Honeydew melons, cantaloupe and watermelon may also be permitted, remembering that melons will not always agree and sometimes even act as mild intestinal irritants. Oranges will wholly disagree with some patients, especially those suffering from liver involvement.
The more expressive an acute illness, either in the form of fever, eruptions, or discharge, the more effectual and complete is the cleansing process. The young, as a rule, are the most susceptible to these acute manifestations and the most satisfactorily cleansed by them. As life advanced susceptibility and flexibility decrease while pathology and structural changes increase until chronic disease slowly, almost imperceptibly fastens itself it appears to repel, in ever increasing degree, the invasion of acute disease. The Vital Force itself less and less, the house cleaning is neglected.
Why is the death rate in pneumonia so appallingly high? There is no need to dodge the issue. At least ninety per cent of all who die from this disease have been sacrificed on the altar of ignorance. They have been murdered by the “scientific” treatment and the “good nourishing food”. Give the patient and his digestive machinery a complete and sorely needed rest. Watch and wait and use a little good old-fashioned commons sense.
Provide such nursing care as any worthwhile wife or mother can give and confidently expect full and complete recovery without complications and without sequellae. The present death rate in acute disease in general and in pneumonia in particular is absolutely inexcusable and is explainable only on the ground that “food rush in where angels fear to treat”. Stay out! Let nature alone. If she calls for her give her what she asks for, namely, the similimum, the indicated remedy.
In considering diet in chronic disease many problems are presented for our consideration. The diet as well as the treatment must be carefully individualized but this must be done in accordance with sound principles based on a rational philosophy.
Diet fads and diet insanities are multiplying every day to the bewilderment of the physician and often to the determent of the patient. Read a dozen up-to-date works on the subject of nutrition and you wont know where you stand. The last word on diet remains unuttered and apparently there is not such thing as a last word on any subject. It would seem that we are only beginning to learn a few first principles in the science of nutrition and present theories and views may have to be modified or abandoned as new discoveries are made.
The caloric value of foods and the caloric requirements of individuals are being seriously questioned. The vitamin content of foods is of far greater importance than their caloric value. In the absence of the essential vitamins starvation may occur in the midst of apparent plenty.
The mineral salts are also essential to normal function and are regarded by many as the very quintessence of the whole problem of nutrition. Some of the mineral salts exist in the human body in the most infinitesimal trace, but that trace is none the less essential to physiological well being.
We often hear of deficiency diseases, it being understood that there has been either a mineral salt or a vitamin deficiency in the diet which through the habit of years has finally resulted in a definitely diseased state of the constitution. Such diseased states should and do respond to a essential mineral salts as built up by the vital processes of animal and plant life. The crude inorganic mineral salts are practically worthless unless given in potentized form, when they become actively and truly potent for good if prescribed on the symptoms and in accordance with the principles of correct homoeopathic practice. Now that the vitamins are being isolated in crystalline form we may expect new miracles of healing when they are potentized and fully proven.
Acidosis is a word that is doing yeoman service these days. “Doctor, what seems to be the trouble in my case?” The doctor, looking as wise as a serpent but not quite as harmless as a dove, relies, “You are suffering from acidosis,” and the patient is content. The normal reaction of the blood is slightly alkaline. As certain chronic diseases such as diabetes and tuberculosis come on, the alkaline-acid balance is disturbed, the alkalinity being relatively decreased and the acidity proportionately increased. In malignant diseased and the acidity proportionately increased. In malignant disease a reverse condition is present, namely, that of alkalosis, an excess of alkalinity.
Just where do we stand after all? Acidosis, alkalosis, focal infection, endocrine imbalance and finally our good old friend psora. Perhaps the last is as good as any for us to hide behind and it serves the additional purpose of a password among the brotherhood of the true Hahnemannian fraternity.
Now let us suppose we have taken the case and have decided on the remedy and are about to dismiss the patient. “Doctor, what about my diet?” Some people are simply bound to ask embarrassing questions; they cant help it. I well remember how tired I used to feel when this question was asked.
Just another point or two before offering a few suggestions in the dietetic management of the chronic case. In taking the case be sure to include the patients present dietary habits. For purposes of remedy selection it will be necessary to know the desires, aversions, ameliorations and aggravations in respect to food and drink. This, however, will be insufficient to give an insight into the real eating habits of the individual patient. Request the patient to bring, each time he comes to the office a complete list of all food and drinks taken at each meal and between meals. This list should cover a period of about two days.
Explain to the patient that he is to make no change whatever in his diet until after he submits his menus for your study and that you will disturb him and his household as little as possible by making a few corrections in his present meals rather than prescribing a radically different and completely new diet. Examination of a number of such dietaries will make one sometimes wonder that some patients are as well as they are, or even that some of them are alive at all.
Observe how exceedingly unbalanced, one-sided and habitual is the average persons intake of food and drink. Note the evidence of pampered and perverted appetite. Consider these factors in relation to the etiology of the individual case and also in relation to the apparently indicated remedy. Certain patients have obviously eaten their way into their present diseased state and they should, in so far as possible, eat their way out and back to health.
suppose we have a neurotic case calling for some remedy such as Ignatia, Nux vomica or Chamomilla and the patients diet outline shows that he is taking, let us say an average of five or six cups of coffee a day. Consulting the repertory we find, under the rubric “aggravation from coffee” over forty remedies listed, five of them in the highest grade, namely, the three mentioned and also Cantharis and Causticum. How are we to interpret our findings and what is to be the rationale of our procedure? We may find that coffee was one factor if not the chief causative factor in bringing about the present disorder. Coffee may have been largely responsible for the nervous state and for the production of the symptoms indicating the remedy.
Such an opinion is not to be hastily arrived at on seeing a certain article of diet written all over the patients menu, but only after considering the totality of the case from all standpoints including the relation of the indicated remedy to any pronounced food habits. Would it not seem unwise in such a case to prescribe the remedy and not to correct the diet? If the cause or an obviously important factor in the production of the symptoms is allowed to continue its undermining influence how can we expect to cure the patient?.
We are perhaps inclined to take too narrow a view of the word “aggravation” as used in the rubrics of the repertories. The word aggravation may imply several things, namely causation of the trouble, perpetuation, increase or exacerbation of the disorder and finally interference with remedy action. Using the rubric “aggravation from coffee” once more as an illustration, coffee may have helped to bring on the symptoms of a certain remedy, or the taking of coffee may aggravate or augment a condition that was brought on from other causes. Finally, the action of the indicated remedy may be interfered with or aborted owing to the inimical relationship existing between the medicine and the coffee. This view of aggravations and ameliorations applies not only in respect to food and drink but in relation to many other factors throughout the entire repertory of the materia medica.
The average chronic patient will soon show improvement through dietary correction and improved management of the daily routine of life. First remove the obstacles to recovery and then prescribe the indicated remedy. There is seldom the necessity for a prescription at the first interview. Saccharum lactis will often do wonders in connection with sound advice and it is such a sensible and safe prescription. How many lives and how much suffering might be saved if all physicians were to prescribe placebos more often and drugs only on clearly defined indications when really necessary.
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.