Of the rest, some were young girls, since married and raising healthy families, without any sign of aberrant gland function, and one, who was two months pregnant when treatment was begun, went through the entire pregnancy without incident and fully recovered before the end of her term.

Pregnancy and hyperthroidia are not supposed to be compatible conditions, either abortion or greatly aggravated gland condition being expected in every case.

Progressive pernicious anemia is another condition for which medicine offers nothing at all. Very recently the liver feeding, which is the first glimmer of light that would indicate a leaning toward the suspicion that this is in reality a deficiency condition, as it in fact is; and while the liver feeding does supply infinitely more than the former grossly erroneous diet of meat and eggs yet even this does not clear up the toxic state, and relapse is almost inevitable.

This is plainly a deficiency condition plus a colonic infection, as the cases treated by thorough colon toilette daily, and diet limited to basic and vital foods, clear up within a very few weeks, and where the vital feeding is adhered to afterwards, there has been no relapse, with one partial exception: an elderly lady whose colon was far behind with its work. She refused to use the enema daily as it was always painful for her, and she firmly believed that she had a general vegetable allergy, or intolerance, so that she never used freely either the cooked greens or the raw vegetable salads.

She relapsed about a year and a half after her recovery, but again came back nicely on proper detoxication and dietary correction, and now she uses the enema whenever necessary; also she believes it is possible for her to eat the vegetables very largely. For these two reasons she is now safe, and need fear no more relapses.

This case was supposed to have died on four different occasions in one day, after she had been on treatment for two weeks, but each supposed death was merely a collapse from which she recovered in a few minutes, and her recovery, while slow, was without incident from this time.

Transfusion here introduces a grave danger, for not infrequently bloods that group correctly with that of the patient will yet cause a chill that is terrific, and the blood is lower almost at once than before the transfusion, agglutination of the red cells occurring that ties up a part of even the small number yet available of the patient's own blood.

Yet medicine offers here only a faint hope through liver feeding, transfusion in emergency to prolong life for business reasons, and eventual death, because the cause of this condition is not understood.

Eczema is nothing more than an acid exudate finding exit through the skin, and is curable by correcting the acid-forming diet to a neutral or alkalin one, wholly without local applications or medication of any kind whatever.

Psoriasis goes the same way, but slower, as it is more chronic, and the ancient search for germs in connection with psoriasis, seeking to class it with the infections, is barking up the wrong tree, for psoriasis gets well just as surely as does eczema.

Some cases of psoriasis require that all animal foods be wholly interdicted, even milk, before they will fully clear up, while most will clear up on vital foods including raw milk.

Gastric and duodenal ulcer disappear magically when the irritation of a too free hydrochloric acid is prevented, not by alkaline treatment but merely by ceasing to call out hydrochloric acid, through omission of all concentrated protein from the diet, even milk, and using only the acid fruits and the raw vegetable salads, or in the beginning the fruit juices and raw vegetable juices, till healing occurs.

This is infinitely better than cutting out the ulcerated area, or anastomosing the jejunum and stomach, as is generally done, for this leaves behind exactly the same condition of the gastric juice, and what is to prevent the formation of a still deeper and more serious ulcer?

The writer has in mind one man who traveled all over the world with a gastric and duodenal ulcer, and who was operated five different times in various great medical centers. The last report showed him supporting five distinct loops of jejunum from the lower border of his stomach, and with a still worse ulceration than any of the preceding, perhaps necessitating a sixth operation, till cancer closes the scene.

It is safe to say that every gastric or duodenal ulcer depends for its presence on a hyperchlorhydria, or a too free production of hydrochloric acid, from a too high protein consumption for too long a time, and it is equally safe to say that every gastric or duodenal cancer originates in a simple ulcer, so there you are. Cancer of the stomach begins away back in a hyperchlorhydria, a controllable condition, a self-controllable condition.

What does medicine do for constipation? Gives laxatives, enemas, but usually only laxatives, whipping a tired horse, making it still more tired, till even the whip in time has no effect, and the last state of this patient is worse than the first.

Constipation will be treated separately in a later chapter, but here let us remind you that this is merely part of a tired body and will never get better till the body is brought up to a more vital condition and kept there by use of vital foods in compatible relation. In all of these conditions medicine throws up its hands, but not publicly, still carrying the idea that in medical treatment is to be found the best for every ill to which flesh is heir, even though all of these things are treated as incurable by the greatest authorities in medicine, and so taught.

Is it not evident that these things are not properly understood by medical authority? Does it not seem that maladies so common must have some source that can be reached through means of some kind?

If we are allowed to create such conditions surely we are in a bad way if nothing can be done for them.

Referring again to the statement of Osier and many others: "The cause of disease is a great mystery," we will call attention to the silly adherence of the masses to any form of treatment founded on complete ignorance of the causes of disease.

As to surgery, we are told that this at least is a definite science, but is it?

To be sure surgery has developed very definite technique for all sorts of operations, but, if Dr. Charles Mayo is correct in stating that nine-tenths of the internal operations that are done today never should have been done, then this is at most a badly misapplied science.

Several years ago there was offered to the New Jersey Legislature a bill providing that when operation is advised the decision should rest with two internists and one surgeon, thus allowing internal medicine to preponderate in the consideration of the case. This bill was never reported out of committee, yet it would be a good thing as a check on the too ambitious surgeon, and we may yet come to such an arrangement.

When you consider the thing, it is ridiculous to go to a surgeon for an opinion on the advisability of an operation, for surgery is his business, and he is quite apt to think that every one should have an operation.

It would be on a par with asking a builder if one needs a new house, for being a builder he is sure to think that a new house is the very thing you need most.

Two kinds of surgery we will always have with us, and more power to such. The one is the orthopedic man, who corrects deformities, and the other is the emergency surgeon, who repairs wounds. To this sort of surgery we may take off our collective hat for its work is all to the good always, or at least its objects are above criticism even if the method may sometimes be wrong.

It is this infernal curiosity about the interior cavities of the body that has worked so much harm to surgery and the public, and if there were some way to curb this growing tendency to open these hermetically sealed body cavities on the very slightest pretext it would be the best thing for surgery itself, and surely infinitely better for the too frequent victim.

Perfectly legal murders are consummated on the operating table every day in the year somewhere, many places, everywhere, for not every one who essays surgery is a surgeon, though if he has an M.D. after his name who is going to decide that he should not operate?

He has a legal right, whether or not he can carry his operation through safely, and if the patient dies there is no redress for the family, for the whole thing has been within the law.

Deaths from operation, whether occurring on the table or dating from the operation, are so very common that we have become accustomed to them. They cause scarcely a ripple of interest outside the immediate family.

The writer is speaking from a surgical experience that covers only the first sixteen years of his practice, and for the past twenty-four years he has handled perhaps ten times as many cases, comprising a far greater range of conditions. In all this time he has referred but three cases to the surgeon, and in each case there was grave doubt of the advisability of even these undertaking surgery for their condition, and with the exception of one case of very rapidly increasing ovarian cyst he can recall no benefits that came from even these few cases through operation.

Over two hundred and fifty cases of acute and chronic appendicitis have been handled during this very unsurgical period, not one of which has resulted fatally, even including fourteen cases that had ruptured before coming under treatment, and when some surgeon can show better figures he is willing to listen.

Many cases of mastoid infection and abscess have been treated by simple detoxication without drainage, one of which had perforated through the external plate on both sides before treatment was begun, but no other case came to open discharge, yet all got well and preserved perfect hearing; nor did any have facial paralysis or internal perforation as is always held up to be inevitable in the absence of external surgical drainage.

Now these things are not in any sense personal puffs or a bid for applause, for in each case the cure was Nature's own, and no one is deserving the slightest credit for any of them.

They merely serve to impress the fact that Nature can do the work of restoration herself, if the usual impediments are not thrown in her way by meddlesome treatment.

From the foregoing it must be evident that the role of medicine in the treatment of disease is a very small one, and that wholly obstructive, if not openly destructive, and the same goes for surgery, with the exception of the orthopedic and emergency surgery.

Nature must cure if the thing is to ever be cured, just as Sir William Osier has so aptly said, and the sooner we reach this unassailable conclusion the better it will be for all of us.