The method of applying the principles of physiological chemistry to the enriching of the mineral content of our foodstuffs evolved by me is, with due recognition of the difference between the vegetable and animal kingdoms, equally applicable in the raising of all our foodstuffs with an augmented mineral content. I will adduce just one result of my work in the handling of small fruit: on the average, 100 grams of dried strawberries will yield 8.6 to 9.3 milligrams of iron, but strawberries raised by me yield from 30 to 40 milligrams per 100 grams.
In view of the facts with regard to the function of these minerals, it is indisputably true that a ration is physiologically inefficient if it does not contain a sufficiency of them in proper proportion. Moreover, this is trebly true in the case of those whose constitution has been weakened by loss of blood from rounds, by shell shock and trench fever, and of those here at home whose nerve tissue has been degenerated and whose blood has been weakened by anxiety and the strain of unwonted manual labor. The last consideration applies with especial force to the multitudes of women who have entered industry as manual laborers. What kind of offspring can we expect from these people whose plasma is thus degenerated? The children are the citizens of the future, and even before they are born we must plan for their health.
What could be more effective in treating the anaemic condition of wounded and crippled boys, and in treating the same condition in women industrial workers, than haemoglobin eggs?
What could be more efficacious in treating conditions arising from shell shock, from bad wounds and operations thereon, and neurasthenia in general, than an abundance of lecithin (which, as you know, dear doctor, is made from the yolk of the egg)?
What could be more successfully used in treating conditions arising from shattered bones and from operations for the removal of bone tissue than calcareous eggs in connection with a ration perfectly balanced as regards all of the other essential elements.
For the regeneration of the blood and bone and nerve tissue of these victims of war, something more than a sufficiency of nutritive food, as that term is commonly used, is needed, and something more than medicine is needed!
I am the last person in the world to deny that wonderful progress is made in surgery every day, and the last to fail to applaud its successful efforts, but you know quite as well as I do that in 90 out of 100 cases recovery involves exhaustion of the patient's reserve energy. Moreover, when the reserve energy has already been drawn upon almost to the point of exhaustion, no matter how successful the operation may be the recovery of the patient is a very doubtful quantity. The first requisite in all surgical cases, as also in all anaemic and neurasthenic cases, is to restore metabolism to its normal condition and thus help the patient to regain his reserve energy in order to prevent the collapse of the whole fabric.
It is indubitably true that healthy metabolism and the restoration of reserve energy depends upon the organism being given the requisite quantity of the sixteen essential elements of organic life in easily digestible and assimilable form, and I am asking for the opportunity to demonstrate how foods extremely rich in these elements may be produced and used to aid nature. I have not entered into a full discussion of the various aspects of my method of accomplishing that, but have confined myself to consideration of the basic principles underlying it. Neither have I attempted to show how these different minerals will serve as regenerative agents in different dysaemic conditions. I am prepared to discuss the matter from both of these viewpoints, however, and, more than that, I am ready to practically demonstrate the soundness of my theories, when given an opportunity under proper conditions to do so.
—Sapienti sat—
FINIS.