The Changing Incidence & Mortality of Infectious Disease in Relation to Trends in Nutrition
By W. J. McCormick, MD
Summary: A Canadian medical doctor reviews the downward trend of infectious diseases from the late 1800s through 1945 to determine whether advances in medicine were responsible, as commonly believed, for the great drop-offs in illnesses such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, typhoid, diphtheria, whooping cough, and scarlet fever. His conclusion? No. The declines of all the illnesses started before the introduction of widespread medical measures such as drug therapy or immunization and continued at about the same pace after these methods came into play. Instead, he proposes, the declines coincide with the introduction and widespread availability of foods rich in vitamin C, the "anti-infection" vitamin. Thus, modern transportation and refrigeration—making foods such as oranges, grapefruits, tomatoes, etc., readily accessible for the first time—were the reason for better public health, Dr. McCormick argues, not medical care and pharmaceuticals. From the journal The Medical Record. Reprint 5A, 1947.
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Clinical Nutrition: Food vs. Drugs
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee outlines the efforts of organized medicine in the mid twentieth century to suppress awareness of the effectiveness of clinical nutrition. "This pernicious and corrupt misuse of the facilities of medical education," Lee writes, "has been [totally] effective in creating the idea that nutritional therapy is futile and leans toward quackery." Lee goes on to show how medicine became focused solely on therapies involving pharmaceutical drugs and that it marginalized drugless healing professions through laws preventing the dissemination of information and knowledge. Reprint 25A, 1948.
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Concept of Totality
By Joe Nichols, MD
Summary: Pioneering holistic medical doctor Joe Nichols writes about the "six chief causes of disease": (1) emotions, (2) malnutrition, (3) poisons, (4) infections, (5) accidents, and (6) inheritance. The worst, he says, are the emotions. "Worry, fear, anxiety, hate, envy, jealousy—these are the great killers," he explains, recommending the three As (acceptance, approval and adoration of others) as a remedy. A second great killer, Dr. Nichols says, is malnutrition, which starts with soils that have been exhausted of minerals through irresponsible farming practices utilizing artificial fertilizers. "The end result of chemical farming is always disease, first in the land itself, then in the plant, then in the animal, and finally in us. Everywhere in the world where chemical farming is practiced the people are sick. The use of synthetic chemicals does not make land rich. It makes it poorer than before." Dr. Nichols founded the Natural Foods Associates and edited its magazine, Natural Food and Farming, 1954.
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Correctable Systemic Disorders Indicated by Presence of Salivary Calculus
By John E. Waters, DDS
Summary: An excellent nutritional piece positing dental plaque as a precursor to cancer. "Both the medical and dental professions in general consider pyorrhea alveolaris [gum inflammation and loosening of teeth] as a disease per se and treat it primarily from the local disease angle. That is wrong. Pyorrhoea is but a single symptom of a systemic disease caused by glandular abnormalities. Local treatment but reduces the obvious symptoms; it does not affect the basic systemic disease. That which follows is based on observations during over forty years of general dental practice, and on over thirty years of special attention paid to certain aspects rarely if ever commented on in connection with dental calculus [tartar]." Special Reprint 1-64, 1964.
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Dietary Regimen in the Treatment of Renal Calculi (excerpted pages)
By Charles C. Higgins, MD
Summary: Selected pages from a journal review of studies investigating the connection between vitamin A deficiency and renal calculi, or kidney stones. This is one of the earliest tracts showing the critical role of vitamin A in the health of the kidneys. Although pH is discussed, the main thrust of the report concerns studies—conducted in the U.S., Africa, China, and other parts of Asia—all reaching the conclusion that vitamin A deficiency leads to renal calculi and lesions. From The Journal-Lancet, 1938.
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Let Food Be Your Medicine
By Doris Grant
Summary: Doris Grant was one of England's greatest proponents of the natural-foods movement. An avid supporter of the Lee Foundation, she wrote many books and lectured widely to teach the British people how to live healthier lives, particularly through their food choices. Strong and active until the end of her life, Grant died in 2003 at the age of 98. This document includes a brief account of her life. From the Cambridge University Medical School Society Magazine. Reprint 123, 1958.
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Medical Testament of the Doctors of Cheshire, England
By the Local Medical and Panel Committee of Cheshire, England
Summary: One of the great documents in the histories of both nutrition and medicine. The Local Medical Committee of Cheshire, England—representing the 600 doctors of the county—reviews the doctors' experience over the previous 25 years under the National Health Insurance Act. They concede that they've been unable to make inroads in preventing disease and state why explicitly: "This illness results from a life-time of wrong nutrition!" Citing the soil and farming work of Sir Albert Howard (An Agricultural Testament), they emphasize that good nutrition starts with the health of the soil that plants are grown in. They also review the nutritional research of Sir Robert McCarrison (Studies in Deficiency Disease), whose famous studies in India revealed the critical importance of whole foods, particularly "milk, butter, and fresh vegetables," in preventing disease. The doctors present cases of the deterioration of health in their patients as these individuals consumed the modern English diet, and they point out that the nation's dental and physical health have suffered severely as practices such as the pasteurization of milk, the refining of whole grains, and the consumption of refined sugar have increased. How, they ask, can they carry out their medical mission when the misery they've tried to alleviate will continue as long as the food supply is adulterated? "We conceive it to be our duty in the present state of knowledge to point out that much, perhaps most, of [England's] sickness is preventable and would be prevented by the right feeding of our people." In 1957, the Medical Testament was reprinted in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, signed by an additional 400 dentists and physicians. 1939.
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The National Malnutrition
By D. T. Quigley, MD
Summary: The complete book published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. A well-known cancer specialist from Omaha writes about the disgraceful nutritional status of the American people and makes the case that it is malnutrition more than anything that is responsible for the the amazing rate of cancer in the United States. Decades ahead of his time, Dr. Quigley warns Americans about corn syrup and refined sugar, explaining that cancer cells thrive on such artificial and refined sweeteners. 1943.
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