Herbal Health

Patricia Engel was a skilled pianist and violinist, thirty years of age, who had been well until moving into an all gas-equipped house. At the same time she had changed most of her wardrobe from natural to synthetic fabrics. Within a four-to-five-month period she noticed that she needed rest periods during the day. She also suffered from increasing levels of morning fatigue. Soon this was followed by unexplained muscle soreness.

Miss Engel took a trip to Europe. After being exposed to excessive amounts of motor exhaust while traveling, however, she developed chills and arthritic pains of the neck and shoulders. Another similar episode occurred after she disembarked in New York City when she ran into heavy traffic fumes. But two weeks after returning to her apartment, with its gas-fired range and water heater, generalized joint and muscle aching and pain incapacitated her. The pain started in her shoulders and spine and then spread rapidly to her fingers, hips, knees, ankles, and other joints.

Conventionally minded doctors treated her with aspirin and another nonaspirin pain-killer. Soon she was given cortisone therapy. After three years of this, however, she developed a cataract, whereupon the drug was discontinued. She also received indomethacin (Indocin) and gold therapy, an experimental form of arthritis treatment. Nothing stopped the spread of the disease. By this point, she was so crippled that she had to abandon her career as a musician, since she could no longer play the piano or violin.

Upon admission to the hospital under my care, she fasted and suffered headaches and muscle and joint pains as withdrawal symptoms. These symptoms soon cleared, and her joint movement increased. Miss Engel was then tested with chemically less contaminated health foods. Her reactions, listed in the order of their rapidity of onset, were as follows:

Corn: 30 minutes, sleepiness; 1 hour, restlessness; 3 hours, fatigue and sensitive joints, with generalized myalgia and arthralgia the following morning

Tomato: 30 minutes, knees, hands, and wrists more tight

Peas: 30 minutes, arms, shoulders, and fingers tightened and more sensitive

Beets and beet sugar: 1 hour, restless legs and increasing generalized stiffness

Lamb: 2 hours, hoarseness, followed by chilling and progressive fatigue

and arthritic pains

Rice: 2 hours, tightness and stiffness of knees and wrists

Wheat: 4 hours, restless legs with residual muscle and joint stiffness

Milk: 4 hours, stiffness of joints with residual generalized joint stiffness

and soreness

Beef: 8 hours, aching joints with residual pain in joints

When Miss Engel was fed regular supermarket foods, which had been tolerated in their organic form, after the third such meal she awoke during the night with extreme stiffness and chills, all her joints being so sore that she had to be helped out of bed.

Upon returning home, she avoided all of her incriminated foods, and chlorinated water, and by following the Rotary Diversified Diet (Chap. 18), she remained well. Within a week, however, her arthritis gradually returned. This was tremendously disappointing, especially since she had previously removed her gas stove. She did notice, however, that she felt better when she was outside the house and became increasingly worse the more time she spent inside.

She therefore had her gas-fired heating system removed and replaced it with electric heaters and also had the gas pipes removed from the walls. She made her bedroom into a pollution-free “oasis” (Chap. 20) and then reintroduced questionable items one at a time. She was found to be susceptible to polyester bedsheets, living-room curtains, and several other plastic and synthetic materials. The finish on the doors of her kitchen cabinets was suspected, and there was definite improvement when it was removed.

At the present time, Miss Engel is free of muscle and joint pain, but there remains some impaired motion in the left wrist, due to the destruction of tissue caused when her illness was uncontrolled. She also gets a mild increase in arthritic symptoms before her monthly period, after housekeeping, when the pine trees in her yard are putting out new growth, and when she is working in the yard. However, there is simply no comparison between the minor problems which she has now and the crippled patient whom we admitted to the hospital a few years ago.

Patricia Engel is just the sort of patient whose case could not have been fully understood in the 1940s or early 1950s, because much of her illness was caused by chemical susceptibility. Even such a seemingly innocuous material as the varnish on her kitchen cabinets was contributing to her arthritis and had to be modified or removed before she could get significantly better.

Few diseases are as pathetic as rheumatoid arthritis in children. This problem often starts innocently enough as a swelling in a knuckle or finger, spreads to other parts of the body, and finally leaves the child a cripple for life. It is often accompanied by swollen lymph nodes (glands), enlarged spleen, fever, profuse sweating, and anemia. Conventional medicine recognizes no agreed-upon cause or effective treatment for this ailment.

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One of the most disturbing aspects of the indoor air pollution problem is the involvement of schools. Here, the use of various chemicals can contribute to the overall chemical and food problem to cause poor performance by both children and teachers.

Poorly designed heating and cooking systems in schools are a major source of trouble. One teacher was always dopey and drowsy when he taught a class located directly above the school cafeteria, from which gas-range odors emanated. His performance improved dramatically when he transferred to a more distant room.

Children suffer all sorts of adverse reactions to chemicals in school, including hyperactivity, inattention, irritability, and the like. This is especially so among children addicted to “junk food,” who live in a polluted home environment.

In 1967, Mrs. Kathleen A. Blume carried out with my help a study of indoor air pollution at a public school in Wauconda, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.8 Mrs. Blume, a home economics teacher, was aided by local parents who were concerned about the quality of air in their children’s schools.

They literally sniffed out problems in the schools:

We used both eyes and nose searching and sniffing our way through . . . school trying to uncover the elusive as well as glaring causes of air contamination. In spite of advances in instruments for measuring contaminating particulates in the air, the human nose remains the chief detector of offensive odors.

It is remarkable, and depressing, how many sources of air pollution these parents were able to find stored in the school. For example, aerosol sprays are known to cause problems because of their volatile mixtures of chemicals, solvents, and the propellant, Freon (itself a mixture of carbon, chlorine, and flourine). The parents found insecticide sprays; paint, enamel, and lacquer sprays; fixatives; spray snow; spray plastic; solvent cleaner; germicidal cleaners; room deodorants; hair spray; furniture polish; disinfectants; deodorants; and even fungicidal sprays for the locker room.

Francis Silver, the engineer who studied this list and cooperated in the Wauconda study, reported that none of these, with the possible exception of the spray enamel and the fixative, could be justified from an ecological point of view.

In some cases, the children were more aware of the dangers of the sprays than the adults. One child, for instance, complained of a burning sensation in her nose, eyes, and throat after a janitor sprayed a disinfectant in a room full of children. This child’s problem lasted well into the evening. When a teacher cleaned her desk top with a spray cleaner, one of the children disliked the smell so much that he asked permission to leave the room. And when another teacher sprayed fixative on chalk drawings, several children complained of the odor and asked her to open the windows.

It should be noted that such sprays not only pose a danger of provoking allergylike symptoms but can result in “spray keratitis,” or damage to the sensitive cornea of the eye from chemical particles in aerosol spray cans.7

Another source of problems in the Wauconda study was janitorial supplies. Twenty-eight different chemicals were found in the supply closets, including some highly toxic products. Mrs. Blume commented:

Janitorial supplies are probably the saddest part of the story. Janitorial chemicals receive no supervision, anything goes. We are so particular about who is allowed to prescribe drugs for patients but janitors spread their products around which then evaporate into the breathed air and are then ingested.. . . If we were more interested in health and not just in treatment, we would probably be more particular about our janitors than we are about our physicians.

The use of such products in schools often represents an “overkill” of bacteria. Dr. Malcolm Hargraves, a senior consultant at the Mayo Clinic, has said:

The American people, I am afraid, are greatly oversold by any article which makes the claim that it is medicated [i.e., anti-bacterial]. The universal use of such agents with such an idea only leads to the development of more resistant strains of bacteria to plague us in the future.8

Actually, fresh air, sunshine, hot water, and unscented soap are still the best disinfecting agents. The “progress” in inventing disinfectants of the last thirty or forty years has added little to our ability to control infectious diseases, while piling up problems for the chemically susceptible. It is tragic to expose children to these and other agents so early, creating a problem which may remain with them for the rest of their lives.

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Fainting is a temporary loss of consciousness caused by the involuntary (autonomic) nervous system. It is usually due to a temporarily insufficient amount of blood in the brain. Fainting can be brought on by pain, physical fatigue, low blood sugar, a disturbing scene, sudden fright, and other strong emotions.

Fainting is common in pre-adolescent and adolescent children. It often occurs after the child has gone without eating for an extended period of time. A partial faint (light-headedness and dizziness) or a complete faint is also common when a teenager abruptly changes position (for example, after jumping up from a reclining or sitting position). It also can occur in a dentist’s chair caused by a combination of pain, anxiety, and turning the head sharply to one side (which places pressure on the carotid artery in the neck).

Just before unconsciousness, the child experiences light-headedness, blurred vision, cold and moist skin (clamminess), and sometimes mild nausea. An observer may notice a paleness or greenish color of the skin and a glazed look in the eyes before the child loses consciousness. Rarely will the child lose control of the urine or stools. Consciousness will be recovered within a few minutes and the child will probably not remember fainting.

The pulse at the wrist may be characteristically feeble and slow or not present at all. The heart beat (place your ear against child’s chest) is slow, usually 50 beats per minute or slower.

Consider the circumstances under which the child fainted. If they were circumstances that typically can cause fainting, and if the child rapidly and completely recovers, this suggests nothing more serious than an isolated spell.

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