The use of certain vitamins is said to "cure" certain "diseases." We must not permit ourselves to be misled by these claims. They have no more value than the claims that drugs, or other such substances, "cure" disease. There is no so-called disease that is due to a unitary cause--every disease is the complex effects of a number of correlated antecedents--and no disease is curable by a unitary cure. On the other hand, practically all of the so-called deficiency states that are said to require vitamins for their cure, will and do get well while the patient is fasting and drinking only distilled water. The wild enthusiasm caused by the discovery of vitamins will sooner or later, give way to sober reflection and it will then be recognized that the research workers and others have permitted their enthusiasm to run away with their judgement.

Thousands of people are taking vitamin pills, pellets, powders, vitamin extracts, etc., and taking mineral concentrates in powder and pill form, they are supplementing their diets with these minerals.

Both vitamins and minerals are being taken in specified doses for supposed specific conditions. The drugstores and health food stores, along with the manufacturers of these products, are growing rich off their sale. But no lasting good is coming out of the practice.

The vitamin devotees tell us that vitamin A dissolves kidney stones, vitamin B aids the deaf, vitamin C softens cataracts, vitamin C helps hayfever, vitamin C relieves arthritis. These things are not true, of course. The thousands of sufferers who have been dosed with the vitamins for these conditions and have grown worse instead of better are sufficient proof of this statement. The statement that vitamins can "help, perhaps cure magically," is an exaggeration by an over-enthusiast or a commercial-exploiter of vitamins.

Vitamins do not prevent colds; they do not give energy nor prevent fatigue; they do not prevent nor cure arthritis; they do not prevent graying of the hair nor do they restore the hair to its normal color.

The drug-store pill eater is led to believe that he can have health by taking these synthetic "vitamins" without the necessity of removing the many causes of his disease. Taking vitamins to "cure" disease and neglecting to correct the habits of life that have produced and are maintaining that disease, is the same in principle and is equally as ridiculous as taking drugs for the same purpose while ignoring the habits of life. Vitamins cannot erase the effects of tobacco, alcohol, coffee, worry, fear, anxiety, domestic irritations, overwork, lack of exercise, overeating, insufficient rest and sleep, foul air in workshop, office, bed room and elsewhere.