of Darien, formerly minister of foreign affairs for China, here gives you his personal testimony on his views on diet. Admiral Tsai is a one-time graduate of an American university. He is a subscriber for the “Signs of the Times,” and wrote this article expressly for our paper.
THIRTY years ago I suffered much of rheumatism. When I rose in the morning, I could not stretch out my fingers. I had to rub my hands in bed till the circulation accelerated and my finger joints warmed by the quickened flow of blood. My shoulders and knee joints suffered excruciating pains.
I was advised to buy hot plasters from a Chinese doctor in a temple dedicated to the city god of Shanghai. The plasters gave some relief, but failed to produce a permanent cure.
I was next advised to try another Chinese doctor who was reputed to have been particularly skillful in the use of needles. With these he would thrust into the joints of hands and fingers of patients, claiming that by so doing he could stimulate the nerves and rouse them to greater activity. He would probe one patient after another without even stopping to disinfect the needle after each operation. This careless act appeared to me highly dangerous, being a most effective way of transmitting various diseases from one individual to another. Some of his needles were eight inches long. He did not hesitate to insert the needle two inches into the knee joints and muscles of some of his patients. In case of stomach trouble, he inserted one three inches into the patient’s bowels. I concluded that the pains from rheumatism were preferred to such reckless treatment with the double risk of getting some other disease by a contaminated instrument or by blood poisoning through a rusty needle.
CHINESE DOCTOR CONSULTED
I next consulted a Chinese doctor educated in a Western school of medicine. He said rheumatism was caused by acid in the blood. Instead of pressing for further information on the subject, I hastily concluded that the acid must have come from fruits and vegetables. These I stopped eating at once, though I was very fond of them.
After refraining from fruits and vegetables, I went to the other extreme of adopting a total meat diet, including beef, mutton, pork, fish, fowl, liver, kidney, ham, sausages, duck, crabs, lobsters, eels, prawns, shrimps, turtles, and sharks’ fins. In my ignorance, I thought vegetables were as bad for rheumatism as they were for diabetes. A meat diet was then thought to be able to keep safe from acid altogether. I did not even suspect that I was taking in the very poison that produced the disease from which I was so anxious to cure myself.
VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL ACID
In the years 1901 and 1902 I suffered indescribable pains. There was no relief. In despair, I gave up all doctors. My joints seemed to have been bound by wires of steel specially made to check the free movements of my limbs. Days before the coming of foul weather the pains become more acute, so that I could predict accurately a change a day or two ahead. Rheumatism was thus to me what unequal treaties are to China. But in either case the cure must be effected principally from the inside and not entirely from the outside.
In 1903 I consulted an American doctor in St. Louis. He corrected my ignorance by explaining the difference between vegetable and animal acid. My meat diet had intensified rather than diminished my trouble. Uric acid was the poison I should eliminate from my system, he said. He then enjoined upon me the necessity of stopping all meat, at least all red meat. Fish and fowl were to be taken sparingly. All alcohol, tea, coffee, and chocolate were to be avoided. Vegetables should be the chief diet, especially the top part of plants. Regular movement of the bowels should be a daily necessity, and drinking six or seven glasses of water after and between meals would flush the system properly. I followed his instructions. As I gradually left meat, the rheumatism became less aggravating. There was less frequent application of plasters, but I was still sensitive to weather conditions.
In 1921 I was advised by a friend in Boston to try sodium phosphate. Three thousand tablets were ordered and taken regularly for three years. “How to Live” was given me by a friend in Baltimore, from which I gleaned some useful lessons on health and diet.
In 1927 I came to Darien to seek health, having an irregular heart and suffering of a nervous breakdown. With plenty of leisure on hand, I devoted my time to the reading of medical books. The more I learned the closer I adhered to a vegetable diet. In place of cow’s milk I made a milk from small round beans called Huang-tou, or yellow bean. A cup of beans is soaked overnight and ground the next morning in a stone hand mill. The product is put into a cloth bag and the fluid squeezed out. It is then boiled for half an hour, and removed to cool. It is taken in the same way as ordinary cow’s milk. It has cream, and will curd in precisely the same way as milk, possessing more fat and less sugar. It cannot transmit the diseases that milk is liable to. When it is first tried, it has the taste of fresh beans; but if well boiled and drunk for some time, the sense of taste will be accustomed to the beverage. I also made milk from almonds, peanuts, Sesamum seeds, etc. They have a delicate flavor, and are most nourishing and easily digested.
ADVANTAGE OF VEGETABLE DIET
The advantage of a vegetable diet in China is the fact that China has a far greater variety of vegetables than any other country on the globe, including many plants, roots, and bulbs raised on land and grown in water, and many kinds of seeds and nuts. Therefore a rotation of diet is easy, and choice of material has a wider range. The Chinese method of cooking vegetables is reduced to a fine art, preserving all the nourishing elements; at the same time digestibility and flavor are not forgotten, while in western countries the vegetables are boiled so much that all the wholesome matter is extracted and thrown away. The fibrous material only is eaten, lacking natural flavor and devoid of nutriment. In Chinese temples or special restaurants an elaborate dinner can be ordered consisting entirely of vegetables, nuts, roots, bulbs, beans, peas, the seeds and roots of the lotus lily, the water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, silver lichens, and many vegetable products unknown to foreign countries, besides vegetable products of the sea, all cooked so tastily and artistically that imitations of meat dishes of every description are produced and brought out steaming hot, and so tempting and digestible that even an invalid may enjoy a hearty meal without evil effects.
Since I have adopted the vegetable diet, I know no more of rheumatism, headache, indigestion, bowel complaint, or skin trouble; I no longer need the use of fruit salt or plaster and, at last, no longer possess the power to foretell the coming of foul weather through the aching of joints.
