I have been at some pains to avoid as far as possible the use of technical and professional phrases and terminology, for the express purpose of bringing within the scope of every faculty of understanding these subjects which are equally a matter of life and death importance to every man, woman and child, in all the wide and varied range of nationalities and languages which constitute so large a part of our great Republic and upon whose health and efficiency so much of our national life depends.

The great and ominous unrest, so much in evidence of late, is ample proof of a latent popular dissatisfaction with the conditions of life and it is equally significant of the prevailing nervous tension—the obvious result of malnutrition of the system—which is one of the most prominent popular features of the worry-worn denizen of today.

Life, Health, Happiness—that vital interdependent triad—are surely a preoccupation strong enough and precious enough to startle the minds of the most complacent; and it is with the object of awakening all to their possibilities—in health or in disease—of protection of the one, and hope and regeneration under the other, that the course of study has been inaugurated of which the following is but a bare outline.

MAN AS A UNIT.[A]

The human body is an accumulation of millions of separate cells, which are the bearers of life, and which in various groups form the different organs, the combined action of which constitutes our individual existence.

This existence itself is the natural issue of the existence of our predecessors, who generated the new life which will be transmitted by us and reappear in our offspring.

In like manner all the functions of the body form an endless chain in which not a single link must be faulty or missing, if healthy organic life is to continue.

This accumulation of cells, however, is by no means inactive. On the contrary, organic life is nothing but the constant dying of the old and the reconstruction of new cells; it means that we are in a perpetual condition of composition and consequently of decomposition throughout our entire being, its different parts and organs.

As soon as we are able to recognize this accumulation of cells as one individual whole and thus arrive at the idea of their absolute interdependence, we shall get rid of the prevalent idea, that the mere structural differences between the respective organs of the body make them separate and independent things which may be treated irrespective of one another in case of disease, or dealt with by different specialists.

We arrive then at the one great question: What is the cause of disease? Not of one or other form of disease or class of diseases, but of disease as a whole.

There is, in fact, only one disease.

What appear to us as different disturbances of the normal condition of our body, are only variations, in quantity or in quality, of the one thing. It is the variation of the controlling element which performs the necessary work of keeping the existing cells in proper condition and replacing those which in the course of nature are destroyed. In a word, the work of perpetual regeneration, which is life.

METABOLISM.

This continuous changing of the entire human body,—the removal of the discarded cells, burned up by oxidation and expelled from the body in the urine, the perspiration and other excretions, and their replacement by new ones,—is called metabolism, that is, "change of matter."

This change is brought about by means of a vital fluid in the body, which circulates from the moment in which the spermatozoon, or male seed, touches the female egg in the womb of the mother, until the time of our last breath. That fluid is the blood,—the carrier of nature's supplies to all parts of the body for the rebuilding of cells; the exact and equitable distributor in quantities of material which determines the quality of the cells.

In its marvelous performance of this function, the blood is the bearer of the sole existing condition of health; namely the necessary elements of cell-building in the right proportions.

This is health, and the lack thereof is disease.

The demand of nature for upbuilding and rebuilding is the strongest instinctive impulse of our being; and this being so, a wrong proportion may cause the upbuilding of things which are different and disturbing to the normal organism.

But, on the other hand, kindly nature exhibits an ever existent inclination to counterbalance any disturbance in the right proportion, and to bring back conditions to uniformity.

We may thus justly speak of the overwhelming healing tendency of nature.

Metabolism is, therefore, the one great dominant function of the body which, accordingly, must have our especial care.

It is the blood, consequently, to which alone we can resort if we desire to assist nature in its process and tendency of balancing and healing.

This again indicates that, notwithstanding the apparent great variety of constitutional diseases, they are all practically one and the same disease. They are all disturbances of proper metabolism, by some irregularity of the quantitative or qualitative condition of the blood.

This governing truth the great physiologist, Prof. Jacob Moleschott, has formulated in the memorable words: "It is one of the chief questions which humanity must always ask of the physician: how to attain good, healthy and active blood. And, view the question as we may, all who give it serious thought, are forced by experience to acknowledge explicitly, or otherwise, that our mental and physical capacity, and likewise the power of reproduction, are directly dependent upon our blood, and our blood on our nutrition."

VARIETY OF ORGANS.

Why then, you may ask, if such unity exists, why this dissimilarity in the tissues of the respective bodily organs? How is it that a bone in its stonelike hardness is essentially the same as the infinitely tender tissues of the eye? This difference is due to and accounted for by the adaptation of certain portions of the immense accumulation of cells to diverse functions, which has necessitated the variable conformity of the supporting elements. But all of these elements are in the blood, which carries them in the necessary quantities to the different organs to which they belong and where they are utilized to replace used-up matter.

I do not overlook the difficulty of grasping this idea of unity.

The fact, that it is so difficult to realize, has led to the greatest errors in present day medical science.

It seemed at first sight, so obviously necessary to study the different organs as entirely different groups, to work out a careful system of bones, of intestinal organs, of blood-vessels, of nerves, and so on; all of which is of course very valuable, in its place, but only from a descriptive standpoint.

Anatomy shows us what life has produced in the construction of a human form, but it does not indicate the source of life, nor, consequently, the source of health.

It is well to know the different forms of cell accumulations, which are called organs, but if we desire to keep them in good order, we must watch closely what is common to them all; for it is only from this point of view, that we are able to determine the necessary, and possibly, the lacking elements for purposes of healing.

Thus, as one of the greatest achievements of modern science, we come to the one most vital thing, so sorely needed and yet so badly neglected throughout the centuries: The chemical analysis of the human body and its different organs.

A new light has now dawned upon the subject most essential to the inauguration of a new and effective system of healing.

The physiological chemist has at length discovered that the human body, and every organ of that body consists of a certain number of chemical elements, which appear in different parts in different aggregations. These aggregations, however, repeat themselves in the various parts or organs.

It was thus finally discovered that there are twelve different main aggregations of such elements, which groups of equal elements we call tissues.

Through this discovery we have arrived at the great truth that it is not to the purpose, in healing, to turn attention to the various organs, but rather to the various tissues.

The influence which can be exercised on these tissues is exercised through the blood which nourishes all of them alike, and which has the wonderful capacity of carrying to each of them their necessary building and rebuilding, or regenerating materials,—provided, of course, that these are, as they should be, present in the blood.

THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS.

Research in physiological chemistry, has so far determined that there are sixteen definite and discernible elements—and a seventeenth is now in course of determination—which, in their various combinations and aggregations, form the different tissues of which the various organs of the human body are constructed.

The preponderance of one or more of these elements in a certain tissue forms the main or governing feature, or tissue of any organ. Thus the prevalence of potassium phosphate forms the muscle tissue, the prevalence of ammonium phosphate (lecithin) forms the nerve tissue.

For the purpose of general explanation it is sufficient to know that each of the various tissues consist of some of these elements, and that each of the tissues, at whatever part of the body it exists, is affected by the lack of any one of these elements.

The greatest chemist of the age, Justus von Liebig, maintains that if one of the necessary elements in a chemical composition is missing, the rest cannot fulfil their duties, and the consequence of such deficiency is that the cell in question must become diseased and degenerate.

This discovery, known as "the law of the minimum," has thrown an additional reassuring light upon the practice of the new school of medicine.

To bring to the tissue the lacking constituent element or elements by way of the blood is the only means of regenerating that tissue, that is, of healing its diseased cells.

DYSAEMIA THE CAUSE OF ALL CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES.

Within the limits of this abstract I do not propose to deal with the disturbances in the system caused by traumatic influences, such as wounds, etc. We are treating only of constitutional diseases which, whether of acute or of chronic character, are all caused by the lack of such chemical elements as described.

It has been shown that the blood supplies all the chemical substances to the different tissues, and that, consequently, it is the lack of these elements in the blood, which causes the tissues to degenerate, or, in other words, the lack of certain chemical elements in the blood is disease.

It is, therefore, merely a question as to which of the elements are missing or which do not exist in correct proportion, that determines the different forms of disease.

When once this fact is established, the method of healing consists mainly in supplying in the regular way, that is, by certain additions to the regular food, the missing chemical elements in organic form; and medical science has but to determine which elements are wanting, and consequently, must be supplied.

It goes without saying that in this system the old, pernicious drug method of filling the body with various poisons to counteract the effects or symptoms of disease, has no place whatever. Certain poisonous drugs may prove effective to suppress certain symptoms by benumbing the nerves and preventing pain; they may, and do counteract the natural process by which nature exercises her power in various ways in the spontaneous effort to throw off disease, in the form of inflammations, fevers or pains; but they can never heal, or eradicate disease.

With the discovery of dysaemia as the governing cause of disease, another idol of regular medicine has been cast down.

Since the discovery of the bacillus or microbe, which in varied form accompanies nearly every variety of disease, it has become a dogma of the at present dominant school of medicine that the various bacilli are the actual causes of the different varieties of disease, and the tendency has been to find some poison that would kill the bacilli in order to heal the disease.

The truth is that the bacillus is not the cause, but the effect of disease; in fact is nothing but another consequence or symptom of a specific form of disease. Bacilli grow spontaneously in the ready soil which the diseased and decomposing tissues provide, through lack of the necessary chemical elements; but to attempt to exterminate them, while the underlying conditions for their reproduction remain unchanged, can, of course, never bring about healing.

And thus the high hopes and claims attached to the sero-therapy inocculation process, the injection into the blood of anti-toxins prepared with the serum of animals, have positively vanished.

Hundreds of thousands of human beings have perished in the course of this delusion; but countless numbers will have cause, yet in our day, to rejoice at the exposure of the stupid and unnatural theory, so long legally enforced, that the introduction into the human system of such poisonous substances could remove or overcome the natural consequences of constitutional disease.

HEREDITY.

The discovery that a diseased condition of the blood leads to certain bodily disturbances which we call disease, was soon followed by the realization of the fact that one of the main conditions which bring about such disturbances is predisposition, which in many cases is hereditary.

"Hereditary disease" simply means that the improper chemical composition of the blood of one or both parents has become duplicated in the offspring, and that it has similar consequences in causing the degeneration of certain tissues, and consequently of the organs composed thereof, as may have been the case in the parents.

It is at least reassuring to know, however, that to the modern hygienic-dietetic system of healing, heredity, though perhaps more tenacious, is by no means an invincible enemy.

With a predisposition to disease the child acquires also the hereditary tendency to self-protection, and thus rational hygienic-dietetic treatment may be able to eliminate, in a comparatively short time, the chain of diseases which in former years, generations have carried hopelessly to the grave.

HEALING.

It has been already stated that healing, under the modern hygienic-dietetic system, means supplying to the blood such chemical elements as will replace what are missing in defective tissues of the body.

I will now outline the methods of carrying it into effect.

In a general way there are three means of doing this:

No. 1. Diet: The first and most natural way is by proper diet.

As the normal chemical elements are introduced into the body as constituents of the regular daily food, the task which, in the first place, confronts the hygienic-dietetic physician is that of regulating the quantity, quality and description of food.

Too little importance has heretofore been given to this question and, beyond prohibiting certain dishes and obviously detrimental viands, little attention was paid by the average physician to the matter of the every-day nourishment of the patient.

The hygienic-dietetic physician on the other hand, employs the utmost care in giving to the patient everything that will help to regenerate his blood, laying particular stress on such foods as contain the largest proportion of the chemical elements that are missing in the affected tissues.

No. 2. Nutritive compositions: The process of destruction, however, which has to be met, in more or less advanced stages, in nearly every case requires supply, in quantity of the pure material to compensate the deficiency of the missing elements, beyond that which could be derived in the ordinary way of digestion from every-day food.

To meet this difficulty, certain condensed preparations have been devised.

These nutritive compositions contain only such chemical elements in like chemical proportions as exist in the human body. They are of the purest material and contain no injurious elements whatsoever, while they foster that general regeneration of the blood which will finally bring about a complete cure.

No. 3. Physical treatments: It is the object of these treatments to assist the proper circulation of the blood; to automatically open the pores of the skin for the external treatment of certain diseases; to withdraw elements of disease from the body, and to introduce certain material influences, through the pores.

Massage, gymnastics, ablutions, various kinds of baths and "packs," constitute the chief features of the healing methods in this department.

Following this general explanation of the system, I may now go a little deeper into the question of the constituent elements, the tissues formed therefrom, the degeneration of these tissues, and the species of degeneration which constitutes the various forms of disease commonly known to us.

After this I will give a concise and simple general idea as to how my methods should be applied.

THE UNITY OF NATURE.

To fully understand the method of healing which I apply, it is necessary to understand one of the great natural laws, the discovery of which by the great chemists, Justus von Liebig and Julius Hensel, has shown us the path along which to proceed.

This law demonstrates that, in the last analysis, nature is a unit, a composition of a number of elements, each one possessing distinct qualities, the combination of which produces the various manifestations of life.

These are classified, for convenience, according to their main qualities, as minerals, plants or animals.

All of them are closely interrelated and one transmits the basic elements to the other. It is the plant which draws the mineral elements from the soil, and after certain processes of composition conveys them as food to the animal, including the human being, while such animal substances as are used for human food, contribute the balance of the elements for the upbuilding of the human body.

It is a matter of comparatively new discovery that minerals are thus just as important as a component part of the body and of its food as are other basic chemical elements.

The discovery as to the mineral constituents of the body, their nature, proportion and in which composition and in which quantity as necessary ingredients of the different body tissues, in order that they may become a part of the organism, has made it possible to administer them to the diseased body in the purest condensed and most effective way in nutritive compositions, while their proportionate existence in food is also a criterion of diet, not only for the sick, but also as a preventative of disease.

THE CHEMICAL PROCESS OF DISEASE.

In this, my scrutiny of nature's deep designs, I did not rest content when only the composition of all the tissues of the body had been laid bare; but I delved deeper and discovered that certain electric currents and reactions of these elements were the causes of accelerating or retarding the natural processes of metamorphosis and metabolism,—provoking disturbances of the normal, which express themselves as disease.

Excessive growth, and lack of growth, are thus explained, together with other phenomena which in this short chapter it is impossible to give in scientific detail. It is my object now merely to show that in their apparent simplicity the manifestations of life require special technical knowledge such as cannot be expected of the layman in any adequate degree.

Notwithstanding this free and open statement of cause and cure available to the patient and to the world at large, the hygienic-dietetic physician himself can by no means be dispensed with in case of the appearance of disease, for only by his knowledge, experience, and skilled advice can the aforesaid natural system of healing be applied with effect in each individual case. And here it must always be borne in mind that, of the countless individual organisms that this world contains, no two, even, are exactly alike; and that consequently only the skilled and accustomed practitioner will be able to regulate such hidden, internal processes as cause the visible disturbance, and thus bring about healing and regeneration, which simply means a return to the normal.

His methods will prevent the use of the surgeon's knife, which only removes the symptom, leaving the cause untouched and inflicting useless and irreparable harm. The specialist, with his poisonous specific remedies for forms of disease, which after all are only degrees of chemical exhaustion, will also disappear, together with all similar treatment which enervates the body making it an easy prey to new attacks of the same chemical anomalies which must and will most certainly return so long as they are not rectified according to the principles of biology.

THE TWELVE TISSUES.

Bearing the above principle of unity in mind, we may now proceed one step further, and study the most important details upon which the method of healing, as applied by the hygienic-dietetic physician, is based.

As previously mentioned, the cells of the human body are organized into twelve distinct tissues, some of which are the component parts of the various organs as discernible by form and function.

These twelve tissues are the following:

1. The plasmo tissue (blood plasma). 2. The lymphoid tissue. 3. The nerve tissue. 4. The bone tissue. 5. The muscular tissue. 6. The mucous membrane tissue. 7. The tooth and eye tissue. 8. The hair tissue. 9. The skin tissue. 10. The gelatigenous tissue. 11. The cartilage tissue. 12. The body tissue in general.

1. The plasmo tissue: This tissue is a liquid, the blood plasma, which is one of the important component parts of the life-giving substance, blood. It is the blood serum—blood-water and fibrogen—which harbours the white and the red corpuscles. The red corpuscles are the carriers of oxygen to the various tissues, which the body draws from the atmosphere, and of the other nutriments. They exchange it for the carbonic acid which is forming in the body, and while the blood in flowing through the system of arteries, brings the oxygen, it carries away, through the veins, the poisonous carbonic acid which is exhaled into the atmosphere.

The red corpuscles, after having performed their duties, enter the liver and are used to build the gall.

The proper quality of the plasma alone regulates the speed of blood circulation and ensures its entrance into the finest capillaries—the ultimate branches of the blood-vessels—hence, its capacity to carry supplies of nutriment to the tissues. The disturbance of this proper quality is among the main factors of constitutional disease.

2. The lymphoid tissue: The lymph is another of the life-giving liquids of the body, which through a vascular system of its own, draws certain nutritive substances from the food and carries them to certain organs which it feeds, especially the nerves.

After this slow task is completed, the rest of the lymph enters the blood and is carried by it to other parts of the body where only smaller quantities of lymph are needed for nourishing purposes.

The proper quality and chemical composition of the lymph, which is different from that of the blood, is of no less importance than that of the plasma for the preservation and regeneration of the organism.

What the plasma is to the blood, the lymph is to the nerves.

3. The nerve tissue: A particular aggregation of cells forms the nerves, which, emanating from their center in the brain and spine, run as another separate system all through the body.

This system, however, is not one of vessels; but the nerves may best be compared to the wires of a telephone system, establishing connection between the remotest parts of the body and its central point, from which the directions for both voluntary and involuntary movement are given and transmitted through the nerves.

They are of a peculiar chemical composition in which the nerve fat (lecithin) plays a very important part, since its frequent presence in insufficient quantity is among the most common causes of a great number of nervous and other diseases.

4. The bone tissue: The bones consist of a special and very distinct tissue in which lime predominates. This gives them the strength and solidity which enables them to act as support to all the other organs.

The bones too are fed by the blood, and it is through the blood that the necessary constituent parts for the regeneration of their tissue is conveyed to them.

While naturally their power of resistance is greater than that of any other organ, they are nevertheless subject to a number of structural disturbances, other than traumatic, the causes of which are sometimes hereditary, sometimes acquired through deficient properties of the nourishing blood.

Certain tissues which form the connection between the bones and the rest of the organs, and the gradual transition into other tissues, are subjects separate and distinct and will be treated separately.

5. The muscular tissue: As to quantity, the muscular tissue represents the maximum of any in the human body.

The muscles do not only consist solely of this one tissue, but of several others, as do most of the other organs; but here, as in all other cases, the principal component element is called after the organ in which it is chiefly found.

The structure of the muscular tissue varies according to its function, so that we distinguish between the striated and the unstriated or smooth muscles. This, however, has no influence on their chemical composition, a distinctive element of which is muscular fibrin, which has the particular property of contractibility.

6. The mucous membrane tissue: The mucous membrane forms the covering of many of the organs, and its chemical and structural composition is identical in all parts of the body.

It is characterized by a viscid watery secretion from the mucous glands, which are always found in the mucous membrane.

Its extremely delicate nature renders it subject to all sorts of irregularities in chemical composition.

This is the cause of numerous diseases, most of which are due either to overproduction or underproduction of the secretion which regulates numerous functions of the body.

7. The tooth and eye tissue: While very different in external appearance, functions and physical qualities, the teeth and the eyes have nevertheless, the most important part of their chemical composition in common; namely, the fluoric acid, which distinguishes them from all other tissues.

In the process of natural healing the replacing of any element lacking through destructive causes in either tissue will practically be the same.

8. The hair tissue: Certain chemical component elements are only found in the tissue which is called the hair, and which receives its nourishment like all other tissues, through the blood.

While the hair may seem to be in apparently slight connection with the rest of the body, it is in reality, none the less an organic portion of the same, and dependent, like the rest upon the same central system of supply.

9. The skin tissue: With reference to this tissue, much the same remarks apply as already mentioned in regard to the mucous membrane. It, however, has certain chemical elements, which are characteristic to its various layers.

Since the skin forms the most important intermediary between the external elements and the chemical and structural elements of the interior of the human body, it is of the greatest importance that its chemical composition should always be correct, and that it should not be subject to decomposition such as improper nourishment engenders.

It should be borne in mind that the skin, like all other organs of the body, grows from the inside outward, so that any ailment concerning the skin, which is not of a traumatic nature, must be based upon wrong or insufficient nourishment, and cannot be cured in any other way than by internal regenerative means.

10. The gelatigenous tissue: This tissue, chemically and otherwise peculiar as it is, forms the chief component part of many of the human organs, and it may be truly said that the lack of attention which its peculiarities have received in the past is responsible for more disease and its fatal issue than almost anything else.

The gelatigenous tissue contains a number of special component elements, which require special nourishment through proper diet; and in view of the fact that the gelatigenous tissue pervades so many of the various organs, its effect upon the functional abilities of a great number of them is obvious.

The elasticity of most organs which work by contraction and expansion, depends entirely upon the gelatigenous, rubber-like tissue of which they are so largely composed.

11. The cartilage tissue: Practically the same applies to the cartilage tissue; but it is only recently that it has been found to what extent this is the case.

Although entirely different in nature and chemical composition, the cartilage tissue serves to maintain certain outlines of form and feature in the human body, which are not based on the still stronger forms of supporting material, such as the bone tissue and the gelatigenous tissue.

12. The body tissue in general: This comprises the red blood corpuscles and all tissues which are in any way different from the distinct tissues just described, but which nevertheless cannot be classified as separately and distinctly independent.

It may be justly presumed that all elements of the other tissues are to be found in these final tissues which share the unity of the organism.

* * * * *

By devising a specially nourishing dietary system for the body tissue in general, all component elements profit, in like degree, and such disturbances as attack practically all the tissues and organs of the body severally and conjointly; will be effectively prevented or cured in the regular course of nature, in strict accordance with biological principles.

DEGENERATION OF TISSUES.

Speaking biologically, if through some disturbance in the normal chemical composition of the tissues, degeneration sets in, we speak of it as disease.

Such degeneration may attack one tissue or several at the same time.

To reduce the elements to their proper proportions, to force them thereby to reassume their normal functions, means to restore health, or, to heal.

As previously explained, it has been the great achievement of hygienic-dietetic science, based on the natural laws of biology, to discover that so many diseases which for centuries were considered as entirely different from each other in cause and treatment, were essentially the same. It was found that they were nothing but the natural consequence of impure or imperfect blood, the result of malnutrition of the vital fluid, the malign effect of which increases in degree and manifestation the longer the impurity passes, by process of heredity, from one generation to another.

Instead of following the natural tendency to return to the normal, the blood becomes the fertile soil in which all manner of irregularities may germinate in abundance, and combine in strong attacks on the normal healthy organs, which will fast relax their natural power of resistance.

The system of natural healing, while adhering closely to the principle of the unity of the body as well as of the unity of disease, has by no means ignored that such differences are due to the differences in the twelve tissues and according to the said differences, the constitutional diseases are grouped under the accustomed titles, as follows:

1. Degeneration of the plasmo tissue: Anaemia, Chlorosis, Pernicious Anaemia, etc. (A.) Scrofulosis. (B.) Tuberculosis. (C.) Syphilis. (D.) Cancer.

2. Degeneration of lymphoid tissue: (See I.—A. B. C. D.)

3. Degeneration of the nerve tissue: Neuralgia, Neuritis, Neurasthenia, Asthma, Epilepsy, St. Vitus's Dance, etc., etc.

4. Degeneration of the bone tissue: Rickets, Osteomalacia and similar diseases.

5. Degeneration of the muscular tissue: Muscular Rheumatism, Sciatica or Nerve Rheumatism, Atrophia, Amyloid heart, kidney and liver.

6. Degeneration of the mucous membrane tissue. (A.) Catarrh in all its forms: Bronchitis, Pleurisy, Pneumonia, Inflammation of nose, throat, bowels, stomach, bladder, etc. (B.) Hemorrhoids, Polyps, Adenoids.

7. Degeneration of the tooth and eye tissue: All tooth and eye diseases.

8. Degeneration of the hair tissue: All hair diseases.

9. Degeneration of the skin tissue: All skin diseases.

10. Degeneration of the gelatigenous tissue. (A.) Stomach and Intestinal diseases—acute forms. (B.) Stomach and Intestinal diseases—chronic form.

11. Degeneration of the cartilage tissue: Ankylosis, Gout, Arthritis deformans.

12. Degeneration of the body tissue in general. (A.) Locomotor ataxia. (B.) Basedow's disease. (Graves disease.) (C.) Diabetes mellitus. (D.) Obesity. (E.) Bright's disease. (F.) Arterio-sclerosis.

THE A.B.C. OF MY SYSTEM OF HEALING.

Setting aside for the time being the special groups of more complicated diseases, such as are characterized by the degeneration of several of the tissues at the same time, I will now give a short and comprehensive description of the several distinct groups of disease. In each case, as already shown, there must be a joint co-operation of these three factors:

(A.) Diet, or the natural means of providing both healthy and degenerating tissues alike with such substances as will support and strengthen the healthy tissues, enabling them to resist the danger of disease and consequent decomposition, and will also arrest degeneration and prepare the way for the regeneration of the tissue which is already affected.

(B.) Nutritive compositions. Such as will in each case introduce into the system in a pure and proportionate combination, the necessary quantities of the sixteen nutritive elements, the lack of which is the characteristic factor of all disease and which diet unaided could not adequately produce with the needful speed and proportion, unless supplemented in this simple and effective manner.

(C.) Physical treatment, for the purpose of assisting the proper distribution and assimilation of these nutritive factors—(A. and B.)—and promoting the proper circulation of the blood.

DIET.

This is a subject of vast and vital importance. It comprises the science of alimentation, which forms one of the indispensable functions of life; it is thus, of necessity, a serious preoccupation under all conditions.

I have treated this important subject in my greater work with the minute detail, which it deserves; thus, in following the advice given, therein, in chapter XVIII, the reader will be able to ascertain the foods that are best suited to various conditions, and how to prepare them in the most sensible way.

At present, I can treat it only in a short and general way, giving the principal groups of diet prescribed, with more or less variation, in each case of disease as a part of the general treatment.

A few words may show why diet plays so important a part in this system of healing.

In the body there is a laboratory which produces spontaneously everything necessary to maintain life.

This laboratory has various branches which are busy day and night without interruption.

Here the life blood is created.

Prominent amongst these branches are:

The stomach with its prolonged intestines; The liver; The kidneys; The lungs, and The skin.

Each one of these branches has a distinct part, or function to perform.

The stomach serves as the sorting house. Here the food is mixed with the gastric juice which aids digestion and dissolves those ingredients necessary to produce blood, flesh, fat, bones, etc.

Each of the other branches receives that portion of the ingredients needed to perform its share of the work.

A structure cannot be constructed without a frame upon which every part depends. In order to stand erect, the body must possess such a framework. The skeleton is the same to the body as the frame is to the building. This frame, then, or skeleton, together with the flesh, blood, etc. are all formed from the material furnished by the food.

A residue of the digested food is removed from the body as useless; everything else is utilized.

The portion of the food used, therefore, must contain all those ingredients which go to make up and maintain the body in perfect working order.

Experience has suggested certain groups of suitable diet which for the sake of convenience I shall enumerate under the title of Forms No. I to No. VI.

These food forms contain everything of which patients may safely partake, and from these selection, in each case, must be made.

They are as follows:

Form I. Complete elimination of the stomach in the nourishing process.

To allay thirst, moisten the mouth with pure or carbonized water, melting small pieces of ice on the tongue. Small sips of water either lukewarm or cold, according to the condition of the stomach. Otherwise, only introduce water by clyster—i.e.—injection, and if the stomach cannot be disturbed for more than one or two days, introduce nourishing substances by way of the rectum.

Form II. Purely liquid nourishment, "soup diet."

Consomme of pigeon, chicken, veal, mutton, beef, beef tea, meat jelly (which becomes liquid under the influence of the heat of the body,) strained soups or such as are prepared of the finest flour with water or bouillon, of barley, oats, rice (thick soup), green corn, rye flour, malted milk. All of these soups, with or without any additions, such as raw eggs, either whole or the yolk only, if well mixed and not coagulated, are easily digested.

Form III. Nourishment which is not purely liquid, but partly glutinous.

Milk and milk preparations (belonging to this group on account of their coagulation in the stomach):

(a) Cow's milk, diluted and without cream, dilution with 1-2 to 2-3 barley water, rice water, lime water, vichy water, weak tea, or pure water.

(b) Milk without cream, not diluted.

(c) Unskimmed milk.

(d) Cream, either diluted or undiluted.

(e) All of these milk combinations with an addition of yolk of egg, well-mixed, whole egg, cocoa, also a combination of egg and cocoa.

Milk mush made of flour for children, arrowroot, mondanin, cereal flour of every kind, especially oats, groat soups with tapioca or sago and potato soup.

Egg,-raw, stirred, or sucked from the shell; or slightly warmed in a cup; any of these, either with or without the addition of a little sugar or salt.

Biscuit and crackers, softened or well masticated and salivated, taken with milk, mush, etc.

Form IV. Diet of the lightest kind, containing meat, but still mainly glutinous.

Noodle soup, rice soup.

Mashed boiled brains or sweetbread, or puree of white or red roasted meat, in soup.

Brains and sweetbread boiled.

Raw scraped meat (beef, ham, etc.)

Lean veal sausages, boiled.

Mashed potatoes prepared with milk.

Rice with bouillon or with milk.

Toasted rolls and toast.

Form V. Light diet, containing meat in more solid form:

Pigeon, Chicken boiled.

Small fish with little fat, such as brook or lake trout, boiled.

Scraped beefsteak, raw ham, boiled tongue.

As delicacies: Small quantities of caviar, frogs' legs, oysters, sardelles softened in milk.

Salted potatoes crushed, spinach, young peas mashed, cauliflower, asparagus-tips, mashed chestnuts, mashed turnips, fruit sauces.

Groat or sago puddings.

Rolls, white bread.

Form VI. Somewhat heavier meat diet. (Gradually returning to ordinary food).

Pigeon, chicken, young deer, hare, everything roasted.

Beef tenderloin, tender roast beef, roast veal.

Boiled pike or carp.

Young turnips.

All dishes to be prepared with very little fat, butter to be used exclusively. All strong spices to be avoided.

NOTE:—For special dietary in all diseases, see under each separate tissue degeneration in the succeeding Chapter on Therapy.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] In the following chapter, several important paragraphs given in the foregoing had to be repeated as the readers who were not interested in the "Club" proposition, would miss these points.



NUTRITIVE COMPOSITIONS

In order to convey a better understanding of these nutritive compositions, I deem it necessary to outline and explain more emphatically and in greater detail their wonderful scope and possibilities, in perhaps a more impressive manner, by giving the reader the benefit of an article entitled:

"The functions of minerals in our food How they may be greatly increased"

Of these I have sent some 560 copies to all our Senators and Congressmen, as well as to our chief Government Physicians, for their information and disposition, with the intention of placing my knowledge and equipment freely at the disposal of the United States Government. I have made this purely disinterested proposal at this critical and trying juncture, in the interest, first, of our war-worn soldiers; next, of our women, enervated by unaccustomed labour and restricted means; and lastly, of the children, born, and yet to be born of them—the future Citizens of the Republic—all, in short, who, under stress of injury, strain and hardship abroad, or the sometimes equally strenuous privations of war conditions at home, may, in their respective degrees, be suffering from nervous breakdown or depleted vitality and the various disorders which my proffered remedial measures are so admirably fitted to successfully overcome, bearing, as they must untold relief, comfort and renewed health to thousands.

I have not spared expense in putting this matter fairly and fully before the Authorities—and indeed the initial cost of so doing has already absorbed some $300 or more. That is merely a detail. But the main point is this: That I have offered this valuable knowledge—(practically the work of a lifetime)—to the Nation, together with the prescriptions of my compositions, free of cost, as an earnest of my sympathy and goodwill; and had the Government, seen fit to accept my proposal, the immediate effect would have been that these compounds, which at present, through reduced manufacture and the consequent great scarcity of chemicals (necessarily of the finest description and purity) are very costly, would have been brought by extensive and organized production within the reach of every citizen, removing at once that paramount difficulty of my system, so far as the general public is concerned; namely, the expense.

I append hereto a copy of the article referred to, together with copy of an accompanying letter.

My dear Senator:

The disarrangement of the habits of life of our civilian population, and the physical needs of our boys who will return from Europe wounded and crippled, prompts me to offer my services to the Government for the development of specially enriched foodstuffs to maintain the health of our people under the strain of the war, but particularly to aid in the speedy recovery of our boys who return shattered from the trenches. I have spent more than thirty years in the study of physiological chemistry and biology, and this study has been devoted to the application of scientific principles in the treatment of various diseases.

Hitherto our food experts and medical men have been satisfied with a ration properly balanced as regards protein, carbohydrates and fat, but the mineral salts in our food have been given little if any serious consideration. Indeed, they have usually been dismissed as "ash." As a matter of fact, however, as the statement I am sending you under separate cover will show clearly, even to a layman, mineral salts perform an important function in keeping the body strong and healthy.

I am prepared to demonstrate that the quantity of essential minerals in vegetables, small fruit and eggs can be multiplied several times by scientific fertilization and nutrition. If I can do this (and I am prepared to prove that I can) the Government should be willing to arrange for the production of such foods in connection with every military hospital and convalescent camp, both here at home and behind the lines in Europe. Moreover, given a central experimental station with proper equipment, it would be an easy matter to train men to teach this knowledge to soldiers at every reconstruction camp.

The statement is made by Dr. Mae H. Cardwell, of Portland, Oregon, one of the investigators for the Federal Children's Bureau that millions of children are suffering from lack of sufficient food and from improper feeding, and she adds that not only the parents but the doctors, in many cases, need education with respect to what constitutes proper feeding for children. I think that when you have read and digested my statement of the function of the mineral salts in the human economy, you will agree with me that the need for just what I am asking the government to give me an opportunity of doing is very great indeed.

I trust that I may count upon your co-operation, not only in getting this matter before the proper officials, but also in seeing that an opportunity for a fair demonstration is accorded me.

The dissemination of this knowledge and the production of such foods would make America the ALMA MATER of the world in scientific nutrition, thanks to the application of physiological chemistry. As things are now done in agriculture and in aviculture, however, very little can be expected along this line.

I will give you two concrete illustrations of what can be done in the way of augmenting the mineral content of food, and then I will point out the significance of that fact. We will consider eggs: ordinarily 100 grams of egg yolk contains from 10 to 20 milligrams of iron, but eggs laid by hens fed by my method yield from 30 to 80 milligrams of iron per 100 grams of dried yolk. This is an increase, as you see, of between 300 and 400 per cent. Such eggs might be justly classed as haemoglobin eggs, and they would be a godsend to our boys suffering from anaemia due to wounds or operations. At the same time, my method of handling chickens greatly enriches the lecithin, or nerve substance, in the eggs, and they are, therefore, of special value in dealing with cases of shell shock and nerve exhaustion.

What is true in the case of iron and lecithin content of eggs produced by my method, is equally true with respect to their content of all the other essential mineral elements; they are all multiplied several times.

This is made possible of accomplishment by the application of the principles of physiological chemistry to the breeding and feeding of the poultry.

Needless to say, I am prepared to submit to the test of scientific examination of my claims. No, not merely a theoretical examination of myself, but, rather, to submit the claim I make for eggs produced under my direction to the test of chemical analysis. It is a very easy matter to determine thereby whether my claims are well founded.

I cannot state my desire to serve the government in this way too strongly; as I have spent more than thirty years of my life in the study of biology and physiological chemistry, I feel that it is my duty to offer to the Government the benefits of my knowledge and experience. All that I can ask in this connection is to be given an opportunity to prove that my claims are sound and practical.

I believe that you will realize the full value of such a course of action as outlined, if it can be proven practicable. The opportunity of offering proof under direction of the proper branch of government is, I repeat, all that I ask at the moment, as the results will tell their own story far more eloquently than mere words.

Thanking you for giving this matter your attention, and trusting that my hope of serving in the ranks of those seeking to rebuild our boys will not prove vain, I am, Sir,

Yours truly,

L. DECHMANN.



THE FUNCTION OF MINERALS IN OUR FOOD:

HOW THEY MAY BE GREATLY INCREASED.

By LOUIS DECHMANN.

1918.

When physiological chemistry has isolated and classified the component elements of the various organs, tissues and fluids of the body, it must analyze and classify the vegetables, fruits and meats on which man feeds in order that we may not only know how to arrange a perfectly balanced ration for the healthy, but shall be able to add lacking elements to the diet of the diseased. This classification of foods naturally leads, if there be a deficiency of any essential element, to the analysis of the soil on which this food was raised.

In the course of my studies in physiological chemistry and biology, which have extended over a period of more than thirty years, I have been led to grappel with problems in agriculture, in horticulture, and in aviculture, for the purpose of finding solutions to problems in human nutrition. Very early in my studies I learned the value of the mineral elements in our foodstuffs. I was led to attempt to augment the quantity of mineral salts in various foods, and my efforts were crowned with success. But this is not the point, however, to enter into a detailed discussion of that aspect of the subject.

It may be wise for the sake of clearness to divide this statement into two parts, as follows:

1. A brief summary of the function of minerals in the human economy.

2. A short argument showing how we can and why it is imperative that we should augment the mineral content of our vegetables, small fruits and eggs.

In the case of eggs, for example, I am able to increase their iron content 300 or 400 per cent. More than that, I can multiply every item in their mineral content several times, thus producing specific eggs for those suffering for lack of any mineral. In other words I am able to produce special eggs for a given tissue degeneration as, for instance, haemoglobin eggs for degenerate blood; lecithin eggs for the nerves; calcareous eggs for the bones, and kaliated eggs for the muscle.

So much by way of preface.

I.

The following explanations are made for the purpose of showing you that I have made extensive studies along these lines, and are not, naturally, intended to be taken as a lesson to you personally.

There are sixteen chemical elements absolutely essential to healthy human life, which are classified by physiological chemistry as the elements of organic life. In the composition of vital tissues we constantly find these basal elements: Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, iron, manganese, fluorine, silicon, and iodine. The function of these elements will be discussed in a moment.

I would here lay stress upon the fact that the absence of the tiniest ingredient necessary to the growth and functioning of an organ will, according to the Law of the Minimum as laid down by Justus von Liebig, result in disease, improper functioning and degeneration of that organ or tissue.

Although the chemical salts constitute but a small part in the composition of our bodies, and are a very small item in our daily diet, their importance cannot be too strongly emphasized. They are the main sources for the development of electro-magnetic energy in the blood and nerves, and perform other services. I am of the opinion that "vitamines" are neither more or less than these chemicals in proper proportion and relation, but whether you agree or disagree with this conclusion, you will instantly agree that the elements named above are indispensible to perfect metabolism.

It goes without saying, of course, that no action in the world occurs of itself, that is without impulse, hence the body must be given impulse to growth. A series of chemical and physical facts indicate that phosphorus plays this vital part. The property of phosphoric acid of uniting with carburetted hydrogen to form carbonic acid and phosphureted hydrogen certainly is of fundamental importance, as phosphureted hydrogen readily ignites on coming into contact with oxygen. Since cerebrin consists of a combination of phosphoric acid with gelatine which contains ammonium and with oleine, it is easy to infer that the light of the soul may be due to the phosphoric acid in the nerves, and still further the potassium phosphate forming the mineral basis of the muscles. Thus we come to the conclusion that the phosphates, combinations of phosphoric acid with basic substances, possess in general the property of imparting the true impulse to growth, that is to accumulation of organic matter.

Like every other structure, however, the body requires supports and props and, above all, a firm foundation on which to rest. Iron and lime, whose union is secured by their opposition to one another, bring into conjunction materials of contrary disposition for the creating of organic forms of the nature of plant and animal bodies.

The sulphuric compounds are related and yet opposed to the growth determinating phosphoric compounds. All organic building material (protein) contains phosphorus and sulphur, in varying proportions, and all indications are that sulphur plays the part of a regulator in organic growth. Just as an engine requires a governor to regulate its pace, so the human body requires a controlling factor to ensure definite stability. It is interesting to observe that normal blood contains about twice as many sulphates as phosphates. When there is great scarcity of sodium sulphate in the blood, abnormal growths develop from the phosphatic nerve tissues, and they continue to develop so long as the blood and lymph are deficient in sulphur, particularly the sulphates. This is, I believe, the genesis of polyps, tumors and cancers.

In the same manner that sulphuric acid controls and regulates the phosphoric acid of ammonium phosphate, so lime and magnesia act on the ammonia of this same ammonium phosphate.

Phosphatic ammonium carbonate lodges in the gelatinous cartilage and stretches it, when there is a deficiency of lime and magnesia in the food, resulting in rickets. Such a growth of cartilaginous tissues is controlled by lime and magnesia, as they change the pliant cartilage into bony barriers in which small particles of magnesia combine to produce phosphate of ammonium and magnesium which checks the further deposit of cartilage.

Lime and magnesia are indubitably quite as effective agents in the control of ammonia as sulphur is in the control of phosphorus. If we consider the minerals as the foundation and mortar which give stability to the vital machine, leaving out chlorine and fluorine, we find that iron, manganese, potash, soda, and silicic acid play this role. Sulphur, because it possesses the property of becoming gaseous, is able to take part directly in the formation of albumen, that variable basis of body material, whereas all of the other mineral substances except silicic acid can only be assimiliated in so-called binary compounds in the form of salts.

I will give a brief review of them, beginning with iron, as thus the significance of augmentation of the mineral content of vegetables and small fruits and eggs will be made much clearer.

Normal blood albumen is essentially a compound of calcium and sodium into which iron and sulphur both enter. A deficiency of calcium commonly makes itself known by dental defects, just as lack of sulphur reveals itself by the falling out and poor growth of hair. Insufficiency of iron in the blood is evidenced, apart from lack of spirit, by paleness of face and blue lips; insufficient sodium by glandular tumors and abnormal cartilaginous growths.

The entire amount of iron in the blood of an adult person is, on the average under normal conditions, four grams, as much as a nickel weighs. We may well judge that this amount is not sufficient to set the motive power of our bodies in action, if we overlook that complex factor the circulation of blood. The left side of the heart has the capacity of containing about six ounces of blood, and every heart beat drives this amount through the aorta. With seventy beats to the minute, twenty-five pounds of blood is pumped from the heart every minute. What is the result? That the four grams of iron keep up such an incessant movement that they pass from the heart into the aorta sixty times an hour or 1440 times in 24 hours. It may be asserted, therefore, that in 24 hours 13 pounds of iron (that is 1440x4 grams) pass from the heart into the aorta. Can it be doubted, in view of this, that the iron serves to produce an electro-dynamic force?

In respect to the generation of electricity, it matters not whether there be an entirely new supply of iron passing a given point, or whether the same iron pass that point anew each minute. Two factors work together in the circulation of the blood, namely, the active attraction of nerve tissue and the passive susceptibility of the blood contents to that attraction. Faraday has conclusively shown that blood is magnetic in character because of the iron it contains. If four grams of iron is the normal quantity in the blood, it is clear that the reduction of this amount, say by two grams, will lessen its susceptibility and slacken its circulation. The electrical nerve ends will then strain in vain for the electricity which the blood current should yield, and the result will be neuralgia.

It is the magnetic iron in haemoglobin which makes every sort of nervous function possible, in the cerebral (brain) and in the sympathetic (intestinal) tracts, and since it is thus made clear that intellectual activity on the one hand and breathing and digestion and excretion on the other are dependent on the iron content of the blood, we must also recognize that, as iron attends every nerve action, the secretion of urine too takes place under the influence of haemoglobin. Insofar as haemoglobin hastens the departure of the excrementitious matter in urine out of the system, there is a daily loss of iron in the urine. This loss in the form of urohaematin may total four centigrams, or a hundredth part of our supply.

This loss of iron if not replaced by eating suitable food will soon make itself felt. In the course of a day the reduction by four centigrams will diminish the energy of nervous activity about 1440 times the apparent loss, so that even a four weeks-tropical fever, during which no meat is eaten, may completely exhaust the strength of an individual. Moreover, iron conditions bodily warmth as it combines with oxygen in a higher and a lower degree. In the lungs it is highly oxidized by the respired oxygen, but in contact with the nerve ends it gives itself only to a part of the oxygen present, and burns a certain portion of the lecithin to water, carbonic acid and phosphates, thus creating body warmth to a considerable extent.

In response to the chemical consumption of lecithin a new oil flows down the axis cylinders of the nerve fibrils, which are arranged like lamp wicks. The duration of the flow of this oil is, on the average, about eighteen hours. When the cerebro-spinal nerves refuse longer to perform their function, fatigue and sleep ensue, and the current of blood leaves the brain and seeks the intestines. While the cerebro-spinal system rests, the sympathetic system takes up its task of directing the renewal of tissue and supplying the nerve sheaths through the lymph vessels, which draw their material from the digestive canal, with a new supply of phosphatic oil. Thus the brain and spinal nervous system are prepared for another day's work. For the fulfillment of these processes, the magnetic blood current forms the intermediary.

The presence of formic and acetic acid supplies the blood with fresh electricity to stimulate the nerves. "Under normal conditions," says Julius Hensel, "this function is assigned to the spleen. This organ takes the part of a rejuvenating influence in the body in the manner of a relay station, and does so by virtue of an invisible but significant device. In every other region of the body the hairlike terminals of the arteries which branch out from the heart merge directly in the tiny tubes (capillaries) of the veins, which lead back to the heart again: in the spleen this is not the case. Here rather the arteries end suddenly when they have diminished to a diameter of one one-hundred-and-fortieth of an inch and end in a bulb (the Malpighian bodies). Under such circumstances the sudden stoppage, particularly the impact of the magnetic blood stream against the membrane of a Malpighian body, exemplifies the physical law of the induction of electricity, in accordance with which the blood that enters the spleen is changed into plasma and exudes through the membrane of the Malpighian bodies. The event indicates some fluidity of the red blood cells, which is a change effected in the body by the impact of electric sparks, and one which electrical therapy also brings about locally to prevent increase in the solid constituents of the blood."

The numerous Malpighian bodies in the spleen act as so many electrical conductors, and the product of their electrical activity is found in the formic and acetic acid of the fluid plasma which filters through the Malpighian corpuscles and supplies the acid tissue of the spleen (pulpa splenica). These acids are the electrolytic division products of lecithin. In the splenic pulp arise the capillaries of the splenic veins whose acid blood is carried directly to the liver, where certain cells formed like galvanic elements possess the property, through the electrical action of formic and acetic acid, of extracting from blood albumen the opposite of acids, namely, alkaline bile. The normal functioning of the liver, therefore, is dependent upon that of the spleen, and since the bile produced by the liver goes to aid the digestive activity of the duodenum, disturbance of digestion must result when the quality of the bile is inferior.

One of the substances contained in bile, lecithin, is of wide importance. When it was referred to a moment ago, I spoke only of its individual chemical nature as a fat in combination with ammonium phosphate, as by so doing I avoided error in connection with its apparently complicated formula, which includes glycerophosphoric acid, trimethylamin, palmitic and stearic acids. As it is a fatty substance, the only question that arises, is, what does it contain besides fat? This may be answered by a process of substraction:

2 (C_{21} H_{42} O_{4}) C_{42} H_{84} O_{8} which represents tallow or stearate of glycerine. Lecithin, C_{42} H_{84} O_{9} NP, differs from this only by a larger amount of NP. The significance of this difference becomes clear when two atoms of water are added. Then ammonium phosphate, PO_{3} H_{4}, N is formed. The two atoms of water needed for the condensation of the ammonium phosphate from the stearate are obtained by separating them away from two of glycerine.

The bile contains lecithin in a partially oxidized form. The chemical "remainders" are biliverdin and cholesterin. The latter when normal has, as you know, the power to neutralize snake venoms and other poisons, and thus acts as a natural anti-toxin. In addition, the bile contains combinations of stearine with gelatine and with carbonate and sulphate of sodium, which theoretical chemists believe are twin compounds of glycocholate and taurocholate. These fatty compounds depend upon stearine partly oxidized, that is deprived of a certain number of atoms of hydrogen.

As the compounds of fatty acids with ammoniacal blood gelatine and sodium carbonate, the ingredients of the bile also, develop into a peculiar soap. In the economy of the body the bile acts as a soap. When it is discharged into the duodenum, it changes the fats into so fine an emulsion (chyle) that the microscopically fine drops of fat may be drawn into the orifices of the lymph canals and conveyed to the circulatory system, and the cleavage products of albumen produced by gastric digestion, the peptones (leucin and tyrosin) are carried along with them for the renewal of tissue cells consumed in respiration.

If a soda soap is requisite for the purpose just stated, it follows that soda in the food is essential, as otherwise the supply of soda in the blood albumen cannot be renewed, and the bile cannot get its necessary supply of soda from blood albumen devoid of soda. Consequently, the entire nutritive process is dependent upon bile, and the bile cannot properly perform its function if denied soda.

In addition to carbonates of sodium, especially the hydrocarbonate known as glycolate, the bile apparently contains ammonium sulphate combined with hydrocarbon (taurin); but this results from the transposition of sodium sulphate and gelatine. Gelatine contains six atoms of hydrocarbon joined with two of ammonium carbonate, a group which is separable by chemical action into five of carburetted hydrogen with ammonium carbonate (leucin or gelatine milk), C_{5} H_{10}, CO_{2}, NH_{3}, and into one of carburetted hydrogen with ammonium carbonate (glycin or gelatine sugar), CH_{2}, CO_{2}, NH_{3}. This latter substance, gelatine sugar, is not produced in the liver, as it exists already in the blood gelatine. In an isolated condition it has the property, in virtue of its ammoniacal acids and its carbonic acid bases and, therefore, of both combined, its salts, of producing chemical fixation. This property is conveyed to the undivided blood gelatine in which the gelatine sugar is contained intramolecularly.

Since normal blood albumen is inconceivable without sulphur it is absolutely essential, in accordance with our knowledge of the constituents of the bile and their origin, that our nutriment should contain a sufficiency of sodium sulphate, if normal blood serum is to be produced. The use of pepsin for this purpose cannot serve nature's purpose, as it contains neither sodium carbonate nor sodium sulphate. Our blood must be given a fresh and sufficient supply of sodium carbonate and sodium sulphate via our food, if it is to produce normal bile and supply the requisites of normal nutrition.

It is erroneously held that sodium sulphate is simply a laxative, even Borner's "Royal Medical Calendar" so classifies it. Often it discharges this function, it is true, in concentrated solution (one to five). But it is an important ingredient of healthy blood albumen (one to one thousand), and in this proportion assists in the formation of normal bile.

The blood of the Caucasian race is found to contain about ten parts of salt to the thousand, and this proportion of salt denotes firm tissue material. If the quantity of salt in the blood is diminished, the bi-concave red blood cells swell to a spherical form from access of water and lose their ability to unite for the production of connective tissue. Moreover, to the extent salt in the blood cells is decreased the connective tissue and muscle and tendon substance absorb water and the tissues become spongy, especially in the kidneys, so that the thinned blood albumen seeps through (urea albumen).

Phosphate of potassium is the mineral basis of muscle tissue, phosphate of lime with a small amount of magnesium phosphate the basis of bones, and phosphate of ammonium the bases of nervous tissue. There is a sufficient quantity of phosphate in all healthy foods. When the milk fed to nurslings, however, is greatly thinned with water instead of firm muscle fibers and solid lymph glands we find loose and spongy tissues. This is a scrofulous condition.

In the formation of healthy bones and teeth, calcium fluoride is essential. It is insoluble in plain water, but is made soluble by the aid of the glycocoll in blood gelatine and changed into ammonium fluoride. It appears in this form in the cartilaginous matter of the eye lenses, and lack of calcium fluoride in the food results in the clouding of these lenses.

Silicic acid is not only indispensible to the growth of hair, but it forms a direct connection between blood and nerve tissues. It is found in birds eggs, both in the white and the yolk. It is a conservator of heat and electricity as it is a good insulator. It also possesses eminent antiseptic qualities. Its mere presence in the intestinal canal, even its simple passage through the canal; conserves the electrical activity of the intestinal nerves and thus influences the whole sympathetic nervous system.

This brief review, cursory as it is, of the function of the minerals in the renewal of substances undergoing tissue change, makes it clear that our daily food must contain a sufficient quantity of them if healthy metabolism is to be maintained.

Chemically considered the human body is one individual whole, its characteristic chemical basis being gelatine. Lieut. C.E. McDonald, U.S.A. Medical Corps, recognized this when he recently wrote: "The similarity of chemical compositions explains why, when any particular region falls a prey to chemical decomposition, others quickly become affected."

Oxygen gas is the medium through which chemical combustion is carried on in the body for the purpose of preparing materials to enter into its composition. The mineral salts already named not only form the solid basis of the various tissue but also serve as conductors or insulators of electricity in the body. The absence of one of them for a protracted period is sufficient to explain widespread degeneration in the system.

In view of the fact that these various minerals play an indispensable part in healthy metabolism it is imperative that a sufficiency of them should be supplied in proper proportion in our daily food. It is imperative, if we desire to retain or to restore health to the body.

These mineral elements are to be found in the first instance in the earth, but they are of no use to the body in that form. We cannot digest and assimilate inorganic matter no matter how finely it may be pulverized. But plants can assimilate them from the earth and organize them in such form as to make them easily assimilable by animals and man.

If the soil on which our food is produced is itself deficient in some of these elements, our food must also lack them. If, moreover, we cannot for any reason add the missing elements to the soil, we must supply them to the human system in the shape of prepared nutritive salts. It is preferable, of course, that our food should contain all of the elements necessary for the proper nourishment of the body.

Thus we are forced to return to consideration of the soil. It is an established fact that our fields were originally formed from decayed rock, and analysis shows that this primitive rock contains the same minerals as healthy blood. But if our agriculturists are taught that stable manure and three or four other things are all that is necessary for the fertilization of their fields, where shall the other minerals essential to human metabolism come from?

What a man is, largely depends upon what he eats. Hence man is very largely a product of the fields. When the soil is denuded of any of the elements essential to plant and animal life, it must be properly fertilized. Incomplete or improper fertilization can have but one result, to-wit, it will produce sickly vegetation, and this in turn must produce unhealthy cattle, and since man is dependent upon plant and animal life for his food a sickly race of human beings is the ultimate result.

Is not barrenness of the soil responsible for disease in potatoes, for San Jose scale, Phylloxera, and other similar phenomena. The fields are manured profusely, it is true, but the very chemical elements which are not only essential to the development of wholesome plant tissue but which would also enable the plant to protect itself against parasites, are not used. Every farmer has observed, for instance, that grass grown upon cow dung in pastures is not eaten by cows, oxen or sheep. The instinct of the animals is correct.

In using the term incomplete fertilization, I mean supplying only potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen, and possibly lime and sulphur, when the soil is denuded of several other elements. No matter how rich a field may be made in these things if it lacks other elements healthy vegetation cannot be grown in it.

Improper fertilization is another matter. It may consist in dressing a field with nothing but stable manure, or of applying crude sulphur or brimestone instead of using calcium sulphate—plus the other lacking elements. The advocate of crude sulphur certainly does not know how truly criminal his advice is. It is not to be denied that at the outset sulphur will increase the crop yield. But in the end—what? The sulphur will dissolve all of the essential minerals in the soil, and in the course of four or five years they will all be leached out and it will be so barren that not even wild grass can be grown upon it. Improper fertilization may also consist of a dressing of carbonate of lime applied at the wrong time or in excessive quantity. The effect of this course will be equally as harmful, namely, the transformation of the nitrogenous material into free nitrogen which will ascend to heaven. Without nitrogen albumen cannot be formed, and without albumen the formation of vegetable and animal tissue is impossible.

Wholesome soil may, then, be defined thus: It is such ground as contains a sufficient supply of humus and nitrogen and all of the essential mineral components of organic tissue. The problem of fertilization, therefore, consists of supplying any or all of these elements in which the soil is deficient. The aim of fertilization, as a rule, is merely to increase crop production. But this may prove to be not merely shortsighted, it may turn out to be a social crime. It is criminal, indeed, as a great many diseases are directly traceable to incomplete and improper fertilization.

Let us face the effect of attempting to fertilize our fields with nothing more than stable manure, which, it is true, supplies phosphoric acid, potash and nitrogen. We know that phosphorus forms the foundation of nerves, and too much of it provokes nerve irritation in exact ratio to the deficiency of sulphur. There should be twice as many sulphuric salts as phosphoric salts in the blood, if it is to be normal and the nerves are to be steady. Foodstuffs from fields that have been fertilized in this manner must, of course, contain a superabundance of phosphoric salts and be deficient in sulphuric salts. Is it strange, then, that the present age presents a picture of restless, irritated nervous activity and thoughtless action?

We must return to the primitive rock and humbly learn the lesson it has for us, and upon this rock we must rear our science of fertilization and nutrition. This rock consisted of granite, porphyry, gneiss and basalt, and these are still found upon the earth in immense quantities in practically the same condition they were thousands of years ago. Both Justus von Liebig and Julius Hensel, as a matter of fact, advocated that this rock should be finely pulverized and used as a compost to assist in restoring and maintaining the original fertility of the soil and thus aid the development of healthy plant and animal life.

Indeed the instincts of both animals and human beings lead them under certain conditions right back to the rock and its lesson. Note the avidity with which hens confined in arid runs devoid of vegetation, worms, insects and small stones devour a compound of lime and ground bones and oyster shells. Observe a child whose ration is deficient in mineral elements eating egg shells, wall plaster, chalk and other earthy substances. What do these things mean? Nothing more than this: both chicken and child express a natural craving for the essential elements to build bone and form the basis for the tissue.

I have discussed the important part the minerals play in both the vegetable and animal kingdoms for the purpose of laying stress upon our great need of more of them in our daily diet, and I may add that this is equally as true in the case of those we call healthy as of those who are diseased. No matter how carefully the diet may be regulated as regards the quantity of protein and carbohydrates and fats and the ratio between them, healthy metabolism is impossible without a sufficiency of the essential minerals.

II.

How can we perform this imperative duty to mankind?

The solution of the problem of supplying these essential minerals demands that our soil shall be properly fertilized for the growing of wholesome vegetables and fruits and our cattle properly fed with a ration rich in mineral content. Thus the food which we eat will contain all of the elements necessary to the growth and maintenance of our bodies in a state of health.

In the course of my effort to show why it is imperative that we pay greater heed to the mineral content of our foodstuffs, and why it is imperative that we enrich that content, I have shown basically how that end is to be attained.

In conclusion I will cite the result of a series of experiments in applying the principles of physiological chemistry to poultry, and I may say that it took me twelve years to find the breed which would most readily lend itself to my purpose. I experimented with 250 varieties of hens before I found the one most amenable to my method of feeding and breeding.

While living at Needham, Massachusetts, I made a thorough test of my principles with the selected variety of hens. They were not only fed a ration properly balanced for protein, carbohydrates and fat, but I gave them a liberal supply of properly prepared mineral salts. I used three different mixtures of feed, made up in 100 pound lots, in which the proportion of albumen ranged from 13.50 to 18.00 pounds; of fat from 4.00 to 5.00 pounds; of carbohydrates from 41 to 44 pounds; and actual nutritive salts from 4.50 to 5.00 pounds. The respective ratios being: 1:4, 1:3.5 and 1:3

It is not necessary to enter into discussion of the details of the feeding method and the variation in the daily handling of the hens. The result of this experiment, however, was completely satisfactory, as the eggs produced by those hens not only contained a startling increase in the quantity of mineral salts, but their fertility was far greater than that of hens handled in the usual manner. The increase of fertility in itself is, it seems to me, the best proof of the soundness of my theoretical premises.

Some of the results of this experiment were published in the Reliable Poultry Journal in 1905, and Dr. Woods offered confirmatory evidence of the soundness of my conclusions two years later, after he had himself experimented along the same line.

I will cite just one fact revealed by that experiment, namely, that whereas 100 grams of dried egg yolk ordinarily contains only from 10 to 20 milligram of iron the eggs of those hens yielded from 30 to 80 milligrams. And all of the minerals were increased from 10 to 25 per cent or more.

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.



NUTRITIVE COMPOSITIONS.

The sixteen substances,—nutritive cell foods,—of which all of the tissues of the body are composed are: carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, potassium, soda, lime, magnesia, iron, manganese, phosphor, sulphur, silica, chlorine, fluorine and iodine.

My nutritive compositions consist of these same sixteen nutritive salts, each composition mixed in the same proportion as they are found in the healthy tissue for the regeneration of which they are prescribed.

Since in various diseases not only one but several tissues are affected, it must be decided individually in each case whether only one, or several, of the nutritive compositions will require to be taken, and in what proportion.

In accordance with the system of the twelve tissues of the body, the twelve nutritive compositions, commonly known as "DECH-MANNA" Compositions, are the following:

No. 1. Plasmogen Bloodplasma-Producer. No. 2. Lymphogen Lymph-Cell-Producer. No. 3. Neurogen Nerve-cell-Producer. No. 4. Osseogen Bone-cell-Producer. No. 5. Muscogen Muscle-cell-Producer. No. 6. Mucogen Mucous membrane-cell-Producer. No. 7. Dento-Ophthogen Tooth and Eye-cell-Producer. No. 8. Capillogen Hair-cell-Producer. No. 9. Dermogen Skin-cell-Producer. No. 10. Gelatinogen Gelatigenous-cell-Producer. No. 11. Cartilogen Cartilage-cell-Producer. No. 12. Eubiogen Healthy body-cell-Producer.