two-year-old will enjoy. And here are verses which most boys and girls
under seven or eight will like to learn. And the best of it is that it
doesn't matter a bit if they do "sing-song" them, for they are the
kind of verses which only sound right from the lips of quite small
children who have never been taught elocution.
EDGAR J. SAXON
PICKLED PEPPERCORNS.
SOUP.--Oxtail from 10 A.M.--From a Restaurant Menu.
What it was in the early morning it would be indiscreet to inquire.
* * * * *
I learn that a serum for mumps is now being made at the Pasteur
Institute. "A number of monkeys were inoculated with the serum," says
_The Times_ (30th July), "and a mild form of the disease was
produced." It is an age of scientific progress, so we may expect news
shortly of sera for toothache, hiccough, and the hump. It will not be
necessary to inoculate camels for the last.
* * * * *
You will say--with Mr Arnold Bennett, the distinguished
playwright and novelist--"the tonic effect of ********* on me is
simply _wonderful_."--From an advt. in _Punch_.
You may join in the chorus if you like, but you mustn't all expect to
be simply _wonderful_ playwrights and testimonialists.
* * * * *
A STRANGE SHAMPOO.... "I make my chemist get the stallax for me,"
said she. "It comes only in sealed packages, enough to make up
twenty-five or thirty individual shampoos, and it smells so good
I could almost eat it."--_Secrets of Beauty_ column in _The Daily
Sketch_.
Which only shows how careful one has to be.
* * * * *
In the days to come every army will fight on bloodless
food.--_Herald of the Golden Age_.
When every army fights on bloodless food, we may be just as far from
the Golden Age as we are now.
* * * * *
I am told that an obscure practitioner who sent up an account of some
interesting discoveries, addressed to
MEDICAL CONGRESS,
DIETETICS SECTION,
LONDON.
has had his communication returned by the Post Office, marked _Not
Known_.
* * * * *
There is no truth, it is said, in the rumour that a secret meeting was
held during the Congress to discuss the proposed raising of the rate
of commission payable by surgeons to physicians.
PETER PIPER.
HEALTHY LIFE RECIPES.
SOME "EMPROTE" RECIPES.
Exaggeration is popularly regarded as one of the vices of food
reformers; but it is certainly no exaggeration whatever to say that Mr
Eustace Miles and the restaurant associated with his name have had a
large share in bringing about the more sympathetic attitude towards
"food reform" noticeable on all sides to-day.
Mr Miles is no amateur in the gentle art of self-advertisement: he
would be the first to admit it. But the advertisements have resulted
undoubtedly in a very large number of people taking the first steps
towards food reform, people who are repelled by the out-and-out
"vegetarian" propaganda.
There are those who view with disfavour the introduction of
manufactured or artificial foods into the health movement; they think
it hinders simplicity. There is a truth in this; but, on the other
hand, it must be recognised that the great majority cannot be reached
save by meeting them half-way. This applies to the flavours of foods,
the digestibility of foods and the convenience of foods. Few can go
straight from beef to nuts. After generations of abuse the human
digestive system has to be humoured if the ideal is to be approached.
And in this invaluable work of meeting people half-way and of
humouring their tastes and digestions, the restaurant in Chandos
Street, London, the specially prepared foods made and sold there and
the strongly individual, thoroughly sane and pleasantly
straightforward advocacy of Mr. Eustace Miles have been a very
important factor.
The idea behind "Emprote"--the Eustace Miles Proteid Food--is that,
being a blend, in powder form, of various kinds of proteid (the
proteids of milk, of wheat, and so forth) it supplies the right kind
of substitute for flesh foods not only because it is so easily
assimilated, but because it is in a very convenient and easily kept
form.
We believe such foods have a very definite and necessary part in the
progress of the individual from the customary unhealthy diet to the
better ways of feeding. The following recipes illustrate some of the
methods of using "Emprote." They are taken from the booklet _45 Quick
and Easy Recipes for Healthy, Meatless Meals_, to be obtained for 2+1/2d.
post free from 40 Chandos Street, London, W.C.--
SAVOURY CHEESE SANDWICHES.
_NOTE.--These Savoury Sandwiches can form a complete meal with a
little salad (dressed with oil and lemon juice), or celery or lettuce
or watercress or other salad material._
3 oz. of cheddar cheese; 1 oz. of "Emprote"; the juice of half a
lemon; two tablespoonfuls of fresh tomato pulp or tomato chutney;
a pinch of celery salt.
Prepare some slices of not too new bread and butter. Mill the cheese,
add to it the "Emprote" and the celery salt, then add the tomato pulp
or chutney and the lemon juice. Mix all well together into a smooth
stiff paste, and spread upon the slices, and form sandwiches, which
may be eaten with watercress or lettuce or cucumber. If the material
is too moist, mix in a little more "Emprote," or else "Procrums."
MACARONI CHEESE.
One teacupful of macaroni; two tablespoonfuls of milled cheese
one tablespoonful of butter; one dessertspoonful of flour; one
tablespoonful of "Emprote"; one large cupful of milk.
Boil the macaroni for half-an-hour in a little water. Strain the
macaroni and put it in the bottom of a buttered dish. (Put the liquid
in the stock-pot, to thicken a soup.) Mill the cheese, and put half of
it over the macaroni. In the small saucepan make a sauce of the
butter, flour, milk and "Emprote." Pour this over the macaroni and
cheese, sprinkle the rest of the cheese on the top, put in the pan to
brown, then serve.
STUFFED VEGETABLE MARROW.
Mince two large onions very fine, and fry in 1 oz. of butter; add 3
oz. of "Proto-Savoury," one dessertspoonful of Nutril, 1 oz. of
breadcrumbs (or "Procrums"), and one egg. Scoop the seeds from one
large vegetable marrow, fill with the mixture, and bake for one hour.
Serve with Apple Sauce.
_NOTE.--"Proto-Savoury," "Nutril," and "Procrums" are special "E.M."
products and are readily obtainable from health Food Stores, etc._
A NOURISHING GRAVY READY IN A MINUTE.
When cutlets or croquettes are heated up, or when macaroni or
vegetables or a vegetable stew (none of which are really adequate
substitutes for meat) are to be made nourishing, mix some of the E.M.
Savoury (or Mulligatawny, or Blended) Gravy Powder, with hot water, to
the thickness of gravy, and add to the dish.
* * * * *
NEW METHOD OF PREPARING FRUIT FOR THE DINNER-TABLE.
In cold weather fruit is often cold, and if heated in an oven may be
injured partially or wholly. Here is, perhaps, a new way of warming
fruit which has been tried and proves satisfactory. Wash the apples,
pears, oranges, bananas and wipe them and place on a dish on the
dinner-table. Also place a jug of boiling water and a bowl upon the
table. Then when the fruit is required pour the hot water into the
bowl and place the fruit in it and cover with a plate until warm
enough to eat comfortably. Bananas should be peeled before placing in
hot water.
"A.R."
HEALTH QUERIES.
_Under this heading our contributor, Dr Valentine Knaggs, deals
briefly month by month, and according as space permits, with questions
of general interest to health seekers and others._
_In all Queries relating to health difficulties it is essential that
full details of the correspondent's customary diet should be clearly
given._
_Correspondents are earnestly requested to write on _one side only of
the paper_, giving full name and address, not for publication, but as
a guarantee of good faith. When an answer is required by post a
stamped addressed envelope must be enclosed._--[EDS.]
ECZEMA AS A SIGN OF RETURNING HEALTH.
Mrs M.K. writes:--Until the last few years I have been subject to
sciatica and a certain amount of dry eczema. About a year ago my
health greatly improved, with the exception of the eczema, which
has much increased the last year, coming out in large angry
spots which irritate. I am 69, small, spare and white, have never
been strong until a year ago, have led a sedentary life, being an
artist. Three years ago I left off eating meat. My diet at
present is:
_On rising._--Cup of hot rain-water.
_Breakfast_ (8 A.M.)--Unfired Bread with butter and pine nuts;
cup of weak tea, no sugar.
_At 11._--One raw apple.
_Dinner_ (1 P.M.)--One lightly boiled egg or an omelette, with
"Artox" home-made bread, and butter conservatively cooked celery
or broccoli; stiff milk pudding with eggs in it, or "Artox"
pastry.
_Tea_ (5 P.M.).--Weak China tea "Artox" bread, and butter, and
home-made plain cake.
_Supper_ (8.30).--Slice of bread and butter; tumblerful of hot
rain-water sipped at bedtime.
I have not been able to digest uncooked vegetables, excepting
lettuce; nor do I eat other fruit than apples; any sweet things
cause acidity. I do not suffer with constipation.
In this case it will be noted that the skin disease occurred
simultaneously with a marked improvement in health. This shows that
Nature was adopting her usual plan of forcing the impurities outwards
to the surface and that the change of diet made this possible. With
her body less encumbered with waste a return of health became
possible.
The plan now to adopt is not to check this skin trouble but to cure it
along safe lines by amending the diet and purifying the skin itself by
means of warm alkaline baths.
These baths, which should be taken twice a week at first, are made by
adding a 1/4lb. of bicarbonate of soda and a 1/4lb. of "Robin" starch
to an ordinary hot bath at a temperature of 105 degrees, which can be
gradually increased to 110 degrees as the correspondent can bear it.
In this the bather stays for from ten to twenty minutes to well soak
out the acids and the oily greasy waste from the surface. The starch
is added because it moderates the action of the alkali and leaves a
comfortable gloss on the skin after the bath is finished. The bath
gradually clears the poisons from the skin and encourages the free
action of perspiration, thus promoting the further elimination of
waste acid poisons and at the same time clearing the skin and making
it healthy.
The next thing to do is to amend the diet so that as little waste as
possible shall be formed. Rice is the cereal that contains the least
amount of waste of any kind and this should therefore be the cereal
selected. The wholemeal, although good for most people, is not suited
to this case. A strict salt-free diet is also necessary, as it is
often the retention of salt in the system that leads to the presence
of eczema. The following amended diet should suit the case, and it
should be continued until the skin has quite cleared itself:--
_On rising._--Cup of filtered boiled rain-water.
_Breakfast._--Cottage cheese, 2 oz.; rice, boiled or steamed without
salt (large plateful), with Granose biscuits or toasted "Maltweat"
bread.
_At_ 11 A.M.--More rain-water (not fruit).
_Lunch._--The same as breakfast.
_Tea._--Hot rain-water only.
_Supper, 6.30._--The same as breakfast.
When the skin is quite clear the correspondent can return to the
wholemeal bread (but biscuits made with "Artox" would be better than
the yeastless bread), and also to a more varied diet generally, as at
present.
DEAFNESS.
J.G. writes:--My hearing got bad about twenty years ago, caused I
think by a cold in the head. When in bed I can hear the tick of a
watch with the left ear but the other is almost stone deaf. I am
not much at a loss in ordinary conversation, but in trying to
hear people speak I lose much of what is said. Although I have no
real pain, my head is rarely clear, feeling full and congested. I
have now and again a slight sensation of giddiness or reeling.
The right ear runs some offensive matter, and there is always a
hissing sound. I live what is, I think, a simple life, but I must
confess to a little smoking. My general health is good. I am a
working farmer and fairly active for one of my age (69). My diet
is generally as follows:
_On rising._--One or two cups of warm water, sometimes with lemon
juice.
_Breakfast._--An apple or orange, oatcake and dairy butter.
Baker's bread and one cup of tea.
_Lunch._--Nil, or perhaps I should say that I eat an apple or
orange before each meal or a bit of turnip or even cabbage.
_Supper._--Potatoes with fish, and milk pudding. On some days it
may be broth with meat cooked in it.
_Before retiring._--Nothing but water, or at other times oatcake
and one cup of milk.
There does not seem to be much prospect of this correspondent
recovering the hearing of his right ear, as the conditions have lasted
so long. He might, however, certainly try by diet and hygiene to get
rid of the unpleasant discharge and the noises. To effect this he
should carefully syringe the ear once or twice a day with a weak
solution (1 grain to the ounce) of permanganate of potash, using an
all-rubber ear-syringe.
Then he should get someone to well stretch the upper bones of the
spine and to massage well the muscles at the back of the neck to
induce, thereby, a better circulation in the nerves and blood-vessels
which proceed from that part of the spine into the ears. In this way
he will be able to ensure a removal of the clogging poisons which are
lurking in the bad ear and thus promote less noises and a better
health state of the ears generally. The diet should be amended as
follows:--
_On rising._--One or two cups of warm water, with lemon juice added.
_At 8. Breakfast_.--Apples, oranges or other fruit only. _Take plenty
of fruit at this meal and eat it at no other time._
_At 12. Lunch._--One boiled egg or some cream cheese: Oatcakes and
butter or good wholemeal biscuits ("P.R." or "Ixion" kinds) and
butter, and a plateful of finely grated raw roots (carrots, turnip,
etc.).
_Tea meal._--One cupful of Hygiama, using water in place of milk.
_Dinner._--Cheddar cheese or cottage cheese (the latter is best);
potatoes and a green vegetable, cooked by baking or steaming, without
salt. No broth or meat. (Meat and especially meat broths are very
undesirable in this case.)
_Before retiring._--Hot water only.
ANOTHER CASE OF DEAFNESS.
J.A.B. writes:--I have been a reader of _The Healthy Life_ for
the last six months, and am suffering from a complaint since I
was three years old. When three years old I was attacked by
scarlet fever and on getting better I had a discharge from my
right ear. This continued for several years, then it would
disappear and reappear at short intervals of say a few weeks.
This last few years the discharge has disappeared for six months,
only to reappear again for a week with severe pains in back over
right shoulder and right side of neck. I always feel weak and
tired when discharge reappears and sometimes experience pains in
the head and cannot remember anything for a few minutes.
This correspondent needs a suitable diet in order to purify his blood
stream and to promote elimination of bodily poisons which are
evidently affecting his ears. He also needs suitable massage and
stretching movements applied to the upper part of the spine, which is
functioning badly. Then he can supplement this by taking Turkish baths
or wet sheet packs to promote a free action of the skin and thus clear
away poisonous waste from the system. The same diet as recommended to
the previous correspondent should be tried.
CONCERNING COTTAGE CHEESE.
Mrs C.E.J. writes:--I have been making cottage cheese curdling
the milk with lemon juice, as recommended in _The Healthy Life_.
Suppose the milk contains disease germs, would not this cheese be
injurious, as the milk is not sterilised by being brought to
boiling point? I have also been drinking the whey from the same,
as it as given in _The Healthy Life Beverage Book_. I notice in a
reply given in this month's issue that Dr Knaggs states that the
whey of the milk is the dangerous element. Since reading this
answer I have been somewhat in doubt as to drinking the whey. I
should like to know if it can be taken without harmful effects.
Ordinary unboiled milk, free from preservatives, is far less dangerous
to health than boiled milk, because Nature inserts in the raw milk
certain germs known as the lactic-acid-producing bacilli, which
protect us from the injurious germs. These lactic germs cause the milk
to go sour and produce in this way the much-extolled soured or curdled
milk. They convert the sugar of the whey into lactic acid by a process
of fermentation. If milk is boiled it cannot go sour because the germs
natural to it have been destroyed by the heat and it becomes necessary
to introduce fresh lactic germs into the boiled milk as is done in the
artificial production of curdled milk. Failing this, milk will
undergo, not lactic fermentation, but _putrefaction_, and thereby
develop highly dangerous qualities.
When a person takes soured milk its lactic acid acts as a powerful
germ destroyer and in a certain concentration it actually kills the
lactic germs as well. It also keeps down the disease-producing germs
of putrefaction which work in an alkaline medium (opposite to acid) by
depriving them of the sugar of the whey.
Boiled milk, if set on one side, in warm weather, speedily becomes
alkaline and putrid or putrefactive. It is in this condition that,
when babies take it, they are made dreadfully ill with diarrhoea and
inflammation of the stomach and bowels. Hence it is the chief cause of
the appalling mortality among infants in hot weather.
Mrs F.K.J. need have no fear of any harm coming to her as a result of
eating cottage cheese, but she should not take the whey unless she has
decided to undergo a whey cure and take _nothing but whey_; in this
latter case, there being no other foods taken, there will be no germs
to act harmfully upon it. If there is much flatulence and stomach or
bowel trouble sweet milk or whey will simply feed the germs which are
the cause of the digestive trouble, or self-poisoning, and are thus
far better discarded.
DIET FOR OBSTINATE COUGH.
Miss N.S. writes:--For the last three weeks I have been troubled
with a very bad cough It started in the first place with a cold
in the head and then it got on my chest, and do what will I
cannot get rid of it. I have been having honey and lemon juice,
and also each morning have taken olive oil and lemon juice beaten
up together, but without (apparently) any effect. I have bad
coughing fits in the night and the next morning I do not feel up
to much.
I may say that I have not taken meat for about six years, and I
try to follow the kind of diet advocated in _The Healthy Life_.
I am 23 years of age and a typist in an office, which is about 4
miles from my home. I try to get out in the fresh air as much as
possible to counteract any bad effects which may arise from my
work. My people at home are very much opposed to my food reform
sympathies and efforts.
This correspondent should consult a sensible doctor about this cough
and thus be on the safe side. It is unwise to allow a cough to become
chronic without ascertaining the cause of it. Coughs are often due to
stomach and liver trouble, as distinguished from lung trouble. In
either case a salt-free diet will greatly help. Thus
_Breakfast._--All fresh fruit, nothing else but fruit. Apples best.
(_Not_ stewed fruit).
_Lunch._--Boiled or steamed rice, done without salt; about 2 oz.
cottage cheese or a poached egg; a little raw carrot, turnip or
artichoke, finely grated, with dressing of fruit-oil beaten up with a
raw egg. The grated roots must be well chewed; as a change they may
be cut up and cooked in a casserole with very little water.
_Dinner._--Potato baked in skin, with fresh butter, a little cheese,
or flaked nuts, and a few plain rusks, or a saucer of P.R. Breakfast
Food, dry, with cream. The honey and lemon juice should be disgarded
in favour of liquorice (little bits being sucked at intervals) or of
linseed tea. I have often found an obstinate cough yield to a diet
which contains lactic acid buttermilk, combined with the use of the
new oxygen baths. The lactic acid buttermilk can be obtained from any
good dairy and should be taken in the morning fasting and at bedtime.
WATER GRAPES.
W.G.B. writes:--Referring to article in January number entitled
"Grape juice for all," I think perhaps it would interest others
besides myself if Dr Knaggs would give us his opinion on the
value of what are commonly termed "Water Grapes," as compared
with more expensive kinds.
On the Continent the grape cure is a popular method of treatment. It
is especially good for those who are anaemic and underfed as well as
for those who suffer in the opposite way from over-feeding. It depends
upon which condition is present as to the kind of grapes selected for
the cure.
Fully ripe grapes with but little acidity (water grapes) are best
suited for persons suffering from anaemia and malnutrition. The unripe
or sour grapes answer best for cases of over-eating associated with
constipation, gout and allied disorders of nutrition. The excess of
acid and cellulose helps the bowels and promotes elimination of the
gouty poisons.
Our correspondent will note that for thin people who are pale and
deficient in vitality the water grapes will be found most salutary.
They are best taken alone at breakfast without the addition of any
other form of food.
CEREAL FOOD IN THE TREATMENT OF NEURITIS.
E.J.H. writes:--A friend of mine who is suffering from an attack
of neuritis (not badly) is desirous of trying the diet of
twice-baked standard bread as recommended by Dr Knaggs in an
answer to a query in _The Healthy Life_ some months since. She
has asked me if Dr Knaggs would limit the quantity of this bread
taken in the course of the day. If Dr Knaggs will very kindly
tell me this I shall be greatly obliged.
Neuritis is a form of rheumatism or gout which involves the nerves.
Its usual starting centre is the spine itself, from which all the
nerves of the body spring. The diet needs to be greatly restricted so
that the poisons can be eliminated. The most important foods to cut
down are the cereals because they are very slow to digest and are apt
to cause constipation with its attendant self-poisoning of the system
with uric and other acids. Horses and animals suffer from neuritis
from over-feeding with cereals and beans, and the stockbreeder or
horse expert usually restricts these foods and gives plenty of grass,
hay, chaff and green clover, which corrects the trouble.
The same thing applies equally to man. He should take his cereals in
the form they are the most easily assimilated--namely, twice-baked or
dextrinised. Thus "pulled" or twice-baked bread, Granose or Melarvi
biscuits, or rusks, or toasted "Maltweat" bread are the best form of
cereal for people suffering from neuritis. Other treatment besides
diet restriction is, of course, needed to cure neuritis, because we
have to clear the clogged tissues of the poisons which are interfering
with right nerve action. Thus we can resort hot alkaline baths,
Turkish baths, massage and Osteopathic stretching movements to help in
this respect.
H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| #Back Numbers# |
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| If readers who possess copies of the first number of _The |
| Healthy Life_ (August 1911) will send them to the Editors, |
| they will receive, in exchange, booklets to the value of |
| threepence for each copy. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
THE
HEALTHY
LIFE
The Independent
Health Magazine.
3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.
VOL. V DECEMBER
No. 29. 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.
There are some statements, the very simplicity and truth of which
create a shock--for some people. For instance, there are certain
seekers after health who ignore and are shocked by the very obvious
truth that "brain is flesh." A brain poisoned by impure blood is no
fit instrument for the spirit to manifest through, and "mental
suggestion" must inevitably prove of no avail as a cure if the origin
of the impure blood be purely material.