Quack Hunt; Freedom in Healing; Why Russians Live Long; Friendly Intestinal Bacteria
Contents in in this issue:
- “UW Doctor Questions Value of Quack Hunt,” by James Spaulding,
- “Freedom in Healing,”
- “Why Russians Live So Long,”
- “The Importance of Friendly Intestinal Bacteria.”
The following is a transcription of the December 1966 issue of Dr. Royal Lee’s Applied Trophology newsletter, originally published by Standard Process Laboratories.
UW Doctor Questions Value of Quack Hunt
James Spaulding
Journal staff
Chicago, IL. – What does the American Medical Association accomplish by bringing together a group of doctors, as it did Saturday, to reiterate medicine’s view that chiropractors are quacks? Probably very little, a University of Wisconsin medical educator indicated.
Dr. Robert J. Samp, an assistant professor of surgery in the division of oncology (study of tumors) at the UW medical school, talked at the AMA’s two-day national congress on quackery. His topic was “A Look Inside Medicine’s Own House.”
“Most active practitioners (doctors) are so busy taking care of patients they couldn’t care less about quackery,” Dr. Samp said. “Often they would be glad if that goof down the street would take some of their more troublesome patients off their hands.”
Witch, Snipe Hunting?
Dr. Samp said that in a survey he conducted through all units of the American Cancer Society in Wisconsin to determine the prevalence of quackery he received just three complaints: A chiropractor was massaging the spine of a patient with cancer, a preacher was praying over a cancer patient and Oral Roberts, the evangelist and faith healer, had visited one city.
With so few complaints, Dr. Samp said, “I hope we aren’t witch hunting and snipe hunting.”
“How can we call the chiropractic a quack when he is licensed in 49½ states?” he asked. (A licensing bill is under consideration in Massachusetts.)
In Wisconsin, the license limits chiropractors mainly to spinal manipulation but does not limit the diseases and conditions they can treat by manipulation.
According to chiropractic theory, disease is caused by impingement of displaced vertebrae on nerves in the spine. Correcting these so-called subluxations theoretically permits the body to heal itself.
Dr. Samp said that the licensing of chiropractors had given them legal sanction and promoted their standing in the public mind.
“Much Out of Little”
He said that practicing doctors believed that medicine “might be becoming too involved (in speaking out against chiropractors); they feel we’re making much out of little.”
The average doctor, he said, naively assumes that most persons know enough about scientific medicine to seek treatment from medical doctors rather than chiropractors.
Dr. Samp said that because so many persons did not know enough about scientific medicine, the UW school of education, in cooperation with the medical school, this year was offering a fundamental course in health. It is conducted and supervised by doctors.
The eventual hope is to offer the course to students throughout the university, Dr. Samp said. He said a survey showed that the average student’s health knowledge ranged from 7th to 11th grade level.
To counteract the AMA’s quackery congress, the National Health Federation, which represents less orthodox health practitioners, scheduled simultaneously what it called a “Congress on Medical Monopoly” in Chicago.
Controversy Mainly Political
One of the speakers was Leonard J. Savage, Los Angeles chiropractor. He called the AMA “the most efficient and ruthless public relations machine the world has ever known” and accused organized medicine of trying to monopolize health care.
Between medicine and chiropractic, meaningful controversy mainly is political. Chiropractic has not yet divested itself of enough dogma to permit an interchange of scientific viewpoints.
Chiropractic has succeeded in obtaining licensure through political effort. Its political strength was sufficient this year to influence the AMA’s medical quackery congress
AMA officials acknowledged that they did not ask the Food and Drug Administration to cosponsor the congress in 1966. In recent years the FDA, as a cosponsor, asked the AMA to soften its attack on chiropractic because of congressional pressure that might be exerted against the federal agency.
—Reported in The Milwaukee Journal, Sunday, October 9, 1966.
Freedom in Healing
“In view of the many ways in which healing can take place, it seems very important that mankind resist all efforts of any group whatsoever to gain either a financial or legal monopoly of healing methods. Some spiritual healers believe they possess the only legitimate method of healing. The medical profession is now making a tremendous effort to gain a monopoly of the healing arts. Medicine has a wonderful future on earth, but as a monopoly it would stultify the spiritual progress of mankind. Some minor safeguards against frauds may be needed by the public. But mankind cannot afford to restrict the growth or development of new and higher methods of healing. The freedom of every man to choose his method of healing should be one of the guaranteed freedoms, one of the great dynamics of this age.”
—Excerpt from the book The Advent of the Cosmic Viewpoint by Bryant Reeve, Amherst Press, Amherst, Wisconsin 1965.
Why Russians Live So Long
There is one area in which no one can match the Russians: old age. There are 25,000 people in the Soviet Union 100 years old or more. The world’s oldest man and woman are Soviet citizens.
The world’s oldest man is Shirali Mislimov. He is 161, and astonishingly, sired a son when he was 110. The world’s oldest is woman is Mrs. Asmar Salakhova. At age 154, she has eight grandchildren, twenty great-grandchildren, and thirteen great-great-grandchildren.
Mislimov was born in 1805. Mrs. Salakhova was born in 1812.
Centenarians have certain things in common, it seems. All are working people (“the lazy die young”); most are thin; most have neither high blood pressure nor arterial problems, and few smoke or drink. All have the knack of relaxation and putting troubles and worries aside.
Probably it’s a combination of factors: nourishment, geography, and geochemistry— i.e., the soil and the air, exercise, and relaxation from stress.
—San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 1966.
The Importance of Friendly Intestinal Bacteria
An important part of the body’s defense against infection is relatively unknown and frequently abused.
“Ever since Pasteur and Robert Koch revealed microbes to be the instigators of dangerous diseases, bacteria have been considered the most virulent enemies of mankind. Destroy them, wherever you may come upon them, has been the battle cry raised for almost a century. In the war against bacteria, millions of tons of ammunition have been poured, sprayed and sprinkled. The success of such measures has been signalized by the tremendous decrease in the incidence of bacterial infections.
“The microbe hunters have justly been hailed as benefactors of mankind. And yet, certain voices continued to inquire whether there were only harmful bacteria, whether they did not also serve beneficial ends in nature, as well as for mankind.”1
Putrefaction
In 1902, Ilya Ilich Metchnikoff’s book The Prolongation of Life appeared, in which he explained his theory that aging was not due to deterioration of cells so much as to poisoning of the body by parasitic bacteria in the large intestine of the human being, which brought decay to the protein residue of the food that has been ingested.
Decay Controlling Bacteria
When he sought the reason for the longevity of Bulgarian men, he found that they consumed yogurt freely. In fact, because of lack of refrigeration, all of their milk was in this form. From this food, he isolated a bacillus that formed lactic acid, which he named Bacillus bulgaricus. (It was later discovered that it was actually Bacillus acidophilus, which could reproduce itself in the human intestine and form the lactic acid.)
It had been known for a long time that lactic acid-forming bacteria repress the formation of bacteria of decay or any foreign or pathological germs. This was very likely an important factor in maintaining the Bulgarians’ health into old age. Moderns are discovering that infections such as colds can be markedly reduced in severity if not avoided by prompt and adequate intake of the culture containing Bacillus acidophilus.
But the survival of the favorable bacteria in adequate numbers and effectiveness depends on a diet containing adequate amounts of fruit and vegetables whose cellulose is converted into carbohydrate by the Bacillus acidophilus. On diets containing large amounts of meat and eggs or refined foods, the bacteria deteriorate and may permit harmful germs to spread. Milk contains lactose, upon which these bacteria thrive, so it too is an essential for maintaining healthy flora.
Intestinal Flora
“Intestinal flora natural to a specific intestine may deteriorate through nourishment which is not adapted to it. For example, the Bacterium coli, most important for symbiosis (advantageous living together of two organisms), may deteriorate into becoming Bacterium paracoli. This is how the bacterial poisons may be created that produce headaches, lassitude, nausea and other symptoms.”2
Antibiotics Destroy Good Flora
Another obstacle to the presence of optimum conditions of the intestinal flora is the current widespread use of antibiotics in medicine and in animal and poultry feeds (we consume unknown amounts of such residue in our meat every day). Almost unknown and/or ignored is the fact that antibiotics destroy the favorable and essential bacteria as well as the harmful ones.
Thus, a paradox ensues—the intestines are almost sterile and void of the bacteria, which if present in adequate amounts help to repress and keep under control any invasion of disease-producing germs.
Needed for Vitamin Synthesis
As it has been proven that these favorable bacteria can synthesize nine vitamins, among them the B-complex vitamins and vitamin K, a lack of this flora can lead to serious symptoms of vitamin deficiencies as well as to dangerous infections. The long period of low energy that follows use of antibiotics in respiratory and other illnesses is partially due to the loss of the B-complex.
Means of Restoration
Reintroduction of the Bacillus acidophilus into the intestinal tract is essential and easily accomplished, namely by taking a small amount of a culture containing Bacillus acidophilus with each meal for a few weeks, repeated at whatever intervals are necessary, depending on the individual’s dietary and other living habits. Preferably the diet should be of natural foods: whole-grain cereals and breads, certified raw milk, high-quality protein foods, an abundance of unsprayed fruits and vegetables and some source of unsaturated fats.
References
- Albert von Haller. The Vitamin Hunters. The Chilton Company, 1962.
- Cit.
—Modern Nutrition, Vol. 18, No. 5, May 1965.
