The road to health is obedience to natural law as it pertains to the physical and mental being. This obedience consists in confirmation to natural law in the following respects: First, dietetically.
Whether well or ill, one should not eat foods that are unproductive of an undue amount of waste. It may be necessary, during periods of illness, in order to eliminate all waste matter from the alimentary tract, to abstain for several days from all solid food, and take only diluted fruit juices in moderate quantity instead of the customary meals, and to remove all salt from the diet, as that compound creates a false appetite, causing one to stuff himself. And what is true of salt is also true of acids, condiments, pre-Volstead drinks and tonics.
Perfect health should be the normal—that is to say, man’s usual state. Unfortunately this is not true of the human race today, and especially so of that part of it that inhabits civilized countries.
The great majority of us are in some way afflicted. We are a nation in pain. Needless to say, this condition, which is admitted by practically everybody, is a powerful detriment to the growth of happiness and idealism, without which no nation can be either truly good or great.
Men and women are not unlike roses; they too need the sunlight, the air, and dew, as well as wholesome food, if they would bloom in purity and splendor. But unlike the rose, man has the power to modify his environment.
“Health is nature’s reward for obedience to her laws. Disease, with rare exceptions, is a crime.”
Ninety per cent of all disease may be attributed to ignorance of the laws governing our bodily functions, but ignorance of the law is no excuse, as is evident from the conditions in which mankind finds itself. Ignorance concerning the laws of health is so prevalent as to be practically universal.
One actually meets people who take a sort of perverted pride in their afflictions; they love to talk about their nauseas, their rheumatism, as if they were rare possessions. These good people would not think of going without a bath, or of eating with unwashed hands; yet each day of their curtailed lives they defile themselves in various ways. Outwardly, they are clean—inwardly, they are literal tombs of uncleanliness. Is it any wonder they are diseased?
“It may be stated as a general proposition that disease is systemic filth, from which it follows that cure must be systemic cleansing.”
Disease does not come, in the majority of cases, like a thief in the night; it slowly accumulates in the tissues of the body; it represents the combined work of poor ventilation, over-dressing, faulty eating of improperly selected and prepared foods, hot bathing, and drug medication.
This continuous violation of natural law tends to load down the system with unused and unusable material, which now becomes the ground work for the vast majority of chronic diseases.
Thus we find that while serums or medicines may and often do stop symptoms of acute disease, they do not cleanse the intercellular structures, and therefore only change acute into chronic trouble.
“Medicine is only too often an added burden to an already over worked organism”.
Getting rid of impurities
Whenever the tongue is coated and the breath bad, you may be sure that the body is making an effort to rid itself of impurities by way of the mucus lining of the digestive tract. A coated tongue is an indication for an eliminative diet, or complete fast.
Let us next consider the kidneys,—which are very important waste eliminators. They take much of the excess fluid from the blood, and with it many waste products produced by organic activity. Whenever the bowels or skin become incapable of adequate function, the overload falls on them, as a result we have “indican” and other abnormal products in the urine.
Especially do we notice an increased acidity, as well as blood pressure, giving rise to organic kidney and heart disease, and also to dropsically affections.
Faulty life habits, break down the kidneys, with the consequent evolution of symptoms which doctors label with a variety of Latin names. If you do not overwork the bowels, and keep the skin in good condition, you greatly aid the kidneys in their work, thereby safe-guarding your general health.
Next to be considered are the lungs. They are the bellows of the living forge. They take the oxygen from the air and send it through the body, via the blood. They take the carbon from the blood, and, in the form of carbon-dioxide, expel it from the body.
Hence in order that every organ may at all times have an abundance of oxygen, with which to carry on its functions, it is necessary that pure, fresh air be at all times available.
We cannot leave this subject without considering the skin with its millions of pores for the elimination of waste matter. It is a very important and little understood eliminative organ, having several distinct functions:
(1) As a regulator of temperature.
(2) As an auxiliary to the kidneys in the expulsion of surplus fluids from the body.
To excite a dormant skin to activity in order that it may do its share in the eliminative work, is a favorite practice with nearly all schools of healing.
Some do it by means of drugs, others do it by means of bake ovens, electric light cabinets, hot baths, mud baths, exercise and cold packs.
Doubtless the very best way to activate the skin is to exercise every part of the body while it is exposed to the open air. This exercise should be of sufficient intensity to thoroughly excite all sweat glands; but where this cannot be done, on account of weakness or pain, we prefer a properly wired electric blanket, for the following reasons:
(1) The patient enters this appliance at atmospheric temperature, and the Blanket gradually warms, giving the system a chance to make the needed physiologic readjustment.
(2) The patient can lie down or recline at ease, thereby putting the least possible strain upon the nervous system.
(3) The current, from the house wire, running through twelve hundred feet of especially insulated cable, develops a magnetic field, which has a tonic effect upon all tissues of the body.
(4) The lines of force generated by such a blanket are cut by the circulating blood, increasing the electrolytic activity in the organs, causing them to increase their functional capacity; it also aids in dissolving various abnormal crystals and wastes, thereby facilitating their elimination from the body.
(5) By dissolving the waste, toning up the tissues and relaxing vasso-motor tension, this method perfects the circulation, and increases both nutrition and drainage.
“It is a singular fact, and not one to be overlooked, that while nature has furnished us with only one mouth by which to take in food, she has supplied us with four avenues through which to eliminate waste”.