W. Arbuthnot Lane Limitation of food intake is the principal and most scientific method of weight reduction, but if there is any suspicion of existing organic disease, such a method should never be undertaken without first consulting the doctor. I emphasize the need to start early with dietetic limitation, for if this is carried out the temptation to indulge in drastic starvation cures will be avoided and incidentally the results achieved will be much more lasting.
During a severe bout of liverishness, liquid nourishment only is indicated. Milk and soda, light chicken broth, and fruit juice should be taken, with later the addition of lightly cooked eggs, white fish and weak tea. The management of an acute bilious attack is obviously to a great extent dependent upon the cause, but there are certain general measures which can be adopted in most cases.
Dietetics was a simple, straightforward matter, to be left to the discretion of so-called common sense. It was regarded as a subject beneath the dignity of the medical profession, and doctors left their training schools with the scantiest knowledge of nutritional theory and practice. With complete accuracy dietetics might then have been described as the Cinderella of the biological sciences.
Many are unaware that when necessity arises the medical attendant supplies the necessary stimulant in the form of tinctures or other combination containing alcohol in appreciable quantity. Take for instance opium, which is one of the most important and valuable means that we possess for the alleviation of pain and suffering.
Undismayed by their hostility, Lane continued his work and, being convinced of the soundness of hid idea, criticized the orthodox way of treatment unsparingly and explained the advantages of his own method in numerous articles and addresses.
Yet everyone can avoid cancer who is prepared to keep internally clean by eating natural foods and drinking plenty of water. Every man and woman should realize the importance of this vital truth, and cease to be unduly impressed by reports about wonderful researches with radium, X-rays, coal tar, pitch, and so on.
Other changes in the skin are those dependent on a damping down of the hearts muscle by the toxins, and upon a breaking up of the red corpuscles, which is called in the most marked condition “microbic cyanosis.” The limbs become very cold and this coldness becomes exaggerated as the extremities are approached. If the hand be passed over the shoulder it crosses abruptly from an area of warmth to one of comparative coldness.
Cancer is not recognized as a part of a mechanical sequence, and as never affecting a healthy organ, but is regarded as a primary condition. The cancerous cell will only grow in a suitable soil, and that soil is provided for by the prolonged action of toxins in the tissues.