EXERCISING TO KEEP FIT

Without doubt one of the most important laws of the universe concerns the use of the muscles. “Activity is life; stagnation is death.” Activity is the law of life - and of health. We have developed our muscles one by one or pair by pair through the evolutionary processes that have brought us up from the slime of pre-historic ages. The original and earliest form of life is considered to have been a one-celled organism similar to that which modern Science calls the amoeba. Gradually and by slow degrees, because of necessity, organs and structures, including muscles, were formed.
Whether or not evolutionary processes still are taking place in the human body in debatable. But certain it is that any structure present in the body today has definite functions and should have an opportunity to perform these functions normally. The normal function of muscle tissue is contraction and expansion-in other words, work.
The work of a muscle may be in the form of labor or it may be in the form of indoor or outdoor exercises or sports, but to the muscle it is work, and the muscle must have work or it deteriorates.
Our nervous system has been perfected through the use of the muscular system. A man who loses and arm or a leg will have a deterioration of a certain portion of the brain, readily shown upon autopsy after death. The finer the movements, the keener the response of the nervous system. Thus the pianist, the violinist, the artist with his delicate touch, where their specialized activities are concerned, may have a more responsive nervous system than has the prizefighter.
In any case, however, exercise serves the purpose of contracting and expanding muscular tissues. and there are other functions of exercise than developing keenness of response of the nervous system or of maintaining the nervous system in a responsive stable condition.
Among the functions of exercise are those concerned with digestion and metabolism? Upon the use of the muscles there is of course a contraction of the fibers forming the muscles. Nervous impulses travel down the delicate nerve fibrils to the muscular fibers and there a process take place that may be likened to the flash of powder in the cartridge when the hammer strikes the cap. What “explodes” is the food-fuel in the muscle, or musclesugar. This comes from food consumed, which reaches the individual fibers through the blood stream and through the lymph, by absorption.
Now, When the muscle fibers are all “primed” for explosions leading to contraction and there is no flash from the nerve fibrils directing the explosion, the musclesugar remains and new supplies in the lymph are passed on by. If enough of the muscular tissue is initiative, this new food circulates and re-circulates without a place through which it can be expended. This condition backs up to the digestive system so that the digested foods can not be absorbed. In time the digestive system itself becomes unable to digest foods properly - because food has not been needed by the extensive muscular system where most of the food is utilized.
When there is proper exercise of the muscular tissues, than-throughout the entire system-processes are taking place, which lead to improvement in the digestion and assimilation of food. There is a definite call for more food; and since the organs work together, like individual units in a co-operative community, the digestive system better prepares the food for use in the muscles, and effectiveness of the various transport systems insures that it reaches these muscles.
During the same time in which this process is taking place, there is an improvement in the muscular tone of the digestive tract, promoting assimilation of the products of digestion. These products get into the blood stream, and in the circuit through the body some of these elements will reach the fibers forming the muscles of the digestive tract. Hence, they will be in better tone, stronger, and more capable of performing their daily duties.
In this way the internal and external muscular systems are better feb and strengthened and the nerve fibers responsible for their activity will be more keenly alert and ready to respond to demands placed upon them.
The circulation is markedly influenced by muscular activity. An individual may lie in bed for months and the circulation will continue, but it may be likened to a sluggish stream with stagnation inevitable. At no time or place is there a swift current or a dashing rapids or waterfall. Where one exercises there is a need in the muscles for more food, the blood must bring it there, the nerves send the impulses impelling the blood to deliver the needed elements. The blood stream flows along with swiftness from the inner structures, through the large blood -vessels as it goes to the body’s periphery and back again. This circuit must be made continuously. There is no stagnation in this steam. Toxins are much less likely to develop in such an active blood stream, and there should be not decay or disintegration of the blood vessel walls, or of the tissues adjacent to them.
Exercise influences the heart favorably through its effects upon the muscle tissues and upon the blood. The heart is a hollow organ or marvelous muscular construction. From approximately four and a half months after the very conception of individual life until the last breath is taken, this organ must contract rhythmically and force from its chambers a definite amount of blood. During inactivity the heart pumps along leisurely. As a result of prolonged inactivity, its fibers become weak and incapable of withstanding any appreciable strain or tension.
Exercise of the skeletal muscles is necessary for the heart to maintain normal tone of its tissues. To supply blood to the muscles that are exercised, the heart necessarily must work with greater force or greater speed, or both. As it does so, its own muscular fibers are given strengthening exercise. In this way the heart becomes more and more powerful until it can resist many times the normal amount of exertion without injury, provided the exertion is not excessive and that the heart receives normal rest afterwards.
The lungs respond favorable to properly adapted exercise. Every globule of blood must reach the lungs several times in the course of a few minutes. As the blood passes through the delicate lung tissue, it passes off its burden of carbon dioxide and takes up a new supply of oxygen to supply the muscles with energy. Oxygen is necessary also to oxidize or burn up waste products, to prevent injurious results of accumulation. Exercise makes it necessary for the lung tissues to expand to receive more blood to throw out more carbon dioxide, and to take up more oxygen for the labouring muscles. Not only the lung tissue expands and strengthens, but the chest enlarges to allow more room for the lungs. Furthermore, expansion of the chest elevates the ribs and this elevation has a mild stimulating effect upon the spine through the rib attachments at the vertebrae, and this has a tone, naturally stimulating effect upon the nervous system.
Every vital organ within the body is influenced by the activity of the six hundred and more muscles that form the major part of our anatomy. We cannot have vital strength or organic vigor unless we use those muscles as they were meant to be use.
Exercise works hand-in-hand with relaxation. One can not build muscular tissues by exercise - only through exercise first and relaxation afterwards. What exercise does is to burn up muscle sugar and break down defective muscular fibers and prepare the way for the entrance of more building material so as to strengthen the muscle fibers against additional work. This repair, reconstruction and new construction takes place only during relaxation.
Hence to build the muscular system into a serviceable muscular organization and to reap the benefits throughout the body of exercise, it is necessary that there be adequate rest, relaxation and sleep, One becomes enabled to profit from sleep through the influence of exercise. Relaxation becomes more complete, the sleep is sounder, and repair takes place not only in the muscular tissues but in every other organ as results of recuperative sleep.
Why do we become fatigued or tired after exercise? First, because the broken-down cell material accumulates in the blood stream, acting as a block to the flow of the blood and to the flow of the nervous every. Second, because the motor areas in the brain become exhausted. That is, they have used up their reserve. Elimination will take care of the former comparatively quickly, but the latter requires relaxation and sleep for a complete correction.
It is at once evident that rest and sleep are necessary in connection with exercise, in fact, they are indispensable. Exercise may be actually injurious without rest, and rest is useless and less profitable without exercise. Both are necessary, both dependent upon each other for the greatest benefit.
Elimination of waste products is absolutely essential for the maintenance of health. In the sluggish individual the skin becomes inactive, breathing is shallow and the intestinal elimination is much below normal, while the kidneys may become irritated by the acids and other waste products that mush pass through them in excessive and abnormal amounts or in concentrated form. By proper exercise the skin pores are opened, honest sweat makes its appearance upon the surface, bringing with it waste materials.
It already has been explained how skeletal muscle exercises strengthen the internal muscular system. The improved tone in the intestinal muscles help to reestablish and maintain the normal peristaltic wave, and the residue from food is carried out of they body. It has been explained also that the function of the lungs is made more effective, more carbon dioxide being carried out when the lungs must breathe more deeply and more rapidly through exercise. The increased elimination through these channels takes some of the burden from the kidneys--through temporarily the kidneys may have a small increase in solid elimination through the influence of exercise in breaking down cells and certain waste products. If one drinks enough water or fruit juice proceeding, during and following exercises, or regularly during the day, the solid content of the urine will be diluted, and this measure tends to prevent injury to the kidneys.
Recently some physiologists have determined that the brain depends on lactic acid, almost solely as its food. Lactic acid is created by muscular exercise. When Exercise is taken in sufficient amounts to maintain the general body in a condition of greatest health, then the brain attains better nutrition, and functions dependent on the mind--such as thinking, reasoning, imagination may be stimulated.
From the above we see that proper exercise in normal amounts has to do with practically every factor concerned with the process of living. It makes more food necessary and permits us to handle that food; it demands that we drink water and that we secure fresh air for the supply of oxygen; it opens up the skin pores so that bathing is enjoyable and profitable and we become normally tired and so benefit by rest and sleep.
We return to the point which we began--that exercise has a far reaching effect upon the body; that it is indispensable to perfect health; but that, along with this, must be all essentials that go to make up right living.

KEEPING FIT BY BATHING

The outer surface of the body is its largest eliminative organ, namely, the skin. By many people the skin seems to be considered simply a covering drawn over the more important organs and structures beneath.
The skin is extremely, intricately, and intimately connected with the functions of the physical organism. Its millions of pores are minute windows for the ventilation of the body. If the pores of the skin were entirely sealed death would take place in a short time--in six hours at most. One can touch the body with a fine needlepoint at hardly and place without coming in contact with a nerve-ending and a minute blood-vessel. This shows the intimate connection between the skin and the general nervous system and between the skin and the general circulation.
A structure so closely connected with the body must have important functions. The skin has several. It affords protection for the more delicate underlying tissues. As already stated the skin provides for ventilation. It works in close connection with the kidneys. If the body-surface is heated through exercise or by external environment, the skin pores open and let out moisture, while the kidneys will be passing off less moisture.
When the skin tightens up and closes the pores as during exposure to cold, the kidney excretion of moisture increases. When, on the other hand, the pores open and perspiration appears upon the surface of the skin it undergoes evaporation. This cools the body; hence the skin is one of the important features of the heat-regulating mechanism of the body. Through contact of the skin with air, sunshine and different temperatures of water, the circulation, the heart and the nervous system are all stimulated. One of the best exercises for the heart is the water bath at sufficiently low temperatures to insure vigorous reaction and so to re-establish warmth; and one of the best means of securing sedation to the nervous system is by a bath slightly below or slightly above body temperature.
So we see that the skin has such an influence upon the body that it requires special care. In primitive life an abundance of fresh air and sunshine naturally could have contact with the body. But civilized man for so many centuries has covered his skin with clothes and housed himself under roofs until the skin has become delicate, bleached, and by no means as efficient, an organ as it was designed to be. But in practically every case it can be restored too much of its original serviceability.
With many people infrequent bathing is the only effort made on behalf of healthy skin. With others the bath other possible effects of bathing other than mere cleansing. In almost all cases baths are overheat and overlong. No one needs a hot bath except for therapeutic purposes--that is, to allay some symptom or aid in overcoming some abnormal condition. The warm soap bath is as cleaning as hot baths and is not so exhausting to the nervous system, and has fewer tendencies to lower the hemoglobin and cell count of the blood. But even the warm bath should not be taken for a longer time than is sufficient to cleanse the body. A ten minute bath is long enough, for the grimiest individual.
Many persons are not acquainted with the tonic bath. A tonic bath is a bath at any temperature below that of the body, and is called such because it arouses the reactive powers of the nervous system and circulation and has a pleasing and permanent tonic effect. Some persons are so anemic, with skin so inactive and with nervous systems and circulation so weak that a bath of seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit would seem cold and would arouse reactive powers quit readily. For these people such a temperature, or even a somewhat higher temperature, still below that of the body, may be used or a number of days to get the body accustomed to the reaction, after which it would be better to lower the temperature of the water slowly from day to day in order to more vigorously arouse reactive powers and to reawaken dormant vitality and functional capacities.
The cold bath has been advocated in recent years to such an extent that often it is overdone. Where one can take the full cold bath and react promptly and completely and suffer no immediate or later weakening effect, this bath will prove beneficial. But a great many people have weakened themselves by the cold bath. They have taken it too frequently or too cold for their reactive powers and subnormal vitality, in consequence of which they have further exhausted their vitality and become more enervated. There are many people, particularly of the highly nervous type, who never should use a definitely cold bath. For these and for many others the bath should be tempered.
A very excellent means in which to accustom oneself to the tonic bath and to become able to react favorably to lower and lower temperatures is to precede the tonic bath by a fairly hot bath or to stand with the feet in three or four inches of fairly hot water. When the circulation has been stimulated by the preparatory heat the nerves also are more prepared for the shock of the tonic bath and the reaction will be more prompt and complete.
Another satisfactory means to prepare for the tonic bath is by the dry-friction bath. There are different ways in which this may be given. One may use the hands or a coarse towel, flesh brush or bath mittens. Somebody used corncobs for years, and at the age of seventy-two had skin as soft as a body’s. The friction bath may be considered as to the cold bath what appetite is to eating; it prepares the body for the bath, as appetite prepares the body for food. One should enjoy one’s meals; and one should enjoy a cold bath also. If it is taken with a shudder and a chill there likely will be a lasting undersized effect. The friction bath puts the skin in such a condition that the cold water will “feel good”. The friction bath alone, without a water bath to follow, will have a very beneficial effect also, through its influence upon the skin surface, the nerve-endings and the capillaries in the skin, and, through these, every internal organ and structure.
Perhaps the best means of preparing for the tonic bath is by exercise. The benefits of exercise have been stressed, and the reader should be acquainted with the effect of exercise upon the skin, warming it and filling it with blood as the circulation is heightened. The effect of exercise toward preparing the skin for the cold bath is more lasting than the preceding methods of preparing the skin. In most cases the reaction to the cold or tonic bath is more prompt when the body is warmed by exercise, for within a shorter time to circulation becomes reestablished throughout the body. Indeed, after exercising circulation should attain a notably higher level than before the exercise and bath and remain at a higher level for a longer period of time than will result from the other preparatory procedures.
Not infrequently one feels so invigorated and generally warmed as a result of reaction from a cold bath that a second bath is taken shortly afterward. Many times this will not result unfavorably, but sometimes it seems to produce a numbing of the reactive powers and one will remain chilled for an hour or more and may require artificial heat. One should avoid following out the idea that if a little is beneficial a great deal is more so. A cold bath should not be taken too frequently, nor should it be continued too long. It is not the cold that does one good; it is the reaction. If one does not secure the reaction any amount of cold bathing will do no good.
Another point in regard to the cold bath; the warmer they body, the cold the bath that can be taken with prompt reaction. But one should avoid a cold plunge or other cold bath while the heart is still racing or beating rapidly as a result of exercise. This produces a tremendous shock and, unless the heart is normal, may result seriously. But remember, regardless of he heat of the body, if the heart is quiet or only slightly above normal in action the cold bath will not be detrimental.
Each individual should know or learn his own reactive powers, and in taking tonic baths keep will within these powers. These powers amy be increased steadily, in fact have been increased tremendously in a great many cases; but they cannot be increased without tonic baths, nor can they be increased by tonic baths beyond one’s power to recuperate.
Of very great value for many people is the sitz-bath. It is a tonic of great value, through its effect upon important sympathetic nerve centres. This bath consists in immersing only the hips or the central part of the body and the feet in water. One may use an ordinary wash tub or the ordinary bath tub. In either case, have the water deep enough to cover the hips while sitting in the tub with the knees drawn up or flexed. in warm weather the feet may be outside if the wash tub is used, but in cold weather the feet should be in warm water during both the hot and the cold sitz. After the cold sitz bath the feet should be momentarily dipped in the cold water.
If a person’s reactive powers are good, the sitz-bath may be taken cold, for from one-half minute to two minutes--or even longer. When the temperature of the water is fifty degrees or above, the bath may continue for five minutes or more with nothing but benefit. A very excellent way to take the sitz-bath is to take the sitz-bath for three minutes or so and follow it with the cold sitz of one-half to one minute’s duration--the hot and cold to be repeated if desired. In the ordinary home it is impossible to secure the hot and cold sitz-bath, unless a was tub is used alongside the bath tub or unless two wash tubs are used. This is a satisfactory way to take the bath. A very good procedure instead of this is to take the hot-sitz-bath, and (When the bath tub is used), attach the portable hand spray to the faucet and spray the parts that were immersed with cold water, continuing this spray over sly the parts for a minute or more.
The neutral tub bath is a bath of special value in many cases. The water is neither hot nor cold, but at a temperature of ninety-five to ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit. It is neither stimulating nor depressing, yet has a sedative or quieting effect upon the nervous system through its effect upon the verve-endings in the skin. It is very helpful in overcoming nervousness or general excitement or insomnia. It may be used also in cases of extensive severe burns.
In the use of the cleansing bath, it is important to consider the soap used. Much soap on the market is so alkaline that they are injurious to the skin. A pure vegetable soap such as castle or olive oil soap is excellent. An expensive soap is not necessary, but it should be better than the cheapest. It is particularly valuable to have a super-fatted soap when the skin is inclined to be dry. These soaps are hard to rinse off the skin. When the skin is inclined to be too dry they should not be rinsed off completely; what remains is he oil which will tend to soften the skin.
To complete, internal cleanliness must be considered. One should secure adequate amounts of drinking water. The more water one drinks within reason, the more certain are the cells to be surrounded with sufficiently fluid substances that they can pass off their waste products and absorb additional nourishment. Drinking water is taking one kind of an internal bath. One should drink at least six or eight slasses a dry unless on very large amounts of fruit or the watery vegetables or milk.
By the internal bath, however, the enema usually is meant. The low enema, the high enema, or the colonic irrigation may be referred to. The best position for taking the enema is the knee-chest position--first kneeling, then bending the body forward until the chest or folded arms reach the floor. In this position, with the hips elevated, the water which enters the rectum is allowed to enter without pressure and to reach some of the higher parts of the colon. The fountain syringe reservoir or bag should be not more than two feet above the hips and the water injected slowly. Water at about one hundred degrees temperature should be used, and from one to two quarts. The least amount should be used that can be used for complete results.
Often it is necessary to take a two-section enema--injecting and expelling one enema and following it immediately with another. The enema should be used no oftener than necessary, but as often as is needed. Suitable diet proper exercise abundant water drinking and other factors usually will make the frequent enema unnecessary.
It may be mentioned that other positions may be taken for the enema, if for any reason the knee-chest position can not be assumed. One may lie on the back with the hip elevated on a pillow; Orion may lie on the left side preferably, with the hip elevated.
If it is found necessary to use the enema fairly frequently the amount of water should be reduced from one to four ounces and the temperature reduced two or three degree every day or thereabouts, until no more than four ounces and natural tap temperature water is used. By this time the rectum and colon usually will be satisfactorily toned-up for normal elimination.

ASTHMA - ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT

Asthma is one of the most aggravating diseases that humans may suffer. It involves the very breath of life. One of the characteristic features of this disorder is that normal as anyone else and yet in a very short time may be in an attack so sever as to cause him to wish for the end of life.
Asthma is a paroxysmal difficulty of breathing resulting from sudden spasm of the bronchial tubes or their minute branches or sudden swelling of the mucous membrane of these tubes. What produces the hypersensitiveness of the respiratory membrane, which is necessary to the production of asthma, may be difficult to determine. It is associated, however, with heart disease (cardiac asthma), kidney disease (renal asthma) or some outside irritant (hay asthma), or from minor causes. A protein sensitization often underlies the condition. Bronchial, nervous or essential asthma is a form for which a leading cause can not be discovered, though usually there has been inherited a neurotic temperament.
The symptoms of asthma are comparatively similar in the majority of cases. The spasmodic attacks come on suddenly, but without regularity as a rule. Any condition which gives rise to excitation of the nervous system may cause the attacks. Sometimes these paroxysms develop more gradually and are preceded by a sensation of oppression in the chest or frequent or increased urination or a belching of gas, etc. When the attack comes on each breath. In severe cases the patients often sit which elevated by some object in order to be able to use to the fullest all of the auxiliary muscles of breathing.
In these sever attack the lips become blue and the cheeks pale, the nostrils are dilated and the eyes bulged and the entire facial expression is one of anxiety. The pulse is rapid and the perspiration is copious. The breathing is not rapid, but is difficult and wheezing. There is a sensation as if one is being choked or smothered. Often it is necessary to open a window, or to sit in the often is a cough, which may continue for quite some time before any matter is brought up for expectoration. This matter is tensecious and stringy.
The attacks may subside gradually, but often pass quite suddenly. Their duration may be a few minutes only or many hours. They may be repeated every night for quite months. Irritating vapor or fumes or a damp atmosphere may help produce or prolong an attack. Attacks frequently come on at night.
Hay asthma is quite different from the ordinary varieties. It is excited by such irritating substances as plant pollen, dust, animal emanations and such. The first symptom resembles an acute catarrh of the respiratory passages, which causes sufficient swelling of the mucous membrane to interfere with breathing.
Asthma primarily is a nervous disease, but when continued for many years in a severe form the patient may become gaunt, and hollow checked, and the chest may become deformed.
Treatment for Asthma. This is another constitutional disease, hence must have constitutional treatment. Because of the underlying neurotic or highly nervous temperament this condition may respond less readily than do many other diseases, but there have been numerous cases where all symptoms have disappeared permanently. Numerous factors may be necessary in the treatment, but diet will be the first factor in most instances. In any case it will be necessary to build up the nervous energy and to detoxicate as completely as possible.
The most reliable treatment is an absolute fast, which if necessary may continue for as long as twenty, thirty or more days, depending upon the patient’s weight strength and energy. After the fast or in cases where the fast can not be used the citrus fruits, particularly the grapefruit, will be of very great benefit. This fruit particularly seems to aid in clearing the bronchial fube of accumulated mucus and in bringing new nucus and bringing new mucus-forming elements to the tubes by the blood-stream.
After the fast or fruit diet the milk diet the milk kiet may be used with considerable benefit by a great many patients, particularly those who are below normal in weight and those whose nervous energy seems much below normal. But in a fair percentage of cases this diet seems to disagree. Temporarily it does tend to cause the throwing off of mucus, through its effect in speeding up the circulation, alkalinizing the system and aiding in throwing out waste products. But this eliminative effect is so pronounced occasionally that the patent’s breathing is interfered with to such an extent that another diet may have to be considered.
There is no specific diet for treating this disease, but a great many cases do well with two or three light meals a day of the simplest combinations of fruits, vegetables, whole-grain cereals and milk. The whole grain cereals preferably should be in the form of dry toast. This diet should include citrus fruits, berries and melons, but white sugar should be rigidly avoided and brown sugars should be used sparingly, and all of the fruits and berries should be used wholly unsweetened.
It is necessary that asthmatics live as nearly as possible out of doors. Not only must their lungs receive an abundance of fresh air, but also they must be lightly enough dressed that the entire body is air-bathed regularly. However, it is important that they avoid chilling. Warmth of the body is important to prevent an internal congestion that may light up or aggravate an attack. Clothing should be loose at all points--no constriction even if the extremities being permissible.
Between attacks moderate exercises will be very beneficial. No specific exercises are required, but all active sports that the patient can indulge in or general setting-up exercises that involve deep breathing and the arm and chest muscles should be used. Spinal compresses and massage and spinal manipulations, particularly those in the nature of osteopathic treatments, will be of great benefit in many of these cases. Many attacks of asthma can be checked or shortened by properly given packs or manipulations. Packs over the front of the chest, over the upper half of the back, or the cross-chest pack over the upper shoulders and involving the entire rib area, may be used with great relief and benefit. These cross-chest packs should be applied cold and covered thoroughly, with dry finnel. Heat by any continuous means to the upper spine or the upper chest will give relief as a rule. The drinking of an abundance of hot water is relaxing often will help to abort or shorten an attack. Inhalation of steam from a teakettle by the use of a suitable funnel may be of help in relieving the spasms.
In many cases it is necessary to avoid cold applications until considerable general improvement has been secured. Many attacks have been produced by cold applied to the chest or upper back, and yet some of the best ultimate results have been obtained where this treatment has been employed. Much depends upon one’s individual response to such treatment. It can be used without starting an attack it can be considered a very beneficial type of treatment. The electric cabinet bath relieves very quickly in many cases because of its sweatproducing relaxing effect. It should be followed by a tepid shower or sponge, terminated by the cold shower or sponge if possible.
The use of vapors for the specific effect of quieting an attack of asthma should be avoided if possible, also the injection of adrenalin chloride. These remedies or the attacks have no effect upon the underlying conditions and often interfere with the progress of the case under natural treatment. However, there are attacks so severe or patients in such an exhausted condition that such relief is preferable to a continuation of the attack when any natural procedure will not give the desired relief. Adrenaline is an internal secretion production, hence is not wholly foreign to the body and may be considered much better foreign to the body and may be considered much better than the leaves and powders that are used by burning.
As invaluable for their palliative effect as these remedies are in relieving acute attacks, constitutional treatment as outlined is vitally important and must be depended upon if a permanent cure is to be established. In a great many cases all that is required is the proper diet and adequate elimination, with improved skin activity. It is necessary also that the patient should cultivate relaxation, not only physical but mental and emotional. This will help a great deal in preventing attacks, and during an attack, if the patient can secure mental relaxation much will be done towards hastening the termination of the attack.

BACKACHE AND ITS CAUSES

Backache is a rather common condition and often seems to be the only disturbing symptom in people otherwise in reasonably good health. It is a common symptom of many diseases, as well.
By the term backache usually is meant a lumber pain, beginning in the region of the first lumber vertebra and extending downward along the “small of the back”. The pain may be in the center of the back, along the spine, or on either one or both sides of the spine; and it may affect any region of the back.
There are a great many causes of backache, but the largest number result from strain, fatigue and lack of balance. Strain may result from unnatural posture while sitting, standing and walking, or trom a one-sided occupation. Those who carry weight on one side, such as postmen, or children with their school books usually over one shoulder, may have considerable backache--and may develop definite spinal curvature. Other causes of strain are a poor muscular balance or abnormal abdominal conditions, such as enlarged or prolapsed organs, obesity, etc. Fatigue often results from a constant attitude in such occupations as require stooping, bending or lifting heavy objects. In many cases abnormal muscular balance results from fallen or broken arches of the feet or from the use of poorly fitting shoes. In these cases the pain usually extends upwards from the lower extremities to the back.
High heels are very prolific causes of backache. The natural foot is constructed to walk best in a horizontal position, with the heel no higher than the sole of the foot. The muscles are designed to support the body best in this position. When heels of two or more inches in height are worn it is necessary for the muscles of the back to be unnaturally tensed in order to support the trunk in the erect position; also the pelvic bones must tip in an unnatural position, placing stress upon certain muscles and ligaments, and pains or aches will result in some degree.
Backache sometimes becomes so constant or frequent that a patient, with unstable nervous system or neurotic in natural will develop a condition of the mind that allows mental concentration on the back with the resultant pain, in the back continuing, although it may originate from some other source. Such a spine is know as “hysterical spine.” Treatment in such cases must be general and directed toward relieving and curing the neurotic tendencies, and the nervous system must be restored to normal balance. However, local treatments will be of value and should include heat by a means, massage, vibration, probably specific spine manipulation etc.
A more or less similar condition results from physical shock without a definite injury to the spine or with a slight injury that should be quickly corrected. The backache lingers and the patient becomes neurotic. This condition is called “ rail-road spine”. It requires the same type of treatment, as does the hysterical spine.
Backaches not infrequently result from nerve inflammation or neuritis either of a simple type or as a part of a multiple neuritis resulting from alcoholism, lead-poisoning or diabetes. The alcohol or lead must be removed from the system and the diabetes must be properly treated to correct these backaches.
There are many backaches resulting from a focus of infection elsewhere. Such infections may be acute or chronic tonsillitis, apical (tooth-root) abscesses, gonorrhea, pneumonia or influenza. The last two are acute conditions and the pain usually is in the early stages. In these disorders there usually are other symptoms pointing to the causative condition. The backache will subside when the infection disappears by proper treatment. It may be necessary to resort to a rigid course of diet, baths, manipulations, water treatments and so on. Infected tooth abscesses must receive the proper dental attention; the backache may or may not need special treatment, but usually this will be necessary also.
Other infections causing backache are tuberculosis and typhoid fever. A deformity frequently results in the case of tuberculosis. This condition requires quiet, rest on a fairly rigid bed and a nourishing diet of natural foods, avoidance of constipation, proper care of the skin by sun, air, friction, and cool sponge baths, plenty of fresh air and sleep. Typhoid fever may produce a rigid tender spine with considerable aching. This usually disappears upon the clearing up of the typhoid fever, but local back treatment may help it to disappear more quickly.
Many backaches are due to relaxation of the joints of the lower spine and hipbones or to a natural rigidity of the ligaments in these regions. There may be a genuine arthritic development in these joints, due to rheumatic or other infections.
Long illness and surgical operations requiring prolonged lying in bed may cause relaxation of the joints of the lower spine and hips. Sleeping on a bed with very relaxed springs, on which one assumes such a posture as in a hammock, may produce similar conditions. Using harder bedsprings, taking cool baths and exercises will clear up many of these cases. Strapping may be necessary for a time when the relaxation is extreme. Specific manipulative treatments, osteopathy especially, will be very beneficial in most of these cases.
Backaches often result from prosthetic disease in men and from diseases and displacements peculiar to women. The ache in these cases is in the lumbar or sacral region or between the shoulders or in all of these regions. These conditions must be overcome by appropriate treatment to reduce inflammations, congestions, enlargements or malpositions, as the case may be.
Sudden twists and turns may result in backache, especially when the muscles and ligaments supporting the backbone are abnormally relaxed. Hot and cold applications, hot and cold sitz-baths, more or less rest for a time, and sometimes strapping, will take care of these cases.
Kidney disease, pendulous abdomen, and prolepses of the stomach or other abdominal organs frequently result in backache. Special treatment for the causative condition will be necessary. Diet will prove very important, as well as proper posture, and any other general measures seemingly indicated, together with considerable local treatment. Kidney disorders may require a very strict dietetic and general treatment (see Kidney Disease).
Constipation is a very frequent cause of backache, and this form readily responds to treatment that will correct the constipation. Included in this treatment should be proper diet and exercise, but local treatment to the back may be given to hasten the cure of the constipation as well as to overcome the backache.
Other causes of backache are spinal curvature, often-mild degrees of curvature that are not suspected; hysteria and neurasthenia: ulcer of the stomach, liver congestion, gall-stones, hemorrhoids, cystitis or inflation of the bladder, and lumbago. All of these will require direct and specific treatment for the underlying cause.
From the above it will be seen that the causes of backache are many and common and, while local measures will be of value in all case, the underlying condition should be discovered if possible, and this condition should receive proper treatment.
Lumbago often is a term applied to fit any type of ache or pain occurring in the lumbar region. True lumbago is not a particularly common condition. It is a severe paroxysmal form of muscular rheumatism involving the muscles of the loins and their tendon attachments. With this condition one may be unable to twist or turn the back or to rise to an erect position after stooping. Even the jar of walking or riding in a motorcar may cause pain. In the treatment of this condition hot-water applications and especially the hot sitz-bath followed by proper applied by an electric pad in order to maintain uniform heat for a considerable length of time. Hot-water bottles may be used satisfactorily in many cases. Usually there should be a proper eliminative diet. Constipation should be corrected; and as a rule manipulation and vibratory treatment should be applied, beginning very gently and increasing with successive treatments as the pain subsides.

COLD AND COUGHS

The “common cold” is one of the most frequent of all causes of loss in wages and salary, not to mention joy of life. There are very few people who have not had numerous colds, and comparatively few who escape at least one cold during the winter or colder months. It would be no exaggeration to say that scores of people every year literally cough themselves into their graves. A cough is one of the first and most prominent symptoms of a cold, and a cold neglected or wrongly treated is one of the first symptoms that a coffin soon will be needed. Note that I say, “a cold neglected or wrongly treated,” for neither a say, “a cold neglected or wrongly treated,” for neither a cough nor a cold will necessarily kill unless wrongly treated or allowed to develop into a more serious malady.
The mystery of a cold has been inquired into and debated for ages. The term “cold” is so used because we always have associated the ailment with cold weather and low degrees of temperature. When we get away from this idea we shall have a better opportunity to discover the proper way to prevent and relieve colds.
Frequently warnings are sent out by Federal medical officials and by State and local medical officials in regard to colds, and influenza, and much wholesome advice is disseminated.
Perhaps no one classes of people eats more heartily than the farmers, and they also wear heavy woolens, as a rule. Of course much of their time is spent out of doors and they do require somewhat heavier clothing and heavier foods than do many others. But in addition to these, it is unusual thing to find the farmer’s bedroom windows open in the wintertime. Often the windows are closed tightly and caulked so that there will be not drafts. All these factors combined make many farmers especially subject to respiratory diseases, such as colds, bronchitis and pneumonia-in spite of the fact that they are out of doors much during the daytime. The heavy clothing and the heavy diet no doubt are important factors in creating this susceptibility of the farmer.
Colds are considered contagious. Without doubt there are many bacteria in the discharges of a patient with a cold; and many of these may reach the respiratory tract of someone who may subsequently develop a cold. But over and over again it has been proven that these germs are not the fundamental cause of colds. If they were, everyone in any congregation, audience or gathering of any kind would soon develop colds if there were only a few coughing and sneezing members. The physician on his rounds from cold patient would develop colds frequently if germs were the chief cause.
One may argue that it is only those susceptible who develop colds from “exposure” to colds-to the bacteria of colds. That is granted-and it is just why many people contract colds; their bodies harbor encumbrances that provide a favorable culture medium for the propagation of the germs. A clean body and clean blood establish more or less of a natural immunity. A cold is really and effort of Nature to eliminate accumulated poisons from the system.
What are colds, and how do they develop ?
A cold is considered as and acute inflammation of the mucous membrane of the upper air passages, sometimes involving the eyes and the throat, and usually is associated with general symptoms, The “inflammation,” however, is merely a congestion due to the need for an extra amount of blood in the parts to carry on the extremely active elimination. Of course there is some minor inflammatory process, but this in itself can be ignored in the main. The thing to consider is the underlying condition.
Usually when nature decrees a cold, the entire vital force is more actively aroused than when a catarrh results from the same causes. Yet a cold may be considered as an acute catarrh, elimination taking place much more rapidly in this acute condition than in the case of catarrh, where the body, for some reason of encumbrance or repression of depletion, is prevented from making strenuous acute efforts toward elimination.
Amount the many immediate and contributing causes of colds, I am convinced that the ingestion of more food than the body can readily make use of is foremost, Most of us seem to think that eating is for the chief purpose of providing plate pleasure and to prevent hunger, Food is meant to supply the body with working materials, and to relieve hunger, Many persons-most of us, in fact-have never experienced a genuine hunger since childhood. They see to it that they don’t, by answering every call to meals, whether they need a bite or not, Continued feeding without genuine hunger appetite depresses the digestive function, and as a result of the ensuing indigestion there are fermentation and putrefaction in the food canal, with absorption of material unneeded by the tissues from the blood-and lymphatic vessels, The already overburdened eliminative system is further embarrassed and these unnatural substances are backed up into and deposited in every organ and cell of the body.The body develops and acute cold as a means of effecting a house-cleaning.
Man naturally was an unclothed animal as are other living creatures, But civilization has led us to a pride in clothing, and to overdressing, An excessive amount of clothing renders the skin more or less lifeless, for the prores and cells of the skin cannot function much better than a man’s breathing apparatus could if the head were buried in a feather pillow. The clothing worn makes it unnecessary for the skin to perform its great function of heat-regulation. Instead of vigorous circulation in the skin, this organ becomes pale, anemic” lifeless,” and the blood gathers internally to produce congestion within.
The skin is further reduced in serviceability by inordinate use of hot baths, or by neglect of the need for cleanliness. Hot baths repeated frequently or continued too long lessen responsiveness of every element forming the skin-blood-vessels, nerve-endings, pores, sweatglands, and so on. They also produce and anemia, and a coincident lowering of general vitality.
One does not need a recital of any additional causes of colds. The above are the leading ones: systemic toxemia or filth encumbrance, nerve-endings and capillaries in the skin anesthetized or deadened and incapable of normal reaction, and a resulting congestion or the mucous membrane of the respiratory and intestinal tracts with or without some exposure or other usually considered exciting cause.
Under normal conditions the material eliminated from the mucous membrane during a cold would be eliminated from the body through the normal eliminating channels the lungs, bowels, kidneys and skin. It is when and only when these channels are incapable of keeping the elimination up with formation and accumulation of waste products that the body must call upon the mucous membrane to assist. A cold develops. It is curative in nature; it is beneficial; and it is the very best the body can do under the circumstances. The body soon would be much worse off if the cold did not develop, for there would be internal derangements. It is the vital force within the body that causes the cold to take place, and the symptoms of the cold are the local phenomena of vital activity.
Too may people resort to fever-reducing drugs and chemical laxatives, for the eradication of a cold, Their arm, unconscious though it may be, is to suppress the cold symptoms-but this suppression does not eliminate the course. So long as the cause remains there will be colds recurring, or some alterations within vital organs and cells, cold suppressed means vitality suppressed, unwanted waste products retained, and the drug and its after-effects added to the burden. All this cannot but put the body in a worse condition than it was during the cold or before the cold developed, This explains the development of complication, the “settling” of colds in the kidneys or lungs or elsewhere, and consequences following physical house-cleaning and the body’s partial adjustment to the added adverse condition. During active colds a body is perfectly safe, provided it is allowed to function in the direction it is taking, and in fact aided along in the same direction.
Colds being so prevalent and so universal, it is hardly necessary to consider minor symptoms. These are well known to practically everyone. What is not known, however, by the majority of people is that when a cold lingers on unduly long through one’s failure to aid the body in its efforts or when it “settles” in some part of the body, the cause of the cold has been aggravated or intensified and the body has been prevented from performing its eliminative functions with effectiveness.
A cold sometimes can be aborted by increasing the elimination through all channels at the very onset of the first symptoms. The best way to do this is by withdrawing all food except perhaps unsweetened citrus fruit juices, supplying an abundance of fresh water for drinking, securing a good perspiration by a hot bath for fifteen or twenty minutes and then frictioning the skin with a cold wet towel, cleansing the bowels with a fairly full moderately hot enema, providing an abundance of fresh air for the necessary supply of waste-consuming oxygen and then securing a good night’s sleep.
Even after a cold has gotten a good start these procedures should be employed. The food should be withheld until one day after the symptoms of the cold have disappeared, whether this be one day or a full week or even more. There is no appetite anyway, and there will be little if any digestion, food being an added encumbrance.
If there is general weariness and especially if there is fever, the patient may go to bed for a few days-as long as the fever continues; but usually where the temperature is normal it is better to be up and around.
The old belief in “feeding a cold and starving a fever” was born through misunderstanding. Whoever first said this was possibly a philosopher, and may have meant that if one does stuff a cold there soon will be a fever that will require starving (fasting) to relieve. Both conditions are due to the same toxemic cause, and are merely different manifestations of the vital activity in the process of cure.
When there is no fever, exercise is a very excellent means of hastening the restoration of normal conditions. One may take as vigorous exercise as general and organic conditions will permit, and preferably continue until a vigorous perspiration results. The sweat, however, may be produced in one of several other ways; an electric-light cabinet, steam-cabinet, vapor-cabinet, or hot dry-air cabinet; a hot-blanket pack; a hot tub bath; or by sitting over a cane-bottomed chair under which is a pan of steaming water, the body except for the head being covered with blankets, tent-fashion. Any sweat-bath should be obtained in an abundance of fresh air, and the treatment should be terminated by a short hot rinse and then a cold shower or other cold bath-tempered to suit one’s reactive powers.
As a general procedure, there must be a both below body temperature after any sweat-bath or hot bath without sweating, but reaction to warmth must be assured. Complete drying, then covering up well and resting or sleeping is the best termination.
A very excellent relief for the cough frequently associated with a cold is the sipping of hot water containing the juice of one lemon and a little honey; or, every hour or so taking a teaspoonful of a mixture of equal parts of honey and lemon juice. A hot compress over the front of the throat, or heat by means of a heat lamp will be excellent, especially if followed by a cold throat pack, to be kept on for several hours. If other means fail, one may inhale steam (from an open vessel or a suitably equipped kettle), containing a few drops of tincture of benison, with or without a few drops of eucalyptus oil. Licorice sometimes is very soothing to the larynx and eases conditions causing a cough. It is better that one take something of this sort than the more powerful cough remedies; but it is advisable to control the cough if it is wearing the patient out and if it interferes with sleep, and particularly if it is unproductive (if it brings up no mucus).
One should keep in such physical condition. Muscularly, nervously, chemically and otherwise, that one is immune to colds. It can be done. But if one develops colds, nothing serious can well happen if the treatment outline above is instituted at the onset. One need fear no complications and no harmful after-effects. Avoid suppressive treatments, if you would have the body benefited by the cold instead of left in a worse condition-by the treatment, however, not by the cold or the underlying conditions giving rise to the cold.
If one does not keep in constant condition to escape colds, than one should begin training many weeks before the usual “cold” season, in order to prevent the cold-not letter than early winter for the usual winter colds, and preferably not later than autumn.
If one will follow the advice given in the early chapters of this book, regarding eating, eliminating, exercising, bathing and every other factor concerned with one’s daily life one need have little fear of “catching” a cold. In short, one should eat no more than enough to support the body’s needs and should have meals well balanced, containing enough foods supplying minerals, vitamins and bulk; one should use a minimum of starches and sugars-yet as much as needed for energy. Keep up normal elimination. Secure as frequent sun and air-baths as possible. Wear as little clothing as possible to maintain warmth, but enough to prevent being chilly. Don’t start wearing heavy woolens as soon as the first cool breeze of fall blows around the corner. Wear summer-weight clothing in the winter when inside in super-heated homes and offices, and protect against outdoor cold by overwraps and overcoats. Exercise daily, enough to speed up heart action, circulation and breathing. Follow each exercise period with a cool or warm and cool (or cold) bath and good friction. Spend as much time out of doors as possible. Secure ample rest, relaxation and sleep. Drink at least six glasses of water daily, and at least one quart of milk, those who are toxemic to begin with may tend to develop colds on trying the above plan. But it is because they do need it. Continuing the program will soon eradicate the cause of the cold, and the symptoms will make their disappearance. The more nearly natural the environment of the body the better will its organs function, and the sooner will disease belong the past.
There are coughs not humanly resulting from colds, of course, but the treatment suggested above for the cough of colds usually will relieve any other cough. The cough of tuberculosis and heart disease may resist any treatment that does not directly benefit the lung or heart condition.
One of the most persistent and exasperating of all coughs is that following influenza or a cold and aggravated by inhaling cigarette or other tobacco smoke. Among other cough causes may be mentioned acute and catarrh, chronic bronchitis, bronchial enlarged bronchial glands, laryngitis of different kinds, pleurisy, stomach irritation, nervousness, hysteria, male urethra stricture or irritation, etc. But unless there is some serious organic condition underlying the cough, in all these coughs very similar conditions exist within the larynx, which may be called a “cough-box”. A treatment that is effective in one case will be apt to be effective in another.
A constant, harsh cough may lead to rupture, prolapsed of some internal organ, reopening of harsh cough may lead to rupture, prolapsed of some internal organ, reopening of recent operation scars, tearing loose of abdominal adhesions with considerable internal damage, rupture of a blood-vessel, dilation or rupture of small air-spaces of the lungs, or severe aggravation of abnormal heart conditions. For this reason it is well to check a severe dry cough that does not serve the purpose of expelling injurious secretions or executions from the throat, bronchi or lungs.
If you are a smoker it is well to begin treatment by discontinuing smoking at once, for you will come to that or suffer through a long period of distress--and of untold vexation to close neighbors. For your own pleasure you may want to compromise, but for the sake of others forego your own pleasure, disturbing and unsatisfactory at best.
You may feel that your cough doesn’t happen to be the kind that is benefited by a fast or reduced diet, or at least by a decidedly reduced diet. But if you want quick results in checking that cough try the absolute fast or a diet of only a few oranges daily. Or pineapple juice, in “doses” of two or three ounces every two or three hours (or even every hour or so), frequently is very satisfactory. Drink freely of water--the more the better. Other factors of treatment were given for the cough of colds.
But additional measures of value in many cases are hot footbaths and hot lemonade just before retiring, which will help one to sleep without severe coughing. Slippery-elm bark or lozenges of slippery-elm may be chewed with considerable benefit. This can scarcely be called a medicine.
Spinal manipulative treatment frequently is necessary or at least advisable, as in some cases there are definite contractions of deep spinal muscles and ligaments, and these treatments and the hot or hot and cold supplications to the spinal region will relieve these contractions. One may try by force of will to suppress a dry and unproductive cough, but this sometimes is quite difficult, sometimes impossible.
But the treatment that often markedly relieves many a stubborn cough is plain, ordinary Vaseline--petroleum jelly. Some people have learned to take it as easily as they take butter, and hasten to the Vaseline tube or jar at the slightest suggestion of a cough. It would be better if they avoided the cause of the cough. But the purpose of this short chapter is to help get rid of cough after it has developed-- as well as how to avoid it. The tip end of a small spoon is filled with Vaseline and this amount taken (from the back of the tongue) two or three times a day and somewhat oftener if necessary. There is no effect upon the digestive system other than a slight laxative effect, which is not undesirable - and it seems to naturally lubricate the tract, relieving the irritation and dissipating the cough.
The cough resulting from urethra stricture or irritation many require the passage of a cold metal sound by a physician. The dilation of the urethra canal often will ease up, reflexly, the condition in the larynx responsible for the cough. But sometimes this cough will be relieved by the hot shallow sitz-bath--sitting in six inches or so of hot water, knees drawn up so that just the perineum and part of the hips and the feet are in the water. This may continue for from ten to thirty minutes, keeping the water hot by frequently adding additional water after allowing some to escape. General measures for improving the health of the body as a whole and local throat treatments also should be employed in this condition. Such coughs may not respond to the Vaseline treatment, but it is worth a trial. In fact, whatever the cause, any natural or drugless local measure suitable to the general physical condition may be employed, if seemingly necessary. The productive cough is beneficial, but the unproductive cough is a nuisance, to everyone. But even the productive cough should be banished as soon as possible.

HAYFEVER, ITS CAUSES AND RELIEF

What a blessing the great outdoors is and what a delight to get out into the open to walk through some country alone or beflowered part; or to enjoy the shade of a free in mid-summer. But a near-tragedy befalls hundreds of thousands of people every year under just such circumstances. For them such places are regions inhabited by a source of torment.
Why? Because in these surroundings is incubated that bane of their existence--hay fever. Wherever those so affected may go, however careful they may be to keep away from Nature, many are attacked yearly by this aggravating, painful, distressing affliction. For the pollen of flowers and grasses and the dust of the earth are broadcast practically everywhere on wings of the wind. Those predisposed to hay fever can not escape it if they remain within the range of these causative irritants. Once contracted it usually remains with the civtim for six to eight weeks or longer.
Never make light of hay fever to one of these victims. There may be long or short periods when he is an well as anyone, or be completely over it within a few days toward the end of the season for it, and be as normal as ever, but this does not mean that the conditions insignificant and that he does not suffer while the disease is with him. He does suffer.
This disease begins, in different localities, from about June first to the latter part of August, and lasts from about the second week in September to about the end of October. At these times, Victimes of hay-fever are sniffling, sneezing, snuffing and sniveling their very hearts away.
The disease usually begins with a feeling as if a stray hair were brushing over the face, especially over the nose, and an uncertain itch within the nostrils. The sensation rapidly increases until it is well nigh unbearable. Spasms of sneezing come on with “running nose,” and watery eyes that are very painful in the light. These people are truly unwilling mourners at the shrine of the almighty pollen.
But why do these hundreds of thousands of people suffer from the condition while the rest of the millions who breathe the same air, containing the same pollens, dust, odors, animal emanations, etc., go free? Certainly if these things cause the disease everyone would have it and we all would be a bunch of wheezers for two months or so each year. There is a great deal more at work to produce the disorder than these. Without a doubt goldenrod, ragweed, various grasses, asters, animal fur and many other things are causative factors, but they are only the match which sets off the brush into a huge flame that does not burn itself out until the first frost. Instead of being the real cause, they are merely exciting irritants which affect the already somewhat inflamed or later oversensitive membrane that lines the nose and throat. But neither is the inflamed membrane the real cause. We mush go farther back than that. What is the cause? Very likely this is a morbid condition of the blood--a hyperacidity, resulting from abnormal cell-processes, or metabolism, possibly the result in part of an excess of certain food elements, a deficiency of other elements needed by the body, and insufficient elimination.
In other words the “end-products” (final digestive products) of abnormal protein digestion fill the blood and cause the irritation of these sensitive membranes, which are doubtless improperly supplied with normal nerve and blood supply, as a result of some interference at or about the nerve origin--the vertebrae or the spinal muscles and ligaments. Others may have the same protein poisoning, but without the same conditions of the nerves, they may escape similar results. Again, some may be subject to these nerve conditions and yet not to such protein poisoning, hence may escape hay fever. Susceptibility or what is termed allergy to certain proteins is a factor, and persons who have the morbid state of the blood mentioned above plus susceptibility to these certain proteins are the ones most seriously affected.
The fact that the treatment here given produces he desired results in many case shows that the above theory of cause must be largely correct. Spinal treatments will be valuable, as the vicious circle must be broken somewhere. But the majority of cases will require direct purification of the blood-stream.
The absolute fast or fruit diet should be employed for at least several days. Many patients have fasted on water for from ten to thirty days for the eradication of this disease. It is often permissible in this condition to use a saline laxative in one large dose to cleanse the intestinal tract as much as possible at the very onset of the fast. It this fact is taken from three to six weeks prior to the expected onset of the attack, the attack may be aborted or minimized.
After the fast or fruit diet, the buttermilk or sour milk diet may be taken with great benefit. It should continue for at least three or four weeks. Following this the diet should be Very light and free from any foods containing a large reapportion of protein.
Breakfast may be merely one portion of fruit or all that is desired of one kind o fruit or fruit juice: or there may be any fruit desired and a glass of milk. It is well to have only one other meal, which may be taken at regular supper time (the breakfast being taken later than the usual breakfast time). This may consist of cooked and raw vegetables with whole wheat toast or whole rise or backed potato and fruit, with as much buttermilk or sour milk as is desired. After two or three weeks, this may be gradually amplified and the meals placed farther apart, so that a third meal may be taken if desired.
The daily enema, used after the third day of the fruit diet, should be dispensed with as soon as possible on the later diet. It is well to use a daily cold or short hot and cold shower, sponge or other bath--but the cold bath should be taken whether or not the hot is taken. There should be sufficient relaxation and sleep, and spinal treatments may be taken daily or as often as the spinal therapist considers advisable.
Many people who have had hay-fever yearly for a number of years and have hit the trail for the White Mountains or the Thousand Islands or elsewhere to escape it as much as possible, hobnobbing during the sojourns with others of the hay-fever aristocracy, have been able to escape this aggravating disease by following rigidity such a treatment as is outlined above. Of course, relief in any case is attained least in locations where vegetation of a nature to cause hay-fever is found.
It may be necessary to repeat such a regimen prior to the onset of the season of vegetation for two or three years, but usually one or two courses of this type of treatment will correct the tendency to its development.

LOW BLOOD PRESSURE (BP) AND HEALTH

Many persons have considerable about blood pressure and yet do not know what this term really means. By blood pressure is meant the pressure and yet do not know what this term really means. By blood pressure is meant the pressure or tension in the arteries, which depends upon secular factors; the beat of the heart, the condition of the blood vessel walls, the amount of blood in the vessels, and the general tissue tone.
Blood pressure usually is recorded by one figure over another, resembling a fraction, such as 120/80. This is not a fraction, The upper figure represents the systolic pressure, in other words the pressure in the vessel at the time of maximum increase in blood at the time of a heart-beat. The lower figure represents the diastolic pressure and indicates the pressure in the arteries during heart relaxation, between one heart-beat and the next.
Blood pressure is taken by a device called a syphgmo-manometer. The original device and the device used to a great extent today is a cloth-enclosed rubber band which encircles the arm, from which two hollow rubber tubes lead, one going to a bulb and the other to a box containing a column of mercury with a reservoir in the bottom. When the band is applied about the arm and the tubes properly attached to the bulb and the mercury column, the physician repeatedly presses the bulb until the artery in the arm is sufficiently compressed to obliterate the pulse in the wrist.
Formally only the systolic pressure was taken, but now both pressures are taken. The systolic pressure was taken and easily may be taken by the finger of the physician on the wrist. But to secure both blood pressures they physician now uses the stethoscope, which is placed just below the bend of the elbow on the fore-arm. After obliterating the pulse, with the stethoscope in place, the valve on the bulb is released slowly until through the stethoscope are heard the first sounds coinciding with the heart-beats. When the bulb has been compressed the column of mercury has risen in the glass tube, and as it descends upon releasing the valve, observation is made at the point the mercury has reached when the first sounds are heard. At the side of the glass tube are markings two millimeters apart, and the systolic pressure is read in millimeters according to the point reached by the mercury. Then the valve is further opened to release pressure, and the column or mercury descends. At the point where sounds again fade out, the point where the mercury stops is read as the diastolic pressure.
Another device frequently used now is a dial instead of the column of mercury. This dial is collaborated to correspond to the millimeters on the mercury column. The use of the mercury column, however, gave rise to a term which is used whether the mercury column or the dial syphgmomanometer is used--that is “millimeters of mercury.”
The normal systolic blood pressure ranges from 100 to 150 mm. (millimeters of mercury). Formerly it was considered normal for men to have a blood pressure of 100 plus the age, and women 90 plus the age. This will not hold above the age of 40, and even at 75 to 85 years it would be better to have a blood pressure of not over 135 or 140. There is less wear and tear upon the heart and blood-vessels, nervous energy and general vitality where a blood pressure of early adult life is maintained throughout the remainder of life.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, is discussed earlier in this book, and in this section is considered suitable treatment for most cases of high blood pressure. Arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is one of the more serious results of hypertension.
A low blood pressure, or hypertension, may result from one of several conditions, though as a rule a moderately low blood pressure need be given no consideration. Causes of low blood pressure are diminished reserved power of circulation; heart weakness; exhaustion of adrenal glands by severe toxemia’s and infections (As after typhoid fever, influenza and pneumonia, and in tuberculosis and diabetes); chronic tobacco poisoning,; operations; from anesthetics and shocks; hemorrhage; anemia; general run-down conditions; malnutrition, and other conditions. Usually when there is a low blood pressure there is less energy; one “plays out” more quickly, the energy being more like that of kindling, which flares up briefly and is soon exhausted.
Treatment- The cause of hypertension should be discovered and removed if possible. If is is the result of chronic degeneration of the heart-muscle a grate deal of rest is required, though in order to tone up and restrengthen the heart it will be necessary as soon as possible to take up moderate walking and gradually work into other types of exercise or to more vigorous walking. In most other cases, where the heart is not involved, graduated exercises are permissible from the first, though graduated exercises are permissible from the first, though if more than a slight degree of fatigue results from the exercise the blood pressure is likely to drop still further. Tonic baths are of considerable benefit, but of course must be adapted to the individual’s reactive powers. A tonic bath is any bath below body temperature. The needle bath and light percussion are valuable, and massage is of benefit in all cases.
The former belief was that large quantities of “good substantial food,” particularly of meat, were necessary in order to raise the blood pressure. In many cases of low blood pressure there has been hearty eating, with large quantities of meat and other supposed-to-be good food. The majority of cases will do much better if meat is eliminated from the diet or used in very limited quantities and if the diet is made up mainly of large quantities of fruits and green vegetables. Fasting may be employed at the beginning of treatment, but only for a few days, usually a day or two. Instead of the fast a fruit-juice or juicy fruits desired, at regular meal times or from four to six times a day. Following the fruit fast a strict milk diet for several weeks is one of the best means of overcoming practically all the conditions that may be responsible for the low blood pressure. If this diet is taken the maximum quantify of milk up to five and half quartz for women and seven quarts for men should be taken daily, with one or two oranges or a grapefruit daily. Constipation should be avoided by the use of prunes, figs, bran or bran muffins with the milk diet or by the use of the daily enema--if bowel activity should be sluggish on the milk diet alone.
There must be an abundance of relaxation and sleep to permit recovery of balance in the nervous system and in the glandular system, but exercise or physical activity is necessary if the condition is to be permanently corrected. Rectal dilation sometimes helps appreciably, also spinal manipulation if there is any undue tension in the spinal muscles or ligaments or if thee is any bony impingements of nerves.
Medical authorities declare adrenal substance quite helpful in this condition, because it provides to the body a direct tonic, which serves an immediate purpose of favorably influencing the blood pressure, while at the same time saving to provide rest and recovery of the adrenal glands. Usually a combination gland tablet or capsule is better than adrenal substance alone--one containing adrenal and thyroid particularly, with or without gonad substance. While the blood pressure may not be raised rapidly (and in fact it usually does not increase as rapidly as many cases of high blood pressure reduce), yet by a close adherence to the natural treatment as suggested there will be a gradual return to or toward normal.

OVERWEIGHTAND ITS REDUCTION

Fat or lean, we today scarcely can avoid the question of overweight. The fashions, the drugstore counters, the negazines and newspapers, the doctors, the billboards and fat and lean people themselves emphasize and impress this subject upon us.
Now while scientists are fiddling with retort and test tubes and lecturing before clinics, and psychologists try to explain the modern trend of women to conduct regular orgies of reduction, as “psychic contagion,” and “mass phenomenon,” let us try to get to a practical working basis.
Obesity is not an indication of health, but of ill health-of general poisoning, of reduced functions of every organ of the body except those associated with assimilation. Fat is peculiar in that some people cannot pick up any of it, while others have trouble in dropping it after picking it up all too easily. Each individual has his own average normal weight based upon his skeletal frame and his muscles, upon his type as a whole-temperament and all. There is an optimum size of man for greatest convenience, efficiency and health; but except for the pig there is no animal that gets so far above and beyond its most convenient size as the animal called man.
The poundage above normal may be slight, moderate or excessive. A The degrees is classified as: the enviable stage, presenting a pleasing rotundity; the comical or ludicrous stage, the jovial Flagstaff type; and the pitiable stage, that of unwieldy deformity. The first stage adds to the beauty and attractiveness of the human form, especially the female form, covering angles and sharp corners, and it is a distinct health asset especially in early years, It requires careful watching and moderate efforts to prevent the encroachment upon it of the second stage. And the two latter stages are tragic and harmful so far as health and life expectancy and concerned, and require definite efforts, without compromise, toward reduction.
Many fat persons, especially those who have fought obesity unsuccessfully, try to shoulder responsibility for the condition upon somebody or something else than that of which they have direct control heredity it blamed or an unusually vigorous digestion and assimilation; or a reduced rate of combustion, which no one is able to account for; or abnormal functioning of some of the glands of internal secretion (thyroid, pituitary, sexual).
The principal cause of obesity, however, is the intake of food in excess of the body requirements, in excess if energy output - too much food and too little exercise. Unless one takes into his body more food than it requires in any of the above-mentioned conditions and leads an indolent life or at most secures insufficient open-air activity, there can be no gradual gain in oleaginous excess. This puts the production and the reduction of one’s corpulence directly up to the individual himself where it belongs, except in those early cases which show some developmental defect and do not come under the subject of simple obesity. They are not common.
It is not natural to gain weight as one grows older. At fifty-one should weigh no more than one did at twenty-five, if one had reached normal weight at twenty-five. One grows heavier as one grows older merely because one takes life easier and indulges his appetites.
But whether older or younger, if one puts on weight eon becomes progressively less inclined to physical activity. This helps one to put on more weight which makes one still lazier. Thus a circle is established that leads sometimes to mammoth proportions and that cuts one’s physical and mental efficiency and willpower in half. Because there are no symptoms associated with the early gain, little or no thoughts is given to it. Frequently it is only after great abnormalities have been created in girth and functional or organic disturbances, that the fat is taken seriously and efforts made to cut some of it from the frame. For obesity is more perilous than even airplane travel.
In the swinging of the pendulum, however, we find large numbers who are now much below their individual weight, from misapplied reducing methods. This is not so much the result of reducing measures employed to take off fat after its development. The modern girl has employed effective means of keeping the weight from accumulating so that it does not have to be taken off. From being merely supple she has become actually anemicand malnourished. The extreme thinness of the modern girl does not indicate health, by any means. The modest is chiefly responsible for the recent Trent toward unattractive, unhealthy thinners. The ideal stage is a normally rounded figure, instead of the angular one we have seen so frequently in recent years.
In the treatment of obesity there is not short cut. There are some agencies designed to rub fat off, some to squeeze it out some to sweat it out, others to wash it away, and so on. The reason these have become popular is that they may permit the person to satisfy his palate as much as he desires and to avoid physical exertion. But they do not reduce fat - unless they so disrupt the digestive mechanism that one cannot digest and assimilate the food consume. The only curatives of any value in obesity are certain gland preparations which are indicated inmate or lessdefinite gland obesities. These should be prescribed by a qualified physician under careful supervision or serious harm may result.
The aim to be sought in bringing about reduction should be not merely to take on several or many pounds and to increase oxidation, bet to build the body chemistry and restore tone of nerves and muscles. It is necessary to bring about depletion, but this must not be done at the expense of nutrition. A more pleasing figure is not he sole aim; greater energy and vitality should be secured at the same time. Even a child knows that if one does not take food into the body theremust be a loss of weight. One must balance his diet, then-somewhere between no food and too much food, though total abstinence from food for short periods of time will have a very favorable effect.
The absolute fast is not to be advised for pronounced obesity without proper supervision. It is not necessary however to fast long enough to endanger one’s health to quite favorably effect the elimination, metabolism and other functions involved. A plan that deteriorates vitality in any degree or one that brings the weight down but does not help to keep it there is of no practical value and had better be left alone. Hence, even though the fast is taken there must be suitable diet following if the good results secured are to be maintained.
The best method of pursuing a fast is for three or four days at intervals of two weeks or so, and then to eat only such small quantities of all classes of foods between fasting periods that there will be a still further gradual reduction.
Another excellent fasting plan is to fast on alternate days, or fast one day out of three. If there is sufficient energy, red blood cells and hemoglobin, and high or normal blood pressure one easily may fast for a week or ten days-provided he has the will power. In most cases a fast of this duration can be continued without medical supervision.
Of course, if one consumes large quantities of food after the fast one will regain weight, and perhaps suffer still worse effects. But if all classes of foods are consumed in small quantities, with fats cut to a minimum or probably entirely eliminated, the body will be amply nourished and there need be no further gain-if there be the exercise that there should be for best general health. Many people do better by taking one half dozen oranges a day or two or three grapefruits with no other food. They may able to keep on this diet for a much longer period of time, and with safety, than they can on the water fast. The reduction is not quite so raped, when a limited amount of food is taken, but one can be assured that he is “playing safe”.
Another good plan is to reduce the number of meals taken daily. The one-meal plan is excellent, though this one meal must be not larger than any one of the meals formerly taken. Reduction of fattening elements should be observed in this one meal if best results are to be secured. Two meals may be taken, in which case the amount chosen for the two meals should be little more than that for the one meal, unless there is less overweight or less vitality. After the weight has been reduced appreciably by any of the above diets the two-meal plan may be followed with continued good results.
Perhaps the majority will prefer to continue on their three-meal plan. So far as general health preservation is concerned this is a safe method, and they’re a not likely to be any tendency toward “starvation” if proper foods are use. I mention this because there are many who still believe that one cannot fast or take a greatly reduced diet without endangering the health. But the three-meal plan is not so effective as a reducing measure, for the average person cannot or will not control his appetite sufficiently to eat three meals a day and still eat little enough to lose weight.
It is best for these to eat alone and to have set out just what is to be eaten-this amount being well selected from meal to meal to give variety and all needed elements for a protracted course of dieting. This plan will require several months, if one is thirty or more percent above normal, to bring the weigh to normal.
Many conjure up visions of starvation diets, untasty dishes, and monotony when “dieting” is mentioned. When a person becomes emaciated by the ingestion of non-nourishing foods and then adopts a diet of vital food so that his body regains its weight and quota of red blood cells and hemoglobin, he is dieting, but certainly he is not being starved, and most likely is enjoying his diet thoroughly. Thus it is weigh the obese. The foods to be permitted may be more tasty, more nourishing than the foods previously consumed, it is merely that certain foods are omitted from the diet and the quantity somewhat reduced. For a time one may possible notice a disturbing hunger, but this is the result of habit. This will quickly give way to perfect satisfaction on the reduced rations.
Since fat has nine times the fattening effects of starches, fat must be especially reduced; but sugars and starches likewise should be reduced appreciably, and other foods to some extent. If the diet is low in general an occasional starch food, especially potato, may allowed.

SKIN DISEASES

There are overran hundred well-defined diseases of the skin. Inspite of the fact that they cause a great amount of discomprort and irritation, most of these are not particularly difficult to cure. Many skin diseases, so called, are merely symptoms of some other disorders, such as infectious diseases or parasitism, although some exist as independent disease.
Because it is impossible to hide skin blemishes when they affect the face and other exposed parts, there are few conditions that produce more mental disquiet than skin diseases, However, many of them appear on other parts of the body, and some do not seem to develop in the exposed parts.
Skin blemishes such as pimples and blotches are the most common skin ailments. They may be found on any part of the body, though as a rule they appear more prominently, on the face, neck, chest and back. They appear quite common in boys and less common in girls at the time of puberty, because of different factors. There is a pronounced change in the glandular activity at the period, there is more oil formed in the oil-glands of the skin, and at this time there usually is little or no restriction of appetite, and there usually is a keen desire for sweets. Children at this age usually fail to give proper attention to the bowels and for this reason plus the fact that they eat too much and of fermenting, putrefying foods, they usually have a toxemic intestinal tract.
The most common skin ailments outside of pimples are eczema and simple dermatitis, resulting from non-specific infections of the skin .
Acne is the diagnostic term for pimples. It is a chronic inflammatory disease in which there are few or many skin lesions. These may be minute, or may be large and disfiguring. The usual form is small red, bright or dark red pin-head or pea-size papules. These appear more frequently on the forehead, chin or lower jaw, and black-heads usually are quite numerous in the same area. The skin may appear thick, dirty and greasy, and pus and sebaceous (oily or greasy) matter can be expressed from the lesions. After they have reached a certain point there may be a succession of these eruptions, some forming, some maturing and others healing at the same time. These are disfiguring and annoying, but can practically invariably be completely removed, though not infrequently some of the scars of previous deep blemishes remain.
Eczema is another inflammatory condition of the skin, more or loss chronic and appearing on any part of the body. There may be merely redness, or there may be scales, pustules or fissures. There is intense irritation and itching in many of these cases. The surface may be dry or moist.
Among the causes of these and practically all other skin conditions, except the parasitic diseases, is a general or systemic toxemia. There usually is constipation, though not infrequently there is alternate constipation and diarrhea, and sometimes there is normal frequency of stools but and extremely foul condition of the intestinal tract. In this latter condition the blood stream absorbs many foul elements, which must find and outlet, and the body selects the skin. Often the diet to acid-forming, with a great deficiency of the alkalinizing elements, in which case eczema is more likely to result than pimples, or case eczema is more likely to result than pimples, or case eczema is more likely to result than pimples, or acne. Those who have an acid odor to the perspiration are likely to develop eczema, particularly, but may develop other skin eruptions. Irregularity of menstruation and certain other uterine troubles, the peculiar condition called greensickness or chlorosis, and general debility may lead to some skin lesions. Lack of sufficient external cleanliness, especially when in a dusty or dirty atmosphere, may so close the pores that eruptions develop to remove wastes that should been eliminated through normal channels. Anything which reduces skin and bowel activity may result in skin blemishes.
The most easily demonstrated causes are digestive and constitutional disturbances. The excessive overeating of rich, sweet, fatty and heavy foods often will produce fresh outcropping of blemishes, indicating at once the close connection between the digestive condition and the condition of the blood on the one hand and the condition of the skin on the other. Drugs are potent causes. Numbers of proprietary headache medicines thus may be included, also certain advertised blood purifiers which contain potassium iodide. Irritating soaps may be the cause in some cases.
It is not unnatural for the body to protect itself in any way it can, and if skin eruptions are necessary for protection of the internal organism, then it can not be called unnatural for the body to develop any type of necessary skin lesion. The unnatural feature is the mode of living that has made such an action on the part of the blood necessary.
As stated above, the body only two normal avenues for the entrance of substances into the body-the mouth and the breathing apparatus, whereas it has four for removing unwanted and harmful waste products-the lungs, the kidneys, the bowels and the skin. If all of these avenues of elimination are capable of eliminating their waste products as formed. there should be no skin eruption. It is when some of these, particularly the skin, kidneys and bowels, are unable to cope with the great excess of toxins formed through over-consumption of toxin-producing foods that it is necessary for the eruptions to appear.
In order to correct a condition of this kind, then, it is necessary to reduce the encumbrance and the permit the eliminative organs to catch up with their work. The fast is excellent in any skin condition and may continue for from five to twenty days or even longer, if weight strength and energy will permit. If for any reason this can not be taken, or at least not for a sufficient length of time, one may use fruit juice or the fruit diet. The daily enema may be used for bowel cleansing, but in this case it is permissible to use a very effective dose of one of the herb laxatives or of citrate of magnesia, milk of magnesia, Pluto water, or any other non-mercurial laxative for a thorough bowel cleansing at the onset of the fast, or fruit diet. An abundance of water should be taken to flush the kidneys and to help the skin and bowel functions.
The later diet should be large amounts of fruits and vegetables, and for a time nothing else except milk if there is no eczema. Milk tends to aggravate eczema, for this is one of the allergic conditions often susceptible to milk protein. If it is known that the eczematous condition is not aggravated by milk then this is an excellent addition to the diet. Or one may procure a non-allergic milk preparation from an apothecary or dietitian. One should avoid meat in any form, species, all salt and salt-preserved foods, condiments, fat and other rich foods, fried foods, pickled and smoked foods-in short, one should have as strict a diet of natural foods as it is possible to secure.
The improvement in the skin function in its normal direction should be encouraged by sweat-baths. Normally the skin throws off some waste products through the sweat or through the only substance secreted on to the skin surface. Sheet packs and hot-blanket and cold-blanket packs are excellent, but one may use an electric cabinet or a steam bath or a hot tub bath, or any other suitable means for securing a vigorous sweat. This will be brought about more quickly and more pronouncedly if one drinks considerable water, especially hot water, during, the sweat-bath. Air and sun-baths and dry-friction baths, also moderately hot and cold shower or other baths are all excellent in improving skin function and one of more of these should be taken daily. In fact, sunbathes should be taken at every possible opportunity. Eczema usually wills not last long if the blood is purified and the bowels kept clean and the skin surface sunbathed regularly. Exercise to the point of perspiration, except during a fast, and is a great benefit in this cases-if there is no contra-indication factor. All other forms of constitutional treatment for building up vitality and increasing the vigor of the vital organs will prove beneficial.