Arnold Ehret. Rational Fasting
THIS IS NOT THE GOSPEL; THEREFORE, IT CANNOT BE ACCEPTED ON FAITH FOR SALVATION FROM THE COMING WRATH OF GOD. THIS IS ANALYSIS — MATERIAL FOR REFLECTION ON HEALTH, NUTRITION, FASTING, AND A PROPER LIFESTYLE. SALVATION, LIFE, HEALTH, SOUND MIND, PURITY, RIGHT CONDUCT — ARE FROM THE LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL — THE NEW TESTAMENT!
The book “Rational Fasting” or “Healing Through Fasting (Starvation) and Fruits” by the Swiss naturopathic doctor examines the issue of maintaining and restoring health through the means embedded in the human body by God at creation. It explores the beneficial influence of fasting (starvation) on the human organism, as seen in Isaiah chapter 58, and also in the case of Daniel refusing meat sacrificed to idols. Arnold Ehret himself was brutally murdered in Los Angeles in 1922 for his books and lectures, in which he told the truth about the human organism and health, and exposed the profitable business of undermining people’s health.
Arnold Ehret
Introduction
We live in a time about which it may be said that everyone has his own particular opinion on every question of existence. Not only scholars in general, but even natural scientists disagree among themselves. They strive to raise ever more questions, subjecting everything to ever greater doubt, so that soon man himself will turn into a question mark. Mauthner says: all modern questions are answered with as many “yeses” as “noes.” Every proof is followed by a refutation. This sophistry has invaded even science. Yet nothing is so absurd, nothing so contradictory in human and scientific opinions, as the understanding of the nature of disease. I can no longer remain silent about my experience. But I will share it with those who wish to hear the truth, with those who will test it upon themselves and who will not ask — who proclaims it and whether it contradicts the opinion of the majority. Already earlier, in the “Vegetarische Warte,” I wrote about how I and my first student deliberately went to a malarial region of Italy, where we awaited the onset of fever. We purposely slept in the open air in malaria-infested places and undertook the most fatiguing journeys. To all the colonial administrations of Europe and America I offered to acquaint everyone with my method of achieving absolute insusceptibility to fever. Now I assert that I am also insusceptible to cholera, even on a diet of unripe fruit, and this insusceptibility will be acquired by anyone who begins to live according to my teaching.
There are two categories of sick people. Some wish to recover as quickly as possible. With their constant rush from “work” to amusements, they have no time to be ill. Therefore, they immediately throw themselves upon pills and mixtures, serum and tuberculin, iodine, mercury, Ehrlich’s preparations, and indeed achieve “improvement” for a time. But by doing so, a thorough cure becomes ever more impossible, and so the outcome comes all the sooner. People, however, accept this and do not demand more thereafter. Modern medicine simply meets the demands of the times. It seeks to make a person healthy in a hurry; this is, so to speak, “medical miracle-working,” and we have no reason to dispute its merits from this point of view. It fully fulfills its purpose and satisfies the demand, of course, more than ever before.
Other sick people — often called “stupid, backward,” but in reality attentive to themselves, straightforward, and vigorous individuals — want to eliminate the causes of diseases, which are often undervalued; they want to pull out the evil by the root. Whoever wishes to take this path and become completely healthy again must set about the task with energy and firmness, and be ready for sacrifices. He himself will then be his own responsible physician and counselor; he will only need to be shown the direction and the way. This is what I intend to do in the present work.
Between these two extremes stands the natural method of treatment, which, however, often plays a pitiable role. Although it aims to cure people, it fails because the main cause of illness — “eating well” — is not removed. In reality, one can be cured by natural means only by living according to the rule that nature prescribes for the animal kingdom: to fast and not to eat anything “artificial,” i.e., cooked food, in other words, to eat exclusively fruits and vegetation. Yet it should not be concealed that certain natural remedies, such as the sensible use of air and water (baths), can promote the success of fasting.
How to fast, which foods to avoid — these matters will be discussed later, taking into account the individuality of each person.
If medicine scorns the discovery of a layman, it condemns itself. Have the true sciences — natural and technical — ever been troubled that their inventors were laymen? They laughed at and mocked Franklin, Galvani, Edison, and Zeppelin, yet later they acknowledged and bowed before the genius of the “layman.” By the way, medical schools often tell their students about the revolution made by Priessnitz, but they keep silent about the fact that Priessnitz was a layman.
I do not take a definitely hostile position in the field of natural treatment, nor do I follow the current of modern charlatanism. It must be shown, however, how often boundless charlatanism sails under the flag of “nature.” My own position and my proofs here are entirely unique.
I. The Main Cause of All Diseases
“You are a true benefactor of humanity!
I will be happy if all people begin to live
according to your uniquely correct principles!”
Heinrich Knoth,
Royal Court Singer
Until recently, the firmly established view in medicine was that diseases enter the human organism from the outside, having an external cause as their basis, and, by virtue of an inevitable and inescapable law, poison man’s existence, cause him pain, and, ultimately, he dies. Even modern medicine has not yet freed itself from this false concept.
Bacteriology, the latest acquisition of humanity, rejoices at every newly discovered bacillus as a new agent in the mass of beings that are supposedly destined to endanger human life.
From a philosophical point of view, this concept differs from medieval superstition and idol worship only in the sound of the name. Previously, this being was definitely called an “evil spirit,” and now it—the cause of all ailments—is a microscopically visible organism whose existence has been proven by experiment.
True, the matter is further complicated by the organism’s predisposition to diseases. But what is meant by this, no one has told us. All experiments on animals with their symptomatic reactions do not prove anything definite, because they manifest when some substance is injected into the blood vessels, but never manifest when this substance is taken through the mouth to pass into the digestive canal.
When it is thought that diseases occur due to heredity or infection from the outside, there is a grain of truth in this, but not, of course, in the sense that the causative agent of disease is a spirit hostile to life (a demon) or some microorganism (bacillus). In reality, all diseases without exception, as well as hereditary ones—despite the absence of certain hygienic conditions—arise exclusively from unclean, “unnatural” food and from every gram of excessive nutrition.
First of all, I assert that in all diseases without exception, the organism strives to expel mucus from itself (of course, every healthy organism must contain a certain amount of mucus, for example, lymph) and, in a further stage, pus (decomposed blood). Every specialist will agree with me that this is inherent in all catarrhal phenomena, from a harmless head cold to pneumonia and consumption, as well as in epilepsy (during seizures—foam at the mouth, i.e., mucus). Where this mucous discharge is not noticeable, for example, in ear, eye, skin, stomach, and heart afflictions, rheumatism, gout, etc., even in all mental illnesses, mucus is still the main cause of the evil. Not being eliminated from the organism by natural means, it penetrates the blood through the excretory organs. At the very spot where the blood vessels constrict due to cooling (a chill), it causes fever, inflammation, pain, or an elevated temperature.
Let the patient be given some “non-mucus-forming” food, for instance, fruits, or only water, or only lemonade. Then all the digestive energy falls upon the mucous masses accumulated since childhood and hardened many times, as well as upon all the “pathogenic germs” arising from them. And what is the result? With unmistakable precision, mucus will appear in the urine and excrement. This, I consider to be the common, main, and fundamental cause of all diseases. If the disease is already in a more developed stage—so that somewhere, in the deepest parts of the organism, a diseased focus appears, i.e., decomposed cellular tissue—then pus will also be expelled. As soon as the influx of mucus through “artificial nutrition” (fatty meat, bread, potatoes, flour dishes, rice, milk, etc.) ceases, the bloodstream seizes the mucus and even the pus present in the organism and expels them outward by means of urine; in the heavily infected, even through all available orifices and the mucous membrane.
If potatoes, bread flour, rice, or the corresponding meat are boiled for a long time, a gelatinous mucus, or paste, results, of the kind used by bookbinders and joiners. This mucous substance soon becomes sour, passes into putrefaction, and provides a breeding ground for the development of fungi, mold, and bacilli. During digestion, which chemically represents the same boiling, the same combustion, this mucus, this paste, will also be separated out, since the blood can only utilize the digestible grape sugar obtained from starch. As a product superfluous to metabolism, this paste, or mucus, begins to be expelled without residue from the very start. It must be explained, nevertheless, that over the course of a lifetime, the intestines and stomach become so gradually glued up and coated with mucus that the paste of vegetable and the glue of animal origin pass into putrefaction, clog the blood vessels, and, in the end, the stagnant blood must decompose. If figs, dates, or grapes are boiled down fairly thickly, a mush is also obtained. However, it does not pass into putrefaction, never separates mucus, and no one would call it by that name, but merely syrup. Fruit sugar, this most important product for the blood, is sticky in consistency; however, being the highest form of combustible material, it is processed by the organism without residue—without mucus. This sugar leaves behind only traces of cellulose, which, not being sticky, is immediately expelled without rotting. Concentrated sugar, in view of its ability to counteract putrefaction, is even specially used for preserving foods.
Every healthy and sick person is forced to remove the ill-smelling mucus from the tongue as soon as he begins to limit his diet or to fast. The same thing happens on the mucous membrane of the stomach, of which the tongue is, in this case, an exact copy. This mucus shows up at the first bowel movement after fasting.
As was to be expected, an uproar arose in the scientific camp concerning the mucus theory, as, incidentally, always happens when a layman makes a discovery. I will try to repeat yet more clearly that which I did not assert.
I did not say that mucus is always and exclusively the cause of all diseases, but I assert that it is the chief cause of all diseases. This means that there can be many other causes of illness. I do not dispute this, nevertheless, mucus is always present in every case of sickness. It is detected even in childhood within a seemingly healthy organism. Mucus is the primary substance among all disease‑producing substances, such as uric acid, metabolic poisons, carbonic acid, etc. All these products of metabolism, both animal and vegetable, due to their sticky property, adhere to the linings of the stomach and intestines, accumulate, and gradually clog them. Through the blood circulation (white blood cells) in the entire ‘tubular system’, especially in the large blood vessels – lungs, heart, kidneys, etc. – they cause clogging also of these organs. If someone is unwilling to accept that the inner walls of the digestive canal, approximately 10 meters long, must in time become clogged, even with the best digestion, there is simply nothing to be done with them. After all, what I assert has been proven through experiment on every person, and is not the fruit of idle fantasy by a ‘layman’.
I recommend that physicians and researchers verify my statements by experiment. Experiment – a question put to nature – is the foundation of all exact science. It will show the truth unmistakably, whether I or someone else asserts it. Moreover, I also recommend carrying out the experiments described below, which I tested on myself. Those who resort to experiment will receive from nature, i.e., from their own organism, the same answer that I received – namely, that only a clean, healthy, mucus‑free organism is truly capable of resisting disease to a certain degree. After almost two years of a strict fruit diet with intermittent fasting I attained a degree of health of which people nowadays have absolutely no conception. This health allowed me to perform the following experiments, which I described in detail in my work “A 49‑day Fasting Experiment” Veg. Warte 190 9/10).
I made a cut with a knife on the lower part of my arm; no blood flowed, because it immediately coagulated; the wound closed without inflammation, without pain, without mucus and pus. In three days it healed, and the crust fell off. Later, under a vegetarian regime, with meals that form mucus (starch‑based diet), but without eggs and milk, the blood already oozed slightly from the wound, which was painful and suppurated slightly, slight inflammation, and complete healing occurred only after a longer time. Still later, the same kind of injury on a meat diet with a small amount of alcohol: longer bleeding, the blood bright, red and thin, inflammation, pain; suppuration lasted several days. Only after a two‑day fast did the wound heal.
I proposed, unsuccessfully of course, to the Prussian War Ministry that they repeat this experiment. Why, indeed, did the wounds of the Japanese in the Russo‑Japanese War heal much faster and better than those of the Russians, who eat meat and drink vodka? It is astonishing that for two thousand years no one wondered why opening an artery and even a cup of poison could not kill Seneca, after he had previously rejected meat in his food and fasted in prison. Seneca probably had previously lived exclusively on fruit and water.
The basis of every disease is the clogging of the smallest blood vessels (capillaries) with mucus. If a filter is clogged, no one would start repairing the city water supply and cleaning the pipes of contaminated water before the inflow of water is stopped. Everyone would immediately think of the main machine that drives the entire water supply and would stop it first of all.
‘I am the Lord, your healer,’ in modern language must be understood thus: only nature heals, cleanses, best of all frees from mucus, and does so with unerring accuracy, and only when the intake of mucus‑forming food is stopped, or at least the most mucus‑forming. Every ‘physiological machine’, whether man or animal, immediately cleanses itself by ceaselessly dissolving mucus as soon as the intake of food, at least that richest in mucus, is stopped. Even in the outwardly healthiest people of Europe, this mucus appears in the urine, and in suitable glasses it can be seen after cooling with the naked eye! Whoever will deny this obvious fact, ignore it, or even dispute it – whether because it seems incorrect to him or insufficiently scientific – is himself to blame if he cannot find the main cause of every disease, and he himself will suffer from it first of all.
Now I will reveal the last secret of consumption. Does someone perhaps think that a tubercular patient expels this mass of mucus directly from his lungs for years? If such patients are fed only on ‘mucus’ (porridge, milk, and fatty meat), then the discharge of mucus will have no end until the lungs themselves begin to disintegrate and at last the ‘bacilli’ appear – death in such a case is inevitable. The question of bacilli is thus resolved simply: the ever‑increasing clogging of the blood vessels with mucus leads to decomposition, putrefaction of these mucous products and indigestible food residues. They rot bit by bit in the living body (purulent abscesses, cancer, tuberculosis, syphilis, lupus, etc.). It is now known that meat, cheese, and all organic substances during decomposition favor the appearance and multiplication of bacilli. However, the germs of bacilli become noticeable only at a higher stage of the disease; they are not the cause, but the product of disease. The secretions of bacilli, their toxin, act as poisons, and therefore the disintegration, for example, of a lung proceeds faster with them. Even if one admits that bacilli penetrate the human body from outside, infecting it, still only mucus serves as the soil in which they can develop, aggravating the organism’s predisposition to diseases.
As already mentioned, I lived for fully two years exclusively on fruit, i.e., on mucusless food. I no longer needed a handkerchief, and now this product of culture is rarely necessary for me. Have you ever seen a free-living animal blow its nose or spit?
A young physician considers my view erroneous; he believes that in the nose of a healthy animal or person mucus should still be secreted. In his opinion, then, a mucus-free nose is a pathological phenomenon. Yet I think that the esteemed physician did not examine carefully enough the nose of an animal living in the wild (not a domestic one). There is absolutely no mucus there, only the familiar moisture—a deposit of water vapor from the cold air containing some quantity of dust. If the physician considers my mucus-free nose a diseased condition, then I shall tell him that this condition of the nose arises from perfect health, since I live entirely without mucus. Therefore, the mucusless condition of the nose can by no means be explained as a symptom of illness. I observed the same phenomenon in my patients during a mucusless diet, precisely when their health was at its very best.
The chronic inflammation of the kidneys, from which I suffered intensely and which doctors had declared fatal, vanished as if it had never been; my health and ability to work improved dramatically; even in my youth, in its healthiest years, I had not felt so well.
A European of 31 years was brought to me lying near death; eight years later he took part in a run lasting 2¼ hours and stayed on his feet for 58 hours.
Through numerous experiments I succeeded in proving this “mucus theory,” and we can now, for the first time, precisely establish the single concept that explains the cause of all diseases. Even though the “natural healing method” already admits the possibility of blood disorders, and Dr. Lahmann especially emphasizes the “dietetic” purification of the blood from impurities that constitute the fundamental cause of all diseases, the methods applied in the treatment itself nevertheless usually prove insufficient. Although patients are prescribed a nutritional regimen without meat or with a very insignificant amount of it, they are still given bread, porridge, milk, butter, eggs, cheese, and flour-based dishes, which are always rich in starch and provoke copious mucus formation. Herein lies the explanation why most vegetarians, despite their vaunted menu, are nevertheless unhealthy. I myself ate mucus-rich food for several years. Unless the majority of vegetarians soon change over to purely natural food, i.e., to a fruit diet, or at least reduce the amount of food they consume, vegetarianism in its present form risks losing its significance—not because the principle of “not eating meat” is bad in itself, but because the benefit to health from the current vegetarian diet is very slight. The few people who live exclusively on fruit always take first place in walking competitions, etc.; medicine, however, looks for some other explanation for this success. Representatives of the vegetarian movement still want to prove that man needs only cooked food; this happens because they themselves and all experimenters in this field have a completely wrong idea of the fruit diet as a curative remedy. The hobbyhorse of vegetarian propaganda consists in providing proof that man is not a meat-eater and that therefore eating meat is unnatural. Their opponents are right when they say that meat is, in any case, no less natural than cabbage, bread, milk, cheese, etc. More than ten years ago Professor Bunge already reproached vegetarians for inconsistency. And he was right.
In the vegetarian scientific camp, under the influence of a false doctrine about protein, the protein and nutrient content of vegetarian dishes was equated with that of meat, and in the process they forgot the most important point in the doctrine of health, which states: “The more you feed the sick, the more harm you do to them” (Hippocrates, eminent dietitian, the greatest physician and healer). I speak here, in general, not about nutrition in the sense of vegetarian propaganda, but only about real healing. The mucusless diet, as a saving system in terms of fasting, moderate eating, and elimination, is fully consistent with the teaching of Hippocrates.
It has been proven with theoretical precision that humankind once fed exclusively on fruit, and biologically it remains true that a person can still live in this way. Healthy common sense might at first find it difficult to imagine that a human being could live on fruit alone without also becoming a hunter. I maintain, however, that it is possible – and what is more, such a person will enjoy absolute health, beauty, and incredible strength, without sickness or suffering. Only fruit, the sole “mucus‑free” food, is natural for man. Everything that human hands have prepared or supposedly improved is an evil. The evidence for fruit has been confirmed scientifically by experiments: an apple or, for instance, a banana contains everything a person needs. Under the tropics there probably still live old men, astonishing in their capacity for work, who have eaten nothing but bananas in their entire lives. The human being is so perfect that he can subsist on just one kind of fruit, at least for a more or less extended period. The same cannot, however, be said of the coconut. At any rate, the well‑known apostle of coconut diets, Engelhardt, was never able to cure a tropical disease while eating only coconuts. When a person begins to eat only fruit, he at first falls ill – that is, his organism cleanses itself; this cleansing process is better carried out at home rather than in the tropics. No one would believe me that out of 14 months – 126 days, 49 of them entirely – one can live without food. I have lived this way, yet it convinces only a few. I maintain that only fruit is the most natural “healing remedy.” Whether my calculation is correct, people will see from experience during the next European epidemic. What, indeed, persuades people? If someone had said a century ago that it was possible to telephone from Berlin to Paris, he would have been laughed at, for nothing of the sort yet existed. In just the same way, natural food is disbelieved because almost no one around us lives on it. At the same time, some fear that the prices of artificial products will fall, others that the physiology of nutrition will be shaken and that physicians will become superfluous. And yet fasting and fruit‑based treatment precisely require careful medical supervision and advice, consequently demanding more physicians, even though there would be fewer patients. But people prefer to pay more, if only they can get well.
Almost all attempts at fasting fail because people do not know that when mucus‑free food is taken, old mucus will be excreted copiously until the organism is entirely cleansed of it and healed. That is why a person who considers himself perfectly healthy will, even in the middle stage of the body’s mucus‑purification, already attain a higher degree of health. Here is the rock against which the teaching of vegetarians has again and again been dashed, with only a few exceptions, because they disregarded this truth. In the Vegetarische Warte, I demonstrated the significance of my system on the basis of experiments and facts, and with a 49‑day fast preceded by a fruit diet I refuted in practice the greatest objection that is raised against under‑eating. My well‑being only improved, owing to the radical elimination of mucus, despite certain unhygienic conditions that attended my fast. In cultured society, many adherents of my regimen have appeared, as can be seen from the multitude of letters I have received. The mass supporters of vegetarianism, however, continue even now to eat mucus‑producing food, and their stomachs are in no way different from the stomachs of Munich beer‑drinkers. This is the result of daily overfilling with “mucus‑forming food” of the most varied kinds. Meat, alcohol, coffee, tobacco – in short, everything that vegetarians campaign against – can be used occasionally, in moderate quantities, with comparatively little harm. This is confirmed by life itself: hundreds of people have reached advanced age while using both alcohol and tobacco in small amounts… The whole point is to eat little! Professor Sylvester Graham says that a drunkard may grow old, but a glutton never.
In order to prevent misunderstandings that might arise on the part of temperance and vegetarian advocates, I must add a few further arguments here. Meat is in no way a means of nourishment, but merely a stimulant; it putrefies and decomposes in the intestines; yet the process of decomposition begins not in the stomach, but right after slaughter; the latter was proved by Prof. Dr. S. Graham. For my part I would add that these putrefaction poisons act as stimulants, and therefore give the illusion of a nourishing substance. Or can anyone prove to me chemico‑physiologically that a protein molecule that has entered into decomposition is reconstituted in the stomach and, for example, celebrates its rebirth in a human muscle? Like alcohol, so also meat at first promises strength and energy, until the whole organism becomes infected by them and the process of destruction sets in. The same happens with other stimulants.
The primary evil of all non-vegetarian dietary systems has been and remains – excessive meat consumption, which brings with it all other woes, such as the craving for alcohol. One who eats almost exclusively fruits naturally loses the thirst for wine and beer; at the same time, a person who subsists on meat always feels a pull toward them, because meat, in general, provokes intense thirst. Alcohol, as has been proven, serves as a known antidote to meat; a big-city dweller who enjoys good food, living almost entirely on meat, must of necessity drink wine, coffee, and smoke cigarettes in order to at least temporarily mitigate the heavy poisoning caused by meat. After a dinner party, the next day a person feels spiritually and physically much fresher only if the consumption of poisonous stimulants was moderate.
I declare a war to the death on meat and alcohol! Only through fruits and moderate eating can one fundamentally rid oneself of these great evils. But if someone simply cannot give up meat and alcohol – yet consumes them in very insignificant quantities – this is, in any case, better than eating many vegetarian dishes. The American Fletcher demonstrated this clearly. The secret of his success can easily be understood through my experiments, which prove that a person feels most capable of work, enduring, and healthy only when he eats as little as possible. Are the oldest people not usually those who are most poor? Did the outstanding individuals who glorified themselves in the fields of discovery and invention not come from the poorer classes of society? That means they all ate sparingly. And finally, were not the prophets, founders of religions, and greatest men, ascetics? Or does anyone see the success of culture in living in a fashionable part of the city and eating delicious food three times a day, and social progress in the notion that every worker will eat five times a day and sit with a glass of beer in the evenings? All these so-called dinner parties, luxurious appetizers, are considered in our time not only decent and innocent, but even moral and aesthetic. In reality, they are not only immoral but also harmful, for they significantly hasten the arrival of disease and decrepitude. If even a sick person can recover through fasting, then it is self-evident that a healthy organism requires little food to be strong and enduring.
All so-called miracles in holy places were possible only thanks to the ascetic way of life of pilgrims, and now, although many pray, miracles are unthinkable because people have ceased to fast. If the saints were, in modern terms, radioactive, i.e., if a radiance emanated from them, it was because they acquired their health, equal to that of the “gods,” through asceticism. From me myself there now emanates a visible electric radiation, the secret of which lies in the influx of solar energy (sunbaths and nourishment from the “solar kitchen,” i.e., fruits). When a person eats little and is healthy, he can sometimes, as the saying goes, digest stones, eat meat and products containing starch (mucus); but the healthiest way for a person to nourish himself is with fruits, and he will need very little of them; fruits are the most perfect food. Yet modern man does not want to and cannot admit this truth, and he even has the right to fear it, for he has grown up on indigestible food. But as soon as he begins to take sunbaths, fast, and nourish himself with living cells of fruits, the cells of the old food die off and are eliminated from the body. Such treatment, however, requires great caution. Medicine, as far as possible, strives to protect man from the destruction of cells, but by preserving him with its own means, it only leads the patient more successfully and quickly to premature death. Proponents of vegetarianism cannot deny that among consumers of meat and alcohol there are individuals who exhibit robust health, great capacity for work, and longevity, if they eat sparingly rather than in excess. Meat contains fewer mucous substances than the acclaimed vegetarian dishes, and therefore the latter, when consumed in large quantities, cause greater harm than even significant meat consumption. The absence of ordinary food has caused me no discomfort whatsoever for several years now. I eat only when I feel appetite, and so little that even if I sometimes have to try something that in itself is not entirely beneficial, it does me no harm at all.
All civilized food, from beefsteak to innocent oatmeal, precisely creates the need for forbidden antidotes: alcohol, coffee, tea, and tobacco. Why? Because gluttony weakens people, and only through these stimulants do they become alert again. In excessive meat consumption lies the deep and true cause of the increased demand for alcohol. Not for nothing does Professor Dr. Graham say in his “Physiology of Nutrition”: “A drunkard may grow old, a glutton never.” This is true, for the consumption of alcohol, for instance beer, is more innocent than the chronic poisoning of the entire digestive tract with mucous-forming food.
Now I ask, what is wiser: to accumulate these mucus masses further or to stop their flow? If we remember that they decompose, then here and there cause diseases of the body’s cellular tissue through perspiration, artificial cooling baths (Kneipp treatment), massage, sports, etc., at the expense of heart activity and thereby shorten the duration of life – then the answer will become clear. Or will someone prove to me that the best cook or pastry chef can produce anything more beautiful and mucus-free than an apple, a grape, and a banana? I can prove to anyone that mucus-forming food and overeating are the true fundamental cause of all diseases without exception, and fasting and a fruit diet are the only correct natural nutrition and a sure remedy. Every animal, at the slightest indisposition, begins to fast. Even if domestic animals have long lost their fine instinct for proper and natural food, still, when they are sick, they eat only the barest minimum or fast, and then become healthy. On the contrary, the poor sick person is unable to stay on a restricted diet for more than 1–2 days, otherwise, you see, he will lose his “strength.”
Even many doctors consider fasting a miraculous remedy, a cure for all diseases when nothing else has helped the patient. This means is infallible, but dangerous without a physician’s guidance.
I was the first to combine this treatment with a systematic and individual fruit diet, thanks to which it became astonishingly easy to apply and absolutely safe. We can now overcome diseases from which medicine has more than once refused to heal. Based on experience, I have become convinced that mucus is also the main cause of the onset of old age, obesity, hair loss, wrinkle formation, weakness of nerves and memory, etc.
Already Hippocrates acknowledged that all diseases proceed from one cause. Professor Dr. Jaeger identified the general sign of illness as “stench,” but he did not indicate the source of the “bad odor.” Dr. Lahmann and other representatives of the physical and dietary direction, especially Kuhne, went further in searching for “these substances foreign to the organism.” But none of them managed to prove through experience that the essence of everything lies in that mucus which from childhood burdens our organism as a consequence of civilized food, and at a certain degree of fermentation exhausts it, forming a diseased focus—that is, causing the cellular tissue to rot and decompose. This mucus forms accumulations in the organism during a chance chill or high fever and, striving to leave the body, provokes manifestations that we are accustomed to call disease. Only now can we give ourselves a clear account of what predisposition of the organism to illnesses really is. The more “mucus” accumulates from childhood (bad mother’s milk and all its substitutes) or the less this mucus, due to inherited weakness, is eliminated through the appropriate organs, the stronger the inclination (predisposition) of the organism to chills, fever, shivering, development of parasites, illness, and premature old age. Here the veil is lifted from that mystery which until now has obscured the understanding of the true role of the white blood cells. I think that here, as in many other cases, medicine is decidedly mistaken. It is precisely the bacteria that fall upon the white blood cells, not the other way around, because these cells consist wholly or for the most part of the mucus so often reproached here. Do they not cultivate millions of bacteria in laboratories on exactly the same mucus? On potato, broth, gelatin—that is, on nitrogenous, vegetable or animal substance consisting of an alkaline fluid in which disintegrated cells of white blood cells are contained! In a completely healthy state, the so-called mucous membrane in humans should not be white or whitish, but pure and red, as in an animal.
With the establishment of the “mucus theory,” the hideous mask is finally torn from the specter of disease.
The animal organism (especially the human) represents a tubular system of blood vessels, set in motion by air through the lungs, in which the blood fluid is in constant motion, and is regulated by the heart, which acts like a ventilator. In the lungs, with each breath, air is decomposed into oxygen and nitrogen; through this the blood is kept constantly in motion, and the human body functions for an incredibly long time without any fatigue. Let no one vainly convince me with empty words that “daily experience teaches those who have to work to eat heartily,” etc. Everyone can easily learn how long after fasting and on a fruit diet one can work or walk without feeling any fatigue. Fatigue is, on the one hand, a drop in strength due to the excessive work of the digestive organs; on the other, a clogging of the heated and thereby narrowed blood vessels; and finally, thirdly, a “self-poisoning” of the organism due to the accumulation of mucus.
II. How to eliminate and prevent the main cause of all diseases
My task in this chapter is to indicate the means and method by which one can successfully counteract the poisoning of the organism by mucus, this greatest enemy of health. I have already pointed out that patients need individual treatment.
I have more than once managed, through both oral and written advice, to render help and achieve healing in severe illnesses. Here I wish to point out three ways to find for oneself the proper regimen.
- The shortest and most reliable path is fasting.
Healthy people can safely treat themselves with fasting; naturally, they too must be prudent and not overexert themselves during the fast, i.e., not engage in physical or mental efforts that were beyond their strength even with full nutrition. Here it is necessary to mention a mandatory precaution that must be observed in all fasting treatments: complete cleansing of the intestines before the start of the fast by means of a harmless laxative or enema, or both together. After all, it is quite natural that the fasting person should not suffer from gases and decomposed substances that form from the stool in the intestines; it is enough that mucus during elimination causes a person a lot of trouble, as has already been mentioned.
Those who are afraid of a prolonged fast, even if they feel healthy, should start with a short one. Already a 36-hour fast, repeated once or twice a week, has a very beneficial effect on the body. It is best to start it in the evening, by giving up dinner and using an enema. During the 36-hour fast – up to and including the second morning – one should take no food, and at the first subsequent breakfast eat only fruit. It is necessary to eat fruit after each fast, because fruit juice coagulates the loosened mucous mass. Sick and elderly people should pay special attention to their individual peculiarities. For example, those who usually eat only meat should be especially wary of a sudden transition to fasting and a strict fruit diet. A drastic change here can be very harmful. The change in diet must be carried out in strict accordance with the characteristics of the organism and under the supervision of an experienced doctor.
The goal is achieved considerably faster if, in the said manner, one continues fasting a few days longer, i.e., 3 days without eating anything, and only drinking, as needed, sips of water with lemon. Starting from the 4th day, eat a little vegetables, salad, or fruit, and in the evening of the same day, do a thorough enema. The fast can last for even several weeks in healthy people, especially those whose occupation allows them to lie down during the difficult moments of mucus elimination and barometric fluctuations. These pieces of advice, however, apply only to healthy people who wish to verify by experience the physical and spiritual rebirth that is a consequence of this treatment. Do not be dismayed during the fast by your poor outward appearance and the loss of body weight! Your health, despite the not-so-good complexion, becomes robust, and soon a fresh and healthy blush appears on your cheeks. Body weight also quickly becomes normal. After fasting, the body gains weight literally with every gram of food. People who are very moderate in eating and fast often have a very delicate and spiritual expression on their faces. It is said that Pope Leo XIII, that great faster and connoisseur of life, had an almost transparent complexion.
The success of the fast depends mainly on the fasting person himself. He must not lose presence of mind. In moments of doubt, calm helps some, while activity, especially light mechanical work, helps others.
When the organism is freed from clogging, mucus, and glue, then it is the sacred duty of every recovered person to appreciate the acquired great earthly blessing and to preserve it through proper nutrition.
- Those who, due to the state of their health, cannot fast, for example, with severe lung or heart diseases, should at least take care to put a limit on the accumulation of mucus. This is achieved by refraining as much as possible from mucus-forming foods, especially from flour-based (pastries), rice, and potato dishes, from boiled milk, cheese, meat, etc. Cottage cheese, kefir, yogurt produce less mucus because they have a laxative effect. Those who cannot give up bread entirely should use white and black bread in dried form; its harmfulness is then lost, as the mucous particles are partly destroyed. You generally cannot eat a lot of dried bread; you also cannot gulp it down in chunks like a predator, and thorough chewing eventually tires out even the most avid bread lover. Those who cannot bite into a rusk due to bad teeth should suck it until it softens - an excellent way to restore failing strength. And those who cannot do without potatoes should use them only in baked form. Here again I most earnestly warn the patient against self-treatment without experienced guidance. Even the slightest deviation towards a mucus-free and low-mucus diet requires various instructions and forms, depending on the type of illness and the patient’s individuality. An extremely important role is played here by the correct and timely transition from one diet to another. Only a competent specialist can judge this, not the patient and his relatives. Especially those with lung diseases must for months abstain from certain mucus-forming foods in order to prevent an exacerbation of their illness. Here my preparations, which are low in mucus (low-mucus vegetable broth, nutritious soup, “healthy aroma”, fasting drink, etc., are available only from A. Kummer, Viandal-Werk-Köln-Sülz), can render many good services.
What, then, actually remains for a person to eat if he must completely give up meat and, as far as possible, avoid dried peas, lentils, and beans? This question will likely be asked with a sigh by more than one of my readers.
I have already spoken above about the value of meat. The insignificant human need for protein is fully met by sugar-containing fruits; bananas, nuts with a few figs or dates excellently serve to build muscle and first-class strength.
Vegetables (perhaps finely chopped and made into a salad), salad prepared with oil and generously drenched with lemon, all those luxurious fruits and berries that the south sends us—altogether, they make a table worthy of the gods. And does not nature herself come to our aid when, in spring, wonderful oranges ripen in the south, just at the time when the season of our magnificent fruits, especially apples, ends and young vegetables are not yet available? Will not their aroma, at last, tempt a person to live on fruit alone?
I will not go into further details, but I only want to recommend—especially to people of delicate health—in any case, to keep the morning fast. Take no food at all until dinner, or at least until 10 o’clock in the morning, and then eat only fruit. The reward for this little self-mortification will not be long in coming, if you are consistent in it.
- Now a word also for those who think they cannot give up ordinary mucous-forming food (meat, etc.). There is also a very healthy mode of eating for them—“Fletcherism,” i.e., eating after the manner of the American Fletcher, in which the food is chewed especially thoroughly until it becomes a liquid mush in the mouth. The quantity of food is reduced to the level of genuine appetite, i.e., about one and a half times less than usual, which ultimately yields excellent results.
As soon as a person, thanks to fasting and a fruit diet, regains health, as I understand it—that is, his organism is freed from mucus, glue, and disease germs and remains so—then, it goes without saying, he no longer needs to fast, and eating becomes for him a pleasure of which he previously had no conception. Here lies for man the path to happiness, harmony, and the resolution of all questions, especially social ones, because his needs are greatly reduced and he “draws near to the divine” (Socrates).
Can a person live on fruit for a long time? It goes without saying, yes! To think otherwise would be a straightforward “biological mistake.” If a table is prepared for every worm, why should there not be one for man? Moreover, it has already been scientifically proven that an apple, a banana, and a coconut contain absolutely everything necessary for the human organism. A cow lives its whole life on grass alone, gives 10 liters of milk daily, pulls the plow, and, in the end, is eaten. And over a long period, fat, protein (milk), muscles, strength, and warmth are formed in it from feeding on grass (hay). Can it be that man, standing above all animals, is so imperfectly created that his organic life cannot be sustained by the rich solar kitchen?
Pavel Liberner, one of my like-minded friends, has outlined the basic rules of a God-pleasing way of life in a poetic and attractive form.
With his permission, I quote here his:
Practical Guidelines for Life
Before eating, reverently say your prayer and see to it that your meal is permeated with a devout mood. Eat slowly, thoughtfully, so that the aroma and nature of the food, which contain a balm for the nerves, may penetrate your being. “Well chewed is half digested!” “Bad masters, but good servants are our belly and stomach!” says a wise proverb justly.
Let your food be pure, unstained by murder and blood! Leave the animal its body and life, leave it its only good! With the gifts of heaven your table is always abundant: ripe sheaves of the earth, the green of gardens, berries of the woods, sweet and colorful fruits of the trees with their fragrance— all this the bright sun has awakened for you from winter sleep and with warm kisses of love has quickened your food, so that you might eat living fruits that in turn give you life.
Let your body be as pure as your food! — This or that herb will help you cleanse it of poisons and free it from evil spirits. Fruit juices work wonders: they root out evil, purify the blood, and give you strength. The lemon, pearl and crown of all golden fruits, also works wonders. Give your digestive organs rest and repose from time to time—all who were your teachers were also masters of fasting. Wisely distribute your food, as the seasons offer it to you! Let your first commandment be: “Eat little, and eat that little at the right time!”
If you desire to be wholly healthy in body and soul, then do not rest until you find in the breath of the universe that divine food which hides within itself the highest life and knows how to transmit it to you. With reverence, draw with full handfuls from this holy source and remember that a godlike, pure soul joins itself to your pure body.
III. The Main Cause of Premature Old Age, Hair Loss and Graying: A Means of Preserving Youth and Beauty
After numerous proofs that mucus is always the chief cause of illness and premature old age, we must further trace, in some organs separately, to what degree mucous-forming cultural nutrition hinders the development of beauty during the growth of the human body and brings on the symptoms of old age.
If, according to the law of paradise, man’s lungs and skin were provided with only air and solar electricity as a covering, and his stomach and intestines with only solar nutrition, i.e., fruits that are almost completely digested and leave behind only cellulose without any mucus, glue, or germs, then it cannot be accepted that the tubular system of the human organism could thereby deteriorate, weaken, grow old, and ultimately cease to function altogether. Instead of living, energy-filled cells from fruits, man now eats “slaughtered flesh,” biologically intended for beasts of prey—that is, putrefactive and indigestible food that gives no energy. Especially in the stomach and intestines, residues (mucus) accumulate, gradually clogging the channels and filters (glands). In the end, this all leads to premature old age. Thus, premature old age is essentially a direct disease, a slow and gradual destruction of the life motor.
The chemistry of food products provides accurate evidence that deformities and cell breakdown result from mineral-poor cultivated food.
If deformities, loss of beauty, and old age are the result of improper nutrition, then the therapy of beauty and youth depends solely on diet and the corresponding improvement of food products. The pale, deathly color of the body of a civilized person, deprived of light and sun, is unquestionably unattractive and is mainly due to the white dead color of indigestible, improper nutritive material. What a magnificent complexion a person would have if they were to eat only “ruby” fruits: grapes, cherries, and oranges, and if, in addition, air and sun baths were added—people have no idea! Mucus and a deficiency of mineral substances in food products carry the same significance as a lack of color. If you compare the sorts of food products from Prof. König, you will find that mucilage-free food, namely fruits and vegetables, ranks first in terms of the amount of lime they contain.
Table of the Most Important Food Products
Compiled according to König, Chemistry of Food Products
(König, Chemis der menschlichen Nahrungs-u. Genussmittel, 4 Aufl., Berlin 1903)
Food products Water Nitrogenous
substances Fat Non-nitrogenous
substances Fibrous
substances Mineral
substances
Meat and meat products without bones
Fatty beef 54,76 18,92 23,65 — — 1,08
Lean beef 76,47 20,56 1,74 — — 1,17
Fatty veal 72,31 18,88 7,41 0,07 — 1,33
Lean veal 78,84 19,86 0,82 — — 0,50
Medium-fat mutton 75,99 17,11 5,77 — — 1,33
Fatty pork 47,40 14,54 37,34 — — 0 72
Lean pork 72,57 20,25 6,81 — — 1,10
Goose 40,87 14,21 44,26 — — 0,66
Pigeon 75,10 22,14 1,00 0,76 — 1,00
Salmon 67,01 19,73 10,74 — — 1,39
Eel 57,42 12,83 28,37 — — 0.85
Pike 70,84 18,33 0,47 — — 1,00
Carp 76,97 21,86 1,09 — — 1,33
Canned goods
Italian sausage 20,76 27,31 39,88 5,10 — 6,95
Liver sausage 48,70 15,93 26,33 6,38 — 2,66
Milk and dairy products
Cow’s milk 87,27 3,39 3,68 4,94 — 0,72
Butter 13,45 0,76 83,70 0,50 — 1,59
Full-fat cheese 49,79 18,97 25,87 0,83 — 4,54
Lean cheese 43,06 35,59 12,45 4,22 — 4,68
Chicken eggs 73,67 12,55 12,11 0,55 — 1,12
Flour and other
Fine wheat flour 12,63 10,68 1,13 74,74 0,30 0,52
Coarser wheat flour 12,58 11,60 1,59 73,39 0,92 1,02
Rye flour 12,58 9,62 1,44 73,84 1,35 1,17
Potato flour 17,76 0,88 0,05 80,68 0,06 0,57
Macaroni 11,89 10,88 0,62 75,55 0,42 0,64
Bread and other
Wheat bread from fine flour 33,66 6,81 0,54 57,80 0,31 0,88
Wheat bread from coarse flour 37,27 8,44 0,91 50,99 1,12 1,27
Rye bread 39,70 6,43 1,14 50,44 0,80 1,49
Cereals and leguminous fruits
Polished rice 13,17 8,13 1,29 75,50 0,88 1,03
Peas 13,80 23,35 1,88 52,65 5,57 2,75
Lentils 12,33 23,94 1,93 52,84 3,92 3,04
Root vegetables
Potatoes 74,93 1,99 0,15 20,86 0,98 1,09
Large beet 86,77 1,18 0,29 9,06 1,67 1,03
Celery 84,09 1,48 0,39 11,80 1,40 0,84
Vegetables and other
Kohlrabi 85,89 2,87 0,21 8,18 1,68 1,17
Onion 86,51 1,60 0,15 10,38 0,71 0,65
Cucumber 95,36 1,09 0,11 2,21 0,78 0,45
Broad beans 88,75 2,72 0,14 6,60 1,18 0,61
Cauliflower 90,89 2,48 0,34 4,55 0,91 0,83
Head cabbage 80,03 3,99 0,90 11.63 1,88 1,57
White cabbage 90,11 1,83 0,18 5,05 1,65 1,18
Spinach 89,24 3,71 0,50 3,61 0,94 2,00
Lettuce 94,33 1,41 0,31 2,19 0,73 1,03
Sauerkraut 91,41 1,25 0,54 3,85 1,31 1,64
Fruits
Apples 84,37 0,30 — 12,73 1,98 0,42
Pears 85,83 0,35 — 13,09 0,28 0,29
Prunes 81,62 0,78 — 16,76 6,42 1,16
Cherries 80,57 1,29 — 13,63 5,77 0,52
Grapes 79,12 1,01 — 16,18 3,03 0,48
Strawberries 86,99 0,59 0,53 7,33 1,56 0,72
Walnut 7,18 16,74 58,47 12,99 2,97 1,65
Sweet almond 6,27 21,40 53,16 13,22 3,65 2,30
The growth of a person, i.e., the volume of his bone structure, depends mainly on the amount of lime in the food. The Japanese want to increase the stature of their race by spreading meat, but they are jumping from the frying pan into the fire. All deformities of body structure, curvature of bones, and especially rotten teeth result from a lack of lime in the food; because of the boiling of milk and vegetables, the lime precipitates. The terrible poverty of mineral substances in cultivated nutrition, especially meat, compared with fruits, threatens to lead to the complete loss of teeth by civilized humanity. Along with this, the weight, shape, and especially the volume of the body are too great. Any excessive accumulation of fat is pathological and therefore unaesthetic. No animal in nature is as stuffed with fat as people often are. The grape sugar of fruits and their nutritive salts are true sources for the formation of solid muscles, and by this nourishment one can easily restore and strengthen the organism, freed from fat and mucus thanks to fasting.
Corpulence has an extraordinary tendency to overgrowth; it is unattractive and unhealthy. But what is strangest is that this accumulation of fat is considered by many among us not only beautiful but even a sign of “blooming health”; yet daily experience shows that a lean, youth-preserved organism is in all respects more capable of resistance and, especially compared to corpulent ones, attains a ripe old age.
Mantegazza already established that a lean person surpasses a fat one in strength, but even this scientist did not know why. Let anyone point out to me at least one 80- or 90-year-old old man of such stoutness as is currently considered beautiful and healthy, and with which they want to save consumptives. How to explain that in the poorest countries, where people “scientifically undernourish,” the most 100-year-old elders are found? If stout people in their best years do not die of heart disease, cerebral hemorrhage or dropsy, then they gradually begin to lose weight and their need for food diminishes, despite all artificial appetite stimulants. The skin, too tightly stretched, especially on the face, wrinkles and forms folds. It loses its youthful elasticity due to insufficiency and irregularity of blood circulation, as well as from lack of light and sun. And this weakening of the skin cunning people try to remove externally with ointment and powder! The noble and beautiful facial features, the purity and healthy color, the clarity and natural size of the eye, the charm of expression and the color of the lips fade and deteriorate simultaneously with the accumulation in the stomach and intestines of those masses of mucus which we have above called the “central depot” of all diseases and decrepitude of the organism. “Beautiful fullness of the cheeks,” due to which the nose also thickens, is nothing else than clogging of the cheeks with mucus, especially clearly visible with a cold.
Now I turn to the most important, striking symptom of premature old age—hair loss and graying. This issue will have to be devoted a whole chapter, because with the appearance of this symptom a person usually gives himself over to grief and distress in the face of advancing old age. Science, however, has so far stood silently before this mystery of nature here too.
The fashionable short haircut of men and the extraordinary spread of premature baldness have become a common phenomenon among us. Man, the crown of creation not only in the intellectual but also in the aesthetic sense, loses the best wreath adorning his head—hair.
Imagine, indeed, the most beautiful woman with a bald head! What man would not turn away with horror? Or a figure of a modern dandy carved from marble! And add to that a mustache, either completely shaved or angularly and geometrically trimmed, and clothing “in the latest fashion,” dazzling with astonishing tastelessness! And we admire this? From the point of view of cultural philosophy and history, one can trace across different cultural periods the connection between taste, clothing, architecture, painting, and sculpture—and it will become clear the extreme ugliness of modern man, while he ought to be the most perfect being that nature has ever created! I understand very well the reason why the modern man cuts his beard and hair to a minimum. The absence of beauty, the unaesthetic appearance of long hair and beard has become so commonplace that over time the need for a razor and a hair clipper arose by itself. In our all-leveling time, ugly, disheveled, often uneven hair is cut to hide the living proof of degeneration. But through the disharmony of its external forms and colors, nature in all living organisms reveals their internal, physiological disturbances and diseases. The sight of a seriously ill or dead person is the best proof of this phenomenon. To the skeptic, as well as to the backward observer of nature, I will remind in general that there is no rule without exception, and in particular, that modern man does not have a correct idea of the ideal beauty and health of people living in completely natural conditions. If the pleasure we experience at the sight of the beautiful can serve as a measure of aesthetic feeling, then the unpleasant feeling at the sight of an organism that is incorrectly built is caused mainly by the awareness that these dissonances contain something diseased. While acknowledging the extraordinary inquisitiveness and extraordinary successes of modern science, I would like to draw society’s attention to the fact that nowadays too much is observed in nature under the microscope, instead of observing it with the naked eye. Let us consider the meaning of hair from physiological and biological points of view. If we succeed in doing this better than others have done so far, we will understand the true cause of hair loss. Only then will it be possible to find means for curing baldness (alopecia).
In Eulenburg’s Real Encyclopedia of Medical Sciences, on p. 458 the following is said: “The cause of this peculiar, so widespread baldness (alopecia areata) has not yet been found. It seems to me that the cause is sought in vain in the general state of weakness, anemia, and local disturbances of the organism.” Further on p. 459: “The presence of fungi has been repeatedly demonstrated, but there is no evidence that they are the etiological sign (cause) of the disease.” Further Eulenburg writes on p. 160: “Therapy (the science of treatment) against alopecia areata is devoid of any positive basis, and insofar as it is based on experience, it can neither reduce the evil nor prevent the appearance of baldness in a new spot. Irritating alcohol-ether liquids (hair waters!) are used, etc.” From this quotation we see that medicine is powerless against baldness of this origin; cosmetics and chemistry, manufacturing hair waters, have also failed to grow even a single hair on such a bald spot.
In the Encyclopedia of Natural Sciences by Dr. Anton Reichenow, vol. 4, p. 188, we find the following: “Horny tissues and epidermoid formations – i.e., the outer skin, hair, nails, hooves, claws, feathers, whalebone, tortoiseshell, etc. – consist, apart from fat, fatty acids, lecithin, cholesterin, pigment granules, and the inorganic salts of the animal organism (among which silica plays a known role in hair and feathers, and copper also in colored feathers), mainly of keratin, which belongs to the group of albuminoids. Keratin, rich in sulfur (Silicium 3–8%), is the principal constituent of hair, and in other respects its composition resembles that of albumen (less O and more N),” etc. “Normal hair is a silico-mineral protein,” says the chemist Hensel (Julius Hensel, “Life,” p. 369). Further, in vol. 3, p. 614, Reichenow states: “The significance of hair can be considered from physiological and biological viewpoints.” Physiologically, hair forms a protective and warming layer, not only because hair is a poor conductor of heat, but also because of the air trapped between the hairs. On the other hand, cold acts as a stimulus for hair growth. Its biological significance lies partly in the aforementioned protection of the body; more active functioning in this direction was discovered first in certain insects by Fritz Müller and later by G. Eger in all hairy animals – namely, the significance of hair as “organs of smell.” F. Müller demonstrated (see Kosmos, 1877) that males of certain butterflies possess on specific parts of the body a down of hairy scales; when the butterfly is at rest they are inactive, but at other times they emit a strong, specific odor, the purpose of which Müller correctly identified as the arousal of love in the opposite sex. Later, G. Eger indicated that all hair functions as organs of smell, specifically in the following way: the hair of mammals has a special capacity to absorb the fragrant substances (chemically related to musk) that certain animals emit, while hardly absorbing the malodorous exhalations of the animal itself. This absorption of gases follows all the laws of absorption, i.e., the lower the temperature, the greater the mass of odor absorbed, and as the temperature rises, a portion of the odor volatilizes from the hair and evaporates into the air. Therefore, one can say that hair spreads around every creature (including human beings) a specific odor and influences thereby all creatures that inhale air saturated with this odor. Among animals this odor plays an extraordinarily important role, especially during sexual relations, where the scent of the partner’s hair is the bearer of so-called love charms. This also explains why, in many creatures, at the age of puberty, especially developed tufts of hair grow, either once and for all or each time during heat – which are therefore called heat hairs. The first case is better known, i.e., the appearance in humans of pubic hair, the beard, and underarm hair. Their significance is very well known among the common people. A proverb is attributed to maidens: “A kiss without a beard is like soup without salt,” – and thus, in arousing feelings of sympathy, hair rightly plays an important role. In this way, sympathy can be established not only between people, but also between people and animals. Thus, with an acquired dog or horse, one can easily evoke sympathy by giving it a few of one’s hairs to swallow. This practice is widespread among people who live close to nature and is far removed from superstition, since this sympathy-inducing love odor acts not only through inhalation from the air, but also through licking (kisses or swallowing hair). Furthermore, among primitive peoples, people close to nature, and physicians of past centuries, G. Eger discovered certain facts that had remained unnoticed by physiology, namely, that this hair odor not only excites the nerves, as for instance musk, castoreum, and civet do, but also constitutes a specific substance important for the health of each animal; for the individual itself it is its own medicine, while for other beings it is a medicinal substance with an imperative specific action, at least equal to the specific medicinal substances of the plant world. G. Eger even puts forward the supposition that the means by which modern magnetizers achieve their cures, and which they call magnetism, is nothing other than the specific and individual odorous substance contained in the skin fat and epidermic formations (the outer skin). G. Eger introduced the odorous substance of man into medical practice under the name “anthropin.” In Dr. Johann Ranke’s book “Man,” on p. 160 it is said: “Sulfur is so loosely bound in hair that it blackens upon contact with metallic lead. The main source of the hair pigment, the coloring matter that occurs both in dissolved form and as granules and fine powder, lies in the hair cortex.” P. 136: “The lifespan of hair, according to Pinnon, extends from 2 to 4 years. The fact that large bald patches are rarer in women than in men is striking” (since women in general live more simply than men and do not cut their hair). P. 165: “According to Berthold’s research, hair grows faster by day than by night, and faster in the warm season than in the cold; shaving accelerates hair growth – the beard grows twice as fast if shaved every 12 hours rather than every 36.” P. 166: “Landua recognized an increase of air content in the hair as the immediate cause of sudden graying.” P. 171: “European peoples take first place in this regard; owing to the unfavorable influence of civilization, bald and gray-haired people are most frequent among them, and graying, on average, begins earlier in them than in others…” A. Humboldt speaks very characteristically on this point: “Travelers have formed opinions about Indians only from their physiognomy and supposed that there were very few old people among them; indeed, it is very difficult to form an idea of the age of the natives if one cannot verify it against parish registers, since in hot regions every 20 to 30 years those registers are eaten by termites. And the poor Indian peasants themselves in New Spain ordinarily never know how old they are. Their hair never turns gray, and it is far rarer to encounter an Indian with white hair than a Negro. Moreover, the Indian’s skin does not so readily wrinkle. In Mexico, in the temperate zone of the Cordilleras, natives, and especially women, who have reached 100 years of age are often met with. Such an age is generally a happy one, in that Mexican and Peruvian Indians preserve their muscular strength to the end of life.” Humboldt mentions, incidentally, an Indian who lived to be 143 years old and up to the age of 130 walked for 3 to 4 hours daily.
Regarding the structure of human scalp hair, the following should be briefly stated.
Hair consists of a medullary and a cortical substance, as well as an outer cuticle. The root, with its hair bulb, sits on the hair papilla. Sebaceous glands attached to the hair cuticle saturate the hair with fat. Its colour is determined by the pigment and the air contained in the medullary substance of the hair. When greying occurs, the pigment disappears and the air spaces in the form of tiny globules increase. Hair growth on the head amounts to 0.2–0.3 mm per day. Hair is very hygroscopic (i.e., it strongly absorbs moisture); dry hair becomes electrified when rubbed. If the hair papillae are viable, then new hairs soon grow in place of those that have fallen out. It has been calculated that a man’s hair grows 12–14 metres over a lifetime. This fact alone shows how important a role this apparently insignificant organ plays in nature. And let them just consider how much strength, how many good and vital juices the organism must expend to replace cut-off pieces of hair. I pondered this interesting problem already at the age of sixteen. My father was shaved two hours before his death, and on the day of the funeral, i.e., on the third day, his beard had grown so much that he, dead, could have been shaved once more. The contraction of the skin and muscles depends on rigor mortis, but this is not enough to explain such a strange phenomenon. As a consolation and encouragement to despairing and hopeless bald people, I will cite several interesting, scientifically irrefutable facts. Eilenburg, in the Real Encyclopedia of Medical Sciences, Vol. III, p. 363, says: “According to Albert, a lady’s fair hair fell out during nervous puerperal fever, and in its place grew black hair; in another case, after some illness, chestnut hair fell out and was replaced by bright red hair. In a 66-year-old woman, shortly before her death, her senile grey hair turned black.”
Geigel reports that a lady’s fair hair fell out after a severe form of typhus, and in its place grew black hair.
Above, I have already, like Professor Dr. Jäger, called the hair, especially that growing on the human head, organs of smell, through which certain exhalations of the body are released. Everyone knows that a person begins to sweat first on the head and under the arms, and that an unpleasant smell is associated with sweat, particularly in a sick person. On this basis, Professor Dr. Jäger, in another place, called illness a “stench.” This assertion seems to me just insofar as, on the basis of many years of observations and experiments, I have formed the following fundamental general concept of disease.
Disease is a process of fermentation and putrefaction of the organism or of a surplus and unnatural food product that gradually accumulates in the digestive organs and comes out externally in the form of a mucous discharge.
Here, therefore, we are dealing with the chemical breakdown and decomposition of protein cells. This process, as is known, is accompanied by a bad odour, whereas in nature the germination of new life is linked with fragrance (the time of plant blossoming). Strictly speaking, a completely healthy person ought to give off a fragrance, especially his or her hair. Poets rightly compare a human being to a flower and speak of the fragrance of a woman’s hair. Thus, I regard human hair as a very important organ, which, aside from protective and heat-regulating purposes, also has an extremely interesting and useful function, namely to give off the exhalations, the odour of a healthy or a sick person. This odour, to people with a good sense of smell, reveals not only the personal qualities of the individual but also makes it possible to judge the internal condition of their health… Sometimes it happens that doctors with the aid of a microscope and test tubes cannot establish digestive malfunctions at all, while certain “charlatans” determine the internal putrefactive process by the hair emitting a bad odour. If the mouths of young, full of health people begin to reek, as from a sewer, one should not be surprised why their hair falls out. Here I have reached the cardinal point of my investigations and observations.
First, however, one more word about the greying of hair. It was established above that the air content increases in greyed hair, and I express the view that this “air” apparently consists of unpleasantly smelling gases, or is at least mixed with them. To a sensitive chemist, I recommend detecting the presence of sulphuric acid here, and then the disappearance of the hair pigment becomes explicable, for it is known that sulphur oxide makes organic substances fade.
Not only theoretically, but precisely on the basis of my experiments on my own body, it seems correct to me that the main cause of hair loss lies solely within the organism. If through the pores there are constantly emitted stinking, acrid gases, in all probability saturated with sulphur oxide, instead of natural pleasant fragrances, then we should not be surprised if the hair, together with its root, gradually turns deathly pale, dies, and then falls out. Thus, I think I have managed to discover the cause of baldness and to point to the right path for its treatment. I will only add here that about ten years ago, during my illness with chronic kidney inflammation combined with extreme nervousness, my hair began to grey heavily and fall out. But when, after dietary treatment, I recovered from my severe sufferings, the greyness in my hair began to diminish, and others grew in great quantity in place of the fallen hair.
If, therefore, the main cause of hair loss depends on a disorder of digestion or metabolism, this can only be eliminated by restoring normal bodily functioning. I believe that my own experience can give hope of a cure even to completely bald gentlemen, after all the waters they have applied proved fruitless, despite the guarantees—indeed, they cannot produce the desired result. The cause of graying is not external, and therefore it cannot be removed by external treatment. Many hair remedies should even be completely avoided, since they contain many sharp inorganic substances: preparations containing hair dyes are especially harmful. In extreme cases, you can use a plant-based water that strengthens the hair—nettle preparations belong here. To anyone whose hair is falling out or who suffers from baldness and wishes to recover in this respect, I am always at your service. There is no universal internal remedy, and whoever has understood me earlier will also understand now that individual peculiarities must be taken into account here as well. On the basis of my teaching about diet, its influence on digestion and blood formation, and consequently on the proper nourishment of the very soil on which the hair grows, I can guarantee the cessation of heavy hair loss, provided my advice is sensibly followed.
To every thinking researcher I recommend reading The Discovery of the Soul by Prof. Dr. Jaeger. From a natural-scientific point of view, he will become acquainted with the mysterious world of fragrant substances that clarify the “ultimate secrets” of nutrition, spiritual and sexual life. As is well known, beautiful and luxuriant hair is not only a sign of sympathy and sexual attraction, but also of reviving and blossoming life, like the flower of a plant. The downright horrifying number of bald people in our time can be viewed as a symptom of the decline of strength, both of the individual and of the degeneration of the race itself. Luxuriant hair growth not only speaks of young life and youthful strength, but also testifies to the awakening of new vital energy. I myself have eloquently proved that even a “candidate for death” can be rejuvenated.
All symptoms of old age are therefore merely hidden illnesses arising from the accumulation of mucus and the clogging of the organism with it. If someone treats himself thoroughly for any illness with a mucus-free diet or fasting, he frees himself from dead cells and rejuvenates himself, and whoever undertakes such treatment with the aim of growing young again removes any possible ground from every illness. But nobody wants to believe this possibility. In every scientific dictionary you will find the thought that death occurs from a disturbance of metabolism, i.e., the clogging of the organism with mucus. This means that life should, in fact, cease without any pain. That would be normal, but unfortunately the exception has become the rule, i.e., illness and death have reigned among mankind. If a person from childhood onwards nourishes himself exclusively on fruits, i.e., without mucus, this is sufficient to avoid premature old age and illness. I have seen people who, through mucus-free treatment, grew so young and beautiful that they were unrecognizable. For millennia, people have sought the magic fountain of youth. And all sorts of remedies are offered for weakness and impotence, for infertility—all, of course, in vain. Yet how easily many could be helped, above all by proper, pleasure-filled nourishment from the sun’s kitchen!
We cannot even imagine with what beauty and what abilities the “God-like” man in Paradise was gifted, and what a wonderful, strong, and pure voice he possessed. The improvement and strengthening of the voice, even the restoration of what was lost, is a truly striking proof of the miraculous effect of my therapeutic system on the general condition of the sick organism. As an example, I will point to the Bavarian court singer of the Munich Royal Opera, Heinrich Knote, who underwent a course of treatment under my guidance with extraordinary success. He himself expresses this in a letter of thanks reproduced at the end of this book: “My voice grows in strength and clarity”… and the Munich newspaper on April 18, 1911, comments thus about Knote in the role of Tannhäuser: “Radical vegetarianism (or, better, completely mucus-free food—note by the author) apparently has a good effect on the singer. Bright, whole, fresh, and full, sometimes excessively powerful, resounded his beautiful, elastic, exemplarily placed voice. Light, confident tone, legato, breath control like that of Caruso alone. And this (now—note by the author), not corpulent, exemplary German tenor, at the same time far more than a tenor…”
I will end this chapter with a quotation from Part I of Goethe’s Faust (translated by P. V. Trunin):
Mephistopheles.
My friend, again you speak so eloquently;
To make you young again – there is one natural
Remedy; but about it there is also another book,
In which there is a whole wonderful chapter on it!
Faust.
I want to know it!
Mephistopheles.
Fine, without a doctor.
Without money and without spells, you’ll manage with that means,
And here it is: go off into the fields,
There you will dig, chop with might and main,
Work – you’ll confine yourself with soul and body to a narrow round,
Renounce fancy food –
The simplest fare you will eat,
Live with the cattle as a beast, do a beast’s service,
Not considering it unjust
That you will reap the field – having manured it yourself.
That’s the means! If you can but apply it –
At eighty years you can grow young again!
Faust.
I am not used to that. Where am I to toil like that?
To wield a shovel I shall never learn in my life,
And such a narrow life does not suit me at all.
Mephistopheles.
Well, then without a witch it won’t work!
IV. Death
In previous chapters I established that accumulation of mucus is the main cause of illness and premature old age. I also proved the possibility of replacing worn-out cells with new ones. In view of this, one cannot deny that if a person hardens himself from childhood with living solar nourishment, then the complete stoppage of the human machine will follow very, very slowly. An organism nourished in this way has the advantage over all those fed otherwise that its foundation is much more solid. With a normal way of life, metabolism is significantly reduced, as is the strain on internal organs, especially the heart and stomach. Even the greatest physical exertions do not cause the pulse acceleration in the mucus-free organism that often occurs, for example, in a glutton. Already on the basis of this daily reduction in energy expenditure, one can mathematically calculate and prove the possibility of a longer life. But can this mucus congestion resolve for us the ultimate riddle – death?
The destruction of the brain and heart has as its final result – death. One could say that for the most part death occurs from the addition of heart disease to an illness. But concerning heart diseases, science has far from spoken its final word. However, one can say that the congestion of the heart’s blood vessels, and consequent weakening of the heart muscle and destruction of the tiniest heart nerves through prolonged self-poisoning of the blood, are the ultimate cause of death in all chronic diseases. Also causing cessation of vital function is the blockage of the tiniest blood vessels of the brain, their slight rupture (brain paralysis) and any other complete vascular blockage…
Of course, other accompanying phenomena also play an important role here, for example, insufficient supply of pure air in lung diseases, etc. Science sees the cause of death in the preponderance of white blood corpuscles in the organism. This morbid phenomenon is considered in medicine as a kind of independent disease and is called leukaemia, i.e., white-bloodedness; in my view, however, this “disease” testifies that there is more mucus than blood in a person’s veins. Science also points to other causes of death: poisons and toxins produced by the organism, metabolic poisons, bacilli and their secretions, self-poisoning, etc. And what about alcohol and meat poisons? – moderate eaters and vegetarians will say. Yet even they, these moderate eaters and vegetarians, still die of diseases just as drunkards and meat-eaters do.
If by chance medicine cannot classify a given illness under any rubric, then on the death certificate it is noted as cachexia, i.e., poor state of nutrition, decay. Now I ask, what actually is the poison of death? Modern medical research explains the cause of most diseases by the presence of bacilli. My experimental proof that mucus is the fundamental and main etiological factor of disease only differs from the bacillus theory in that mucus is the nutrient medium for the development of bacilli and their multiplication in the organism.
The preponderance of white blood corpuscles, i.e., white dead mucus, over the red ones containing sugar and iron, becomes fatal for life. Red color and sweet taste – these are signs of life and love; white, pale, colorless and bitter – that is the sign of illness and the predominance of mucus, the slow fading of the individual’s life. What wicked irony for our culture that people find noble paleness of the face, the cadaverous skin color not only beautiful but also healthy! Even art has not freed itself from these views!
The struggle with death must be seen as the last crisis, as the organism’s final attempt to eliminate mucus; finally, the struggle with death – it is the last combat of living cells with dead ones, the struggle of the last with cadaveric poison. If the white dead cells – mucus in the blood – gain the upper hand, then not only does a mechanical blockage of the cardiac blood vessels occur, but also a chemical transformation, decay, complete poisoning, sudden putrefaction of the entire blood mass, and the machine stops. “It so pleased Almighty God”; “we bow before the mysterious majesty of death” – and with these words we content ourselves.
“Ignorance – the only tragedy of existence. There is no other,” says Peter Altenberg in his “Prodromos”. – The final chief cause of all diseases, premature old age and death is also this ignorance, the sin we commit unconsciously; yet for it we are not guilty, we suffer punishment and will continue to suffer, since in nature, as well as according to the principle of civil law, ignorance does not exempt us from punishment.
Locarno, autumn 1912.
Arnold Ehret
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