It is most important under this system to determine the chemical condition of the body in each individual case.

Acids or alkalines prevail.  If the former, patients have bad teeth, a disposition to gout, diabetes and cancer.  The normal condition is the predominance of alkalines.

In such cases as the former, physiological chemistry will point to the counterbalancing of the acids to establish a correct composition of the blood, and thus to prevent the impending danger.  The biological system of health which is rapidly taking the place of all others, is equipped with so searching a knowledge of the human organism that no disease, be it ever so adroitly concealed, can escape its minute attention; not excepting even the disposition to disease.

The old adage is still true that “prevention is better than cure” and the intelligent person will probably recognize the wisdom of so safe and sane a course and endeavor to prevent the evils to which he may be exposed.  Thus, for his own satisfaction, if he be wise he will adopt these two simple precautions: 

(1) Examination by an accredited hygienic-dietetic physician.

(2) Regulation of his mode of living in accordance with the course prescribed.

The words of the famous Moleschott ring true today, more than in the past, when he said:  “One of the principal questions a patient should ask his physician is, how to make good, healthy blood.”  Experience shows that there is but one method to attain good blood,—­that priceless factor upon which our thinking, our feeling, our power and our progeny depend, and that is by means of correct food and nutrition.

FOOTNOTES: 

[B] See special article on Influenza, page 408.

[C] This article is also printed in pamphlet form and may be had from the author for 50c.  Postage paid.

CHILDREN’S DISEASE.

  "The cause of the Poor to plead on,
  ’twixt Deity and Demon."

  (Carlyle).

  "Child of mortality whence contest thou,
  Why is thy countenance sad, and why are
  Thine eyes red with weeping?"

  (Bartauld).

I have opened this chapter with somewhat startling mottos, for its pathetic theme is Children and children’s disease; and it seems to me appropriate, in view of what it portends, to send forth in this form a world-thought, as a harbinger of sympathy—­a foreword which may set in motion the thought-waves of pity.  For of all living creatures born into this world of pompous ignorance and maudlin solicitude to struggle for precarious existence from the cradle to the grave, by reason of the unnatural conditions of our vaunted hygienic and educational systems—­generously termed “civilization”—­there is surely nothing quite so “poor,” so woefully devoid of practical protection, and, in its exceptional helplessness, so weakly gushed over and little understood as the child of frail humanity.