Health through natural methods

Introduction

Physical man is made of the air he breathes, the water he drinks, and the food that he eats, chiefly the latter.

It is easy to understand that a person, trying to live on candy exclusively, would have trouble. At first, with the stomach and teeth and secondly, throughout the body. It is also easy to understand that it would be difficult to get along on a diet of pastries, gravies, pie and cake, ice cream, pepper, salt, spices and condiments. Such a diet seems too preposterous for consideration. Anyone can realize the harm of eating such foods exclusively.

It may be said of course that although such a diet would be highly injurious taken by itself, yet in combina¬ tion with other articles of food, these elements of diet have their natural place. They unquestionably have their place in the diet of the average civilized person of today. For the whole diet of today is wrong, and the whole is hardly any worse than these apparently worst parts.

Modern man has departed very far from a natural diet. Natural man, that is,—the savage, lived largely ac¬ cording to his instinct. He focind his food growing on the trees and bushes, or sprouting from the ground. When he wanted meat, he was forced to hunt for it. He had to run up hill and down dale and cover great stretches of ground before he could bring down the animal he intended to eat. This animal was in the best of health through leading a free, open air life and eating its natural foods without the interference of man, and as a rule, it was devoured only a few hours after it had been killed. An active out-of-doors man or woman, living on absolutely fresh meat and eating few other foods, all of which were simply prepared, could thrive on such a diet,

Today, however, man attempts to live upon animal food that has been dead a long time; that was artificially raised and fattened, and that was, as a result, in very poor health when slaughtered. He likes his meat fried or roasted or otherwise prepared, by all the complicated methods of modern cookery. He likes his meat well covered and sur¬ rounded by alien sauces and a combination of various fried and cooked vegetables. He likes to begin his meal with one kind of food and finish it with another. He wants many and varied combinations in the forming of each dish. He likes to drink water, preferably ice water, during his meal, with which to wash down mouthfuls of food, and to finish up with some hot beverage, usually consisting of a combination of water, milk, sugar and coffee, or water, milk, sugar and tea.

He likes to eat bread and to cover his bread copiously with butter at his meal. He wants a combination of white fiour, egg yolk, various analine chemicals, whipped cream, white sugar and some kind of fruit all combined into a cake or pie, along with the rest of his meal. Frequently he follows all this with a cigarette or a cigar or a pipe which helps to lessen the discomfort which is bound to follow this sort of a meal.

Primitive man spent most of his time in the open air, led an active life and ate simple food. Modern man sits indoors, leads an inactive life and tries to live on varied and complicated, denatured foods.

Primitive man had great strength, a finely molded body and good health as long as he lived. His teeth were in his mouth to the day he died and his hair stayed on his head. His powers and functions were unimpaired throughout his life except in the last days of his earthly stay. He ate with splendid appetite, slept soundly, was clear eyed and keen sighted and was as happy as his limited intelligence permitted him to be.

Modern man, with a greatly developed brain has a poorly developed body, very weak digestion, comparatively poor appetite, bad teeth, poor eyesight, poor scalp, sleeps badly, wakes badly, is weak, nervous and sickly. He spends a good part of his time in the sick bed. He spends a great deal more of his time earning money to pay for doctors, medicines, dental attention and optical attention. All this time he is continually in fear of complete incapacitation. Still man has developed greatly in intelligence, in his pro¬ ductive powers, and his general humanity. Evidently something is wrong. There must be some lesson which our ancestors, the primitive men, could teach us.

We must realize that each civilization of the past be¬ gan to die as soon as it arrived at the period of greatest luxury and ease. In other words, as soon as man had succeeded in divorcing himself as completely as possible from the simpler and more natural things, especially with regard to his food, decay set in and the whole structure of the civilization soon crashed into ruin. There must be some lesson to be learned from this, and this lesson is evidently that luxury and refinement, in foods at least, does not pay beyond a certain point. Surely when civilization becomes artificialization, man can no longer live and remain in good health. Because man is himself a natural product and he can only live on the products of nature. Further¬ more these natural products must be left as much as pos¬ sible in their original state.

When man shall succeed in creating a new race by combining the elements that lie in the mud from which man sprung. When man shall succeed in creating other men in the chemical laboratory or in the kitchen where his foods are now made, then this synthetic product of man, will be able to live on the present day synthetic foods and on the wonders of the modern table; but until such a time, the individual who wishes to be healthy, should learn to understand the intention of Nature. The laws of his life have not changed in recent centuries. Man must study and obey Nature and live as nearly as possible in accord with the laws created by the power that has created him.

HEALTH AND DISEASE Who Is Healthy And Who Is Sick?

The question of what constitutes health has puzzled many people, though at first hand the average person would be prepared to say that the answer is ridiculously easy. It would indeed seem that everyone should be able to recognize a healthy person at sight and likewise one who is ill. However, there is really no more puzzling question than this. An individual may seem to be in per¬ fect health and suddenly fall ill and almost as suddenly die or go into a decline. Another person may seem sickly and ailing, may in fact appear to be not far removed from the grave and yet continues to live for many years.

This peculiar fact is responsible for the current belief that the question of life and death, of sickness and health, are not at all in the hands of the individual, but that some peculiar power dictates who shall be well or ill, who shall live and who shall die. It would be a beautiful thing indeed if this were so. If the fates should decree that the evil and unworthy should die young and that the good should live on to a ripe old age. It is a sad but true fact however that both the good and the bad die young or live on side by side.

Nevertheless there are laws that govern life and health and if these laws are observed, a long and a healthy life is possible. If they are ignored, sickness and disease is the result. Though it is never wise to predict sickness or an early death for anyone, as the powers of the body are often far greater than they seem. On the other hand good health and long life can be predicted and can be had, if the laws of vitality and health are observed.

In other words, there is no certainty that any given individual will die shortly as a result of abuse of these laws. There is however, a certainty that an individual will live long and remain in good health, who will live up to these laws.

Here we arrive at the only true method of judging health or longevity. It is only necessary to discover

e whether the individual is living naturally and sensibly or not.

The Killing Habits

If one should overeat habitually or eat the wrong foods or stay indoors overmuch, fail to exercise or walk suffi¬ ciently, worry too much, use drugs or alcohol, or over¬ indulge in tobacco or go to excess in sex relationship or habitually overwork and not get sufficient rest or sleep, then one can be sure that life will inevitably be shortened.

Exactly how much life will be shortened in such a case depends on each individual, and it is never possible to state precisely how much injury has been done to any given individual by such modes of living.

Healthy Habits

On the other hand, any individual who will exercise daily in a sensible manner, take long walks at least three or four times a week and do at least a little walking every day in the open air, who will eat the right foods and sleep in a comfortable bed for at least eight hours out of every twenty four with the windows open to admit of a strong current of fresh air through the room, and who will conduct himself sensibly with regard to work, play, sex and all other aspects of life, is practically certain to live long and to remain in as nearly perfect health as can be readily imagined.

It might be argued that a person living the latter life would find it pretty dull and uninteresting, but this is not so. It is only because the majority of people are accustomed to excesses of one kind or another, especially food excesses, that it is hard to picture the greater and surer joy of a less nervous existence.

It is the story all over again of the opium smoker who cannot understand how anyone can get any joy out of life without resorting to the opium pipe. He knows that for him, now that he is accustomed to opium, all other joys fade into insignificance beside the dreams in¬ spired by his pipe. The vast majority of people however, manage to get along without opium and live longer and remain in better health without it, and the very thought of being the victim of such a drug, inspires horror in the mind of the normal individual.

To have perfect health, it is necessary to get away from the idea that certain destructive foods are essential, simply because they have become habitual with us. Let us not try to reason as the drunkard often does, that alcohol is good for us, that it has many sterling virtues, or that on the other hand, wrong eating and overeating are essential if we are to continue to hold our place in the world.

The drunkard must find some kind of justification for what he does as he cannot escape from the clutches of his vice. While being the victim of alcohol, he tries to imagine himself the victor. He tries to tell himself and sometimes others as well, that he drinks because he likes to and not because he has to. He is ruled by his vice but he can hardly be blamed for trying to picture himself as the ruler.

Insurance companies periodically publish statistics showing the rate of mortality amongst the insured and when these are compared with the general mortality statis¬ tics for the entire country, we find that there is hardly any difference. It appears that those who have passed the medical test for insurance are on the whole, little better off than the vast mass of the uninsured, a great number of whom could not pass these tests.

It is also a well known fact that many who are passed in these tests as being sound and in good health, die within a year or two after passing these examinations.

In the various armies of the world, every effort is made to select only those best fitted for a military life. They must be healthy, fairly strong, young, and capable of understanding and carrying out orders: A considerable number of these young men in the very bloom of youth, die each year even during peace time, and another considerable number are incapacitated by disease. Frequently in our own lives, we have met with the experience of seeing a young, robust man or woman examined by a physician or a group of physicians for some reason or an¬ other and pronounced fit and perfect or at least in fairly good health. We have seen this individual attacked by pneumonia or influenza or heart disease or what not, and pass away as though they were aged hulks or weak and frail,—disease ridden creatures. To see a friend of ours thus suddenly fall ill and die is to leave us wondering at the uncertainty of life. We begin to ask ourselves, ‘Ts there any test, technical or otherwise, that can really de¬ termine what is health or what is disease? Is there any protection against a sudden onslaught of these dreaded visitations?” The answer is that there is a method of judging as to what our fate shall be, that at least there is a sure way of protecting ourselves against disease and of prolonging life until real old age has gradually sapped our vitality.

One thing is certain and that is, that the old medical way of judging as to whether an individual is sound and healthy or not, is not the perfect way. There is something wrong, and every physician in his own practice can realize this. He daily sees patients who seem to have barely a shred of vitality left, drag on a miserable existence year after year.

On the other hand, he sees apparently robust people die at the first onslaught of some acute ailment. He oc¬ casionally sees a man of fifty go through a siege of pneu¬ monia, followed by pleurisy and live,—and perhaps in the same day, sees a man of thirty or a boy of nineteen seized in a similar way and dying in a day or two.

Such experiences often incline the physician to take a fatalistic view of the whole situation and to say to him¬ self that, ‘there is no telling who shall live and who shall (tie,—which one has the power of resistance to disease and whibTi one has not.' But strictly speaking, this is not true. It is always possible to say who will be well and who shall remain well. In other words, just how strongly the power of life burns in any individual can hardly be gauged. That this power can be fed however and that the fire can burn on in practically every living individual until that individual is seventy, eighty or ninety years of age or even more, is not only a possibility but very nearly an absolute certainty.

We must live up to the unalterable laws of life. We must eat, work, sleep, play, and love, so as to live, and not so as to sap and exhaust our resources, and bring about a premature decay of our powers, and ultimately a premature death.

As in the world of finance, we can use up our lifers capital in a few years, or starting even with an insufficient amount, we can develope and improve it, so that we can pass many who started with a far greater sum of health and vitality, and who seemed to have a far better chance of improving themselves still further.

These others however have done as the majority does. They have rested on their oars. They have not understood that to stand still is to go backwards, for the world is always moving ahead. Do not stand still. Catch up with the new movement towards a sensible readjustment of our lives so as to bring them more in accord with nature. In this harmony we shall find new happiness, better health and lengthened years.

Those who live properly are well and will continue to be well. Those who live wrongly, are sick now and will be worse later.

CAN DIET CURE DISEASE?

The question is often asked—“How can you cure disease?” “How can you repair wasted tissue through diet?”

Our bodies are created largely out of the food that we eat. Each individual cell of the body gets its share of this food, which is brought to it by our blood. Our blood is in turn directly nourished from our food. When disease is present in the body, the cells and the tissues and the blood are being attacked, injured and destroyed. Were it not for the power of the blood and cells to fight against disease, the entire body would be quickly destroyed. Nature has provided these powers and forces within the body that struggle continually to keep it in good health. If, while this struggle is going on we eat such foods as are easily handled and are quickly turned into the right kind of blood and cellular material, then the body has a readier chance to recuperate.

On the other hand, it follows that any food which is difficult to digest and full of poisonous materials will im¬ pede the efforts of the blood and cells to cure themselves and will assist in the further progress of disease.

What to do in Acute Disease

It is best in any acute condition not to eat at all, for the body needs all its powers to fight and overcome the crisis which the acute condition brings about. Food at such a time only takes away from the energy of the body because energy is required in digesting it and turn¬ ing it into blood, and at such times no energy can be spared for this purpose.

That is why Nature always takes away the appetite of the person who is acutely sick. No animal or human being can be induced to eat when they are acutely ill. It is as if Nature were to say “I am too busy now with the chief work at hand, and I have no time to reach out for further supplies or to do anything else but fight this thing through with all the forces that are at my command. I cannot spare a single corpuscle for the purpose of assisting in the digestion of food or for any other sec¬ ondary purpose.”

At such times people are often afraid that the body will cease to be nourished and will wither and die as the result of missing a meal or two or even a dozen meals or more, but there is no ground for such fears. The body has enormous reserve supplies of food for the cells and can live on itself for many days without a single ounce of nourishment taken in from the outside. Diet can there¬ fore hardly be considered in acute disease.

The best thing to do at such a time is to obey the dictates of Nature as expressed by the patient. In prac¬ tically all cases he will have no desire for food. A raging thirst may appear however, and a desire for fresh air, and some cooling touch on the skin such as a cold water sponge.

If the patient is lightly covered, given a deep enema to wash out the bowel,'—the skin bathed with cold water,— and cold water with a dash of lemon given to the patient to drink, then practically everything is being done that can be done with any real benefit at this time. The body must fight its own fight and win its own victory. It is really impossible to help it much. For no one can use their own powers to directly enable another to get well. That other gets better or worse and lives or dies, only according to his own natural reserves of strength and en¬ ergy and vitality. No one can add to these reserves though it is easy by wrong handling to assist in lowering them. Also 1^ inspiring the patient with the hope or the certainty of a cure, these reserve forces are more quickly, and more thoroughly called upon and the chances of a cure are in¬ creased.

The Use of Medicine in a Crisis

All medicines and all other unnatural methods, what¬ ever they may be, are of absolutely no avail at this moment. For every bit of stimulation that medicine may give, a reaction is caused that carries the body even further back than it has traveled on the strength of this false stimulant.

This reaction cannot be prevented. Besides, all stimula¬ tion is only a more rapid use of the natural reserves and when these reserves are used up there is nothing more with which to fight. Left to itself, Nature uses these re¬ serves as it sees fit, at the right time and in the right place. Each corpuscle of the blood is marshalled to do its work in the most perfect and efficient manner, and no man can improve upon this wonderful organization of Nature within the body.

The further trouble with medicine is that after its first effect has worn off, the body must further set about the task of getting rid of this medicine. As a rule, drugs are flung out of the body by the bowel or by the kidneys. A great deal of extra energy is used up in this work, and all this energy, it must be remembered, comes from the body’s last reserves. That is why the famous Dr. Osier, while Professor of Medicine at Oxford Uni¬ versity, stated that the “modern doctor has no need for medicine whatsoever, but only attempts to assist Nature along Nature’s own lines.”

Acute disease is both the forerunner and the aftermath of chronic disease and weakness, and while dieting can play but a little part, especially in the more critical periods of acute diseases, it can play an increasingly important part in dealing with chronic diseases.

Diet and Chronic Disease

As long as there is any hunger whatever and any food at all is taken into the body, it may as well be the right food. It may as well be food that will stimulate elimina¬ tion of filth from the bowel and bladder and out of which the digestive organs can manufacture perfect blood cells, which in turn will go to the part of the body where the disease is making its stand. It will proceed to fight the disease with increased strength, nourish the depleted cells and help to carry off the dead and the dying cells. In this way the blood gradually heals any and every lesion that occurs in the body, no matter where it may be.

The blood goes everywhere. It finds its way into every cell, into the bones, into the nerves, into the brain, into the nose and throat, into the toes, into the finger nails and toe nails and into the hair. It nourishes everything. It heals everything. It fights cuts and bruises and mends them. It knits together broken bones. Wherever it finds poisonous material in the body,—it carries it to some point where it can be eliminated. It carries this material into the lungs from where it is exhaled into the air,—into the skin, where it is driven out through the pores and washed away in the bath, or by the air that surrounds the body. It carries this dirt into the bladder, through the kidneys, and into the bowel from where it is excreted out of the body.

A great part of the blood called “lymph” does noth¬ ing else except neutralize and remove poisons from the tissues. The white corpuscles fight disease, and the red corpuscles rebuild the body, feeding wasted cells as well as healthy cells and helping to create new tissue when required. A polluted blood stream can neither remove nor neutralize poisons effectively, nor can it fight disease nor rebuild wasted tissue. Ill chosen foods, that are hard to assimilate or eliminate, can only help to pollute the blood stream.

Natural and therefore scientific diet can cure disease because it is easily digested, and promotes elimina¬ tion, instead of retarding it. Natural foods also possess the proper elements for the making of good “lymph” to neutralize tissue poisons. Such a diet also contains the necessary ingredients for the production of healthy white corpuscles to fight the invasions of the harmful varieties of bacteria and other injurious elements. It also provides the mineral and other elements out of which the red cor¬ puscles are made, which go to feed and nourish and vitalize the entire body and to reconstruct wasted parts.

It is easy to understand that if there is such a thing at all as right diet and wrong diet, then especially in a case of sickness where any food at all is eaten, it is better to eat the right foods than the wrong.

CARE OF THE HAIR

It has been said that her hair is woman's crowning glory.

With modern man, a hat takes the place of his hair. In his youth, he gives little thought to his hair, but as he leaves his twenties his first fears of baldness set in and towards middle age he is often engaged in endless search for the ‘‘Golden Fleece” or in fact, any kind of a fleece that would sprout from his own head. He tries every conceivable drug and preparation and treatment in the vain hope of restoring his lost locks. At fifty or sixty and often much sooner, he finds his hair thin or largely vanished and more than ever, as this condition approaches, does he wear his hat tightly pulled down on his forehead and never does he realize why he has been so sorely tried and punished. If he only knew that the very hat, which for a part of the time at least, hides his baldness, is largely responsible for that very condition!

The close fitting hat, tightly pulled down on his head, shuts off to a great extent the free circulation of blood in the scalp and keeps out the fresh air and the sunshine, w'hich otherwise might tend to freshen and invigorate his scalp and the hair itself. This snug hat, worn for conven¬ tion's sake, is the executioner of the hair, slowly suffocat¬ ing and destroying these slender little tubes which Nature uses for the purpose of throwing gases out of the body and at the same time for covering and warming the scalp with a loose, airy thatch. Lastly, the hair is designed by nature to set off and adorn the head and to frame it in a becoming aura.

Man nowadays cuts his hair as short as possible, flat¬ tens it down on his head with water or various sticky preparations, making’ it practically impossible for the air to reach it, even when no hat is worn. He then covers this varnished surface with an air-tight hat, that shuts in the gases from the hair and shuts out the air from his scalp; that shuts in oils or pomades or tonic or perfumes or other suffocating and poisonous material and the natural dirt that emanates from the scalp.

Primitive Man Was Never Bald

Primitive man would have looked strange indeed with¬ out his hair and there is positive proof that baldness was unknown to any of the primitive peoples. Even today, wherever we find savage or semi-savage tribes of men, we find the hair clinging profusely to their heads all through life. We also find amongst the peasants of Europe, who go around bare-headed a great deal, especially during the summer, that baldness is comparatively rare.

Even amongst the most civilized of people we find amongst men engaged in outdoor work, who frequently go about without their hats, only a slight percentage of baldness. Best of all is the commonest experience of modeirn life—the sight of women, aged, wrinkled, sick, but pos¬ sessing abundant heads of hair. Rarely do we see a woman entirely bald. Even though at times in old age the hair may become almost painfully thin, actual baldness is hardly known.

Only the professional hair specialist will come in con¬ tact with occasional cases of real baldness in women, even of the most ultra-modern type. While amongst the peasant women of the world, who go about without hats, with their hair exposed to the sun and air, baldness can be said to be practically unknown.

Our own American Indians never knew the meaning of baldness, and this can be attributed to the fact that they wore their hair long and never wore hats. Though on occasion they did wear a loose feather head dress which

U did not however, interfere materially with the circulation of the air to and from their scalps.

Women Rarely Lose Their Hair Completely

Women, even nowadays, not forgetting the present day tendency towards bobbed hair, nevertheless do not wear their hair as short as men do. They do not plaster their hair down flat on their heads with oils or pomades. In fact, they often do their best to curl it and fluff it, to make it stand away from the head as much as possible, and when they place their hats on their heads, their hat is placed loosely. It does not shut off the flow of blood to the scalp and does not completely shut off ventilation of the air to and from the scalp. It is usually made of a porous material which permits the gases from the hair to escape through it and also for a slight infiltration of air.