Infantile Paralysis
The New York press accepts the situation philosophically; as follows:
"Infantile Paralysis cannot be cured by means of medicines. The
physician must of necessity limit his ministrations to easing the pain,
providing for easy movement of the bowels and so forth, but otherwise
he must let nature take its course."
Medical reference books vaguely define the disease with diverse and indefinite
theories, showing that science on the subject is practically mute.
But the medically "unprofessional," random remark of the New York press-man
has exactly hit the mark: "Let nature take its course."
The fact is that nothing very clear or absolute can be said about Infantile Paralysis;
for observation shows that it is apparently a matter of racial conditions and
environment and that only from the general application of the Laws of Nature, as
taught by biology can we reasonably hope to solve the problem or cure the disease.
As the result of careful study of many cases I simply confirmed the fact that
Infantile Paralysis belongs strictly to the class in which in the foregoing chapter I
have placed it, and is subject to the same rules, influences and treatment. In most of
the cases treated I have not failed to discover the existence of spinal trouble in one
or other of the parents.
This, engendering predisposition to similar complaints in the children of the opposite sex
, which, acted upon by the irritants bred of poor or
irrational nutriment and unhygienic environment in greater or lesser degree, results
in attacks of this disease, in plain or epidemic form as the case may be, to which all
children so predisposed are liable. Thus, incidentally, is my recently discovered
"Law of the Cross-Transmission of Characteristics" amply verified.
As to the cause which leads to the development of this predisposition in the
children, the answer, of course, is improper nourishment; and amongst the
contributory causes I would specially indicate, "Pasteurized" and "sterilized" milk
which has been absolutely banned by science on the basis of Physical Chemistry,
according to which it was definitely proved in a report laid before the Paris
Academy of Sciences, that valuable bone-forming ingredients in the milk, (a
combination of carbonic and phosphoric lime,) are lost in course of Pasteurization,
since at the temperature necessary for the process they are
transmuted by heat into insoluble elements, (phosphate and carbonate of lime) which, precipitated by
chemical action, either drop to the bottom in sediment or cling to the surface
coating and, in either case, are eliminated and lost to the child to an extent which
constitutes a serious deterioration in its food and one likely in any case to promote
rickets.
Milk also contains important constituents which change into necessary food
elements in the course of natural fermentation—gelatine for instance—which
being, as has been shown, so vital a factor in the building up of tissue, it needs no
argument to prove the disastrous consequences its depletion must engender in the
child and it may be likewise safely left to the intelligence of the reader to grasp the
obvious fact that for the prevention or healing of Infantile Paralysis the one and
only safeguard is Regeneration through the course already indicated of Hygienic-
Dietetic treatment which will, if applied beforehand, eliminate the tendency to
disease or, in the event of its occurrence, will conduct it along safe and natural lines
to a quick recovery.
This brief sketch of the subject must suffice for the present purpose but a special
[C]article with full and interesting details has been devoted to the subject, which
will appear in my greater work, "Regeneration or Dare to be Healthy."
|
