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Dr. P.p. Millard
THIS BOOK
is the property of
Dr.
DELATION LIFE ?LDO.
Hours & -pc
and is loaned to you that you
may acquaint yourself with a
few of the facts pertaining to
the human body both in health
and disease.
This book is loaned to you
for two weeks only; anyone
wishing to re^loan it to a friend
or neighbor, may have the time
extended by 'phone or card.
Otherwise it must be returned
in two weeks. _
Copy No. ZQ-:
How to Keep Well
AND
Live Long
From the Standpoint of the New Philosophy
ACCOMPANYING
The Educational Charts for the
Prevention of Disease
<M>
Copyright 1907 by
The American Society for the Prevention of Disease
New York City
Nature's Secret
MAN cannot convert iron into gold, nor lead into
silver. Man has never learned how to take one
substance and make out of it a substance en-
tirely different. This is nature's secret.
There are within the human body a number of glands
and organs all of which, when they are in perfect con-
nection with the brain, hold this wonderful secret of
converting one substance into another.
One set of these glands takes the substance of bread
and water and converts it into hair. Another set of
glands takes the same substance and makes teeth of it.
Still another converts it into finger nails, another con-
verts it into eyeballs, another into nerves, and another
into bones, etc.
The body requires merely food. It has the power of
converting food into anything needed. If it require a
drug, it has the machinery on hand to make it whatever
that drug may be. It is able to make every drug and
every antitoxin known to the pharmacopoeia, and it also
has the mysterious secret of how to make them, each
and all out of bread and water, if only they are necessary.
If iron is needed in the blood the body has the secret
of making it out of food. Again, the body cannot use
drugs, except those of its own making. It cannot use
iron swallowed to cure anaemia any more than it can use
hair swallowed to cure baldness.
The body must make its own drugs, its own elements,
its own chemicals, and its own tissues, but it has the
secret of making them all out of simple food.
How to Keep Well
and
Live Long
From the Standpoint of the New Philosophy
accompanying
The Educational Charts for the
Prevention of Disease
Chapter I.
Disease is an effect. It has a cause.
New facts have been discovered with reference
to the cause of individual diseases.
When these new facts shall become known and
applied by every one, individual diseases will be-
come less and less, and the average length of life
greatly increased.
No more important work can be done than to
educate people as to what these new facts are,
and this is the object of THE AMERICAN
SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF
DISEASE.
5rifcy>
Yon Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
Disease is known to be an effect of certain
causes. To know what these causes are and to
avoid them is to prevent the diseases which they
produce. Hence here as elsewhere "Knowledge
is Power."
We can prevent disease if we know how. It is
knowledge which gives us power along this line.
And so much knowledge has recently been dis-
covered with reference to prevention that its ap-
plication marks the beginning of a new custom
and a new era.
Public Health officials have made wonderful
progress, within the last fifty years, along the
line of preventing epidemic diseases. And their
work is constantly improving. Smallpox, cholera
and other epidemic diseases now are as nothing
compared with former times. They are pre-
vented.
The work of preventing individual diseases,
however, cannot be done by Public Health of-
ficials. It must be done by each individual for
himself.
The individual must learn what to do and then
do it. Parents must learn for themselves and for
their children.
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
PREVENTION OF DISEASE is a society for
education. It seeks to educate the individual to
prevent individual diseases in himself.
It is believed by scientists that the brain should
last one hundred years, and as long as the brain
remains strong, the body ought to be well.
Health is the greatest factor in this life. Be-
cause our work, however important, is depend-
ent wholly upon our health and the question there-
fore of preventing disease is one of the most im-
portant which can occupy the mind of a human
being.
Chapter II.
Maps Illustrating First Causes.
It is not necessary for one to study surveying
in order to understand geography. It is neces-
sary, however, in order that one may obtain a
clear idea of the geography of a country, to ex-
amine its map.
Pictures make lasting impressions upon the
minds of the old as well as the young. An hour's
study of a country in connection with its map,
will give one a better idea of that country than
he could obtain by weeks of reading without a
map for reference.
What is true of geography is true also of the
human body. In order to understand the new
philosophy of preventing disease, one must know
something of the body and yet it is not necessary
that one should study anatomy as minutely as a
physician does. A general idea is necessary, but
this is sufficient.
One can gain more real knowledge of the body
in one hour by having a map of the body to refer
to, than he could gain in weeks or even months
of reading without such map.
6
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
It is for this reason that two large drawings,
or maps, of the body have been prepared which
show at a glance points which it would require
days of reading to understand without them.
Both of these maps should be inspected and
studied until one has at least a general idea of
the body and the new philosophy of preventing
disease.
Maps not only make quick impressions but they
make accurate impressions and also those that
are never forgotten.
Not only men and women but school children
as well, should study these maps of the body.
They should know the effects of a tight or im-
perfect spinal joint — of a spinal-joint adhesion.
They should know the principle of the blood sup-
ply to each organ and the drainage from it, and
how the caliber of the blood pipes changes by the
electric current which is sent to them from the
brain over soft nerve threads.
They should study these maps until they under-
stand at least in general terms the new philosophy
of preventing individual diseases.
The reward will be the greatest of all rewards
— health — immunity from disease.
Chapter III.
You are as Old as Your Spine.
You are as old as your spine.
When your spine begins to tighten and grow
stiff, whether you are twenty, thirty, forty, fifty
or sixty, you are beginning to grow old.
As long as your spine is free, flexible, supple
and perfect you will remain young, no matter
what your age.
A tight, stiff, imperfect spine is an old spine,
whether its owner have lived twenty years or
eighty years.
There are old spines on young people, and
young spines on old people.
A tight, close, immovable, imperfect spinal
joint is an old spinal joint, whether found in the
spine of an old person or a young one.
From this viewpoint the different spinal joints
in each individual are often of vastly different
ages.
Some remain open, free, movable and young,
while others have become close, tight, immovable
and old. Like the teeth, the spinal joints do not
grow old uniformly.
8
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
A person who has even one old tooth knows it,
but a person may have a dozen old spinal joints
and know nothing about it. The reason for this
is that an old tooth makes itself felt directly, while
an old spinal joint makes itself known indirectly.
The indication of an old tooth is pain in itself,
while the indication of an old spinal joint may be
pain in a distant part, or it may be general weak-
ness or the weakness of some special organ or
part, or it may be indicated by a general or special
disease.
As an illustration, if a certain spinal joint
grows old, i. e., tight or turned, the stomach be-
comes first weak and then diseased. If a certain
other joint grows old (tight or turned), the liver
becomes weak, first, then torpid, sluggish, inactive
and finally diseased.
The soft wires running from your brain to all
the various parts of your body, pass between the
bones of your spine. A spinal joint cannot become
tight or imperfect without pinching the soft wires
which ,go through it. This means an obstruction
to the electric current which is passing from the
brain on that particular wire, and consequently
the cutting of! of power to the part to which that
9
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
wire goes. Weakness follows first, and then dis-
ease.
Your spine not only tells your age, but it also
accurately tells your chances for health or disease
in the future.
10
Chapter IV.
The Secret of Preventing Individual
Diseases.
The secret of preventing individual diseases and
living long, lies in giving the body proper care in
time. The Chinese have a custom of paying their
doctor so long as he keeps them well, but as soon
as they become sick he must attend them, but re-
ceives nothing until they are well again. This
is an excellent practice and one which should be
adopted everywhere. It is far better for the
people and it is far better for the doctor, than the
practice of waiting until one is sick and then
doctoring to get well. It means prevention,
and in the light of the new facts concerning the
STRUCTURAL CAUSES of disease, this sys-
tem can now be applied with the greatest possible
advantage.
Children should be examined carefully from
time to time by a skilled anatomist, who can detect
the slightest deviations in the spine or other struc-
tures of the body and correct them mechanically.
The same thing is true with other persons — in
fact with every one.
ii
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
In order to run an automobile several thou-
sand miles and avoid an accident or a break down,
the machine needs careful structural attention
from the very start. It is so with the body. It
needs STRUCTURAL ATTENTION as well
as attention in other ways and it needs it IN
TIME.
To breathe perfectly;
To eat only pure food and in sufficient quantity ;
To drink only pure water ;
To sleep eight hours out of the twenty-four;
To think only pure thoughts;
To live an ideal life in every way;
To do all of these things does not mean that you
have given your body all the attention which it
needs, important as all these things are.
In addition to all of these the body requires
STRUCTURAL ATTENTION.
Every joint of the spine must be kept in readi-
ness for perfect motion — free from the slightest
semblance to an adhesion. There must be not
even tightness, stiffness or other imperfections
along the spine.
Again every rib must be perfectly in place and
every muscle and ligament normal. There must
be no contractions, no tensions. In a word, all
12
Your NERVES Must be Free, from- Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
the bones and muscles and ligaments of the body
must be perfect in their relation to each other or
disturbance is bound to follow.
A deviation from structural perfection, how-
ever slight, is sufficient to invite disease.
Does each one of your spinal joints move just
as freely as it should ? Are you structurally per-
fect? Is there no stiffness in any of your joints?
Is every blood pipe open and every nerve free
from pressure?
13
Chapter V.
New Facts with Reference to Preventing
Individual Diseases.
The power which runs the body is animate
electricity.
This discovery comes as the crowning climax
to all the wonderful discoveries which have been
made in connection with this mysterious force.
The hand on the dial of a delicate electrical
indicator moves when the wire poles come in con-
tact with the living human body the same as when
they come in contact with an electrical jar.
The hand on this indicator does not move if
the poles are connected with wood, iron, lifeless
flesh or other non-electric substance. The hand
moves only when the poles are connected with a
battery which is charged with or is generating
electricity.
These experiments, together with many others,
have demonstrated the fact that the power which
runs the body is ANIMATE ELECTRICITY.
We speak of animate electricity, merely as a
distinguishing term. Just what the difference
is between the electricity of the body of an ani.ual
14
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other 11 'ay.
and the electricity which we use is not yet fully
understood. The one, however, is animate, the
other inanimate or at least one is connected with
animate matter, the other with inanimate matter.
While the differences between these two forms
of electricity, if there be any, are not known,
many points of similarity have been noted, as fol-
lows :
Both are generated.
Both are instantaneous in action.
Both produce motion.
Both produce heat.
Both can be transmitted through the air under
certain conditions.
Both when transmitted over lines require those
lines to be free, from the point of generation to
the point of use.
The human brain is composed of millions of
cells. These cells GENERATE AND STORE
the electricity which runs the body. The brain
has no other uses.
The brain does not think or reason. The brain
does not love or hate. It has no passions, no ap-
petites, no desires. These are all attributes of
the mind, not of the brain.
i5
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
The brain merely GENERATES AND
STORES ELECTRICITY like a great electric
plant in which were placed, if that were possible,
millions of minute electric dynamos.
Millions of soft electric wires, so to speak, are
strung from these millions of minute dynamos
in the brain to all the various parts of the body
for the purpose of transmitting the electricity
from where it is generated to where it is to be
used.
Some of these wires run from the brain to the
heart. Others from the brain to the lungs.
Others from the brain to the liver. Others
from the brain to the bowels. Others from
the brain to the pelvic organs, etc. EVERY
MUSCLE, ORGAN AND PART IS CON-
NECTED WITH THE BRAIN BY A SOFT
ELECTRIC WIRE.
All parts of your body are powerless of them-
selves.
Of itself your eye is as sightless as a lump of
clay. Of themselves your kidneys are as func-
tionless as a stone.
The power which enables your eye to see is
electric, and is sent to it over a soft wire from
your brain.
16
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
The power which enables each of your kidneys
to perform its function is electric, and is sent to it
over a soft wire from your brain.
The power which causes your heart to beat is
electric and it is sent to it over a soft wire from
your brain.
So it is with each and every organ and part of
your body. They all receive their function and
their power from your brain over a soft wire.
Cut the soft wires running from the brain to
the arm and instantly the arm becomes a dead
member, paralyzed and lifeless.
Cut the soft wires running from the brain to
the legs and paralysis follows instantly.
Cut the soft wires running from the brain to
the heart and instantly the heart stops.
Again tightly pinch the soft wires running
from the brain to the arm and leave them in that
condition and a sensation of "going to sleep" will
be felt at first, and in time if the pressure be not
removed this condition will result in paralysis,
the same as if the nerves had been divided.
The same is true with reference to the nerves
which go to the legs, the lungs or any other part.
That is, PRESSURE on a nerve if sufficient
i7
•>
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
in intensity and if sufficiently prolonged will have
the same effect as if the nerve were cut in two.
We have used the term ((soft electric wires" a
great many times for the purpose of impressing
the mind with the fact that while nerves are like
electric wires in other ways, they are soft and
therefore susceptible to pressure.
Pressure on the nerve which runs from the
brain to the heart will obstruct the electric cur-
rent going from the brain to the heart and cause
the heart to become weak and finally to stop.
Pressure on the nerve which runs from the
brain to the bowels will obstruct the electric cur-
rent going from the brain to the bowels and cause
constipation, and finally paralysis of the bowels.
Pressure on a nerve anywhere throughout its
course between its origin in the brain and its
ending in a part, will cause that part to which it
goes to become weak and susceptible to disease
and herein we have an explanation of the vexed
question of disease immunity.
Every part is entitled to and must have a cer-
tain amount of electricity from the brain in order
to do its work perfectly and maintain its power
of resistance to disease.
For instance, if there be pressure on the nerves
18
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
which run from the brain to the lungs, the elec-
tric current which is sent out from the brain is
obstructed, the lungs do not receive their full elec-
tric power and as a result they become weak. If
a person in this condition breathes air containing
the germs of consumption, he is liable to contract
the disease at once.
Had there been no pressure on the nerves lead-
ing from the brain to the lungs, these organs
would have received their full electric power from
the brain, would have had their normal strength,
and been immune from the disease, however many
germs might have been breathed.
This illustration applies to all germ diseases.
The body is germ-proof if it is in perfect con-
dition. And perfect condition means — a well
charged battery (brain) and the soft wires which
run out from that battery free from all pressure
throughout tJicir entire length.
In other words
First, The electricity, which the brain gen-
erates, must not be unduly exhausted by over
work, physical or mental, or in any other way.
19
You Arc as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
Second, The nerves which convey this elec-
tricity from the brain where it is generated to
the various organs and parts of the body where
it is used, must be free throughout their entire
course. There must be no pressure on them at
any point.
It should be understood that the brain must make all
the electricity which the body uses. Artificial electricity
which is made by machinery or in batteries and thrown
on the body cannot be used by it to any permanent advan-
tage. The body must make its own electricity the same
as it makes its own hair, its own nerves, etc.
20
Chapter VI.
The New Philosophy of Preventing
Individual Diseases.
AS LONG AS YOUR MIND IS CLEAR
AND YOUR BRAIN IS GENERATING ITS
NORMAL AMOUNT OF ELECTRICITY,
YOUR BODY OUGHT TO BE WELL.
AS LONG AS YOUR MIND IS CLEAR
AND YOUR BRAIN IS GENERATING ITS
NORMAL AMOUNT OF ELECTRICITY
YOUR HEALTH WILL DEPEND VERY
LARGELY UPON THE CONDITION OF
YOUR SPINE.
As we have explained, your brain generates
and stores electricity.
This electricity is sent out from your brain over
soft electric wires which pass through bony
switches along the spine.
The partial closing of any of these bony
switches pinches the soft wires which pass
through them, thus obstructing the electric cur-
rent from the brain to the part to which those
wires go.
Your body is a marvelous electrical machine.
21
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
Your brain generates and stores the electricity
which runs it.
Your nerves are live electric wires which trans-
mit the electric power which your brain generates.
Your nerves are composed of soft material.
They are compressible.
When PINCHED, FLATTENED or COM-
PRESSED, they do not transmit the full volume
of electric power which they should.
Bones are composed of hard material, and
wherever a nerve passes immediately between two
bones, it is bound to become pinched if those two
bones are drawn too closely together.
There are points in your body where nerves
pass right between two bones.
Forty-eight of these points are along your
spine.
There are twenty-four joints in your spinal
column, and two points at each joint where nerves
pass right between two bones. (See chart No. I.)
So long as each of your spinal bones is per-
fectly in place there can be no trouble on these
soft electric wires running out from your brain.
But danger lies in the bones becoming drawn
more closely together than normal, thus pinch-
ing the nerves which pass between them.
22
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
Parts of metal machinery may become too loose,
but looseness cannot occur in the body, i. e., loose-
ness never occurs as a cause of disease.
A nerve cannot have too much room.
A nerve cannot be too free.
As soon as you pinch a. nerve, however, you
block and obstruct the electrical current which is
passing over it.
The bones of the spine never get too far apart.
It is their coming together which produces dis-
ease.
Many men and women at seventy are from one
to two inches shorter than they were at twenty-
five.
Those who are the same height at seventy that
they were at twenty-five, are the ones who live
one hundred years or over.
This shortening of the spine is not due entirely
to the fact that old people are as a rule more bent
than when they were young. But it is due in a
large measure to a tightening of one or more of
the spinal joints.
Shortening of the spine is not confined to the
old. It is a condition which effects all ages and
all classes of people — the infant, the young, the
middle aged as well as the old.
23
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
Wherever disease is starting, even though it
be unnoticed, or wherever disease is plainly ap-
parent, there you will find as a rule, a spine
shorter than normal. This shortening may be a
very small fraction of an inch — perhaps an adhe-
sion or tightening at only one joint; but the ad-
hesion at one joint alone, is sufficient to shorten
the spine and produce disease.
Between every two bones of the spine there is
a thick spongy cushion resembling soft rubber,
which is called an intervertebral cartilage. (See
chart No. I.)
There are twenty-four of these spongy cush-
ions placed between the twenty-four bones of
your spine and these hold the balance of power
between health and disease.
These spongy cushions are never thicker than
normal, but from pressure they may become very
much thinner than normal.
The shortening of the spine is due entirely to
the susceptibility of these spongy cushions to pres-
sure and to the squeezing down of one or more of
them into thinner compass than normal.
The short muscles and ligaments, which go
from one vertebra to another along your spine,
24
You Arc as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Hare its Normal Amount of Motion.
contract here and there as the result of colds, slips,
falls, cramped positions, etc.
As a result of these short muscles and liga-
ments contracting, the bones are drawn too
closely together, compressing the spongy cushion
which holds them apart and pinching the nerves
which pass between them.
Here we have the real first cause of weakened
or diseased organs and parts — a tightening of
one or more spinal joints which results in the fol-
lowing :
1. Compressing the spongy cushion between
the bones.
2. Shortening the spine by drawing the bones
more closely together than is normal.
3. Pinching the nerves as they pass between
the bones, thus obstructing and blocking the elec-
tric current which is passing from the brain over
these nerves to the various organs and parts of
the body.
25
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
Shortening of the Spine.
Your spine may be shorter than normal by one-
sixteenth of an inch, or even less if there is a
tightening of one joint only, i. e., a compressing
of only one spongy disc.
Or it may be shorter by two inches or even
more, if there is a tightening of several joints, i.
e., a compressing of several spongy discs.
The spine is sometimes even three inches or
more shorter than normal, in cases of spinal cur-
vature where there is a compressing of practically
every one of the twenty-four spongy discs. (See
chart No. I.)
Importance of Perfect Spinal Joints.
The remarkable thing about your spinal joints
is that each joint controls certain organs or parts.
That is, nerve threads which are strung from
your brain to the various parts of your body pass
through the joints of your spine. (See chart No.
i.)
If, for instance, a certain spinal joint becomes
26
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
tight or turned, through which the soft electric
wires (nerves) pass from your brain to your
stomach, electric power to your stomach is
obstructed or partially cut off and that organ
becomes weak with symptoms of indigestion at
first, and finally diseased.
If a certain other spinal joint becomes tight or
turned, through which the wires (nerves) pass
from your brain to your liver, electric power to
your liver is obstructed or partially cut off and
that organ becomes weak, then sluggish, and
finally diseased.
There is another spinal joint which, when it
becomes tight, obstructs and partially cuts off
electric power to the kidneys. The kidneys then
become weak. They do not extract urea and
other impurities from the blood as they should,
and, as a result of the passing on of these impur-
ities into the blood stream, which should be
thrown out of the system, the individual is finally
attacked with what is known as RHEUM-
ATISM.
There is still another spinal joint which, when
it becomes tight, partially cuts off electric power
which is passing from your brain to your bowels
— causing constipation, etc.
27
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
The tightening of another spinal joint partially
cuts off electric power which is passing from your
brain to your heart and this is the direct cause of
so-called weak heart.
At other spinal joints the electric current from
your brain to your lungs is obstructed.
At other spinal joints the electric current from
your brain to your pelvic organs is obstructed.
Other spinal joints obstruct the electric current
from your brain to your legs, causing partial or
complete paralysis.
So it is with the eyes, the ears, the arms and
every part of the body.
These facts have all been demonstrated.
The spine is a bony switchboard standing
between your brain, where electric power is gen-
erated, and all the other parts of your body where
that electric power is used.
In order therefore that electricity may pass
naturally and freely from where it is generated
to where it is used, the bony switches along your
spine, through which it passes, must all remain
open.
That is, there must be no tightening of a single
spinal joint — no shortening of the spine, however
28
You Arc as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
slight, no slipping, tilting or turning of any of
the vertebrae, no tensions, no adhesions.
In other words, the spine must be perfect. The
spongy cushions between each two of the bones
must have their full thickness. The vertebrae
must remain their natural distance apart and be
true to each other laterally.
Through a perfect spine the myriad nerves from
the brain pass unhampered to all the various
organs and parts of the body. And this means
that every part receives its full amount of electric
power and therefore is in "Prime condition" or
in that state known as perfect health — in which
condition it is immune from disease.
Results, and Natural Death.
Under such conditions the body ought to
remain well as long as the mind is clear, and the
brain is generating its normal amount of electric
power.
A clear mind, generally speaking, is evidence
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
that the brain is generating a sufficient supply of
electricity to run the body perfectly.
A perfect spine, i. e., unpinched and unham-
pered nerves, is essential, in order that that elec-
tric power may reach all the parts for which it is
intended.
It is now maintained that the body should be
well as long as the brain is perfect. And it is
granted by physicians and scientists generally
that the brain itself should easily remain perfect
one hundred years or longer.
At the expiration of one hundred years, when
the memory becomes impaired, when second
childhood makes its appearance, the brain begins
to fail in its work of generating electric power,
which means that the end is near.
The heart, the lungs, the kidneys — all parts of
the body, begin to grow weak, not because of a
blockade on the wires connecting them with the
brain but because the brain is not generating
power in sufficient quantity for the demands of
the body.
Dissolution has already set in and death comes
quietly, peacefully, as nature intended.
30
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Bodx.
Unnatural Death.
Compared with this natural death, we have the
unnatural death — death which follows the break-
ing down of some of the vital organs of the
body while the brain is yet perfect, and generating
electric power in sufficient quantity to run every
part of the body perfectly.
This is not only unnatural death, but it is
premature death. It is death as unnatural and
premature both, as death by drowning or direct
violence.
It is death which ought never to occur.
Disease is just as unnatural to the body as a
direct injury.
While your brain is active and strong, why
should your heart, your lungs, or your kidneys
become diseased?
In themselves these organs are functionless and
powerless as we have heretofore explained. All
the power they have is sent to them from the
brain, and so long as the brain is generating and
sending out power in abundance, why should not
these and all other organs of the body remain
healthy and strong? Why not?
There is no reason. They will remain healthy
3i
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
and strong providing the lines which connect
them with the brain are all free and open through-
out their entire course.
What a Diseased Organ Means.
A diseased organ means that there is an ob-
struction on the lines.
It means that the soft nerve thread which runs
from the brain to that organ is not free through-
out its entire course, but at some point there is
pressure upon it.
This pressure usually will be found at the spine,
where the nerve runs between the bones — a tight-
ened spinal joint — and results in diminishing the
amount of electric power which that organ should
receive.
Weakness follows.
If, in the case of the lungs, germs (secondary
causes) find weakened tissue they set up pneu-
monia, consumption or other lung diseases.
If, in the case of the bowels, water containing
typhoid germs be drunk (secondary causes),
32
NORMAL (OPEN) SPINAL JOINTS
(Bones well separated, and true to each other laterally.)
Spinal Cord
NORMAL
NERVE.
NORMALS
■ ARTERY'
SPINAL
WINDOWS
OPEN
RMAL
(CARTILAGES
In this drawing the spinal joints are open, the cartilages are thick,
the nerves are free from pressure and the artery large and elastic.
These are the spinal joints which insure health and long life.
ABNORMAL (CLOSED) SPINAL JOINTS
The spinal bones never get too far apart. Trouble always comes
from their being drawn too closely together or turned laterally. < >hl
people have stiff spines because certain of the spinal joints become
tight, or the bones have slipped or turned laterally. Shortness of the
spine is due to the same causes.
SPINAL CORD
Spinal
window;
PARTLY
CLOSED
abnormal
nerve:
This drawing illustrates the condition spinal joints get into, where
the spine receives no attention. There is a constant tendency of the
tissues which bind the bones of the spine together to contract, thus
pulling the bones closer together than they should be, or out of their
true alignment. This compresses the cartilages, pinches the nerves
and renders the arteries small and non-elastic. If the artery to the stom-
ach is reduced in calibre the stomach must be weak, etc. Each of the
spinal joints must be kept open and the bones well separated and true
to each other, or disease of some part must follow, depending upon the
joints which become tight or imperfect. Your spine, as well as your
teeth, needs attention from time to time, if you would be healthy and
live long.
You Arc as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
these germs finding- weakened tissue set up
typhoid fever.
Every organ of the body is germ proof when
it is receiving its full electric power from the
brain.
Therefore, only as secondary causes of disease
do germs act.
The heart, the liver, the kidneys all became
weak as soon as there is the slightest PRES-
SURE on the soft wires connecting them with
the brain.
As long as the brain is strong it sends to all
organs all the electric power which they require,
but PRESSURE on the lines obstructs the cur-
rent, then weakness follows and finally disease.
Two Hundred Out of One Million.
The only natural death is death which fol-
lows a worn-out brain.
And yet statistics show that only about two
hundred out of every million die a natural death
from old age.
33
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
Think of it! Only two hundred out of every
million ! All the rest — the hundreds of thousands
dying an unnatural and a premature death.
Here is certainly a field for the reformer.
Disease being unnatural while the brain is
strong, and following as the direct result of pres-
sure on nerves, which obstructs the electric cur-
rent coming from the brain, it follows that in
order to prevent disease the prevention of pres-
sure is of first importance.
34
IMPORTANCE OF A
PERFECT SPINE.
The human spine is composed of 24
bones or vertebras. Between each two
bones there is a cartilage — a substance
resembling soft rubber — which pinches
down on one side and expands on the
other every time you bend your neck
or back.
The vertebrae are all hollow and the
spinal cord passes down through them
giving off between each two bones a
nerve, threads from which run around
certain blood pipes, making them large
or small by causing the circular mus-
cular fibers of which they are composed
to contract or expand.
Any tightening, twisting, turning or
imperfection of the vertebrae or any
tension of the spinal muscles or liga-
ments will result in "pinching" these
spinal nerves and disturbing the cali-
ber of the blood vessels which they
control.
Each spinal joint is a switch which
controls definite blood pipes, in the
lungs, heart, stomach, liver, kidneys,
intestines, pelvic organs and all other
parts of the body.
The nerve threads which connect
the brain with the different parts and
organs of the body come out at the
small openings between each two ver-
tebrae— indicated by the arrows.
The slightest tightening, turning or
imperfection of any of the spinal joints
means a partial closing of these small
openings, which means pinched nerves
and consequently a disturbance of the
caliber of the internal blood pipes which
these nerves control.
35
Chapter VII.
How the Circulation Becomes Disturbed.
If the brain is strong and the nerve which runs
from it to a part is free, the circulation in that
part will be perfect because the circulation of the
blood is under the control of the electric current
which comes from the brain. // that current is
perfect, it makes the circulation perfect.
If the circulation in any part of your body is
wrong, there is pressure on the nerves which run
from your brain to the blood vessels of that part.
(See chart No. II.)
There is a blood pipe (an artery) which runs
into each organ carrying pure blood, and a blood
pipe (a vein) which runs out of each organ, but
the caliber of both of these pipes is under the
control of two nerves running from the brain.
(See chart No. II.)
If both of these nerves are free, the caliber of
of both pipes is normal and the circulation per-
fect.
If there is pressure on the nerve which runs
from the brain to the pipe which runs into a part
(the artery) that pipe becomes smaller in caliber,
36
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
reducing the amount of pure blood to that part,
and weakness follows for want of nourishment.
If there is pressure on the nerves which runs
from the brain to the pipe which runs out of a
part (the vein) that pipe becomes smaller in cal-
iber, preventing perfect drainage. That part then
becomes congested with impure blood and weak-
ness and disease follow.
The circulation in any part of the body is anal-
ogous to the fresh water pipe running into a bath
room and the impure water pipe running out of it.
An obstruction to the pure water pipe cuts off
the water supply, an obstruction to the sewer
pipe fills the room with impurities and causes an
overflow.
There is one difference, however, and that is
that the blood pipes of the body are constantly
changing their caliber, owing to the circular
muscular fibers of which they are composed. (See
chart No. 2.)
When these circular muscular fibers contract,
the blood pipe becomes smaller, cutting off the
nourishment or obstructing drainage, depending
upon the pipe affected, as above described. In
either case weakness follows, inviting disease.
37
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
Normal Changes in the Circulation
These remarks apply to abnormal changes in
the caliber of arteries and veins.
There are of course normal changes in the cal-
iber of blood pipes.
For instance, the vessels which run into and
out of the walls of your stomach are twice as
large after dinner as they were before dinner.
The caliber of the vessels in your brain are
twice as large when you are awake and thinking
as they are when you are asleep.
The caliber of the blood pipes into and out of
any part is increased when that part is active.
They decrease when the part is inactive.
These changes are normal and are taking place
constantly in different parts of the body.
It is the abnormal changes in the caliber of
arteries and veins which produce disease. But
arteries and veins are powerless in themselves
to become larger or smaller in caliber. The power
which produces these changes comes from the
brain, over soft wires, and if the brain be strong,
the trouble lies in these soft wires which run from
38
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
the brain to the vessels and not in the vessels
themselves.
If the brain be strong and the soft wires free
throughout their entire course, the circulation
cannot be wrong.
39
Chapter VIII.
The Average Length of Life is Rapidly
Increasing.
Statistics show that the average length of life
is rapidly increasing. About four years have
been added to the average life in the last quarter
of a century. The reason for this is given as
INCREASED KNOWLEDG E— increased
knowledge, not only in the art of curing, but also
in the greater art of preventing disease.
Increased knowledge has enabled public health
officials to accomplish wonderful results for the
community along the line of prevention. Small-
pox, cholera, yellow fever and other epidemic dis-
eases which used to claim their victims by mil-
lions are now prevented.
Isolating, quarantining, street sweeping, tene-
ment inspection, garbage removal, the building
of adequate sewers, and the many other measures
now in use by public health officials are making
a wonderful showing as to what can really be
done by prevention.
And yet, the real work of prevention has only
just begun.
40
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
The time is coming when every epidemic dis-
ease will be prevented.
The Japanese army physicians proved that all
that is necessary to prevent typhoid fever in an
army is a careful examination of all the water
used by the soldiers.
The time is coming when all proper drinking
water will be labeled "pure" by the government.
This will prevent the ravages of typhoid fever —
a disease which takes away thousands and thou-
sands every year.
The time is coming when all milk sold will be
labeled "pure" by the government. This will
prevent the death of thousands of children every
year.
The time is coming when every article of food
and everything that is drunk, will be "pure" and
when every city throughout its corporate limits
will be as clean as a surgical hospital built of
marble and glass.
This day is coming and why should it not come
soon?
What is more important to a community or a
nation than its health?
Millions are now being spent annually to carry
on this work of protecting the health of the
41
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
nation and no money is spent to better advan-
tage. But the appropriation for this work must
be doubled and trebled and quadrupled by all
cities, states and nations.
The Department of Health like the Depart-
ment of War must be so large and so thoroughly
organized that the nation will be absolutely pro-
tected against disease, as well as against foreign
foes.
And yet there is another phase to this subject.
Each individual has something to do himself as
well as the city, the state, and the nation.
The individual must learn how to care for him-
self and prevent those diseases which are not due
to impure food, impure water, impure air or im-
pure surroundings of any kind.
The state may, by great expense, prevent every
contagious disease, and every disease which
results from a poison or an impurity of any
description and yet it never can, by any possibil-
ity, reach the point of preventing INDIVIDUAL
DISEASES. This work each individual must
do for himself. But this work each individual
can do for himself if he will.
By INDIVIDUAL DISEASES we mean
those diseases which affect only the individual
42
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
and are not contagious. Such as nervousness,
heart disease, diseases of the stomach, the liver,
the kidneys, the pelvic organs, the eyes, the ears,
catarrh, paralysis, rheumatism, etc.
These individual diseases are all just as unnat-
ural as contagious diseases, and in the light of
the new facts which have just been brought to
light are just as easily prevented. In fact more
easily prevented because it is easier for one per-
son to care for himself than it is for the nation
to care for millions.
While the nation must learn what to do and
then do it, regardless of cost, in protecting the
community against epidemic diseases the same
thing is true of the individual in protecting him-
self against individual diseases.
The individual must look after his own body
the same as he looks after his own teeth. The
nation cannot do this for him.
Speaking of teeth it should be noted that the
profession of dentistry has changed amazingly
in the past few years. Twenty years ago the
work of the dentist was largely one of extracting
teeth — now it is a work of preserving the teeth
and preventing extraction.
Twenty-five years ago, people waited until
43
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
their teeth were decayed down to the gum and
finally when they could stand the pain of old
uclerated roots no longer, they called on the den-
tist and had them extracted. They waited too
long.
Later, people learned to go to the dentist as
soon as cavities became painful. This also was
waiting too long, as a tooth may be largely wasted
away before it becomes painful.
Now, however, people do not wait for roots,
painful cavities, nor cavities of any kind.
They call on their dentist a few times each
year. Should there be a slight formation of tar-
tar, a slight rising of the gum, or the slightest
cavity, a very little work will suffice to put the
teeth in perfect condition, and thus prevent the
formation of large cavities, extraction, plate
making, etc.
I am told by one of the foremost dentists of
New York City that his preventative work has
reached the point that whereas in former times
he had much work in the line of plate making, he
has in all his large practice found it necessary to
make but one plate in the last four years.
This is a wonderful showing. It is a demon-
44
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
stration of what can be done by prevention — by
giving the teeth proper care in time.
But what can be done with the teeth can, in
the light of new facts and new knowledge, now
be done with the body if it be given proper care
in time.
Proper care in time, for the community, does
not mean to wait until smallpox is spreading
throughout the city like a great conflagration.
For the teeth it does not mean to wait for ulcer-
ated roots, or painful cavities. And for the indi-
vidual it does not mean to wait until several of
the joints of the spine become stiff, tight and im-
perfect, pinching the nerves running from the
brain to the heart, or other organs and resulting
in a breakdown.
Proper care in time really means a number of
things. But one of its most important meanings,
for reasons already given, is the maintaining
of a perfect spine — a spine that is free, flexible
and perfect at every joint.
There are manipulative surgeons, who in the
light of the new discoveries, are now devoting
their entire time to the work of keeping the spine
as well as all the other structures of the body in
perfect condition. And while this is new work,
45
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
it is absolutely essential in order to prevent indi-
vidual diseases and keep the body in perfect con-
dition.
A manipulative surgeon can, by taking up each
joint of your spine and testing it as to its motion,
detect imperfect conditions long before you would
notice them. And in this way, he is able to pre-
vent individual diseases.
If, for instance, he tests out the twenty-four
joints of your spine and finds twenty-three of
them perfect, but one tight and imperfect, and
if the soft nerve threads from your brain to your
heart run between the bones of that tight or
turned joint, to put it right would be to prevent
heart trouble.
This illustration applies to all parts of the body,
since the spine, as we have shown, is made up
of twenty-four bony switches through which soft
wires pass on their way from the brain where
electricity is generated to all the various parts of
the body where that electricity is used.
Stiffness of the spine must be prevented be-
cause a spine cannot become stiff until some of
its joints become tight or imperfect, which means
weakness and disease.
46
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
Stiffness and other imperfections of the spine
can be prevented by occasionally having a mani-
pulative surgeon go over it and see that all the
joints are open and that the circulation at each
joint is perfect. The cost of this work like the
cost of an occasional visit to a dentist is so slight
when compared with the importance of the work
and its far-reaching results, that it is of no con-
sequence. Besides the cost of prevention is so
slight when compared with the cost of cure
as to render it unnecesary to do more than men-
tion it.
When, through delay, a disease has passed be-
yond the possibility of cure, and when the end of
life is in sight, men have offered their entire for-
tune for a cure. They offer their entire fortune for
that which a very few dollars would have se-
cured had they given themselves a little attention
IN TIME.
Preventative dentistry pays. Preventative
manipulative surgery pays. Preventative pub-
lic health measures pay.
The work of manipulative surgeons — of skilled
anatomists — is just now being introduced
throughout the country and the results are al-
47
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
ready becoming apparent. The most wonderful
results along the line of preventing individual
diseases and thereby prolonging life are bound
to follow its application when it becomes gen-
erally known.
4&
Chapter IX.
The Prevention of Tumors and Operations.
If the brain is strong and the soft wires free
throughout their course, tumors and abnormal
growths are impossible, because the power which
builds up and maintains a part comes from the
brain over nerve threads.
A tumor is an abnormal building of tissue. If
the brain is strong it means there is some pres-
sure or disturbance on the soft wires running
from the brain to the point where the tumor is
found.
If this point of pressure be found and removed,
normal impulses from the brain will cause the
tumor to be absorbed and removed.
Surgery as it is practiced to-day must be
greatly changed.
Statistics show that, on the whole, patients
who are operated upon live but a few years there-
after. The first operation being but the fore-
runner in many cases to a second or even a third
operation for the same trouble.
The reason for these terrible results is plainly
49
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
apparent when viewed in the light of the new
philosophy.
A tumor is always at the end of a nerve. It
is caused by pressure somewhere along the course
of that nerve, between the tumor and the brain —
most likely at the point where that nerve passes
through the bony switches of the spine.
To cut out the tumor is merely to cut out a part
of the effect. The real cause — the point of pres-
sure on the nerve — is not disturbed and within
a few weeks or a few months, the growth re-
appears calling for a second operation, etc.
Every part of the body has a use and every
part should be used and used naturally.
When therefore a part is cut away and re-
moved, there is an extra strain on the entire
system which soon results in death.
To cut away parts of a machine is to ruin it.
The present system of surgery must pass away.
Causes must be found and removed instead of
cutting out effects and leaving the body subject
to other operations.
So
Chapter X.
Old People.
The spine in an old person does not quickly
become one or two inches shorter than normal.
One joint tightens slightly, then another, and
another, until perhaps ten or more joints out of
the twenty-four, of which the spine is composed,
become drawn and imperfect. (See chart No. I.)
An old person in this condition wonders what
has become of his blood and why he is so weak
and incapable.
He realizes that his back is stiff, but he looks
upon this as the result of his weakness instead of
the cause of it. He does not realize that this
stiffness of the spine is what stands directly be-
tween him and vigorous health.
He does not realize that the two organs which
make his blood — his liver and his stomach — have
the electric power from the brain which runs
them partially cut off by the tightening and clos-
ing of certain spinal joints.
He does not realize that his spine is becoming
shorter in the same proportion that it is becoming
stiffen
5i
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
He does not realize that it is impossible for his
spine to become shorter without one or more of
the spinal joints becoming partially closed — the
bones drawn together more closely than normal.
He does not realize that a shortening of the
spine means the cutting off of power which is
passing from his brain to his internal organs.
Your spine cannot become stiffer than normal
until it becomes shorter than normal. This point
should be remembered.
THE SHORTENING AND TIGHTENING
OF THE SPINE IS THE CAUSE OF THE
STIFFNESS.
The spinal joints do not all become stiff and
tight at once, any more than all the teeth decay
at once. Careful attention to the teeth preserves
them in excellent condition long after they would
all have been lost without that attention.
It is so with the spine. Careful attention to
the spine now and then will maintain it in perfect
condition years after it would have become im-
perfect if left to itself and by its condition the
breaking down of some of the vital internal
organs.
There is nothing so valuable in life as a goal
and a purpose. These things are to life what
52
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as W ell
as Attention in Every Other Way.
a port is to a ship — the object — the end, etc. The
goal of life must be changed to one hundred years
instead of sixty or seventy years, as we view it
to-day.
When people say they do not wish to live one
hundred years, they mean they do not wish to
reach this age unless they can be well and strong.
This is what THE AMERICAN SOCIETY
FOR THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE
seeks to accomplish. Not to lengthen merely the
years of existence, but to lengthen the years of
strength, of usefulness, of vigor and of power.
The percentage of those who reach the age of
one hundred years is increasing each year and it
is going to become greater and greater until
healthy old age is the rule and not the exception.
Each individual, in order to bring this desired
result about, should set one hundred years as his
goal and govern himself accordingly. Even
though this is only a mental resolution, it will
have its effect. If you firmly resolve to live one
hundred years and govern yourself by that resolu-
tion, it will influence your life and your actions
in many ways.
You will not feel, when you are forty or fifty,
that you are getting old. You will not quit bus-
53
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
iness at fifty-five or sixty and then simply wait
to die. Instead of this you will be planning at
sixty and seventy and eighty the same as you
were at thirty. You will work fewer hours at
these ages, but you will continue to work some.
You will not live too fast because vou will
appreciate that a fast life cannot be a long life.
You will take the best of care of yourself in
every possible way in order that you may reach
the goal you hold in your mind.
If you started out to run an electric automobile
from New York City to San Francisco, you would
not run the machine as you would if you started
out merely for a ride without any definite end in
view.
In view of the facts which have recently come
to light, a person who is fifty or sixty is not old
and he should not so consider himself.
If you are sixty or seventy, change your ideal
and your goal. Make your goal one hundred
years. Get into some kind of work which will
require at least two or three hours of your time
each day and something in which you will really
be interested.
Consult a manipulative surgeon now and then
54
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
and try to avoid and overcome any stiffness of
the spine or other joints.
Plan for the future and for one hundred years.
Thousands of people in the United States are
reaching the age of one hundred years. Why
should not you?
You may not be very strong, but great phys-
ical strength is not at all necessary. No great
athlete ever lived to be one hundred years of
age. There are as many women as men who
reach the one hundred year mark. This shows
that great muscles are not essential.
The following: however are essential.
is
i. Conserve your vitality; i. e., Don't squander
the electricity which your brain generates by
over work, mental or physical, or in any other
way.
2. Maintain a free, flexible and perfect spine.
3. Cultivate the habit of slow breathing.
Breathe ten times per minute. People who
breathe thirty times per minute do not reach real
old age.
The fact that thousands of people in the
United States are now living who are one hun-
55
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
dred years of age, shows that talk of reaching
this age is not fanciful nor a mere dream.
Whatever has been done once can usually be
done again. And also whatever can be done by
accident and chance can be more successfully
done by thought, science and study.
Those who have reached this age have done
so more as the result of accident than as the
result of planning on their part. If thousands
can do this by accident, when public and indi-
vidual preventative measures are in their infancy,
what may not be expected when this question is
made a careful study by every one and when
scientific preventative measures are fully in use
by the nation and by each individual?
It is often said that people in olden times lived
longer than they do now. This statement is
untrue As we have mentioned elsewhere, the
average length of life is steadily increasing. Peo-
ple are living longer now than they ever lived
at any previous time of the world's history.
Disease is growing less each year and it will
continue to grow less and less the more each indi-
vidual learns about the body for himself and the
more he applies that knowledge.
Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean.
56
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
Other mariners attempted to follow his example.
Some were successful; many failed. But Col-
umbus and those who crossed the ocean success-
fully demonstrated that it could be done. Men
determined that what could be done by a few,
could be done by many, and by turning their at-
tention to that problem they solved it so care-
fully that a lost ship is now of rare occurrence.
It is going to be so with this ocean of life. If
we say one hundred years is the farther shore,
enough have crossed already to show that it can
be reached and each one of us must set himself
the task of reaching it.
Resolve to-day that you will reach the goal —
the farther shore — the port of one hundred years,
and commence to-day to act and to work accord-
ingly.
There is nothing more sad than an old person
whose work is finished and who is merely waiting
for the end to come.
This condition should not occur. Plan work
for yourself and feel each day that you have some-
thing to do which you must do.
Of all sad conditions in this life it is the con-
dition of living without a purpose.
No matter what your age, no matter what your
57
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
physical condition, keep a purpose ahead of you.
Do not give up business as long as you can pos-
sibly attend to it. When you do give up regular
business, lay out for yourself some task and then
start in and accomplish it. Take up some study,
write an article on some subject, devise some plan
of helping others. If your mind is clear you can
think. And if you can think, you can plan and
you can work to carry out your plan.
Above all things, while you do live, have a
plan and a purpose and strive always to carry
them out.
58
Chapter XL
Fat People and Lean People.
We give on the opposite page a table of what
one should weigh normally. This table is in use
by insurance companies and they have learned
that those who deviate too far from these figures
are dangerous risks and they therefore refuse
them.
If your weight deviates more than twenty-five
pounds either way from the figures given, you
should make an effort to increase or decrease it
at once. This can be done by natural methods
providing one has sufficient will power to pay
attention to facts which are now known with
reference to these matters.
It should be said also that all drugs which are
advertised to reduce weight, should be avoided
as injurious to health and dangerous to life.
Owing to the great burdens which excessive
fat adds to the system, this condition is far more
dangerous to life than leanness.
The one essential, to change both of these con-
ditions, is Will Power. To be sure there is a
limit to either increasing or decreasing the
59
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
weight. But we believe there is no one who can
not, in the light of the new facts, bring his con-
dition within the twenty-five pound limit of the
figures given if he has sufficient Will Potver to
do it.
60
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
TABLE OF HEIGHTS AND WEIGHTS
AGES
15-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
45-49
50-54
55-60
Ft,
5
6
In.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
0
1
2
5
120
125
128
131
133
134
134
134
122
126
129
131
134
136
136
136
124
128
131
133
136
138
138
138
127
131
134
136
139
141
141
141
131
135
138
140
143
144
145
145
134
138
141
143
146
147
149
149
138
142
145
147
150
151
153
153
142
147
150
152
155
156
158
158
146
151
154
157
160
161
163
163
150
155
159
162
165
166
167
168
154
159
164
167
170
171
172
173
159
164
169
173
175
177
177
178
165
170
175
179
180
183
182
183
170
177
181
185
186
189
188
189
176
184
188
192
194
196
194
194
181
190
195
200
203
204
201
198
6i
Chapter XII.
Structural Defects as Causes.
Strange as it may seem, the one subject of
greatest importance to mankind — health — -has
received the least consideration of real Reason.
We ask Why, and How, and What about every-
thing else except sickness.
About everything else we demand a reason,
but with sickness and distress we seek only relief.
Relief, of course, is sufficient, and if mere desire
for a thing were all that was required to secure
it, all our hopes would be realized.
But Desired Results follow only when the
Right Means are employed.
Sickness comes upon us, but there is always a
cause for it. Recovery follows not from our
desire to be well, but from the employment of
those means which lead to a removal of that
cause.
Manipulative Surgery is attracting attention
throughout the land, because in that treatment of
the sick superstition has been left entirely out
of the account.
Manipulative Surgery knows that the body is
62
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
an Electrical Machine; that every part has a pure
blood pipe running into it, and an impure blood
pipe running out of it; that messages are flashing
out from the brain over nerve threads which con-
trol completely the caliber of these blood pipes,
as well as all other processes and parts of the
body.
Manipulative Surgery knows that those same
changes in the atmosphere which cause the mer-
cury in the thermometer to contract and expand
— climb up and down the glass tube — are also
working on the muscles and ligaments of the
body. And from these, and also from slips, falls,
strains, lifts, jerks, jars, awkward positions, and
a thousand other causes, the parts of this human
Electrical Machine get out of their perfect rela-
tion, one to the other, and then the machine does
not run right.
We say it is sick. It is, in fact, simply out of
order.
Therefore, if you are sick, use your reason.
Do not put something into your stomach for
a pain which is caused by a twisted ligament.
Do not apply a linament or plaster to your back
for a vertebra which has been drawn out of
alignment.
63
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
Do not imagine that there is any subtle power
in artificial electricity which is able to adjust a
defective joint or muscle.
And again, do not imagine that your rheu-
matism, your constipation, your dyspepsia, your
weakened lungs, your irregular heart, or your
defective sight, or any other so-called disease or
defect that you may have, is the result of some
mystery. These all mean imperfect circulation
of blood, brought about by a disturbed relation
of certain parts, one to the other.
Congestion means an excess of blood in a part,
and this can only follow the dilatation of the
artery which takes the pure blood into that part
or the constriction of the vein which takes the
impure blood out of it.
All congested conditions are cured, not by
drugs, but by removing the pressure from the
vasomotor nerves which control the calibre of
the blood pipes running into and out of the parts.
Remember that germs can find a lodgment
only in tissue which is weakened by excess or
deficiency of blood.
If germs caused disease, every child exposed
would take diphtheria, and every person who
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
drinks water containing typhoid germs would
contract typhoid fever.
But this is not the case. Only a small percen-
tage of those exposed contract a disease, and these
are always those whose physical condition is
imperfect.
Appearance is often deceptive. A man who is
seemingly in perfect health, drops dead in the
street.
It is a mistake to say that "Mrs. A. is complain-
ing all the time, but there is nothing really the
matter with her. It is in her mind. She only
thinks she is sick. It is imagination, etc."
We hear these expressions every day, but they
are. not true.
If Mrs. A. complains, there is something wrong
with her.
Some part in her complicated electrical mechan-
ism is out of adjustment.
Some rib, vertebra, muscle, ligament, or other
part, has had its relation to its neighbor disturbed.
The stomach or liver has fallen from its true
position. The bowels have fallen perhaps two
inches — have crowded themselves to one side or
down into the pelvis. The womb is an inch lower
65
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
than it should be, pressing on the rectum or the
bladder, or both.
And now, in some one, or perhaps all, of these
conditions, a "strain/' or a "pressure," or a
"pinch", is brought to bear on one or more nerve
threads, and they try to give the alarm — they call
for help.
Mrs. A. complains, but because she looks well
receives no sympathy. Even those nearest to
her tell her to "forget it." "It's in your mind,"
etc.
Finally, she goes to the doctor. He looks at
her tongue, prescribes some drug, and tells her
to "sing and be cheerful."
She takes the drug. She smothers her feel-
ings and tries to be cheerful — even tries to sing —
but, alas! the nervous, heavy, unnatural feeling
still clings to her ; and so, through months and
even years, she suffers and endures, without help
and without sympathy. Finally, a day of extra
exertion, a night of agony — the weakened link
snaps, and at last she is free from pain.
Some deranged structure or organ made her
life miserable, and finally caused her death. But
because her friends could not see this internal
defect, they said, "Her trouble is all imaginary."
66
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
Your nervous system was made by God, and
made for a purpose. It is involuntary in its
action. It is not under the control of the will.
It never lies, and it is never mistaken.
A part slips or is drawn a hundredth part of
an inch from its true position, and from the nerves
which control that part, messages are at once
sent to the brain, notifying the mind that "some-
thing is wrong."
That part remains out of place and the nerves
continue to send the same message. "Some-
thing is Wrong!" "Something is wrong," is
cried into the mind continually for months and
years, and yet if one dares to speak of it while
he is able to sit up he is told that his trouble "is
in his mind."
The womb may, and often does, fall four
inches. With all the ligaments and nerves and
blood-vessels attached to it and surrounding it,
stretched and twisted, would not the nerves which
run into the brain from that organ carry the
message,
"Something is Wrong!"
The intestines may, and often do, as a whole,
fall six inches and crowd down into the pelvis.
67
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
Would not "Something is wrong" be the mes-
sage sent to the brain from them in that condi-
tion ?
The kidney may, and often does, get four
inches from its true position, when it is called a
"floating kidney."
The stomach may turn on itself and fall sev-
eral inches. The liver may fall an inch or more.
Ribs may be drawn up or down a full half inch,
and often are, from where thev should be.
A single vertebra may be a full fourth of an
inch from its perfect position.
Dislocated hip and shoulder bones may be two
inches or more from their true position.
The heart, liver, kidneys, spleen and certain
glands may be greatly enlarged, disturbing sur-
rounding nerves and blood pipes.
So it goes throughout the body. The parts
and organs which enter into its composition may
be drawn or thrown out of their true position
from the slightest fraction of an inch in the spine
to six inches or more in the intestines.
These statements can all be proved and demon-
strated any day in the week in the office of any
first class Manipulative Surgeon.
And yet it is hard for people to realize that
68
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
their bodies can be in the condition we here
describe unless they have been in a runaway, a
street car collision, a railroad wreck, or sustained
in some way a violent injury.
Runaways, wrecks and collisions do often dis-
turb the order of the body, but the percentage
of those whose structures and organs become
deranged from such violent accidents as these
is indeed small when compared with those whose
derangements are due to other causes.
Perhaps not one in ten thousand who are to-
day suffering as the result of some structural
defect, has ever been in a wreck or collision, or
sustained in any way a violent injury.
The business man says : "My work is all men-
tal. I have never been injured. I have no bones
out of place."
The business woman says : "I have never been
in a wreck of any kind. There is nothing struc-
turally wrong with me."
The neurasthenic says: "I am sure there is
nothing of that kind the matter with me ; because
I have never strained either mind or body."
These people think that the body must always
be perfect structurally unless it has had some
violent injury, accident or strain.
69
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
They forget those silent forces which are cease-
lessly at work on the body. They forget the con-
stant changes in the atmosphere and the effect
of these upon the tissues of the body.
They forget the terrible effects of constant
positions, either sitting or standing.
A person sits at a desk, his head forward, his
arms forward, the chest cramped, the abdomen
compressed. The entire spine is in a strained
position.
The deep structures of the neck become tense
and hard in their effort to hold the head forward.
The deep structures all along the spine share in
the tension.
These positions are assumed day after day,
for weeks and months and years. Certain mus-
cles and ligaments become drawn, hard and tense
from use. Others are scarcely used at all, and
are soft and weak. The result is, certain spinal
joints become cramped and tight, and certain
vertebrae are drawn out of their true position —
sometimes an eighth of an inch, sometimes an
inch, or in humps and curves as much as two
inches or more.
Yet this process comes about so gradually that
it is not realized at all.
70
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
A man at forty may be so round-shouldered
and humped over that his friends all speak to him
of it. A dozen vertebrae may be pulled out of
their true alignment, but he cannot believe his
spine or neck is wrong because he has never been
injured.
A cramped or irregular spinal joint means a
"pinched nerve," and this means a disturbance of
the caliber of tliose internal blood-vessels which
that nerve controls.
The membranes which hold in place the intes-
tines, liver, stomach, ivomb, etc., become weak as
soon as the blood supply to them becomes dis-
turbed. By their oivn weight these organs fall
downzvard and become displaced in various ways.
Injuries play a very small part in deranging
the structures of the body when compared with
these forces which we have mentioned — forces
which work slowly, silently, but constantly.
These forces in this silent way draw muscles,
and bones, and ligaments, out of their true posi-
tion. The stomach, liver, kidneys, intestines
droop because of the weakness of the membrane
which holds them in position.
Therefore, when you are sick, use your reason.
7i
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
Whatever is wrong, there is a cause for it.
Seek to have that cause found and removed.
Do not put drugs and poisons into your sys-
tem. The human Electrical Machine simply
needs going over and having its parts put in
order. When perfect order is re-established,
perfect health will follow. No truth is more
firmly established than this.
Use your reason about regaining your health
the same as you do about other things, and you
will be successful.
To cure means to REMOVE THE CAUSE.
To prevent means to AVOID THE CAUSE.
72
Chapter XIII.
To Correct Structural Defects is to Pre=
vent Individual Diseases.
Many INDIVIDUAL DISEASES can now be
foretold from certain conditions of the body,
which are revealed by a close physical examina-
tion. To remove or change these physical con-
ditions is to remove the cause and thereby
prevent the effect. These facts are being demon-
strated each day. Engineers prevent accidents,
breakdowns, explosions, etc., by a regular exam-
ination of their engine. Dentists prevent large
cavities by a regular examination of the teeth.
It has now been found that the body is equally
susceptible to beneficial results from regular,
minute examinations.
Consumption in its last stages will never be a
curable disease, because the lungs have been
eaten away — they have been consumed. It is,
however, already a preventable disease. And
prevention will wipe it out within the next fifty
years, the same as it has wiped out cholera in
the past.
73
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
Pneumonia in its last stages will never be a
curable disease, but it is already preventable.
Children's diseases, diseases of the kidney,
liver and heart, and many other diseases in their
last stages are now, and will always remain, in-
curable but they are already in a large measure
preventable.
Prevention is going to do for the individual
what it has done for the community. But the
individual must do for himself what the com-
munity has done for itself, that is learn what to
do, and then do it. There will be little delay
on the part of the individual, both to learn
and to do when all the possibilities of health and
long life stand out as sure rewards for learning
and doing.
It is naturally the work of physicians and
scientists who make these matters their special
study, to instruct the people what to do, in
order to prevent individual, as well as epidemic
diseases and it is then the duty of the people to
carry out these instructions.
Leaving the question of public measures out
of consideration, the following general rules may
be given to the individual for the prevention of
individual diseases.
74
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
I. Maintain a Perfect Spine. There is a cer-
tain amount of normal motion at each one of
the spinal joints and this normal motion must
always be maintained. The brain generates and
stores the electricity which runs the body. The
spinal joints, however, are the switches through
which the soft wires pass on their way from the
brain where electricity is generated to the various
parts of the body where that electricity is used.
The tightening or turning of any of these spinal
joints means the closing of a switch — which
means a pinching of the soft wires passing
between those bones a blocking of the electric
current from the brain and a consequent weak-
ening of the parts to which those nerves go.
There are those who make the examination
and treatment of the spine a special and constant
study, and these spine specialists must be con-
sulted occasionally by those who would keep well.
This is one of the greatest secrets in disease pre-
vention, because disease can be read in the spine
months or even years in advance of its appear-
ance. If the specialist finds a tightened or im-
perfect joint he knows that the organ or part
controlled from that joint is weak, and therefore
disease is only a question of time. His statement
75
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
that a disease is going- to attack this or that organ
is not a guess, nor a mere prediction, but the read-
ing of a fact from a condition which exists.
The spinal joints must not only be kept open
and free, but the vertebrae must be true to each
other laterally, anteriorly and posteriorly as well,
and all attachments in perfect position.
You ask what it is that disturbs the condition
of the spinal joints. Every step you take, every
time you stoop or bend or turn, the spine has a
part to perform. Sitting, standing or even lying
in bed strains certain spinal joints more than
others. Strains, lifts, jars, colds and many other
causes are all constantly acting on the spine, dis-
turbing its perfection at certain joints more than
at others.
II. Eat Slowly. The first and most important
hygienic measure which the individual can apply
to himself is to "eat slowly."
The greatest offence against health to-day is
the almost universal practice of over-eating, and
taking into the body that which it cannot use.
The real object of eating is to supply the body
76
LUNGS IN HEALTH— LONG LIFE INDICATED
(Slow, full breathing; every cell in use.)
//nbure 6/ood on
ill evay 6occ/f to Me
L ungs for ftur/ =
f /cat/on,
B/ooc/ a/fe/- le/ny
fte/fec?/? fiur/f/ec/
tn /n<? lanys, on
its to<zy /b Mefows
of M e 6 o c/y.
God created the lungs and placed them in the human body for the
purpose of purifying the blood. They are composed of about seven
hundred millions of air cells, and it requires the combined action of all
of these to purify the blood perfectly. The blood, laden with impurities,
pours into these purifying reservoirs, a dark, muddy blue in color, but
it leaves them, in health, a bright red. If only a part of the lung cells
is used the blood will be imperfectly purified, and the unused cells will
LUNGS IN DISEASE— SHORT LIFE INDICATED
(Rapid, shallow breathing; only a part of the cells in use.")
/to/) a re 6/eoct o/?
its way 6ac/( fo typ
lit ftps /Of />U ft/t-
CH t/ b/7.
t \
B/ooc/ //??/> erf ecf/y
bur/f/ect/r? //?e
/ it ftps or? /ts cuay
h/fofoms of Me
jbocfy,
(TKvs Stream sliouliU
become weak, falling an easy prey to the manv diseases which attack
the lungs, and which, in the average, carries off one out of every four
human beings. The spine being free, our lung cells will be exactly
what we make them. Practice deep, full breathing. It becomes a habit
in a short time.
Drug blood-purifiers are wholly erroneous.
Pure blood requires a free spine, the use of all lung cells, and
pure air.
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
with tissue-building material, and in amount only
sufficient for renewal, or to build up what has
been torn down.
Viewed from this standpoint we all eat far too
much. The real waste in the tissues is not great
even in the hardest kind of labor, and when a
mass of food is taken into the body only a small
part of it is really used. The remainder is excess
and must be thrown out by overworking the kid-
neys, the bowels and other excretory organs.
Besides, the excess rapidly decomposes and
becomes poisonous to the system.
Another common and disastrous practice, and
one which annually sends thousands to premature
graves, is that of taking into the body that which
the body cannot use. Under this head come all
drugs, alcoholic liquors, and everything which
cannot be converted into tissue.
Everyone can understand why an engine will
not work with too much coal, and also why stones
should not be shoveled into the fire-box.
They must also understand that the body can-
not work with too much food, and that whatever
cannot be used by it must not be taken into it.
There is not an atom of tissue building mate-
rial in drugs, whiskey, nor alcoholic liquors, and
77
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
when these things are taken into the body it is
exactly like shoveling stones into the fire-box
of an engine — they cannot be used and must be
thrown out. But unlike stones in a fire-box, when
applied to living tissue, drugs, whisky and alco-
holic liquors are active for harm. They inflame.
They make the inside of the kidneys, the liver, the
lungs and the heart look like a "bloodshot" eye.
They seriously and injuriously affect the delicate
membranes which line the inside of all four of
these important organs. As a result these organs
become first weak and then diseased. A man who
drinks, in time finds his kidneys out of order, his
liver inactive, his heart weak. He indulges his
appetite, but finally pays for it with his life.
With reference to eating, therefore, let noth-
ing pass your lips which cannot be converted into
tissue — nothing that is not in every way a pure
food.
Again take only enough to supply waste tissue.
Avoid having a great excess to be thrown off.
Reduce the amount of food you have been taking
by one-half, for one day, and observe how light
and well you will feel.
Eat slowly. When you eat slowly and masti-
cate thoroughly the absorbents take up the food
78
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
particles as they enter the body, and the work of
supplying the tissues begins at once. When the
tissues have been supplied you will not care to
eat any more. There will be no excess to be
thrown off at the expense of vitality.
If one eats hurriedly he stops only when the
stomach is so distended that it will hold no more.
He eats to fill the stomach, instead of eating to
supply the body with material to rebuild those
tissues which have been torn down by exertion.
Eat Slozvly. Diminish your food by one-half.
Take nothing into your body which cannot be
converted into tissue.
Avoid sitting at the table and prolonging your
meals. Never prolong the process of eating
beyond forty-five minutes. Thirty minutes is
still better. Eat slowly, but steadily.
The fewer number of articles at a meal the
better. It is recorded that a lady who died not
long since at the age of one hundred and seven
years, lived the last forty years of her life almost
exclusively on potatoes.
III. Breathe Ten Times per Minute. That
improper breathing is the direct cause if impure
79
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
blood, general weakness and consequent disease,
is a well-known fact.
The lungs have but one purpose, and that is
to purify the blood. For this work they are com-
posed of about 700,000,000 air cells. It requires
the combined action of all these cells to purify
the blood perfectly. Therefore when only a part
of the lung cells are used the work of purifying
the blood is imperfectly accomplished. Healthy
tissue cannot be built up out of impure blood, and
as a result general weakness follows.
There are some who breathe thirty times per
minute. They do not use half of their lung cells
and are thin, weak, pale and anemic. Others
breathe from fifteen to twenty times per minute,
using most of their lung cells, and they enjoy a
fair degree of strength. Still others breathe from
ten to fifteen times per minute. These are the
people who use every lung cell at every breath.
Their blood is perfectly purified, and they have
extra power of endurance.
Breathing can be wonderfully changed and
improved by practice. One who breathes thirty
times a minute can reduce this number to ten
by careful practice.
Practice slow breathing. Sleep with your
80
You Arc as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
windows open. Get out in the air and the sun-
shine. Don't be afraid of the cold in winter nor
the sun in summer. It is the people who remain
continually shut up in tight rooms, who breathe
thirty times a minute. These people are always
cold and they die of consumption by thousands
every year.
Correct breathing in its last analysis resolves
itself into the question of getting air into the
lungs. There is no difficulty in getting it out.
As you sit, as you stand, as you walk, all the
time, pull air into your lungs until they are com-
pletely filled.
Pull in the air. Take your watch and practice
breathing ten times per minute. You will soon
form a habit of filling the lungs at every breath —
the greatest health habit you can form.
Always breathe through your nostrils.
Pull in the air! Pull it in! Form the habit
of full breathing.
IV. Drink Six Glasses of Water Each Day.
The intestines, as well as the entire system, de-
mand a constant supply of pure water. As a
people we eat too much and drink too little. Re-
81
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
duce the amount of food and increase the amount
of water.
Taking a cup of hot water the first thing in
the morning is an excellent habit to form.
Drink at least six glasses of water each day.
V. Sleep at Least Nine Hours Out of the
Twenty=four. It is remarkable how closely health
and long life are linked with nine hours of sound
sleep. It is now known that sleep lost is not
as readily made up as is commonly supposed. It
takes the system weeks to fully recover from a
few nights of lost or broken sleep.
Regularity of habits and nine hours' sleep out
of the twenty-four are of the utmost importance
in keeping well.
VI. Exercise by Walking. The question of
exercise is constantly receiving more and more
attention.
It is not necessary to have great muscles in
order to keep well and live long, but a certain
amount of physical exercise is necessary for
every one. Great athletes never reach real old
82
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin tn
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
age. The same is true of brain workers who
neglect entirely the physical being. Between
these two extremes, however, there is a golden
mean which should be sought and practiced by
both men and women — by the old as well as the
young.
Walking in the open air and sunshine over an
uneven surface is the best exercise that can be
taken, as it brings into action every muscle and
ligament of the body.
VII. Laugh. Laughter is not a whim. It has
a physiological effect on the body for good and
does much to keep us well. Worry, fear, anxiety,
pessimism, moroseness, all lower vitality.
Laughter, optimism, cheerfulness, build up vital-
ity. Laugh and be cheerful. Both of these con-
tribute to health and long life.
VIII. Think Health, Success and Long Life.
"As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." Our
thoughts affect our happiness, our health, our
success, our life. In general terms we get what
we think. Like produces like. Every one is
seeking the same object, and that is the attain-
83
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
ment of happiness. In order to obtain happiness
we must give happiness. To be happy ourselves
we must make others happy because WE REAP
WHAT WE SOW.
IX. Take no Drugs into Your Body. There is
not a particle of tissue-building material in any
drug. The system cannot use drugs to build
nerves, muscles, bones, teeth, eye-balls, hair, nor
any other of its parts. It cannot make blood nor
any of the fluids of the body out of them. Taken
into the system they are waste material and must
be thrown out again. Not only are they waste
but they corrode, inflame and injure the delicate
linings of the kidneys and other internal organs.
The tissues of the body are all made from the
fluids of the body, and these fluids are all made
within the body from food.
Remember that the machinery of the human
body was designed and made by the Infinite, and
that nothing was forgotten, overlooked or left
out in the making. When the inside of the body
is examined it is found to contain a number of
glands, each of which is a manufacturing estab-
84
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
lishment which makes and turns out a fluid essen-
tial to certain other tissues.
The thyroid gland in the neck, for instance,
manufactures a fluid which is used to build up
the bones. The spleen manufactures blood cor-
puscles. The liver manufactures gall. So it is
with all the other glands. They all manufacture
their own fluid out of simple food.
You trust your body to manufacture its own
skin, its own nerves, its own bones. Can you not
trust it to make its own drugs? It has the
machinery on board to manufacture everything
it requires out of the simplest articles of food.
Have faith in your own body.
X. Conserve Your Vitality. Vitality is a bank
account which is bequeathed to us by our parents.
We add something to it and subtract something
from it each day. How long it shall last depends
not upon its size, but upon how it is conserved.
Excessive labor, overeating, loss of sleep, tak-
ing liquors, drugs and other foreign substances
into the body, which the body cannot use,
every form of dissipation, all draw on and lower
85
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
the vitality. They weaken the body and make
it an easy prey for pneumonia and every passing
disease.
XI. Develop Your Will Power. To those who
would keep well and live long, there is much
which could be said, but perhaps there is no one
thing of such great importance as the statement
Develop Your Will Power. We do not do as well
as we know. Our will power is very strong in
one direction, but very weak in another. We are
strong in all matters of labor. We can hold our-
selves resolutely to our task, but we are weak
when it comes to appetite, passion and desire.
The great difference in men is not nearly so
much a difference in ability, as it is a difference
in will power. A man who controls himself at
all times is the exception. Develop your will
pozver. Try to be strong enough mentally to
do what you know you ought to do.
XII. Study the Human Body. In matters of
health, as in everything else, "Knowledge is
riches." Increased knowledge has already added
86
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
four years to the average life in the past few
years, and it is going- to solve still further the
great questions of health until long life is the
rule and not the exception. We are all in the
business of living, and we must study that busi-
ness. It is too important a matter to trust wholly
to some one else.
We, ourselves, must know something about the
body. We must study our body at least as closely
as we study our automobile. We must know
something about how to run the human machine :
what to put into it and what not to put into it.
We must take up the question of "How to keep
well" and study it. We cannot afford to follow
the old method of stumbling along in the dark
with weakened or diseased organs or parts until
we are down and helpless, and then try to find
a cure. Where one reached old age in the past
by mere accident, one thousand will reach it in
the future by learning hozv to live, and by study-
ing the great question of prevention.
Read all you can about the body. You cannot
know too much about the subject of living and
keeping well. "Knowledge of the body is riches
in health."
87
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
XIII. Never Give Up Business. Always have
some business to attend to and something of im-
portance to accomplish. Idleness invites weak-
ness and weakness always invites disease.
When the age of fifty is reached take up the
important question of moderation, if you have not
taken it up before. At fifty the fires of life begin
burning a little more slowly. As to how much
longer they will burn after you have reached that
age depends in a large measure on how you handle
the fire. If you husband your vitality — your fuel
— it may burn for fifty years more or even longer.
But the more you crowd the fire the sooner your
fuel will be exhausted.
There will be business after you have passed
on. When you reach fifty take a little more time
with your friends and a little less time with your
business. Have your spine, as well as your teeth,
looked after a little more often. Try to prevent
your spine from becoming stifT. See to it that
there are no tight spinal joints to undermine the
strength of the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys or
other vital organs.
Statistics show that there are eight widows
to every two widowers. Business men wrong
their families and the nation, as well as them-
88
You Arc as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
selves, by overwork. They die by thousands an-
nually, twenty or even thirty years before their
time.
After a man reaches fifty he must run moder-
ately or run briefly, and he must choose which
of these two he prefers.
Always remain in business. This is important.
But after you reach fifty, if not before, begin the
practice of moderation. Don't wait for the break-
down. Begin in time. Be moderate. Be moder-
ate.
XIV. Be Examined Physically by a Skilled
Anatomist. While the body is perfect, like an
automobile it requires not only care in running,
but mechanical care as well.
From time to time the body should be thor-
oughly and carefully examined from the mechan-
ical standpoint. Each of the twenty-four spinal
joints should be examined. If one or more of
them be found tight or imperfect it should be
spread apart or corrected at once. Should such
a condition occur at the lung center, to correct
it would mean, perhaps, to prevent pneumonia.
Should such a condition occur elsewhere, to cor-
89
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
rect it would mean to prevent some disease of the
bowels, the liver, the kidneys or other internal
organs.
It often happens that the ribs become turned,
slipped or drawn too close together. The tissues
about the spine and chest may become hard and
unyielding. The structures of the body become
wrong in many ways, and hence a minute physi-
cal examination from time to time is absolutely
essential, in order to prevent disease, because the
body must be STRUCTURALLY PERFECT or
it cannot continue to be well. They are the little
wrongs in a timepiece which prevent it from keep-
ing perfect time. They are the little wrongs in
the body which prevent it from keeping well and
strong. The tightening of one spinal joint is
sufficient to invite disease and a breakdown.
XV. Be a Follower of Christ. From the stand-
point of preventing disease there is no single
measure which compares with Christianity.
Christianity pays right here in this world in
everyday life, regardless of the life to come. Pure
thoughts, pure motives, pure actions, hoping
always for the best and doing what you can for
90
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
others, give strength of mind and strength of
body and the power to resist disease. Dissipation
invites disease. Christianity prevents it. Be
a Christian if only for the preservation of your
health.
XVI. Begin in Time. This last state-
ment is by no means the least. In fact in the order
of importance it stands first. Begin in time to
care for your health if you would continue well.
Your most important work, whatever it is, is
not as important as your health. The time to
give yourself attention is when you are well —
while you are able to be up and around — while
you have strength and vitality — while you have
power to resist and to overcome. The old custom
of waiting for a breakdown, of waiting for a
wreck is beginning now to pass away and the
new custom of giving the body attention in time
is taking its place. Begin in time and you
can prevent a stroke of apoplexy. Begin in
time and you can prevent heart disease. Begin
in time and you can prevent diseases of the
lungs, the liver, the kidneys — in fact practi-
cally all diseases. The whole secret is contained
9i
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
in the expression "BEGIN IN TIME." Learn
the cause of disease and avoid them in time.
Keep your vitality up to one hundred per cent,
of what it ought to be. Isn't your body worth
several times as much as your automobile?
You employ a man constantly to look after your
motor car and keep it in perfect condition. Do
the same with your body. Don't wait until you
are sick. Do not be content if you are about well,
or almost well, or have only a slight affection of
some kind. Prepare for the future now. Take
yourself in hand to-day and bring your health up
to one hundred per cent, of what it ought to be
and then keep it there. YOU CAN DO IT IF
YOU BEGIN IN TIME.
92
Chapter XIV.
A New Custom Just Beginning.
The custom of preventing rheumatism, catarrh,
diseases of the kidneys, the liver, the heart, the
lungs and all the long list of individual diseases,
is just beginning. The conquest is going to be
the most glorious, as well as the most valuable
ever achieved by man.
One hundred years from now posterity will
read the records of our lives with amazement.
They will read of thousands of deaths occurring
among us from individual diseases. Similar dis-
eases they will prevent and they will really know
them only from history.
"Prevention" is the greatest word in the med-
ical world to-day. To cure disease is a great
work, but to prevent it is a work infinitely greater.
The body in perfect condition is germ proof.
Germs attack only weakened tissue. One thou-
sand soldiers drink water containing typhoid
germs, and twenty-five take the disease. The
germs are the exciting cause, but a weakened con-
dition of the intestines is necessary for them to
find a lodgment and set up the disease. The
93
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
same thing is true of pneumonia and other so-
called germ diseases.
Hence the great necessity of keeping the body
at all times in prime condition. Such a condi-
tion means that it will be both germ proof and
disease proof. A brief summary is:
i. Conserve the electric power which your
brain generates. Do not overwork or overtax
yourself in any way.
2. See that your nerves are free from their
origin in your brain, zuhere electricity is gen-
erated, to their ending in the various organs and
parts of your body where that electricity is used.
3. See that your spine has perfect motion at
every joint and that you are structurally perfect
in every other way.
4. Breathe slowly and fully. Breathe through
your nostrils always, and see how much air you
can pull into your lungs. Use every lung cell at
every breath.
If these simple rules, as well as all others here-
with given, are followed, individual diseases will
94
The Prevention of Disease is Nozv a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
become less and less numerous each year and
prevention more and more of a reality.
It is admitted by investigators generally that
the body should run, be well, be healthy, and be
useful for one hundred years.
This seems a dream, but the percentage of
those who reach the hundred-year mark is becom-
ing greater and greater each year. And the
more each individual studies the question of
Keeping Well for himself, and puts into practice
zvhat he learns, the greater will be the percentage
of centenarians.
95
Chapter XV.
Mental Causes.
While the preceding pages have been taken
up with physical causes it must be remembered
that there are also mental causes of disease which
must be considered.
Your thoughts are of vast importance. A
large percentage of all diseases are due directly
or indirectly to thoughts.
You think. Then you act. An effect then
follows your act and this effect is good or bad.
Thoughts are always first.
Acts are always second.
Effects are always third.
Thoughts can produce disease just as readily
as germs, or pinched nerves.
To illustrate : A man thinks he must have cer-
tain articles to drink. He acts by taking them.
He gets congestion of the membrane which lines
the kidneys as an effect.
In time the congestion reaches a state of inflam-
mation, and then the kidney tissue begins to break
down and waste away.
This is kidney disease produced from thoughts.
96
Yo-ur NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
If this man be fully convinced that he does not
need these articles he flunks differently. He
then acts differently by not taking them and, if
the case has not progressed to far, nature repairs
the kidneys and restores them to perfect health
again.
This illustration applies not to one or two but
to a long list of diseases — diseases which are
just as real and just as fatal to life as those pro-
duced by physical causes.
Wrong thinking produces wrong acting and
wrong acting, produces disease in a multitude of
ways.
In order therefore to understand what right
thinking is we must turn to Christianity — that
high source from which all the truly civilized
nations of the earth draw their inspiration.
While Christianity has civilized, enlightened
and lifted up this world by teaching right think-
ing, its wonderful power to prevent disease is
just beginning to be realized.
That it is the greatest power in the world for
the prevention of disease, no doctor, who has had
practice and experience enough to know, doubts.
No one but a doctor can realize what an amaz-
ingly large percentage of diseases results from
97
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other Way.
immorality, dissipation and weak will power,
from ignorance, from unclean thinking and un-
clean living — in a word from living lives which
the Bible condemns on every page.
Perhaps fifty per cent, of all diseases is due
directly or indirectly to these causes.
This is an appallingly large percentage to
attribute to unchristian living, yet I believe this
to be underestimated rather than overstated.
Can Christianity prevent fifty per cent, of the
sickness and disease which now prevails?
I believe it can.
But Christianity, like any other power, in order
to accomplish any given result must be directed
to that end.
Electricity is a great power. Applied in one
way it produces heat, applied in another way it
produces light, in another way it moves machin-
ery, in another way it transmits messages, etc.
It is so with Christianity.
Christianity is a great power. Applied in one
way it is a power to civilize, enlighten and lift
up. Applied in another way it purifies the heart.
Applied in another way it prevents disease.
Preventing disease, therefore, is only one of
many things which Christianity has the power
98
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spina! Joints Must Hair its Normal Amount of Motion.
of accomplishing. The only thing essential to
this work is that it shall be applied in the right
way, and understood by people in general.
There will be a great awakening throughout
the world when people come to realize fully that
Christianity prevents disease and adds years to
human life.
It pays to become a Christian right here in
this world without any reference to a future life.
Does it pay to be well ? Does it pay to have a
strong body and a clear mind? Does it pay to
live out your days?
If all of these things pay, then it pays to
become a Christian — not a Christian in name or
pretension, but a Christian in fact.
Christians are far more healthy and live far
longer than non-Christians.
One thousand children born and reared in
the slums amidst vice and sin are not nearly as
healthy and do not live anything like so long on
an average, as one thousand children born and
reared in Christian homes.
This is a real test of the power of Christianity
to prevent disease and prolong life and its truth
is beyond question.
The Church seeks to teach man right thinking,
99
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
and strengthen his will pozver. It seeks to let him
know what is right and then give him power to
do, and when these are applied directly to the
question of health, as they can be, the most mag-
nificent results are bound to follow.
"LET ME BE WELL WHILE I LIVE."
This is the wish of every one who breathes and
of all the aids in the accomplishment of this
desire there is nothing which can be compared
with Christianity — with a clean life, free from
every form of dissipation.
When we speak of Christianity we speak not
of creeds, nor of those churches which claim
special power in healing the sick, we speak of
those great truths concerning right thinking
which are advocated by your pastor and mine,
which are taught in every Christian church
throughout the world.
One church has just as much power to heal the
sick and prevent disease as another. Results
along these lines in any church depend upon
the stress which that church lays upon this phase
of Christian work. The vast importance of
health, however, and the great power there is
in Christianity to give and maintain it, is caus-
ioo
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
ing a general awakening to these wonderful pos-
sibilities.
To change a man's thoughts is to change his
acts. To change his acts is to cure those dis-
eases which followed those acts.
Right thinking will prevent fifty per cent, of
all diseases and greatly prolong life. This is
a truth which every one should understand and
apply.
The work of teaching it is beginning to receive
that emphasis from leading men and women
which its importance deserves and the most mag-
nificent results are bound to follow.
Learn right thinking!
Change your thoughts; hold in your mind a
high ideal and resolve upon reaching it. It will
change your life.
IOI
General Remarks.
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE
PREVENTION OF DISEASE is a non-sec-
tarian, philanthropic organization.
The work of the Society is educational. It
seeks to gather and disseminate all knowledge
WHICH WILL PREVENT OR TEND TO
PREVENT DISEASE.
Your body as well as your automobile needs
to be carefully gone over from time to time and
kept in perfect STRUCTURAL ORDER.
You must keep your NERVES right. If all of
your nerve threads are right (free from pres-
sure and irritations of all kinds) they will keep
your body right. Your nerves control all the
other tissues of your body.
102
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in livery Other Way.
It is just as far wrong to say "all is mental" as
it is to say "all is physical." A human being is a
combination of both the mental and the physical.
"A strong mind in a strong body," keeping well
and living ioo years is the ideal.
The world is just beginning to realize that
there is power in Christianity to save the health
as well as the soul. One church has just as much
power to heal the sick and prevent disease as
another. The more emphasis a church lays on
this phase of its work the more it can accomplish.
The saving of the health is but the stepping stone
to the saving of the soul.
"Heal the sick." The Church has been doing
this for nineteen hundred years. It has been lift-
ing men up out of the gutter for all these centur-
ies, building hospitals, etc. It is laving more em-
phasis on this phase of its work each year.
103
You Are as Old as Your Spine. Each One of Your
Spinal Joints Must Have its Normal Amount of Motion.
It is something to take part in a great move-
ment of this kind. It will benefit you. It will
benefit others. It will make each generation a
little better than the preceding.
The prevention of disease is a matter of learn-
ing and avoiding causes.
The causes of diseases are divided into two
great classes — physical and mental. To avoid
physical causes you must keep your body perfect
structurally. To avoid mental causes you must
think right.
\V
One who thinks right and keeps his body in
perfect condition structurally, should keep well
and live ioo years.
Some need structural attention once each year,
some once each month, some once each week. It
all depends upon the age, condition, etc. Old
people need attention more often than children.
Old people should not allow themselves to become
stiff. Stiffness is the beginning of weakness,
weakness is the forerunner of disease.
104
The Prevention of Disease is Now a Matter of Learning
and Avoiding Causes.
If all the nerve threads which run from your
brain to your eyes are free and perfect your eyes
cannot be wrong. This is true of all parts of
your body. SEE THAT YOUR NERVES
ARE FREE FROM PRESSURE IF YOU
WOULD PREVENT DISEASE.
Science and religion, the physical and the men-
tal, have joined hands in putting forth a new
philosophy which includes both and the most far
reaching and beneficial results are bound to fol-
low.
The consideration of single cases prove noth-
ing. But if the entire population be divided into
two classes it will be found that success, wealth,
power and health are pre-eminently on the side
of the religious. Dissipation means the loss of
everything desirable.
Public Health officials may protect you against
impure water, impure food, etc., but they cannot
protect you against structural imperfections or
wrong thinking. This is work you must do fA«-
yourself.
for
105
Your NERVES Must be Free, from Their Origin in
Your Brain to Their Ending in all Parts of Your Body.
Christianity is the greatest power in the world
for the prevention of disease. It teaches right
thinking. Take care of your thoughts, and your
actions will take care of themselves.
There is power in Christianity for the preven-
tion of disease which is not found in mere mor-
ality.
Your mind may be strong and your thoughts
perfect, but if there is PRESSURE on the nerve
threads which run from your brain to your
bowels, you will be constipated. The physical
must be perfect as well as the mental.
The slipping of a rib or a vertebra may be ever
so slight, and yet sufficient to cause much trouble.
Each one of the spinal joints has a certain
amount of motion — normal motion. When a
joint becomes tight or imperfect the motion
becomes less — an adhesion is formed, stiffness
follows and then disease. These conditions come
about so gradually that they are not realized.
1 06
Your Body Requires STRUCTURAL Attention as Well
as Attention in Every Other IV ay.
No one whose kidneys were working- perfectly
and eliminating all the impurities from the blood,
ever had RHEUMATISM.
It is impossible for you to have HEADACHE
if the caliber of the blood pipes to and from your
brain is normal.
NERVOUSNESS can be cured and prevented.
It is said that Mr, Carnegie would give $200,-
000,000 for ten more years of life. The way to
get ten more years of life is to begin in time
and give yourself both physical and mental atten-
tion.
The goal of members of this Society is TO
KEEP WELL AND LIVE 100 YEARS.
"WHILE I LIVE LET ME BE WELL."
This is the earnest wish of every one who
breathes. It is perhaps the only sentiment to
which the whole world subscribes without reser-
vation. To secure, or to help in securing this
universal wish for every one, is the object of this
Society.
107
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