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FOOD: The Salisbury Plan
Open Letter to J. Marion Sims, MD, LLD from
Ephraim Cutter, published in Gaillard’s
Medical Journal, February, 1881
One of your peers has said that food is an
agent of tremendous power. In support of
this opinion, I have only to refer to the
fact that all organized beings in the animal
and vegetable kingdoms exist by means of
food. Not only the existence but the character
of fauna and flora depends on the quality
of food. Anything that sustains, nourishes
and augments an organism is food. … Before
proceeding farther, I desire to acknowledge
my indebtedness to Dr. James H. Salisbury,
of Cleveland, Ohio, for his original and
fruitful investigations in relation to food.
FOOD IN HEALTH: Dr. Salisbury says that if
we can find out what is the natural food
of an animal, we can have healthy feeding.
Give the animals a chance and they will only
partake of their natural food and be healthy,
other things being equal.… We say that the
plant or the animal instinctively feeds on
its appropriate food, when it can be obtained.
A healthy, whole body is the result as a
general rule. … Among savage races we find
specimens of health, so much so that some
people seem to think that they have no diseases
at all, and even have perfectly normal parturition.
But while it is true that savage races bear
more severe strains on their systems than
the civilized, still the testimony of travellers
and others combine to show that savages are
not exempt from diseases, and suffer accidents
of parturition. The same is true of animals.
But why should we regard it as forcing things
to infer that the Creator made His creatures
adapted to the different kinds of food He
intended they should have. Have not the bovines
a wonderful digestive system exactly adapted
to the digestion of vegetable food? Is not
the common fowl provided with a digestive
system which will easily appropriate the
grains that would be almost indigestible
to man? And so on, dairymen, hostlers, and
ladies know something about these facts,
and successfully practice on them when they
feed kine [cattle], horses and birds. But
I never heard of any of the parties named
feeding their charges on food simply because
they thought it looked, tasted and smelt
pleasantly to the animals named. … But what
is a healthy feeding for man? Upon this subject
there are many opinions. … It seems as if
the question turned on animal or vegetable
food. … I follow the dicta of my master,
and assent that two-thirds animal and one-third
vegetable food is the healthy proportion
of food for man, when he has arrived at adult
life. I suppose not even the most ardent
vegetarian would insist that milk from the
mother’s breast was not the natural aliment
of a newborn babe. Our rule applies to the
period subsequent to lactation. There are
said to be examples of adults living [exclusively]
on animal food. An informant tells me that
in the recesses of Central America there
have been individuals who lived to extreme
old age ? even to 150 years ? on animal food
exclusively. They had not their savage lives
influenced by civilization. Sir Francis Head,
in 1825, explored the pampas of South America.
He was attracted by the diet of the herdsmen
? beef and water. Although he had his French
cuisine with him, still he adopted the methods
of the herdsmen, and said he could not better
express himself, in speaking of the results,
than by saying, he had a feeling of indescribable
lightness, that he felt no exertion could
kill him. Why animal food two-thirds, vegetable
food one-third, is the natural proportion?
Because in the human adult in health there
are thirty-two teeth. Twenty of them are
for animal food, and the balance for vegetables,
as indicated by their structure. …
When the savage eats a grain of wheat, he
gets all the gluten [germ] cells that God
intended man should get when he eats wheat.
The civilized man eats flour made from wheat.
To be white in color there is the withdrawal
of three-fourths of the gluten cells. So
because society insists that bread, to be
good, must be white, the civilized man loses
three-fourths of the nerve food that the
savage gets when he eats wheat. I regard
this as an evil. But, supported as it is
by a gigantic monetary and industrial interest,
I think it will be a long time before it
is abated. A history of the resistance to
the efforts to correct this evil would be
a convincing argument for those who believe
in the depravity of mankind.
THE SALISBURY PLAN LIST OF FOODS: ANIMAL
FOOD: Milk, Pigeon, Eggs, Squab, Cream, Fish
of all kinds, Cheese, Beef Steak, Sirloin
Steak, Porterhouse Steak, Roast Beef, Corned
Beef, Beef Tongue, Tripe, Ox Tail, Calves
Feet & Heads, Pork fresh & salt,
Salmon, Eels, Haddock, Soup, Perch, Halibut,
Swordfish, Clams, Clam Water, Pig’s Feet
and Heads, Shell Fish, Sausages, Chicken,
Geese, Oysters, Scallops, Shrimps. VEGETABLE
FOOD: Wheat, whole, cracked and crushed,
baked like oatmeal, Oats, Rye, Buckwheat,
Maize, Celery, Onions, Spinach, Lettuce,
Dandelion, Parsley, Radish, Cranberry, Turnip,
Squash, Carrot, Pickles, Peas, Fruit, Cabbage,
Apples, Tomatoes, Irish Moss.
FOOD AS A CAUSE AND CURE OF CATARRH: … the
conditions I mean were those that were caused
by inflammations, ulcers, vices of secretion,
adenoid hypertrophy and an asthenic condition
of the inside of the nose. I believe they
are all diseases of weakness caused by malnutrition
from faulty respiratory and stomachic food.
Dr. Elsberg says that our topical applications
to the parts affected are not directly curative
of themselves. They, to use a vulgar phrase,
kick up a row with the parts, and the hope
of cure resides in the fact that nature,
when the row is over, settles down into a
healthy or peaceful condition. But the trouble
I have found with these cases is that the
row I kicked up with my applications did
not settle down into health. Sometimes it
seemed to me like kicking a sick dog or a
dead lion; there was not life enough present
to respond to the stimulus. But when I fed
my patients on the Salisbury Plan, and had
infused new life into them, then the stimulus
acted like magic in the cure. Sometimes,
with no topical applications more than half
the cure could be effected. I remember a
lady of middle ag, who had a bad case of
pharyngitis sicca. Her family attendant said
it could not be cured. It was very interesting
to see the moisture return on the polished
membranes of the throat simply by food. …
The fact was she had been living on starch
and sugar, mainly. She did not get force
enough from her food to run the concern,
so to speak. The moment her nerve centres
were well fed by an abundant supply of nutritious
food, the moisture returned to the mucous
membrane. The throat is a part of the body
that never can have a rest, like a broken
limb, for example. Hence it is more liable
to give out. …
FOOD A CAUSE AND CURE OF AGALAXIA OR WANT
OF MILK: To my mind, one of the greatest
offences against a man is to deprive him
of the normal supply of nourishment during
infancy. It gives a bad start. He is shorn
of his natural rights. I think it is the
duty of all physicians to do what they can
to have the rising generation enjoy their
due supply of normal food. If there is a
healthy, well-fed mother, I see no reason
why they should cheat their offspring of
their natural rights. And if the mother lives
on the normal food, the act of giving nourishment
by the breast is one of delight. The present
abundance of nursing bottles and infants’
foods in the drug stores is evidence of degeneration.
If my experience is borne out in the history
of other physicians, they are unnecessary
evils. … Shall our children be sacrificed
to the moloch of aesthetics that requires
flour to be white in order to be fit for
food?… As the object of lactation is a plentiful
supply of milk that answers the above standards,
the nursing mother should not allow love
of the beautiful alone to select her food.
While food should not offend the senses,
it should contain all the elements found
in the infant’s body, be rich in blood,
nerve, bone, muscle, vascular, glandular,
respiratory elements. In other words, as
we feed kine for milk, birds for health and
horses for work, by giving them their natural
food, so we should feed nursing women on
their natural food, to wit, two-thirds animal
and one-third vegetable (Salisbury). Besides,
it would be better to live on the diet during
gestation.
FOOD AS A MEDICINE IN UTERINE FIBROIDS: You
know very well that I have not been timid
in my attacks on uterine fibroids surgically;
but as time goes on, I predict the adoption
of the Salisbury Plan ? that is, if our experience
is repeated in that of others.… The rationale
of the Salisbury Plans is that uterine fibroids
are diseases of nutrition ? an hypertrophy
of the fibrous and muscular tissues due to
impoverished food, and an excess of carbohydrates.
When you reflect that no agency comes so
intimately, so continuously and so naturally
as food, and that there is a considerable
amount of force expended in simply replacing
tissues, it is easy to see that if the repair
forces of the system are not kept up to their
normal strength, that the tissue may run
riot, just as when governments have all their
energies occupied.
FOOD AS A CAUSE AND CURE OF DIABETES According
to Dr. Salisbury: In this disease the lobules
of the liver, or that portion of the gland
which is directly connected with the blood
vessels, and which organizes glycogenic matter
or animal sugar, is the part that is directly
involved. This portion of the liver is too
active and makes more sugar than is required.
This excess has to be eliminated, and the
kidneys have this work to do. Soon they become
overactive, and little by little become involved
indirectly in the disease. To effect a cure
we must cut off all food, as far as possible
that goes to make animal sugar. …
FOOD IN CONSUMPTION: In 1858 Dr. Salisbury
had a work ready for the press, in which
he relates the account of his experiment
with over two thousand swine. As to food,
he fed 1026 swine on food filled with yeast.
Soon diarrhoea came on. He found the yeast
in the blood and, to be brief, in the course
of eight weeks 246 of the swine died, and
of these 104 were examined with the result
stated. Moreover, he hired men by the day
to eat their food filled with yeast, or food
that is the food of the yeast plant. Diarrhoea
came on in all, and the presence of the yeast
was found in their blood. Again, he has treated
over 1,000 cases in the last 25 years, and,
to put it mildly, he has claimed to cure
over two-thirds of the cases. … Although
medicines play an important part in the cure
of consumptives, still the keynote of the
Salisbury plans is to remove the yeast from
the blood and build up the system by putting
the great glands in good order, so that they
can run the system properly. The full development
of this topic would fill a large volume.
Indeed it fills a volume. I hesitate not
to repeat for myself that I have found nothing
like this in the history of medicine. Consumption
is a lung disease, found in the blood a year
before organic lung disease. Tubercle is
an accident, a secondary formation, caused
by embolism.
FOOD IN DISEASES DEPENDING ON FATTY DEGENERATION:
Atheroma, broken heart, cerebral haemorrhages,
Bright’s disease of the kidneys, in some
of its forms, come under this head. The rationale
of their production, in the light of the
food question, is clear. It is only necessary
to have starch and sugar in excess so as
to have conditions favorable to the development
of the different forms of fatty degeneration;
that tissues are changed into fat and thereby
weakened in strength; they are not able to
stand the normal vascular pressure, and thence
rupture like a worn-out hose pipe, so that
some of the pathological results of this
lesion are explained on the ground of mechanical
weakness. Of course it does not explain all
the symptoms, but it is a most important
pathological condition. It is relieved by
excluding starch and sugar from the diet.
…
FOOD A CAUSE AND CURE OF DISEASES OF THE
NERVOUS SYSTEM: It is easy to see that if
the nerve centers do not receive their proper
food, the nervous system is liable to suffer.
For this reason we deprecate the withdrawal
of the gluten [germ] cells from our flour
as a direct damage to the nervous system.
The chemists tell us that there is a withdrawal
of 75 per cent of the phosphates from the
milling of flour. The morphological examination
of flour and wheat compared confirms this
statement. Now, when we consider that flour
is the preeminent food of the present time,
we think we are not mistaken if we feel like
referring the general prevalence of neurasthenia
and other nerve disorders, as compared to
former times, when the use of flour was not
so common, other things being equal, to the
use of this impoverished food. We have been
told that the treatment of imbeciles and
idiots is now based on this idea. As we look
at it, we cannot expect to have good nervous
systems, unless the proper nerve food is
present in the aliment. Of course other causes
cooperate, but as bricks cannot be made without
straw, so cannot the nervous system be organized
normally out of elements that are deprived
of their phosphates and other nerve elements.
This subject is capable of great expansion.
We might show how we believe that the prevalence
of the neurotic diseases of women abound
because of the exclusion of the phosphates
from the food.
FOOD AS A CAUSE AND CURE OF INDIGESTION.
The microscopical and macroscopical examination
of the fibres reveals the most striking evidence
as to this department. Probably no man has
done more in this direction than my associate.
I have followed him somewhat long enough
to sustain his position. Muscular fibres
are found in the feces, but not abundantly
unless salted or fried. The teguments of
the grains ? the connective fibrous tissue
? the parenchyma of roots, stems, fruits
and vegetable food in general occur in large
quantity in healthy feces. Dr. Salisbury
is particularly opposed to the use of beans
as food. They go through the alimentary canal
en masse, generally undigested. This is due
to their structure … Owing to its great
indigestibility, Dr. Salisbury says beans
ought to be cut off from human foods, as
man has not the digestive apparatus for them,
and they don’t digest well. The subject
of chronic diarrhoea has been made a special
study by Dr. Salisbury. It is the old story
of starch fermentation and its products,
acting physically on the intestines, making
the villi drunken with carbonic acid gas.
In this state, the epithelial cells take
in anything, like a drunken man, and transmit
it to the blood. In fact, a vast deal of
trouble is caused by the abnormal fermentation
in this disease.
Editors Note: The problems Dr. Salisbury
found with digestion of legumes may have
been due to improper preparation.
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page last modified: 01/18/2001
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