Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Yvonne
Dailey, David Garcia, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
MAINTAINING HEALTH
(FORMERLY HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY)
By R. L. ALSAKER, M. D.
AUTHOR OF "EATING FOR HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY"
_"When you arise in the morning, think what a precious privilege
it is to live, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."_
--MARCUS AURELIUS.
_"Nature Cures"_
--HIPPOCRATES
TO ISAAC T. COOK
WHOSE CRITICISMS, ASSISTANCE AND ENCOURAGEMENT HAVE LIGHTENED
THE LABOR AND ADDED TO THE PLEASURE OF PRODUCING THIS VOLUME.
CHAPTER CONTENTS
I PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
Humanity, Health and Healers
II MENTAL ATTITUDE
Correct and Incorrect--Results
III FOOD
General Consideration
IV OVEREATING
V DAILY FOOD INTAKE
VI WHAT TO EAT
VII WHEN TO EAT
VIII HOW TO EAT
IX CLASSIFICATION OF FOODS
X FLESH FOODS
Composition--Utility--Preparation--Combinations
XI NUTS
Composition--Utility--Preparation--Combinations
XII LEGUMES
Composition--Utility--Preparation--Combinations
XIII SUCCULENT VEGETABLES
Composition--Utility--Preparation--Combinations--Salads
XIV CEREAL FOODS
Composition--Utility--Preparation--Combinations
XV TUBERS
Composition--Utility--Preparation--Combinations
XVI FRUITS
Composition--Utility--Preparation--Combinations--Salads
XVII OILS AND FATS
XVIII MILK AND OTHER DAIRY PRODUCTS
Composition--Utility--Preparation--Combinations
XIX MENUS
Food Combination in General
XX DRINK
Water--Tea--Coffee--Alcohol--Enslaving Drugs
XXI CARE OF THE SKIN
Baths--Friction--Clothing
XXII EXERCISE
XXIII BREATHING AND VENTILATION
XXIV SLEEP
XXV FASTING
Our Most Important Remedy--Symptoms--When and How to Fast--Cases
XXVI ATTITUDE OF PARENT TOWARD CHILD
XXVII CHILDREN
Prenatal Care--Infancy--Childhood--Mental Training
XXVIII DURATION OF LIFE
Advanced Years--Living to Old Age in Health and Comfort
XXIX EVOLVING INTO HEALTH
How it is Often Done--A Case
XXX RETROSPECT
A Summing-up of the Subject
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.
Writings on hygiene and health have been accessible for centuries, but
never before have books and magazines on these subjects been as numerous
as they are today. Most of the information is so general, vague and
indefinite that only a few have the time and patience to read the
thousands of pages necessary to learn what to do to keep well. The truth
is to be found in the archives of medicine, in writings covering a
period of over thirty centuries, but it is rather difficult to find the
grains of truth.
Health is the most valuable of all possessions, for with health one can
attain anything else within reason. A few of the great people of the
world have been sickly, but it takes men and women sound in body and
mind to do the important work. Healthy men and women are a nation's most
valuable asset.
It is natural to be healthy, but we have wandered so far astray that
disease is the rule and good health the exception. Of course, most
people are well enough to attend to their work, but nearly all are
suffering from some ill, mental or physical, acute or chronic, which
deprives them of a part of their power. The average individual is of
less value to himself, to his family and to society than he could be.
His bad habits, of which he is often not aware, have brought weakness
and disease upon him. These conditions prevent him from doing his best
mentally and physically.
This abnormal condition has a bad effect upon his descendants, who may
not be born with any special defects, but they have less resistance at
birth than is their due, and consequently fall prey to disease very
easily. This state of impaired resistance has been passed on from
generation to generation, and we of today are passing it on as a
heritage to our children.
About 280,000 babies under the age of one year die annually in the
United States. The average lifetime is only a little more than forty
years. It should be at least one hundred years. This is a very
conservative statement, for many live to be considerably older, and it
is within the power of each individual to prolong his life beyond what
is now considered old age.
Under favorable conditions people should live in comfort and health to
the age of one hundred years or more, useful and in full possession of
their faculties. Barring accidents, which should be less numerous when
people fully realize that unreasonable haste and speed are wasteful and
that life is more valuable than accumulated wealth, human life could and
should be a certainty. There should be no sudden deaths resulting from
the popular diseases of today. In fact, pneumonia, typhoid fever,
tuberculosis, cancer and various other ills that are fatal to the vast
majority of the race, should and could be abolished. This may sound
idealistic, but though such results are not probable in the near future,
they are possible.
All civilized nations of which we have record, except the Chinese, have
decayed after growing and flourishing a few centuries, usually about a
thousand years or less. Many reasons are given for the decline and fall
of nations. Rome especially furnishes food for much thought. However,
look into the history of each known nation that has risen to prominence,
glory and power, and you will find that so long as they kept in close
contact with the soil they flourished. With the advance of civilization
the peoples change their mode of life from simplicity to luxuriousness
and complexity. Thus individuals decay and in the end there is enough
individual decay to result in national degeneration. When this process
has advanced far enough these people are unable to hold their own. In
the severe competition of nations the strain is too great and they
perish. There is a point of refinement beyond which people can not go
and survive.
From luxury nations are plunged into hardship. Then their renewed
contact with the soil gradually causes their regeneration, if they have
enough vitality left to rise again. Such is the history of the Italians.
Many others, like the once great Egyptians, whose civilization was very
far advanced and who became so dissolute that a virtuous woman was a
curiosity, have been unable to recover, even after a lapse of many
centuries. The degenerated nations are like diseased individuals: Some
have gone so far on the road to ruin that they are doomed to die. Others
can slowly regain their health by mending their ways.
Nations, like individuals, generally do better in moderate circumstances
than in opulence. Nearly all can stand poverty, but only the exceptional
individual or nation can bear up under riches. Nature demands of us that
we exercise both body and mind.
Civilization is not inimical to health and long life. In fact, the
contrary is true, for as the people advance they learn to master the
forces of nature and with these forces under control they are able to
lead better, healthier lives, but if they become too soft and luxurious
there is decay of moral and physical fibre, and in the end the nation
must fall, for its individual units are unworthy of survival in a world
which requires an admixture of brain and brawn.
Civilization is favorable to long life so long as the people are
moderate and live simply, but when it degenerates to sensuous softness,
individual and racial deterioration ensue. Among savages the infant
mortality is very great, but such ills as cancer, tuberculosis, smallpox
and Bright's disease are rare. These are luxuries which are generally
introduced with civilization. Close housing, too generous supply of
food, too little exercise and alcohol are some of the fatal blessings
which civilized man introduces among savages.
A part of the price we must pay for being civilized is the exercise of
considerable self-control and self-denial, otherwise we must suffer.
The state of the individual health is not satisfactory. There is too
much illness, too much suffering and too many premature deaths. It is
estimated that in our country about three millions of people are ill
each day, on the average. The monetary loss is tremendous and the
anguish and suffering are beyond estimate.
The race is losing every year a vast army of individuals who are in
their productive prime. When a part of a great city is destroyed men
give careful consideration to the material loss and plan to prevent a
recurrence. But that is nothing compared to the loss we suffer from the
annual death of a host of experienced men and women. Destroyed business
blocks can be replaced, but it is impossible to replace men and women.
We look upon this unnecessary waste of life complacently because we are
used to it and consequently think that it is natural. It is neither
necessary nor natural. If we would read and heed nature's writings it
would cease. Then people would live until their time came to fade away
peacefully and beautifully, as do the golden leaves of autumn or the
blades of grass.
Many dread old age because they think of it in connection with
decrepitude, helplessness and the childish querulousness popularly
associated with advancing years. This is not a natural old age; it is
disease. Natural old age is sweet, tolerant and cheerful. There are few
things in life more precious than the memory of parents and grandparents
grown old gracefully, after having weathered the storms of appetites and
passions, the mind firmly enthroned and filled with the calm toleration
and wisdom that come with the passing years of a well spent life.
A busy mind in a healthy body does not degenerate. The brain, though
apparently unstable, is one of the most stable parts of the body.
We should desire and acquire health because when healthy we are at our
maximum efficiency. We are able to enjoy life. We have greater capacity
for getting and giving. We live more fully. Being normal, we are in
harmony with ourselves and with our associates. We are of greater value
all around. We are better citizens.
Every individual owes something to the race. It is our duty to
contribute our part so that the result of our lives is not a tendency
toward degeneration, but toward upbuilding, of the race. The part played
by each individual is small, but the aggregate is great. If our children
are better born and better brought up than we were, and there is
generally room for improvement, we have at least helped.
Health is within the grasp of all who are not afflicted with organic
disease, and the vast majority have no organic ills. All that is
necessary is to lead natural lives and learn how to use the mind
properly. Those who are not in sympathy with the views on racial duty
can enhance their personal worth through better living without giving
the race any thought. Every individual who leads a natural life and
thinks to advantage helps to bring about better public health. The
national health is the aggregate of individual health and is improved as
the individuals evolve into better health. National or racial
improvement come through evolution, not through revolution. The
improvement is due to small contributions from many sources.
The greatest power for human uplift is knowledge. Reformers often
believe that they can improve the world by legislation. Lasting reform
comes through education. If the laws are very repressive the reaction is
both great and unpleasant.
It takes about six months to learn stenography. It requires a long
apprenticeship to become a first-class blacksmith or horseshoer. To
obtain the rudiments of a physician's art it is necessary to spend four
to six years in college. To learn a language takes an apt pupil at least
a year. A lawyer must study from two to four years to become a novice. A
businessman must work many years before he is an expert in his line. Not
one of these attainments is worth as much as good health, yet an
individual of average intelligence can obtain enough knowledge about
right living during his spare time in from two to six months to assure
him of good health, if he lives as well as he knows how. Is it worth
while? It certainly is, for it is one of the essentials of life. Health
will increase one's earning capacity and productivity and more than
double both the pleasure and the duration of life.
Disease is a very expensive luxury. Health is one of the cheapest,
though one of the rarest, things on earth. There is no royal road to
health. If there is any law of health it is this: Only those will retain
it permanently who are deserving of it.
Many prefer to live in that state of uncertainty, which may be called
tolerable health, a state in which they do not suffer, yet are not quite
well. In this condition they have their little ups and downs and
occasionally a serious illness, which too often proves fatal. Even such
people ought to acquire health knowledge, for the time may come when
they will desire to enjoy life to the fullest, which they can do only
when they have health. Those who have this knowledge are often able to
help themselves quickly and effectively when no one else can.
I am acquainted with many who have been educated out of disease into
health. Many of them are indiscreet, but they have learned to know the
signs of approaching trouble and they ease up before anything serious
overtakes them. In this way they save themselves and their families from
much suffering, much anxiety and much expense. Every adult should know
enough to remain well. Every one should know the signs of approaching
illness and how to abort it. The mental comfort and ease that come from
the possession of such knowledge are priceless.
Everything that is worth while must be paid for in some way and the
price of continued good health is some basic knowledge and self-control.
There are no hardships connected with rational living. It means to live
moderately and somewhat more simply than is customary. Simplicity
reduces the amount of work and friction and adds to the enjoyment of
life. The cheerfulness, the buoyancy and the tingling with the joy of
life that come to those who have perfect health more than compensate for
the pet bad habits which must be given up.
Many of the popular teachings regarding disease and its prevention are
false. The germ theory is a delusion. The fact will some day be
generally recognized, as it is today by a few, that the so-called
pathogenic bacteria or germs have no power to injure a healthy body,
that there is bodily degeneration first and then the system becomes a
favorable culture medium for germs: In other words, disease comes first
and the pathogenic bacteria multiply afterwards. This view may seem very
ridiculous to the majority, for it is a strong tenet of popular medical
belief today that micro-organisms are the cause of most diseases.
To most people, medical and lay, the various diseases stand out clear
and individual. Typhoid fever is one disease. Pneumonia is an entirely
different one. Surely this is so, they say, for is not typhoid fever due
to the bacillus typhosus and pneumonia to the pneumococcus? But it is
not so. Outside of mechanical injuries there is but one disease, and the
various conditions that we dignify with individual names are but
manifestations of this disease. The parent disease is filthiness, and
its manifestations vary according to circumstances and individuals.
This filthiness is not of the skin, but of the interior of the body. The
blood stream becomes unclean, principally because of indigestion and
constipation, which are chiefly due to improper eating habits. Some of
the contributory causes are wrong thinking, too little exercise, lack of
fresh air, and ingestion of sedatives and stimulants which upset the
assimilative and excretory functions of the body. In all cases the blood
is unclean. The patient is suffering from autointoxication or
autotoxemia.
If this is true, it would follow that the treatment of all diseases is
about the same. For instance, it would be necessary to give about the
same treatment for eczema as for pneumonia. Basically, that is exactly
what has to be done to obtain the best results, though the variation in
location and manifestation requires that special relief measures, of
lesser importance, be used in special cases, to get the quickest and
best results. In both eczema and pneumonia the essential thing is to get
the body clean.
The practice of medicine is not a science. We have drugs that are
reputed to be excellent healers, yet these very drugs sometimes produce
death within a few hours of being taken. The practice of medicine is an
art, and the outcome in various cases depends more on the personality of
the artist than on the drugs he gives, for roughly speaking, all
medicines are either sedative or stimulant, and if the dosage is kept
below the danger line, the patient generally recovers. It seems to make
very little difference whether the medicine is given in the tiny
homeopathic doses, so small that they have only a suggestive effect, or
if they are given in doses several hundred times as large by allopaths
and eclectics.
It is true that we have drugs with which we can diminish or increase the
number of heart beats per minute, dilate or contract the pupils of the
eye, check or stimulate the secretion of mucus, sedate or irritate the
nervous system, etc., but all that is accomplished is temporary
stimulation or sedation, and such juggling does not cure. The practice
of medicine is today what it has been in the past, largely experiment
and guess-work.
On the other hand, natural healers who have drunk deep of the cup of
knowledge need not guess. They know that withholding of food and
cleaning out the alimentary tract will reduce a fever. They know that
the same measures will clean up foul wounds and stop the discharge of
pus in a short time. They know that the same measures in connection with
hot baths will terminate headaches and remove pain. They further know
that if the patient will take the proper care of himself after the acute
manifestations have disappeared there will be no more disease. After a
little experience, an intelligent natural healer can tell his patients,
in the majority of cases, what to expect if instructions are followed.
He can say positively that there will be no relapses and no
complications.
How different is this from the unsatisfactory practice of conventional
medicine! However, most physicians refuse to accept the valuable
teachings which are offered to them freely, and one of the reasons is
that the natural healers do not present their knowledge in scientific
form. The knowledge is scientific but it is simple. Such objection does
not come with good grace from a profession practicing an art. Life is
but a tiny part science, mixed with much art.
The true scientist in the healing art is he who can take an invalid and
by the use of the means at his command bring him back to health, not in
an accidental manner, but in such a knowing way that he can predict the
outcome. In serious cases the natural healer of intelligence and
experience can do this twenty times where the man who relies on drugs
does it once. The physicians who prescribe drugs are ever on the
look-out for complications and relapses, and they have many of them. The
natural healers know that under proper treatment neither complications
nor relapses can occur, unless the disease has already advanced so far
that the vital powers are exhausted before treatment is begun, and this
is generally not the case. In this book many of the medical fallacies of
today, both professional and lay, will be touched upon in a kindly
spirit of helpfulness and ideas that contain more truth will be offered
in their place. The truth is the best knowledge we have today, according
to our understanding. It is not fixed, for it may be replaced by
something better tomorrow. However, one fundamental truth regarding
health will never change, namely, that it is necessary to conform to the
laws of nature, or in other words, the laws of our being, in order to
retain it.
No one can cover the field of health completely, for though it is very
simple, it is as big as life. The most helpful parts of this book will
be those which point the way for each individual to understand his
relation to what we call nature, and hence help to enable him to gain a
better understanding of himself.
By natural living is not meant the discarding of the graces of
civilization and roaming about in adamic costume, living on the foods as
they are found in forest and field, without preparation. What is meant
is the adjustment of each person to his environment, or the environment
to the person, until harmony or balance is established, which means
health.
One of the most difficult things about teaching health is that it is so
very simple. People look for something mysterious. When told that good
old mother nature is the only healer, they are incredulous, for they
have been taught that doctors cure. When informed that they do not need
medicine and that outside treatment is unnecessary, they find it
difficult to believe, for disease has always called for treatment of
some kind in the hands of the medical profession. When further told that
they have to help themselves by living so that they will not put any
obstacles in the way of normal functioning of their bodies, they think
that the physician who thinks and talks that way must be a crank, and
many seek help where they are told that they can obtain health from
pills, powders and potions or from various inoculations and injections.
To live in health is so simple that any intelligent person can master
the art and furthermore regain lost health in the average case, without
any help from professional healers. There is plenty knowledge and all
that is needed is a discriminating mind to find the truth and then
exercise enough will power to live it. If a good healer is at hand, it
is cheaper to pay his fee for personal advice than to try to evolve into
health without aid, but if it is a burden to pay the price, get the
knowledge and practice it and health will return in most cases. The vast
majority of people suffering from chronic ills which are considered
incurable can get well by living properly.
The more capable and frank the healer is, the less treatment will be
administered. Minute examinations and frequent treatment serve to make
the patient believe that he is getting a great deal for his money.
Advice is what the healer has to sell, and if it is correct, it is
precious. The patient should not object to paying a reasonable fee, for
what he learns is good for life. People gladly pay for prescriptions or
drugs. The latter are injurious if taken in sufficient quantity to have
great effect. So why object to paying for health education, which is
more valuable than all the drugs in the world? Because of their attitude
on this subject, the people force many a doctor to use drugs, who would
gladly practice in a more reasonable way if it would bring the
necessities of life to him and his family. The public has to enlighten
itself before it will get good health advice. The medical men will
continue in the future, as they have done in the past, to furnish the
kind of service that is popular.
A good natural healer teaches his patients to get along without him and
other doctors. A doctor of the conventional school teaches his patrons
to depend upon him. The former is consequently deserving of far greater
reward than the latter.
The law of compensation may apply elsewhere, thinks the patient, but
surely it is nonsense to teach that it applies in matters of health, for
does not everybody know that most of our diseases are due to causes over
which we have no control? That the chief cause is germs and that we can
not control the air well enough to prevent one of these horrible
monsters (about 1/25,000 of an inch long) from settling in the body and
multiplying, at last producing disease and maybe death? This is untrue,
but it is a very comforting theory, for it removes the element of
personal responsibility. People do not like to be told that if they are
ill it is their own fault, that they are only reaping as they have
sowed, yet such is the truth.
Patients often dislike to give up one or more of their bad habits. "Mr.
Blank has done this very thing for sixty or seventy years and now at the
age of eighty or ninety he is strong and active," they reply to
warnings. This is sophistry, for although an individual occasionally
lives to old age in spite of broken health laws, the average person who
attempts it perishes young. Those who do not conform to the rules are
not allowed to sit in the game to the end.
Another false feeling, or rather hope, deeply implanted in the human
breast is: "Perhaps others can not do this, but I can. I have done it
before and can do it again; it will not hurt me for I am strong and
possessed of a good constitution." The wish is father to the thought,
which is not founded on facts. The most common and the most destructive
form of dishonesty is self-deception. Those who are honest with
themselves find it easy to deal fairly and squarely with others.
The doctors of the dominant school are very distrustful of the natural
healers, in spite of the fact that the latter obtain the best results.
Many of the conditions which the regular physicians treat without
satisfactory results, the natural healers are able to remove in a few
months. When members of the dominant school of medicine find men
leading patients suffering from various skin diseases, Bright's disease,
chronic digestive troubles, rheumatism and other ills which they
themselves make little or no impression upon back to health, they are
unwilling to believe that such results can be accomplished by means of
hygiene and proper feeding. They think there is some fakery about it,
for their professors, books and experience have taught them otherwise.
They consider the views of the natural healer unworthy of serious
attention and often call him a quack, which epithet closes the
discussion. They are ethical and do not wish to be mired by contact with
quacks.
The distrust of medical men for healers of the natural school is not
hard to explain. Many of the natural healers are men of education and
experience, but others lack both, and no matter how good the latter may
be at heart, they make very serious blunders. For instance: They get out
circulars, listing all prominent diseases known, stating that they cure
them. They either are so enthusiastic that they are carried away or they
are so ignorant that they do not know that there is a stage of
degeneration which will not allow of regeneration, and that when such a
stage is reached in any chronic disease the end is death.
Another handicap is that intelligent natural healers have such excellent
success that they lose their heads. They educate patients by the hundred
into health who have been given up as incurable by the conventional
physicians. In their success they forget that modesty is very becoming
to the successful and begin to boast. This hurts the cause. Let the
natural healer ever remember that he does not cure, that he is but the
interpreter and that nature is the restorer of health.
The natural healers must be more careful about their statements if they
would have the respect of intelligent people, and they must labor
diligently to be well informed. For their own good regular physicians
will have to be more open-minded, and recognize the fact that it is not
necessary to have a M. D. degree to accept the truth regarding healing.
Medical men are losing their hold on the public largely because they
have cultivated the class spirit.
It is a well known fact among natural healers that most cases of
Bright's disease are curable, even after they have become chronic.
However, a physician who voices this truth will probably be classed
among irresponsible dreamers by other doctors.
Antagonism of this kind breeds extremists and is therefore harmful to
the public, which pays for all the mistakes made. It is very easy to
lose one's mental balance and to begin to play on a harp with but one
string. We have a large army of Christian Scientists. If it were not for
the way in which physicians of the past mistreated the body and
neglected the mind, this sect would not exist. The doctors, with their
awful doses of nauseous and destructive drugs, went to one extreme. The
reaction was the formation of a sect that has gone to the other extreme.
The Christian Scientists are incomprehensible in spots to us mortals who
believe in a body as well as a mind, but they have a cheerful and
helpful philosophy which brings enjoyment on earth and they have done an
immense amount of good by teaching people to cease thinking and talking
so much about themselves and their ills. Among other demonstrations,
they have shown the uselessness of drugs.
Of late so many varieties of drugless healers have sprung into existence
that it is difficult to remember even their names. There are many
pathies. These have a tendency to take one part of the human being, or
one procedure of treatment, and to play this up to the elimination of
all the rest. Some do everything with the mind. Others pay no attention
to the mind. Bathing, massage, manipulating the spine, washing out the
colon, baths in mud, sunshine or water, suggestion and many other things
are separately given credit for being cure-alls. Many of these are
excellent as a part of regenerative treatment, but they are not
sufficient of themselves to give permanent results.
Most healers have too narrow vision. People come to them because they
have faith. The faith alone will produce temporary improvement, but as
soon as the interest is gone and the procedure grows old the patient
becomes worse again unless the treatment possesses genuine merit.
Osteopathy is most excellent, as a part of a healing system, but it is
not sufficient. The osteopaths find their patients relapsing over and
over again, or taking some other disease. However, they are learning, in
increasing numbers, that if they would keep their patrons well, they
have to give them education along the line of hygiene and dietetics,
with a little mental training thrown in.
Many chiropractors are learning the same thing. In some chiropractic
schools there are professors wise enough to teach their students to be
broad-minded. The true natural healer makes use of air, water, food,
exercise, mental training--in fact, all the means nature has put at his
disposal. He realizes that the best treatment is education of the
patient. In many cases a cure can be greatly hastened by proper local
treatment.
It is unfortunate that the nature healers are so divided and that many
operate upon such a narrow basis. If the vast majority of them were well
informed, broad enough to make use of all helpful natural means, and
were designated by the same name, it would not take them long to gain
more public confidence and respect than they now possess. So long as the
nature healers segregate themselves and allow themselves to be narrow,
so long will they have to struggle at a disadvantage against the more
united wielders of scalpels and prescribers of drugs.
The question of choosing a health guide is sometimes perplexing. The
patient should select one in whom he has confidence, for confidence is a
great aid in restoring health. It often happens that there is no one in
the town in whom the patient has confidence, for many communities have
no competent natural healers. Then the question is whether or not to
seek advice by correspondence. In acute diseases this is generally a bad
plan, for the family often lacks the poise and equanimity necessary to
carry out directions. In chronic cases it is usually all right. Here all
that is required is correct knowledge put into practice and errors are
not as dangerous as in acute diseases. Curable cases will get well by
following the advice given by correspondence. A medical man who educates
people by correspondence is considered unethical and is severely
censured by the ethical brethren. To prescribe medicine by mail is
without doubt reprehensible, but to educate people into health is a work
of merit, whether it is done face to face or by correspondence. It is
advantageous to meet the physician, talk things over and be examined,
but it is not necessary.
I know of some cases of acute disease treated satisfactorily by letter
and telegram, but the patients' families were in sympathy with natural
methods, of which they had a fair knowledge, and they had unlimited
confidence in the healer.
I am personally acquainted with many people who have been educated out
of chronic disease and into health by correspondence, after the local
physicians had vainly exhausted all their skill. It is simply a matter
of applied knowledge and it works just as well in curable cases if given
by telephone, telegraph or letter as if imparted by word of mouth.
However, it seems to me that it is most satisfactory for all concerned
when the healer and the sufferer can meet.
My words are not inspired by any ill feeling toward the members of the
medical profession. I have found medical men to measure well up in every
way. They are better educated than the average and they are as kind and
considerate as are other men. As men we can expect no more of them under
present conditions, but because they are better equipped than the
average, we have a right to ask for an improvement in their practice,
even if they have inherited a great many handicaps from their
predecessors and it is not easy to throw off the past, which acts as a
dead weight ever tending to check progress. The tendency of the times is
for fuller, freer and more sincere service in every line, for evolving
out of the useless into the greatest helpfulness. It is not asking too
much when we demand of the doctors that they rid themselves of the
injurious drug superstition and become health teachers, that instead of
being in the rear they come to the front and make progress easier.
What I say about drugs is founded on intimate observation. I was
educated medically in two of the colleges where medication is strongly
advocated and well taught, and am a regular M. D. I have watched people
who were treated by means of drugs and the biologic products, such as
serums, vaccines and bacterines, which are now so popular, and I have
watched many who have been treated by natural methods. Anyone with my
experience and capable of thinking would come to the conclusions given
in this book, that it is a mistake to administer drugs and serums and
that the natural methods give results so much superior to the
conventional methods that there is no comparison. Others who have
discarded drugs know from experience that this is true.
The physicians who are on intimate terms with nature will neither desire
nor require drugs. Sound advice, that is, teaching, is the most valuable
service a physician can render. Right living and right thinking always
result in health if no serious organic degeneration has taken place. If
the public could only be made to realize that they need a great deal of
knowledge and very little treatment, and that knowledge is very valuable
and treatment often worthless the day would soon dawn when health
matters will be placed on a sound, natural basis.
Surgery is occasionally necessary, but today from ten to twenty
operations are performed where but one is needed.
"There is nothing new beneath the sun," is a popular quotation. It seems
to hold true in the healing art, for the best modern practice was the
best ancient practice. Naturally, people like to make new discoveries
and get credit therefore. Our valuable new discoveries in healing are
very ancient. Though much that appears in these pages may seem strange
and new to many, I claim no originality. My aim is to present workable,
helpful facts in such a way that any person of average intelligence and
will power can apply them, and to get the essentials of health within
such a compass that no unreasonable amount of time need be employed in
finding them.
According to late discoveries, the ancient Egyptians were more advanced
in the art of living than any other people on earth, including the
moderns. They taught that overeating is the chief causative factor of
disease, and so it is. They taught cleanliness, the priests going to the
extreme of shaving the entire body daily. It would naturally follow that
they prescribed moderation in eating, which leads to internal
cleanliness. Cleanliness of body, in conjunction with cleanliness of
mind, will put disease to rout.
The ancient Greek writers commented on the good state of health among
the Egyptians, and modern medical writers marvel that they made so
little use of drugs. Evidently they found drugs of little value, for
they were taught hygienic living. The admirable health laws laid down by
Moses were derived from Egyptian sources.
The ancient nations were as much influenced by the Egyptians as we are
today by the Greeks who lived before the Christian era. The Greeks built
combination temples and sanitaria, to which the afflicted resorted. The
priests were in charge and these ancient heathens were great rogues. By
fooling the people they got big fees out of them. Their oracular sayings
and miracles were adroitly presented. They did not teach that overeating
is the chief cause of disease, for this did not suit the mystic times.
The people liked oracular prescriptions, and they got them. The law of
supply and demand worked as well then as it does now. The heathen
priests waxed fat and the medical art degenerated.
About five centuries B. C., Pythagoras taught that health can be
preserved by means of proper diet, exercise and the right use of the
mind. He also taught many other truths and some fallacies. In spite of
much superstition mixed with his philosophy, it was too pure for the
times and he perished.
Hippocrates, born about 470 years B. C., is one of the bright lights of
the medical world. He was so far ahead of his time that he still lives.
He was the founder of medical art as we know it. He used many drugs, but
he also relied on natural means. He was the first medical man on record
to pay serious attention to dietetics. The following quotations will
show how well his mind grasped the essentials of the healing art: "Old
persons need less fuel (food) than the young." "In winter abundant
nourishment is wholesome; in summer a more frugal diet." "Follow
nature." "Complete abstinence often acts very well, if the strength of
the patient can in any way maintain it." In acute disease he withheld
nourishment at first and then he prescribed a liquid diet. He also made
use of the "milk cure," which is considered modern, in conjunction with
baths and exercise; this is very efficacious in some chronic diseases.
He further spoke the oft-forgotten truth that physicians do not heal.
"Natural powers are the healers of disease." "Nature suffices for
everything under all conditions."
The next great physician was Galen, who lived in the second and third
centuries of our era. He added greatly to medical knowledge, made
extensive use of dietetics, and then in a self-satisfied manner informed
his readers that they need look no further for enlightenment, for he had
given them all that was of any value. Perhaps he meant this as a joke,
but those who followed him took it seriously, with the result that
medical advance stopped for several centuries.
The physicians of the dark ages had some light, as evidenced by this
popular quotation taken from a poem that the faculty of the medical
college of Salerno gave to Robert, son of William the Conqueror, in the
year 1101:
"Salerno's school in conclave high unites
To counsel England's king and thus indites:
If thou to health and vigor wouldst attain,
Shun mighty cares, all anger deem profane;
From heavy suppers and much wine abstain;
Nor trivial count it after pompous fare
To rise from table and to take the air.
Shun idle noonday slumbers, nor delay
The urgent calls of nature to obey.
These rules if thou wilt follow to the end,
Thy life to greater length thou may'st extend."
During recent times but two important discoveries have been made
concerning matters of health: First, the advantage of cleanliness;
second, the approximate chemical composition of various foods. All the
other important new discoveries are old.
Cleanliness, moderation in all things, right thinking and a realization
of the fact that nature cures are some of the most important stones upon
which to build a healing practice. The most important single therapeutic
factor is to abstain from food during pain and active disease processes.
Cleanliness of mind and body has been taught for thousands of years, yet
cleanliness of body is a new discovery, for which we are greatly
indebted to the great bacteriologist, Pasteur. It has been found that
germs thrive best in filth; this has been taught so thoroughly that the
public is somewhat afraid of the germs and as a measure of
self-protection they are cleaning up. Of old, cleanliness meant a clean
skin, but this is the least important part. It is far more necessary to
have a clean alimentary tract and clean blood, with a resultant sweet,
healthy body, and this is what cleanliness is beginning to mean.
Internal cleanliness necessitates moderation, for an overworked
alimentary tract becomes foul and some of the poisons are taken into the
blood.
Asepsis and antisepsis simply mean cleanliness.
The benefits of moderation have been known for thousands of years. Louis
Cornaro, who died in 1566, wrote a delightful book on the subject.
People know that it is necessary to be moderate, but they do not seem to
realize the meaning of moderation nor is its value well enough implanted
in the human mind to produce satisfactory results.
Right thinking seemed as important to the thinkers of old as it does to
the New Thought people today. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is
he."
For the better knowledge of the composition of food we have to thank the
chemists.
Laymen are referred to frequently in this book because their work has
been so helpful and important. Herbert Spencer and Alfred Russel Wallace
had very clear conceptions regarding health. See their opinions
regarding vaccination. There is no difference in the mental processes of
physicians and laymen. Anyone can know about health, though it takes
considerable experience and observation to get acquainted with the less
important subject of disease. One indictment against medical men is that
they have dwelled almost entirely on disease and paid no attention to
health.
A group of modern men deserve great credit for popularizing health
knowledge, which generally results in the loss of professional standing
of the teacher. R. H. Trall, M. D., insisted that drugs are useless and
harmful, that the only rational and safe way of healing ordinary ills is
to use nature's means. "Strictly speaking, fever and food are
antagonistic ideas," he wrote. In his Hydropathic Encyclopedia,
copyrighted in 1851, he puts great stress on natural remedies, such as
food and water. He met with much opposition, but he has left a deep
impression on the minds of men who are now having some influence in
shaping public opinion on health and healing.
Dr. Charles Page of Boston has been writing in advocacy of natural
healing for over thirty years. He also has emphasized the harmfulness of
drugs, the necessity of withholding food from fever patients, and simple
living, remaining in touch with nature. Another important point which
the doctor has been trying to impress upon the public is that it is
necessary to retain the natural salts of the foods, instead of ruining
them or throwing them away, as is generally done, especially in the
preparation of vegetables and many cereal products.
Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey began to present his ideas to the public a few
years after the Civil War. His little book entitled "The No-Breakfast
Plan and the Fasting Cure," has had a great influence among rational
healers. The doctor emphasized the importance of going without food in
acute diseases so that no one who has read the book can forget it. He
pointed out some of the errors of conventional healing as they had never
been shown before, and I believe he was the first one to give the
correct rules to guide people in the consumption of food.
For fourteen years Dr. J. H. Tilden of Denver has been a voluminous
writer on health. He teaches that the law of compensation applies to
health; that all disease is one and the same fundamentally; that
"Autotoxemia is the fundamental basic cause of all diseases." Like all
others who have investigated the subject impartially he believes that
one of the most important factors of health is correct feeding. He
allows all foods, in compatible combinations. Of course, he gives no
drugs.
Dr. Harry Brook of Los Angeles is unique among the health educators of
today. He is a brainy journalist with a good stock of fundamental health
knowledge and is endowed with the ability to place his convictions
before the public in a striking manner. He has been carrying on his
educational work for many years.
Elbert Hubbard has also had a great deal of influence on the thought of
today. At intervals he publishes an article on health which gets wide
distribution. He has the faculty of making people think, and those who
allow themselves to think independently generally evolve into
serviceable knowledge.
Bernarr Macfadden has a large following. He is a strong advocate of
physical culture and favors vegetarianism and other changes from
conventional life. He educates his readers away from drugs. He has
written much that is helpful and his influence is widely felt. Like all
others who have struggled against the fetters of convention, he has
aroused much opposition.
There are a few good health magazines, and there are many people living
who deserve credit for their labor to improve the mental and physical
condition of humanity. Some of these will be mentioned and quoted.
Some of the teachers have dwelled upon but one idea and some have
advocated fallacies, but there is good to be found in all of them. No
knowledge assays one hundred per cent. pure.
No helpful healing knowledge should be kept away from the public; it
should be as free as possible. The public, when it understands,
willingly pays a fair price for it, which is all that should be asked.
To take advantage of the sick and helpless is contemptible. The old-time
idea, still prevalent, that medical knowledge is for the doctor only is
a mistake. The best patients are the intelligent ones. The office of the
physician should be to educate his clients; his best knowledge and his
best qualities will be developed in dealing honestly with intelligent
people.
The practice of medical secrecy began in ancient times when the healers
and the priests believed in fooling the public. Unfortunately, this
professional attitude still survives. No one who has not practiced the
healing art can know how tempted a doctor is to fake and humbug a little
to retain and gain patronage.
Emerson wrote: "He is the rich man who can avail himself of other men's
faculties. He is the richest man who knows how to draw a benefit from
the labors of the greatest number of men--of men in distant countries
and past times." Those who wish to be healthy and efficient are
compelled to advance by taking advantage of other men's faculties. He
who attempts to learn all by experience does not live long enough to
travel far.
Everyone should try to get a knowledge of the few most fundamental facts
of nature governing life. Then it would not be so easy to go astray.
Health literature should be read with an open mind. Read in conjunction
with your knowledge of the laws of nature, and then it will be seen that
health and disease are according to law, and that by eliminating the
mistakes disease will disappear.
All disease is one. It is the manifestation of disobeyed natural law,
and whether the mistakes are made knowingly or ignorantly matters but
little so far as the results are concerned. It is generally considered a
disgrace to be imprisoned for transgressing man-made law, which is
faulty and complex. How about being in the fetters of disease for
disregarding nature's law, which is just and simple?
It is my aim to use as simple language as possible. If physicians read
these pages, they will understand them without technicalities, and so
will laymen. This book contains much knowledge that physicians should
have, knowledge that will help them when that which they have acquired
from conventional sources fails, but in many respects it is so opposed
to popular customs and beliefs that many physicians will doubtless
condemn it on first reading. Doctors are taught otherwise at medical
colleges, and most of them have such high regard for authority that it
is very difficult for them to see matters in a different light. I appeal
to both laymen and healers with open minds.
These rambling thoughts will serve to show the reader whether it is
worth while to go any further. The following chapters are devoted to an
exposition of a workable knowledge of how to retain health, and how to
regain lost health in ordinary cases. They will teach how to get
dependable health, how to remain well in spite of climatic conditions,
bacteria and other factors that are given as causes of disease, and how
to more than double the ordinary span of life.
Good health and long life result in better work, increased earning
capacity and efficiency of body and mind, greater understanding, and
more enjoyment of life. It gives time to cultivate wisdom.