THE DARE TO BE HEALTHY CLUB

In the ensuing pages I shall endeavour to give the reader a necessarily brief and cursory, glance into the subjects which will form the underlying motif of the vast and manifold deliberations which will constitute the fundamental basis of the projected course of study which will be brought under the consideration of the members of the proposed association and will constitute the schedule, as it were, of the periodical dissertations of these matters of world-wide and vital individual significance to be comprised in the Series of One Hundred Lessons.

I have been at some pains to avoid as far as possible the use of technical and professional phrases and terminology, for the express purpose of bringing within the scope of every faculty of understanding these subjects which are equally a matter of life and death importance to every man, woman and child, in all the wide and varied range of nationalities and languages which constitute so large a part of our great Republic and upon whose health and efficiency so much of our national life depends.

The great and ominous unrest, so much in evidence of late, is ample proof of a latent popular dissatisfaction with the conditions of life and it is equally significant of the prevailing nervous tension—the obvious result of malnutrition of the system—which is one of the most prominent popular features of the worry-worn denizen of today.

Life, Health, Happiness—that vital interdependent triad—are surely a preoccupation strong enough and precious enough to startle the minds of the most complacent; and it is with the object of awakening all to their possibilities—in health or in disease—of protection of the one, and hope and regeneration under the other, that the course of study has been inaugurated of which the following is but a bare outline.

MAN AS A UNIT.[A]

The human body is an accumulation of millions of separate cells, which are the bearers of life, and which in various groups form the different organs, the combined action of which constitutes our individual existence.

This existence itself is the natural issue of the existence of our predecessors, who generated the new life which will be transmitted by us and reappear in our offspring.

In like manner all the functions of the body form an endless chain in which not a single link must be faulty or missing, if healthy organic life is to continue.

This accumulation of cells, however, is by no means inactive. On the contrary, organic life is nothing but the constant dying of the old and the reconstruction of new cells; it means that we are in a perpetual condition of composition and consequently of decomposition throughout our entire being, its different parts and organs.

As soon as we are able to recognize this accumulation of cells as one individual whole and thus arrive at the idea of their absolute interdependence, we shall get rid of the prevalent idea, that the mere structural differences between the respective organs of the body make them separate and independent things which may be treated irrespective of one another in case of disease, or dealt with by different specialists.

We arrive then at the one great question: What is the cause of disease? Not of one or other form of disease or class of diseases, but of disease as a whole.

There is, in fact, only one disease.

What appear to us as different disturbances of the normal condition of our body, are only variations, in quantity or in quality, of the one thing. It is the variation of the controlling element which performs the necessary work of keeping the existing cells in proper condition and replacing those which in the course of nature are destroyed. In a word, the work of perpetual regeneration, which is life.

METABOLISM.

This continuous changing of the entire human body,—the removal of the discarded cells, burned up by oxidation and expelled from the body in the urine, the perspiration and other excretions, and their replacement by new ones,—is called metabolism, that is, "change of matter."

This change is brought about by means of a vital fluid in the body, which circulates from the moment in which the spermatozoon, or male seed, touches the female egg in the womb of the mother, until the time of our last breath. That fluid is the blood,—the carrier of nature's supplies to all parts of the body for the rebuilding of cells; the exact and equitable distributor in quantities of material which determines the quality of the cells.

In its marvelous performance of this function, the blood is the bearer of the sole existing condition of health; namely the necessary elements of cell-building in the right proportions.

This is health, and the lack thereof is disease.

The demand of nature for upbuilding and rebuilding is the strongest instinctive impulse of our being; and this being so, a wrong proportion may cause the upbuilding of things which are different and disturbing to the normal organism.

But, on the other hand, kindly nature exhibits an ever existent inclination to counterbalance any disturbance in the right proportion, and to bring back conditions to uniformity.

We may thus justly speak of the overwhelming healing tendency of nature.

Metabolism is, therefore, the one great dominant function of the body which, accordingly, must have our especial care.

It is the blood, consequently, to which alone we can resort if we desire to assist nature in its process and tendency of balancing and healing.

This again indicates that, notwithstanding the apparent great variety of constitutional diseases, they are all practically one and the same disease. They are all disturbances of proper metabolism, by some irregularity of the quantitative or qualitative condition of the blood.

This governing truth the great physiologist, Prof. Jacob Moleschott, has formulated in the memorable words: "It is one of the chief questions which humanity must always ask of the physician: how to attain good, healthy and active blood. And, view the question as we may, all who give it serious thought, are forced by experience to acknowledge explicitly, or otherwise, that our mental and physical capacity, and likewise the power of reproduction, are directly dependent upon our blood, and our blood on our nutrition."

VARIETY OF ORGANS.

Why then, you may ask, if such unity exists, why this dissimilarity in the tissues of the respective bodily organs? How is it that a bone in its stonelike hardness is essentially the same as the infinitely tender tissues of the eye? This difference is due to and accounted for by the adaptation of certain portions of the immense accumulation of cells to diverse functions, which has necessitated the variable conformity of the supporting elements. But all of these elements are in the blood, which carries them in the necessary quantities to the different organs to which they belong and where they are utilized to replace used-up matter.

I do not overlook the difficulty of grasping this idea of unity.

The fact, that it is so difficult to realize, has led to the greatest errors in present day medical science.

It seemed at first sight, so obviously necessary to study the different organs as entirely different groups, to work out a careful system of bones, of intestinal organs, of blood-vessels, of nerves, and so on; all of which is of course very valuable, in its place, but only from a descriptive standpoint.

Anatomy shows us what life has produced in the construction of a human form, but it does not indicate the source of life, nor, consequently, the source of health.

It is well to know the different forms of cell accumulations, which are called organs, but if we desire to keep them in good order, we must watch closely what is common to them all; for it is only from this point of view, that we are able to determine the necessary, and possibly, the lacking elements for purposes of healing.

Thus, as one of the greatest achievements of modern science, we come to the one most vital thing, so sorely needed and yet so badly neglected throughout the centuries: The chemical analysis of the human body and its different organs.

A new light has now dawned upon the subject most essential to the inauguration of a new and effective system of healing.

The physiological chemist has at length discovered that the human body, and every organ of that body consists of a certain number of chemical elements, which appear in different parts in different aggregations. These aggregations, however, repeat themselves in the various parts or organs.

It was thus finally discovered that there are twelve different main aggregations of such elements, which groups of equal elements we call tissues.

Through this discovery we have arrived at the great truth that it is not to the purpose, in healing, to turn attention to the various organs, but rather to the various tissues.

The influence which can be exercised on these tissues is exercised through the blood which nourishes all of them alike, and which has the wonderful capacity of carrying to each of them their necessary building and rebuilding, or regenerating materials,—provided, of course, that these are, as they should be, present in the blood.

THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS.

Research in physiological chemistry, has so far determined that there are sixteen definite and discernible elements—and a seventeenth is now in course of determination—which, in their various combinations and aggregations, form the different tissues of which the various organs of the human body are constructed.

The preponderance of one or more of these elements in a certain tissue forms the main or governing feature, or tissue of any organ. Thus the prevalence of potassium phosphate forms the muscle tissue, the prevalence of ammonium phosphate (lecithin) forms the nerve tissue.

For the purpose of general explanation it is sufficient to know that each of the various tissues consist of some of these elements, and that each of the tissues, at whatever part of the body it exists, is affected by the lack of any one of these elements.

The greatest chemist of the age, Justus von Liebig, maintains that if one of the necessary elements in a chemical composition is missing, the rest cannot fulfil their duties, and the consequence of such deficiency is that the cell in question must become diseased and degenerate.

This discovery, known as "the law of the minimum," has thrown an additional reassuring light upon the practice of the new school of medicine.

To bring to the tissue the lacking constituent element or elements by way of the blood is the only means of regenerating that tissue, that is, of healing its diseased cells.

DYSAEMIA THE CAUSE OF ALL CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES.

Within the limits of this abstract I do not propose to deal with the disturbances in the system caused by traumatic influences, such as wounds, etc. We are treating only of constitutional diseases which, whether of acute or of chronic character, are all caused by the lack of such chemical elements as described.

It has been shown that the blood supplies all the chemical substances to the different tissues, and that, consequently, it is the lack of these elements in the blood, which causes the tissues to degenerate, or, in other words, the lack of certain chemical elements in the blood is disease.

It is, therefore, merely a question as to which of the elements are missing or which do not exist in correct proportion, that determines the different forms of disease.

When once this fact is established, the method of healing consists mainly in supplying in the regular way, that is, by certain additions to the regular food, the missing chemical elements in organic form; and medical science has but to determine which elements are wanting, and consequently, must be supplied.

It goes without saying that in this system the old, pernicious drug method of filling the body with various poisons to counteract the effects or symptoms of disease, has no place whatever. Certain poisonous drugs may prove effective to suppress certain symptoms by benumbing the nerves and preventing pain; they may, and do counteract the natural process by which nature exercises her power in various ways in the spontaneous effort to throw off disease, in the form of inflammations, fevers or pains; but they can never heal, or eradicate disease.

With the discovery of dysaemia as the governing cause of disease, another idol of regular medicine has been cast down.

Since the discovery of the bacillus or microbe, which in varied form accompanies nearly every variety of disease, it has become a dogma of the at present dominant school of medicine that the various bacilli are the actual causes of the different varieties of disease, and the tendency has been to find some poison that would kill the bacilli in order to heal the disease.

The truth is that the bacillus is not the cause, but the effect of disease; in fact is nothing but another consequence or symptom of a specific form of disease. Bacilli grow spontaneously in the ready soil which the diseased and decomposing tissues provide, through lack of the necessary chemical elements; but to attempt to exterminate them, while the underlying conditions for their reproduction remain unchanged, can, of course, never bring about healing.

And thus the high hopes and claims attached to the sero-therapy inocculation process, the injection into the blood of anti-toxins prepared with the serum of animals, have positively vanished.

Hundreds of thousands of human beings have perished in the course of this delusion; but countless numbers will have cause, yet in our day, to rejoice at the exposure of the stupid and unnatural theory, so long legally enforced, that the introduction into the human system of such poisonous substances could remove or overcome the natural consequences of constitutional disease.

HEREDITY.

The discovery that a diseased condition of the blood leads to certain bodily disturbances which we call disease, was soon followed by the realization of the fact that one of the main conditions which bring about such disturbances is predisposition, which in many cases is hereditary.

"Hereditary disease" simply means that the improper chemical composition of the blood of one or both parents has become duplicated in the offspring, and that it has similar consequences in causing the degeneration of certain tissues, and consequently of the organs composed thereof, as may have been the case in the parents.

It is at least reassuring to know, however, that to the modern hygienic-dietetic system of healing, heredity, though perhaps more tenacious, is by no means an invincible enemy.

With a predisposition to disease the child acquires also the hereditary tendency to self-protection, and thus rational hygienic-dietetic treatment may be able to eliminate, in a comparatively short time, the chain of diseases which in former years, generations have carried hopelessly to the grave.

HEALING.

It has been already stated that healing, under the modern hygienic-dietetic system, means supplying to the blood such chemical elements as will replace what are missing in defective tissues of the body.

I will now outline the methods of carrying it into effect.

In a general way there are three means of doing this:

No. 1. Diet: The first and most natural way is by proper diet.

As the normal chemical elements are introduced into the body as constituents of the regular daily food, the task which, in the first place, confronts the hygienic-dietetic physician is that of regulating the quantity, quality and description of food.

Too little importance has heretofore been given to this question and, beyond prohibiting certain dishes and obviously detrimental viands, little attention was paid by the average physician to the matter of the every-day nourishment of the patient.

The hygienic-dietetic physician on the other hand, employs the utmost care in giving to the patient everything that will help to regenerate his blood, laying particular stress on such foods as contain the largest proportion of the chemical elements that are missing in the affected tissues.

No. 2. Nutritive compositions: The process of destruction, however, which has to be met, in more or less advanced stages, in nearly every case requires supply, in quantity of the pure material to compensate the deficiency of the missing elements, beyond that which could be derived in the ordinary way of digestion from every-day food.

To meet this difficulty, certain condensed preparations have been devised.

These nutritive compositions contain only such chemical elements in like chemical proportions as exist in the human body. They are of the purest material and contain no injurious elements whatsoever, while they foster that general regeneration of the blood which will finally bring about a complete cure.

No. 3. Physical treatments: It is the object of these treatments to assist the proper circulation of the blood; to automatically open the pores of the skin for the external treatment of certain diseases; to withdraw elements of disease from the body, and to introduce certain material influences, through the pores.

Massage, gymnastics, ablutions, various kinds of baths and "packs," constitute the chief features of the healing methods in this department.

Following this general explanation of the system, I may now go a little deeper into the question of the constituent elements, the tissues formed therefrom, the degeneration of these tissues, and the species of degeneration which constitutes the various forms of disease commonly known to us.

After this I will give a concise and simple general idea as to how my methods should be applied.

THE UNITY OF NATURE.

To fully understand the method of healing which I apply, it is necessary to understand one of the great natural laws, the discovery of which by the great chemists, Justus von Liebig and Julius Hensel, has shown us the path along which to proceed.

This law demonstrates that, in the last analysis, nature is a unit, a composition of a number of elements, each one possessing distinct qualities, the combination of which produces the various manifestations of life.

These are classified, for convenience, according to their main qualities, as minerals, plants or animals.

All of them are closely interrelated and one transmits the basic elements to the other. It is the plant which draws the mineral elements from the soil, and after certain processes of composition conveys them as food to the animal, including the human being, while such animal substances as are used for human food, contribute the balance of the elements for the upbuilding of the human body.

It is a matter of comparatively new discovery that minerals are thus just as important as a component part of the body and of its food as are other basic chemical elements.

The discovery as to the mineral constituents of the body, their nature, proportion and in which composition and in which quantity as necessary ingredients of the different body tissues, in order that they may become a part of the organism, has made it possible to administer them to the diseased body in the purest condensed and most effective way in nutritive compositions, while their proportionate existence in food is also a criterion of diet, not only for the sick, but also as a preventative of disease.

THE CHEMICAL PROCESS OF DISEASE.

In this, my scrutiny of nature's deep designs, I did not rest content when only the composition of all the tissues of the body had been laid bare; but I delved deeper and discovered that certain electric currents and reactions of these elements were the causes of accelerating or retarding the natural processes of metamorphosis and metabolism,—provoking disturbances of the normal, which express themselves as disease.

Excessive growth, and lack of growth, are thus explained, together with other phenomena which in this short chapter it is impossible to give in scientific detail. It is my object now merely to show that in their apparent simplicity the manifestations of life require special technical knowledge such as cannot be expected of the layman in any adequate degree.

Notwithstanding this free and open statement of cause and cure available to the patient and to the world at large, the hygienic-dietetic physician himself can by no means be dispensed with in case of the appearance of disease, for only by his knowledge, experience, and skilled advice can the aforesaid natural system of healing be applied with effect in each individual case. And here it must always be borne in mind that, of the countless individual organisms that this world contains, no two, even, are exactly alike; and that consequently only the skilled and accustomed practitioner will be able to regulate such hidden, internal processes as cause the visible disturbance, and thus bring about healing and regeneration, which simply means a return to the normal.

His methods will prevent the use of the surgeon's knife, which only removes the symptom, leaving the cause untouched and inflicting useless and irreparable harm. The specialist, with his poisonous specific remedies for forms of disease, which after all are only degrees of chemical exhaustion, will also disappear, together with all similar treatment which enervates the body making it an easy prey to new attacks of the same chemical anomalies which must and will most certainly return so long as they are not rectified according to the principles of biology.

THE TWELVE TISSUES.

Bearing the above principle of unity in mind, we may now proceed one step further, and study the most important details upon which the method of healing, as applied by the hygienic-dietetic physician, is based.

As previously mentioned, the cells of the human body are organized into twelve distinct tissues, some of which are the component parts of the various organs as discernible by form and function.

These twelve tissues are the following:

1. The plasmo tissue (blood plasma). 2. The lymphoid tissue. 3. The nerve tissue. 4. The bone tissue. 5. The muscular tissue. 6. The mucous membrane tissue. 7. The tooth and eye tissue. 8. The hair tissue. 9. The skin tissue. 10. The gelatigenous tissue. 11. The cartilage tissue. 12. The body tissue in general.

1. The plasmo tissue: This tissue is a liquid, the blood plasma, which is one of the important component parts of the life-giving substance, blood. It is the blood serum—blood-water and fibrogen—which harbours the white and the red corpuscles. The red corpuscles are the carriers of oxygen to the various tissues, which the body draws from the atmosphere, and of the other nutriments. They exchange it for the carbonic acid which is forming in the body, and while the blood in flowing through the system of arteries, brings the oxygen, it carries away, through the veins, the poisonous carbonic acid which is exhaled into the atmosphere.

The red corpuscles, after having performed their duties, enter the liver and are used to build the gall.

The proper quality of the plasma alone regulates the speed of blood circulation and ensures its entrance into the finest capillaries—the ultimate branches of the blood-vessels—hence, its capacity to carry supplies of nutriment to the tissues. The disturbance of this proper quality is among the main factors of constitutional disease.

2. The lymphoid tissue: The lymph is another of the life-giving liquids of the body, which through a vascular system of its own, draws certain nutritive substances from the food and carries them to certain organs which it feeds, especially the nerves.

After this slow task is completed, the rest of the lymph enters the blood and is carried by it to other parts of the body where only smaller quantities of lymph are needed for nourishing purposes.

The proper quality and chemical composition of the lymph, which is different from that of the blood, is of no less importance than that of the plasma for the preservation and regeneration of the organism.

What the plasma is to the blood, the lymph is to the nerves.

3. The nerve tissue: A particular aggregation of cells forms the nerves, which, emanating from their center in the brain and spine, run as another separate system all through the body.

This system, however, is not one of vessels; but the nerves may best be compared to the wires of a telephone system, establishing connection between the remotest parts of the body and its central point, from which the directions for both voluntary and involuntary movement are given and transmitted through the nerves.

They are of a peculiar chemical composition in which the nerve fat (lecithin) plays a very important part, since its frequent presence in insufficient quantity is among the most common causes of a great number of nervous and other diseases.

4. The bone tissue: The bones consist of a special and very distinct tissue in which lime predominates. This gives them the strength and solidity which enables them to act as support to all the other organs.

The bones too are fed by the blood, and it is through the blood that the necessary constituent parts for the regeneration of their tissue is conveyed to them.

While naturally their power of resistance is greater than that of any other organ, they are nevertheless subject to a number of structural disturbances, other than traumatic, the causes of which are sometimes hereditary, sometimes acquired through deficient properties of the nourishing blood.

Certain tissues which form the connection between the bones and the rest of the organs, and the gradual transition into other tissues, are subjects separate and distinct and will be treated separately.

5. The muscular tissue: As to quantity, the muscular tissue represents the maximum of any in the human body.

The muscles do not only consist solely of this one tissue, but of several others, as do most of the other organs; but here, as in all other cases, the principal component element is called after the organ in which it is chiefly found.

The structure of the muscular tissue varies according to its function, so that we distinguish between the striated and the unstriated or smooth muscles. This, however, has no influence on their chemical composition, a distinctive element of which is muscular fibrin, which has the particular property of contractibility.

6. The mucous membrane tissue: The mucous membrane forms the covering of many of the organs, and its chemical and structural composition is identical in all parts of the body.

It is characterized by a viscid watery secretion from the mucous glands, which are always found in the mucous membrane.

Its extremely delicate nature renders it subject to all sorts of irregularities in chemical composition.

This is the cause of numerous diseases, most of which are due either to overproduction or underproduction of the secretion which regulates numerous functions of the body.

7. The tooth and eye tissue: While very different in external appearance, functions and physical qualities, the teeth and the eyes have nevertheless, the most important part of their chemical composition in common; namely, the fluoric acid, which distinguishes them from all other tissues.

In the process of natural healing the replacing of any element lacking through destructive causes in either tissue will practically be the same.

8. The hair tissue: Certain chemical component elements are only found in the tissue which is called the hair, and which receives its nourishment like all other tissues, through the blood.

While the hair may seem to be in apparently slight connection with the rest of the body, it is in reality, none the less an organic portion of the same, and dependent, like the rest upon the same central system of supply.

9. The skin tissue: With reference to this tissue, much the same remarks apply as already mentioned in regard to the mucous membrane. It, however, has certain chemical elements, which are characteristic to its various layers.

Since the skin forms the most important intermediary between the external elements and the chemical and structural elements of the interior of the human body, it is of the greatest importance that its chemical composition should always be correct, and that it should not be subject to decomposition such as improper nourishment engenders.

It should be borne in mind that the skin, like all other organs of the body, grows from the inside outward, so that any ailment concerning the skin, which is not of a traumatic nature, must be based upon wrong or insufficient nourishment, and cannot be cured in any other way than by internal regenerative means.

10. The gelatigenous tissue: This tissue, chemically and otherwise peculiar as it is, forms the chief component part of many of the human organs, and it may be truly said that the lack of attention which its peculiarities have received in the past is responsible for more disease and its fatal issue than almost anything else.

The gelatigenous tissue contains a number of special component elements, which require special nourishment through proper diet; and in view of the fact that the gelatigenous tissue pervades so many of the various organs, its effect upon the functional abilities of a great number of them is obvious.

The elasticity of most organs which work by contraction and expansion, depends entirely upon the gelatigenous, rubber-like tissue of which they are so largely composed.

11. The cartilage tissue: Practically the same applies to the cartilage tissue; but it is only recently that it has been found to what extent this is the case.

Although entirely different in nature and chemical composition, the cartilage tissue serves to maintain certain outlines of form and feature in the human body, which are not based on the still stronger forms of supporting material, such as the bone tissue and the gelatigenous tissue.

12. The body tissue in general: This comprises the red blood corpuscles and all tissues which are in any way different from the distinct tissues just described, but which nevertheless cannot be classified as separately and distinctly independent.

It may be justly presumed that all elements of the other tissues are to be found in these final tissues which share the unity of the organism.

By devising a specially nourishing dietary system for the body tissue in general, all component elements profit, in like degree, and such disturbances as attack practically all the tissues and organs of the body severally and conjointly; will be effectively prevented or cured in the regular course of nature, in strict accordance with biological principles.

DEGENERATION OF TISSUES.

Speaking biologically, if through some disturbance in the normal chemical composition of the tissues, degeneration sets in, we speak of it as disease.

Such degeneration may attack one tissue or several at the same time.

To reduce the elements to their proper proportions, to force them thereby to reassume their normal functions, means to restore health, or, to heal.

As previously explained, it has been the great achievement of hygienic-dietetic science, based on the natural laws of biology, to discover that so many diseases which for centuries were considered as entirely different from each other in cause and treatment, were essentially the same. It was found that they were nothing but the natural consequence of impure or imperfect blood, the result of malnutrition of the vital fluid, the malign effect of which increases in degree and manifestation the longer the impurity passes, by process of heredity, from one generation to another.

Instead of following the natural tendency to return to the normal, the blood becomes the fertile soil in which all manner of irregularities may germinate in abundance, and combine in strong attacks on the normal healthy organs, which will fast relax their natural power of resistance.

The system of natural healing, while adhering closely to the principle of the unity of the body as well as of the unity of disease, has by no means ignored that such differences are due to the differences in the twelve tissues and according to the said differences, the constitutional diseases are grouped under the accustomed titles, as follows:

THE A.B.C. OF MY SYSTEM OF HEALING.

Setting aside for the time being the special groups of more complicated diseases, such as are characterized by the degeneration of several of the tissues at the same time, I will now give a short and comprehensive description of the several distinct groups of disease. In each case, as already shown, there must be a joint co-operation of these three factors:

(A.) Diet, or the natural means of providing both healthy and degenerating tissues alike with such substances as will support and strengthen the healthy tissues, enabling them to resist the danger of disease and consequent decomposition, and will also arrest degeneration and prepare the way for the regeneration of the tissue which is already affected.

(B.) Nutritive compositions. Such as will in each case introduce into the system in a pure and proportionate combination, the necessary quantities of the sixteen nutritive elements, the lack of which is the characteristic factor of all disease and which diet unaided could not adequately produce with the needful speed and proportion, unless supplemented in this simple and effective manner.

(C.) Physical treatment, for the purpose of assisting the proper distribution and assimilation of these nutritive factors—(A. and B.)—and promoting the proper circulation of the blood.

DIET.

This is a subject of vast and vital importance. It comprises the science of alimentation, which forms one of the indispensable functions of life; it is thus, of necessity, a serious preoccupation under all conditions.

I have treated this important subject in my greater work with the minute detail, which it deserves; thus, in following the advice given, therein, in chapter XVIII, the reader will be able to ascertain the foods that are best suited to various conditions, and how to prepare them in the most sensible way.

At present, I can treat it only in a short and general way, giving the principal groups of diet prescribed, with more or less variation, in each case of disease as a part of the general treatment.

A few words may show why diet plays so important a part in this system of healing.

In the body there is a laboratory which produces spontaneously everything necessary to maintain life.

This laboratory has various branches which are busy day and night without interruption.

Here the life blood is created.

Prominent amongst these branches are:

The stomach with its prolonged intestines; The liver; The kidneys; The lungs, and The skin.

Each one of these branches has a distinct part, or function to perform.

The stomach serves as the sorting house. Here the food is mixed with the gastric juice which aids digestion and dissolves those ingredients necessary to produce blood, flesh, fat, bones, etc.

Each of the other branches receives that portion of the ingredients needed to perform its share of the work.

A structure cannot be constructed without a frame upon which every part depends. In order to stand erect, the body must possess such a framework. The skeleton is the same to the body as the frame is to the building. This frame, then, or skeleton, together with the flesh, blood, etc. are all formed from the material furnished by the food.

A residue of the digested food is removed from the body as useless; everything else is utilized.

The portion of the food used, therefore, must contain all those ingredients which go to make up and maintain the body in perfect working order.

Experience has suggested certain groups of suitable diet which for the sake of convenience I shall enumerate under the title of Forms No. I to No. VI.

These food forms contain everything of which patients may safely partake, and from these selection, in each case, must be made.

They are as follows:

Form I. Complete elimination of the stomach in the nourishing process.

To allay thirst, moisten the mouth with pure or carbonized water, melting small pieces of ice on the tongue. Small sips of water either lukewarm or cold, according to the condition of the stomach. Otherwise, only introduce water by clyster—i.e.—injection, and if the stomach cannot be disturbed for more than one or two days, introduce nourishing substances by way of the rectum.

Form II. Purely liquid nourishment, "soup diet."

Consommé of pigeon, chicken, veal, mutton, beef, beef tea, meat jelly (which becomes liquid under the influence of the heat of the body,) strained soups or such as are prepared of the finest flour with water or bouillon, of barley, oats, rice (thick soup), green corn, rye flour, malted milk. All of these soups, with or without any additions, such as raw eggs, either whole or the yolk only, if well mixed and not coagulated, are easily digested.

Form III. Nourishment which is not purely liquid, but partly glutinous.

Milk and milk preparations (belonging to this group on account of their coagulation in the stomach):

(a) Cow's milk, diluted and without cream, dilution with 1-2 to 2-3 barley water, rice water, lime water, vichy water, weak tea, or pure water.

(b) Milk without cream, not diluted.

(c) Unskimmed milk.

(d) Cream, either diluted or undiluted.

(e) All of these milk combinations with an addition of yolk of egg, well-mixed, whole egg, cocoa, also a combination of egg and cocoa.

Milk mush made of flour for children, arrowroot, mondanin, cereal flour of every kind, especially oats, groat soups with tapioca or sago and potato soup.

Egg,-raw, stirred, or sucked from the shell; or slightly warmed in a cup; any of these, either with or without the addition of a little sugar or salt.

Biscuit and crackers, softened or well masticated and salivated, taken with milk, mush, etc.

Form IV. Diet of the lightest kind, containing meat, but still mainly glutinous.

Noodle soup, rice soup.

Mashed boiled brains or sweetbread, or puree of white or red roasted meat, in soup.

Brains and sweetbread boiled.

Raw scraped meat (beef, ham, etc.)

Lean veal sausages, boiled.

Mashed potatoes prepared with milk.

Rice with bouillon or with milk.

Toasted rolls and toast.

Form V. Light diet, containing meat in more solid form:

Pigeon, Chicken boiled.

Small fish with little fat, such as brook or lake trout, boiled.

Scraped beefsteak, raw ham, boiled tongue.

As delicacies: Small quantities of caviar, frogs' legs, oysters, sardelles softened in milk.

Salted potatoes crushed, spinach, young peas mashed, cauliflower, asparagus-tips, mashed chestnuts, mashed turnips, fruit sauces.

Groat or sago puddings.

Rolls, white bread.

Form VI. Somewhat heavier meat diet. (Gradually returning to ordinary food).

Pigeon, chicken, young deer, hare, everything roasted.

Beef tenderloin, tender roast beef, roast veal.

Boiled pike or carp.

Young turnips.

All dishes to be prepared with very little fat, butter to be used exclusively. All strong spices to be avoided.

NOTE:—For special dietary in all diseases, see under each separate tissue degeneration in the succeeding Chapter on Therapy.

FOOTNOTES: