Now, this failure to recognize a great medical discovery is an old story. It was the experience of Harvey [We knew poor Harvey would be dragged into this.—Ed.], of Jenner and of Lister. But the world moves on, and men’s brains should improve, and it should be possible to shorten the time of persecution which the great pioneers of science have to suffer. I put to you this simple proposition: Send a reliable man of science to the clinic of Albert Abrams, and let him stay there as long as he pleases and see all that he wishes to see, and then send you a report, and if it indicates that you have blundered in your condemnation, be honest and say so, and save your profession from another black mark against its name.
Upton Sinclair, Pasadena, Cal.
Comment
A testimonial is of value to the extent that the person giving it is an authority on the subject on which he testifies. When Mr. Sinclair testifies on socialism we may listen respectfully, believing him competent to express an opinion; but when Mr. Sinclair gives a testimonial on certain bizarre methods of interpreting difficult and obscure problems in medicine, he leaves us cold.
Mr. Sinclair says that he has spent time in Dr. Abrams’ clinic and is wonderfully impressed with Dr. Abrams’ achievements. So is the small boy impressed with the marvelous facility with which the magician extracts the white rabbit from the silk hat. Mr. Sinclair is convinced “that Albert Abrams has discovered the great secret of the diagnosis and cure of all the major diseases.” The small boy is equally convinced that the prestidigitator has solved the mystery of producing snow white bunnies from airy nothings.
Great store seems to be placed by Mr. Sinclair on the favorable reports that he obtained from those who are relieving the public—of from $1,000 to $2,000 a week—by the Abrams methods of diagnosis and treatment. What kind of evidence did he expect to get from such obviously ex parte sources? Mr. Sinclair’s naïveté may be childlike, but it is not scientific. While the significance of the statement may not be apparent to Mr. Sinclair, it is a fact that when the names of the one hundred or more lessees of the Abrams “Oscilloclast” were checked up it was found that a number of these individuals were already in the Propaganda files in some other connection. That these disciples of Abrams, who are “enjoying incomes of from $1,000 to $2,000 a week,” should speak favorably of the Abrams method was inevitable!
Some years ago Upton Sinclair wrote a book on his (at that time) panacea for human ailments. It was the “Fasting Cure.” At that time he told of individual acquaintances suffering from various ailments: one was “dying of kidney trouble”; another was “in the hospital from nervous breakdown”; still another had “only a year to live,” while a fourth was “a nervous wreck, craving for death.” Of these Mr. Sinclair said at the time: “And there is not one of these people whom I could not cure if I had him alone for a couple of weeks.”
MR. SINCLAIR AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
At that time Mr. Sinclair was greatly perturbed at the attitude of the medical profession toward his dictum that “the fast is Nature’s remedy for all diseases.” There was just one physician “who was really interested.” This man lived “in an out of the way town in Arkansas” and asked Sinclair to “let him print several thousand copies of the article in the form of a pamphlet to be distributed among his patients.” As Mr. Sinclair said at the time, “one single mind among all the 140,000 [physicians], open to a new truth!” And this “open mind,” that of a man who was practicing in a small town in Arkansas and needed “several thousand copies” of the Sinclair article to distribute to his patients!
After his “fasting cure” experience, Mr. Sinclair had the “raw food” fad—also abandoned in due time. In one of his recent books (“The Brass Check”) he refers to his outgrown fads in the following words: “I ... was willing to try anything in the hope of solving the health problem, which I have since realized is insolvable—there being no diet or system of any sort which will permit a man to overwork with impunity.” He states further in this same connection: