Food fundamentals; a view of ill-health as caused by wrong habits of living and a discussion of food based on experience from the viewpoint of an osteopathic physician

Preface

Only those who have freed themselves from thinking in the ordinary and much worn channels turn to osteopathy as their profession. And this applied with greater force to those who championed osteopathy in its earlier days than it does now. I spent three and one-half years in Kirks ville, Mo., the first half year to regain sufficient health to enter the school and the remainder of the time to take the course in osteopathy. During this time I greatly profited by the privilege of close association with Dr. A. T. Still, the Founder of Osteopathy, as he chose to make use of my services in getting out his latest book, "Osteopathy, Research and Practice." Whatever was left in me of narrowness of mind, of biased opinion, of prejudice in thinking, of following in the customary paths of mental activity, received a forceful and lasting shock as I gathered a close glimpse of an invincible mind expanded by original thinking; a mind which finds it easy to soar into the clouds above ordinary thought — that master mind of Dr. Still. His words are still ringing in my ears: "Keep your mud valves open and your engine in such condition that you can move out of the hearing of theories, and halt for all coming days by the side of the river of the pure waters of reason and be able to demonstrate that which you assert."

Having been educated as a teacher and having followed that profession for ten years it was only natural that the author would try to answer the questions directed to him in practice in such a manner that the inquirer would be able to get his point of view accurately. To constantly keep doing this lead to extensive investigation, observation and an endless amount of reading.

A life-long battle with stomach and intestinal trouble impelled him to an open mind in regard to the usefulness of a proper diet. From the first he supplemented his osteopathy with what he knew on the subject of diet. He believes his per cent of cures has been materially increased by using diet and his sphere of usefulness very much enlarged. His views of diseases, diet, and osteopathy have not always been readily accepted by his clientele. They have kept him constantly awake and alert to what is going on in the different fields of medicine, and as time passed he found himself as truly engaged in educational work as though he spent every hour of the day in the schoolroom.

The author found that people would not or could not follow any ideas of diet that were at all comprehensive without they were reduced to writing. For years he has refused to give instructions in diet without writing them out. Having the fundamentals before his patient he was able to give them details which they could easily grasp and carry out. But this required much additional explanation. This book, then, is the result of an open mind accepting truths fearlessly, and of carrying out a practice along these lines. It is to fill a need of my clientele. It was written primarily for those with whom the author comes in contact, for it requires personal effort, personal messages frequently repeated, to bring about a change in habits of eating. If, perchance, a single physician may grasp these fundamentals and teach them to others, the author will be highly repaid for putting them in this form.

The quotations used have been gleaned in an unusual way. They are not an unbroken section of the writings from which they were taken, but a collection of short passages, rearranged and assembled with slight omissions or additions or changes necessary for the present arrangement, and because of this the customary markings showing just where the passage came from could not well be used. Care has been exercised to use these assembled quoted expressions in such a way as to carry their original meaning, and to give credit in each case. Certain expressions and phraseology taken from "Christianizing the Social Order," by Walter Rauschenbusch, have been used in such a way as to make the proper markings difficult, so this indirect acknowledgment is made and credit given.

E. H. Bean.

Columbus, Ohio, June 28, 1916.

Food Fundamentais

Part One The Point Of View

A book of this character will be given a hearing only by a few. People will read extensively on most any subject except health. They will read carefully a short magazine article on the subject of health if written to entertain rather than to instruct; or, if it discusses in a light vein the curative power of some medicine; and the article will be considered of particular value, and read with due reverence and awe if it is amply colored with superstition. Too much of the literature on health is fragmentary, consisting of the advancement of one meritorious idea with no thought or notice of its relation to other vital conceptions. Too much of it is wholly false and results in increasing the total amount and severity of illness. Much of it is written from the wrong point of view. Literature characterized by such weaknesses prepares the reader for a ready acceptance of quackery and pretension, not as practiced by those known to be charlatans, but by impostors with a high standing in society and the community.

Of the vast amount of literature that has grown up about health and cure of disease, much is not fundamental, does not deal with fundamentals. But these superficial and incomplete articles are to be read

4 • '-'- 1 ;- ♦ ^ Fdod Fundamentals

by those who have not yet gained a spindling notion about the smallest fundamentals underlying the subject. There are a few writers who have contributed a limited number of books on this subject that deal with fundamentals, and a study of such literature should be a part of the education of every child. The author would not attempt to make a complete list, but a few of those from whom he has gained much of what must be considered fundamental are: Louis Cornaro, Dr. Dio Lewis, M. D., Dr. E. H. Dewey, M. D., Dr. Daniel S. Sager, M. D., Dr. J. H. Tilden, M. D., Dr. J. H. Kellogg, M. D., Hereward Carrington, Horace Fletcher.

Louis Cornaro, an Italian, wrote a few essays about three hundred and fifty years ago telling how he regained his health at forty years of age and retained it. He lived to be over a hundred years and enjoyed health. This book, or its translation, is found in most public libraries and should be in every home. It deals with one fundamental which is very much up-to-date.

"Our Digestion," by Dio Lewis, an allopathic physician, was written in 1872, but as it deals with sensible and fundamental ideas it will always be standard information, and is much ahead of most of the current literature of today on health subjects.

"The Art of Living in Good Health," by Daniel S. Sager, an allopathic physician, is replete with information that every parent should know. It is written in a calm and studied tone; it is concise and well indexed. People who read this thoughtful medical man's book will not fall an easy victim to many of the medical and surgical practices of today.

"The No Breakfast Plan and The Fasting Cure," by E. H. Dewey, an allopathic physician, is a book with a message that conveys a wider sight and purer conception of truth. It is for all the people, not alone for physicians.

The writings of Dr. J. H. Kellogg are illuminating, but some of the errors into which they lead one who follows them are pointed out later in this book. (Pages 40-47.)

Dr. J. H. Tilden, an allopathic physician of Denver, Colo., is a prolific and virile writer, daring and bold, a strong force for right thinking on health subjects. His books on *Tood," "Diseases of Women," "Criticism of The Practice of Medicine," and articles in Philosophy of Health on "Care of Children" should all be read by those who think they understand a little about modern medicine.

Whatever else may be found in the writings of these men there stand out prominently one or more ideas easily recognized by the discerning mind as a fundamental truth. None of them are wholly right, and no writer on this subject is, because there is more to be known, and the point of view must be perfected. Having gained a right point of view and a thorough understanding of the underlying fundamentals the weakness of any author is easily discovered and the usual discussion of diet and health under various names may be readily classified or disregarded. There is a tendency to neglect the acquisition of information about food and diet, but when the attempt is made it is not altogether easy to decide what is truth and what is falsehood.

But these are books that every parent should read. They are not the only ones, but others should not be substituted for these, — not until the physician employed has read and studied them. And because physicians persist in shutting their minds to any but a narrow, biased consideration of things pertaining to health, parents must discover for themselves the fundamentals and the right direction in which to look and move. They must give this subject time. They must read more than a magazine or newspaper article.

Nothing should be made clearer than that the mass of physicians of all schools are ignorant of the fundamentals put forth by the great physicians of all ages on how to cure and prevent diseases by right living and eating. Not even the best schools of this or any country offer such information to their medical students. They are crazy about germs and serums and turn out doctors who are crazy on these same things. After leaving school the doctor must find out about diet and right living, — what they have to do with curing and preventing of disease. Not manygive their time to securing this information, once they have entered practice.

People are not thinking enough about how to care for their health and that of their children. They are paying physicians to do their thinking for them, for what he may know, be that much or nothing. The ignorance of the general public on this subject is so great that most anything tainted with popular approval will find its way into newspapers, magazines, and books, and be received by those who read it with one hundred per cent, approval. "Ignorance in preparing and combining foods is universal, and ignorance of a need of knowledge on this subject is almost universal." (Tilden). "It is inconceivable, the ignorance of people about their food. Not one man in ten knows anything about it beyond the fact that certain things taste good, and certain other things do not taste good." (Dio Lewis) .

In this day of cults and isms, all grown up because of the signal failure of medicine and its domineering methods, it is a foremost duty of a household to have first-hand information about health-culture before making the choice of a family physician. The wise choice of a physician these days becomes the choice of an individuality rather than the choice of a practitioner of some certain line or method of healing. A few of each school have properly prepared themselves for the task of teaching people how to live. The choosing of a physician is the choosing of a person who has so prepared himself. It does not matter what his method of treatment, if it lacks this essential it is fundamentally deficient. That physician who wields successfully a reliable method of therapeutics, joins with it knowledge and experience of how health is regained and maintained by right living, and has ability as a teacher of his clientele in these matters, becomes a citizen of unusual value to any community. It requires honesty of the pure brand — honesty with one's self, honesty in thinking. How many, many physicians keep still about vaccination though they know of its wrong, excusing their attitude by thinking they can be of more use by securing certificates of exemption for a few, if silent, than by asserting their convictions in the face of organized medicine. This is not a pure brand of honesty, and the illustration could be many times multiplied.

That physician who fully grasps the truth that disease is largely a product of wrong habits of living, and undertakes to teach his following this truth, is met not only with listless hearers, but with the opposition of a strongly entrenched medical profession who thoroughly understand how to make use of the associated press; and with the daily remarks of ministers and editors who unwittingly enforce and reinforce error. He builds character by losing good friends, good patients, good money, and refusing to teach buncombe instead of truth. It requires a tremendous quantity of scientific good sense to combat wrong habits of living, and there are not many physicians looking for the job. It is a great task demanding a great faith and an undying zeal. It does not increase the profits but brings down anathemas from his brothers in the profession, and friends and relatives of the patient. Such a physician never gets the pay to which he is entitled. He belittles himself with wisdom instead of haloing himself with popular opinion and surgeons' instruments. Humanity revels in being taken as near Death's door as possible without dying and will pay a great fee for it. No one knows how people will resist a treatment of rest in bed and a limited diet unless it is accompanied by operation, but the physician who makes the attempt.

People are looking for a cure in a bottle, or in a bath, or in electricity, or in milk, or in a manipulation, or what not, and to any of these must be added a little sophistry and superstition. "Humanity, as it now exists, does not want to be told how to live. The cry is for a bottle of medicine, and not for advice.'* (Dr. Daniel S. Sager, Allopath). Human frailty must limp up and plead guilty to a conquering tendency and desire to be relieved of illness without being disturbed in the customary manner of living. And to sleep, eat, work and indulge as one desires appeals as such a very sweet reasonableness that it is usual for those who become ill as a result to be permitted to

"drowse on with the sleeping dogs whom none cares to stir." Instead of making suitable investigation for themselves, sick people follow each and every idea recommended to them by friend or stranger. It does not matter or seem to be of any importance how ignorant of the body or the laws of health the promoter of the idea may be. It is some easy way of obtaining health that appeals; some short-cut that will permit the sufferer to continue to indulge his usual habits.

It does not require much space to say all that it is necessary for each individual to know about foods. It takes more effort and time to set people to thinking right, to eradicate wrong notions, to remove prejudice, and to get them to realize the importance of giving attention to dietary measures and right habits of living than it does to instruct them about food.

Many are willing to make a change in their habits of living and eating when they are freed from a few false notions and see the reason for the change. There is profound relief in knowing that there are always a few who keep in hailing distance of common sense. The time is not far in the distance when many will be willing to pay physicians to teach them to so live that they may remain well. Not a few, however, prefer to lessen their number of years here on earth and continue to indulge as of old.

People will not) think and act along healthful lines until the trend of their thought about disease has been ruptured and detached from their unyielding faith in falsehoods, some of which have been knit into every fiber of their being from infancy and about which the roots of their mind are coiled as the roots of a flower in a flower-pot. Living a healthful life is an individual matter, and none will ever know just what the other fellow should do. But there is enough known to get a view of the fundamental lines along which we must move to leave behind the antiquated and harmful customs, the "policy of tinkering and palliatives." We can point the direction which leads to a plan that revolves around a different axis and carries with it a conspicuous glow of virtue.

GERMS.

There is no greater obstacle to right teaching about health and disease today than the erroneous teachings about germs. There are germs, to be sure ; germs that are peculiar to the condition called typhoid fever, pneumonia, malaria, etc. But the part played by the germ in disease or in health is not understood. On the other hand, it is very thoroughly misunderstood. If the terms in all our literature referring to germs, microbes, etc., as causing disease could be blotted out and the term poison put in their place, the idea conveyed would be more nearly the truth. The difference is fundamental, — fundamental in conception and fundamental in applying a treatment. The ordinary conception and teaching is that the multiplying of poisonous germs cause the disease, and every effort is put forth to kill the germs. Accumulation of poisons do the damage, not the accumulation of germs, and every effort should be put forth to prevent the accumulation of the poisons. Measures that will prevent and do away with the accumulation of poisons are very different, indeed, from those put forth to kill germs. But those things that will accomplish this result regarding the poisons will do away with the presence of the poisonous germs in any great number.

It is taught that before a germ can cause disease there must be a lowered resistance of the body. The lowered resistance is disease and is present before the poison germ makes its appearance. The thing that brought about the lowered resistance is the cause of the disease. All the causes of disease may be put in two great classes : First, errors in living ; second, the Osteopathic lesion. A brief explanation of the relation of Osteopathy to disease is found elsewhere in this book.

These are the things that reduce the vitality, lower the resistance — bring about disease. The germs may be regarded as scavengers, but this is but a fragmentary idea of them. They may also be regarded as helpful workers in dissipating disease processes. It is their business to take up or ingest poisonous or waste material and to so change and surround this material as to make it least harmful to the elements of the blood, the lymphatic fluid, and the nervous system. Unless the material the germs ingest is poison they are harmless. It has been shown that the typhoid germ is often present without typhoid fever. The same thing is known about the germ of tuberculosis, pneumonia, gonorrhea, syphilis, malaria, etc. The entrance of these germs into the body does not necessarily mean disease. They are not always poisonous.

When the body's resistance is lowered, elimination is restricted and the fluids and secretions become poisonous, then the germs ingesting this poison makes it less harmful to the body, but they are poisoned in the act, and they receive all the blame for everything that goes on, our bad habits being entirely excused from the matter. The white blood cells can carry away more poison after it is ingested by germs or changed by them than if the white cells were to surround the poison directly; and it will not be so harmful to the white cells. The white cells had better be regarded as white angels than policemen.

It is barely possible that in some conditions in some few cases the dissolution of the tissues in disease is so rapid and the multiplying of germs so furious that it would seem that their enormous production is a menace to life and health. But if the accompanying conditions are understood and properly interpreted such a thing is quite unlikely. It is well to look upon such an interpretation of facts with suspicion until the evidence is better than is offered today. The sluggish, filthy sea of poisonous secretions in which the millions of germs are found wallowing are not usually of their own making, but rather the logical outcome of a depleted system overcome by forced digestion and accumulation of poisons. A very good and efficient proof, one acceptable to those searching for the truth regardless of its source, is to take away food, supply osteopathic treatment, and proper eliminating measures.

The germ does not determine the character of the disease. The method of elimination, the membranes chosen by the system for that purpose, the breaking down of some organ because poisons are not eliminated are factors that determine the character of disease, — ^the symptoms that become manifest.

In all diseased conditions there is an accumulation of poisons. These must be gotten rid of. If the ordinary channels of elimination are overworked then tissues whose function is such that it can be perverted or brought into wrong functioning to accomplish the immediate demands are appropriated. These tissues are most often the mucous membranes. If the intestines are broken down by overwork, the wrong functioning that results is spoken of as typhoid fever. In such an extreme emergency every membrane of the body is brought into use for extra work. And the physician usually sets about trying to get these tissues to stop their work. He treats symptoms. The typhoid germ is busy in the intestinal glands because it is well adapted to work there and can live longest on the poisonous food it finds there. But there are other germs beside the typhoid in the intestines working just as hard as it. These germs are ignored as a cause of the disease. Why? Because they are also found elsewhere in the body. They are the kind that can work anywhere.

Syphilis or gonorrhea are not diseases caused by a specific germ. They are filth diseases. The membranes break down from irritation and abuse, poisonous secretions are permitted to collect, and absorption of septic poison results. Treated sanely the symptoms are not very severe. The three stages of syphilis are different stages of drug medication. All the bad symptoms come from the usual drug medication. You think not? Why? Because the regular doctors say not? Let me ask you how many cases they have treated by letting the drugs alone? Then how can they know? Be honest in your answer and thinking. If men were honest in their thinking there would not be so many diseases. Measles, mumps, scarlet fever, and all the so-called contagious diseases are no more contagious than pneumonia or catarrh. If a man has a carbuncle and a fever and you breathe the poisons from his breath, you will be poisoned. It may not make you sick, and it may. If it did you would probably think you had taken a cold. People usually excuse some symptom they do not understand by saying, "I think I caught cold." If you breathe the breath of a person with measles you will be poisoned, and this will be true even if you have had measles before. Measles are caused by effete material in the body accumulated from overeating, wrong eating, excess of clothing, and a condition of the atmosphere which favors this disease. That is all there is to the contagion idea in any disease. A family live about the same and its members are likely to have similar diseases. Especially is this true when they have fed themselves on winter foods during the warmer part of the winter and spring as well as during the colder part. Then with too much clothing the elimination of the skin is impaired. The air becomes warmer and damper and decomposition of the foliage of trees, shrubs, and grass becomes profuse and the air poisoned with it. Then the whole family or neighborhood has the disease, and why not? But the germ is still helpful and not the disease-producing agency.

The reason why one does not have measles or some other disease more than once is just as easily explained from this point of view as any other. The fact is they often do have the disease called measles or small-pox more than once. But that the body builds a resistance against all diseases cannot be questioned. And that it sometimes succeeds in so fortifying itself against certain poisons that they never will again produce the same results cannot be questioned.

I think this occurs in many more diseases than is usually thought. No doubt it often occurs in pneumonia, typhoid, etc. The person who has had measles and who is again the victim of bad habits of eating and living and the climate and exposure that once produced it, does not go free from bad results. They become the subject of some other disorder. The resistance against the poison may be so great that the same amount of elimination is not called for that was needed when the body first yielded, but the extra poison will demand extra attention. From this point of view how absurd it is to inject poisons into the system by vaccination, the worst of all being that for small-pox. Typhoid fever vaccination does not prove the disease is caused by a germ. The greatest result gained from such a procedure is that this measure is followed by less drugging. Less drugging and more sanitation explain the results that are now being gained in the prevention of typhoid fever. Malarial fever has not been banished by killing the mosquito. Draining and drugging the marshes may have done away with the mosquito, but it also purifies the air from decomposition products, and here is the explanation of the results. Breathe the air from decaying vegetation, eat enough to have the food decay in the intestines, wear enough clothing to close the pores of the skin, and with a suitable atmospheric temperature and humidity, you will have malarial fever where there is never a mosquito.

Internal sanitation is needed as much as external. It is much more important that each individual on a crowded, illy-ventilated, overheated street car has a sweet and pure breath than it is for the hanging straps to be cleansed from germs. A foul breath is poison, and one who is compelled to inhale it should cry out against the imposition and start a laymen's school to teach people and physicians where to lay emphasis.

The medical profession are finding it very hard to undo the work of false teaching that it has promulgated for centuries, and none will be more difficult to eradicate than the teachings about germs, stimulants, and foods. When they untimely discover they are promulgating a wrong idea they lay the blame on the advertising doctor. But it should be observed that the advertising doctors only perpetuate the wrong teaching once started by the regular profession. They perpetuate the idea that backache is from kidney derangement. The regular profession started the idea; now they recognize it as an error. So it is with many other ideas.

That germs cause disease has been unfalteringly accepted by the people en masse, and certain good has resulted. There is improvement in sanitation and hygiene which is always to be commended. But there is no greater menace to the health of people today than the teaching about germs. The distorted truth about germs has shunted the vision astray from the real cause of disease and has resulted in blinded efforts to palliate and relieve, and a damnable neglect of the stiffening of the will against the continuance of unhealthful habits of living. Wrong teaching about germs has instilled into the minds of many a poisonous fear which in itself is a curse to good health.

"In this connection the question may arise as to the influence of germs or microbes in disease. Germs or microbes of whatever character are powerless to injure a healthy man. If this were not so we should all die of germ diseases, for we live in an atmosphere of germs, breathing tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, etc. It is only when the body is reduced or brought down from its high plane of vigor and vitality to a low level that it yields to the influence of noxious microbes.

If tubercle germs are injected into the skin of a healthy man he will not suffer in the least, and undoubtedly, as has been proved, a healthy individual can swallow various germs and suffer no ill effects.

In many instances it is a question whether germs are not a result rather than the cause of disease. The germs themselves are not so poisonous as their toxins or excreta.

There are many points about disease yet remaining to be solved. We know that in many instances the bacilli of diphtheria may be found in the mouth of an individual and long remain harmless to him. This may go on for an unlimited period, or these bacilli may suddenly take an active or malignant form from causes which seem to be as yet beyond our understanding. Unquestionably the body of a healthy man has the power to destroy any or all germs or microbes. Many of the so-called disease germs, the bacilli of consumption, typhoid fever, and others, have had an existence for centuries, and they will still continue this existence so long as time lasts, for they form an integral part of the life of plants. Just as a tree is not killed by cutting off its leaves, neither is consumption, diphtheria, pneumonia, or any other so-called germ disease prevented by destroying the bacilli. We live in a world of germs, and we know absolutely nothing of many of the forms of germ-life, because we have no microscopes sufficiently powerful to show them; but this does not prevent us from knowing that these minute forms of life exist, — we know they exist by their effects on plant and human life. This only emphasizes the importance of cultivating habits of good living for the sake of absolute immunity. By a well regulated natural life we can keep our bodies in such condition that they will resist disease of any kind." (Dr. Daniel S. Sager, Allopath.)