DIET
The internal chemistry of the body varies so greatly under changing conditions, the operation of any two different organisms is so hard to compare accurately, that it is impossible to set down any rule for diet which will apply properly to all patients or to all with the same disease or habit of body. In fact, only experiment with an individual can determine the exactly proper diet for him.
Through lack of judgment or of observation of the effects of certain foods upon us we often eat that which our bodies cannot properly digest and assimilate. Sometimes through accident or negligence we partake of food which is proper in kind for us but improper in quality, perhaps partially decomposed. Improper food, when taken into the body, tends to exert a deleterious effect upon health. This fact should not lead us to confine ourselves to reasoning superficially that improper foods cause disease or that dietary measures will cure disease.
Some Chiropractors have held that the hunger of individuals for certain foods is a safe guide to a proper diet. This is manifestly untrue in some cases; the voracious appetite of the convalescent typhoid patient is an example. But it would probably be true if all men were normal. Close observation of a few exceptionally well-developed and normal individuals has disclosed an interesting fact. If a man has no subluxation in that portion of the spine which controls the stomach, the ingestion of decomposing food, even though the alteration be so slight as to escape notice on casual examination, induces immediate vomiting followed by no untoward consequences. Only occasionally does one find persons without subluxations in some way affecting the stomach; in such cases the body promptly rejects and expels injurious material.
This carries us to the rather surprising conclusion that the normal person is not susceptible to the influence of bad food. In the majority of individuals, some degree of abnormality existing, improper food has a decidedly bad effect. Passing through the alimentary canal it is improperly digested; toxins are developed; these chemically affect the entire body, perhaps leading only to a congestion and inflammation of some part of the lining of the alimentary tract, perhaps producing a general fever, malaise, diarrhea, and the other effects of a general poisoning.
It has been found that proper adjustment is followed by quick relief in such cases, the commonest effect being the rapid expulsion of the deleterious matter by vomiting and diarrhea with breaking of the fever and lessening of all symptoms.
It has also been observed that during the suffering from dietetic error the subluxation controlling the stomach or some part of the small intestines is often found increased in degree with tension of the adjacent muscles. With adjustment and relief of the other symptoms the muscular tension tends to disappear. This motor reaction from the irritation of food poison undoubtedly serves to increase subluxation already existing, thus intensifying effects. But for its primary effect food poison requires a previous subluxation lowering the natural protective power of the body. Food poisoning is often a secondary cause of disease.
When it is found in any specific case that certain foods exert a bad influence upon the progress of the case, that the symptoms are aggravated by the taking of these foods, they must be abandoned. Yet no rigid diet need be prescribed in any case. Every patient will require a different diet, nor is it possible to understand the intimate chemical relations within the body sufficiently to fix a proper diet except by experiment.
A word here about fasting. If improper food were a primary cause of disease, fasting would be an effective, though somewhat radical, removal of the cause of disease and a logical procedure. Since improper food is not a primary cause of disease and since nature requires food for the repair work made possible through adjustments, it would seem unwise for Chiropractors to prescribe fasting. Also it is well to remember that fasting and starvation are synonymous and their symptoms identical.