One medicine for all is historically a very recent development of the 20th Century.
In the United States in the 1800’s, there were many different types or “schools” of medicine, including homeopaths, herbalists and many others, all of whom incorporated local folk remedies in their repertoire. Homeopathy became very popular during the 19th century, and claimed many adherents.
The first time I tried it I was about eight years old. My father had had a heart attack after World War II had ended and I was about six. We were living in Holland.
In those days, people with heart disease were put in bed rest for months on end.
My father used to get angina pains in his chest, and besides a nitroglycerine pill, he used the services of a woman to do laying-on of hands on him and take the pain away.
It seemed to give him relief.
Pretty much all of us who get into “healthy eating” do it, at least for a while.
It’s an inevitable part of the process. We do judge others by what they eat, and harshly most of the time.
Like when we are in line at the supermarket with our paper goods and light bulbs, and look at what’s in the baskets of the other customers — “Aw, gawd, how can they EAT that junk! And their poor children . . . !”
The New York Times published what seemed to me a somewhat cranky Op-Ed piece on August 1, 2005, called “Bad to the Last Drop,” by Tom Standage.
Mr. Standage, who is the technology editor of The Economist, conducted a blind taste test of ten bottled and tap waters with his friends.
The result?
I have been teaching for more than thirty years that we should eat according to the tradition of our ancestors, in addition to other concepts.
Much of my work was based on a book I read in 1967 called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,by Weston Price, a dentist.
Dr. Price traveled the world over in the early ‘30’s, studying the diets of eleven different population groups and the condition of their teeth.
Continue reading “New Concepts in Diet II: The Old Traditions”
The hold on the mind is so tenuous.
I’m always amazed to see how well people communicate, make decisions, implement plans, and generally do things, considering that it all depends on a fleeting neurotransmitter, a capillary that remains open, a couple of neurons that speak to each other.
The tenuous hold can wobble with a simple fever, not even so high — 101′ or so — which disturbs the sleep and confuses the brain, giving rise to all manner of babblings and strange irrelevant thoughts.