Water As Medicine and Food.—There is no royal road to health once deeply diseased. In certain cases, and for a limited period even in these, hot water is invaluable. But if long continued—used as a constant beverage instead of a temporary expedient to aid in removing the slime and “gurry” from stomachs
deeply coated[94]—the effect will be to keep this organ weak, as a number of Turkish baths every day would enfeeble, in time, the strongest man. One valid objection to tea, chocolate, and coffee is, that they are usually taken hot (see “Coffee, etc.”).
[94] Such patients require a more or less extended fast. This is always safe, and in desperate cases the only means by which the necessary absorbing and healing process can be assured (see pp. 62-71-73-169). The stomach of a healthy creature is, when simply rinsed, absolutely clean and free from offensive matters; but the constipated dyspeptic, or the consumptive, and many acutely diseased persons, have stomachs which resemble that of an old, stall-fed ox, which has to be scraped by the hour before the meanest tripe-eater would buy it, or place it upon his table at any price. Yet a great deal of this kind of tripe is eaten by stall-fed people every day. The flesh of healthy cattle finds no place in our markets nor on our tables. Beef creatures are fed for fatness and tenderness, which is disease.
Warm water is about the most effectual remedy known to me for acute dyspepsia. It should be drunk profusely, even to stomach distension, with finger exploration, if necessary, to produce vomiting; then a few cupfuls to retain, to wash away any residue of undigested food, dilute the blood, etc. But cool, fresh water is the beverage par excellence for all the year round (see pp. 76-90-100).
4 [NOTE ON “NATURAL DIET.”]
With regard to the suggestion, on page [211], of using milk to wet farinaceous foods, in place of depending solely upon the natural mouth-juices, I wish to say that it was felt by me, at the time, to be entirely unphysiological, and by no means the best way to manage. I now wish to urge that in so far as any one chooses to test the advantages of this regimen
he will not depart from a truly natural way, so far as the natural way is possible; but rather use the whole grain, or the whole meal dry, and take the milk (if indulged in at all) by itself, and fruit likewise—after the grain. Several remarkable cases have occurred since this book was first issued, in which the curative powers of this diet have been displayed in a most marked manner. I take occasion to mention one. Mrs. L., of Lee, N. H., had been suffering for eight years, during which she had been able to walk but little. She was growing worse, and finally was pronounced by her physician incurably diseased with “ovarian tumor.” After six months’ use of uncooked food—a breakfast of fruit only, with dinner at night composed of unsifted wheat meal (from one-third to one-half cupful, at first, the amount increased later with increased exercise); dry, followed with a little fruit—she is up and about the house, aiding in the housework, and the past week did the entire family ironing. She has been for eight years a great sufferer, but all her pains have been banished, and her strength and general health are steadily improving under a continuance of the diet as above described, together with light, loose clothing, much fresh air, air-baths, self hand-rubbing, and gradually increasing exercise from very small beginnings.
5 [NOTE TO PAGE 232.]
The Long-sought Principle.-It is confessedly a standing disgrace to our profession that, after all the boasted “progress in medicine” during
these hundreds of years of research and experimentation, not one great principle has been established by means of which the people can be, even if disposed (and it can hardly be said that they are, generally), guided toward perfect health. It is charged that vegetarianism, even, has failed to speedily make sound, bright-eyed, clear-skinned, healthy and therefore handsome men and women, out of life-long “sinners” against the laws of life; and it must be admitted that not all its promises are verified in practice, although it seldom fails to greatly improve all who adopt the regimen (imperfect as it is—and it is very imperfect) as practiced at the various hygienic Cures at home and abroad. The trouble is that food-reformers have only undertaken to modify, with half-way measures—to change a very bad diet for one far from good, one form of “mush” for another less harmful, but by no means physiological. I would assert here as the one all-sufficient principle, so far as physical health is concerned, looking to the rearing of children, that if we were to take a thousand new-born infants—good, bad, and indifferent, as to inheritance—and give them pure cow’s milk, avoiding the cramming that is universally practiced; say, give them two full meals, or three moderate ones a day (the quantity altogether gauged by the individual’s digestive capacity); and, as they should arrive at suitable age (i. e., as teeth began to develop), feed them on strictly natural food—the natural diet—fruits, and grains (in winter, soaked twelve hours in little water[95]), the fruit in large proportion; give them a