PAPERS ON HEALTH

A TGS survival book reprint. 300 pages of cures, treatments, and remedies, many that would be applicable until you could get a loved one to a medical professional for proper treatment. These are the practices and treatments of the recent past that doctors and mom's used.

From the Preface

Since the "Papers" were first written, medical, and especially surgical, practice has very greatly changed, and some of the practices against which Dr. Kirk most vehemently protested have passed away. Hence, certain modifications introduced into this edition, for which the editor accepts full responsibility. For those who wish to consult the actual writings of Dr. Kirk, the original eleven volume edition is still available.

Great advances have also been made in the knowledge of the causes of disease; and preventive methods of treatment by regulation of diet and habits of life are much better understood. To incorporate some reference to these in a work dealing with health generally, appeared to us absolutely necessary. For these additions also the writer accepts responsibility.

Where it appeared to be useful, illustrations have been introduced, which may help those to whom the treatment is quite new, to practice it more easily and correctly, and to understand better the theories on which it is founded.

The day is hastening on when men and women will see what fools they have been, not because they had no sense, but certainly because they had failed to use the abundance which God has given to all.

Not one of the remedies we have recommended can hurt any one, as they are only those which we have for years seen used successfully by ordinary persons who were willing to do their best to cure the suffering. If we can secure one night of sound sleep, or one day of comfort for another, we are bound to do our very best, and it is a wonderful reward to know that one has secured even this in our suffering world. Our Heavenly Father gives no monopoly of this blessing.

Excerpt

Bile, Black.

-For this take two tablespoonfuls of hot water every five minutes for six hours per day. A good many cases, some even given up by the doctors, have been cured by this simple, yet efficient means.

Bile on the Stomach.

-Take half a teacupful of hot water every ten minutes for ten hours. Next day take the same every twenty minutes for a like period. The third day the same every hour. For ten days after take the same before each meal. We have seen a case of liver complaint of more than twenty years' standing cured thus. See also that the feet and legs are rendered healthful, and kept so. If cold and clammy, they should be bathed in hot water for five minutes or so, dried, and rubbed with warm olive oil.

Care must be taken also to give a simple diet. Oatmeal jelly, wheaten meal porridge, barley pudding (see BARLEY), and such foods, should form the staple nourishment. Avoid eggs, butter, cream, and beef. See also SEA-SICKNESS.

Biscuits and Water.

-The biscuits referred to are manufactured in Saltcoats. They are made from the purest whole wheaten flour.

The late Mr. Bryden, of the Saltcoats Home, used them along with hot water as sole diet in many serious digestive troubles, with marvellous success. Where no food will lie on the stomach, one small, or half a large, biscuit is to be taken three times a day, as a meal, and at meal-times. This will prove amply sufficient to maintain the system in such a case, until the stomach gains power for more.

In the case of SORES and ABSCESSES (see), such a diet of biscuits and water provides pure blood, and makes healing by other treatment very much easier. We have known limbs saved from amputation largely by such diet. It will suit equally well the delicate young lady and the strong labourer. Too much of ordinary food goes to increase ulceration and nourish disease.

The Saltcoats biscuit provides nothing for these ends, and is of immense value as an aid to cure. One great advantage of this diet is that it is a dry one, and the biscuits must be thoroughly chewed to enable them to be swallowed at all. The saliva is thereby thoroughly mixed with the food, which is all-important to make it digestible. These biscuits are also so plain as not to tempt the patient to eat more than he can digest, which is the great danger in sickness. The slops of gruel and cornflour so often given are never chewed at all, and often do nothing but harm. Such starchy foods really require to be more thoroughly mixed with saliva than any other food, as unless, by action of the saliva, the starch is converted into sugar it cannot be assimilated in the stomach.