are allergic to eggs. You eat some eggs and absorb some
of the protein called albumen into your blood stream. This is a foreign
protein. Ordinarily it would do nothing, for it is non-living and will not
grow and propagate itself. However,
the antibodies of the body against this foreign protein begin to be created.
But by the time they have been created the albumen has disappeared and they
have nothing to contend with. They are ready to fight but have no opponent. When
a dose of egg albumen is absorbed a second time, however, your cells are
ready to act for they have attached to them the antibodies that attack egg
albumen. Pouncing on their harmless foes, they produce poisons which cause
the well known allergic shock. This type of reaction can occur in anyone,
says Dr. Cohen. In one
of his syndicated articles Dr. Irving S. Cutter, says: "almost any plant
along the roadside or in the woods may affect you or me." Seems man does
not belong on the earth. His whole environment seems to be opposed to him. Now,
"for the first time," says the article in the American Weekly,
"Science really knows what happens when you have 'allergies'." We
are to understand that the above absurdities constitute this knowledge
possessed by "science." There is no science about it—it is a
mass of baseless speculation. No doubt the new theory will stimulate the
production of cures that do not cure, but the so-called victims of allergy
will not be helped. No plan
of care based on the theory that hay fever, asthma, hives, migraine, eczema,
etc., are allergic manifestations has ever provided more than a temporary and
questionable palliation. Dr. Cohen is "barking up the wrong tree,"
if he imagines he has tracked down the cause of allergy (sensitivity). His
speculations follow the well-known medical pattern and this pattern has
always been barren of worthy results. Sensitivity
is not cause. It is but a link in a chain. Even assuming that his fanciful
theory is correct, it must be recognized that the production of antibodies to
fight harmless things is abnormal, and this abnormality is not causeless. Let us
quote again from the article in the American Weekly: There
is a famous case reported to the American Medical Association in which a
husband went into a severe, and real, fit of coughing from asthma whenever
his wife came near him. His physician reported: "His attacks are of the
severe asthmatic type, which require epinephrine for relief, and this he must
take nightly if his wife is at home. For a few years it has been impossible
for them to sleep in the same bed at night. It has been suggested that the
wife's hair might be the offending cause. Is this likely?" The
A.M.A. suggested a continuation of skin tests for allergic and offending materials
and said that several hundred materials ought to be studied as the possible
cause. That was over a year ago. No report on the case has been brought to
public attention since that time. How
futile this study of "several hundred materials" to find what the
"offending materials" are! It has been repeated in thousands of
cases and nothing more than evanescent and, more often than otherwise,
harmful palliation has come from it. It is
more important to know what makes one sensitive than to know what he is
sensitive to. Let us dismiss the nonsense with which Dr. and June Cohen have
filled a book and look for a minute at a case of hay fever. Examining the
case we discover that the lining membrane of the nose is inflamed, hence very
sensitive to irritation. It is inflammation that renders the membrane
abnormally sensitive—that is, sensitive to the normal elements
of man's environment. Continuing
with our investigation we learn that the sufferer has chronic catarrh, had
it, in fact, for several years before hay fever symptoms developed. We find
that when the hay fever season is over and the symptoms characteristic of
this trouble are no longer present, the sufferer still has catarrh. Frequent
colds are suffered through the winter. Carrying
our investigation still deeper we find indigestion (gastritis) with constant
fermentation and putrefaction in the digestive tract. The first development
of acute gastritis came in infancy following a period of overeating, or
following upon the heels of too much excitement or other enervating
influences. Due to wrong care and imprudent feeding, gastritis became
chronic, frequent nose colds were followed by chronic nasal catarrh and,
finally, hay fever. The
sufferer from asthma has followed practically the same line of pathological
evolution, except that frequent chest colds, bronchitis, have finally
developed into chronic bronchitis, with the same inflammatory sensitization
of the bronchial membranes that is seen in the nasal membrane in hay fever. To get
rid of asthma and hay fever, get rid of the chronic catarrh that forms their
foundation. To get rid of the catarrh, remove its cause. Toxemia is its cause
and toxemia has many causes. Six
years ago a resident of Brooklyn, New York, who had spent five years in Arizona
in a vain effort to cure asthma with the magic of climate, came to the Health
School. After he had been here less than three weeks the editor's boy entered
the solarium, where the man was having a sunbath. The boy was carrying a cat.
The man took the cat in his hands and stroked it a few times then handed it
back to the boy. He took a deep breath and then, with a sigh of relief said,
"Before I came here, if that cat had merely entered the room where I
was, I would have had an attack of asthma." How
much better to get rid of the cause of sensitivity than to spend your whole
life running from cats, dogs, horses, flowers and trees! Even if you can
afford to air condition your home and put in special pollen filters, do you
want to spend all the rest of your life in the house? Or, do you want to wear
a filter on your nose for the next ten to sixty years? Can you afford to
leave your work or your business each "hay fever season" and go
away to the mountains or to the sea? Only
the idle rich can afford most of these programs, and these, by palliating
their symptoms and ignoring their causes, allow their whole bodies to give
down before these causes. While the writer in the American Weekly assures us
that "it is sheer luck which makes them (hay fever sufferers) suffer
their tortures where normal people are completely well and untouched,"
we assert that abnormality has definite and ascertainable causes. In 1918
the editor cared for his first patient with hay fever. It was summer in San
Antonio and she was suffering with a severe form of hay fever. She had so
suffered for several years prior thereto. She made a speedy recovery right in
her own home, with no attention given to pollens; cats, dogs, feather
pillows, face powders, or her husband's dandruff. She has remained free of
hay fever to this day and has spent the whole of the intervening twenty-two
years in San Antonio. All cases of bronchial asthma and of hay asthma may
recover in the same permanent manner by overcoming their chronic toxemia. How
do we know this? We know because we have seen it done in hundreds of cases,
even in cases of asthma that had persisted for twenty years. What
about "egg allergy?" It is due to impaired digestion, or to eating
beyond digestive capacity. The normal digestive tract, if not over-loaded,
will not permit any undigested egg protein to enter the blood stream. All
proteins must be digested before they can be used by the body. After they are
digested they are transformed, during their passage through the intestinal wall,
into human (therefore no longer foreign) proteins. All proteins are foreign
proteins and are poisonous if they get into the body without undergoing these
digestive and transforming processes. All
serums are foreign proteins and all of them produce anaphylactic shock, which
is just another name for serum poisoning, or protein poisoning. The
"allergic" symptoms produced by serums are worse than any ever
produced by eggs that are eaten. We do
not consider eggs good human food and do not advocate their use, but we know
that when toxemia is eliminated and nerve energy restored, so that digestion
and metabolism are normal, the former sensitivity to eggs ceases to annoy. To
restore good health ends all the annoying symptoms and reactions that are
based on impaired health. The
normal man is adjusted to his natural environment. The normal elements in
man's natural environment become sources of discomfort only after resistance
has been broken down. When resistance is restored to normal the former
discomforts come to an immediate end.
"Correct
prescription, according to allopathic standards, can be based only on correct
diagnosis. The old school of medicine recognizes hundreds of different
diseases, each one an entity by itself, arising from specific causes—
mostly disease germs. From this it follows that each specific disease must be
treated by specific drugs, vaccines, serums and antitoxins, or by specially
devised operations. It is evident that the wrong remedy applied in a given
case will not only prove useless, but may cause serious injury; yet if fifty
per cent of all the diagnoses rendered in our best equipped hospitals are
erroneous, how can the doctor apply the right remedy? Will somebody please
explain?" (H. Lindlahr, MD) In his
book, Fads, Frauds and Physicians, T. Swann Harding, says: "But
the physician declared that no layman can diagnose his own condition
correctly. As a matter of fact Dr. Charles Mayo made the proud boast before a
surgical congress in Washington, D.C., in 1927, that the Mayo Clinic had
attained the phenomenal record of fifty per cent correct diagnoses. This
included of course necropsies who died but about whose ailment the Clinic was
diagnostically correct. Certainly few would contend that the snap diagnoses
of average general practitioners working alone are right in more than one
case out of five. The error on cancer diagnosis with the best facilities at
hand is 30 to 40 per cent." Of
laboratory diagnosis, Mr. Harding has the following to say: "The point
is that there has long been and still is a great deal of bunk in clinical
laboratory work and the reports thereof. Inexperienced technicians are used
too extensively as timesavers; 'routine' or 'complete' tests are required by
doctors who do not know what the words signify; expensive special blood
counts, blood chemistry examinations, and other tests are requested by
physicians over and over again on the theory that a correct diagnosis will
somehow happen, like Topsy, and very frequently all this costly (to the
patient) clinical examination is gone through with before the patient is
examined physically by the physician." Mr.
Harding is not telling us anything new about the medical profession, yet he
would be one of the first to decry the other "healing" professions
because they "cannot diagnose disease." To the
layman the physician is a trained specialist who can tell "one"
disease from "another" with a commendable degree of accuracy. The
layman has been taught that so-called diseases are specific entities with
symptoms and pathology that are so clean-cut and individualistic that he who
runs may read. He does not realize how much alike these "diseases"
are and how arbitrary is the differential diagnosis of so-called diseases.
Therefore, the first thing he asks of the physician is: "Doctor, what
have I?" Group
medicine is the present vogue. Clinical groups are formed composed of
specialists for every system of the body. The sick man or woman goes to one
of these clinics and is run through the hands of fifteen to twenty
specialists each one of which examines and analyzes his department of the
human body. Each
specialist determines the condition of those organs and parts of the body
that have been made the object of his specialty and names the deviations from
normal which he finds. That is the disease, After the patient has been
through the hands of twenty of these specialists, he emerges from the clinic
with from twenty to thirty diseases. What
have the specialists really discovered? They have found symptoms. The nose
and throat man finds rhinitis, sinusitis and tonsilitis; the
gastroenterologist finds chronic gastritis, enteritis, colitis, proctitis and
cholangitis; the genito-urinary man finds cystitis and metritis; etc, etc.
Everyone of these local so-called diseases are but local manifestations of a
general catarrhal condition. They are mere symptoms, effects—successive
and concomitant developments out of common antecedents. Instead of
recognizing the unity of these many so-called diseases, "scientific
medicine" singles out individual organs or parts for special treatment
or for surgical removal. The
group now get their heads together and decide what the outcome of your many
diseases will be (a prognosis). Their opinions are based on the usual results
of their own methods of treating and abusing the local states. Once the
patient deserts them and their methods and turns to other methods, their
prognosis ceases to have any value. Outside of their own drugged sphere,
doctors have no right to opinions. Ours is
a world of amazing multiplicity. It is a world of endless changes, increasing
divergencies and ever widening differentiations. So broad and boundless is
the multiplicity around us that it has been aptly described as a
"perpetually multiplying multiplicity." Back of
all this boundless multiplicity is an ultimate unity: The sciences approach
perfection as they approach the unity of first principles. The unity and
continuity of phenomena have become the corner stones of science. No system
of thought or practice which fails to recognize these principles can ever
become a science. The order and continuity exhibited throughout Nature's
processes demonstrate her underlying unity and lawfulness. Health
(physiology) and disease (pathology) do not fall outside the principle of the
unity of phenomena. However diversified "diseases" may appear,
there are many diseases in appearance only. As an explanation of variations
in living phenomena, health and disease are convenient terms, but they are
not ultimate realities. The
"modern science of medicine" knows nothing of these principles, but
still believes in multitudes of unitary causes, multiple un-unified
phenomena, myriads of specific diseases, and in the need for multiple
remedies for "diseases." Hence, its confusion, its uncertainty, its
gropings, and its failures. It is not science. It is not modern. In its many
departments it is a storehouse of facts, but its facts are not correlated and
unified. These facts are like beads without a string-scattered all over the
floor. Medicine today is where chemistry was before the discovery of the laws
of chemistry; it is comparable to astronomy before Newton and Kepler. It is
on a par with astrology and alchemy. Indeed medicine men are still searching
for an elixir vitae, a panacea, a philosopher's stone. Law and
order are lacking in all of the various schools of so-called healing. They
one and all believe in cures, miracles, magical potencies, thaumaturgic
incantations, unitary causes and specific cures. In all save their
modalities, the drugless schools are allopathic from the ground up. Their
whole conception of life, health, disease, cure, treatment, etc., is
allopathic; and this means in turn, that their conceptions are essentially
the same as those of the troglodyte medicine man. Diseases
are regarded as active entities, inherent, definite, causitive entities,
producing, by themselves, observed effects. Treatment is ostensibly a warfare
upon disease. Actually it is a war upon the body and the forces of life. There
are two general processes in so-called disease—namely (1) a process of
degeneration brought about by the concerted action of all the impairing
influences which come in contact with the body, and (2) the vital
self-defensive struggles to throw off these impairing influences and to
repair the damages they have produced in the body. The degeneration
represents a retrograde metamorphosis or downward evolution, and tends
towards dissolution. The defensive reactions or processes are one with the
reactions and processes of health—they are vital or physiological
processes, intensified or modified to meet the emergency, and tend to save
life. "All
acute diseases are crises of toxemic saturation," to use Dr. Tilden's
words, and should all be 'treated' without reference to names. Back of the
symptoms, the symptom-complex, the 'specific disease,' the endless transition,
flux, diversity, complication, differentiation and multiplicity of
manifestation, lies the eternal and universal principle of unity. The
human body is a complex organic unity, is a "unitary community," as
Virchow said, in which all parts cooperate towards the accomplishment of an
inner and immanent purpose,—namely, the unfolding and maintenance of a
perfect physiological standard. Its movements in "disease," as in
"health," are the outworking of inward powers of adaptation which
seek always to adapt the living organism to its environment. For the energy
of the body, always and everywhere very unlike in its modes, is ever the same
in principle and purpose. While
any whole is evolving there is always going on subsidiary evolution of the
parts into which it divides itself. This is true of the totality of things
made up of parts within parts, from the greatest down to the smallest. We see
this plainly in any physically cohering aggregate, such as the animal body.
While it is growing larger and assuming its general form, each of its organs
is doing the same. We recognize these organs as necessary groupings and
differentiations to facilitate the adjustments of the organism, and we
recognize, also, that these organs are not different existences, but are
component parts of one unified, correlated and interdependent organism. We
know that the evolution of the organism and the evolution of its various
parts do not represent several kinds of evolutions, but one evolution going
on everywhere after the same manner. Properly
applied, analogical reasoning is capable of helping us to understand many
things and may be of service to us in arriving at the truth. However, no
analogy can go on all-fours and it is necessary, in considering any analogy
between the development of the body and the development of disuse, to keep in
mind that disease, is not an organism, not an entity, but merely a widening
and increasing condition. Evolution,
like many other terms loosely employed by science, has no definite meaning.
Pathological evolution, as I have defined it, is the mode of educing the
extension and completion of the process of degeneration and may fairly be
applied to the aggregate of so-called diseases, always presupposing that the
reverse metamorphosis cannot take place without the continual activity of
causation. The
more I study the manner of the evolution of disease, the more I am impressed
with its unity, even in full view of its multiplicity of forms and
manifoldness of stages. All the diseases of the nosology are but an aggregate
of evolutional results, which, while they appear to the superficial observer
as specific and independent entities are parts of one unified whole. Disease
in many parts of the body does not represent many different kinds of
evolutions, nor yet, many diversified causes, but one evolution going on
everywhere after the same manner. "Diseases" do not exist sui
generis. In each
type of disease, as in the aggregate of types, the multiplication of effects
has continually aided the transition from a more homogeneous to a more
heterogeneous state. In a succession of "diseases" from a
"lower" (simple) to a "higher" (complex) type, and a
consentaneous greater degree of complication, many factors cooperate in
effecting the pathological evolution. There are varieties but not species in
disease. Dr.
Rabagliati thinks that there are "two great lines of the development or
evolution of diseases." Tracing these he says: "In
one the sequence of events is indigestion, heartburn, acidity, the occurrence
of watery blebs or blisters on the lips or tongue, sore throat (tonsilitis)
acne of the skin, rheumatism (initis, I have ventured to call it-congestion
of connective tissue generally, lymph-congestion rather than
blood-congestion), constipation, bronchitis and broncho-pneumonia, pneumonia
itself, scanty high-colored urination often accompanied by a heavy deposit on
standing, insomnia, eczema, and apoplexy or cancer. In the other we have
indigestion, fullness and weight after eating, faintness, relieved immediately
by frequent eating, and remotely aggravated by the same, enlargement of
glands in the neck, the watery blebs on the neck mentioned above, free
urination without deposit of precipitate, tendency to free perspiration or
sweating, the occurrence of diseases in a joint such as the knee, hip, elbow
or ankle, anemia (thripthemia, or catatribemia rather it should be called),
pallour and attenuation, feeling of general or frequent fatigue, pelosis, or
proneness to become black and blue on receipt of very slight or unremembered
injuries, flushing followed by coldness, lameness of hands, rheumatism,
diarrhea, pleurisy and tuberculosis." In view
of the unity and continuity of pathology, we say that diagnosis is not only
faulty in application, but it is fundamentally wrong in principle. It
consists in finding the non-existent and in differentiating the
undifferentiated.
It
should be the business of every one of us to understand the natural resources
of a healthy life and an abundant vitality, and to make use of the most
appropriate and most powerful natural agencies as the simplest and most
effective means of restoring and renewing health, strength and youth. He who
wants to rebuild and renew his body, when the old frame has, for years past,
been accumulating toxins, rather than attempt to patch up the body, will
prefer the natural to the artificial remedies. At this
point I am reminded of the thousands who yearly journey long distances to the
renowned mineral springs and mineral wells to imbibe their mineral-laden
waters in the hope renewing their health and strengthening their
bodies—only to be disappointed. There
are more minerals in fruits and vegetables than in most mineral waters and
these have the advantage of being usable by the body. The crude minerals in
the water represent only so much irritating dirt; the minerals in the and
vegetables are necessary food elements. The minerals in the water always and necessarily
injure the body; the minerals in the fruits and vegetables always and
necessarily contribute to the renewal of the body. The
common use of charcoal by those who suffer with gas and indigestion supplies
us with another striking example of our vicious habit of puttering with
palliatives instead of making radical corrections of the causes of our
troubles. Charcoal
attracts to itself and condenses many gases and vapors, for which reason it
is employed to relieve flatulence and the discomforts of indigestion and
constipation. It should be very obvious to the reader, however, that such
treatment permits the causative factors to remain untouched. The charcoal
does not remedy the indigestion and constipation; but by affording some
transitory relief from the discomforts of these, it encourages the neglect of
the causes of these troubles and thus becomes a positive evil rather than a
benefit. In like
manner, bicarbonate of soda is commonly employed where there is a sour
stomach due to fermentation. Many thousands of sufferers from indigestion
employ soda several times a day for the short respite from discomfort which
it brings to them. They do nothing to remedy the causes of their chronic
indigestion. Besides
affording temporary relief from discomfort and thus encouraging neglect of
the causes of their troubles, soda has other and positively evil effects,
such as neutralizing the hydrochloric acid of the stomach, destroying the
pepsin of the gastric juice and destroying the vitamins in the food. Its use,
even as a temporary expediency, is never advisable. These
conditions have no natural tendency to disappear, but, on the contrary,
become worse and worse, as time passes unless their causes are corrected or
removed. If we wish to prevent an incurable organic condition from
developing, these functional disturbances must be prevented or remedied and
not suffered to continue while we content ourselves with enervating
palliatives. Barrelsful
of pepsin and pancreatin have been given to dyspeptics—they are still
suffering. Oceans of "bitters" are swallowed yearly to improve
digestion. These not only do not increase gastric secretion, but they
actually lessen the secretion of gastric juice. Alcohol is used by many as a
stimulant to digestion. It precipitates the pepsin and thus destroys the
activity of the gastric juice. It is
said that "seventy tons of aperient pills are used in England annually
without curing the English constipation." We not infrequently meet with
those who have been taking laxatives and cathartics regularly for from ten to
fifty years and are still constipated. But they continue to use their
"cures," and when one cure ceases to cure they resort to another. Constipation
is treated with methods that invariably make the condition worse. Laxatives,
cathartics, enemas, irrigations, rectal dilators, wheat bran, agar agar,
psyllium seed, herb compounds and other agents and methods which have no
influence at all upon the causes of impaired bowel function, but which do
weaken the colon, are employed by almost everybody in America. The users of
these methods do not overcome their constipation. Instead, the constipation
becomes increasingly obstinate and the colon becomes weaker and weaker until
it sags or "falls" and ultimately lacks power to functionat all. Tonsils
are removed, teeth extracted, the appendix excised, ovaries cut out, the gall
bladder extirpated—in short, organs are wantonly and needlessly
sacrificed—while the causes of the troubles in these and other organs
of the body are left to continue their impairing work. Thyroid enlargement is
cut away and, if the patient does not die from the operation, due to the
persistence of the original causes of the goitre, the remaining portion of
the thyroid enlarges. Tumors
are removed and their causes left untouched. Other tumors develop
subsequently at the same or another site. Essentially benign tumors become
malignant as a result of the operation. We are told that the causes of tumors
and cancers are unknown and this enables us constantly to overlook the fact
that anything which acts prejudicially to the general health is a factor in
the production of these things. Glandular
extracts are administered, or the glands are irradiated or electrocuted or
drugged, while the causes of glandular impairment are ignored. If the glands
are working over time, they are inhibited; if they are not working enough,
they are stimulated. But the factors that are responsible for their excessive
or deficient function are permitted to continue to impair the glands and
other organs of the body. Thus I
might go on and on with this recital of the tinkering and patchwork methods
in vogue—methods of stimulating or depressing the organs of the body
and poisoning its coils and tissues, in a foolish effort to compel it to
behave in a healthy manner in spite of impairing causes that are either
ignored or unrecognized. But no useful purpose would be served by such a
recital. The
whole plan of modern treatment of disease is irrational and injurious. To
relieve pain, for instance, certainly no agent or practice should be employed
that tends to deprive the nerves of the power to produce it—to feel.
Not the pain, but its causes or occasions should be removed. It is equally as
rational to administer opium to relieve the pain in a corn and leave the
ill-fitting shoe on the foot, as it is to give it to relieve pain elsewhere
in the body and not remove the exciting cause. The
history of those who come to us shows that their weak spot is nervous
depletion with functional weakness of both the digestive organs and the
emunctories. Prior treatment received by these people has all been of a
character to extend and perpetuate the abnormalities. Physicians
have made great advances in the determination of pathology and of
differential disease states, but this has caused them to attach too much
importance to special points of pathology, which, therefore, receive
exclusive therapeutic attention. Pathology, in general and in particular is
progressive in character, both in degree and in form. It not only passes
through various stages of development, but tends to develop in different
directions from the same beginnings. Beginning
with nervous depletion, digestive derangement and impaired elimination, the
pathology develops, step by step as one organ and function after another or
one tissue after another is strongly affected by the general weakening,
poisoning and starving of the body. But the different forms thus
assumed—the "different diseases" thus developed—do not
necessarily call for a corresponding difference in remedial care. They
certainly do not call for the enervating palliation and symptomatic
suppression everywhere in vogue. By the
continuity of disease 1 mean that related sequence of progressive effects
which binds all so-called disease units together so that the innumerable
"diseases" are not single independent "diseases," but
integral parts of the whole process. We must forever discard the superstition
that each so-called disease is an isolated entity risen into existence out of
nothing, either to continue until it destroys its victim, upon which it feeds
parasitically, or else be driven back into nothingness by the conjurations
and potencies of the doctor. Only
the processes of Nature (working with natural agents and forces) can resupply
lost or diminished nervous energy and rebuild damaged nervous structure. This
can be done only by agents and substances; the innate qualifies of which
supply the current demands of the vital powers. True
remedies are those only the constant tendency of which is to restore the
healthy state. Agents that excite or depress nervous activity; narcotics that
deprive the nerves of the power to tell us, by aching, of trouble; cathartics
that lash tired, overworked bowels into vigorous and exhausting action—
these are not remedies. The true anodyne is not the drug that all but stops
the nervous activity, but the process that removes the cause of the pain.
So-called drug anodynes are, in reality, odynes. The
hygienist, is, therefore, bound to preserve, with the utmost care, the vital
powers of his patient; to provide every condition favorable to recovery; and
to avoid every measure in us to the organism. For, under no circumstances and
at no stage of any so-called disease, is there need to make any use of means
which tend to injure either immediately or remotely, the permanent health of
the sick person. The future integrity of the organism must not be sacrificed
upon the altar of the therapeutic god-Immediate Transient Respite from Discomfort.
Natural methods are those agents and influences that bear some vital or
nutritive relation to the living body. Artificial methods are those agents
and influences that bear an anti-vital and poisonous relation to the living
organism. The first either supplies nutriment or promotes nutrition; the
second excites and destroys. Natural
methods rebuild and renew; artificial methods exhaust and tear down. We
should not find it difficult to make our choice between these two groups of
methods.
We live
in an age when the sensational and the sensual are much stronger than the
spiritual and the ideal. Men's higher natures are in more or less complete
subjection to their appetites and desires. The animal is in the ascendancy
and is thoroughly perverted. People are bent on the gratifications of today
and give no thought to the judgment that is coming. With
occasional exceptions, those around us are governed by low and grovelling
appetites, and swelling, surging desires and passions. Inmost men the mind is
a bond-slave to a diseased body; the higher faculties of the mind are
subordinated to the propensities, and convictions are allowed to yield to
desires. The will and the higher powers of the mind are not in control. Aims
are low, gratifications lower, excesses and dissipations subjects of boasting
and swaggering; and degradation and defilement are the common lot of all. All
classes of men are to a greater or lesser degree slaves to their bodily appetites
and passions. The
result of all this is physical, mental and moral decay, corruption, disease
and death. Poor health is the almost universal rule; good health the
exception but seldom seen. To man of today, health, perfect, uninterrupted,
and joyous health, is a myth and a total stranger. They have read of it, they
have even talked of it, but it visits them only in their dreams and they
think of it only as having existed in some long forgotten Golden Age or
Edenic Paradise. To them life is an unending round of pains and sufferings.
This is all true because man has not learned and will not learn the Hygienic Way. When
man becomes sick he seeks a physician—one who by the magic power
of some drug or serum, vaccine or operation, or else some machine, or
apparatus, or metaphysical formula, can cure him—to dose away
and treat away the evil effects of such a mode of living and permit him, at
the same time, to continue such living. He wants to be cured of his
dyspepsia, rheumatism, catarrh, general debility, etc., and then be permitted
to go on ignorant and undisciplined, unrestricted and untrained, to make
himself sick all over again. Such methods only deal with effects and
leave untouched the causes by which the evils they attempt to combat are
produced. Patients thus cured return, like the sow that was cleansed,
to their wallowing in the mire. For it will be observed that, in all this
treatment, there is no lesson taught, no discipline enforced, no condition
instituted that is of any value in health or in a subsequent state of
disease; the intellect of the patient is left a blank, his body a scene of
devastation. He returns to the manner of living that produced his disease, in
the first place, and in this he is encouraged by physicians and relatives, by
nurses and friends, and by conventional examples, which he sees all around
him every day. The result is he is again sick before long and the process of
curing him is repeated. The
Hygienic Review has no sympathy with this old delusion of cure and no
regard for the curing professions that foster this fallacy for their own
financial gain. The mission of the Review is to impress upon its
readers the folly, the shame, and the crime of being sick, that they shall
feel as guilty when they become sick as when they have committed theft; to
teach its readers, as far as it can, how to subdue appetites, change habits,
confirm principles, and arouse to renewed activity those elements of goodness
in man's nature which now actuate but feebly the human soul. The mission of The
Hygienic Review is to teach its readers, if they can be taught, how they
may not only overcome all their weaknesses and diseases, and thus be truly
cured, but how to remain free from disease and weakness throughout life. It
seeks to guide those liable to suffer from disease to a true knowledge of
themselves, and to the cause of their miseries, and finds a cure for these in
the discipline and correction of faulty and perverted voluntary habits of
everyday life. The
Hygienic Review would impart to its readers the knowledge that Nature
cures disease, and that she does it by the wise application of those same
means which she employs to maintain beings in a healthy state. The
Hygienic Review would awaken your instinctive repugnance to poisonous
medicines and fan it into an intense disgust. It would caution you against
the clap-traps and catch-pennies by which the unwary and unknowing are led to
their undoing. In their place it would substitute an intense enthusiasm for a
simple, natural, wholesome and well-ordered life—a life so pure from
stain that the blessing of uninterrupted good health shall settle down upon
the brow of all.
Coryza
or rhinitis, commonly known as a cold, costs the American people an enormous
sum of money each year. The cost in loss of time from work and in doctor's
bills runs several millions of dollars. The cost in lowered efficiency and
lessened productive power is also very great. If for no other reason than
that of saving money the people of America should be interested in the cause
and prevention of colds. The cold is one of the simplest maladies with which
man suffers. It is also one of the most common of his affections. It has been
one of his most frequent difficulties throughout recorded history. Yet only
within the last few years has any effort been made to determine the nature
and cause of colds. During these few years many "research" workers
have spent huge sums of money and expended much time and energy in their
effort to discover the cause of colds. Today
they know as much, or nearly so, as when they began their work. The cause of
the cold is still a deep, dark mystery. They come, they run their course,
they pass and the patient and physician know neither why nor how. Failure
to find the cause of colds is due to the fact that the "research"
workers are bent over their microscopes trying to find the little germ-devils
that are responsible for the mischief. They assumed in advance that colds are
caused by germs and a germ they must find. Although
the guilty germ-devil has not been apprehended it is assumed that he is there
just the same and those who are seeking for a cure for the cold are trying to
locate a serum that will exorcise the legion of germ-devils that have
obsessed the bodies of those who suffer with colds. Many serums have been
tried but all of them have failed. Failure
is writ large on both the efforts to find the cause and on the efforts to
find the cure. This is so for the reason that cause is being sought for in
realms where it does not exist and because a voodooistic method of cure can
never succeed. The
causes of colds are known; have been known for a long time. Likewise the
proper method of dealing with a cold is known. This knowledge has been in our
possession for years. The "research" work that has been carried on
and which is now being carried on is worse than wasted. Enervation
and toxemia are omnipresent where there is any departure from the normal
standard of health. These are antecedent to the development of any so-called
disease. Enervation
is a state of lowered nervous energy and always acts to lower physiological
efficiency. Excretion or elimination is checked, digestion is impaired and
resistance to any and all disease influences is lowered by enervation. Enervation
is brought on by a mode of living that uses up nervous energy in excess of
the daily supply. Anything that lowers the powers of life, any excess or
overstimulation, produces this state. Lack of rest and sleep are potent
causes of enervation. Nervous strain, grief, anxiety, worry and other such
emotions help to lower nervous energy. Toxemia
is an excess of toxins in the blood. These result primarily from the
activities of life; are the normal end-products (waste) of the activities of
the cells of man's body. Normally they are excreted, but when enervation has
crippled the processes of elimination more or less of them are retained and accumulate
in the tissues and lymph. This is to say, toxemia is due to the retention in
the body of the poisons that the normal body is throwing off every minute of
its life, day or night, asleep or awake, from the cradle to the grave. Under a
full tide of nervous energy, sound organs of elimination are able to keep
these wastes or toxins down to a healthful minimum and thus maintain health.
But when these have been weakened and their functional efficiency has been
reduced by enervation, they are not successful in maintaining the normal
purity of the fluids of the body. A
common source of toxins is the digestive tract. Either from over eating, or
from impaired digestion, due to enervation, food decomposes in the stomach
and intestine and some of the resulting toxins are absorbed into the blood. Under
ordinary circumstances, the liver destroys these toxins and the kidneys
eliminate them. But when the functions of these organs have been crippled by
enervation, or when the toxins are thrown into the blood in such quantities
that these organs are overwhelmed, the body is forced to find some other
manner of disposing of them. When
the membranes of the nose and throat are selected as the channels through
which to leak out the surplus food and excess of waste and toxins, we call
the process a cold. The common cold is a process of vicarious
elimination—it is a safety valve, a cleansing or curative measure. The two
great causes of colds are repletion and exhaustion (enervation). Repletion,
or plethora, tends to overtax the functions of life and poison the body and
necessitates an unusual house cleaning process. Excesses
of sugar, starches and milk are the chief causes of catarrhal conditions, of
which the cold is one. Eating when exhausted, when worried, or over excited,
or under any similar circumstance, when the digestive powers are lowered and
the eliminative functions are impaired, results in poisoning and necessitates
recourse to an unusual means of elimination. Colds,
then, are not something that we "catch," or that catch us. Instead
of catching something we are getting rid of something and that something is
too hot and feverish to be called a cold. The nose running and drooling are
simply nature's effort to get rid of excess. Colds
do not, as is popularly taught, lay the foundation for other more serious
diseases. They are efforts to prevent development of more serious conditions.
The condition of the body that makes a cold or a series of colds necessary,
may, and often does, due to the persistence of its causes, demand other and
more acute eliminating measures to remedy; but the cold, which is a process
of compensatory elimination, did not lay the foundation for the subsequent
process. Tuberculosis
no more develops out of a cold than the hair on a man's head develops out of
the hair on his face. The persistence of the condition the body seeks to
remedy by means of the cold, may finally result in tuberculosis, but the
cold, as a process of elimination, is distinct from the toxic condition of the
body which it seeks to remove. The
prevailing view is that colds are caused by germs and that the less virulent
germs (of colds) first break down the body's resistance, after which, the
more virulent germs (of infantile paralysis, measles, tuberculosis, etc.),
are able to invade the body and play havoc therein. This view seems absurd
and lacks verification. Colds
often begin early in life as mild maladies confined practically to the nose
and lasting but a short time. As life continues and the impairing influences
to which it is subjected weaken the body more and more, colds extend down the
throat into the chest. Each cold seems to be down a little deeper, to hang on
a little longer and to give more trouble. This marks the weakening and
deterioration of the body. Finally, the causes against which the cold is a
defense, so completely undermine the body that some serious disease develops. Viewed
superficially, the frequent colds seem to have resulted in the more serious
malady; but actually, the colds have prevented the more serious condition
from developing much earlier. The colds have saved life and preserved health
against great odds. Chronic disease is due to chronic provocation and not to
the intermittent processes of vicarious elimination. It is
always desirable to prevent disease—to have good health. But, due to
our mode of living, bodily conditions develop that make disease necessary
and, under these conditions, colds and other such eliminating processes
should be welcomed, not feared. They are life-savers, not destructive
processes. Many
so-called diseases begin with a cold and this has helped to lead us to
believe that colds prepare the way for "other diseases." Nothing
could be farther from the truth. The cold, in such a case, is only one part
of a general house-cleaning process in which several tissues or organs
cooperate in eliminating the toxemia. Colds
have a habit of developing after feast days, such as Thanksgiving and
Christmas. They may develop at any time, however, when over-eating or
enervation have resulted in a need for them. Although
it is commonly thought that exposure to cold and dampness causes colds, some
of the most severe colds develop in summer and in periods of drought. Colds
are more common in damp, cloudy, cold weather, because we eat more, are less
active and stay more indoors in poorly ventilated rooms. During the summer we
eat less and are outdoors and in the sun more. On the other hand, in summer,
Nature tends to dispose of food excess by means of diarrhea. No
amount of exposure results in colds in those who are in good health and who
take proper care of themselves. A healthy man may be so badly frozen that he
is unconscious and then, if he is warmed and cared for so that he does not
die, he does not develop a cold. In some parts of this country it is nothing
unusual for certain religious sects to break the ice and baptize new
converts, but no colds result. Men go hunting in winter, fall through the ice
and get wet, and then tramp long distances to the nearest farm house and do
not develop colds. I do
not mean to convey the thought that undue exposure of this kind will not be
followed exposure by a cold in those who are already enervated and toxemic.
Such exposure will place a sufficient check upon elimination in these people
to result in a cold or some other acute eliminating process. Now
that we understand what a cold is and what its causes are, we are prepared
for a rational plan of prevention and a sane method of care. Colds are
prevented, that is, made unnecessary, by living in such a way that a high
standard of health is maintained. Moderate eating of wholesome foods, daily
exercise, fresh air, sun baths, plenty of rest and sleep—these are the
elements out of which health is compounded. No cure
for colds is needed. The cold is a curative process. It should not be
suppressed, or checked, or "cut short". It should be allowed to
complete the work of purification—"let it run its
course"—without hindrance. By this
I do not mean that there is nothing that we can do, when we have a cold, that
is helpful. There is much that can be done and that should be done. Colds
last from a few hours to a few weeks. The average cold lasts three or four
days. Colds are self-limited. For these reasons, almost anything seems to be
a cure. If we resort to pulling the ears, or twisting the toes to cure a
cold, these measures would seemingly be successful. However,
when a cold develop that persists for several weeks, all of the vaunted
"cures" that people swear by fail. These are the colds that weigh
the cures in the balance and find them wanting. In all cases where the cold
does not last over three or four days, anything and everything appears to
cure. In cases where the cold lasts several weeks, nothing appears to cure. It is
precisely in these long-drawn-out colds that the simple Natural Methods prove
their true worth. Put to the acid test in such conditions, they do not
suppress the symptoms, but hasten the elimination of the toxic-overload back
of the cold. Let us see what these methods are. There
is no more rapid means of getting rid of excess than fasting. The individual
suffering with a cold should immediately stop all food except water; or else,
he should confine himself to fruit juices. Eating intensifies and prolongs a
cold. All the water desired may be taken. There is no reason to force water
upon the system in the absence of thirst, but one should drink all the water
demanded by instinct. Whenever
it is possible, if the sufferer will go to bed and rest, the process of
elimination will be speeded up through all channels and the toxins will be
eliminated from the body in shorter time. Rest is especially important for
those who are run down or exhausted. Where
one can not get away from his or her duties and go to bed, every effort
should be made to secure as much extra rest and sleep as circumstances
permit. Go to bed early, and get all the rest possible through the day. Take
things easy. Keep
warm. Chilling checks elimination and prolongs the cold. Do not roast
yourself. Do not stay in an ill-ventilated room. Have plenty of fresh air in
the room day and night, but keep warm. Rest,
warmth, fasting—these are the natural measures which insure speedy
consummation of the process of vicarious elimination that is a cold, and a
return to normal health. If these measures are inaugurated at the beginning,
no cold will ever persist for weeks, as many do under the prevailing plans of
care. There
are many ways of suppressing a cold which are often successful or partially
so, but suppression, which means thwarting Nature's efforts to eliminate an
excess of toxins, is not desirable. Such measures tend to produce chronic
disease. Not only do they have directly injurious consequences of their own,
but they lock up, as it were, the toxins in the body and these produce more
or less permanent damage to one or more of the organs of the body. The cold
should be allowed to run its course, shortened only by such purely natural
measures as positively promote the elimination of toxins. If this is done,
the cold will always be followed by improved health. What Caused the
Quints' Tonsillar Troubles? The
Quints were cared for "scientifically". All the wisdom of Modern
Medical Science was expended in caring for them. Trained nurses were
substituted for their mother and they were well protected from all possible
sources of infection. The government backed the program, with unlimited
funds. Nothing was left undone that science and wealth could do. Their whole lives
were ordered in conformity with the best science has to offer. Yet, at
an early age they all became sick. At first they had colds, which science
could not cure. Their condition grew steadily worse until their tonsils
became involved and, finally, the glands of their necks. Medical Science
stood helplessly by and watched a simple cold grow progressively worse and,
then, had nothing better to offer than the removal of the girls' tonsils. Science
has failed! Science has not succeeded in making and keeping the girls
healthy. Science has proved unable to stop a simple cold or to cure a simple
sore throat. Science has begun the melancholy program of cutting out the
tell-tale effects of its plan of care. The first operation has been
performed; will the appendix, or the gallbladder, or the cervical glands be
next; or, will science next extract a few teeth? If the
trouble is an infection, that is, if it is due to the invasion of the body by
germs, including the streptococci, and these have already spread to the
glands of the neck, which glands are the same kind of structures as the
tonsils and adenoids, will removing the tonsils and adenoids prevent future
trouble? In order to remove the "infection" will it not be
necessary to also remove the glands of the neck? If any other structures have
become involved, will these not have to be removed also? Each infected gland
becomes a secondary "focus of infection". Will
removal of the tonsils and the adenoids remove cause? If not, if cause is
allowed to continue operations, will it not continue to produce effects? It
is begging the question to say that germs are the cause. Germs are
everywhere. Children live in an atmosphere of germs and should be sick all
the time if these are the cause of disease. At most, germs my become an
auxiliary cause, they can never be primary. If
germs are the cause of disease, and, if man did not possess resistance to
them, no child could live more than a few days after birth. The mouth and
throat of every infant, child and adult, harbors at all times millions of
germs of many kinds—tubercle bacilli, diphtheria bacilli, hemolitic
streptococci, etc. Scientific investigation discloses the fact that fifty per
cent of normal throats harbor streptococci. In ninety per cent of normal
persons they are harbored in the tonsils; in eighty per cent of normal
persons they are found in the depths of the tonsils; and in one-hundred per
cent of normal persons they are found in the crypts of the tonsils. These
same germs reach the stomach through the medium of food and drink. Is it not
remarkable that any of us are alive? We must
go beyond the ubiquitous germ to find the cause of the suffering of the
Quints. For, unless there is a condition of the, body varying from health,
germs can do nothing. The healthy body is proof against germs of all kinds. The
state of the body immediately preceding the appearance of the germs—the
state of the body that allows the germ to operate—is, therefore, the
important one. This it is that determines the possibility of
"infection", and no operation can possibly remove this body-state.
Without this state of lowered resistance disease never could appear, germs or
no germs. When germs invade the living organism it is a sign that the
organism is weakened and in a state of lowered resistance. Whatever
lowers resistance, whatever produces the state of the body that allows the
germs to operate, is the true, the basic, cause of disease. The
germs are merely adventitious—secondary. The real remedy is to remove
the cause of lowered resistance and build resistance. Cutting out important
defense organs—the tonsils, adenoids and other lymphoid structures in
the throat, neck and elsewhere, are parts of the body's first line
defenses—does not increase resistance. Indeed, the depressing effects
of the anaesthetic, loss of blood, shock of the operation, post-operative
anodynes (pain killers), the "nerve sedatives" (depressants) given
both before and after the operation, and the fear and apprehension created by
the prospect of the operation, all tend to further reduce resistance. They
enervate and enervation is lowered resistance. Even
though the Quints survived their operations, they are not restored to health;
for the operations will not have removed cause. Like millions of others who
have had their tonsils and adenoids removed, a little later it will be found
necessary to remove another "focus of infection", and still
another, and another. Cutting out effects, palliating symptoms, no matter how
skillfully and scientifically done, never removes cause, and until cause is
removed there is no cure. What
has tonsilitis to do with other diseases? That diseased tonsils harbor septic
material is not denied. But the condition, in order to persist, must be
daily, yes hourly, fed on the products of decomposition. Unless the cause of
the tonsillar trouble is constantly added to, it speedily spends its force
and the tonsils return to normal. If cause is not removed, the removal of the
tonsils will not restore health. Disease continues connected to its basal
cause, irritating the doctor by causing his best prognoses to go awry. Disease
is not its own cause. Tonsilitis is an effect. Treatment directed to these
effects can never be anything more than doubtful palliation. The tonsils may
be successfully removed but the patient is not cured, because cause is
untouched. All of
this will become more clear to the reader if we trace the development of
disease and point out its real causes. The functions of the body depend on
nerve energy for their performance. Every function in the body is efficient
or not, depending on the amount of nerve energy reaching its organ. When
nerve energy is abundant, function is efficient, and we have health; when
nerve energy is low, functions lag and there begins the development of
disease. The
body is not an inexhaustible store-house of energy that may be drawn upon
without limit. Everything that we do uses up energy; even living uses up
energy. All goes well so long as we do not use up more nerve energy during
the hours of activity than we regenerate or recuperate during hours of
repose. But if our mode of living is such that we daily use up energy in
excess of our daily recuperation, our supply of energy is gradually lessened,
producing enervation. Enervation
lowers function—it reduces secretion and excretion. Impaired excretion
(elimination) permits the gradual accumulation of retained body
waste—end-products of metabolism. These wastes are poisonous and act as
stimulants (irritants) and thus produce more enervation. Thus, the retained
toxin becomes an ally of enervating habits by over-stimulating the body.
Over- stimulation always produces enervation. We have a vicious circle
established and the longer it runs, the farther and farther is the individual
carried away from the standard of good health. A
normal person develops enough waste products in a few hours to produce death,
if they are not eliminated. Full nerve energy is necessary for normal
elimination, and such a state cannot be maintained while enervating habits
are practiced. Impaired elimination permits the day by day accumulation of
the uneliminated metabolic waste—toxins—producing toxemia. Waste
is a constant product; auto-generated at all times. Toxemia is the common
state of mankind and, due to enervation, from wrong life, man oscillates,
from the cradle to the grave, between a mild toxemia and a state of toxic
saturation. Toxins vary from slight irritants to virulent and deadly poisons.
The amount and virulence of toxins determines the danger. They may produce
anything from a simple catarrh or redness of the skin, to measles and
tonsilitis, or to diphtheria, small-pox, and bubonic plague. Toxins
circulating in the blood come in contact with every tissue and pervert
nutrition. When the toxic saturation becomes great enough to cause reaction,
vicarious or compensatory elimination takes place through some point of the
mucous membrane—usually of the respiratory or digestive tracts. These
crises we call disease—colds, catarrhs, etc.—and name according
to the location of the eliminative fontanel. Chronic
toxemia means a state of inebriety, and, like chronic alcohol poisoning,
leads to tissue and organic changes, producing old age and organic and
degenerative diseases. At all times the body is in a state of toxic
overstimulation, and all the time an imperceptible organic change is taking
place in all the tissues throughout the body. Enervation
also checks secretion—digestive secretions and endocrine secretions are
inadequate. This results, not alone in indigestion and subsequent poisoning,
but in nutritional perversion from insufficient secretions of the ductless
glands. Gastro-intestinal
putrefaction and fermentation, instead of digestion, take place and the
poisoning, added to metabolic toxemia and retained urea, produces a
pan-toxemia that may result in serious diseases. Intestinal putrescence
evolves ptomaine poisoning, which puts a deadlock on elimination; then
vicarious elimination through the mucous and serous membranes becomes necessary
to save life. Putrefactive poisoning—poisoning from decomposing
proteins, especially animal proteins—is especially virulent, and, when
added to toxemia, as a complication, forms the basis of the virulent types of
disease. The
simplest and commonest type of disease is a cold (catarrh) which usually
disappears, with or without treatment, in a week, or less. Indeed, if the
toxemia is mild and not accompanied by infection from putrescence absorbed
from the bowels, the cold should be gone in two days. It is common to think
that when the symptoms have disappeared the patient is restored to health.
Not so. If he had not been much below the near-health standard, he would not
have developed a cold. The cold (crisis) is past, but its cause is still
present, and in a short time the symptoms will reappear and he will have
"another" cold. A
toleration for metabolic toxins can be built, just as a toleration for
morphine, nicotine, caffeine, etc., can be built. This really means that the
warning voice of self-protection can gradually be put to sleep while the body
is slowly, gradually, insidiously undermined. After toleration is
established, crises occur only when the toxins accumulate beyond the point of
toleration. Those who carry toxins to the point of toleration will develop
occasional or frequent crises. If the
habits that cause the enervation are continued, the toxins will reaccumulate
after each crisis—each process of vicarious elimination—or
disease, and many crises will occur before organic change takes place. Toxemia
is a constant product and exerts a constant influence. It muddies all the
waters of life, contaminates everything it touches, and lowers the vitality
of all the tissues. When toxemia has brought about a chemical change in the
tissues of the body—when a favorable soil has been produced by
enervation and toxemia—then, and not until then, germs, which are
omnipresent, may become an auxiliary, but never a primary cause. Inflammation
of the tonsils is due to toxemia. Chronic inflammation is due to toxemia
complicated by chronic intestinal auto-intoxication. Intestinal
auto-intoxication is due to fermentation and putrefaction of food— as a
result of eating beyond digestive capacity, or eating such food mixtures as
overtax the digestive enzymes. The
involvement of the cervical glands of the Quints reveals that they suffered
from excessive protein intake. Chronic putrescence (sepsis) resulting from
protein putrescence in the intestine, involves the lymph-adenoid tissues,
producing adenitis, and ultimately, tuberculosis. The cess-pools under the
diaphragms of these children are the real sources of their infections, and
the removal of the lymphatic structures, while leaving the cess-poo]s
untouched, will not restore health. Treating symptoms as cause is worse than
folly. Their
pictures show the Quints to be quite plump. The plump and rotund individual
may feel and look well, but he will break down in the most vulnerable part of
his organism as soon as sufficient toxemia and intestinal poisoning have
accumulated. Their plumpness indicates overfeeding, and overfeeding is a most
potent cause of enervation. Indeed, it is one of the most common causes in
children. Overfeeding is also a source of poisoning. The slow destruction of
the life of the blood by toxic material resulting from an over-crowded
nutrition is a common cause of trouble in both children and adults. We have
previously pointed out that when we have normal nerve energy, organic
functioning is normal—we have health; and that when we are
enervated—nerve energy is lowered—organic functioning is impaired
and we develop disease. What are the causes of enervation? There are hundreds
of these; in this article I intend to deal only with those most common in the
lives of children, ignoring, for our present purposes, the many additional
enervating influences affecting the lives of adults. Parents
should know the causes of enervation in children; for, otherwise, they cannot
care for them properly. Children are often born weak-enervated—and any
care the Quints received should have taken into consideration their relative
weakness from birth. It should be known that the enervated child cannot
digest food—any kind of food—as well as when not enervated. The
effort to build strength in weak children by feeding "plenty of good
nourishing food" defeats its own purpose. Such feeding enervates and
poisons. A
bugbear of nearly all mothers and most doctors is the undernourished child.
In America are many thousand of thin, undeveloped children, who, under the
advice of doctors, are, eating three big meals a day and guzzling milk and
fruit juices or other foods between meals, because of
"undernourishment." Some of these children put on weight—fat—while
most of them remain "undernourished." All of them suffer frequent
colds, sore throats, and other diseases; many of them have poor vision,
defective hearing, enlarged glands, and other evidences of poisoning and
enervation, while the death rate among them is high. Feeding
beyond digestive capacity enervates and poisons—it does not nourish.
Yet, we customarily begin our overfeeding on the day of birth and continue it
throughout life. Few infants pass the first month of life without a cold or
other toxemic crisis. Babies are handled too much, they are dressed too
warmly, they are excited too much, they are overstimulated too much and too
often in many mental and physical ways. They are fed when tired. When a child
is very tired it should be put to bed without food, or, at most, given fruit
juice only. Children
play too hard, and when they do this they become very nervous, cross, and,
even hysterical. The parent who sees his child becoming nervous, loud and
boisterous, should have him stop playing and lie down until rested. Intense
play is a form of mental and emotional overstimulation that produces
enervation. A child
that overplays, overeats, overenjoys, or that overdoes in any way will wear
out its nerve energy. If he does anything to excess he will become enervated.
His health standard will be lowered and from that time on he will be liable
to be made sick by any and all unusual influences—a Thanksgiving or
Christmas dinner, cold, heat, fatigue, excitement, etc.—that put an
added check upon secretion and excretion. Many
children are over-sunned. We tend to go to the extremes in everything we do.
We not only overeat, we overdo in every way. Sunshine is good for baby. Fine!
Give him as much as possible! So baby and child are overstimulated and profoundly
enervated by too much sunbathing. Children
become enervated by insufficient rest and sleep. It is during repose that
energy is recuperated, and when rest and sleep do not balance expenditures in
activity, enervation results. Enervation is the sum of all our expenditures,
normal and abnormal. When the total daily expenditure exceeds the daily
recuperation, we become enervated. There is only a certain store of nerve
energy available for all the activities of the body and if this is
dissipated, functions cannot be carried on efficiently. Enervating influences
beyond the compensatory capacity of the organism, produce toxemia, and
toxemia produces disease. If we
do not build disease by taxing the organism to its very limit; if
conservation of energy and not its dissipation, is the guiding principle of
life; if moderation instead of excess is practiced: there will be no
enervation and, consequently, no toxemia. Good health will stand like a
Gibraltar amid all the influences that help to prostrate the enervated and toxemic.
Epidemics will pass us by and there will be no apparent cause for cutting out
diseased organs (effects) while ignoring completely the causes of the
disease. It should be worth something to know that your children can be made
and kept healthy.
Bronchitis
means inflammation of the bronchial tubes. In this article we shall deal only
with catarrhal bronchitis. This is inflammation of the mucous membrane lining
the bronchial tube. Bronchitis may be either acute, sub-acute, or chronic. Acute
bronchitis often called a chest cold, and a "cold" it is. Its chief
symptom is rapid breathing, a sharp, dry cough, and fever. The temperature
runs about 101 to 102 degrees Fahrenheit. There is likely to be a sense of
constriction about the breast bone and pain when coughing. In infants,
breathing may be so rapid and difficult that they become cyanotic (blue); in
older children the rapid breathing is not likely to distress them.
Considerable mucus may be coughed up and expectorated or swallowed. Chronic
bronchitis is the result of chronic provocation, and the suppression of acute
bronchitis. Coughing and expectoration may be the only symptom present in
this condition, or there may be considerable irritation and soreness in the
chest and even some difficulty in breathing. In the
majority of cases, acute bronchitis lasts but a few days to two weeks;
chronic bronchitis may persist for years, ultimately terminating in asthma. When
the human organism is impaired and elimination is checked, some portion of
the mucous membrane of the body forms the common point of vicarious
elimination. The stomach is the most abused organ of the body, hence
indigestion, or catarrh of the stomach—gastritis—is one of the
first crises in toxemia—diseases. The
abuse of the stomach begins almost immediately after birth. Fondling and
overfeeding enervate the child. The meddlesome midwifery of "Modern
Medical Science" enervates both mother and child, rendering the
mother's milk, if it does not suppress it altogether, unfit as food.
Indigestion appears often in babies soon after birth and then begins a
program of infant feeding and care that rivals in its variety of means of
torture those of the Inquisition. Here in infancy is laid the foundation for
the almost universal gastro-intestinal catarrh, which, as it extends on and
on, involves more or less, all of the mucous membranes of the body and gives
rise to all the so-called catarrhal diseases. Indigestion
is not often repeated before the membranes of the throat and air passages
become involved in the toxemic crises—colds ( coryza ), influenza (la
grippe), tonsillitis, quinsy, pharyngitis, laryngitis, bronchitis, sinusitis,
etc., develop. Although named from their locations as distinct diseases, they
are merely crises in toxemia. The
mucous membranes lining the intestines and collateral organs—gall duct,
gall bladder, pancreas, etc.—as well as the respiratory passages, the
reproductive organs, the bladder, etc., may all be called upon to do
vicarious duty. That is, they may all be forced into work as channels of
compensatory elimination. The name of the toxemic crisis will be determined
by the location of the compensatory process. They
are all crises of toxemia, complicated by exogenous toxins, usually
intestinal infections—ranging from simple fermentation of carbohydrates
to septic decomposition of animal proteins. Colds, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
simple or septic measles, discreet and confluent small pox, pneumonia, typhoid
and typhus fever, etc., represent a pan-infection, complicating a primary, or
metabolic, toxemia. When
toxemia and intestinal intoxication are great enough to produce reaction
(arouse resistance) certain organs or parts are commandeered to do vicarious elimination.
When any special area of mucous membrane is forced into repeated or continual
crises, chronic inflammation is established. When organs, due to repeated
stressing by crises, take on organic change, we have so-called organic
diseases. When inflammation
becomes chronic, coryza becomes rhinitis, with the usual organic changes in
the membrane, such as adenoids, hay fever, polyps, ozena, etc.; tonsilitis
and pharyngitis become enlarged tonsils, and the catarrh extends to the
Eustachian tubes, inner ear, mastoid cells, etc.; laryngitis and bronchitis
extend lymphatics and adenitis develops, and, in those with a tendency to
tuberculosis, enlarged cervical glands and tuberculosis of the pharynx,
larynx, or lungs; gastritis evolves induration, ulceration, and
fungation—cancer; duodenitis takes on ulceration; catarrh extends into
the gall-duct, gall-bladder and liver and gallstones or "other
diseases" follow; pancreatitis develops when the catarrh extends up the
pancreatic duct and, then, diabetes and "other diseases" of the
pancreas; in the colon and rectum ulcerative colitis and proctitis develop;
in the kidneys of gouty subjects stones form; in the vagina and womb, ulcers
and cancer; in the male, prostatitis and prostatic enlargement. Such is
the unity and the evolution of disease. Diseases stem from a common cause and
have a common starting point. Germs are declared to be cause. They are, at
most, complicating factors. They are never true causes; are never primary. Bronchitis
is a catarrhal disease. Bronthorrhea—diarrhea of the bronchi—is a
catarrhal condition. Catarrhal diseases are crises of toxemia—they are
one of Nature's ways of eliminating excessive accumulations of toxins.
Chronic catarrh, wherever located, is nothing more than a continuous
elimination through the mucous membrane. Behind
every catarrh is a toxic state. Catarrh is impossible in the absence of
toxemia. Toxemia is produced by anything and everything that enervates the
body. Too much starch, sugar, cream, butter, and milk are frequent causes. Acute
bronchitis is a crisis in toxemia. It means that the mucous membrane lining
the bronchial tubes has been requisitioned to do vicarious duty—that
toxemia is being sent out through this membrane acting as a channel of
compensatory elimination. Chronic bronchitis is the aftermath of frequent
acute bronchial crises. In
describing the treatment, bronchitis, Wheeler's Handbook of Medicine says:
"In the first stage employ the bronchitis kettle, containing a solution
of eucalyptus or pinol; administer a brisk saline purge, and a diaphoretic
mixture. The cough may be relieved (suppressed) by Dover's powder, or by
heroin, but opiates tend to depress the respiratory centre, and should not be
used if there is much cyanosis (blueness). When expectoration has become more
copious, ammonia, and iodide of potassium, with paregoric maybe given. The
strength must be supported (destroyed) by tonics (atonics), hypophosphites,
etc. Later, the mineral acids are of use in diminishing the amount of expectoration." This
treatment is symptomatic, suppressive and injurious. Any patient who is
subjected to a bombardment like that described above will inevitably be left
more enervated than before and will have a foundation laid for a more severe
crisis later. Treatment of this type is employed without the slightest
suspicion that bronchitis has a cause, or that the symptoms are curative
processes. It is the outgrowth of voodooism. Sane men and women do not employ
such devilish methods. The
Hygienic care of the sufferer with bronchitis is simplicity itself. It does
not busy itself with treating and suppressing symptoms and trying to support
the strength of the patient by employing substances that always weaken in the
end. Fasting, rest and warmth are all that are required until the crisis has
passed. There should be no effort to check the cough and diminish the
expectoration except by removing the need for these—that is, by
eliminating the toxemia. Bear in
mind that the crisis—the disease—is a curative process. It is not
something to be cured. The purpose of Hygienic care is merely to supply the
body with the most favorable condition under which to carry forward its
curative work. Fresh
air in the sick room is highly important. This should be supplied without
allowing the patient to become chilled. In young children, rest and quiet are
particularly important. Babies should not be disturbed. Looking at the
child's tongue, counting its pulse, taking its temperature, and similar
procedures, frequently repeated, disturb and exhaust the child. The tongue is
coated, the pulse is rapid, there is fever. You know these things and do not
have to be forever confirming them. It is more important that the child rest. Stop
all food at once in infant, child, or adult, and give nothing but water until
the symptoms have subsided. Feed, fruit juices and fruit at first, and only
gradually add other foods to the diet. Chronic
bronchitis will often require a long fast. It should persist, whenever
possible, until the bronchial catarrh has ceased. Rest in bed is essential
during the fast. Daily sunbaths and a few minutes of exercise each day are
also important. Proper feeding and general care after the fast will assure an
evolution into good health and will preserve health thereafter.
Sinusitis
is inflammation of the nasal sinuses. The suffix, itis, means
inflammation. When placed at the end of the name of any part of the body it signifies
inflammation of that part. Hence, tonsilitis is inflammation of the tonsils;
appendicitis is inflammation of the appendix; metritis is inflammation of the
womb; cystitis is inflammation of the bladder; cholecystitis is inflammation
of the gall-bladder; hepatitis is inflammation the liver; pancreatitis is
inflammation of the pancreas; gastritis is inflammation of the small
intestine; enteritis is inflammation of the small intestine; colitis is
inflammation of the colon; phrenitis is inflammation of the brain;
cerebro-spinal meningitis is inflammation of the meninges of the brain and
cord; carditis is inflammation of the heart; pneumonitis (pneumonia) is
inflammation of the lungs; osteitis is inflammation of the bone, etc, etc. The
sinuses, or accessory air chambers, are the hollow interiors of the bones of
the face. In the lower forehead just below the roof of the nose are located
at the frontal sinuses. Along the roof of the nostrils are the ethmoid
sinuses. Opening at the rear are the sphenoid sinuses, while the antrums open
on the sides. All of these sinuses, together with the nose, form a series of
communicating air chambers and are all lined with mucous membrane. All of
the hollow organs of the body that communicate either directly or indirectly
with the outside world are lined with mucous membrane. The whole digestive
tract from mouth to anus, including the gall-bladder and gall ducts are so
lined. The whole respiratory tract—nose, sinuses, trachea, bronchi, etc.—the
auditory canals; the genito-urinary tracts; and the eyes, are all lined with
this type of inner skin. At any
point in the body where there is a mucous surface, catarrh is a possibility.
Catarrh is an inflammation of a mucous membrane with a discharge of an
abnormal amount of mucus of an abnormal character. It is always the same in
whatever part of the mucous lining of the body it is located. A cold is an
acute catarrh of the nose and throat. The same condition in the stomach will
be labeled gastritis; while the same condition in the womb is called
endometritis. Sinusitis,
or so-called infection of the sinuses, is a catarrhal inflammation of one or
more of the accessory air chambers mentioned above. Like any other catarrhal
condition anywhere else in the body, it may be either acute or chronic. Acute
sinusitis is often seen in colds as part of the cold; chronic sinusitis is
often associated with chronic catarrh of the nose and throat and is merely
part of the same condition. It frequently accompanies hay fever and asthma,
sometimes developing in advance of these troubles, sometimes developing
subsequent to their appearance, but in all cases being merely part of the
catarrhal condition present in the eyes, nose, and throat and deeper
respiratory structures. It is
nothing uncommon to find patients who suffer with sinus troubles to also have
gastritis or colitis, or metritis, or cystitis. Indeed sinusitis almost never
exists alone; there is almost certain to be catarrhal conditions elsewhere.
By this we do not intend to convey the impression that the sinusitis causes
the colitis or the metritis, or vice versa; but, rather, that all of these
local conditions are but successive and concomitant developments out of a
common or systemic condition. They are all caused by the same
thing—they do not cause each other. The
understanding reader who has followed us this far is now prepared to
understand that irrespective of name and location, catarrh is a unit, that
names and locations are unimportant. Such a reader will grasp the
significance of this fact and see at once how it simplifies much that seems
complicated and mysterious. In
sinusitis there is always the same formation of mucus, the same thickening of
the lining of the membrane, and the same formation of polyps that are seen in
chronic catarrh of the nose. If the catarrh is in the frontal sinuses there
will a continual discharge from the nose; if in the sphenoid sinus the mucus
trickles down into the throat. In all cases the condition is very annoying, often
painful and, as now cared for, apparently hopeless. The
sinuses do not drain as well as the nose, so that the mucus tends to remain
longer in them and to decompose. Sometimes they actually become obstructed so
that all drainage is stopped. Pains, headaches, and other annoying symptoms
result. Sinusitis
develops only after frequent toxic crises, in the form of colds, have
developed and the catarrhal condition has spread into more and more of the
body's mucous surfaces. It rests on a basis of enervation and toxemia and
gastro-intestinal catarrh. The
regular treatment of "sinus infection" is far from satisfactory and
sufferers go on suffering year after year watching their sinus trouble grow
worse all the while. This is true for the reason that these methods of
treatment are directed at the symptoms while ignoring the cause. There
is a story of an incident which occurred at an institution for the
feeble-minded. The superintendent, noticing water in the basement one
morning, told one of the inmates to go down and clean it up. Returning in the
afternoon, he found the man in the basement working with a mop, with the
water still running. He shouted down to the man: "You
idiot, why don't you turn off the tap?" Looking
up with a grin, the man replied: "Nobody ain't payin' me to turn 'er
off; I'm gettin' two-bits an hour to mop 'er up." Besides
operations, which chisel out the sinuses, the popular plan of treating
sinusitis consists of opening and draining the sinuses and washing them out
with strong antiseptic douches. Such procedures have as much curative effect
as "blowing the nose" in a cold. It cleans the surface but does not
touch the underlying causative condition nor the remote or producing causes. Doctors
are being paid to mop up the discharge (the already excreted material)
instead of being paid to turn off the source of supply. Patients pay them,
not to correct causes, but to palliate symptoms. Drain the sinuses and they
fill up again. Drain them again and they will refill. Keep up this process as
long as you will, it will never remedy the trouble. Until the cause of
catarrh is removed the sinusitis will continue to exist and will grow
gradually worse. No plan of treating these cases that ignores the cause can
be successful. Catarrh
is an expression of "starch poisoning" caused by the consumption of
an excess of carbohydrates—sugars, starches, milk—and faulty
elimination. Catarrh is a drainage process, a process of vicarious or
compensatory elimination, by which the toxic overload and carbohydrate excess
are eliminated. The process would cease after the excess is eliminated were
it not for the fact that excesses are daily consumed and faulty elimination
fails to take care of them. In other words the "disease" is chronic
due to chronic provocation. Sinus
troubles are better or worse as the general condition improves or
retrogresses and as living habits vary, but they are never recovered from
until their causes are removed or corrected. However
hopeless these cases appear under medical care, they can be positively
recovered from in all cases. The natural processes of care for such cases are
simple and easily fitted to the individual case by an experienced Hygienist.
They involve two general procedures: (1) Remove or correct all causes, and
(2) Build positive health. Two
groups of causes are recognized: (1) The remote causes; that is, those habits
and influences of life that have impaired the functions of the body and
produced enervation and toxemia and introduced the carbohydrate excess into
the body; and (2) The immediate causes; that is, the functional impairment,
toxemia and plethora which have resulted from the operation of the remote
causes. Both
the immediate and the remote causes must be corrected or removed and the processes
of doing these are different with the two groups of causes, and require the
direction of a skilled Hygienist in their application. Experience
and skill are required to ferret out and correct or remove all of the remote
causes, for these are legion. To correct a few causes and leave the others in
operation will not suffice to remedy the condition. The removal of the
immediate cause is accomplished by a cleansing and recuperating plan that
only an experienced Hygienist can fit to the needs of each case. Positive
health is built by the proper use of the elements of Natural
Hygiene—air, water, food, sunshine, rest, exercise, etc. These must be
used to meet the particular needs of each case. The skilled Hygienist will
have no difficulty in adapting these to individual needs. Blanket
prescriptions and cover-all treatments are not wise and are doomed to
failure. To
build health is easy after the causes that have impaired health and are
maintaining the impairment are removed. However, in practically all cases,
there exist conditions that require special modifications of the health
building program in order to fit it to the needs and capacities of the
individual. All care must be individualized. Skill and experience are
required for this. Not a method of treatment, but a mode of living is the way
to get rid of sinusitis at all stages of its development. Permanent recovery
is possible in all cases.
Of a
similar character to bronchial asthma is hay fever. Indeed the only
difference between the two affections is the location of the affected
membranes. Hay
fever is a chronic catarrhal inflammation of the mucous membrane
(Schneiderian membrane) of the nose, often involving the lining membranes of
the eyes, throat (pharynx), Eustachian tubes, larynx and bronchial tubes. It
may well be described as a severe cold running on day after day, with no
letup and often growing worse, for the longer it persists in the acute stage,
the more sensitive the mucous membrane becomes. The
catarrh is continuous but is peculiarly subject to pronounced increase in
severity of symptoms in the months of May, June, July, and August. In May the
condition is called rose-cold; in July and August, hay-fever. Hay
fever, asthma, and so-called sinus infection often co-exist. In one case the
hay fever develops first, asthma next, and sinus trouble last; in another
case the asthma develops first, or the sinus trouble develops first. The
order of their development makes no difference. The
medical profession fosters the view that because roses and strawberries come
in May and pollens abound in July and August, they should be correlated as
cause and effect. This view, like that held concerning asthma, overlooks the
underlying cause of the sensitivity of the membranes. Although
it is true that dust, pollen, emanations from horses, cats, dogs, birds, etc,
and even cold air, will drive hay fever sufferers into intolerable suffering,
this does not prove them to be causes of hay fever. Anything that irritates a
sensitive mucous membrane occasions a rush of blood to the point of
irritation and the pouring out of an exudate to flush away the irritant. Within
recent years enterprising doctors have discovered that some hay fever
subjects are allergic to their sweethearts and suffer an exacerbation
(aggravation) of symptoms every time they visit their lovers. In a few
instances the source of irritation was found in the lipstick, rouge and face
powder, or even in the perfume, but in other instances emanations from the
lover's hair were blamed. The
mistake has been made of considering normal elements in man's
environment—pollen, and emanations from animals—as causes of hay
fever; whereas, the true cause, the basic cause, is the cause of the sensitization
of membranes which normally are not sensitive to pollens, etc. Hay
fever is simply a peculiar type of chronic catarrh which only a small
percentage of catarrhal subjects develop. Two people have catarrh to the same
extent; one develops hay fever, the other does not. The sensitive individual
is neurotic, the other is not. Both are highly toxic. Hay fever is chronic
catarrh in a neurotic subject. Only
neurotic individuals—those subject to nervous diseases—will
develop the individualizing sensitization that distinguishes hay fever from
ordinary catarrh. The non-neurotic sufferer from catarrh will be influenced
little or none by the inhalation of dust pollen smoke, pungent odors, or cold
air. "Hot dogs" are the only dogs of which I know that may help to
cause hay fever. Hay
fever rests on a basis of enervation and toxemia. The hay fever sufferer is
made highly toxic by his enervating habits which inhibit full elimination of
normal body wastes. The subject builds his disease daily by keeping his
stomach deranged with his meats, potatoes, breads, pies, cakes, pastries,
butter, breakfast foods, and even with his luscious fruits covered with cream
and sugar. These things overstimulate him and produce a toxic state of his
blood which further adds to his enervation and produces nervousness and
sensitiveness as well as catarrh. By an
enervating mode of living elimination is checked resulting in toxin
retention, and accumulation. When the toxin accumulation reaches the
saturation point, crises occur. This means that certain areas of the mucous
membrane are requisitioned to do vicarious duty in excreting toxins. The
crises are named rhinitis, tonsilitis, coryza, bronchitis, etc, depending on
the area of mucous membrane used for the compensatory activity. When catarrh
becomes chronic, organic change takes place and if this is in the nose, we
have polyps, hay fever, etc. Medical
treatment of hay fever is no more satisfactory than that of asthma. Osier
advises "thorough local treatment of the nose, particularly the
destruction of vessels and sinuses over the sensitive areas". He says:
"Owing to the peculiar nature of the disease and the constant
reinfection of the mucous membranes by pollen on exposure to the outside air,
it is advised to sleep with the windows closed and to apply the serate in the
morning both to eyes and nose, and again during the day if the slightest
irritation is felt in the conjunctivae or nasal mucous membrane." Can
anything be more absurd? Yes. Perhaps the latest practice of zinc-plating the
lining of the nose is more absurd. The zinc-plating affords some protection
against pollen, as does the mechanical filter now on sale to be worn on the
nose, but neither of these methods remedy the catarrh. Neither of them
eliminate toxemia. Neither of them restore normal nerve energy. Neither of
them correct the mode of life. They are only palliative, and as all
palliatives encourage an ignoring of cause, they are positive hindrances to
recovery. Fashionable
folk are advised to go away to some place where they will not be troubled by
dust, pollens, etc. Tilden says: By July
or August the Schneiderian membrane is so morbidly sensitive that it is
irritated by pollen, ragweed, chicken feathers, goose feathers, horse hair,
cat fur—any pungent odors or microscopic irritants; and there develops
consequently, according to medical science, the very popular disease,
hay-fever, which sends thousands scampering to resorts reputed to be free of
hay-fever causes. More or less comfort is experienced at these resorts until
Jack Frost that professional 'scab' doctoring without a license—cures
everybody; and they stay cured until the various causes get to work
the next year, and then the hay-fever sufferers must go hunting cures again.
Those who have not the time or wherewithal to fly to dustless, pollenless,
ragweedless, catless, horseless, chickenless, gooseless, and senseless
resorts, employ doctors who entertain them during the hay-fever season with
frequent injections of serums made from all the well-known and unknown
causes; and, if the list is not long enough to last through the season, the
resourceful doctor invents enough new remedies to keep the victims busy
coming to his lair, hopeful and expectant of cure, until the old quack, Jack
Frost cures them again. It is
true that one may go to the sea or to the mountains and escape the irritating
pollens, but this is only another form of palliation. It must be repeated the
following year and each year thereafter, for it fails to cure the catarrh
that is the essence of hay fever, and without which the pollens produce no
irritation. Normal membranes are not irritated by pollens—only inflamed
membranes are irritated. Medical
treatment does not seek to restore normal condition and function to the
mucous membrane. It seeks to get the subject away from the sources of
external irritation, or to protect the membranes from contact with irritants
by covering them with serrates, or by zinc-plating them, or by the use of
mechanical filters; or else it seeks to "immunize" the membranes
against the pollens, etc, by the employment of vaccines made from these very
substances. Osier
advises arsenic, phosphorous, and strychnine to improve the stability of the
nervous system of hay fever sufferers. There is nothing like stabilizing the
nervous system and there are no stabilizers like strychnine and arsenic! Occasionally
some doctor, or the head of some hay fever association (the hay fever
sufferers of the country are organized into various associations and hold
national conventions) breaks into print with the senseless proposal to
destroy all ragweeds or goldenrods or all male cedar trees, etc. The
logically legitimate extension of such a program would convert the whole
country into a barren desert. For they would have to destroy not only
pollen-baring plants, trees, and grasses, but all suspected animals and even
a few sweethearts. Herbert
Spencer once remarked that mankind never tries to the right remedy until it
has exhausted every possible wrong one. So many wrong remedies have been
tried for hay fever that we almost dare to hope that the time is near when we
will be forced to try the right one. However, the inventive ingenuity of the
human race is almost unlimited and there is still much more money to be made
out of the commercial exploitation of hay fever cures that do not cure. The
restoration of sound health and normal function to the membranes of the eyes,
nose, and throat is so easily accomplished merely by removing the causes of
the catarrh and building health by employing the causes of health, that no
one need go on suffering from hay fever. The first hay fever sufferer that
came under the author's care has been free of hay fever for over twenty
years. During the whole of this time the lady could have taken a bath in
pollen without producing any discomfort. Although
some cases are a bit stubborn and require a longer time to recover health, my
experience has convinced me that fully ninety per cent of hay fever sufferers
can be fully and permanently free of hay fever in five to six weeks. This
requires only the elimination of toxemia, restoration of normal nerve energy,
and correction of the mode of living. Following this the evolution into good
health is sure and rapid.
Goitre
is the enlargement of the thyroid gland in the throat. The thyroid is one of
the body's glands of internal secretion and secretes a substance known as
thyroxin which acts as a catalytic agent in the process of oxidization, the
human body contains approximately fourteen milligrams of thyroxin, although
the amount varies under different conditions. Thyroxin is active in nearly
all the cells of the body. It quickens the rate of transformation of energy and
is a regulator of metabolism. An elevation or depression of one milligram of
the thyroxin content of the body results in a corresponding shift of 2.8% in
basal metabolism. Hyperthyroidism
is the term applied to the physiologic status that obtains when there is an
excess of thyroxin in the body. Hypothyroidism
is the term applied to the condition resulting from deficient functioning of
the thyroid. Hyperthyroidism
can exist without goitre and goitre can exist without hyperthyroidism. This
being true it is necessary to carefully weigh the so-called thyroid symptoms
to ascertain where they come from. The
secretion of thyroxin seems to depend on an adequate supply of iodine and
this has led to the belief that goitre is due to iodine deficiency. As goitre
is usually associated with excessive secretion of thyroxin, and as a lack of
iodine should result in a deficiency of thyroxin, this theory of the cause of
goitre would seem to be unsound. Certainly the practice built on this theory
of cause had failed; failed both as a preventive and a cure. There
are several classifications of goitre, but we shall here employ the one which
we consider the most simple and, therefore, most easily understood by the
layman—simple hypertrophic goitre, cystic or colloidal
goitre, and exophthalmic goitre. The
first of these is a simple enlargement of the thyroid gland and may occur
without an appreciable disturbance of function. It is frequent in young girls
and often appears at puberty. The voice and swallowing may be affected by
pressure exerted by the enlarged gland. Cystic
goitre is a thyroidal cyst containing a fluid or colloid substance within its
capsule. It may affect, by pressure, the voice and swallowing. Exophthalmic
goitre receives its name from the manner in which the eyes protrude from
their sockets—exophthalmia. There is an increased pulse rate,
frequently running up to 140 and even 160 a minute, often violent
palpitation, increased metabolism, nervous and mental symptoms, loss of
weight and energy, and often, there is sugar in the urine. The
thyroid gland is very closely linked with the sex glands. Apparently there is
a more fundamental relationship between the female sex organism and the
thyroid than between it and the male sex organism. At least disturbances of
the sex functions in females have a more profoundly disturbing effect upon
the thyroid than do disturbances of the male sex functions. Medical
science would have us believe that all the disagreeable symptoms peculiar to
exophthalmic goitre are due to systematic poisoning from excess secretion.
That this is not true is obvious from the fact that many of these symptoms
precede the hyperthyroidism. The goitre is merely a link in the chain. Hyperthyroidism
(goitre) results from toxemia, the essential and ever-present first cause of
overactivity of the thyroid. To us, all goitres are toxic goitres.
Supersaturation of the body with toxins from checked elimination, excessive
eating of proteins, starches, pies, puddings, etc, and neglect of raw
vegetables and fruits, and from various poison habits and the pyramiding of
the effects of bad habits, is the cause of goitre. It has
been shown experimentally that the thyroid gland may be stimulated into
activity by sympathetic impulses and Cannon and others say that a
continuation of such impulses over a considerable period of time produces a
condition in animals like exophthalmic goitre in man. Clinical observations
indicate that in men and women this condition may result from prolonged
nervous strain or even that it may follow a single violent emotional
disturbance. Domestic
and social discord, worry, irritation, etc, may easily produce enough
sympathetic stimulation of the thyroid to result in exophthalmic goitre.
Overwork, the various poison habits—coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol, etc,
habits—too frequent childbearing or other drains upon the organism and
various indulgencies common to modern living are factors in the production of
goitre. We consider it very significant that among animals in captivity only
carnivores suffer from goitre. Vegetarian and fruitarian animals are not so
affected. The sex
factor in the development of goitre has not received sufficient
consideration. Dr Weger says that in practically all female goitre patients
who have reached maturity and also frequently in girls who have just passed
puberty there is an intimate association and pathological involvement of the
ovaries or uterus or both. "In the majority of cases there exists a
small uterine fibroid. In many cases the uterine tissues are themselves in a
state of fibrous induration and enlargement. Almost invariably there is found
a complicating chronic endometritis or endocervicitis with retained
secretions." Tilden
says: Thyroid
enlargement is secondary to uterine and ovarian perversion in the female, and
gonadal perversion in the male, and the perversion of these reproductive
functions is super-induced by overindulged appetite and passion, for the most
part by suppressed lasciviousness and salaciousness. . . . I have never seen
a case of goitre in women who have not been troubled by toxemia, and who have
not been suffering with gastro-intestinal catarrh and a catarrhal state of
the womb. I have found drainage from the womb invariably imperfect. The
thyroid and mammary glands are auxiliary to the reproductive system and
anything that perverts the functions of the reproductive organs causes
abnormalities in the thyroid and the breasts. "Lumps
in the breasts", so generally scare-headed into cancer, are invariably
associated with the same kind of pelvic derangements as is goitre. In
goitre, the breasts of the female are often enlarged and the glands hard and
sensitive. The womb is often enlarged and sensitive with catarrh and even
ulceration of the membrane of the neck and body of the womb. The breast and
thyroid troubles are reflex affections due to womb sepsis. The imperfectly
drained (retained) secretions of the womb undergo decomposition and are
highly toxic. Sexual
repression is common in females and many of these repressed women are as
lascivious as any libertine. If married, they enter the sexual relation
without responding, consciously or subconsciously (usually the latter)
repressing themselves, and thus helping to pervert the functions of the
thyroid. To
remove the thyroid, or to give gland extracts, or to treat the gland, or to
give iodine, has no effect whatsoever on the cause of the goitre. Removal of
part of the gland is followed by subsequent enlargement of the remaining
portion for the cause has not been removed. Two and three such operations are
sometimes performed before the patient finally dies. Goitre
rests upon a physical derangement of enervation, toxemia, intestinal
putrescence and uterine sepsis, and to ignore this derangement and treat the
goitre per se cannot but fail. Dr
Weger says: "most hypertrophic goitres can be made to absorb. Absorption
of a cystic goitre is a very rare occurrence." Dr Tilden says:
"exophthalmic goitre can be cured just as easily as a fibroid tumor of
the uterus can be cured. Indeed, these diseases can be cured even after many
of the heads of the surgical profession of our leading cities declare that
they cannot be cured without operation." Complete
and ultimately successful recovery can occur only, as Dr Weger says, if
"the patient is put to bed in an environment that will ensure absolute
physical and mental rest—away from friends and even relatives. The
reasons for this are only obvious to those who have had experience in getting
nervous patients under control. Outside influence and interference are
sometimes insurmountable obstacles and always decided handicaps." We have
emphasized above the office of nervous irritation, domestic difficulties,
etc, in overstimulating the thyroid. It should be obvious to anyone how
necessary it is to get away from the sources of these disturbing factors.
Proper rest of the nervous system is not possible so long as they exist.
Physical and mental rest are vitally important in goitre cases. Toxin
elimination is best secured by fasting—physiological rest. This will
also hasten the absorption of the enlargement. Indeed it often results in a
rapid reduction and disappearance of the thyroid enlargement and of the
sensitiveness, enlargement and hardening of the breasts, and womb or ovaries. Dr
Weger adds: "Physiological rest can best be obtained by a complete fast.
All foods must be withheld and nothing but water given until the pulse is
normal and all active symptoms have subsided". Uterine
drainage is essential and if this is not re-established, success need hardly
be anticipated. Inflammation and ulceration will not heal or will heal slowly
if the constitutional toxemia is not eliminated. The
diet after the fast is vitally important, not merely immediately but for a
long time thereafter. A low carbohydrate-tolerance, lasting even for months,
is usually present and sugar in any form is forbidden. Fruits and green
vegetables are the most important food needs. A
return to the old living habits—tobacco, alcohol, coffee, domestic
discord, repression of lasciviousness, overeating, wrong eating,
etc—will quickly rebuild the trouble. Goitre may be prevented in the
first place by right living; right living alone can prevent a recurrence
after recovery.
Colitis
is an inflammation of the colon or large bowel. It is necessary to
re-emphasize that the suffix, iris, means inflammation and when joined to the
end of the name of an organ or part, it indicates inflammation of that organ
or part. Thus, rhinitis is the inflammation of the nasal mucous membrane;
iritis is inflammation of the iris, conjunctivitis is inflammation of the
mucous membrane of the eye, or conjunctiva; laryngitis is inflammation of the
larynx; otitis is inflammation of the ear; stomatitis is inflammation of the
mouth; cholangitis is inflammation of the bile duct; orchids is inflammation
of the testicle; ovaritis is inflammation of the ovary; nephritis is
inflammation of the kidney; duodenitis is inflammation of the duodenum;
endoappendicitis is inflammation of the mucous membrane lining the appendix;
endocranitis is inflammation of the endocranium, or dura mater; osteitis is
inflammation of a bone; arthritis is inflammation of a joint; neuritis is
inflammation of a nerve; and thus we might run on indefinitely naming the many
"diseases" and find them to be not names of different diseases,
but of the same disease in different locations. The
multiplication of diseases has gone even further than this would
indicate. Every fraction of an inch of anatomy calls for a different name and
the inflammation therein becomes a different disease. Inflammation in
different parts of the same organ is named as different diseases. Although
inflammation is everywhere the same process; it is denominated a different
disease in every location in which it may be necessary and, as the tendency
is to name inflammation is each tissue of an organ, and in each quarter of an
inch of the same tissue differently, there seems to be no conceivable end to
the number of diseases man may develop. Examples
of the manner in which inflammation of different parts of the same organ
receive different names are carditis; inflammation of the heart; myocarditis,
inflammation of the heart muscle (myocardium); endocarditis, inflammation of
the lining membrane of the heart (endocardium); pericarditis, inflammation of
the investing membrane of the heart (periocardium); endopericarditis is
combined endocarditis and pericarditis; endoperimyocarditis is inflammation
of all the layers of the heart; metritis, inflammation of the lining of the
womb; endometritis, inflammation of the lining of the womb (endometrium);
perimetritis is inflammation around the womb; cervicitis, inflammation of the
neck of the womb (cervix uteri); endocervicitis, inflammation of the lining
membrane of the cervix or neck of the womb; phlebitis is inflammation of a
vein; periphlebitis is inflammation of the outer coat of a vein—and
thus we could fill pages of these minute distinctions between inflammation in
the various organs and tissues of the body. It is all as foolish considering
a stye on the upper eye lid as one disease and a stye on the lower eye
lid as another disease; it is as absurd as to consider acne on one cheek
one disease, and acne on the other cheek another disease. Simple
colitis is a catarrhal inflammation of the colon. It does not differ from
catarrh of the nose (rhinitis) and throat (laryngitis), or of the vagina
(leucorrhea), or catarrh anywhere else in the body. Catarrh of the colon is
no more mysterious than catarrh of the nose and throat. It is not a different
disease from catarrh of the nose and throat; it is the same condition or
process in a different location. When this fact is realized the whole matter
becomes simple. The ordinary layman may comprehend the essential facts of
pathology and its development once the mystery-veil, woven out of thousands
of Greek and Latin terms, has been drawn back. Colitis
is one of the most common diseases with which modern man suffers. It might be
appropriately described as a chronic cold of the colon. During the course of
chronic colitis, the more intense inflammation may be localized in one or
more circumscribed areas of the colon. This more acute phase of the
inflammation is usually named after the section of the colon in which it is
located. Hence, if it is in the sigmoid flexure it is called sigmoiditis; if
it is in the rectum it is denominated proctitis. The line of demarcation
between sigmoiditis and proctitis is only an imaginary one. Such distinctions
are very misleading. Colitis
may be very mild and somewhat obscure for a long time. The abdominal distress
of which the sufferer is conscious may be attributed to gas and constipation.
Colitis may not be suspected until considerable mucus appears in the stools.
There may be mucus masses of jelly-like consistency, or suspicious-looking
ropy shreds, like casts of the bowels, or the feces may be coated with mucus,
and it is sometimes streaked with blood. Constipation,
almost always of the spastic kind, is the most outstanding symptom. Indeed
there is almost always some colitis in all cases of chronic constipation. In
colitis accompanying inflammation of the ilieum, or small bowel (ilieitis) or
in ulcerative colitis, there may be diarrhea, or diarrhea alternating with
constipation. Colonic
spasm is almost invariably present in colitis and there is almost always a
sagging of the colon—enteroptosis. There may be enteroptosis without
mucus and there may be mucus without enteroptosis, but, usually, they
co-exist. Spastic constipation seems to be an unfailing accompaniment of
either or both of these conditions. The medical opinion that the spastic
constipation causes the colitis is as ridiculous as would be the opposite
opinion—that is, that the colitis causes the spastic constipation. They
are merely two parts of the same condition and both depend upon the same
underlying cause. One of
the most prominent features of advanced colitis is the negative or depressive
psychosis—the colon complex. This complex, seen in chronic cases,
usually involves the emotions. The depressed mentality seen in these cases is
likely to be dismissed as neurasthenia by the average physician, because he
does not understand the connection that almost invariably exists between
colitis and the mental and emotional depression. Dr
Weger gave it as his opinion that a chronically diseased colonic mucous
membrane forms the basis of more mental and physical derangements than any
other single functional abnormality. All of the thoughts of such a sufferer
can become introverted and center around his digestive tract and his
constipation. No matter how hard he tries he cannot divert his thoughts from
their center of interest. Some
try bravely to repress their feelings, while others no longer attempt to
conceal their constant state of apathy. They are irritable, grouchy, nervous,
excitable and sometimes they border on melancholia or actually become
hysterical. As Dr Weger expresses it: "Few diseases can compete with
colitis in developing obsessions." The
subjective symptoms presented by the sufferer from colitis are uniformly
consistent. Certain feelings are more marked in some than in others—in
one person the digestive disturbances seem paramount; in another nervous
symptoms predominate. Constipation,
usually measured in years, is almost always present. The purgatives,
laxatives, teas, oils, enemas, diets, etc, that have been used have seemed to
give temporary relief in some cases and have aggravated the condition in
others. All of
the sufferers complain of gastric and intestinal indigestion, with gas and
rumbling in the intestine, and there is more or less pain, sometimes of a
colicy nature. Nausea and uneasiness are common and there is often a sense of
fullness. Dull and constant or sharp and recurrent headache is usually
complained of. There may be a feeling of stiffness and tension in the muscles
of the neck. A sub-occipital pain or drawing sensation is quite common. There
is a feeling of extreme exhaustion, and a lack of ambition and initiative. Objectively
these cases are likely to be thin and undernourished, though colitis may be
seen in overweight individuals. Most cases appear anemic and dysemic. There
is usually a coated tongue, offensive breath and an unpleasant taste. The
nausea experienced immediately preceding the expulsion of a large
accumulation of mucus is followed by a great feeling of relief. Misery and
dejection are written all over the face of the sufferer and this is
frequently combined with anxiety. I quote
the following resume of the many objective and subjective symptoms that color
the picture of chronic colitis, from Dr Weger: "insomnia, nervousness,
shortness of breath, premonitions of impending evil, disturbing and fearsome
dreams, bloating, fullness, gas, reverse peristalsis, loss of appetite,
bilious spells with occasional nausea, headache, weakness, cutaneous
hyperesthesia, mouth cankers, bad breath, backache, pain and weakness in the
legs, varying aspects of malnutrition, pessimism, irritability, and an
unwillingness to think or talk of anything but the ever-present
misery—intensified, of course, by the never-ending hypercritical
speculation and the habit of inspecting the stools. The most trivial intestinal
movement or unrest is often seized upon as an excuse for complaining. Pains
in the arms, legs, shoulders, and chest, even pseudoanginal seizures, often
occur in the nervous and hypersensitive type, especially during those long
periods when large quantities of mucus form." The
reader will understand that all of these symptoms are never present in any
one individual and that many of them are present only in advanced or
longstanding cases. Many cases are mild and often require years to reach the
advanced stage seen in the worst cases. No case
of longstanding or advanced colitis exists without the coexistence of many
other diseases in the individual. In all such cases, there will be catarrh of
the nose and throat, perhaps polyps in the nose, catarrh of the stomach
(gastritis), intestine (endoenteritis), and of other parts. Sinusitis is a
frequent concommitant. Hay fever and asthma are frequent. In women leucorrhea
is almost invariably present, while cystitis si common in both sexes, the catarrh
is likely to extend up the gall duct to the gall bladder, or up the
pancreatic duct to the pancreas. Often the eyes and ears are involved.
Metritis and painful menstruation are seen in women while not a few such
sufferers have had operations for the removal of tonsils, appendix, gall
bladder or other organ. In women the sagging colon may force the womb out of
position. A
longstanding catarrh condition in the nose (rhinitis) may culminate in
ulceration of the nose; a longstanding catarrhal condition of the stomach
(gastritis) may end in gastric ulcer; a chronic catarrhal condition of the
colon (colitis) may result in ulceration of the colon—ulcerative
colitis. Cancer is the next and final stage in this process of pathological
evolution. Colitis
sufferers become habituated to the use of drugs. They try every stomach and
bowel remedy that is advertised. They exhaust the list of cathartics,
laxatives, digestives, and tonics. They use enemas, colonic irrigations,
cascades and try different systems of dieting. They go from doctor to doctor
and from one system of treatment to another, studying their symptoms and
confusing their feelings. There
are many theories of the cause of colitis; there are thousands of treatments.
But we find colitis considered incurable and daily we see individuals who
have suffered with colitis for years, meanwhile trying all the treatments and
growing steadily worse. However, the condition is not as hopeless as this
makes it appear. There
is not treatment for colitis. It gets well when its cause is removed; it will
not get well until this is done. What is its cause? A wrong mode of living
and the enervation and toxemia that rest thereon. How, them, may cause be
removed? Restore nerve energy to normal, eliminate the toxemia and correct
the mode of living. Rest—physical,
physiological, mental, and sensory—is the great need in these cases.
After rest has eliminated the toxemia and restored nerve energy to normal,
proper food, exercise, sun baths, and a general health-building program will
do the rest. Feeding is often a problem in these cases as no two sufferers
can be fed alike. Special exercises are often required to restore the fallen
organs to their normal positions.
Peptic
ulcer is the name given to ulcers in the stomach and duodenum, this latter
being the upper end of the small intestine. Such ulcers rarely develop in the
jejunum or middle section of the small intestine. They are confined almost
wholly to those areas of the digestive tract that are subjected to the pepsin
and hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice. It is estimated that at least ten
percent of the population develop peptic ulcer, more than ninety percent of
these occurring in the stomach. Ulcers
of the stomach and intestine develop more in middle life than in advanced
age. This is especially true of their development in women. This disease
seems to be more common in men than in women, although this is not
universally so. In Germany, for instance, peptic ulcers are equally divided
between the sexes. Going
through the literature on the subject on is struck with the decided lack of
dependable knowledge about the condition. Why or how ulcers develop is
unknown. There is no agreement about what causes them and no harmony about
what is the best form of treatment. There is a great maze of confusion and
much uncertainty. The
fact stands out on every page of the literature that the cause of peptic
ulcer is still unknown. Efforts to account for their occurrence are usually
mere attempts to fix the blame on disease elsewhere in the body. Bad teeth
and tonsils, sinus infection, appendicitis, gallbladder
"infection", and similar troubles are usually blamed. Chemical and
mechanical causes are sometimes invoked, while heredity and nervous
derangement occasionally come in for a share of the blame. For the
most part the authorities are studying the proceeding and concomitant states
of disease in other organs of the body and, instead of seeing in these,
evidence of a general deterioration of the body, from which they all,
including the gastric or duodenal ulcer, stem, they hold that "one
disease" causes the "other disease". Peptic
ulcers may be produced experimentally in animals in a great variety of
methods. But so far, this has not thrown any light on the cause of ulcers in
man and there is grave doubt that such experimental ulcers will ever aid in
discovering the cause. In the first place, experimental ulcers are produced
by a variety of methods, some, at least, of which, we can rule out entirely
as causes of ulcers in man. Experimental ulcers are seldom or never like
those in man and do not act the same. Again, they are not characterized by
the tendency to persist, as in man. We of
the Hygienic School hold that peptic ulcer is not a local disease of the
stomach or duodenum, or, rarely, of the esophagous; but that it is merely a
local manifestation of a general or systemic derangement. This is the meaning
of all the other "diseases" and symptoms that precede and accompany
peptic ulcer. They are all outgrowths of a common cause. The
ulcer is an endpoint in a chain of causes and effects which reaches back into
the life of the patient for several years. A typical case gives a history of
recurring attacks of indigestion, pain, and distress in the stomach region
after meals, a sense of fullness, chronic gastritis, constipation, frequent
colds, and other minor ailments. Finally the teeth begin to decay, abscesses
form in them, sinus troubles develop, chronic enlargement of the tonsils
occurs, the gall bladder may be affected and, lastly, an ulcer or several
ulcers develop in the stomach or duodenum. None of
these preceding affections cause the peptic ulcer. They represent merely so
many successive stages or steps in the gradual growth of the same causes that
produce these precedent troubles. They all stem from a common cause and are
not causes of one another. Ulcers
are never found in those parts of the body that are bathed in an alkaline
medium. Acidity is essential for their development. In peptic ulcer there is
always hyperacidity of the stomach. Some authorities believe acidity to be
the most essential factor in the causation of ulcers. It is obvious, however,
that the normal acidity of the gastric juice is itself the effect of other
causes. There must not only be the acidity and its causes, there must also be
lowered resistance to the action of acids, for these structures possess a
high degree of immunity to gastric acidity. It
therefore becomes necessary to account for the lost immunity and for the
excessive acidity. Hyperacidity of the stomach is an expression of
acidosis"—of a lessened alkalinity of the body generally. Acidosis
is a condition characterized by a deficiency of fixed alkalis in the body,
which leads to an increased production of ammonia in the urine and a high
urinary acidity. The decline in blood alkalinity may be due to one or more of
many factors such as the excessive intake of fat, the free use of acetic acid
in vinegar, acid fermentation in the digestive tract, etc. The most common
cause is a diet of denatured foods—one that is preponderantly
acid-forming— and wrong combinations of food. Lost
immunity is also to a great extent an outgrowth of this same lack of alkaline
minerals. The man or woman who has peptic ulcers has a mild form of scurvy.
There is a calcium deficiency and vitamin deficiency. Hyperacidity
and lost immunity may exist without producing peptic ulcer. Other factors are
essential. First there is enervation and toxemia due to wrong living.
Neurotic, emotional, worrisome and hard-working people are most likely to
develop peptic ulcer. Due to emotional interference with digestion and to
overwork, digestion is impaired. Fermentation and putrefaction result. Poisons
and gases resulting from decomposition of food set up irritation and cause
inflammation. The indigestion becomes chronic so that the irritation is
persistent. This results in induration or hardening in the stomach and
intestine. The hardening goes on until ulceration results. Any
influence that lowers constitutional vigor and lessons resistance favors the
development of an ulcer. Alcohol and tobacco using, general malnutrition,
lowered vitality, with its consequent checking of elimination and impairment of
digestion, must be included among the antecedents of gastric ulcers. The use
of drugs that derange digestion and directly injure the walls of the stomach
and intestine is often a direct cause of ulceration. Chronic
provocation prevents the ulcer from healing. Perforation of the stomach or
intestine occurs and the patient dies of peritonitis. Every
step in the development of this condition is built upon the preceding one.
Enervation, indigestion, irritation, inflammation, induration, ulceration,,
perforation, peritonitis, death—these are all evolutions out of
uncorrected causes that lie in the eating habits and general living habits of
the patient. The indigestion and the ulcer are not separate and distinct
diseases, but separate links in a syndrome of causes and effects extending
from childhood to death. Not all
ulcers produce perforation. Many of them heal with the individual ever
knowing of their existence. In many cases there are only occasional spells of
indigestion, the person thinking he is all right between the spells. Ulcers
sometimes evolve into cancer. Approximately twenty percent of gastric ulcers
become malignant. The chronic irritation and hyperacidity favor cancerous
growth. Perhaps in all cases where the ulcer does not heal cancer would
develop did not death occur first. The
diagnosis of peptic ulcer is very difficult, even for the X-ray specialist.
Other conditions such as "irritable bowel" and inflammation of the
bile duct, or of the gallbladder are frequently mistaken for peptic ulcer. Hyperacidity,
pain in the stomach sometimes (two or three hours) after meals, relief of
pain by eating or by taking alkalis, and periodical "attacks" of
discomfort are the usual symptoms of a simple case. The actual location of
the ulcer can be determined only by the X-ray expert and he finds this
difficult. Many
cases presenting most of the above symptoms are diagnosed peptic ulcer when
their trouble is not that at all. One case which came under my own care will
illustrate this. The case had been studied for some time and careful tests
made. Everything seemed to point to gastric ulcer and the diagnosis was made.
An operation was advised and refused. Three days of fasting brought relief
from discomfort, after which the patient was fed foods that would have caused
much pain and distress had he had an ulcer. There was no recurrence of
symptoms and he returned to good health. It is
extremely unfortunate that the feeding and care of patients with peptic ulcer
is designed simply to relieve pain. Frequent small feedings of soft, bland,
well-cooked, non-irritating foods is the practice. Food is taken every two
hours or five meals a day are advised. The stomach is never allowed to be
completely empty. Belladonna and alkalis, such as magnesia, are prescribed.
The alkalis neutralize acidity but prevent digestion. The
diet is preponderantly acid-forming and cannot possibly remedy the already
existing "acidosis". All raw fruits and vegetables are prohibited.
Denatured carbohydrates and acid-forming proteins constitute the bulk of the
diet. Any
change of diet which removes the immediate irritation of the conventional
diet will afford relief from pain and will permit healing in a certain
percentage of cases. But the diets usually employed are of a character to
perpetuate the unstable body chemistry present in all such cases and this
assures the persistence of the hyperacidity and toxemia. The
failure of the usual methods of treatment is apparent from the advice of a
leading American surgeon that operation should be advised after the patient
has been cured nine times. Treatment directed at relief of local conditions
and which ignores the constitutional state must fail. Inspite
of such a diet, a certain percentage of ulcers heal but recur later for the
reason that the systemic condition that was back of them and the mode of
living that caused them are not corrected. Most cases, "after a fair
trial" of the above methods, are operated upon. Patients are led to
believe that after the operation is performed they may return to their
previous manner of eating and living. Recurrences are therefore quite common. Opposed
to this ceaseless puttering with palliatives, we offer a method of radical
correction of the causes of peptic ulcer and a resulting return to vigorous
health. With intelligent living thereafter there will be no recurrence of the
ulcer. Our
method is not so much directed at control of symptoms, but at the removal and
correction of causes. Instead of lopping off a few branches, we apply our axe
to the root of the trouble and the results are a thousand times more
satisfactory than those that flow from conventional methods of caring for
such cases. Complete
rest in bed is necessary. Cases may recover without this, but never in so
short a time as with rest. Mental and physical rest should form an integral
part of the care of each case. Physiological
rest, particularly of the stomach, is even more important. This means fasting.
Fasting will usually increase the patient's discomfort for the first two to
four days. The frequent feeding commonly resorted to is designed to use up
the excess of acid thrown into the stomach by the over-active gastric glands.
During the first part of the fast the excess acid will continue to be thrown
into the stomach and will produce the usual pain that accompanies an empty
stomach in these cases. Fasting,
however, soon ends the secretion of gastric juice. In two to four days the
secretion ceases, the pain abates, and the patient is comfortable. This
effect of fasting is the opposite of the feeding methods in vogue, which
stimulate the production of gastric juice and add to the "acidosis"
that is back of hyperacidity of the stomach. Fasting
accelerates elimination from the body of the excess of toxins and succeeds in
increasing the percentage of lime in the body. By thus overcoming lime
deficiency the mild scurvy from which such patients suffer is remedied. The
fast is demonstrably the quickest means of remedying systematic
"acidity" and restoring normal body alkalinity. The
fast should be sufficiently prolonged to allow complete healing of the ulcer
and a thorough cleansing of the body. When to break the fast is best
determined by the doctor in charge of the case. Such a doctor should have
full knowledge of fasting and should have had much experience in conducting
fasts. The
fast must not be ended until all reactions indicate that the renovation of
the body is complete. For, if it is broken too soon, dependable healing will
not occur. Permanent and satisfactory healing follows upon the elimination of
excess acid and toxins, and not until then. Feeding
after the fast is important. In most particulars it should be exactly
opposite to the feeding methods commonly employed in cases of ulcer. An
alkaline diet is essential. Fruits and green vegetables, and these raw,
should make up the bulk of the diet. If at first there is sensitiveness to
the roughage in these foods, raw fruit and vegetable juices may be employed.
Purees and strained vegetable soups may be used but are not as valuable as
the raw juices. Cooked fruits are never to be used. As soon
as possible whole fruits and whole vegetables should be added to the diet. A
week after the fast is broken carbohydrates and proteins may be employed and
these gradually increased in amount until a normal amount of each is being
taken. Baked potatoes will prove the best source of carbohydrates and cottage
cheese will serve best as a source of protein until digestion is restored to
normal vigor. Sun
baths will be found invaluable both during and after the fast. The office of
the sun in rejuvenating the blood will hasten the healing process and improve
nutrition in general. As soon
after the fast is broken as the patient can stand it, mild exercise should be
instituted. As strength increases, the amount and vigor of the exercise
should be increased. At first it is well to take the exercise while lying in
bed. Later walking and other forms of exercise may be added. At the
beginning all tobacco, alcohol, tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate and drugs
should be discontinued. No Alkalis, no magnesia or baking soda, etc, should
be employed. Nor should any of the above named poison habits be returned to
subsequent to recovery. Patients
of a worrisome disposition should be taught not to worry. The greatest part
of any truly remedial program is that of educating the patient out of his bad
mental and physical habits. For, outside of correction, there is not cure. The
inebriate who sobers up will get drunk again if he returns to drink. The sick
man who gets well under the prevailing plan of cure and who leaves the
hospital as ignorant of right living as when he went there, is certain to
have a recurrence of the ulcer. Obviously
the earlier the above plan is adopted the earlier recovery will occur. The
victim of the peptic ulcer should not wait until after he has had several
hemorrhages and his digestive tract is a mass of irremediable changes before he
adopts rational methods of care. Natural methods should be employed first and
not last, as is so often the case. Don't wait until the ulcer becomes cancer
or until perforation has occurred before these methods are employed. Natural
methods cannot remove the scar tissue that forms and narrows the passage,
cannot enlarge the pyloric valve that has been narrowed by the formation of a
scar; cannot overcome stricture of the duodenum from the same cause. These
conditions should be avoided by resorting to natural methods before they
develop. Surgeons
advise the removal of possible "foci of infection"—teeth,
tonsils, gallbladder, appendix, etc—in treating these cases. The above
described methods will care for these troubles and enable the patient to retain
his organs. Health is not restored by cutting out important organs of the
body. There
is a great army of sufferers from digestive derangements who are going from
one doctor to another vainly hoping to find a cure for their trouble without
due attention to diet. Many of them are, indeed, on diets of various kinds,
but a glance at such diets reveals a pathetic ignorance of the first
principles of dietetics. Failure and recurrence is certain under such
conditions. Patients
who have been operated on one or more times for peptic ulcer can usually
paint a dark and uninviting picture of the after effects—of subsequent
operations for adhesions or the removal of other organs. These are
disillusioned by the return of symptoms and subsequent development of another
ulcer. Often the symptoms return in an aggravated form leaving the patient
bitter and wrecking his faith in medicine and surgery. To such
as these Hygienic methods offer a measure of hope. Even where important
organs have been removed and the continuity of structure has been broken by
the surgeon and where strictures and lesions give trouble, comfort may still
be restored and compensatory adaptation to the abnormal conditions
established. A measure of health and comfort may be built up and maintained
if the sufferer can be educated into a new way of living and induced to
continue it.
This is
the name given to a group of symptoms that center around an impairment of
carbohydrate metabolism. Commonly we are told that it is a disease of the
pancreas, but it is coming to be realized that it is a disturbance of the
metabolic process involving the entire organism and not strictly localized in
any one organ. It is, in other words, a manifestation of a systematic
derangement and, however important the pathology in the pancreas may be, this
is secondary to the systematic derangement which has resulted in the disease
of the pancreas. The
Islands of Langerhans may be described as little organs within the pancreas
or sweetbread. These structures produce an internal secretion commonly known
as insulin which is essential to the oxidation of sugar. When they fail to
create sufficient insulin an excess of sugar accumulates in the blood and is
eliminated by the kidneys in the urine. Hence sugar in the urine (glycosuria)
is the principle symptom of what the layman calls sugar diabetes. But it is a
subordinate symptom and is valuable chiefly as a criterion of the progress of
the condition. The
condition of the pancreas of diabetics has been thoroughly studied after
death and the destructive changes therein have been carefully described and
catalogued. But the patient may have had diabetes ten or more years before
death and the pathologist, studying the end-point of the pathological process
after death, gives us a false picture of the condition of the pancreas in any
save the terminal stages of the disease. Thus the hopeless view of diabetes
taken by the medical men. There
is no destruction in the pancreas when the disease first begins and the
destructive changes take place slowly against the weakened resistance of the
body. Enervation (fatigue) of the Islands of Langerhans is the probable
beginning of diabetes. It is toxemia that produces the pathology (the
destruction) in the pancreas. Toxemia produces first a mild, chronic
pancreatitis which may persist for a long time before marked change to the
pancreas occurs. Under
causes of diabetes, Dayton's Practice of Medicine gives:
"Heredity, male sex, adult life, Jewish race, obesity, cerebral or
spinal disease or injury, infectious diseases, overwork and nervous strain
predispose. Actual cause is unknown. Pancreatic disease is probably
important." Heredity!
Male sex! Adult life! Jewish race! These are not causes of anything. If adult
life predisposes to diabetes then it is certainly dangerous to grow up. If
male sex and Jewish race predispose then it is dangerous to be a man and a
Jew. We ought all to be females, and "gentiles" and should all die
young. If
adults have more diabetes than children it is because more years of wrong
living have produced pathology in them. If men have more diabetes than women,
it is because their mode of living is worse. If Jews have more diabetes than
heathen it is because something in their mode of living produces the
diabetes. Perhaps
pancreatic disease is important, but it is certainly not self-originating and
self-evolving. It must be the outgrowth of causes antecedent thereto; must be
secondary to other causes and conditions. Healthy men and women, Jews or
heathens, do not develop diabetes. Heredity!
Is there such a thing? It is true that there are many cases of diabetes in
children and youth and it is quite possible that there is a marked larval
endocrine deficiency in all such children. It may even be a lesser degree of
larval endocrine deficiency that establishes the tendency to diabetes in adults.
The time of life at which carbohydrate tolerance breaks down may be
considered as an index to the larval endocrine imbalance in the individual.
But we must not overlook the fact that of two individuals with the same
degree of larval endocrine deficiency, the one that subjects his body to the
most enervating influence and consumes the greatest amount of carbohydrates
will break down his carbohydrate tolerance first. In
those cases developing after the thirty-fifth or fortieth year we think the
larval deficiency may be considered negligible and think that the cause is a
decidedly overcrowded general nutrition in which excessive carbohydrate
consumption has been excessive throughout life. The Islands of Langerhans
have merely been overworked through the years. Worry,
anxiety, grief, shock—fright, accidents, surgical shock—will so
impair the function of the pancreas that sugar shows up in the urine
immediately. In many cases of diabetes, emotional stress is the chief cause,
but it is never the sole cause. Every so-called disease is a complex effect
of a number of correlated antecedents. Diet
and drink, sex and sleep, work and play, and many other factors enter the
cause of every so-called disease. Any form of
overstimulation—mental, emotional, sensory, physical, chemical,
thermal, electrical—may give rise, first to functional, and finally, to
organic, disease. Diabetes is a functional disturbance at its
beginning. Diabetes
is more markedly on the increase in those countries in which sugar consumption
has mounted to such high figures during the past fifty years—France,
Germany, Britain, and the United States. Every fat person is a potential
diabetic. The overfeeding which is responsible for the fat overworks the
pancreas and as overwork of any organ results in impairment of the function
of the organ, pancreatic failure results. If its causes are not corrected,
functional impairment gradually passes into organic disease. Carbohydrate
excess places a strong stress on the pancreas and when this gland is
overworked by too great an intake of starches and sugars, there will be
first, irritation and inflammation, then enlargement, followed by
degeneration (de-secretion); after which the body loses control of sugar
metabolism and of the excess acidity caused by too much starch and sugar. But it
should not be thought that overeating of carbohydrates alone impairs the
pancreas. Anything that produces enervation—tobacco, tea, coffee,
chocolate, cocoa, alcohol, soda fountain slops, sexual excesses, loss of sleep,
overwork, general overeating, emotionalism, etc—impairs organic
function in general including pancreatic function. Sedentary
habits added to overeating increase the tendency to diabetes, as they do to
all other so-called "degenerative diseases of later life". Let us
glance briefly at the symptoms of diabetes. The urine is frequently voided,
is pale and of high specific gravity unless there is inflammation of the
kidneys in which case specific gravity is not usually so high. The urine
contains varying amounts of sugar and certain acids that are absent from the
urine of healthy subjects. There
is a great thirst and a ravenous appetite with, commonly, loss of weight.
Headache, depression, and constipation are common. The breath is sweet,
though unlike that of the healthy person. The mouth and skin are dry, even
parched, the tongue red and glazed, and hen the disease is advanced the teeth
usually decay and become loosened. There is a tendency to pyorrhea and
bleeding of the gums. Loss of sex power is common, while Bright's disease may
develop as a complication. Impairment or loss of vision may occur. Boils and
eczema are also frequent. The disease progresses more rapidly in young
patients than in older ones and it is thought by some Hygienists that children
rarely if ever make a complete recovery. Recovery—the
medical dictum is "once a diabetic, always a diabetic" —
depends on the amount of functioning tissue left in the pancreas. Fortunately
the pancreas, like all other organs of the body, possesses a great excess of
functioning power over that needed for the ordinary activities of life, so
that even after part of the Islands of Langerhans have been destroyed the
remainder will be able to function sufficiently to meet the regular needs of
life provided the impairing causes are removed and they are given the
opportunity to return to a state of health. When
organs are not destroyed beyond repair, rest, poise, self-control, and a
restricted proper diet will restore normal functioning. In diabetes, rest and
proper food, with diet restricted to the patient's digestive capacity, and
full cooperation, will result in dependable health in a few years. Failure is
for all those who are not willing to carry out instructions. All
enervating influences and habits must be corrected or removed. Sufficient
rest for restoration of nerve energy is imperative. A fast, not merely to
give the pancreas a rest, but of sufficient duration to free the body of its
load of toxins, must be followed by a diet that is designed to produce all
possible regeneration in the pancreatic gland. Feeding that is designed
merely to cause the disappearance of sugar from the urine may speedily kill
that patient. After health is restored the patient must be taught to live
within his compensating capacity.
These
are merely three terms for the same condition—inflammation of the
joints. Gout is usually used only with reference to inflammation of the
joints of the toes. Rheumatism may also be used with reference to muscular
inflammation. Lumbago is a term applied to rheumatism in the small of the
back, while pleurodynia is applied to rheumatism of the intercostal muscles.
Rheumatoid arthritis and arthritis deforms is rheumatism of the joints with
deformity. These
conditions may be acute, sub-acute, or chronic. The acute form is usually
very severe and accompanied by fever. The sub-acute form of rheumatism or
arthritis is the same as the acute form in all respects, except in the fact
that its symptoms are not nearly so severe. Acute and sub-acute rheumatic
illness may recur from time to time and gradually become chronic. Chronic
gout and chronic arthritis tend to spread from joint to joint and in time the
joint structures may be destroyed and the ends of the bones
unite—ankylose. These
conditions are said to be due to germs and are traced to colds, tonsilitis,
and other troubles. Instead of colds in the head, scarlet fever, tonsilitis,
measles, and other acute "diseases", which often precede
rheumatism, they are but crises of a constitutional derangement on which the
rheumatism, or arthritis depends. Acute
rheumatism, simple chronic rheumatism, arthritis deformans, chronic
osteo-arthritis, and simple arthritis are merely so many crises in a general
constitutional derangement, consisting first of a rheumatic diathesis ( the
so-called gouty or arthritic, or lithic, or uric acid diathesis), or
tendency, and secondly, of a combined enervation and toxemia caused by errors
in the habits of living and errors in diet. Rheumatic
arthritis is perverted nutrition in those of the "gouty diathesis".
It is related to stone in the gallbladder and kidneys, hardening in the
arteries, lime deposits in the valves of the heart, and all those forms of
rheumatism called gout. It belongs to the deficiency diseases. Rheumatism
and rheumatic heart trouble are brought on from auto-infection, and anything
that enervates and weakens the digestive power; then, if those who are
weakened persist in eating beyond their digestive capacity, they will develop
intestinal fermentation; this fermentation alters the alkalinity of the
blood, and places those who are predisposed to rheumatism and heart disease
in a condition for the development of these diseases. Although
chronic gastro-intestinal symptoms are common in chronic arthritis, it is
doubtful if the average person can realize the majority of people who have
rheumatism get it from overeating and from improper food combinations. The
rheumatic individual represents one who has lived well but not wisely. He
liked good food and lots of it and, as a rule, he has overeaten on starches
and sugars. This he continued until he broke down his capacity to handle
food. Too
much starch, or too much starch and sugar combined, is a greater factor in
producing rheumatism in any of its forms than is meat; the old-fashioned
jelly-bread, or preserves with bread, and bread with sugar, or syrup or
molasses with bread or hot cakes, and cereals with sugar, have played a
greater part in producing rheumatism-arthritis-gout than any other foods or
combinations of foods. Bread with meat, eggs with bread, bread with fruit,
bread three times a day, bread every time you eat, even between meals, bread
in addition to cereals, potatoes, cakes, etc, plays a big share in the
production of rheumatism. In
chronic articular rheumatism there is, as a rule, more or less stiffness of
the joints. This is usually worse after eating and in the morning after a
night's sleep. Where
there is rheumatism of the heart little bands of fibrin are deposited along
the valves of the heart, which by contracting, prevent normal closing of the
valves, so that valvular heart defect results. It is not correct, however, to
say that arthritis of the knee, for instance, causes heart trouble. It is
more true to say that the heart is damaged by the toxins that are causing the
arthritis—that the heart defect is also due to auto-infection, superadded
to a primary or metabolic toxemia. Heart
disease has another and perhaps more common cause in rheumatic conditions.
Over sixty years ago Sir Lauder Brunton pointed out that salicylates, while
relieving the pain of rheumatism, are likely to add heart disease to the
original complaint. Today doctors persist in employing salicylates in
rheumatism and frequently discuss the great prevalence of heart disease
following rheumatism. At the same time they are searching for the
"guilty microbe". Dr c
Richard Cabot says in his Handbook of Medicine, while dealing with
rheumatism: "The group of drugs called the salicylates, or aspirin,
which is a first cousin, give us great relief of pain in this disease. They
do not cure it; they do not shorten the duration of illness; they do nothing
except check pain; but this is a good deal. They have been a great blessing
to us, making it unnecessary to use morphine and such drugs, as was formerly
the custom." It is
not true that "they do nothing except check the pain". They "check
pain" by sandbagging the nerves into insensibility and this cannot be
done without damage both to the nerves in particular and to the body in
general. Any standard work on materia medica will reveal their damaging
effects.
Acne is
an inflammation of the oil glands of the skin and of the follicles of the
fuzz-like hairs attached to the oil glands. It manifests as small and large
pimples, often containing pus, which detract greatly from the appearance of
the sufferer. I am
not sure that I am right, but it seems to me that there is far more acne now
than there was twenty-five years ago. Sure I am that it is very common today
and that it is the source of much anxiety and mental discomfort in those who have
this affection. More than one otherwise beautiful young girl has consulted us
who was on the verge of suicide, so much were they concerned over their
appearance and over the persistent failure of their efforts to remedy their
skin trouble. Various
qualifying terms have been added to the term acne to distinguish its most
important features. Thus we have: Acne
Simplex, or simple acne, which is the most common form, hence the term acne
vulgaris. Acne
Indurata, which differs from the simple form chiefly in the degree and
extent of its symptoms and the hardening (induration) which is present. Malnutritional
Acne, called also, scrofulous acne, or acne scrofulosum, and acne
cachecitcorum, occurs in undernourished or scrofulous or emaciated individuals.
It develops chiefly on the trunk and lower limbs, though, occasionally the
arms and face are affected. Artificial
Acne, or acne artificialis, is papules produced by the
internal use of such drugs as the bromides and the iodides, and the external
application of tar, chrysarobin, etc. Atrophic
Acne, or acne atrophica, is simple acne in which the
lesions are followed by scars or small pits. Papular
Acne, or acne papulosa, is simple acne in which papular
eruptions (solid raised spots on or in the skin) predominate. Pustular
Acne, or acne pustulosa, is acne simplex with papules developing
into pustules. Overgrowth
Acne, or hypertrophic acne, is applied to acne followed by thickening
of the skin from an overgrowth of connective tissue. Scurvy
Acne, or acne scorbutis, is a papular acne with hemorrhages into
the skin. Acne Rosacea
is acne plus rosacea, or a chronic congestion of the nose and
parts of the face. Acne
Varioformis is a form of acne the pustules of which resemble those of
variola (smallpox). It develops chiefly on the forehead, along the hair
margin, also the scalp, face and neck and, sometimes, the shoulders and
breastbone. No
effort will be made to describe each of these forms of acne. Suffice is to
say that, except artificial acne, these forms are all the outgrowth of
toxins. Since they are merely variations of simple acne and all yield to the
same care let us confine our remarks chiefly to this form. This
form is seen more often in women and girls than in men and boys. It develops
chiefly on the forehead, cheeks, lower jaw and chin and sometimes on the
chest, shoulders, upper arms and even down the back and thighs. It develops
chiefly during the adolescent years and tends to disappear upon the
attainment of maturity, although it may persist long after thirty is passed.
It is often aggravated before and during menstruation. Blackheads
usually constitute the center or nucleus for the beginning of the
inflammation. A papule develops around this center, and later becomes a
pustule. However, acne may develop without blackheads, and blackheads may
exist without acne developing. A crust
forms on the pustule, then falls off, leaving a redness which lasts a few
days, or a depression or scar may be left. In many cases no pustules develop,
the condition remaining in the papule stage, in which cases, the papules are
absorbed after a few days. On the
same face, or other portion of the body, and without any resemblance of
regularity, there may be seen all stages—blackheads, papules, pustules,
crusts, redness, pittings and scars. I frequently see faces that have been so
badly pitted their owners look like they have had smallpox. Few things can so
completely spoil the beauty of the face as acne. The
scars may be permanent, or they may gradually smooth out. In some cases no
scars are left. The stain that often remains tends to fade out eventually. If the
papule of acne is opened or squeezed, blood, pus, and fatty substance and, if
present at the beginning of the papule, the blackhead, are found. Healing is
usually rapid after evacuation of the contents, though squeezing usually
tends to aggravate the local lesion. If the pustule is not molested
spontaneous evacuation takes place. In acne
indurata the areas of hardening vary from the size of a pea to as large as a
hazelnut. They begin deep below the epidermis, are usually deep red or
purplish, often involve several adjacent glands, thus giving the appearance
of boils and may contain much pus. The lesions often fail to erupt
spontaneously. When opened and evacuated artificially, they tend to refill
rather than to heal. Scar formation is often very pronounced especially where
there has been much squeezing or direct pressure. Fibroid changes in the
scars may cause them to resemble fibroid tumors. There
are no general symptoms of acne and the sufferer is inclined to regard
himself or herself as otherwise healthy. Observing that their friends who do
not have acne (but who often have much worse troubles) eat and drink as they
do, they are not easily convinced that their mode of living is in any way
responsible for their trouble. The
skin is the largest organ of the body, but because it is on the outside we tend
to forget that it is helped or hurt by the same internal conditions that help
or hurt the other organs of the body. We do not sufficiently recognize its
dependence upon the blood. "Diseases"
of the skin occur as the direct or indirect result of a large number of
constitutional and visceral failures. Functional weakness and actual
pathology of the stomach, intestine, liver, kidneys, nervous system, etc,
frequently lead to eliminative efforts through the skin. These are also seen
in rheumatism, gout, diabetes, etc. Carbuncles,
furuncles, and other skin eruptions seen in diabetic cases are explained by
the saturation of the skin with sugar and, even if we grant the claim of the
bacteriologists, that these things represent staphylococcal infection, the sugar
saturation is necessary to provide a favorable nidus for the growth of the
microbes. Pruritis
and eczema occurring in a patient suffering from chronic intestinal nephritis
is due to the failure of elimination through the defective kidneys. There is
also an intimate relationship between gastro-intestinal disorders and skin
"diseases"—eczema, pruritis, urticaria, acne, etc, are
frequently observed in association with and to be influenced by digestive
disturbances which involve decomposition of food and partial digestion. Pruritis
is often observed in connection with pathology of the liver, especially when
jaundice exists; xanthoma and chronic jaundice are often associated. Eczema
and gout are so common together that they have both been classified as
belonging to the "gouty diathesis", while there is also a close
connection between psoriasis and chronic arthritis. It is
often difficult to trace the relationship between eruptions and other skin
symptoms and the internal failings and "pathologies" with which
they are associated; but we may be sure that faulty digestion, incomplete
metabolism, and deficient excretion, these growing out of faulty dietary
habits and other evil practices, are the underlying causes for these skin
troubles. Acne in
particular is definitely related to toxemic states and nutritional
impairments. The large amounts of sweets consumed during adolescence tends to
saturate the skin with sugar and lay the foundation for this and other
troubles. The
first principle in the care of skin diseases is to deal with the internal
conditions with which they are associated, by removing or correcting the
causes of these. Locally, the only care necessary is cleanliness. Functional
impairments—faulty elimination, digestive derangements, glandular
defects, etc—growing out of enervation and toxemia, must be overcome by
removing or correcting the causes of enervation and toxemia. For
parents to permit their sons and daughters to suffer with acne until their
faces are a mass of scars is inexcusable. In all cases the condition may be
quickly remedied by fasting, improved diet, and general hygiene. The
local application of salves, ointments, lotions, etc, is of no value. Some of
these preparations will suppress the condition for a time, but the minute
their use is discontinued the acne reappears. Often the acne reappears when
their use is continued. The only time they appear to produce a lasting
"cure" is when they are used coincident with spontaneous
disappearance of the trouble. It should be remembered that in most cases the
acne disappears without any treatment or change in the mode of living, after
adolescence. It is
never wise to wait upon the spontaneous termination of acne at the end of the
adolescence period; for, by that time, the face may have become a mass of
scars and its owner the victim of an inferiority complex that makes life
miserable.
The
term neuritis signifies inflammation of a nerve and, since nerves ramify
all parts of the body, neuritis may develop in any part of the organism. The
condition is almost wholly confined to peripheral nerves. A it is often
difficult to distinguish between neuritis and neuralgia, thousands who have
the latter condition imagine they have neuritis. In this
article we shall discuss simple neuritis, as distinguished from multiple
neuritis. Simple neuritis is characterized by inflammation of the nerve
trunks accompanied by pain, impaired sensation and motion, and atrophy. Three
sets of symptoms are commonly described for acute neuritis as follows: Sensory
Symptoms: These are severe pain following the course of the inflamed
nerve, which is tender upon being touched. The pain is often associated with
burning, tingling, numbness, etc. At first the affected part is likely to be
very sensitive but later may lose sensation. Motor
Symptoms: These are impairment of muscular power, diminished or lost
reflexes and tremors. Trophic
Symptoms: Herpes eruptions sometimes develop along the course of the
affected nerve. The skin may become glossy, and the nails lusterless and
brittle. In advanced cases the muscles undergo atrophy. Chronic
Neuritis is characterized by pain, loss of sensation, paresis, wasting
and contraction of the muscles, glossy skin, and thickening and brittleness
of the nails. Optic
Neuritis is inflammation of the optic nerve and involves chiefly the
intraocular end of the nerve. Sciatica
is inflammation of the sciatic nerve (sciatica neuritis) and is characterized
by sharp shooting pains running down the back of the thigh. Movement of the
leg increases the pain. The pain may be more evenly distributed along the
course of the nerve, or there may be local spots where it is more intense.
Tingling and numbness are often present. The nerve may be extremely sensitive
to touch. The symptoms tend to be worse at night and upon the approach of
cold or stormy weather. In long standing cases there is likely to be much
wasting of the muscles and impairment of locomotion. Medical
works list such causes of neuritis as exposure to cold, trauma, infectious
diseases (diphtheria, influenza, measles, etc), chronic intoxication (gout,
alcoholism, diabetes), pressure of a tumor, relaxation or chronic inflammation
of the sacro-iliac joint (in sciatica), rheumatism, poisoning (lead, arsenic,
carbon monoxide, sulphonal, etc), malnutrition, and advanced
arteriosclerosis. Optic neuritis is said to be tumor of the brain, cerebral
meningitis, syphilis, toxic agents (lead and alcohol), infectious fevers,
anemia, and Bright's disease. Sciatica numbers among its causes uterine
fibroid in women and carcinoma of the prostate in men. Dr Richard C Cabot
says most cases of arthritis are due to alcohol. Pressure
Neuritis is due to pressure upon the nerve by tumors, misplaced parts, or by
outside forces. One form of this, called "Saturday Night
paralysis", is seen in the drunk who sleeps all night on a bench in the
park with his arm over the back of the settee and his head on his arm. The
alcohol stupor prevents him from changing positions and relieving the
pressure when it becomes uncomfortable, so that when he awakes next morning
his arm is paralyzed. Neuritis
resulting from injury—wounds, blows, crushes of the arm or leg, operations—and
from great strain upon the arm is quite common. Operations are a frequent
cause of neuritis. Indeed, such cases are more common than the public is
aware of. Many of
the causes given in medical works are not causes at all and many of the
others are only complicating causes. If injury (trauma) is the cause of
neuritis, this disease should follow every severe injury to a nerve. If
infectious diseases cause neuritis, all cases of such diseases should be
followed by neuritis. If alcohol causes neuritis, all drinkers should have
neuritis. A cause that needs an ally is not a cause. A cause that causes an
effect once in a hundred times is not a cause. The
primary, the basic , cause of neuritis is toxemia. This is the constant that
is needed to prepare the groundwork for neuritis and to perpetuate it once it
has developed. But not
all toxemic subjects develop neuritis. Not all toxemic subjects who are
injured or who use alcohol develop neuritis. Only those develop neuritis
whose nerves are lacking in resistance. Cause is a composite of many factors. Checked
elimination brought on by enervation produces toxemia. Impaired secretion,
resulting from enervation, permits gastro-intestinal fermentation and
putrefaction, and produces chronic auto-intoxication. When to
toxemia and auto-intoxication there are added drugs, alcohol, injury, etc,
those parts of the body that offer least resistance become diseased. If
inflammation is in the kidneys, the so-called disease is named nephritis
(Bright's disease); if it is in the liver, the disease is called hepatitis;
if it is in the lungs it is called pneumonia; if it is in the nerves it is
called neuritis. Injuries
to the nerves—wounds, blows, pressure, etc—are speedily recovered
from if the blood is normal. If toxemia is great, instead of recovery, the
inflammation produced by the injury becomes chronic. Chronic inflammation may
result in so much degeneration of the nerve that paralysis follows. This
means loss of sensation, or motion, or both. It is necessary not to make the
mistake of believing that people have neuritis merely because they have pains
in the arm, or shoulder, or thigh. Neuritis is not really as common as
generally thought. Pain is produced by many things and to mistake all acute
or chronic pains in the limbs for neuritis is to make a great mistake. Dr
Cabot says: "The great thing about neuritis is that it gets well and
that it is rare and that treatment has very little to do with it." By
this statement Dr Cabot means for us to understand that it is rare and that
treatment has very little to do with the recovery. It does not follow from
this, however, that it has very little to do with failure to r4cover; for,
the treatment employed often prolongs and intensifies the disease. Drugs
such as sedative lotions (lead-water and laudanum), blisters, salicylates,
phenacetin, morphine, acetanilid and codeine, produce more enervation and by
thus putting as added check upon elimination increase the toxemic state
while, at the same time, lowering nerve tone—resistance. Hot an
cold applications, massage, electricity, baking, and hypodermic injections of
strychnin, all employed after the acute symptoms have subsided, to promote
nutrition, are as injurious as the above listed drugs and positively do not
promote nutrition. Massage, and heat and cold, are particularly likely to
aggravate the affected nerve. Medical
works tell us to remove the cause, where possible. By this they mean remove
tumors, pull teeth, cut out tonsils, excise the womb or prostate gland or cut
out the use of alcohol. Basic causes are not touched and are not recognized. It is
of course necessary to discontinue the use of alcohol and other drugs (and
this covers all drugs) that enervate and impair. Nothing will be gained by
substituting strychnin or opium for alcohol. It is just as essential to
discontinue tobacco and coffee as to drop alcohol. All enervating
indulgencies must be corrected. Absolute
rest is essential until the acute symptoms subside. Cause must be removed and
since the factor of toxic irritation must be reckoned with, toxemia must be
eliminated. The elimination of toxemia by fasting produces speedy results. In
chronic cases rest and fasting are equally valuable. After
the symptoms have subsided, exercise—passive where necessary, active
when and as soon as possible—plus proper food and sun bathing will
promote nutrition in a manner that massage, heat, electricity, and strychnin
can never do. Sun
bathing is of value during the painful stage, but care must be exercised not
to overdo sunbathing, as this increases the pain and suffering.
Recently
a business executive came to the Health School for care. Repeatedly during
the preceding two years he had been refused life insurance because of the
condition of his heart. Here at the Health School he had a fast of forty two
days, during most of which time he took light exercise for a few minutes each
day. One month after the fast was broken he was given ten thousand dollars
life insurance. The life insurance examiner found his heart to be in
excellent condition. In 1924
I cared for a young man from New York City who suffered with a heart
affection that his physicians had declared was incurable. This young man had
a fast of thirty days with complete recovery. When I last saw him, two years
ago, twelve years after his fast, his heart was still in excellent condition
an he was in splendid general health. This
young man had been warned against exercise. Each day when I made my rounds he
reported that he had taken his exercise. On the fifteenth day of his fast, I
examined his heart. After examining him at rest, I asked him to do ten deep-knee
bends. He looked frightened and asked, "Won't it hurt me?" I
assured him it would not and with fear and trembling, his mouth wide open,
and fear plainly registered on his face, he gradually lowered his body to
squatting position. He then raised up to an erect position and looked
relieved that he was not dead. He finished his exercise and I again examined
his heart. It was good. He then
exclaimed: "I am going to do my exercise every day hereafter!" To
my question—"Have you not been exercising daily, as you reported?"—he
replied: "No, I lied to you. I was afraid to exercise and I knew that if
I told you I had not exercised you would have me do it." He did
his exercise faithfully throughout the remainder of his fast. Only a
few years ago the medical profession dogmatically declared that if one goes
six days without food, his heart will collapse and he will die. Since
the above young man had his fast of thirty days that resulted in recovery
from an "incurable" heart affection, one of my patients, who had
just gone on a fast, was gravely warned by her former physician that if she
went without food for six days her heart would collapse and she would die. Although
many patients with various forms of heart disease have fasted under my care
for greater or lesser periods, none of them have suffered heart collapse and
death. On the contrary, most of them completely recovered from their heart
trouble. Every
day people die of "heart attack" or "heart failure" who
are eating three square meals a day and extra food in between meals. Often
these deaths follow immediately upon the heels of a hearty meal, or occur
even while the meal is on. If "plenty of good nourishing food" will
prevent heart collapse these people should not die. The
simple truth is that very few sufferers from heart disease, be they doctor or
layman, fail to note from experience that their discomforts depend to a great
extent upon what and how much they eat. Heart "attacks", from
simple acceleration and palpitation to the severe anginas, are in the great
majority of instances, due to overloading, fermentation, distension, and
indigestion of the stomach. Eating
places a load upon the heart; overeating but needlessly increases the burden.
Fasting relieves the heart of the excess load it is carrying and provides an
opportunity for rest. The
heart that is pulsating at the rate of 80 times a minute, pulsates 115,200 in
twenty-four hours. Shortly after the fast is instituted the heart rate
decreases and, while it may temporarily go much below 60 beats a minute, it
ultimately settles at 60 beats a minute and remains there for the duration of
the fast. This is 86,400 pulsations in twenty-four hours, or 28,800 fewer
pulsations each day than it was doing before the fast. This
represents a decrease of twenty-five percent in the amount of work the heart
performs. The saving in work is seen not merely in the reduction of the
number of pulsations but also in the vigor of the pulsations. It all sums up
to a real vacation—a rest—for the heart. During this rest the
heart repairs its damaged structures and replenishes its tissues. But
fasting does more than give the heart a rest. It supplies the body with the
needed opportunity to free itself of accumulated toxins. With toxemia
eliminated, tissue repair is more rapid and more ideal. Toxic irritation of
the heart ends and it makes a "come back" that is often more than
surprising. What we
have said above applies to most cases of heart trouble. But there are
occasional exceptions. Rarely we see a case in which heart action becomes
depressed and erratic while fasting, necessitating breaking the fast. In such
cases there may be a real danger in continuing the fast. All
cases of heart trouble who undergo a fast should do so under the direct and
personal supervision of one experienced in conducting fasts. No unnecessary
chances should be taken in these conditions.
Habits
fasten themselves upon us slowly and insidiously. To smoke one cigarette, or
to take one drink of alcohol, or one cup of coffee does not constitute the
tobacco, alcohol, or coffee habit. Eating one huge meal does not constitute
gluttony. One masturbation does not constitute auto-eroticism. If these are
practiced until they become established habits-addictions—changes in
the nervous system resulting in neuroses—habit neuroses—grow upon
the habits that produced them. Once a practice becomes ingrained in the
nervous system it continues to cry for expression. The individual now finds
that his habits are master, he is slave. Overeating
and frequent eating tend to develop a gastric neurosis which is commonly
called gluttony. Once gluttony has become a fixed habit, it tends to grow
upon the glutton until he finds himself eating many times as much as his body
needs. We have
seen many individuals who ate three big meals a day and ate frequently
between meals and at night. We have seen them get up out of bed at all hours
of the night to eat. Although they are constantly eating, they complained of
always being hungry. If they
did not eat they were uncomfortable. They were, of course, food-poisoned.
Their discomforts were identical with those of the coffee, tea, tobacco,
alcohol or drug addict who is deprived of his poison. Some of
these neurotics suffered both before and after taking food. Though they knew
that eating would cause discomfort, they were driven by their neurosis to eat
anyway. The
worst types of gastric neuroses are called bulimia. This is a voracious
appetite. In such a state the sufferer often eats all the time and eats all
manner of substances. Indeed cases have been reported of individuals who
would gnaw their own flesh if food was not present. This condition is usually
accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea. Craving
for food becomes irresistible and leads often to eating substances that have
no food value, or to eating all manner of disgusting substances. The
worst feature of these cases is that they cannot be made to realize that what
they mistake for hunger is not hunger. They believe they are hungry and
insist on eating. "My body demands food," they will say, when told
that their supposed hunger is a perversion or neurosis. In many
cases the neurosis tends to become a psychosis. It "goes to the
head", to use a popular expression. They get so they think and talk
about nothing but food. Meet
one of these men on the street and he will say: "What did you have for
breakfast? I had —" and so on through a recital of each item
consumed. Finishing with this recital, he will begin with a detailed story of
what he plans to have at his next meal. He may even go over his whole eating
plan of the day before. Eating
at all hours of the day and night, drinking juices of all kinds, trying new
foods and food concentrates, experimenting with different diet programs,
talking all the time about food and suffering always from excess, these poor
victims of their own follies fail to find the relief they seek— whether
they seek relief in drug or drugless palliation—because they never
cease their gluttonous indulgence. They
have lost all control of themselves, they have become slaves to a morbid
change in their nervous system and, since they fail to recognize that they do
not need and cannot possibly use the amounts of food they habitually burden
their digestive and excretory systems with, they continue to eat and suffer.
Eating causes them to suffer and suffering causes them to eat. The morbid
chain of affinities binds them and holds them until an early death releases
them from the slavery they have built for themselves. It
should be understood that the neurotic who demands repeatedly to experience
the desired thrill or sense of pleasure, is not only profoundly enervated,
but that each repetition of his indulgence increases his enervation. Hence
the ever growing demand for newer, stronger, more frequent excitement, every
repetition of which fastens the habit more firmly upon him. Many become so
bound by the fetters of habit that they are unable to free themselves. They
need, and must have, the aid, even the control, of others. To
teach these people that they are overeating and that overeating is causing
their troubles; that overeating originally produced their neurosis and
overeating perpetuates it, is futile. Even if they can be made to understand
these things, they cannot control their morbid cravings. They will eat until
it kills them and cram food into the mouth with their last gasp.
A
letter comes to the editor from a lady in New York who writes: "I
went to a Dr—, who is supposed to be a Naturopath, Dentist, Osteopath
and what have you, and he suggested pulling a tooth rather than removing the
nerve. He said he cleaned your teeth once, and thought you had a mighty fine
set of them, but as for your methods, he thought they were too harsh. He
remarked that one of your patients who was on a long fast came to him with
most of his teeth in an awful state, as a result of this long fast. But I
notice that people lose their teeth without fasting, as has been true in my
case." This
dentist is mistaken about having cleaned my teeth. It's true that I have a
good set of teeth, it is also true that no dentist has ever examined them.
The dentist who thinks he once cleaned my teeth has never seen my teeth
beyond what he could see as we talked to each other on many occasions. My
teeth do not need cleaning. Are my
methods too harsh? Who is to judge: those who have been cared for at the
Health School, or a man who has never been in the Health School and knows
very little about what is done here? I challenge anybody anywhere to find an
institution in America (hospital, sanatarium, health home, health resort,
health school, or by whatever name it is called) that uses milder methods
than we use at Dr Shelton's Health School. A
dentist who jumps at conclusions will often land in a hole. No doubt some of
those who have fasted under our care have gone to this man with their tooth
troubles. So far as we know, no one ever claimed that fasting would restore
soundness to teeth that are decayed. We get many patients whose teeth are
practically worthless, not because they have fasted but because they have not
been properly nourished. It
behooves the dentist to ascertain, when such patients come to him, what the
condition of the teeth was before the fast. To conclude that the condition of
the teeth, as he finds it, it due to fasting, when they probably began to
decay ten to twenty years before the fast was undergone, does not evince a
desire to get at the truth about the matter. Such
jumping at conclusions may be the result of mental shortcomings, educational
inadequacies, prejudice, commercialism, or fear of breaking away from the
beaten path. Let us turn to some very orthodox scientific testimony, which,
while orthodox, does come from a man who has taken the trouble to investigate
the matter thoroughly before expressing himself. In his
monumental work, Inanition and Malnutrition, C M Jackson, MS, MD, LL
D, Professor and Director of the Department of Anatomy, University of
Minnesota, says: "Like
the skeleton, the teeth appear very resistant to inanition... In total
inanition, or on water alone, the teeth in adults show no appreciable change
in weight or structure". In
total inanition the experimental animal is deprived of all food and water. It
is obvious that the animal will not live as long when deprived of water as
when receiving water. But the reader will note that no changes occur in the
teeth in animals that are given water only until they starve to death. In
certain animals, exceptions to this are found. This is especially true of
rabbits in which the teeth grow continuously. The teeth are not damaged, but
a temporary lessening of the organic materials of the teeth is produced. A
similar thing might probably occur in the teeth of very young children if
they were forced to undergo a very prolonged fast, but such children never
have to undergo such fasts. Jackson
points out that the teeth are "especially sensitive to rickets and
scurvy" and that both in animal and man: "There
are slight changes in chemical composition, especially in chronic
(incomplete) inanition. In the young, such inanition may delay the process of
dentition, but persistent growth and development of the teeth (as of the
skeleton) held at a constant body weight by underfeeding. The
effects of the partial inanition have been studied in rickets and in scurvy.
In both human and animal rickets there is delayed and abnormal dentition.
Both enamel and dentine may be defective and imperfectly calcified." Without
additional quotations about the effects of deficient diets (part inanition)
upon the teeth in rickets and in scurvy, let us point out that dentists who
have studied the effects of inadequate and deficient diets upon the teeth and
who do not know that fasting does not produce the same results as such diets,
are likely to conclude that fasting injures the teeth. Indeed there is a tendency
in all who study the effects of dietary inadequacies and deficiencies to run
away from fasting, for, they reason, if a defective diet produces such
undesirable results, no food at all should produce much worse results. They
are blissfully unaware that fasting not only does not produce any of the
so-called deficiency diseases, but that it is actually beneficial in every
one of them. Dr
Jackson says that: "In
scurvy, the gums are markedly congested and swollen in about eighty percent
of adult human cases... The alveolar bone and peridental membrane undergo
necrosis, with consequent loosening of the teeth, and ulcerations of pyorrhea
may occur." In the
pyorrhea that "four out of five" are said to have, we see
inflammation and ulceration of the gums, pus formation loosening of the
teeth, necrosis of the jaw, even falling out of the teeth. In numerous cases
of pyorrhea that we have cared for, the gum inflammation has subsided, the
ulcers have healed, pus formation has ceased, and the loosened teeth have
become firmly fixed in their sockets, and all of this has occurred while the
patient was fating. The effects of fasting must not be confused with the
effects of a white-flour-lard-pie-pasteurized-milk-mashed-potato diet. The
lady who wrote the letter mentioned at the head of this article, asks:
"Do you approve of the dentists' methods of treating gums with different
drugs, scraping, electricity, injections and other methods?" We do
not approve of anybody's methods of treating anything. We do not believe in
treatments. If the
drugs of the dentist are beneficial in the disease of gums, then why not use
the drugs of the physician in disease of other tissues of the body? If
electricity is beneficial in disease of the gums, why not beneficial in treating
disease of the liver, or kidneys, or brain, or heart? If injections are
beneficial in disease of the gums why should they not be beneficial in
treating disease of the stomach, or pancreas, or spleen? Dentistry
is a medical specialty. Dentists are trained in and accept the absurd
theories of the "regular" medical profession. They believe gum
troubles and tooth troubles are due to germs. They believe in immunization,
in antiseptics, in drugs, serums, vaccines, operations, radium and X-ray
treatment, etc. Dentists helped to popularize the obvious fallacy that
"a clean tooth never decays", they helped to popularize the vulgar
habit of brushing the teeth and that of using tooth powders and toothpastes.
They have taught the public almost as many fallacies as the pill peddlers.
Dentists become as enthused as the mixers of dope (MD) over the pulling of
teeth to cure rheumatism, neuritis, hart disease, anemia, epilepsy, etc.
Indeed some of them got to the point where they refused to fill a tooth. As
they did all the pulling, they pulled car loads of sound teeth, knowing they
were sound, because they are indissolubly linked with the medical profession
and because the dental profession is as highly commercialized as the medical
profession. They
have preferred to pull and plug teeth to preserving them in a sound state.
Only within recent years have a few of them, stung to the quick by lashings
of the Hygienists, begun to look to means of preserving the structural
integration of the teeth. Even these have not been able to throw off their
medical training, so they are seeking to preserve teeth by diet. Every day I
see people's teeth decay who are on diets that are said to preserve the
teeth. Until
these men learn that it is no more possible to maintain healthy teeth than it
is to maintain health of any other part of the body by diet alone, their work
will not become successful. It must be recognized that nutrition is a
composite resultant of many factors. When
several years ago the editor offered the slogan, "a well nourished tooth
never decays", as a substitute for the old threadbare fallacy, "a
clean tooth never decays", he recognized that teeth cannot be well
nourished, no matter what the diet, if nutrition is perverted or deranged from
any cause.
Every
one of man's organs is supplied with a reserve of functional power and
ability, in excess of the needs of ordinary life, to be used in meeting
emergencies or unusual demands. A considerable portion of the liver may be
removed without its possessor appreciably missing it; about two-fifths of it
may be removed, but if three-fifths of it are removed he begins to feel it.
We have much more liver than we need for the preservation of life. This same
is true of all other organs of man's body, the heart included. The
capacity of the heart muscle for work is thirteen times as great as the
amount of work it is ordinarily called upon to do. This most wonderful organ
is one of the strongest and most resistant in the body. It is capable of
outlasting any other organ of the body except the brain. Instead of work or
heavy exercise injuring the heart, the muscles of the body become too tired
to go on before the normal heart feels any strain. The
heart is a muscular organ—it is almost all muscle—and like all
other muscles of the body, is strengthened by use. A heart that is never
called upon to do vigorous work does not grow vigorous and strong. If it
always does light work it tends to become soft and flabby. It needs periods
of vigorous work to build to and maintain its maximum strength and ability. Running
is the best exercise known for the heart. Running is the one universal
exercise among the higher animals. Whether running merely for play, as one may
observe dogs, cats, and horses doing, or running away from an enemy or after
prey, as one often observes in the wilds, running is frequently indulged in
by life all around us. Children
run in play as naturally as do young kittens and calves, puppies and cubs.
Running is the most natural form of exercise and has long been known to be
the finest "conditioner" that athletes can employ in their
training. "Road work" (running) is employed by the boxer to build
up that condition of the heart and lungs that spells staying power when he
comes into the ring for a fight. Stop
being afraid of your heart. What does it matter that some nit-wit has advised
you not to attempt to climb even three steps? They have been killing those
who have been taking this advise seriously, for a long time. The best way to
weaken your heart—to let it grow flabby like the muscles of your arm-is
to never give it any vigorous work to do. Stair
climbing, started moderately and increased prudently, will result in recovery
in many cases of supposed bad heart weakness. The late President Harding
restored his heart to soundness after years of petting and pampering under
the directions of his favorite pin roller had failed to help. Any
form of exercise—running, dumb-bell exercise, Indian club swinging,
swimming, etc—started moderately and increased prudently, will produce
heart and lung development and lead to the establishment of robust health. Of
all forms of exercise, running, as pointed out above, is perhaps best for the
heart. Although
"regular medicine" never tires of telling us how many heart defects
and other defects are susceptible of prompt eradication by proper measures,
they seem never to be able to find the proper measures. Their program of
inactivity and drugging certainly does not remedy heart defects and every day
we see heart cases grow from bad to worse under this program of care. The
most difficult task in heart cases is that of ridding the patient of fear
implanted by physicians. Yet the elimination of fear is one of our most
important tasks. Fear paralyzes action and prevents the patient from carrying
out the necessary exercise program. Fear cripples the heart itself. It
impairs digestion and checks elimination and tends to prevent recovery. In 1911
Clarence DeMar entered his name for a 26-mile Boston Marathon. His heart was
examined by a doctor who told him to drop out if he got tired and advised him
to give up running thereafter. DeMar won the race in record time. Since then
DeMar's record in sixty-six marathons, including three at the Olympic Games
in 1921, 1924, and 1928, is twenty first, twelve seconds, 9 thirds, and he is
still a keen marathon runner. Had he allowed the advice of the physician to
frighten him and had he ceased running as advised, the name of DeMar would
not stand so high in the athletic world. Fear is
man's greatest enemy. Fear is the greatest nerve annihilator known. It not
only paralyzes action, it deranges digestion, impairs glandular action, and
checks elimination. Enervation, perverted metabolism, and toxemia are the
result. Cases have come under my observation in which fear of activity (both
conscious and sub-conscious) was so great, that the victims of fear were weak
and always tired. Slight exertion exhausted them and made them feel bad.
Those patients had been frightened by doctors and parents about their hearts
and thus their hearts, being denied the one thing that could make and keep
them vigorous, had grown weaker and weaker. Only
exercise can strengthen and rebuild such hearts and their fear of exercise
prevents them from employing it. Fear paralyzes effort and denies their
hearts the one thing essential to recovery and vigor. There
are times and conditions in which the heart needs rest and nothing else will
take the place of rest, but perpetual rest becomes rust. After rest has done
its work, exercise is needed and nothing will take the place of exercise.
After a period of preliminary preparation, vigorous exercise should be
indulged. There
are still many physicians who warn us of the grave dangers to the heart and
other parts of our body that exist in athletics. Nobody ever warns the dog
running after the hare, or the wolf chasing a deer, that running is bad for
the heart. Only man seems to be built so poorly that he cannot indulge in the
strenuous activities of life. Physicians
like to tell their heart cases that their heart troubles have been brought on
by strenuous play, like tennis, football, handball, swimming, running,
jumping, etc, because any trouble so caused is supposed to hard to cure in a
reasonable time, if they believe their troubles were caused by athletics. Actually,
this is one of the chief reasons why these patients are never restored to
health. So long as physicians are mistaken about cause, so long as they fail
to find the real cause, they cannot care for the patient in a manner that
will restore health. Wrong care must always flow from erroneous cause.
One of
the principal prerequisites for the restoration and maintenance of health is
the substantial removal of injurious substances and influences from our
environment and the cessation of enervating life-style and habits—that
is, "to get well, stop making yourself sick". Fasting
ensures the absence of injurious substances, practices, and habits associated
with food and feeding (eg refined food, overcooked food, sugar, food
additives, salt, condiments, spices, tea, coffee, overeating, rapid eating,
dietary imbalance, etc.). Hygienic fasting facilitates the avoidance of other
unfavourable influences, such as occupational and domestic toxins and
stressors (eg cigarette smoke, drugs, noise, interpersonal difficulties).
Fasting virtually necessitates a more favourable new environment and
life-style. Fasting—a
respite from common causes of disease—a chance to heal. Most
people have inadequate rest and sleep—insufficient to recoup fully
their daily expenditure of vitality—and so decrease their functional reserve
through an accumulated backlog of maintenance and repair; a debt of rest. Hygienic
fasting provides or facilitates rest—physical and
mental—digestive, assimilative, sensory, glandular, emotional
rest—that is, physiological rest. Activity expends functional power and
capacity—rest permits recuperation and rejuvenation. Hygienic
fasting facilitates more effective elimination because: 1.
Intake of noxious substances is reduced. 2. Reduction
of protoplasmic and extra cellular mass necessitates a concomitant release
and elimination of toxins. 3. Endogenous
toxaemia is reduced because:
The
force of this rationale rests on basic contentions: 1. The
cleaner body functions better. 2. Toxaemia
is the principal immediate cause of much illness. Fasting
facilitates constructive demolition—a prerequisite for bodily
renovation. For example, cysts, benign tumours, infiltrations, deposits, etc,
may be removed as a consequence of the increased catabolic set, effective
elimination and "a searching for" disposable materials to serve as
substrate. Hygienic
fasting provides an opportunity for the body to reconstruct itself of
superior materials through: 1. Increased
but selective and limited catabolism and autolysis. 2. Increased
tissue purity. 3. Feeding
on clean, wholesome food in a healthful manner after breaking the fast. Improved
structure and composition is facilitated by the improved digestive and
assimilative function which follows the fast and which is one with the
general rejuvenation. Fasting
is the most effective means of weight reduction. Much of the excess of fat
can be metabolised, particularly if the fast is longer than two weeks, while
excesses of fluid and salt are removed more rapidly. The
results of experimental animal fasting and feeding regimes and the
observations of centenarian life-styles and feeding habits are consistent
with the view that rejuvenation and longevity are facilitated by: 1. Nutritive
stringency. 2. The
alternation of fasting and "feeding on an adequate diet". A
hygienic fast, particularly one lasting a few weeks or more, engenders a
physiological de-adaptation—neurological de-conditioning being an
important facet. There is a renewed acuity of perception and sensitivity at a
subconscious, cellular level. Hence, injurious substances and influences are
more readily identified—a prerequisite for improved elimination and
tissue purity. In other words, tolerance is reduced. There is a loss or
diminution of many specific adaptations, for example, smoking is felt as an
inimicable influence, its injurious nature understood beyond the intellect.
Smoking once again becomes unpleasant. Similarly the "taste
threshold" is lowered. Natural foods taste better; fermented, salty or
bitter become distasteful or repugnant. Fasting
engenders greater self-awareness at a tissue and cellular level. This
improved "consciousness" is a precondition for a finely integrated
and regulated organism whose "total" awareness extends to the
conscious nervous system, which is then more able to perceive and select a
value system, a life-style, food, environment, habits, more fitting the
qualitative and quantitative needs of the body, according to its current
requirements and capacities—another principle requirement for the restitution
and maintenance of health. Periods
of restricted feeding and of fasting are frequent natural concomitants of
drought, flood, fire, seasonal shortages, injury and illness-primal
influences likely to have profound effects on the development and form of animal
and plant physiology—that is, on evolutionary grounds, fasting is
likely to be a life influence which the body has evolved to require for
optimal functioning. Fasting is as normal as feeding—our copious
nutritional reserves are testimony to that. The
common ability to fast for several days or weeks is consistent with the above
point—but such an ability is dependent, not merely on the presence of
endogenous nutriture (nor simply on these primeval, wondrously complex, but
integrated, biochemical processes responsible for its formation, dissolution,
distribution, oxidation—and transformation into the
"machinery" of life), but on the ability, after several days
fasting, of the central nervous system to switch from glucose to keto-acids
as its principle fuel. This constitutes a particularly significant capability
in an organism (ie Homo Sapiens) with a highly developed, proportionately
large nervous system, for such a capability is unlikely to be a convenient
remnant of primordial life, but a specific development, selected and
preserved by fasting, that is, CNS utilisation of keto-acids illustrates the
normalcy of extended fasting in our evolution (or creation). During
fever, severe injury, prolonged pain, anger, fear—that is, any
prolonged stress—gluconeogenesis is increased and the blood sugar level
increased secondary to reduced glucose uptake by peripheral tissues
(especially muscle and adipose tissue) and secondary to the increased
utilisation of fatty acids as fuel—particularly by muscle. This humorally
and neurologically mediated state constitutes a rapid initiation of fasting
metabolism. The
egress of free fatty acids from adipose tissue and amino-acids from muscle
constitutes a ready supply of fuel and "building blocks".
Amino-acids from muscle are preferentially incorporated into other tissues in
need of maintenance or repair. So profoundly set is this metabolic response
that it is difficult to establish nitrogen balance even by oral or
intravenous feeding in the above conditions of "stress"—that
is, fasting is in tune with the naturally instituted metabolic set pertaining
during fever, severe injury, prolonged pain, distress, fear, anxiety, etc. When
fasting is electively instituted, the adreno-cortical and adrenomedullary
response is absent, slight or short-lived—hence a temporary modest fall
in blood sugar occurs. Acute
or distressing illness or injury, or any profound stressor influence is
accompanied by anorexia in animals and most humans. The sick animal refuses
food—expect the domesticated one who may give "lip service"
to maintain our approval—his survival depends on it. Anorexia
is such a fundamental feeling that it is unlikely to be socially
conditioned—as appetite is likely to be. Anorexia indicates that food
should not be eaten, just as surely as chilliness indicates that cold should
be avoided, or thirst that water should be drunk. During
severe or prolonged pain, fever, fear, anger, grief, exhaustion or injury,
gastrointestinal perfusion, motility and secretion are reduced or
suspended—hence the dryness of the mouth, the furry "thick"
tongue and halitosis—signs of reduced salivary secretion,
representative of the general functional mode of the gastrointestinal tract.
The organism is not ready to eat. To feed under these circumstances is to
disturb and distract defensive and reparative effort and indeed even to
increase the need of it, for putrefaction and fermentation of food occur in
the absence of normal digestive and assimilative function. In the
lives of many animals the physical activity involved in the "pursuit of
nourishment" is a large portion of their total exercise. Until
relatively recent times people laboured (directly or indirectly) to obtain
food—the nomadic and agrarian life was labour intensive—the use
of cereals as a crop necessitated such labour intensive procedures as
winnowing, milling and cooking. In the
natural order, feeding depends on health and fitness. Extended periods of
physical rest are normally accompanied by fasting—every night for most
people. Acute illness, severe injury, physical exhaustion, grief, anger, fear
and anxiety are accompanied by lassitude or prostration (and anorexia), which
for most mammals precludes or severely restricts feeding, for they may expend
residual physical capacity merely to obtain water, that is, the sick animal
normally fasts—regardless of anorexia. The more prostrating the
illness, the more likely is fasting to be appropriate. Only modern man has
"friends" who feed him when he is ill! Fasting
and physical rest are the natural consequences of prostration and lassitude,
the concomitants of illness and injury. Assimilation,
secretion of digestive juice and gut motility are slowed during intense
muscular effort. "A full stomach empties the mind." Increased physiological
activity in one direction necessitates decreased activity in another. The
organism cannot simultaneously perform its various functions effectively,
efficiently, or maximally. An
alternation of activities and functional emphasis is essential to optimal
functioning—hence circadian and other physiological rhythms. Fasting
provides an opportunity for special attention to maintenance and healing, not
possible during regular feeding and intensive living. Food in
the gut demands a diversion of blood flow and resources, and attention to the
gastrointestinal tract. The "digestive mode" demands a diminution
of the "defensive and reparative" mode, else food rots in the gut
—increasing the need for additional defensive action. In
other words, anything that constitutes an alternative threat to the organism
(eg, drugs, undigested food, excessive heat or cold, trauma) while it is
already involved in defensive effort (illness), necessitates a compromise
functional mode which is accompanied by a reduction or change in signs and
symptoms. Thus,
distracted functioning is the common physiological basis of many therapies,
which, though they "give relief, delay healing and compound the causes
of illness. Feeding and treating distract the body from healing. Away
from the drone or jangle of daily activity and its demands and distractions,
hygienic fasting engenders introspection which often results in heightened
self-awareness—born of feeling one's needs, capacities and
limitations—a new understanding which often helps a faster to develop
new values and priorities, which encourage a new life-style more in tune with
his/her physiological and psychological needs. Denied
many familiar and customary escapes (especially feeding and drugging), the
faster must face himself/herself, feel, accept, express (and so resolve) his
conflicts, frustrations and sorrows. Fasting is often a chance to
weep—and then relax and start again, at peace with oneself. The
consequent resolution of conflict and "psychic pain" results in reduced
muscular tension and emotionally induced enervation, which are often
important prerequisites to health recovery. Fasting
and particularly the post-fasting period provides an opportunity for health
education—which should concentrate on the causal relationships between
life-style, habits, environment, values and well-being—and include
practical hints on how to apply the new knowledge to daily living. Fasting
affords an opportunity for the practitioner and "patient" to get to
know each other, to establish mutual respect and trust—only in this
context is the practitioner likely to be well informed about mental and
emotional and other factors of aetiological significance. Upon the conclusion
of the "patient's" supervised refeeding, the practitioner can give
advise which is specifically tailored to help the patient change to a
healthier life-style. Fasting
often involves an investment of courage, money, time, trust and
"faith"—a commitment of self, a striving which makes health
improvement more valued. Hard-won gains are much more treasured than the
ephemeral periods of symptom suppression. The commitment of self-image to
fasting and healthier living helps one stick closer to the "straight and
narrow". In most
remediable cases, hygienic fasting results in relatively quick resolution or
improvement of symptoms without the risk of "side effects" and the
cruel disillusionment that drug therapy and other palliative techniques bring
through ephemeral relief. In many cases, fasting is the kindest and safest
way to begin to feel better—to begin to get well.
There
are many articles about the cause of disease, but few that teach us the
causes of health. To know the causes of health is absolutely as essential as
to know the causes of disease. The
title of this article, "The Causes of Health", implies a great
truth that many people do not yet know or realise. It implies that there are
truly causes of health and that we can produce it at will by supplying the
conditions of health. How few people realise that with healthful influences
and under favourable conditions all people will spontaneously be healthy.
There are conditions under which the living organism will remain healthy if
it is healthy and under which it will regain its health if it is ill. The
study of these conditions, influences and practices constitutes the study of
Natural Hygiene. Knowing these conditions fully and complying with them will
cause health just as supplying the proper conditions for flying causes a
plane to fly, or supplying the proper conditions for plants to grow causes
them to grow healthfully, free of disease. For
superior health, we do not have to rely upon mere accidents or wait for Dame
Fortune to bring us health. We can produce it at will just by relying upon
the truths of Nature. Hygiene seeks to preserve and restore health with the
materials and influences that preserve health. In Hygiene we have no need for
adventitious substances or foreign materials that bear no normal
physiological relation to the living organism. We always rely solely on the
elements, influences and conditions that are requisites of normal physiology.
In other words, those things that we normally use and need, such as food,
water, sunshine, sleep, exercise, wholesome mental attitudes and freedom from
violence, etc., are all that we ever need to sustain us in perfect health:
and if perchance our health may have become impaired, nothing other than
these requisites of normal physiology are necessary for healing. The
organism heals itself out of the materials and influences which it uses daily
in maintaining the health and integrity of its tissues. Were it not for the
constant healing of broken-down tissues and worn-out cells, we could not live
past two months of age. Healing is a daily process on the microscopic level.
Your daily view of healing is when a wound is large enough to see with the
natural vision. Dr
Shelton writes so beautifully about the means of finding a true science of
life, that we must follow closely with understanding what he is saying: "A
true science of life, which Hygiene seeks to establish, can arise only out of
a study of life, not out of a study of chemistry. Man is a living organism,
the smallest cell of whom is more complex than the most elaborately equipped
chemical laboratory. We do not learn anything of man by powdering his dead
body into dust and analysing the dust. We must study man, living man, in all
of his relations; we must study his needs and the normal conditions of his
existence. A true science of life will not come out of the laboratory alone,
but must be based primarily upon a study of man as a living, feeling, thinking,
acting being. It will give attention to air, food, water, sunshine,
temperature, activity, rest and sleep, cleanliness, the emotions, dress,
occupations, habits, environment - in a word, the needs of life and the mode
of living." Laboratory
tests and experiments are not nearly so important as the test of life. There
are those who are trying to advance Natural Hygiene by laboratory and
clinical tests. These may have their virtue for the masses who do not know
the unreliability of laboratory tests, but as far as giving us a science of
health, they will not. They have not given the medical profession a science
of health. We must go to life's great panorama for that. Analysing the urine
of sick fasters only tells us what the organism is eliminating to maintain
homeostasis of the blood and tissues. It does not give us a valid norm of
blood chemistry. Nor can it ever reach the depths of the cell itself and tell
us how it functions or what it needs. No, we
cannot base our lives on laboratory tests alone. When we do this, we end up
trying to feed ourselves acid foods when the urine is too alkaline and
alkaline foods when the urine is too acid. Feeding foods in this manner has
not and will not produce health, much less superior health. After all this
wasted time with the laboratory we'll still be forced to return to Hygienic
principles and Nature for a reliable guide to healthful living. Man is never
as intelligent as the body itself in regulating the chemistry of its fluids
and tissues. We must ultimately rely on the human organism to right its
internal matters as it has done for thousands of years by holding steadfast
to Life's Great Laws. There
are laws of life just as there are laws of physics or chemistry. Too many of
us still think that all life is chaotic and that sickness or health are
merely fortuitous states. You are ill because you picked up some bug or
virus, or you are healthy simply because you have always been that way. Too
many people still believe these primitive theories. They do not understand
that there are laws of life, and that they are just as immutable and
unchangeable and reliable as any laws of this universe. The
first law of life, called "Life's Great Law" teaches us the
fundamental principle that all cells instinctively act to preserve themselves
at all times. "Every living cell in the organised body is endowed with
the instinct of self-preservation sustained by a force inherent in the
organism, called vital force or life, the success of whose work is directly
proportioned to the amount of the force and adversely to the degree of its
activity." As long
as cells or tissues are alive, they will function in such a manner that tends
to keep them among the living. In doing so the cells maintain the integrity
of body tissues and of entire organs, and organ systems, and indeed the whole
organism, simply because while functioning to preserve themselves, the cells
in turn work together to preserve the whole. The
study of physiology reveals so many defence mechanisms, both mental and physical,
that are designed to preserve the whole that it is both wondrous and amazing
how adaptable our flesh is. After studying all the defence mechanisms used by
the body to maintain purity of the tissues, we can begin to realise that we
have to really work hard to get sick. Because of adaptation and toleration we
can misbehave for years before the body finally breaks down under the
unhealthful influences and practices! How few
of us realise all the physiological mechanisms and adaptive procedures necessary
even for daily living. One mechanism that helps to maintain a steady supply
of blood to the brain cells at all times, is the change in the circular
system that quickly takes place when one goes from lying (hypostatic) to
standing (orthostatic) position. The pressoreceptors in the upper part of the
chest immediately sense a lowered pressure and the sympathetic nervous system
causes a contraction of vessels so that the blood pressure remains relatively
the same in the head. Otherwise, we'd black our or faint every time we got
up. Have
you ever thought of those police and bodyguards that we have in literally all
tissues of the body? When there is an emergency in some part of the body,
whole battalions of them come from distant parts of the body to help destroy
a foreign invader. The Reticuloendothelial system and the white blood cells
of the body are really our bodyguards ready to pounce on bacteria, their
toxins, foreign proteins or other poisons that may gain entrance to the body. You may
have been taught that if we could eradicate all the bacteria in the world we
would all be healthy and never miss a day of work as long as we live. But, as
bacteria are not the cause of disease and the healthy body destroys them very
rapidly, this brings us back to the causes of health. How can
we become healthy if sick and remain healthy if well? This is a question the
answer of which many would like to have. Yet it is so simple that when they
learn it they exclaim, "Oh!, that is nothing." They expect something
complicated and mysterious. The answer is simply that we may remain healthy
or recover our health by first removing all causes of disease and then by
supplying the conditions of health. The
first thing to do when you decide to plant a garden is to mow the weeds down
and remove them in some manner. The causes of disease, like weeds, must be
removed so that health can be maintained or restored. If the causes of
disease are not removed first, health will be impossible. How can a burn heal
if you continue to burn yourself? You must stop burning yourself if you
desire health. In
general, the causes of disease fall into four categories which are: your
excesses, your deficiencies, your poor emotional habits, and your poison
habits. Many
people do not understand that to go to excess, means to exceed in the normal
things of life. The term does not properly apply to habits, indulgences, and
influences that fill not normal need of life. For instance, smoking is not
needed in health. Smoke with all its incident poisons is not a requisite of
life. The body does not use it in any of its functions or for building
tissue, or in any of its body fluids. The relation of smoke to the living
organisms is always, and under all conditions, a poison because it is never
used physiologically. If a substance is not needed and never used
physiologically, then the real relation to the body is that of a poison. Any
amount of it whether infinitesimal or large is still a poison. To state that
"I don't smoke excessively" is wrong, because that would imply that
a small amount of smoke may be necessary to life. You can exceed only in the
normal things of life, not in non-useful things. Even though we may strive to
live Hygienically, we can exceed our normal needs in many ways. Some common excesses
are overeating, overdrinking (of water), overbathing, overwork, oversunning,
overexercise, overworking the emotions, and overindulgence in sex. Eating,
drinking water, sunning, exercising, emotions, and sex are normal elements
and indulgences of life. They must be supplied in the proper quantity and
quality for the preservation and the restoration of health. Any excess will
be an enervating influence, and as such a remote cause of disease. Food
deficiencies are usually the deficiency most spoken about today. I will not
dwell on this deficiency except to state that there may be deficiencies if
one tries to supply his nutritional needs by eating denatured, processed
foods and then relying on vitamins and minerals in pill form to render
adequate the deficiencies of such a diet. Your diet should be composed of
whole foods, natural foods, simply prepared and served in their natural state
before anyone has cooked or changed them in any manner. These foods should be
fruits, vegetables, and nuts, organically grown if possible. Only eating
foods to which we are constitutionally adapted, and foods that have not been
changed from their natural state by man and processed into unrecognisable
substances can we be adequately nourished. There
are other deficiencies, such as insufficient rest and sleep, insufficient
exercise, lack of sunshine, lack of emotional poise, and insufficient number
of congenial friends and interpersonal relationships. A lack or deficiency of
any of these normal needs of life is also enervating and as such a basic or
remote cause of disease. Sleep
is the normal need of which there seems never to be enough. We work all day
and play all night. Since there is no time for workers to play in the
daytime, this normal need of life, congenial friends, and joyful activities
are indulged in during the night when we should all be sleeping. Shows,
movies, bars, dances, parties, and dinners all take place in our social
culture at night. When one has to go to work early the next day, if one goes out
at night, it will be at the expense of this normal need: sleep. If this is
long continued, there will be a deficit of recuperative activities and
enervation supersedes. As the ultimate consequence of this flouting of one of
Nature's needs, toxaemia and disease result. A
dearth of good or beneficial emotional habits can certainly cause disease
just as much as eating unhealthful foods. Early in life emotional habit
patterns of detrimental nature are established because of poor environment,
unhealthful family relations, other extraneous factors or simply because the
individual was permitted to indulge in feeling sorry for him or herself. No
matter how or why the emotional habit got started, poor emotional habits can
be broken. The realisation that there are detrimental and beneficial emotions
is the first step toward changing the poor emotional habit or habits. Hatred,
jealousy, worry, anxiety, greed, resentment, lasciviousness - all have bad
physiological consequences. Such emotions have a tendency to paralyse normal
function. Metabolic wastes are thus retained within the system and cause
pathological changes when the poor emotions are long continued. The emotions
are so enervating that one emotional upset may fatigue a person so greatly
that it may take weeks to recover from the nervous expenditure. "1
have always been a worrier. That is me, I can't change at this age," is
the usual answer when one is advised to cease worrying, or to cease any other
emotional habit. This is their downfall. Naturally they won't change if they
think they can't and they make no effort to do so. But with a little
persistency, thoughts can be changed, and better health is the result. When we
cut down the weeds in our new garden of Natural Hygiene, the first weeds to
oust are the poison habits such as smoking; drinking alcohol, coffee tea, and
soft drinks; drug and medicine taking; chocolate eating; the eating of
poisoned and sprayed foods; in a sense, everything that has any substance in
it that is not food. It can be very difficult to break these habits because
some of them are addictive or slightly so. Health cannot be attained while we
are poisoning ourselves, so our first requisite is to weed the Hygienic
garden of these poison habits. You may do it abruptly or slowly, however you
wish, but it eventually must be done if the goal of superior health is to be
reached. The
next requisite of health is to supply the causes or conditions of health.
This can really be fun. Do we immediately seek the physician and have
ourselves immunised against every known virus or bacterium that supposedly
causes disease? I should say not! These in themselves are causes of disease.
It is absolutely impossible to produce health with the causes of disease. In
trying to create immunity, the regular profession injects gamma globulins.
These gamma globulins are supposed to be antibodies that produce immediate
immunity in the one who has just received them. But, instead, the gamma
globulin which is a foreign protein becomes an antigen in the recipient and
the body starts its defensive reaction against the foreign protein.
Consequently this lowers the resistance of the one who is supposed to be
immunised, and instead of saving him or her from the disease, makes them more
likely to suffer disease. When
antigens, usually protein in nature, are injected to produce artificial
immunity, they occasion the production of antibodies against the antigen, and
mobilise many white blood cells to destroy the antigen. This also causes the
organism to expend energy both in forming antibodies and more white blood
cells, and in the mobilisation of these substances. As enervation is the
first step in the development of all disease, the effort at producing
artificial immunity is fraught with great danger because of its enervating
influence and the downright poisonous quality of the injections of foreign
proteins. Thus, the lack of nerve energy, or a deficiency of nerve energy
brought about by its waste in fighting protein antigens, can be a direct
cause of a disease. The antigen or foreign protein itself is a cause of
disease. A real
cause of health is fresh, good smelling, clean air. Where do we find this
today? It is certainly not found in large cities filled with soot, smog,
automobile and factory fumes. We must seek the country air that is still
clean and health giving. Sunshine
and natural light are also causes of health of which we sometimes have
difficulty getting enough. Homes and office buildings are presently
constructed for air conditioning. Rooms are small and windows are scarce and
up high. Very little light is used even in the daytime. Many, if not most of
us must work indoors, consequently we are always exposed to deficient
artificial light and almost never to natural sunshine. We must have pure,
natural light and direct sunshine for optimal health. Like plants, without
this normal need of life, we wither and die. Other
conditions of health are pure water, a congenial environment, cleanliness, an
equable temperature, and exercise. It is
up to each individual to see that all of the causes of health are included in
his or her life. It is not necessarily a bore to live healthfully. One drinks
water whether living Hygienically or not. It is necessary only to see that it
is pure water. The best means of securing pure water today is to purchase
pure distilled water, or to purchase a distiller and make your own pure
water. One has
to eat daily. It may take a little more time in searching for good produce,
organically grown if possible. But, the time spent in searching for food can
be an added pleasure to your life rather than a bane or bother. What could be
more fun than a drive to the country to pick some fresh fruit or vegetables
from someone's tree or garden? Many people have trees loaded down with fruit
that they are willing to give away if someone will just come and pick it.
What could be more pleasurable than growing your own backyard garden, and
watching the little seedlings grow into mature plants that you can eat right
from the garden? How
marvellous it is to know that you don't have to waste hours in the kitchen
preparing food! All you have to do is merely wash the food and place it
attractively in good combinations on the table. Chewing the whole, natural,
uncut food is delectable and best for you. And washing is at a minimum when
preparing and eating Hygienic foods; no grease to clean up. One does not even
have to use soap. There is another labour-saving factor in favour of Hygienic
eating. The bonus is better nutrition, happy spirits, and abounding health. Rest
and sleep may come with difficulty because of our night culture. Whether
difficult or not, when it gets dark, nature meant for us to be resting and
for sleep to come shortly thereafter. Sleep will spontaneously come when it is
deserved. One won't desire the pleasures of night life when there are
pleasures galore in the daytime. Cultivate daytime activities, and spend time
doing those things that keep you uplifted. Nightime is for rest and sleep,
and when we secure this natural need of life, we immediately experience
greater well-being and happiness and zest for living that we did not realise
we had. Hygienic
living is not austere living because we must go to bed with the chickens! It
is really fun living! The Hygienist is not a mere Hygienist, she/he is a
"Happy Hygienist." There are so many new enjoyments so that every
day can be like a party. There's the joy of exercising; of feeling your
muscles come alive again! What about the fun of dancing in the daytime at home
or jogging in the country on weekends? Picnics or watermelon parties in the
backyard, with Hygienic friends are simply exhilarating. We have
been so cultivated by aping television living that we have forgotten how to
make our own entertainment right in our own homes where it should be.
Entertaining at home means that you can entertain and play in the daytime,
and sleep at night. When 8pm comes, you can say the party is over, go home
now! It means you avoid deficient light, and the temptation of living in a conventional
world. It means that you avoid traffic jams, accidents, and automobile fumes. Many
more things can be said about the fun of living Hygienically, but there is
nothing that I like to dwell on more than the happiness that it creates in
each individual when he or she is no longer dragged down by toxaemia. It
seems as if a veil is lifted from the individual. If she/he were cantankerous
old curmudgeon, she/he now becomes happy and content. They no longer fuss
about everything and have a better outlook on life and living. Material
things are not necessary for this feeling of happiness, for it just comes.
Like a spring, it just bubbles up; and there is a smile on the face from
contentment, and even sometimes a giggle may slip out simply from feeling so
well for being so good. You may even slyly look around to see if anyone
notices your giddiness, for fear of thinking that you are crazy or something
for feeling so well. I
assure you that it is well worth the effort to eliminate all causes of
disease form your life and to supply the conditions of health to the end that
you become superbly healthy, both physically and mentally. The cultivation of
disease is never fun nor is it fun to suffer the disease which you so
ardently cultivated. But the cultivation of health is fun: and when you reach
your goal, you will be immensely happy and will feel that you are truly in
Paradise. It will be your own Hygienic paradise.
In the
October 1985 issue of The Harvard Medical School Health Letter there
appears a discussion of pregnancy in older women. I shall not enter into the
discussion except to say that pregnancy in older women is considered "a
medical problem" though the letter admits there is no age delineation
between "high-risk" and "low-risk" mothers-to-be. This
article (and others) actually places our health upon the level of the amount
of medical attention we receive. For instance, there is the implication that
we are healthier because of vaccines, especially because we are without
diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, rheumatic fever, and measles. But
this is, of course, false. In my youth, at least 65% of American children
could pass a physical fitness test. Today only about 10% of our youth can
pass the minimum physical fitness test of the President's Physical Fitness
Council. What
does this tell us? For the knowledgeable and perceptive it tells us that our
children were healthier and more fit 50 years ago than today. Cancer is the
number one killer of our children today. Fifty years ago it was a rare death
amongst children attributable to cancer. For those alert to causes and
consequences in health matters, this also tell us something. If
you're familiar with those who were reared Hygienically all their lives,
you'll find they did not suffer any "usual childhood diseases." And
the "usual childhood diseases" were prevalent amongst children who
ate the "usual junk food diets" of their time. Today's children are
poisoned even more than in my time - and that poisoning includes the
multitude of vaccines and drugs administered to them, as well as the much
greater junk food intake. Today's children have lost vitality to the extent
they no longer can conduct the health-restoring processes of disease, that
is, the emergency crises wherein the body redirects its energies to
detoxification and healing. Dammed up in them because of less vitality, less
ability to have an "usual childhood disease," the poisons accumulate
until they result in cancer or other fearsome problems, perhaps even A Gamma
globulin Anaemia, which have caused some children to be pointed at nationally
as having AIDS. Are illness and health medical concerns? The
truth is that the less medical meddling we have, the healthier we are!!! In view
that the "usual childhood diseases" are vital biological processes
of expelling ingested and uneliminated toxic materials, it is incumbent upon
us to regard with even greater concern our youth who junk it up more than
ever today and have less of these acute eliminative illnesses. Uneliminated
poisons pose great danger to the organism. Thus it is that we have more
serious problems with our children today than ever - the problems have
changed to deadlier forms. Far
from being medical concerns, acute illnesses are health-restoring activities
of the body. Instead of getting ourselves drugged, thus suppressing vital
body processes, we must establish the conditions to help the body in its
endeavours. Further, we must not again ingest "foods" which leave
toxic debris lest we cause even worse problems. Health
is strictly a private matter. No one else can perform any of your vital
functions. No one else can breathe for you, drink for you, eat for you, sleep
for you, bathe for you, sun for you or perform any of the other vital
functions of your life. Trying to poison an organism "to return it to
health" is strictly voodooism even though, today, routine poisoning or
drugging is commercially promoted in behalf of the bottom lines of the
pharmaceutical establishment which is, in reality, very much a part of the
overall establishment which enmeshes us all. Hence,
fostering the idea that illness and normal biological functions are in the
medical domain is a function of not only this so-called health letter, but
all the other media which the establishment commands. Anything you can do to
stampede people into physicians' offices and clinics is good for business.
And bottom lines are the name of the game in health and disease matters, not
our well-being |