After reading The Thrifty Oreganic post on Bieler Broth and the book recommendation therein, I ordered the book from the library and received it in lightening speed time. The book is called "Food Is Your Best Medicine" written by Henry G. Bieler, M.D. originally published in 1966.
I've just read the section inside the front cover titled "To the Reader" and I cannot wait to really get into this book! Here is what it says....
To the Reader:
As a practicing physician for over fifty years, I have reached three basic conclusions as to the cause and cure of disease. This book is about those conclusions.
The first is that the primary cause of disease is not germs. Rather, I believe that disease is caused by a toxemia which results in cellular impairment and breakdown, thus paving the way for the multiplication and onslaught of germs.
My second conclusion is that in almost all cases the use of drugs in treating paitiens is harmful. Drugs often cause serious side effects, and sometimes even create new diseases. The dubious benefits they afford the patient are at best temporary. Yet the number of drugs on the market increases geometrically every year as each chemical firm develops its own variation of the compounds. The physician is indeed rare who can be completely aware of the potential danger from the side effects of all these drugs.
My third conclusion is that disease can be cured through the proper use of correct foods. This statement may sound deceptively simple, but I have arrived at it only after intensive study of highly complex subject: colloid and endocrine chemistry.
My conclusions are based on experimental and observational results, gathered through years of successfully treating patients. Occasionally I have resorted to the use of drugs in emergency situations, but those times have been rare. Instead, I have sought to prescribe for my patients' illnesses antidotes which Nature has placed at their disposal.
This book deals with what I consider to be the best food and the best medicine.
Thank you, Carrie, for the introduction.
3 comments:
Perhaps so, in some percentage of cases. It may even be the majority, but "majority" only defines "over 50%". There are many other routes to disease: contagion, genetics, environmental exposure, and other (perhaps lesser) causes.
I respectfully disagree with his position on the use of drugs in most cases. A common strep or staph infection can be deadly unless treated with antibiotics. Many degenerative or chronic diseases, while not yet "curable", can be controlled for much longer periods of time, with the use of medication. And of course chemotherapy and radiation offer the possibility of cure for many cancer patients.
Certainly, choosing proper nutrition can have great effect on the disease process. But decrying modern medicine in this fashion is, in my very humble opinion, throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Just a caution.
Love,
Liz
Until one reads the book fully one cannot say one way or another that he is "throwing out the baby with the bathwater".
As you continue further into the book you see that he agrees there are times when medicine is necessary.
But after reading the many books that I have I am very quickly leaning towards actually being more cautious of modern medicine. What he talks about makes sense. What Schwarzbein says, makes sense.
What these books claim is that many "degenerative or chronic diseases" do not have to even be. It's what we put in our body more than any other factor, that causes them.
Who am I to disagree, at this point in time. I've read many books by different people that show you what foods do to your body, especially NEW foods!
One of the most interesting quotes in the book comes from HIPPOCRATES, the Father of all physicians.....
"Thy food shall be thy remedy."
He spoke before the onslaught of such things as AIDS. I do not deny that modern medicine is a necessity for such things as AIDS.
Yes, food plays a critical role in disease prevention (and treatment in many areas, too). I also think that, as Dr. Bieler says, pharmaceuticals often create more problems. For example, could there be link between the use of prescribed birth control and ovarian/breast cancer? All I know is that the use of the former and the epidemic of the latter are both at startling percentages. Who knows! But the more we rely on pharmaceuticals in smaller matters, the more we might NEED them later, to a much graver degree.
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