DEAR MR. BARKER.–Your issue of October is of considerable interest to me. I have sent a number of copies of practitioners in various parts of the world who, like myself, are keenly interested in the report of your lecture on “Dietetic Miracles”.
Your assertion that “Very often food is the best medicine” is timely, and I note with much pleasure that you do not say, as so many reformers and a few very old practitioners do, that food is the only medicine. Quite often it is necessary, in order that normality be restored, that food be withdrawn altogether for a time and sometimes for a very long time.
This applies, in my experience to a number of diseases, including diabetes, some forms of cancer, tubercular diseases, wounds that do not heal and many disturbances of the eliminative organs, the throat, ear, nose and stomach.
The whole of the report of your lecture, so far as the present issue carries it, is true to my own experience. I could quote countless instances both in animal, plant and human life, I have been identified with in support of your illustrations. The horse incident in particular was of the greatest interest to me, for I come of a family of farmers and horse-keepers and have heard a number of similar stories.
There is, however, one danger in the account of this “miraculous” happening. Many will make use of the story in support of the theory that the same thing that happened to the horse when restored to its natural condition and natural food will happen to humans if restored to a diet solely consisting of raw fresh fruits and salads.
I have seen many attempts to restore normality from such wasting diseases as T.B., Brights disease, diabetes, and a few other afflictions where the people, desperate at the failure of rank poisons and over-stimulating foods and drinks, turn all too readily to a diet which, as you say on page 581, is suitable for caterpillars, worms and butterflies.
I call to mind a worthy vicar who wrote to me for advice about a parishioner of his who was in the last stage of a painful kidney disease. The cleric said he thought as the body was so full of poisons only a diet of the very purest of matter would cleanse and heal. Should he put his friend on a diet of fruit and salads only? I answered and said that in every one of half-a-dozen similar cases where I had seen his proposal adopted, death had ensued within twenty-four hours.
I have fasted many in similar circumstances with the most “miraculous” results. To me “miraculous ” means merely mysterious, and I believe and accept everything as Cause and Effect. More power to your voice and pen.
Very sincerely yours,
JOHN W. ARMSTRONG.
