TO
GEORGE S. KEITH, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P.E., Scotland,
A. RABAGLIATI, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., Edinburgh,
AND
ALEXANDER HAIG, M.A., M.D., Oxon., F.R.C.P., London,
England,
WHO HAVE COMMENDED THE WRITINGS OF THE AUTHOR
IN THEIR OWN PUBLISHED WORKS,
THIS BOOK IS
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
This volume is a history, or a story, of an evolution in the professional care of the sick. It begins in inexperience and in a haze of medical superstition, and ends with a faith that Nature is the all in all in the cure of disease. The hygiene unfolded is both original and revolutionary: its practicality is of the largest, and its physiology beyond any possible question. The reader is assured in advance that every line of this volume has been written with conviction at white heat, that enforced food in sickness and the drug that corrodes are professional barbarisms unworthy of the times in which we live.
E. H. DEWEY.
Meadville, Pa., U. S. A.,
November, 1900.
CONTENTS.
[THE NO-BREAKFAST PLAN.]
| PAGE | |
| [I.] | |
| Introduction—Army experiences in the Civil War—Early years ingeneral practice—Difficulties encountered—Medicinal treatmentfound wanting as a means to superior professional success | [13] |
| [II.] | |
| A case of typhoid fever that revolutionized the Author's faith andpractice—A cure without drugs, without food—Resulting studiesof Nature in disease—Illustrative cases—A crucial experience in acase of diphtheria in the Author's family | [26] |
| [III.] | |
| A study of the brain from a new point of view—Some new physiologyevolved illustrated by severe cases of acute disease | [34] |
| [IV.] | |
| The error of enforced food in cases of severe injuries and diseasesillustrated by several striking examples | [42] |
| [V.] | |
| An apostrophe to physicians | [56] |
| [VI.] | |
| The origin of the No-breakfast Plan—Personal experience of theAuthor as a dyspeptic—His first experience without a breakfast—Physiologicalquestions considered—A new theory of the origin and development of disease and itscure—The spread of the No-breakfast Plan—Interesting cases | [60] |
| [VII.] | |
| Digestive conditions—Taste relish—Hunger relish—The moral scienceinvolved in digestion as a new study—Cheer as a digestive power—Itscontagiousness—The need of higher life in the home as a matter of better health—Cheer as a duty | [81] |
| [VIII.] | |
| The No-breakfast Plan among farmers and other laborers—A series ofvoluntary letters to an eminent divine, and the writer put down as acrank—The origin of the Author's first book—How the eminent Rev.Dr. George N. Pentecost was secured to write the introduction—Hisno-breakfast experience—The publisher converts a prominenteditor—The case of Rev. W. E. Rambo, a returned missionary—Thepublishers' missionary work among missionaries—The utility ofthe morning fast—Its unquestionable physiology—Why the hardestlabor is more easily performed and for more hours without a breakfast | [85] |
| [IX.] | |
| The utility of slow eating and thorough mastication unusually illustratedby Mr. Horace Fletcher, the author—What should we eat?—Theuse of fruit from a physiological standpoint | [105] |
| [X.] | |
| Landscape-gardening upon the human face—A pen-picture—Unrecognizedsuicide—Absurdity of the use of drugs to cure diseases—Acase of blood-letting—Mission of homœopathy—Predigested foods | [110] |