01/26/2024
The Occasions for Disease 🤧
Imprudencies in diet are perhaps, often more than anything else, responsible for indigestion, diarrhea, gas, gastric discomfort, "heart burn," and a host of other symptoms of which so many millions constantly complain. We cook and season our foods so that we are tempted to gluttony; we eat the flesh and fat of animals that have been made sick by our methods of caring for them; we glut ourselves on foods that have been processed, refined and adulterated to such an extent that they are unfit for human consumption.
When a man dies of habitual gluttony, his friends are likely to attribute his death to the "inscrutable ways of God." The "mysterious Providence" upon which they are prone to lay the blame for so much of their suffering is none other than their own folly. Their suffering and premature death is the natural result of their own false ways of life. We suggest that the large quantities of lard, butter, sugar, candies, common salt, spices, condiments, which are habitually and almost universally taken are evident and alarming causes of disease. These occasion irritation of the digestive tract, inhibit the digestion of food and cause other troubles that could be avoided by simply leaving them out of our diet. The inordinate seeking after cultivated enjoyments, especially those that afford the senses unnatural or abnormal excitations, must, with great certainty, induce a state of organic weakness and cripple the functions of life. Disease evolves because we enjoy beyond our power to recuperate.
Dr. Taylor said: "Having become so perverted in natural instincts and perceptions, people mistake abnormal for normal desires and instead of granting a natural supply of the real needs of the body, artificial wants, to their detriment, are sedulously attended to. Strange to say, when they see that the ultimate results of such a course are evil only, they persistently pursue it - evidently because they care more for the present gratification of a false state than for an ultimate real good. Ignorant and heedless of these causes of suffering and being taught that their suffering is due to foreign invasions (evil spirits, malevolent germs, malignant viruses), they accept any proffered therapeutic recourse, when ill, and continue the very course of action that is responsible for their functional impairment and toxemic saturation.
Natural Hygiene, The Pristine Way Of Life by Dr. Herbert Shelton 📖