Considering all that we have said in favor of diet in the prevention and cure of disease and the maintenance of strength, virility, and vitality, it may seem to many that we proclaim diet to be a panacea for all the ills to which flesh is heir. Such an impression, however, is erroneous. We are fully aware that many other factors enter into the whole fabric on which the normal functioning of the human body is based.

The diet may be perfection itself, ideally combined and correctly balanced for an individual, and apparently such as to assure health, strength, and efficiency, but if the person for whom it is prescribed labors under prolonged mental depression, or deep sorrow, the digestive fluids will be slow to flow or act, locked up in their channels as it were. Normal digestion and assimilation will not follow the ingestion of this correct diet, the natural result being that instead of nourishing and vitalizing the entire body it may poison the system.

Again, the diet may be carefully selected, properly prepared and served at the right time, but if the mind be iron-bound with fear, the digestive organism will be semi-inert, or in some cases wholly inactive, the digestive juices will be held in more or less total abeyance, the food will begin to ferment and form gas, or putrefy and form toxins, and the entire system will be poisoned. If this condition continues for any length of time, various ill nesses may be caused by it.

Or, the mind may be filled with jealousy, hatred, or malice. All of these passions inhibit the flow of the digestive juices and either modify or totally prevent digestion and cause the food that would otherwise give health and strength to become a destructive agent to both mind and body, and more harm may be done to the system in a single day than can be overcome in six months.

Numerous experiments indicate that the diet may be as perfect as possible and the mental attitude normal, but that the person partaking of the meal was extremely tired - there is a difference between these two conditions. Disease or weakness followed. All these assertions can readily be substantiated by innumerable examples, and we feel that we should slightly enlarge on this important phase of our subject.

Not only do the evil emotions such as hatred, malice, jealousy, and resentment, poison the blood stream and the digestive juices, and, in that manner, the food to be digested by these fluids, and through the process of assimilation throw the poisons back into the system in increased quantities, but they also retard, or entirely stop, cell growth and cellular activity. Both of these retardations mean a tearing down of even the normal cells. When we foolishly, ignorantly, or deliberately tear down normal cells, and when we pollute the blood with poisons and toxins, disease, weakness and ultimate but untimely death must follow such an unnecessary and destructive process. No food combinations known, however perfect they may be, can effectively offset this self-poisoning which really amounts to self-destruction in the end.

Professor Elmir Gates once stated that "good and sublime emotions create in the blood products which augment every physical condition, and help to produce normal cell development."

This statement accounts for the seemingly contradictory instances in which people of a highly devotional nature subsist on a diet which seems to be wholly insufficient to maintain health, strength, and the well-being of the mind and physical organism. The secret is to be found in the fact that the entire blood stream, and all the digestive fluids, are highly charged with that peculiar essence which we classify as "spiritual" because we as yet do not know what it is; hence the food is entirely digested and every particle of value absorbed, leaving only the crudest part for waste. Moreover, and this point should have the most careful consideration by all, the cells of the body retain life and their proper functioning power two and three times longer than do these under ordinary conditions where this devotional nature is missing, and from three to ten times longer than where the destructive passions control. All cells are therefore far less frequently replaced.

Another statement made by Professor Gates, and one of vast importance to those who have race betterment at heart, was that "during gestation there are certain periods when certain organs commence to form, and if at the time these organs are in process of formation, the mother throws into the blood, through harboring some evil emotion, some of these poisonous products, she will feed the child with them, and in that manner arrest that organ of cell multiplication, and the said organ will fail to attain normal growth and size, and be otherwise abnormal and vitiated."

This may be the solution of the beclouded question of why women who are apparently in poor health, with at times an insufficiency to eat, are capable of giving birth to children who are strong, virile, perfectly formed, and spiritually above the average. The mother lived in and by her emotions which were truly spiritualized at the time, and this spiritual selfhood was the actual creator or architect of the child.

The subject just considered may appear to be foreign to the topic of diet and more germane to a thesis on higher race development, but such is not the fact. The processes employed by Nature in the construction of a new creature, is likewise followed in the recreation, reconstruction, or rebuilding of the self-being, the man, woman, or child already existing. Cell-metabolism is the same in all cases whether it be in the creation of a new being or the recreation of an old. In the creation of a new being, the cell-metabolism is merely extended to that degree, it is not a separate activity.

Women living in luxury, splendidly appointed houses, supplied with all the choicest and most desirable foods money can buy, servants making self-effort unnecessary, frequently become the mothers of children who are deformed, ill- nourished, lacking in mentality and totally devoid of honor. Surrounded by desirable environment, nursed in luxury, steeped in idleness, the mind of the mother-to-be turns back on itself and through this condition is begotten a dissatisfaction which in turn creates interior inharmony, suspicion, resentment, and other such evil emotions; these emotions poison the choicest foods and supply these poisons to the growing cells of the forthcoming child. It is well said that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do," and here is an illustration.

We have given some consideration to the possibility and methods of self- poisoning and of poisoning the child during gestation. We shall proceed a step farther and discuss the act of the mother, who, due to a fit of anger, poisons her milk and in turn her child by feeding it with this poisoned food.

One such a case is that of a young woman of our acquaintance, of a highly emotional nature, and an erratic, possible we might even truthfully say, an erotic temperament, who gave birth to a child while at our Clinic. For the first few days everything proceeded normally and with entire satisfaction. Four days after the child was born, the mother decided to have hysterics; action followed closely on the decision, and she was soon a perfect specimen of the hysterical type of woman. Her entire body became rigid, cold, and clammy, cold sweat broke out, with symptoms of catalepsy. It required possibly thirty minutes for the patient to "throw her fit," as county people say, and because we ignored her, which should always done unless there is an organic cause for the trouble, another thirty minutes for her to recover. Shortly after a complete recovery from her hysteria she insisted on nursing her child, with the result of which she had been warned, that within a few hours the baby showed symptoms of poisoning, developed a temperature, and several days later was ill with a fully manifested case of yellow jaundice from which it recovered only after twelve months of careful attention. In this instance, the mother had not only poisoned herself, thereby inducing a condition resembling both nerve and muscular spasm and that of death, but she also poisoned her child and caused it to suffer for many months, which suffering retarded its normal physical and mental development.

Another instance of self-poisoning was that of a lady who arrived at our Clinic three days prior to giving birth to a baby girl. Labor passed normally, the child appeared well nourished though slightly below what is considered normal weight. On the fifth day of her confinement, the patient received a letter which completely unnerved her, with the result that this nervous condition disorganized the entire nervous system and she shortly developed a temperature of 103 degrees with every symptom of Puerperal Fever. Only knowledge of the cause saved us from taking the usual active steps to combat the dreaded condition.

Fatigue may follow extreme mental or physical activity, but should not be confused with what is generally termed "tiredness." To feel utterly weary is a signal that the forces are being depleted and the death of the cells manufacturing an active poison which reacts on the digestive fluids. Such a feeling is the signal that there is need of rest so that the vital forces may be reorganized and properly distributed.

If the effort is continued despite the warning, the resisting forces will be so effectively lowered that this may give rise to an abnormal condition. The condition may even reach such a stage that a toxin will be created which can poison the entire blood stream. If food is taken while this condition exists, then no matter how carefully selected or perfectly combined, it cannot be completely digested nor will it be properly assimilated, with the result that instead of being nourishment and a life-giver, it becomes a poison to the entire system.

When one os suffering from fatigue, even if one is really tired, then food should be left untouched, and instead, the sufferer should take a short rest, preferably in a reclining position, for a period of possibly fifteen minutes. Then a drink of either cool water or fruit juices which may be followed by a light meal after the fruit juices have had time to be assimilated.

We feel that the system of the normal person is balanced between two forces, on the one side the constructive force which is always trying to build up and reconstruct, and on the other by a destructive process which is just as constantly tearing down. If for any reason, or through any force of circumstances, as for instance, fatigue as a result of intense labor, or a fit of anger, the vital forces are lowered, and the destructive agency will at one commence the manufacture of toxins. It is possible that the fatigue, or the anger, do not themselves create the poison, but permit the creation of it, because of the fact that the vital forces no linger have sufficient strength to maintain the balance and prevent its manufacture.

All the emotions have a direct influence on health and well-being. For instance, tuberculosis may sometimes be directly traceable to the emotion of love, which, constructive in itself, has for some reason remained unrequited, and its non-satisfaction, like all hunger, has ultimately turned on itself and created a destructive toxin.

The New York Medical Journal, many years ago published an article written by Thomas J. Mays, M.D., of Philadelphia, which illustrates this well. It is the life history of a genius, written by Marie Bashkirtseff, and originally published in The Journal of a Young Artist, first printed in 1889.

Marie Bashkirtseff was born in Russia of noble parentage in 1860 and died in 1884. In her fifteenth year she fell passionately in love with one who failed to return her affections, and when she learned that he was engaged to another lady, she became very much perturbed in mind and body, and felt "as though a knife had pierced her heart." About this time she became hoarse and unable to sing. She fainted, her voice trembled with emotion, and she was unable to play the piano because of the coldness and stiffness of her fingers. In the course of another year the effects of the love disappointment made serious inroads on her health. Suffering was depicted on her countenance and she was in a constant state of mental depression. Somewhat later she complained of pain in her chest and spit blood. About this time, 1877, some physical trouble was found in her right lung. She also became very tired, feverish, and emaciated. She traveled through Spain and Italy but to no avail. "I am afflicted," she says, "with a terrible disease. I have too much of some things in nature, too little of others - a character not made to last. One could not live long with a brain like mine."

In 1880 she coughed constantly, lost her voice, and had serious ear trouble. In spite of her precarious health she kept up her interest in art and for this reason became subject to trouble of a new sort. She came to Paris in 1881 to study, and entered in competition with another student, who won the first prize. This vexed and tortured her sensitive nature almost beyond endurance. However, at the end of that year the tide of fortune turned in her favor, and her high artistic skill was acknowledged by the Academy of Art, and the medal was conferred on her for her painting.

In 1882, less than two weeks after this gratifying event, she wrote: "I have renewed my life, my arms that were so thin ten days ago are now rounded. A week more of this and I shall have to stop growing fat." Everything seemed to come her way now. The artists of Paris bestowed the most favorable criticism on her. Her family gave a great soiree in her honor which was attended by many notables and of which Figaro gave a very auspicious eulogy. She continued to be deeply wrapped up in her art, working enthusiastically, and was apparently much improved in health. Speaking of her health, November, 1882, she says: "I am growing stout, my shoulders are broader, my arms rounder and my chest fuller." The improvement seemed to last for nearly a year. Then, in 1883, another physician discovered alarming trouble in her left lung. However, she continued working, finished another picture, and received another prize in 1884. Her father, her uncle, and her aunt died, and she became very ill and expressed the fear that she was doomed. Towards the end of that same year she became greatly exhausted, and these notable and exceptional personality came to an untimely end.

In analyzing this case we find a girl of a highly sensitive nature to whom affection meant nothing short of life. Being disappointed in her love, it reacted upon itself, in the form of a negative weakening emotion, as note the statement "as though a knife had pierced my heart." This disappointment caused a depression, as deadly an emotion as any, if long continued; this interfered with metabolism and as a result the body became ill-nourished and ultimately she succumbed to tuberculosis.

The disappointment she suffered through failure to gain first prize had the same affect upon her as malice has on many others. The favorable tide in her fortune had tended to create a more peaceful mental condition and possibly an unconscious desire to live. This stimulated digestion and increased normal metabolism, as shown by the great improvement in her health.

This might have continued but for the criminal ignorance of the physician whose suggestion of a serious lung affection reacted as a deadly depressant, further breaking down her power of resistance, and interfering with the digestion of food, inverting metabolism, and finally ending in total inertia, i.e., death.

Every passion as well as every emotion has a direct influence on digestion and assimilation - the burning up of the food and the metabolizing of it into cellular life. The evil passions depress or retard the digestive juices, delay digestion, and either interfere with or totally inhibit assimilation. Every noble sentiment, elevating passion and spiritual emotion has directly the opposite influence, transmuting even poor foods into power, imperfect combinations into life-giving forces, and lengthening the life of the cells.

In attempting to prevent or eliminate disease, dietetically, it is of paramount importance not merely to find the dietetic cause for the trouble but likewise to seek for the possibility that destructive emotions are basically responsible.
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