This law demonstrates that, in the last analysis, nature is a unit, a composition of a number of elements, each one possessing distinct qualities, the combination of which produces the various manifestations of life.

These are classified, for convenience, according to their main qualities, as minerals, plants or animals.

All of them are closely interrelated and one transmits the basic elements to the other.  It is the plant which draws the mineral elements from the soil, and after certain processes of composition conveys them as food to the animal, including the human being, while such animal substances as are used for human food, contribute the balance of the elements for the upbuilding of the human body.

It is a matter of comparatively new discovery that minerals are thus just as important as a component part of the body and of its food as are other basic chemical elements.

The discovery as to the mineral constituents of the body, their nature, proportion and in which composition and in which quantity as necessary ingredients of the different body tissues, in order that they may become a part of the organism, has made it possible to administer them to the diseased body in the purest condensed and most effective way in nutritive compositions, while their proportionate existence in food is also a criterion of diet, not only for the sick, but also as a preventative of disease.

THE CHEMICAL PROCESS OF DISEASE.

In this, my scrutiny of nature’s deep designs, I did not rest content when only the composition of all the tissues of the body had been laid bare; but I delved deeper and discovered that certain electric currents and reactions of these elements were the causes of accelerating or retarding the natural processes of metamorphosis and metabolism,—­provoking disturbances of the normal, which express themselves as disease.

Excessive growth, and lack of growth, are thus explained, together with other phenomena which in this short chapter it is impossible to give in scientific detail.  It is my object now merely to show that in their apparent simplicity the manifestations of life require special technical knowledge such as cannot be expected of the layman in any adequate degree.

Notwithstanding this free and open statement of cause and cure available to the patient and to the world at large, the hygienic-dietetic physician himself can by no means be dispensed with in case of the appearance of disease, for only by his knowledge, experience, and skilled advice can the aforesaid natural system of healing be applied with effect in each individual case.  And here it must always be borne in mind that, of the countless individual organisms that this world contains, no two, even, are exactly alike; and that consequently only the skilled and accustomed practitioner =will be able to regulate such hidden, internal processes as cause the visible disturbance, and thus bring about healing and regeneration, which simply means a return to the normal=.