Diet, and Skin Diseases
By G. H. Heald, M. D.
In the Journal of the American Medical Association of Aug. 26, 1911, Dr. L. Duncan Bulkley, one of the most noted and most successful skin specialists in the country, who has had marked success in the treatment of certain skin diseases by means of a strictly vegetarian diet, has a paper in which he recounts his experience with psoriasis in an extensive series of cases, extending over a long period of time. In this paper he makes the following remarkable comments:— “My experience, some of it dating back twenty-five years, shows conclusively that not only does a meat diet increase psoriasis, but that an absolutely vegetarian diet is of the very greatest benefit in this disease, and in certain cases is capable of causing the disappearance of a long-standing eruption, without the use of any internal or external medication whatever.” Regarding vegetarianism as a general health measure, he says:— “Vegetarian diet for health is no new proposition, and needs no defense nor explanation; the literature regarding it is extensive, and its positive value has been frequently demonstrated. All are aware that repeatedly vegetarians have far outstripped meat-eaters in athletic contests, while the reverse is almost unknown. The mass of humankind has always subsisted largely or entirely on the products of the ground, and in animal life all work is done on food from the vegetable kingdom.” “On the other hand, the consumption of much meat is of relatively modern date, with some exceptions, and is particularly common in cities, the mass of workers in rural districts subsisting chiefly on vegetarian products. “Nor need we dwell long on the injurious effects of a too highly nitrogenized diet on the human system, which have long been recognized and have had able exponents. All are familiar with the necessity of curtailing a meat diet in many conditions of the system, and writers have repeatedly called attention to its influence in the production of cancer. The relative absence of cancer among the natives in rice-eating countries, which I also observed in the Far East, is striking evidence in this direction.” On the matter of relapses after treatment, he has this to say:— “Time and again patients who have relapsed into free meat-eating have returned with a fresh outburst of eruption, or great aggravation of any that had remained; and they intelligently recognized the cause, and have willingly taken up the vegetarian diet again, because of the great benefit which they had previously derived from it. “The question arises as to the length of time it is necessary to continue the vegetarian diet. I am accustomed to tell my patients that this may be indefinite; for if a faulty nitrogenous metabolism and excretion is at the bottom of the eruption, as it seems to be, this may recur whenever the intake of proteids exceeds the power of the system to handle them. “In some instances a return to a moderate mixed diet has not seemed to increase the tendency to the eruption, but in very many cases it has been recorded that any indulgence in a great amount of nitrogenous food, has caused a return of the skin lesions. So that we must infer that with a certain small proportion of human beings, the organs are not able properly to assimilate much protein substance.” He finds also that something besides abstinence from meat is required, for he says:—15 “There are some articles from the vegetable kingdom, however, that have to be guarded against. Alcohol in any form, even the lightest beer, is prejudicial, and in some instances I have found better results when I excluded coffee, chocolate, and cocoa.”