RHEUMATISM, FATTY DEGENERATION, ETC.
Casey A. Wood. M.D., Professor of Chemistry in the Medical Department of
Bishop’s College, Montreal, in an article entitled “Starvation in the
Treatment of Acute Articular Rheumatism” (Canada _Medical Record_), gives
the history of seven cases where the patients were speedily restored to
health by simply abstaining from food from four to eight days, and he says
he could have given the history of forty more from his own practice, but
thought these would suffice. In no instance did he find it necessary to
extend the fast beyond ten days. His patients were allowed to drink freely
of cold water, or lemonade in moderate quantities, if they preferred, and
simple sponging with tepid water was resorted to when indicated by
feverishness of the surface. In no case did this treatment fail. No
medicine was administered. The cases reported “included men and women of
different ages, temperaments, occupations, and social positions.” He
further says: “From the quick and almost invariably good results to be
obtained by simple abstinence from food, I am inclined to the idea that
rheumatism is, after all, only a phase of indigestion, and that, by
giving complete and continued rest to all the viscera that take any part
in the process of digestion, the disease, is attacked _in ipsa radice_.”
In chronic rheumatism he obtained less positive results, but did not
venture to try fasts of longer duration. Dr. Wood concludes by saying that
“this treatment, obviating as it does, almost entirely, the danger of
cardiac complications, will be found to realize all that has been claimed
for it——a simple, reliable remedy for a disease that has long baffled the
physician’s skill; and the frequency with which rheumatism occurs will
give every one a chance of trying its efficacy.” As elsewhere remarked,
nearly all patients continue eating regularly, until food becomes actually
disagreeable, even loathsome, often; and, after this, every effort is
exhausted to produce some toothsome compound to “tempt the appetite.”
Furthermore, and often worst of all, after the entire failure of this
programme, the patient can, and usually does, take to gruel or some sort
of “extract,” which he can drink by holding his breath. All this tends to
aggravate the acute symptoms, and to fasten the disease in a chronic form
upon the rheumatic patient, or to insure rheumatic fever; and the same
principle holds in nearly all acute disorders, it is well to remember. So
inveterate is this mania for eating, even when to continue is like turning
coals upon the dead ashes and clinkers of an expired fire, that, in
ordinary practice, it is well-nigh impossible to induce any class of
patients to abstain from food at the beginning of an attack, or to give
the fasting cure a fair trial at any stage of the disease. The term
frequently applied——“starvation cure”——is both misleading and
disheartening to the patient: in fact, he is both _starved_ and _poisoned_
by _eating_ when the hope of digestion and assimilation is prohibited, as
is, in great measure, the case in all acute attacks, and more especially
when there is nausea or lack of appetite; and he can only escape from the
danger by abstaining temporarily. Dr. Wood’s prestige in the natural
treatment of acute rheumatism was obtained in hospital practice, where it
is comparatively easy to “control the symptoms” by withholding the cause,
or, in other words, where the physician——providing the nurse is
honest——can regulate the diet of his patients, absolutely. After such
experience, it was less difficult for Dr. Wood to introduce this remedy
among the most intelligent of his patients in private practice; for he
could recommend it as in no sense an experiment, but as a remedy of
positive advantage and, in fact, indispensable, if the best results were
to be effected. My own experience, so far as it goes, has been similar to
that of Dr. Wood. Moreover, in chronic cases——cases of long standing——the
best results may be hoped for——in fact the best possible results have
invariably followed——from an abstemious (_frugivorous_) diet, together
with simple bathing, as special symptoms may indicate,——and an improved
general regimen, as to fresh air, exercise (inaugurated gradually),
beginning, perhaps, with passive exercise, as rubbing, etc., by the
attendant. A chronic disease usually implies chronic provocation: Nature
has simply commuted the extreme penalty of the law; or, it may be likened
to the reprieve of a convict under sentence of death, with an assurance of
full liberty upon complete reform.
Among the disorders radically and safely removed by fasting, is
OBESITY,
or any degree of excess in weight. Time, from ten days up. The weight, in
this disorder, will diminish under the influence of fasting——by the waste
and excretion of _material that can best be spared_ (fat)——at the rate of
from one to three pounds, or more, a day, which rate of progress can be
increased, happily, by exercise in the open air. Entire abstinence from
food will cause the fat to disappear, but there can be no regeneration of
the muscular system——on the contrary, it must continue to
deteriorate——without exercise. It is better, therefore, to keep up a good
degree of exercise, and to eat a limited amount of food daily. It is not
that the fat person eats or digests more than the lean one (he may not eat
nearly as much in fact), but he excretes less. Exercise in the open air
favors the excretion of waste matters which otherwise would be deposited
in the cellular tissues. The fatty degeneration so much admired in
infancy, aids in the production of emaciation and consumption at adult
age.
A fat person, at whatever period of life, has not a sound tissue in his
body; not only is the entire muscular system degenerated with the fatty
particles,[54] but the vital organs——heart, lungs, brain, kidneys, liver,
etc.——are likewise mottled throughout, like rust spots in a steel
watch-spring, liable to fail at any moment.
[Footnote 54: A slice of steak from the loin of a stall-fed ox exhibits
this disease very clearly: mark its “well mixed” appearance (a token of
praise to the ignorant or reckless epicure), where the muscular tissue has
given place to the globules of fat which denote unexcreted excess in diet,
and deficient nutrition, from lack of exercise.]
The gifted Gambetta, whom M. Rochefort styled a “fatted satrap,” died (far
under his prime) because of this depraved condition: a slight gun-shot
wound, from which a “clean” man would have speedily recovered, ended this
obese diabetic’s life. Events sufficiently similar are constantly
occurring on both sides of the water; every hour men are rolling into
ditches of death because they do not learn how to live. These ditches have
fictitious names——grief, fright, apoplexy, heart disease, kidney troubles,
etc., etc.——but the true name is _chronic self-abuse_.
Says an agricultural journal: “The eggs of most fowls are infertile from
too much pampering and too little exercise. It is not wise to fatten any
animal intended for breeding purposes.” The principle here involved does
not relate simply to the fertility of the ovum, but to the health and
stamina of all living creatures: fat is disease. Very fat women can not
conceive, or, if they do, their children can not be born alive; and those
who are to any degree degenerated in this manner can not endow their
offspring with the full measure of vitality to which they are justly
entitled; while too often they are foredoomed to sickly lives and
premature deaths.
I can in no way better illustrate the relation of fat to health and
strength, than by repeating the remarks of an intelligent and observing
young farmer. “I fatten my cattle,” said he, “because it pays——the market
demands fat creatures; so I have my barn very snug and warm, and feed
high. My neighbor, on the other hand, is what would be called a ‘poor
farmer’; that is, his buildings are not of the best, his barn has broad
cracks all around, which gives them pure air, and his cattle are never
fat. He works his oxen hard, gives them enough to eat to keep them in full
health and vigor, but nothing for adipose. Mornings, in winter, when he
turns his oxen out into the yard, they prance out like a lot of colts,
kick up their heels and shake their horns like healthy creatures as they
are; while mine will almost tumble down over the door-sill! His cows never
give as much milk nor make as much butter as mine; but they are never
sick, while mine are sometimes, and I lose one now and then with
‘milk-fever,’ or some other disease resulting from high feeding; but I am
farming for profit, and my heifers bring an extra price by reason of the
great milk and butter record of their mothers, and I can afford to have a
sick or even a dead cow occasionally, providing I keep the fact quiet——not
advertise the danger of the process necessary to ‘drive the milk out of
them.’”
[Obesity being a disease peculiar to, and (terminating in cholera infantum
or some zymotic disease) especially fatal in, infancy, the author has
endeavored to treat the subject exhaustively in his work entitled “How to
Feed the Baby.” He would merely observe, in this connection, that in
plant life or animal life, the universal law is a _lean, lank infancy_:
those creatures and those slips which thrive continuously and reach a
healthy maturity are _never_ fat or stocky during the period of growth.
The human infant only is sought to be made an exception to this rule; with
what success the mortality reports fully attest.]