EVOLVING INTO HEALTH.
By the time most people are twenty years old they have some kind of
disease. It may be only a slight catarrh, a touch of indigestion,
trouble with the eyes, defective hearing, or some other ill. Very seldom
do we meet a person of this age who is perfectly well.
Most people are taught to believe that health is something mysterious
which may come to them or may pass them by, but that they have little or
nothing to do with it. If they are well, they are fortunate, but if they
are ill they are not to blame.
Most of them go to conventional physicians when they are ill, expecting
to be cured. They take medicine or injections of serums or they are
operated upon. When they are through with the doctors they are no wiser
than they were before.
A few have friends who tell them that they must change their mode of
living if they would have health. They are interested enough to go to a
healer who believes in nature. He tells them that they are well or ill
according to their desserts, that they can be well at all times, if they
wish, for if they live as they should health is a natural consequence.
This sounds like nonsense at first. It is different from anything else
they have heard. The sufferer often makes up his mind that the healer is
a fool or a faker. He remembers that when he went to the conventional
physicians they sounded and thumped him and examined all his excretions.
They were very thorough and scientific. The natural healer does not
generally go into so many details. He asks enough and examines enough to
find the trouble and then he stops. This the patient charges against
him, for he takes for granted that the healer is brief from lack of
knowledge.
So he goes back to his old physician. As his trouble is due to deranged
nutrition, he does not get well. He thinks over what the natural healer
said, and the more he thinks about it the more reasonable it sounds, and
he returns again. This time he gets instructions, and he follows them
enough to get benefit, but not faithfully enough to get well. He is
convinced that the conventional physicians are wrong, but still believes
that the natural healer can hardly be right.
After a while he makes up his mind to get down to business and he goes
to the healer for instructions and follows them. The results are
surprising. The trouble he has had for years may disappear within a
month or two, or it may become less and less apparent, but take
considerable time before it leaves entirely.
The healer gives instructions. The most important ones are those
concerning the diet. A plan is given that brings good results. The
healer fails to explain that this is but one correct method of feeding,
that there are other good ones. The patient is enthused over the
benefits derived, he makes up his mind that he is living the only
correct life, and he too often becomes a food crank, trying to force his
ideas upon all about him. Here the healer is at fault, for he should
explain that some method is necessary, but that there is no one and only
method of feeding.
If the patient is fairly intelligent, in time he realizes that it is not
so much what he eats as his manner of eating and moderation that are
helpful, and that any plan in which moderation and simplicity are
followed is better than the ordinary way of eating.
As the patient evolves into health and gets a broader view of the art of
living, he gets a better perspective of life. He learns that under like
conditions like causes always produce like effects, that the law of
compensation is always operative, and we therefore get what we deserve.
He loses his fear of many things that caused him grave concern
previously. He sees in sickness and death the working of natural law,
not of chance.
Some patients realize that healers who work in accordance with nature
are right, at the very start, but most people are not so logically
constructed. It often takes from one to three years before people make
up their mind to order their lives so that they can have health at their
command.
In the old way, the doctor was supposed to cure, which was impossible.
In the new way, the healer educates people and then if they live their
knowledge they get health.
The healer must instruct in the care of all parts of the body, weeding
out bad habits and trying to instill good ones in their place.
Eating according to correct principles is the most helpful and powerful
aid in regaining health. The patient finds that as the years pass his
tastes change, becoming more simple and more moderate. He is well
nourished on one-half to one-third of what he used to consume and
consider necessary.
The following is the last half of a month's record of food intake for a
man in the thirties. Some years ago he changed his manner of living in
order to regain health, in which he succeeded. Now he takes only one or
two meals a day, according to his desires, not that he has any objection
to three meals a day, but he finds it best to eat more seldom. He is in
good physical condition, as heavy as he ought to be, and he has not had
any real physical trouble for a number of years. His work is mental, but
he walks considerably and swims from three to six times a week, besides
taking a few set exercises.
It was taken in spring, the weather averaging cool. This is a little
lighter than usual, because the record was taken during a period of
exceptionally hard mental work. In cold weather heavier foods are taken.
Lunch: Nothing.
Dinner: Three slices of rye toast, very thin, celery, three slices
broiled onion, dish of peas, glass of beer.
Dinner at noon: Roast lamb, dish of spinach, one and one-half dishes
summer squash, lettuce and tomato salad.
Supper: Nothing.
Lunch: Dish of baked lentils, vegetable soup, lettuce.
Dinner: Two small oranges, cottage cheese.
Lunch: Piece of gingerbread, cup of cocoa, two lumps of sugar.
Dinner: Two small oranges, cottage cheese.
Lunch: Dish of stewed prunes, tablespoonful cottage cheese.
Dinner: Two eggs, two slices buttered toast.
Lunch: Small grapefruit.
Dinner: Vegetable soup, dish of stewed turnips, dish of peas.
Lunch: Nothing.
Dinner: Half a grapefruit, three stewed figs, glass of milk.
Lunch: Dish of strawberries, large dish of rhubarb with grapefruit juice
in it and cream on the side; half serving cream cheese.
Dinner: Two small baked apples.
Lunch: Small grapefruit.
Dinner: Two eggs, dish of turnips, dish of spinach, sliced tomatoes.
Lunch: One raw apple.
Dinner: Two shredded wheat biscuits, glass of milk.
Lunch: Dish of rhubarb.
Dinner: Vegetable soup, one egg, a boiled potato.
Lunch: Dish of rhubarb.
Dinner: Sweet potato, dish of parsnips, stewed peas.
Lunch: Dish of ice cream, piece of white cake. Dinner: Cheese cake, dish
of fruit salad.
Lunch: One hard boiled egg, about one and one-half slices white bread,
two big radishes, one young onion, butter.
Dinner: Nothing.
The servings are the ordinary restaurant servings. No dressings were
used except the ones mentioned. This man used to be very fond of sweets
and employed salt freely. Now he finds his foods more agreeable when
taken plain, for they have a better flavor. He rarely uses salt or
pepper. He has simplified his food intake because he finds he feels
better and stronger and is able to think to better advantage than he did
when he partook of a greater variety and amount of food at each meal.
Food scientists say that from two thousand, seven hundred to three
thousand, three hundred calories are needed daily, but you will note
that this man generally keeps below one-half of this, if you are able to
figure food values.
People who are trying to get well are often called fools and cranks when
they treat themselves properly, but this does not matter, for such fools
generally live to see their wise critics prematurely consigned to the
earth.
When taking health advice, try to keep your balance. Get thoroughly well
before you try to guide others.