Sowing for Physical and Spiritual Health by David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 23, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 43.

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Sowing for Physical and Spiritual Health

By David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

David Paulson W. S. Sadler

FRUIT IN HEALTH AND DISEASE.

(Concluded.)

FRUIT IN FEVERS.

Ordinary fever is not a real disease. It is a series of symptoms, indicating the accumulation of poison in the patient’s system, and an abundance of water is needed to assist in washing out the poisons. Fruit-juices are grateful to such a patient; and the digested starch, or sugar, in the fruit is readily absorbed, and furnishes the needed nourishment.

Typhoid fever is not likely to occur unless infection enters the system through the food or water. Someone has said that whenever a person dies of typhoid fever, somebody ought to be hung. While this may be stating the matter too strongly, it is nevertheless true that thousands of deaths are annually caused by the drinking of water infected by the excrement of typhoid-fever patients. Reliable observation has shown that it is possible to contaminate the entire water supply of a town by throwing out upon the banks of a stream, from which the water supply is drawn, the stools of a few typhoid-fever patients. Milk is often contaminated by washing the milk cans in infected water. The route of such a milkman can be definitely located because of typhoid-fever patients along his trail.

The old-fashioned method of giving typhoid-fever patients beef tea was erroneous in the extreme; for beef tea, in addition to being the waste products of animal tissue, and therefore containing no nourishment, furnishes a paradise for germs, and is the agent universally used in the laboratory to encourage their growth. Milk, which was next substituted, is much better, as it contains nourishment; but the terribly coated and slimy tongue, which fever patients fed on milk invariably have, is sufficient proof that milk is also a favorable soil for germ activity. The coating on the tongue will largely disappear in a few days, if fruit is substituted for milk; and many of the distressing symptoms of typhoid fever will be so largely modified that, if it were not for other absolute signs, the correct diagnosis might be doubted.

It is well to remember, however, that a perfectly healthy person is not subject to typhoid fever. A perfectly healthy stomach will destroy typhoid-fever germs. It is he whose stomach has been already exhausted by the effort to digest unnatural foods, who falls an easy prey to typhoid-fever germs.

MALARIA.

One of the common ways in which malarial infections enter the system is through drinking-water. It has been found that large companies of soldiers, and others, in an intensely malarial district, when careful to boil their water, or to secure it from non-infected districts, were comparatively free from the fever, while those who neglected this precaution suffered more or less with chills. However, if the habits of life are erroneous in other respects, the vitality becomes so low that many seem to become infected by the atmosphere itself; or, as is now beginning to be recognized, from the sting of mosquitoes. To use a large amount of fruit, which will tend to keep the alimentary canal in such a condition that it will be able to destroy any malarial germs or organisms that may find an entrance, to live upon a natural dietary, and obey nature’s laws in other respects, are the best precautions for those living in malarial districts.

SCARLET FEVER.

Professor Gautier, an eminent French investigator, has called attention to the fact that just before an attack of scarlet fever the system is saturated with poisons that are naturally formed by the muscles,—creatin and creatinin. And these are precisely the two substances that largely enter into the solids of beef tea. This ought to be sufficient to show the folly of feeding beef tea to a scarlet-fever patient. One of the most serious complications of scarlet fever is Bright’s disease, which is liable to follow it, on account of the kidneys being overwhelmed with poisons. Undoubtedly, thousands have gone to untimely graves with this disease, simply as a result of the folly of trying to make the kidneys carry off not only the poisons naturally formed, but also those formed in the ox, and administered in the form of beef tea.

Good, ripe, mellow fruit, cooked fruit, and fruit-juices are among the best articles of diet for a scarlet-fever patient; and, with the addition of a little thoroughly toasted, starchy foods, should form his principal diet, even for a week or two after he has apparently recovered. In many of these cases the kidneys have been so crippled by the fever that Bright’s disease may be produced by even a slight indiscretion in diet.

CHRONIC ALCOHOLISM.

Inebriety is usually the effect of a deeper cause, and is often not so much the evidence of total depravity as the result of a general physical craving, which is created by unnatural habits of life. When the blood is literally filled with spices and condiments and other smarting and burning substances, every nerve cell has, as it were, a mustard plaster applied to it, and the whole nervous system cries out for something to satisfy this fiery thirst. In such a case the town pump does not give the satisfaction that the village saloon does. Some one has well said that the kitchen is frequently an annex to the saloon. It is certainly too often true that the cooks and undertakers seem, in this respect, to be in partnership.

RHEUMATISM.

Rheumatism is a filth disease. It means that the ashes from the fires of the system, instead of being taken away, are interfering with tissue changes. In acute rheumatism there may be some specific germ as the cause, but nevertheless the way is first prepared by wrong habits of living. The joints become inflamed, and are as tender as a boil. All movements are extremely painful, and a high temperature accompanies these symptoms. The same kind

of poison that is enlarging the joints, often attacks the delicate lining of the heart and other organs, leaving sad scars behind.

The best way of treating such a patient is to put him to bed, and induce profuse sweating. Apply hot fomentations for a few minutes on each of the sore joints. Then put on a cool, moist compress: this is best done by applying to the joints a thin cloth moistened in cold water, well covering the same with cotton, next papers, and then flannel. Leave the compress on continually, except when occasionally applying hot fomentations. For diet, give nothing for several days but an abundance of hot water and a little fruit. Encourage the drinking of a large amount of fluid. This will so aid the rapid elimination of poisons that often the patient will have but little after-effects.

Such patients will almost invariably beg for morphine; but while this substance paralyzes the nerves, and in this way allays the pain, it likewise paralyzes the nerves of elimination, so that the poisons largely remain in the body, and continue to cause damage. Thousands of persons who are going around with stiffened joints could undoubtedly have been saved a large share of their misery had they been willing to endure a little pain as the harvest of their wrong sowing, at the same time being treated in the right way. As soon as possible begin to apply short, cold treatments, immediately following the hot applications, so as to build up the power of resistance against future attacks.

CRIPPLED LIVER.

The liver is one of the organs that especially guards the health of the body. It is a closed door, to keep from the circulation many of the poisons that are habitually taken into the stomach, or are generated in the alimentary canal as the result of various fermentations and decompositions. The kidneys are open doors to allow these poisons to escape from the circulation; but when the liver is crippled by being constantly overwhelmed by various poisons, then it will begin to allow these toxic substances to drift into the circulation, and sooner or later the kidneys become similarly overwhelmed, and do not properly eliminate these poisons. As a consequence, the poisons accumulate in the system, poisoning the nerve centers, and laying the foundation for chronic diseases.

A torpid liver is not a lazy liver; it is a worn-out and tired liver; and the rational treatment for such a condition is to cease to take into the system irritating poisons, which may awaken the liver from its death-like slumber, and by so doing perhaps extort from it a little more work, thus affording a sense of relief to its possessor. The proper way to treat such a liver is to put the patient to bed, allowing him to eat nothing but fruit four times a day, with perhaps the addition of a few toasted crackers. The best crutch for a crippled liver is an aseptic dietary, such as fruit, and it is marvelous how soon such a liver will begin its normal work.

Copyrighted, 1900, by David Paulson and W. S. Sadler.