sources anent the question of the life-force or of the animal
magnetism which animates our bodies and is the motive force common to
all organic structures whether animal or vegetable. We do know that
fresh fruits and vegetables are strongly magnetic because the
magnetism which they emit can be gauged by means of delicate
galvanometers. It has been found that leaves, flowers and seeds are
positively, and roots negatively, charged. We also know that the same
conditions are found in the human subject, since Dr Baraduc, who is a
celebrated French Psycho-Therapeutist, in his book, "The Vibrations of
Human Vitality," tells us that he has invented a machine called a
biometer to test these very vibrations. I have had one of these
machines myself and have experimented with it a great deal. By its aid
we can make the machine work differently with different persons, and
by careful tabulation of records Dr Baraduc has been able to elicit
some very remarkable information about the magnetic currents which are
constantly flowing into and out of the human body. If our
correspondent really wants to know more about the wonders of human
magnetism he should read some of the voluminous literature upon the
subject published by the Theosophical Society. Just recently also a Dr
Kilner has invented a form of coloured screen by which he and others
who have some psychic sight can actually see the magnetic emanations
which flow through a person placed in a darkened room.
SALT-COOKED VEGETABLES.
The one object of the vegetable kingdom is to build up, for the use of
the animal or organic realm, the constituents found in the mineral or
inorganic kingdom. These mineral constituents are dissolved, sorted
out and built up in the right proportions for the use of animals when
taken as foods. Whenever these foods are not so eaten they are sent
back again to the earth by the aid of microbes during the process of
decay, to be again available for plant use. Cooking is a process
invented by man which is analogous to that of decay, for it dissolves
and disintegrates the structures which Nature has built up. When man
eats food that is partially disintegrated he does not obtain from it
the right sort of nutriment which Nature intended him to have. To
intensify the wrong-doings of the cook, man further hastens the
disintegrating process by adding to the things that he cooks a due
proportion of a common and very stable mineral, called salt. It is
powerful, because it is not easily disintegrated. The salt greatly
expedites the process of decay, whether in the natural form of
fermentation, or whether by the application of heat, as in cooking.
Salt is used in Nature to promote the flow of those electric and
magnetic currents which are a manifestation of the universal
life-force which pervades all things seen and unseen. It is an
essential constituent of the sea because the ocean is the life-blood
of the earth. It is an essential constituent of our own blood, because
it is needed to make the blood stream a good conductor of magnetic
currents. When you put this salt into water and then proceed to boil
vegetables in it, it quickly sucks out all the life-force from them,
and if persisted in reduces them to the state of minerals from which
they were originally constructed.
FOOD AND THE SOURCE OF BODILY ENERGY.
Dr Rabagliati and Professor Atwater are, I believe, both right, but
the former does not always explain himself clearly to the lay mind.
The life-force or animal magnetism is the real source of bodily
energy, and it manifests itself only when it has something that
resists or regulates its flow.
It does this just as certain forms of wire, or other materials, which
possess indifferent conducting power, resist the flow of electricity
through them.
Electricity cannot manifest as light in the usual electric lights used
in our houses, as heat in the electric culinary appliances or stoves,
or even as power in the motors which run our trams and trains, unless
it be given the requisite apparatus to bring about the manifestation
required.
In exactly the same way life cannot manifest itself as consciousness,
with its flow of thoughts, emotions and bodily activities, without the
food which is daily supplied to the body.
It consequently depends considerably upon how we select our daily
rations as to how this vital force will manifest within us.
H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.
HOLIDAY APHORISMS.
A Sun Bath needs no Soap.
* * * * *
Man was made for the Weather, not the Weather for man.
* * * * *
A long drink often makes a short walk.
* * * * *
You may bring a man to the Sea, but you cannot make him think.
* * * * *
A tanned face doesn't make a healthy body.
* * * * *
Dew paddling should be done in the dark.
* * * * *
The only things that bathing machines make are cowards.
* * * * *
It is better to board yourself than let others be bored by you.
* * * * *
"A bore is one who thinks his opinions of greater importance than your
own."
* * * * *
People who throw pebbles into the sea shouldn't dive near shore.
* * * * *
A toothbrush is what many forget but few should need.
* * * * *
Scotland Yard is not in the Grampians.
* * * * *
Cheap food is often dearly bought.
* * * * *
Lyons have no depots in Skye.
* * * * *
Orange-trees never yet sprang from scattered peel.
* * * * *
A pear in the hand is worth two in the can.
PETER PIPER.
THE
HEALTHY
LIFE
The Independent
Health Magazine.
3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.
VOL. V SEPTEMBER
No. 26. 1913
_There will come a day when physiologists, poets, and
philosophers will all speak the same language and understand one
another._--CLAUDE BERNARD.
AN INDICATION.
Food reformers sometimes forget that "man does not live by bread
alone," not even when supplemented by an ample supply of fresh air and
physical exercise.
It has been pointed out by psychologists that the more highly
organised and highly developed the creature, the less it depends on
nervous energy obtained via the stomach and the more it depends on
energy generated by the brain. True, the brain must be healthy for
this, and one poisoned by impure blood, due to wrong feeding, cannot
be healthy. But something more than clean blood is necessary. For, as
change of physical posture is necessary to avoid cramped limbs, so
periodic reversal of mental attitude (consideration from other than
the one view-point) is necessary to the brain's health.
Again, change of air is often prescribed when the patient's real need
is a change of the personalities surrounding him. While for the
lonely country dweller a bath in the magnetism of a city crowd may be
a far more efficacious remedy than the medicinal baths prescribed by
his physician.
For man lives by _every_ word that proceeds out of the mouth of
God.--[EDS.]
FEAR AND IMAGINATION.
_Regular readers will recognise in this article a continuation of the
series previously entitled "Healthy Brains." The author of "The
Children All Day Long," is an intimate disciple of one of the greatest
living psychologists, and she has a message of the first importance to
all who realise that true health depends as much on poise of mind as
on physical fitness. We regret that in the previous article,
"Imagination in Play," the following misprints occurred:--P. 475, line
4 from top, "movement" should be "moment"; p. 475, line 5 from bottom,
"admiration" should be "imagination."_--[EDS.]
Some people are given to excusing their own uncharitable thoughts by
saying, "I suppose I ought not to have minded her rudeness; I am
afraid I am too sensitive." In the same way, people say, "Oh, I
_couldn't_ sleep in the house alone" (or let a child go on a
water-picnic, or nurse a case of delirium or do some other thing that
suggested itself), "I have too much imagination." In both cases the
claim, though put in deprecating form, is made complacently enough.
The correlative is: "You are so sensible, dear; I know you won't
mind," which is a formula under cover of which many kindnesses may be
shirked and many unpleasant duties passed on.
The sensible, practical people who listen to these sayings sometimes
attach importance to them, so that a habit has grown up of describing
morbidly neurotic people as "over-sensitive" and cowardly ones as "too
quick of imagination." Ultimately, this leads to the thought that both
sensitiveness and imagination are mental luxuries too costly for
ordinary folk to grow, and that it is safest to check, crush or uproot
them when we discover them springing up in others or in ourselves.
Is not this attitude of mind due to a misunderstanding? Imagination is
an _organ of activity_; it can be kept in the highest possible
condition of health by having plenty of exercise; it should be working
continually against resistance. A rabbit's gnawing tooth, if the
opposing tooth be broken, may grow inwards and cause the creature's
death, but the same activity of growth, if working under suitable
conditions, enables him to go on living and gnawing at his food year
after year without wearing his tools away.
The problem, then, in economy of effort is: How shall we use whatever
force of sensitiveness and imagination we have, so as to get its
maximum efficiency of usefulness and its minimum pain and
inconvenience?
For many ages man has been dominated by fear. His way to freedom, now,
is to step out through his cobweb chains and go right forward with
courage and in faith. So we are told with relentless and almost
tiresome reiteration. It is the fashion, one might almost say, to have
cast off fear, and the one thing an honest "modern thinker" is afraid
of is being afraid. (To less honest ones it is the thought of _being
thought_ afraid that is a very real and present fear.)
But, if this standpoint is right, is not fear at least a vestigial
organ, a survival of a mental activity which served its purpose in
times gone by? Is it not even truer to go further still and say, as
_each particular fear_ serves its purpose it may safely be discarded,
but that, as far as our present knowledge goes, other grades of
sensitiveness, finer shades of imagination of the type we have called
fear, must take its place, to be discarded in their turn for yet other
apprehensions?
For if we lost the kind of perception that we associate with fear, if
our imagination closed itself automatically to the suggestion of all
sorts of ugly possibilities, should we not find ourselves soon in the
midst of difficulties akin to those of the hero of the German tale of
the man who felt no pain? We accept the evidence of pain as a guide
to action; when we have decided on action we proceed to get rid of the
pain as expeditiously, safely and permanently as we can.
The same thing seems true of fear. Over and over again we laugh at
ourselves for fearing something that either never happened at all or
happened in such a way as to be softened out of all likeness to the
monstrous terror we had created. On the other hand, when misfortune
falls heavily because of our lack of imagination in not foreseeing
possible consequences of particular actions or events, we lament and
complain: "If I could only have guessed! If I had only known!"
Fear pure and simple--the imagination of possible trouble--is a stage
we can hardly yet afford to do without. But when it has roused our
attention to a danger, its work is done. Let us practise turning it
into action; taking due precautions against accident, guarding against
hurting a neighbour's feelings, watching some possibility of evil
tendency in ourselves. Then, and not till then, may we let it drop. It
may pass; it has done its work. It is no longer our responsibility to
foresee, it is our privilege to lay down the fear and live happily and
at peace.
Even the dread perceptions of eternal laws come under the same method.
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," the _beginning_:
the end is faith and love.
E.M. COBHAM.
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HOW MUCH SHOULD WE EAT?
_The article (signed "M.D.") with the above title which we published
in the July number has, as we anticipated, aroused considerable
discussion. One interesting criticism appeared in the August number.
We now publish two further contributions, to be followed, in our next
issue, by two further articles by Dr Rabagliati and Mr Ernest
Starr._--[EDS.]
I
As one who has tried the low proteid diet, and came to grief on it, I
desire to set my experience against that of Mr Voysey,[9] and to
assert that, if it is true for him, it certainly is not true for me.
Mr Voysey indulges in many loose and generalised statements which do
not help the average man or woman in the least. I imagine it is these
that "M.D." has in mind when he advises a certain standard of diet,
below which it is not safe to go. If Mr Voysey can, as Horace Fletcher
can, exist on a very low proteid diet, that does not prove that all
men and women can do the same and be healthily active; it only shows
that he and Fletcher are exceptions to the average person, and that it
may be dangerous to follow their example. For most men, "M.D.'s"
proteid standard is not so nauseating as he finds it. Here is a
specimen dietary for a day, for a man of ten stone, following, as most
of us do, a sedentary occupation:--
3 oz. cheese.
9 oz. bread.
8 oz. vegetables and salad.
8 oz. fruit.
1+1/2 pints milk.
Will any average person say that that quantity, divided into three
meals, would be nauseating to him? And is that diet so very expensive
that it would be beyond the means of an agricultural labourer in any
country? It is certainly no mockery. The cost to such a labourer would
probably not exceed 3d. or 4d. Of course the diet can be made as
expensive as one chooses, and widely varied.
[9] See August number.
Who amongst ordinary men and women has a reliable natural taste that
would be an infallible guide in all matters of food? And what a
misleading statement that is which asserts "that all the hardest work
of the world has always been done by those who get the least food."
Put it to the test on the average person and see where it leads to.
My contention is that the average person, throwing over his or her
accustomed meat diet, requires some definite guidance as to the
quantity of proteid, such as Dr Haig's wide experience and much
patient research have proved needful, or at least advisable, for the
continuance of a healthy and vigorous life; and I will say that it
does not help this average person in the least to put before him the
misty statement that "the quantity depends on the development that is
in progress, and is only discoverable by the natural guides of
appetite and taste, ruled by reason and love of others." All very
noble and very well in another place, but hardly meeting the case of
the ordinary person who is seeking a healthy diet. Nor can you "make
the body a more harmonious instrument for the true life of man" by
habitually underfeeding it. I thought that was a mediaeval notion that
had been knocked on the head long ago.
Is there any man, lay or scientific, Mr Voysey notwithstanding, who
can claim to have as wide an experience of diet in its relation to
health and disease as "M.D.," to say nothing of the trained mind and
long years of patient thought that have been exerted in dealing with
the facts of this wide experience. For myself, I have come to see
that, if "M.D." does not hold in his grasp the absolute truth in the
matter of diet, he is nearer to it, and is a safer guide, than all
your low proteid advisers, lay or otherwise, where they come much
below "M.D.'s" standard.
So, using Mr Voysey's phrases, I would urge laymen like myself to shun
that weak-kneed manikin, the low proteid diet, and unite with me in a
long strong pull to get him and others like him out of the rut in
which that sorry weakling holds him.
HY. BARTHOLOMEW.
II
The Editors were quite right in saying that the article under this
heading in the July issue would arouse discussion. My wife and I,
having discussed "M.D." and many others with the title, feel
constrained to put forth a warning against blind faith in anything
which the faculty have to say on dietetics.
There are of course brilliant exceptions, such as Dr Rabagliati, Dr
Knaggs, Dr Haig, the late Dr Keith and others, who give chapter and
verse for every statement made; but when we consider the excellent
work of laymen such as Albert Broadbent, Joseph Wallace, Horace
Fletcher, Alice Braithwaite, Eustace Miles, Hereward Carrington, Edgar
J. Saxon, Bernarr MacFadden, Arnold Eiloart, ordinary folks like
ourselves may be excused if we venture to give our experience as
against that of "qualified" men.
With your permission, then, we reply to "M.D.'s" five suggestions in
the order he gives them:--
1. Food qualities are _not_ of extreme importance.
2. Quantity tables may have been "settled" by physiologists to their
own satisfaction many years ago; but very good reasons have since been
given for altering, or even ignoring, them.
3. The particular number of grains of proteid to be consumed per day
is not of serious moment.
4. That departure from the quantity specified has not led to disaster
is proved by the fact that the human race still persists, in spite of
the very varying eating customs found in different nations. The great
majority being poor or ignorant, or both, know neither "tables" nor
the need for them.
5. There can be no reply to such a general statement as: "The nature
of this disaster may appear to be very various, and its real cause is
thus frequently overlooked."
In such matters an ounce of personal experience is worth a pound of
cut-and-dried theory. We--my wife and I--have been reared in an
atmosphere suspicious of doctors, both sets of grandparents having
relied rather on herbs, water treatment, goodness of heart and faith
in God; and their children have had too many evidences of medical
ignorance to accept any dogmas. We are anti-vaccinators, nearly
vegetarian, and, to come to the point, we have four children who will
persist in thriving on a basis of always too little rather than too
much of food. The respective ages are girl 13, boy 10, girl 6, boy 2.
All have been brought up on these lines: never pressed to eat, but
continually asked to chew thoroughly. Foods "rich in proteid" put
sparingly before them. Milk has been well watered; and eggs, bacon and
other tempting and rich foods only on rare occasions given to them.
We would ask readers who can to make the following experiment: Let
your children have a good drink to start the day, and then run and
play; don't offer food till asked for. You will almost to a certainty
find, if you start this plan immediately after weaning, that day by
day and year after year it is twelve to one o'clock before they
inquire for "something to eat." We have done this for twelve years,
with children of entirely different temperament and of both sexes.
They go to school, poor things! breakfastless. During these twelve
years light breakfast for father has been on the table--he goes
without lunch--and not once in fifty do they ask to join him. Nor, if
invited, will they after three or four years of age.
The have never had a fever which lasted more than a day or two, and
they are all above average height and weight.
They get fruit in season just as asked for, and as much to drink as
they like, _but not at meal-times_.
Our experience is over a period of twelve years, and we have come to
the conclusion that the infectious diseases so prevalent and
death-dealing amongst children of all classes, rich or poor, are, in
the main, the result of over-feeding. We find it wise to keep highly
nutritious foods (like eggs, cheese, meat, etc.) away from
children--that is, for regular consumption; a little occasionally may
do no harm.
You will have it borne in on our minds year by year, as your children
grow up under such a plan, that Dr Rabagliati, Hereward Carrington and
others are quite right. We do not get our strength, nor heat, from
food. Let the force of animal life (zoo-dynamic, I believe Dr
Rabagliati calls it) have free play, and your children can't help
growing up well and strong.
In to-day's _London Daily Chronicle_ I see a special article by Dr
Saleeby, under this heading: WORLD'S DOCTORS VERSUS DISEASE. 5000
MEDICAL MEN MEET TO-DAY. THE TRIUMPHS OF THREE DECADES. We know how
much this wonderful faculty knew thirty years ago about, _e.g._, fresh
air for consumptives. There is not a word said in this article (which
is a sort of programme of the weighty matters for discussion) on the
relation of food to the body. That question probably 4950 of them
believe was settled by the eminent physiologists who compiled those
"food-tables" years ago--and in so doing went far to pave the way for
the modern frightful increase of cancer, Bright's disease, etc., as
well as for "scientific" horrors like anti-toxin, tuberculin--not to
mention compulsory eugenics!
J. METHUEN.
HEALTH THROUGH READING.
Do many people consider reading from the point of view of health of
mind and body--of refreshment in times of struggle--of recuperation
after knock-down blows of sorrow, disappointment or misfortune?
Let us begin by saying that some of the greatest books are not to be
read by everybody at all seasons. When one's heart or ankles are weak,
one does not start to climb mountains, or one may end as a corpse or
a cripple. So with one's soul under shock or stress. Personally, I can
imagine nothing more cruel than the action of two women, one a
story-teller of great repute among the "goody," who, to a specially
stricken and lonely young widow, tendered as "bed-side books," Victor
Hugo's _Les Miserables_ and Browning's poignant _The Ring and the
Book_. If they had wished to make her realise to the bitterest depths
the awfulness of the world wherein she was left alone, and the
blackest depravity of the human nature around her, they could not have
done differently. _Les Miserables_ she read till she reached the
dreadful scene where a vicious cad hurls snowballs at the helpless
Fantine. Then the strong instinct of self-preservation made her put
the book aside--not to touch it again for nearly thirty years. With
_The Ring and the Book_ her mind was too wrung and too weary to
wrestle--all it could receive was a picture of wronged innocence, and
especially of the rampant forces of evil with which she was left to
contend. With the same want of tact and judgment, if with unconscious
cruelty, the gloomy, fateful _Bride of Lammermoor_ was selected out of
all Scott's novels for the reading of a very homesick youth, solitary
in a strange country!
Yet we must always remember that, as in affairs of the body so of the
spirit, "what is one man's meat may be another man's poison." Some of
the wisest and most successful nurses or doctors will occasionally
permit an invalid to indulge in a longed-for diet which would
certainly never be prescribed. They know that idiosyncrasy follows no
exactly known rule. So we could tell of one who, amid the dry
agnosticism of the later half of last century, had felt her faith, not
indeed extinguished, but obscured and darkened. From the perusal of
certain writers she had shrunk, perhaps with cowardice. They were put
on such a pinnacle that she feared she would find no arguments fit to
oppose to theirs. Weakly, she locked the skeleton cupboard. Then she
was attacked by a malady which, while leaving her mind free and
strong, she knew might be very speedily fatal. Straightway she said
to her husband: "In two or three days I shall probably 'know'--or
cease from all knowing. There will not be long to wait. Therefore
bring me three books," which she named, works of authors of extreme
agnostic views. Rather reluctantly he complied with her wish. She went
steadily through the joyless pages, turned the last with the
significant remark: "If this is all they can say, well!--" The
skeleton cupboard, once opened, was speedily swept out. She quickly
recovered, but never forgot her experience. Yet it must be remembered
that this was the patient's own prescription, and was permitted by one
who thoroughly understood her temperament. Therefore, though one would
never wish to overrule a strong personal desire, that is quite
different from offering counsel and furtherance--or proving
experiments upon oneself.