In previous chapters we have dwell ed upon the prevention of disease by maintaining the alkali and acid balance of the system. We have, also, explained to you that the things you do not eat are the needed items of food by which you maintain this balance.
Since disease is the factor which destroys the structure and tissues of the body, you should also know how to supply repairs for this destruction. Even without disease, the cells of the body are destroyed daily by the activity of just living and doing. New cells for old is therefore a constant requirement.
There are three prime necessities in food values for the repair of body cells. We shall list these three in a manner which we hope you will never forget. That is because these three food values will maintain all body repair and will act as a prevention to disease attack. Here are the three food values:
1. Mineral foods equal nails.
2. Amino proteins equal lumber.
3. Vitamins equal the carpenter.
Now, from the above listing of the three food values and their comparisons, you see how your own housethe bodyis built and repaired.
The first of these body foods, the minerals, are possibly the most important of all. The minerals are not only a part of the body’s bony structure, but they enter into all other cellular tissue in every part of the body.
Even you who read, have a definite knowledge of the earth mineral Calcium. This mineral, together with phosphorous and others of the mineral kingdom, builds the bony structure. When you break a bone, it is these minerals which repair it to as good as new condition. You may have heard that it is calcium which is found as the repair material in lungs of tubercular people. Throughout the entire human system, wherever a breakdown occurs, minerals act as the binding agencythe nailsfor the repair. It is, therefore, a vital necessity for you to eat foods which are certain to contain minerals.
Deficiencies in food values have just entered into the consideration of medical science in the treatment of body ills. You well know that vitamins have been a sort of rage for approximately twenty years, and the amino proteins are just NOW entering into consideration for the treatment of deficiency diseases. However, minerals have not entered into their just consideration in this same deficiency category of disease. When minerals are recognized for their true worth in body repair, they will take precedence over either vitamins or proteins.
Re-mineralization of the body is not a new idea. It started back in the time of Dr. Hannemann, 1755-1843, but was not brought before the physicians of the day until Dr. Schuessler wrote his “Abridged Therapy” some fifty years ago. Following Dr. Schuessler, came Drs. Tynball, Leibig, Goullon, and Moleschott of Europe. Each of these men stressed the value of minerals in combating disease. Unfortunately, medical science seemed to think these pioneers of mineral therapy, were a group of quacks. How much the drug manufacturers had to do with influencing medical men, in their opinions of using minerals as drugs, cannot be stated ; only conjectured. It is a well known fact, even to you, that minerals in solution, tablet or capsule, are not expensive. However, vitamins, which seem to have taken precedence in the treatment of deficiency diseases, are quite expensive and Quite Profitable. For whatever reason, the fact is that minerals have taken a back seat when they should be up in the Amen row in the treatment of all deficiencies of the body.
Let us call your attention to just one deficiency disease, ARTHRITIS. Yes, a deficiency disease. We are well aware that medical men today seem rather hazy about the cause of arthritis. Here are some of the causes which have been ascribed to this disease by various authorities; drinking too much tea and coffee, the use of tobacco or alcohol, bad tonsils, bad teeth, sinus trouble, constipation and indigestion. However, the very nicest elderly lady the writer ever met, never had any sinus trouble, has a perfect set of teeth, even now, never had sore throat, and I am certain would faint at the thought of using tobacco or alcohol. She has been in a wheel chair with crippling arthritis for the last fifteen years. You, yourself, may know of some nice little old lady who has arthritis which could be due to none of the above causes.
Now, let us see how your knowledge of some person, who has arthritis, stacks up against what the writer is going to say. If you do not know of some arthritic, just keep in mind what we are about to say about any person who has acquired this deforming disease. Then ask that person to verify the following statement: every person who has arthritis, has at sometime in the past, had a serious infection. That infection may have been pneumonia, scar-let fever, typhoid fever, or flu, or some infection which is organic, as kidneys or bladder, or some organ. It must have been a serious infection to start arthritis. Those people who have neuritis may have a present active infection such as sinus, tooth or tonsil. These infections are usually remedied before arthritis appears.
Arthritis is a long, long time in arriving. Persons who have it will varify that statement. The reason it arrives is that they do not eat the foods which contain the minerals necessary for repair to the bony structure, and must use the minerals which they have previously stored. In other words, the arthritic person lives off his or her own bones. During and after infection, they should eat more mineral foods to meet their needs.
We may compare the arthritic person to one who borrows money from the bank. When you borrow money you are supposed to pay back interest and at the same time arrange to pay the principal. If you pay back neither interest nor principal, something occurs to you. You know this to be a fact. People who have arthritis borrow minerals from their own bones to be carried by the blood stream to some place of infection within the body in order to heal the damaged tissue. In every case of genuine arthritis, not due to injury, the first joints of the fingers are affected; sometimes the entire hands. If serious enough, other bony structure of the body suffers. Had these borrowed minerals been re-supplied, the deformities of arthritis would not have appeared.
To check up the statements just made, ask any person who has arthritis about their eating habits. You will find that every arthritic person does not like, or does not eat, sufficient mineral bearing vegetables and tart fruits. This will be another proof that what you do not eat hurts you.
Minerals, of course, are the real materials needed by the arthritic person for the repair of their bony tissue. In other words, minerals become the coin with which you will pay the bone bank that which you have borrowed when repairs were needed. However, the tart fruits are necessary to assure the solubility of the minerals in your food. Acid fruits assure the absorbtion of mineral foods.
In proof of the value of acid fruits causing mineral solubility, calcium hydroxide (lime water to you) is very poorly soluble in water. Just add lemon acid, or vinegar acid, and you will have a clear, soluble solution of calcium citrate, or calcium acetate, according to the acid used. This same transformation of calcium and many other minerals must take place within the body before they may be used.
Now, you may see why arthritic persons seldom get better and gradually grow worse when they have started a deformed joint. They have never, and may never, eat the proper foods to re-supply the minerals which they have used up in fighting an infection. They do not pay back the principal, and the non-payment of interest keeps adding to their debt. How can they help but grow worse ?
Do not confuse sciatic rheumatism with arthritis, or neuritis. All sciatic trouble is due to an old injury, which stretches a gluteal muscle of the hip and pinches the sciatic nerve slightly, or acutely. These muscles NEVER fully recover. That is why you have “lumbago” now and then ; with attacks months, or years apart.
The reason for pain in the sciatic nerve, from hip to floor, is a pinch, or a punch. Pinched by a twisting lift, a misstep, or a fall, it swells up for a short distance. Then when you get up from a chair, or come back from a stoop-over, oh, Brother! do you make a face; and a howl!
Take it easy ! Belt the hip, knee cap the knee, straighten the shoe heel and most rheumatism, any place from the hip to the floor will disappear. You need a human garage man to mend your connecting rods.
If you step, with unequal weight, on your heel, you throw a pinch into your knee. If the sciatic nerve is sore from an old injury and you keep pinching it, what do you expect but lameness?
Phooey ! All people have to do is straighten their connecting rods and so-called rheumatism disappears. Only arthritis and neuritis are infections.
Once arthritis has attacked a person, causing swollen or enlarged joints, it is rarely possible to eat sufficient of the mineral bearing foods to replace the damage done. However, the arthritic can eat largely of leafs and vegetables and tart fruits which will as-sure the repayment of mineral interest and prevent the debt growing larger. Then, if the patient will take a good eight, or twelve, mineral preparation over a long period of time, a payment on the principal may be made. In this manner, there is a possibility of reducing swelling, and in some cases, of reducing enlarged joints. Your doctor will be glad to advise a good mineral preparation.