The Healthy Life Part 2

Heuchera (coral-root).

Yarrow.

Lychnis (garden campion).

Inula (Elecampane).

Funkia (Plaintain lily).

Eremurus.

This list is representative because it includes some species, such as Eremurus, Trollius and Tritoma, that are not usually grown from seed by the amateur. To raise these rather expensive monsters from pennyworths of seed is a floral adventure which brings its own abundant reward.

I should be very proud of a garden that consisted entirely of plants that I had raised from seed. It might be one that had never had anything else in or the seedlings might gradually oust the bulbs and corms and grown plants with which the garden began. There would be many things there intrinsically as well as extrinsically valuable.

Carnation seed, for example, is constantly producing new varieties, and to grow rose seedlings is even to court fortune. It is a long time before you see your rose. The seed takes sometimes two years to germinate, and then you have to wait a year or two before you get a typical blossom. The growers hurry matters by cutting a very tiny bud from the first sprout and splicing that on to an older stock. One of the advantages of having your roses grown from seed and on their own stocks would be that they could not produce wild suckers.

I have just seen a wonderful grove of Aquilegias, the glorified columbine which has the centre of one colour and the outside petals of another--sulphur with mauve or yellow with pink, and many other varieties. The nucleus was grown from shop seed and the rest from the seed of the first-comers. The only thing to choose between them is that the new ones have produced a least one variety not represented in the first batch. You may be sure that I am going to get some seed from here and raise some Aquilegias for myself. Good reader, go thou and do likewise.

G.G. DESMOND.

MIDSUMMER MADNESS.

We had come, "3.7" and I, to the Boundary, a white, unpaved road which winds across the full width of Wimbledon Common, from the old Roman camp to the windmill. Simultaneously we cried a halt, I because I never cross that road without some hesitation, he because he wanted to get out of the folding go-cart in which he had been riding and turn it, with the aid of a small piece of string and a big piece of imagination, into a 40-horse-power motor car.

On the map the road is not called the Boundary. If you want to know why I call it so I can only say that once you have crossed it things are different; I do not mean a difference merely of country or scenery, but a difference of atmosphere; better, and more literally, a change of spirit. To put it bluntly, I never knew the reality of fairyland until I blundered across that road one grey gusty evening ten years ago, and heard the tall gra.s.ses whistling in the wind. Since then the road has always been a frontier, not to be crossed without preparation.

As "3.7" tumbled out of his go-cart I looked at my watch and saw it lacked but a few minutes to noon. It was just such a cloudless June day as must have inspired Sh.e.l.ley's _Hymn of Apollo_. No smallest cloud to break the dazzling blue; and, high above our heads, Apollo, standing "at noon upon the peak of heaven."

If it had been Midsummer Day I should have thought twice about crossing the Boundary. As it was, we were quite near enough to the 24th of June to make it risky. So, as "3.7" bent a tangled head over the bonnet of his Daimler, I flung myself down on the level turf beside him and stared across the road.

Behind us and on either side were clumps of gorse bushes, and beyond them the immense level expanse of the open heath. Immediately in front was the road, sunk a foot beneath the turf, which comes right up to it, both on this side and that.

"Another piece of string, please," said "3.7," rummaging in my pockets without waiting for an answer, "and a pencil, and----"

And then I saw it. On the farther side of the road there is a stretch of short turf, some hundred yards wide; and beyond that an irregular line of silver birches; and beyond that the blue of distant hills, for the Common slopes down where the trees begin. Between the silvery wood and the road, through the midst of the wide belt of turf, and parallel with the Boundary, ran a river. There was nothing to be much surprised at, for it was just the kind of river you would expect to see running through the fields of fairyland. It was a river of gra.s.s.

It was the slender-stalked, tufted, not very tall, grey-headed gra.s.s that grows quite generally in open country and wild places. But the wind and the sun now turned it into a river which ran fast between its banks of green, its waves silvery grey, quick-flowing waves, gleaming and dappled, an endless succession. It flowed from somewhere out of sight in the west, and disappeared to the east over the edge of the great slope that brings you down to the woods, vanishing, to all intents and purposes, over the edge of the world.

Without taking my eyes off this astonishing spectacle I stretched out a hand and, catching "3.7" by the edge of his white smock, told him to run across the road to the gra.s.s and--paddle in it. I said it was better than motor cars. He made no comment on this but, after glancing warily up and down the road (for he has been brought up in wholesome awe of the entire tribe of automobiles), he crossed the Boundary, ran across the turf and plunged up to his knees in the river.

I cannot be certain, but it is my considered opinion that Apollo stopped his golden chariot for the s.p.a.ce of a whole minute to look down at the golden-haired boy wading in that noiseless, fast-flowing river.

In another minute "3.7" was back at my side, both hands full of the tufted gra.s.s he had pulled. I regret to say he tickled my ear with it.

* * * * *

Honest, solemn reader, ardent food reformer, keen educationist, clear-headed moralist, practical-minded housewife, I tell you frankly there is no moral to this little episode. It throws no light on what to eat, or on the purchasing power of an English shilling, or on the ethical training of young children, or on the nature of neurasthenia.

Fairyland, of course, is a childish fiction, Apollo a solar myth, a road is a road, gra.s.s is gra.s.s and heaven is a state of mind. I quite agree with you. But let me whisper something in your ear. If you should ever blunder across your Boundary, don't be surprised if things look queer on the other side; above all, whatever you do, don't let any strange river you may find flowing there carry you away, or it may bring you, spite of all your protests, through one of the gates of pearl into the City of G.o.d.

EDGAR J. SAXON.

A SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR MENTAL HEALING.

There is a vast amount of loose talk, and innumerable a.s.sertions from irresponsible individuals concerning the wonders that have been achieved by Mental Healing, but naturally the scientist and physician, when dealing with such a question as this, has to put aside, not all enthusiasm, but certainly all emotionalism, and then, most carefully sift the evidence laid before him. The scientist here wants hard, dry, irrefutable facts; the responsible physician requires to know--by his own careful diagnosis or by an array of tabulated facts--the condition of the patient before and after treatment--that is, of the one who claims to have been cured by mental means. Innumerable claims are thus being made by patients and others, so that it is imperative for the unbiased physician at all events to consider the above question; this in order to give a reason for the faith that is in him, when he is known to be one of those who favour the metaphysical means of healing. Even the sciolist in the matter knows that in the case, say, of blushing, or blanching of the face, the action of mind over matter--of the body--is palpable; all admit that the quality of joy, for instance, will prove a splendid tonic; that despair, on the other hand, will pull down the bodily condition. But all this, we shall be told, is unconscious action; true, but fortunately we are now aware that by a forceful action of the will we can _consciously_ direct or derivate, as the case may be, currents of nerve-force to any part of the body. Occultists have known this for many centuries. Joy, hope, faith: these are very potent factors in improving the health conditions--simply because they act upon the sympathetic nervous system, and this latter acts upon the circulation. Happiness dilates the blood-vessels. Fear contracts them. Thus, unbounded faith; renewed hope; sudden joy; enforced will-power; all have a marked effect upon bringing about an equilibriated condition of the circulation--just the same as a hot bath does, though not so rapidly or so perceptibly.

Further, we must remember that all disease more or less is a stasis, a congestion, somewhere; we have only to dissipate this; to separate the cells; to expand the part, as it were, and "resolution," as we call it in congestion of the lungs, takes place. So that it seems to me that we can fairly claim a strictly scientific basis for Mental Healing. I have always, however, maintained that the att.i.tude of the patient's own mind has much to do with the result: in his consciousness there must be faith and hope in order to get the best effect.

Judging, then, of the very remarkable and palpable changes which anyone can see occur on such superficial parts as the face and extremities, I can see no reason that, by an enforced mental action, the deeper parts--including any hidden diseased part--should not be altered for good. I am very confident that it is upon these lines, coupled, as they can always be, with advice as to clean feeding and right living generally, the physician of the future will largely depend for his cures. Thus we are fully justified in not only trying the system on "functional," but also for "organic," cases.

J. STENSON HOOKER, M.D.

A SIGNIFICANT CASE.

ACCOUNT OF A FAST, UNDERTAKEN FOR THE CURE OF A PROFOUND BLOOD DISEASE.

The following account of a fast is worthy of attention. It is rigidly accurate _in principle_, as far as I could make it so, and I am responsible for its truthfulness. But the subject of it, feeling that he is engaged in a duty and "labour of love," as he expresses it, is yet naturally anxious to prevent his ident.i.ty from being discovered; and so, while the facts of the narrative are true in principle they have been varied in a few details for the purpose of preventing the recognition of the subject of them.

They occurred in the history of a man of about 40 years of age, who fell ill of an infectious disease some 20 years ago, while living abroad. The exact time of the infection is not known. The patient was treated by qualified doctors living in the same country as himself, and there is no reason to believe that he was not properly and skilfully treated. He had, however, for years buoyed himself up with the hope that he should be able to come to England for the best treatment, and recently he found himself in this country for that purpose. It goes without saying that the eminent men consulted treated him after the most modern and approved methods, which were also, so far as knowledge goes, the most likely to benefit him. Not only as to treatment must it be a.s.sumed that the best was done, but the diagnosis also is supported by the authority of the doctors seen, and was confirmed by physiological and pathological investigation. This would be recognised if it were possible to publish names, places and dates which are withheld from the courteous reader for the reason already given. I can only say that I entirely concur in the diagnosis and in the suitability of the treatment.

The man came under my care on a Sunday, the fast, which is the subject matter of this communication, having been commenced on the Friday six weeks before that day, the last food having been taken on the Thursday at 5 P.M. I saw him, therefore, on the forty-fifth day of the fast.

His pulse was 59, soft, steady, regular. Temp. 96.8 degrees, about 11 A.M. He was able to be up, and walked actively, all his bodily movements being active and his mind quite clear and rational. His weight on the day after I first saw him was, in the same clothes as when weighed at the beginning of the fast, 129+1/2 lbs. He said he weighed 171 lbs. on the machine at the commencement, and therefore the loss of bodily weight up to that time was 41.5 lbs. The average loss of weight during the 46 days of the fast was about nine-tenths of a pound daily if the 41.5 lbs. loss is divided by the 46 days of the continuance of the fast up to that time--41.5/46=.9 lbs. almost exactly.

When he came to my consulting room on the forty-sixth day, about 2.15 P.M., the pulse was 64, temp. 95.6 degrees (thermometer 3 minutes under tongue). He was much troubled with a nasty expectoration of mucus. His breath was very offensive. No enlarged glands could be felt in either groin--perhaps a trifling enlargement in the right. In middle of front border of right tibia a little irregularity is felt, and a small hollow, which he thinks is filling up; but it might be that the exudation on the bone immediately above and below the hollow is somewhat reduced, as this would equally give the suggestion that the hollow is filling up. There is a similar but rather smaller irregularity on the left tibia also. He felt rather weak that day, which he attributed to not having had his usual walk the day before.

The nasal cavity consists of a large grey septumless cavern showing dry crusts. The issuing breath is most offensive. Patient had drunk freely of water, he said, to the extent of 4 or 5 quarts a day during the fast but when I said--do you mean that you have been taking over a gallon of water daily?--he rather hesitated, and did not think it was so much as that. He had not measured it and had taken it cold usually, though occasionally hot, and had taken it without stint as he wanted it. On the forty-eighth day of the fast he complained of being weak but worst of all, he said, his breath was very offensive to himself.

It was so to me also--faint, fetid, putrid. His sense of smell was greatly impaired, so much so that he could not smell the offensiveness of the bowel-excreta which came away every day on using the gravitation-enema, and which were horrible to by-standers. It would seem from this as if his distress at the bad smell of his breath was probably due to a perversion of the sense of smell, which can be easily understood if we reflect that the disease-process was going on in the region where the smell-apparatus is specially located. The temperature was 96.2 degrees that morning the patient said. At 2 P.M.

when I saw him the pulse was 68, regular, even, steady. He says he was feverish last night. I suppose he felt hot. He sleeps well, but says he hears the clogs of the mill-hands as they go to their work in the mornings. Has lost 2 lbs. weight in last 2 days. Temp. 93.6 degrees to my observation 2.30 P.M. Says he feels "done at the stomach." His voice is poor. Expectorates somewhat freely. A small blob of green thickish mucus in ordinary white mucus came away in my presence. Urine acid 1010. No glucose. Faint trace of alb.u.min to heat and picric acid: also to nitric acid. The right lachrymal punctum is blocked; the tears run down the cheek; and I failed to get even a hair-thick wire into it. Evening, pulse 65, temp. 97.2 degrees in bed with hot-water bottle. Faeces most offensive, no bowel-excreta coming away except to enema. Forty-ninth day. In bed, temp. 97.2 degrees, pulse 65, soft, steady, regular. No great emaciation of limbs. Showed me some green expectoration. He says it is from Salvarsan as it is exactly like what he was injected with! The motion to the enema as offensive as before, but the breath is less offensive to me: not so fetid.

On this day patient completed 7 weeks of fasting. Feels sick and as if he would vomit. About midday he did vomit about a teaspoonful of dark green stuff, very bitter and acid (bile, I should call it, though he calls it "pure citric acid") and immediately after that he got rid of a motion without the use of the enema, brown, dark and very offensive still. I think the breath, however, is rather less offensive; and so I thought also two days ago. Temp. 97, pulse 67, soft, steady, regular; about 1.30 P.M. In bed since fiftieth day of fast. Not feeling very ill and not specially emaciated, though the b.u.t.tocks are thinning; but legs and thighs and arms and forearms not specially thin. He came to me to be weighed on the forty-ninth day and weighed 127+1/2 lbs.

Fifty-second day of fast. Still in bed. Condition much the same as to pulse, temperature, etc., and as to emaciation so far as observation goes. Remained in bed, not because unable to be up, but because he thought it would be better for him to be resting. On the fifty-fourth day, as he still felt sick, I gave him, at his request, an emetic in the form of 10 grains of copper-sulphate. This was followed by sickness after about an hour, when he got rid of a very little of the same green stuff as before. Bile? But the difficulty is to understand how, after all this time of fasting, he should still feel sick and with inclination to vomit. On the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth days of the fast he remained in bed, the condition being much the same. On Thursday, the fifty-sixth day, he broke the fast at 5 P.M., just 8 weeks after beginning it. He had meant to go on for 60 days, and I did not think that there would have been any danger in his doing so; but I did not press him to continue any longer. He took 3 oranges on that day; and on the Friday he took 5 more. I advised him not to increase the quant.i.ty of food too quickly. The breath has been quite sweet during the last two days. He has been too weak to take enemata, so we cannot say if motions would still have been offensive. And as there is no weighing machine in his room, we don't know the exact loss of weight sustained during the fast, though there is no reason to think that it has averaged more than .9 lb. a day. Up to the time of stopping the enemata, pieces of mucous membrane and mucus itself came away from the bowel, and the motions were very offensive. He seems to have a mucous enteritis without fever.

On the fourth day after breaking the fast, patient took 6 oranges, 4 apples and a banana; and he ordered much more food, which, however, I advised him not to take. On this day his bowels were opened naturally, with a very offensive motion. But the breath was much sweeter, in fact not offensive at all.

On the sixth day he came to my consulting-room and weighed 128 lbs.

Pulse 80, soft, steady, regular. He had not slept all night and had had to be up no fewer than 6 times to have his bowels opened. No diarrhoea, he said, but full motions, the first 3 very offensive.

Breath not offensive. Has dry pharyngitis and is complaining of sore throat.

Next day. Weight 133 lbs. Bowels acted again, 1 A.M., 3 A.M., 6 A.M., 9 A.M. and 1 P.M. Large motions. I told him I thought he was taking too much food. Pulse 104. Not sleeping well. Complained of sore throat.

Eighth day. Weight 138 lbs., a gain of 5 lbs. a day for 2 days. Pulse 80 at 7 A.M. (his own statement), at 2.30 P.M. pulse 100, temp. 99.4 degrees. Bowels acted at 12 midnight, 3.30 A.M. and about 11 A.M. Went that day to have his photograph taken. The throat was better. Tongue dry and leathery. It was plain to me that he was taking too much food.

He was having a mixed diet and taking much and often. He said his "mouth was coming to pieces," and in fact the mucous membrane was glazed and peeling; also the lips. On the ninth day he returned home.

The loss of weight can be seen from the following statement. On commencing the fast the weight was 171 lbs.