"He who leads a sober and regular life, and commits no excess in
his diet, can suffer but little from disorders of any kind."
--CORNARO
People who are the offspring of nervous parents and who have had a
nervous breakdown should not eat commercial sugar, eggs, or animal food
of any kind whatever. These statements may seem wholly unimportant to
some people, but I realize what a tremendous bomb I throw into the camps
of others when they read them. You see, for centuries people have
believed meat and eggs to be the best of all foods; so when I make a
statement like the foregoing, the effect is not unlike that which
followed Columbus' statement that no matter what people believed, the
fact was that the earth was round, not flat. From the very beginning it
has not made a single bit of difference as to what physicians or
anybody else thought; facts count. And no matter what we may think or
how long we have thought it, facts go right on being facts just the
same.
Sometimes, even after twenty years' experience, about once in two or
three months--because there is nothing else at hand--I find myself
eating a small bit of meat. This usually happens when I am on a lecture
tour. But if I eat only a small slice of bacon at the evening meal I
dream bad dreams and the next morning feel drowsy, heavy, and sluggish.
Animal foods as well as eggs and commercial sugar poison all those born
of nervous parents. I have proved the truth of this by my own case and
by several years' observation of other cases.
Do your children have "night terrors"? You answer, yes. Well, let me
tell you how to stop these horrors in the little ones. If you give them
meat--and remember you should never give them pork--let them have a
very small piece at noon, never at night. And they should never be
permitted to have it for breakfast. Give the child his one small bit of
meat at noon. For the evening meal give him some cereal with milk or
cream, but no sugar. Give him all he wants of this special dish, but
nothing else at that meal, and you will find his "night terrors" and
moaning will cease.
I look back on most of the nights of my childhood with horror, for until
I became a man I talked in my sleep and had the most horrible dreams. I
used also to get up in my sleep and walk about the room. My parents were
well aware of the fact that all of their eight children were poor
sleepers, and of them all I was by far the worst. And, although it was
innocently done, the food they were giving us was poisoning us. You
don't need to think that in order to take poison you must have
strychnine or arsenic. No, indeed you don't. We were fed exactly as
hundreds and thousands of poor little ones are being fed now as this is
being written. We were fed on meat, eggs, and fats, and when we became
ill, friends round about us thought they were doing something real kind
when they sent in a nice piece of fried rabbit or some celebrated golden
brown fried chicken. But we vomited at the sight of the food--which was
really our salvation.
I have two boys of my own. The elder, a sturdy chap not yet ten years of
age, has to have clothes for a fourteen-year-old boy, and he is much
stronger than any boy of his age he has ever met. The younger boy is now
seven and his physical development is wonderful for a child of that age.
Now these boys hardly know what an egg is. They never eat one. As to
meat, I am certain that since they were born they have not eaten it on
an average of once a week. They have eaten a little, but you will admit
that eating meat not more than once a week, and often going weeks
without a bit of it, certainly is eating very little. There have been
times when they have not seen meat for three months.
Now, I don't eat as I do and have my children eat as they do just for a
fad. I think nothing is more stupid and silly than for people to do
certain things just because somebody else does them. We should all have
good sound reasons for our actions in this world. We should all try our
very best to use sound common sense. That's why I say that people who
are the offspring of nervous parents should not eat animal food of any
kind after they are twenty-one, and they should never at any time eat
eggs. It would be far better for them if they did not eat commercial
sugar. But I do admit that when some of these people get well by
dieting, they are able to eat sparingly of all these things and still
keep well. But some people can never eat them and I am one of the
number.
I remember one summer about two years ago I was on a lecture tour for a
Chautauqua Bureau, and it seemed that surely I got into the very worst
eating places that summer that I ever had in my life. For three or four
days I ate only eggs, as they seemed to be about the only food I could
get besides bread and butter. At the end of the third day--I remember
the time very well--when night came I could not sleep, and just as when
I had one of my nervous breakdowns, that old feeling of inexpressible
gloom began to settle over me. I knew instantly the cause of it, because
twice before when I had purposely experimented with eating eggs I had
had similar experiences. I immediately took a heavy cathartic and after
having thoroughly rid myself of the poison I again slept well.
But I am not alone in this fight against the use of eggs for nervous
people. John Burroughs said that eggs poisoned him, and I have talked
with men of great wealth and great business ability who have reached the
top by their own efforts, who have told me that eggs poisoned them.
Now I have found that for these nervous people animal food is a slow
poison. Sooner or later it will do its work.
And just here I wish to say that there are some people who seemingly can
eat almost anything and not suffer from so doing. Last summer I talked
with Count Ilya Tolstoy, son of Leo Tolstoy, the celebrated Russian
writer. The Count, who is also a lecturer, told me that he was obliged
to have eggs and that he had eaten them all his life. He said his
appetite was never satisfied unless he ate eggs. He is now past sixty,
and apparently is strong and rugged. Now eggs no doubt are good for him.
But right here is where infinite harm can be done to nervous people like
myself. People who can eat everything--and among physicians seemingly
there are many who can do so--will say to these poor sufferers:
"Why, it's all nonsense about things hurting you! Eat anything you want
and all you want and then forget about it."
Physicians have said that to me and during the past twenty years I have
heard them say it thousands of times to others.
Personally I do not believe in Christian Science--physicians of the
Regular school do not believe in it; but do you know that when a
physician says to a sufferer from "nerves," "It's all nonsense about
what you eat hurting you; eat anything you want and then forget about
it," that physician is fully endorsing Christian Science. He is telling
the person to whom he is talking that there is no such thing as physical
suffering. Of course, such a physician is nothing but a fool. Yet that's
why so many of these people turn to Christian Science. Yes, that is
exactly why they try it. It bolsters up a sufferer for a time just as
contact with a magnetic and hopeful personality may for a time bolster
one up. But such persons almost always go back to the sanitariums.
"Nerves" is not a mental disease; that is, the seat of the trouble is
not mental but physical, and the mental phase of "nerves" is only a
symptom, or rather one of the symptoms of the disease.
We people who have gone down into the dark valley have experienced a
million, more or less, different kinds of feelings. I fully believe one
half of the American people are the offspring of nervous parents. This
means that there are fifty-five million of this nervous type of
Americans. This type includes people all the way from the man in an
office who gets angry quickly, to the individual who is in a state of
complete collapse. And the man who is afflicted with nothing more than a
quick temper, or is living under high nervous tension, is liable to
beget children who will suffer from the malady in a far worse degree
than ever he will, unless, indeed, he eats only the things he should eat
and observes a number of other rules besides the two I have already laid
down.
Now, the ideal diet for nervous people is a slightly modified vegetarian
diet. To be specific, it is a Lacto-vegetarian diet minus eggs. There
are, however, two things included in this diet that I would warn one in
the beginning to eat of sparingly. These are bananas and cooked cabbage.
If they agree with you, well and good; but if they do not, let them
strictly alone.
Eat all kinds of vegetables, both fresh and cooked. Eat all kinds of
fruits, especially fresh fruits. There is an old saying and a good one,
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away."
There are a thousand ways to prepare vegetables and fruits for the
table, and there are a number of books that give good recipes. If a
nervous individual has never yet had a breakdown I believe he can safely
eat most of the vegetarian dishes that have eggs in them, but it would
be a serious mistake to select the special dishes that contain eggs and
live on those just because they contain eggs.
I believe, too, that after a nervous person is restored to health, if he
strictly observes the rules of eating sparingly and of chewing all food
to a cream, he may safely try out such courses as are found in
_Bardsley's Recipes for Food Reformers_ or _Broadbent's Forty Vegetarian
Dinners_.
It may seem odd, but there are people who for some reason or other lack
the instinct, or whatever is needed, to know that a certain thing they
eat hurts them. I have had men and women sit in my office and say with
the utmost sincerity that they were certain that it wasn't anything they
ate that hurt them because they never had any pain in the abdomen.
Sometimes these people were in a dreadful state of nervous breakdown. So
you see the danger that lies here. If you know, you can always tell what
special thing disagrees with you. For example, I know eggs disagree with
me, and like John Burroughs and many others, I know when they harm me.
Therefore, after you have recovered you might try being your own
physician. But if you are not sure as to what disagrees with you, you
would much better stick to a vegetarian diet and go without eggs the
remainder of your days.
Commercial sugar also is the cause of many breakdowns among the people
of this country. And is it not strange how these poor suffering people
crave sweets--the very thing they should not have. They will argue with
themselves--and some physicians will agree with them--that they should
go right on eating candy because they want it. But, as I have already
said, there is just as much sense in saying a man should have whiskey
because he craves it or that a young man should have tobacco because he
craves it, as to say that any one should have candy because he craves
it. There is absolutely no sense in such an argument. If you are
suffering from a nervous breakdown, for sixty days quit eating candy and
everything sweet except honey, and follow the other rules I have already
laid down. It may be that you will have to stick to this diet for three
months. But try it. That is exactly what cured all my bodily ills and
brought my soul out of the dark and gloomy night after everything else
had failed. I do not mean to say that this diet alone cured me, but I do
say it was the biggest factor in the cure. There are, however, some
other things that it would be worse than folly to ignore. This I shall
come to later. But just here I want to have it understood that this
thing of eating--how you eat, and how much you eat, and what you
eat--is of transcendent importance in the cure.
Of course, under some circumstances connected with cases of breakdown,
nothing but the good judgment of friends will avail. For example, the
question of how much one shall eat is something that not all the books
in the world nor all the physicians in the world can determine. I say,
always quit while you want a little more. I cannot say more or less than
that.
So many have written me recently asking just what I eat, that it may be
a help to some of them if I set down here just what I ate today. I ate
no breakfast at all. Sometimes I go for weeks without eating breakfast.
This is especially apt to be the case if I am engaged in writing a
magazine article or a book. I find my brain is much clearer and that I
can work much better when I eat no breakfast. But I do drink one or two
cups of very weak tea. I use just enough tea to color the water. Now I
do not advise everybody to go without breakfast. Some people tell me
that they have a headache unless they eat something. And some writers
say that if they do not eat a little breakfast they cannot write so
well. Thus you see where the question of common sense and using your own
judgment comes in. There are always a few things you will have to decide
for yourselves. At noon I ate about two handfuls of corn flakes with
milk and cream but no sugar, finishing with about four ounces of bread
pudding that had a little brown sugar in it. Now, in mid-afternoon, as I
write this, I am not hungry. Tonight I shall eat another dish of corn
flakes and some buttered toast and three or perhaps four good-sized
apples, I usually eat three or four apples a day. If I want a piece of
pie for lunch, I eat it, but I eat nothing else.
I live on the plainest of plain foods. Apples used to create a lot of
gas in my stomach, but now they do not because I chew them to a cream.
Milk used to make me constipated, but it does not when I chew the cereal
with it carefully and eat a number of apples.
Most nervous people are constipated. But apples are really the salvation
of nervous people. If you are constipated, drink, or rather, sip, a
glass of hot water half an hour before breakfast, then eat nothing for
breakfast but apples; eat two big ones and chew them slowly to a cream.
Go to stool regularly every morning. This habit is half the cure of
constipation.
Apples, of all things I know, are the finest things for the liver. If
you take a patient ill from chronic indigestion, whose stools are clay
colored, and put him on a diet of apples, if he chews properly, in less
than twenty-four hours the stools will be of the regulation dark brown
color, as they should be when the liver is working in a normal,
healthful manner. And eating apples will work in exactly the same way
with children as with adults.
Apples, apples, apples! Eat them no matter what the price. You remember
how good Adam found the apple--or at least we presume it was an apple
that he found so good--and I can think of no other single thing that
would tempt a man to make all the trouble he did. If he had to sin, then
I'm for Adam every time, for I think had I been in his place and Eve had
offered me a big juicy red apple, I should have taken it and eaten it. I
don't know but that I might even have eaten it without the invitation. I
think that Adam's great mistake was not so much in eating the apple as
in trying to lay the blame on the woman. Nobody should ever apologize
for having eaten an apple.
Now, generally speaking, there is one thing a nervous parent--or any
other kind of parent for that matter--should never say to a child. Never
tell him he is nervous. If we realize that our children are the
offspring of nervous parents, it is, as I have already suggested, much
better for all concerned, for we cannot avoid a danger unless we know
what or where the danger is. When we know the child is nervous we should
plan carefully, leaving out of his diet all pastries and rich greasy
foods, and keep him largely on a vegetarian diet. But, as I have already
suggested, we do not need to diet a nervous child as strictly as we do a
nervous adult where infinite harm has already been done. Give the
nervous child meat only a part of the time, and if he goes without eggs
it will be all the better for him. I wish from the bottom of my heart
that I had never tasted an egg!
What a fine thing it would be if we so trained our children that they
would never suffer from "nerves"! And usually it could be done. The
belief that because nervous parents have broken down their children
sooner or later must break down, is our greatest curse. But such a
belief is absurd, for if dieting, outdoor exercise, and a few other
simple rules are observed, there is no danger that it will happen. To be
sure, these rules must be definitely understood and strictly adhered to.
If we treat this misfortune in the manner I shall mention later, we can
make our lives more successful and infinitely happier than the lives of
those who have never learned self-control. For instance, I am far
healthier than men all around me who seem to be able to eat three
Christmas dinners each day. They sit at the table and boast about being
"good feeders," then later they come to me for pills, saying, "There is
nothing the matter with me, doctor, but I thought I had better take a
little medicine so I won't get ill." But they don't fool me. I know
exactly what is the matter with them. They are so full of pork they
can't think. To tell the truth, we people who have suffered from a
nervous breakdown or some illness akin to it, and have learned that we
must eat right or die, are of all people the most fortunate.
Every now and then I hear some good old sister, with a face like a full
moon and jowls like a bloodhound, say, as she finishes her third piece
of mince pie,--her waist line having extended accordingly,--"Isn't it
too bad about poor brother Jones! He looks so terribly thin! They say he
has fallen away from one hundred and sixty pounds to only a hundred and
fifty. And they do say he can't eat meat and eggs at all! The poor man!"
But the real facts of the case are that brother Jones is able to walk
ten miles any day, and the possibility is that in the not distant future
he will read in his morning paper that sister Sue Portly has been
operated on for gall stones and the number reported is almost
unbelievable, about three hundred, in fact. And so, all the time sister
Portly was feeling sorry for lithe, energetic brother Jones, she was a
walking stone quarry, as it were, and yet didn't know it.
So don't worry because you have to diet or because after reading these
lines you determine that you must begin to diet. For, whoever you are,
and wherever you may be, you belong to a most fortunate class of people.
And now I wish to say some things about what nervous people should do
besides dieting, and especially do I wish to say these things to those
now suffering from a nervous breakdown. Much of it at least will apply
to children of nervous parentage. You will observe as you go along that
I keep mentioning "these children." I do so always with the thought in
mind that there is absolutely no need for them ever to break down if
these common sense rules are followed. I take it that not any one of us
or a number of us, but that all of us love our children more than we
love ourselves. Admitting the truth of this, then we should all be
interested in this system for them as well as for ourselves, for as
their nerves are so shall their success be.