“Dispense with moderation food to the body and to the mind repose. One must choose in all things a mean just and good.”.
These lines from the Golden Verses of Pythagoras were probably written around 700 B.C. Twenty-seven centuries have gone but the Golden Verses still shine in all their splendor, teaching the highest ethics and affording a complete program for daily living which, if we would only follow, would transform this earth into a paradise.
With all due respect for Hahnemanns psora theory and for some of the theories of modern medical science we must none the less admit than man collectively, if not apparently always individually, is his own destroyer and the creator of his own misery. We must look within, not without for the essential causes of disease.
The unrestrained mind follows desire and what do we find? Excesses on every hand. The purpose of food is to build, nourish and sustain the body, but how many of us confine our eating to the real needs of our daily living? Excesses in food and drink and perversions of the appetite will in time over-tax the organs of elimination and dam up the tissues. Slowly and insidiously the process goes on, the gouty joints, the enlarged liver, the obesity, the did not come in a day.
Many are the factors that go to make up the totality of the environment, that terrible something that keeps humanity seemingly almost in chains, enslaved and ensnared in the tangled web of destiny.
But there is a brighter side after all. It is not only the wealthy and the leisure class who can control their environment- and most of them make a terrible mess of it, each individual has it in his power every day to make more or less modification and improvement in himself and in his daily living. Man is a creature of habit first, last and all the time. He is routine in the extreme, routine in everything he thinks and does. It is well to step out of the rut once in a while and and walk up the hill alone and in silence. Improvements can be made, the daily grind can be modified, the diet can be changed, habits can be corrected. The trouble is not one will do all these fine things for us.
Some of the great philosophers have eaten neither meat nor fish nor flesh of any kind. They have refused to shed the blood of any creature either in person or by proxy. Partaking of the herbs of the field and he pure fresh fruits of the tree and vine they have cleansed and purified their bodies, rendering them more worthy vehicles for the higher expression of the mind and spirit. On the other hand we read of savage and barbarian chieftains drinking the blood and eating the flesh of their greatest enemies to increase and augment their own daring and ferocity.
Was this entirely a superstition? There is evidence to show that food can affect man not only physically but mentally and morally as well. in certain championship prize fights where a predetermined weight has to be reached to prevent disqualification, after the official weighing-in ceremonies, the contender, who has been running it off and sweating-in ceremonies, the contender, who has been running it off and sweating it off, has been promptly treated to a generous quantity of beef broth and to a large, very rare beef steak.
Why the meat and the broth? why not give him apple sauce and whipped cream? Can it be that the trainer and his advisers think it could possibly make a difference in this the twentieth century? “Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed that he is grown so great?”.
There are certain soils which just meet the nutritional requirements of the natural flora which thrive thereon. The flora has adapted itself to the soil and the climate and in turn the natural fauna of any region has adapted itself to the available flora. Thus there is a correlation between the soil, the flora and the fauna, an interdependence as it were, a circulation between the mineral, the vegetable and the animal kingdoms.
It has been observed and the wild creatures, when there is an abundance of their natural food, are mixed eaters only to a very slight degree. There is apparently in most cases some one food of choice and doubtless that food is best adapted to the needs of the organisms which feed upon it. As the supply of this nutriment becomes more and more limited there is noticed a gradually increasing consumption of the next food in the order of preference and so on until is reached where articles ordinarily rejected will be consumed with avidity, but there is a limit-some apparently valuable foods will remain untouched even to the point of starvation and death.
Adaptability requires time and in one or two generations a given species can be modified only to a quite limited degree, although individuals within the species are distinctly more flexible than the average. An observed characteristic of wild life is that after eating to satiety a rest or nap is generally in order.
Wild creatures have no physicians but they are protected by natural unperverted instinct. When sick or injured they rest and fast and sometimes partake of a small quantity of some laxative herb, and the treatment shows a high percentage of successful results. There have been instances where wild animals have, by natural instinct, been led to consume medicinal herbs and other substances which in all probability have acted in accordance with the law of similars.
A farmer in northern Pennsylvania buys young registered calves each year and pastures them on a large tract of land from May to November and in ordinary times sells them at a good profit. They have no shelter, they are fed no grain. They are their own caretakers and what happens? Grazing in the sunny meadows, resting in the shady woods, feeding on the grasses, bushes and leaves and drinking the pure mountain water, these calves have built flesh and bone. Sleek of coat, fleet of foot, what perfect specimens they are. That farmer is a real scientist, he fences in his land, turns the calves loose and nature does the rest, efficiently and with simplicity.
Coming now to the question of diet in acute illness how are we to proceed? homoeopathic physicians are more and more regarding acute disease as a flare-up of latent psora and as an eliminative effort on the part of the constitution. If we accept this view and then proceed to give the patient “good nourishing food” every two or three hours we are, to say the least, inconsistent. Why should an active, well person enjoy only three meals a day and the acutely sick individual be given six or eight feedings in twenty-four hours “to keep up his strength”? If the patient is weak why is he weak? Is it due to lack of food or to the debilitating and enervating effects of the toxaemia?
It is little short of remarkable how acute troubles remain uncomplicated and proceed to uneventful recovery simply by keeping hands off. Prescribe rest in bed in a well ventilated, sunny room, proper attention to bathing, enemas for the bowels if necessary and no food. We will, of course, allow the patient water to drink if he wants it, or he may have cracked ice to chew if the prefers.
If acidulated drinks are refreshing or are especially desired the juice of half a lemon or a lime (without sweetening) may be occasionally added to a glass of water. Nothing else is required until the acute symptoms have subsided and the demand for food becomes strongly insistent, then proceed slowly and with caution.
The only way to satisfy oneself as to the sanity of this procedure is for each physician to try it for himself in case of personal illness, in acute sickness in his own family and in the daily practice of his profession in respect to all forms of acute illness. Give this profession if respect to all forms of acute illness. Give this method a years trial and then go back to the old routine-if you can.
For the timid a less radical diet may include raw fruit or fresh, raw, unsweetened fruit juices. In case such are prescribed it is well to allow only one kind of raw fruit or fruit juice at a feeding and only two or three such meals in twenty-four hours. Fruits are quite active chemically and there is more dangers of incompatibility from mixing fruits than from mixing vegetables. If desired a different fruit can be given each time and this is often an advantage.
It is, of course, well to consult and observe the patients cravings, aversions and aggravations in regard to food and drink. These idiosyncrasies are more to be trusted in acute conditions than in chronic disease where perversions of the appetite have become more or less fixed through years of unhygienic eating.
Whenever fruit juices are prescribed it is important that only the unsweetened freshly expressed raw juice is used. Cooked, bottled, preserved or pasteurized juices are a poor substitute and the acutely ill can well afford to do without them. Among the fruits that may be prescribed on this basis, as a concession to the weakness of the flesh, may be mentioned apples, pears, grapes, peaches, pineapples, oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit. Other fruits in season may be allowed.
Eugene passed away at his country home on Spring Hill, Tuscarora Township, Bradford County, PA. He had been in ill health for several months. His wife, the former Caroline Davis, whom he had married in Philadelphia in 1910, had passed away in 1961. They spent most of their marriage lives in Swarthmore, PA.
Dr. Underhill was a member of the United Lodge of Theosophy, a member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the Pennsylvania Medical Society. He was also the editor of the Homœopathic Recorder.