to the blood of anti-toxins
prepared with the serum of animals, have positively vanished.
Hundreds of thousands of human beings have perished in the course of
this delusion; but countless numbers will have cause, yet in our day,
to rejoice at the exposure of the stupid and unnatural theory, so long
legally enforced, that the introduction into the human system of such
poisonous substances could remove or overcome the natural consequences
of constitutional disease.
HEREDITY.
The discovery that a diseased condition of the blood leads to certain
bodily disturbances which we call disease, was soon followed by the
realization of the fact that one of the main conditions which bring
about such disturbances is predisposition, which in many cases is
hereditary.
"Hereditary disease" simply means that the improper chemical composition
of the blood of one or both parents has become duplicated in the
offspring, and that it has similar consequences in causing the
degeneration of certain tissues, and consequently of the organs composed
thereof, as may have been the case in the parents.
It is at least reassuring to know, however, _that to the modern
hygienic-dietetic system of healing, heredity, though perhaps more
tenacious, is by no means an invincible enemy_.
With a predisposition to disease the child acquires also the hereditary
tendency to self-protection, and thus rational hygienic-dietetic
treatment may be able to eliminate, in a comparatively short time, the
chain of diseases which in former years, generations have carried
hopelessly to the grave.
HEALING.
It has been already stated that healing, under the modern
hygienic-dietetic system, means supplying to the blood such chemical
elements as will replace what are missing in defective tissues of the
body.
I will now outline the methods of carrying it into effect.
In a general way there are three means of doing this:
No. 1. _Diet_: The first and most natural way is by proper diet.
As the normal chemical elements are introduced into the body as
constituents of the regular daily food, the task which, in the first
place, confronts the hygienic-dietetic physician is that of regulating
the quantity, quality and description of food.
Too little importance has heretofore been given to this question and,
beyond prohibiting certain dishes and obviously detrimental viands,
little attention was paid by the average physician to the matter of the
every-day no
|