The writer was educated in all the lore of the schools at the time of his graduation, and followed closely the literature subsequent to that time, yet he early formed the fixed idea that it made very little difference what was prescribed, as the body in some way, mysterious to him then, arrived at recovery or failed to do so independent of remedies.

Then followed, after sixteen years of this unproductive prescribing, his own personal breakdown with a condition for which he knew no remedy, in fact he knew that so far as science, so-called, was able to furnish there was distinctly no remedy, and a careful analysis of his personal habits, as these relate to the table, led him to such modification of his way of eating as brought relief in a very few months, and from that time he began dimly to realize why men get sick and what we can do about it.

However, it took four years and a laboratory course in New York to furnish him with adequate reasons for this rejuvenation.

His former scepticism in therapeutics was then seen to be well founded, for when the dietary errors were corrected the body was able to do for itself what no drug remedies could possibly have done.

Many wise heads in medicine have said over and over again: "The causes of disease are a great mystery." If this is the case then surely the remedies aimed at conditions, the cause of which is unknown, stand but a poor chance of hitting the mark.

The common cold is perhaps the most generally prescribed for of all conditions, unless perhaps constipation, and furnishes a very good illustration of the efficacy of treatment.

As all acute disease tends to early recovery then whatever remedy is used last before recovery is given credit for the cure.

So each has tried some certain remedy for colds and has seen the whole thing vanish after a day or two and at once concludes that he has struck the right remedy for a cold, so he tells all his friends, and those who enjoy an early subsidence of the symptoms of acute catarrh that we call cold are certain likewise that this is great treatment for colds, and so the remedy is established as effective in colds in spite of the fact that perhaps but a small percentage enjoyed relief soon enough after the remedy was applied to connect these two.

Treatment of all sorts is so generally unavailing that the average case is agreeably surprised by anything like a tangible result from any prescription, and yet they keep on trying, like Ponce De Leon in his search for the spring of eternal life or perpetual youth. Always it was somewhere else, never near by, not in Spain, for that was too near home, but surely somewhere in the distant New World, and so his search continued.

What has medicine to offer in the common asthma? Not a thing, for everything has been tried and found wanting, and yet if you take your case of asthma to the physician does he prescribe medicine for you? Surely he does, and you expect it and would begrudge the fee if he did not produce a tangible remedy on which you could place some reliance.

Adrenal extract does give relief by constricting the circulatory supply, thus lessening congestion of the bronchial tubes; likewise morphine, by deadening the nerve centers involved, gives temporary relief, but neither does any real good aside from this temporary relief of spasm.

A patient up from Texas was taken with his usual attack of hay fever which always promptly brought on a spasmodic attack of bronchial asthma, and being a stranger in a strange land he telephoned down stairs in his hotel for the operator to send him the best physician in Buffalo, for he was wealthy and cared nothing for expense if he could get relief.

The physician called happened to be a prominent surgeon, who in asthma could see no occasion for operation so had very little interest in the case, and aside from administering adrenal chloride every night he attempted nothing, well knowing that there was nothing except relief.

After a time the patient asked him if there was nothing that would permanently relieve asthma or cure it, and the surgeon replied that he knew of but one thing that would do asthma any real good, and when importuned for that thing, no matter what it was, he took from his bag a revolver and laid it on the table.

That was naturally his last call, but he had demonstrated to the patient two things, the one that he was honest enough to admit his inability to do anything curative, and the other that he was shockingly blunt.

This patient a little later cured himself through eschewing the usual dietetic mistakes that alone can cause asthma or any other disease.

The next year he did not even have his hay fever attack, and never again did asthma show its head.

Ex-Ophthalmic goitre is a toxic state wholly, and yet there is never anything done to relieve this, attention being directed toward quieting down the heart and nerve symptoms, and eventually excising parts of the gland or tying off its circulation.

This does limit its activity, to be sure, chokes it off, but also sacrifices much useful gland structure, and we need it all, if its hyperactivity can be quieted down to the normal.

We cannot live any great time without this gland, and in those born without a normal function there is a deficient development of body that is called cretinism, or congenital hypothyroidia.

Medicine has nothing at all to offer in goitre except the removal of the gland, a wholly destructive proceeding.

Yet these cases, if thoroughly detoxicated and well adapted to a non-acid-forming diet that represents chiefly the vital foods, will practically all come back to normal gland action.

This statement may be questioned, but in the rather large number of cases of this trouble treated during the past twenty-three years but two have not responded fully to treatment, and of these one was lost sight of for a time and eventually drifted to the Crile clinic at Cleveland where she lost a part of the gland, while the other case was under treatment but two weeks and at once returned to his flesh pots and his incompatibles, realising no benefit of course.