1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



679 



had worn winter and summer almost constantly 

 for three or four years. 



You will recollect that, in our text, Daniel 

 asked of his keeper thut he and his friends 

 might be proved ten days. Thus we have Bible 

 authority to the effect that ten days of pure 

 simple diet may bring alioiit a material and 

 perceptible change in ones health. When Dr. 

 Lewis said he would cure my chronic chills in 

 ten <J ays I don't suppose he thought of Daniel 

 and my text. Let me digress a little. 



Some years ago a writer in the Scientific 

 American — a,n6 I believe the article was also 

 copied in various papers— took the ground that 

 colds are caused by disordered digestion; and 

 the remarkable thing about the article was 

 that the writer said that, when his diet was 

 right (and I presume that included drink as 

 well), you could not make him "catch cold." 

 He even went so far as to prove his position by 

 public tests. He slept in damp bedding ; he 

 went out till drenched through with rain, and 

 then stood in a draft until his teeth chattered; 

 went about with wet feet — did every thing, in 

 fact, that old established rules have laid down 

 as particularly dangerous in this line, but he 

 took no cold at all. He got cold, of course, and 

 suffered for the time being; but when he was 

 warmed up again, no after-consequences fol- 

 lowed. This writer has since published a book 

 on health, and I have studied it with much in- 

 terest, but I can not lay my hand on it now. He 

 did not prescribe the lean-meat diet particular- 

 ly; but he advised such a course of eating and 

 drinking as to seem to be conducive to whole- 

 some digestion. Well, for years past, whenever 

 I came in to sit down at the table, the doors and 

 windows would have to be closed a good deal of 

 the time in hot weather, or I could not stand it. 

 Mrs. Root and the children have suffered for 

 want of the (to them) delicious cooling breezes, 

 just because papa could not stand a draft; but 

 now I am rejoicing, during my fourth week 

 with the treatment, in being able to wear thin- 

 ner clothing than any of them: and I can stand 

 as much draft as anybody I know of, or more. 

 North winds that have been, in fact, my deadlv 

 enemy, now seem delicious and nice: and it 

 really seems as if I couldn't catch cold, even if 

 I tried to. Of course. I am not positive that this 

 thing will continue: but if it does, it is worth to 

 me a big lot. not only for myself, but that I may 

 point out the way of escape to others who are 

 suffering from hay fever, neuralgia, and feeble 

 vitality in a thousand and one directions. 



You may remember that, in my pamphlet on 

 the internal water cure. I suggested that the 

 too frequent use of the hot-water injections is 

 apt to remove the food before the process of di- 

 gestion is complete; that in this case I had dis- 

 covered there was a marked loss of strength, 

 from which I inferred that the lower intestines, 

 and may be even the lower colon, perform a 

 part in the operation of digesting the food, and 

 take from it something important, and possess- 

 ing much nutriment; and that a loss of this re- 

 sults in a loss of strength. Now, letting the 

 stomach do all the work, and leaving the intes- 

 tines and colon to "take a vacation.'' as I have 

 expressed it, produces just this result. In a few 

 days you find yourself feeling remarkably clean 

 and light, and perhaps rather " flat," and at 

 the same time you find your strength oozing 

 out, and a faintness or weakness you never felt 

 before, taking its place. T told the doctor I felt 

 as I imagined Samson did when they had cut 

 off his hair. This is the discouraging period in 

 the treatment. I suppose a good many patients 

 turn about and go back, as did Christian's com- 

 panion in Pilgrim's Progress. Beof good cheer, 

 friends; do not be In haste to give up. Prof. 

 Cook once told us in a lecture, that, so great is 



the effort nature will make to sustain life, a 

 man could have his whole stomach cut out; 

 and if the connecting tubes were hitched to- 

 gether, the other organs would do their work 

 until nature could manufacture another stom- 

 ach. We often see the same thing in nature. 

 When the animal economy begins to understand 

 the different order of things, the stomach pret- 

 ty soon learns to do double service, just as a 

 lalind man sees with his ears, and just as a deaf 

 man hears with his eyes. When this lassitude 

 and weakness comes on, lie down and rest. 

 Take it patiently, and it will often go away in 

 a short time. My remedy is a nap, and my 

 naps are as regular before dinner and supper as 

 the meals themselves — that is. when at home 

 and at work. I have recently found that my 

 wheel will usually drive off this weakness. 



A few days ago I asked the doctor if he ex- 

 pected me to be able to ride the wheel on lean 

 meat alone. 



" Why, bless your heart, yes. If you can hold 

 out until we are out of the woods you will ride 

 your wheel with muscles of iron, and muscles 

 that almost know not fatigue." 



I have now been almost four weeks under 

 the treatment. For two weeks I felt as if I had 

 not strength to ride more than half a mile. 

 Three days ago I tried a couple of miles; then 

 about five miles ; and day before yesterday 

 (Aug. 1.5), about eight miles ; and last evening, 

 the Ifith (the mercury had been in the 90's all 

 day). I rode tiventy miles after supper ; and I 

 came home just running up the hills, because I 

 enjoyed it. 



Now just a word in regard to our texts and 

 the moral of the case. I never before heard 

 anybody so emphatic against the use of wine 

 and beer as was Dr. Lewis. He said that, if al- 

 coholic stimulants were really needed, it is bet- 

 ter to use pure whisky, brandy, or even alcohol 

 itself, and not beer or wine, that can only start 

 a ferment in the bowels, when such ferments 

 are already the cause of the greater part of the 

 sickness of the present day.* 



Again, the person who has learned to forego 

 luscious fruits and vegetables, and hold right 

 on steady, with nothing to vary the monotony 

 of the invariable lean meat, will not find it dif- 

 ficult to control himself in every other way. 

 The mental and spiritual drill that one learns 

 from such tremendous self-denial ought to last 

 him through life. The " pulse " mentioned in 

 the book of Daniel was probably not lean meat, 



* Thousands of people are probably suffering- and 

 dying- almost every day by a kind of slow starvation, 

 irom the fact tbat'their food ferments and sours in 

 the digestive apparatus, instead of furnishing- good 

 healthy material for the blood to build up the 

 system. In fact, the digestive apparatus gets to be 

 a sort of brewery, raanufactiiiiiig beer and carbon- 

 ic-acid gas from every thinglakoii into the stomach, 

 especially food that contains staich and sugar. 

 Most of you have had occasional experiences in this 

 line with disordered stomach and bowels. Well, 

 there are still doctors left who will tell patients 

 suffering in this way to drink })rer or nle. to give 

 them sfrenoth. Adding beer and fermented liquors 

 when the stomach and intestines are a regular 

 brewery already I What sense or what consistency 

 is there in that ? And this very Hires' root beer, 

 that is puffed so much, even in our best papers and 

 periodicals, is only a milder mixture of yeast and 

 sugar. Read the directions— 3 lbs. of sugar to a 

 gallon, and then a great lot of yeast to make it fer- 

 ment. And, by the way, some of the Hires' root 

 beer, when the yeasi is tiptop and every thing just 

 right to make "good beer." contains enough alcoliol 

 to make one who is sensitive to its Influence feel its 

 effect very distinctly. I suppose it the W. C. T. (J. 

 should undertake to make a protest in this direction 

 they would stir up a hornets' nest. Be of good 

 cheer, friends. Dr. Salisbury and Dr. Lewis have 

 been for years protesting and proclaiming cautions 

 against this very thing. 



