LITMIR.BIZ

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adequate supply of vitamins would very naturally be in a better state of health than one in which the vitamins were lacking.

      Surprisingly, this concept was not particularly acceptable among the majority of my professors or fellow students. It was apparent that the disease—rather than the nutritional status of the patient—was the focus of the studies, laboratory tests, X-rays, medical histories, and examinations. My interest, then, remained an interest only, and I had little chance to try out my ideas, except on myself. Vitamins did, however, enhance my state of health—more energy, fewer colds. I simply felt better. I still didn’t know too much about nutrition or diets, but I had made the first step.

      The attitude taken by medical schools in those days (which to a great extent still exists) was that nutrition had little, if any, importance, that the mind and the emotions had no direct, or even indirect effect on the physical body; that prayer was in no manner associated with the health of the body or with the correction of disease; and that meditation (“What’s that?”) would only be found in some of those strange Eastern religions. In my years at the University of Cincinnati, the mention of a Divine Being or God came about only in the profanity of the professors, residents, interns, and students. And, as for the subject of reincarnation, well, that wasn’t even considered.

      While there was little development toward an understanding of good nutrition during those days of my formal medical training, ideas about food gradually came into focus during the early years of my practice in the field of what is now called family medicine. From a state of what I call unawareness, I moved step-by-step into a sometimes painful awakening.

      A woman patient of mine in Wellsville, where I began my practice of medicine, was bedfast and not doing well due to an illness that was not readily diagnosable. From my interest in vitamins and the availability of injectable vitamin B-12, I gave this lady three consecutive daily injections of B-12. She was not only out of bed, but was moving around normally once again in a matter of just a few days.

      Some years later, when I spent two years as a flight surgeon in the Air Force, I had many an argument with another medical officer who was trained in internal medicine. He could not see the benefit of B-12 for anything except pernicious anemia. Perhaps it was because he was so immersed in looking at the disease—was it treatable?—rather than the idea that the patient might be deficient in that particular vitamin without necessarily suffering from pernicious anemia. Early in my experience in the field of medicine, this reluctance to understand the importance of vitamins was the norm. In later years, I have found that there is a change coming about, slow as it seems in making its appearance.

      Things had not improved to any extent in the late fifties or early sixties. I brought a case before a panel of physicians who were looking at problems in the Medicare coverage. The system had refused to pay for injectable vitamins for a patient who had a textbook case of vitamin deficiency and did not respond to oral dosages. I even took the textbook down to the meeting to show the doctors. They still could not understand what to me was obvious: The patient had not responded to oral vitamin therapy and needed (and responded to) the injectable form.

      I tried to use what knowledge I had of nutrition with our family. I will never forget the picture of our four-year-old Annie standing on the street near the ice-cream wagon, yelling so that everyone would hear her, “Everyone in the whole world gets ice cream except the McGareys!”

      Nutrition was also important in our medical practice. We came across the Koch cancer therapy not long after we opened our offices. Dr. William Koch had developed a substance he described as an oxidation catalyst. Although he had many adherents, Koch was eventually discredited by the established authorities in his attempts to treat cancer. One thing stood out among all other factors, however, in the regimen of therapy he prescribed. Eat a very good diet, no fried foods, lots of greens, don’t cook with aluminum, drink lots of water—advice Edgar Cayce also put forth in his readings.

      We adopted some of those ideas, although at that time we had no idea why such a diet would influence the course of a disease like cancer. But it did emphasize to me that it was important for all of us to adopt a diet that had in it all that the body needs. We wanted to keep ourselves and our patients from becoming deficient in the supply of body nutrients—and vitamins are some of those nutrients.

      And I found that we can truly change our eating habits. If we dislike something, we can—with practice and the right attitude—learn to like it. I proved this for myself while in the Air Force. At the Officers’ Club they served shrimp as hors d’oeuvres nearly every evening. I had never in my life even faintly liked shrimp. But I saw these people consuming shrimp like it was going out of style. I finally realized I must be missing something. So I decided to make a sincere effort to eat some shrimp and taste it very carefully, without my former prejudice. After just a few boiled shrimp taken gingerly, I was convinced, then ate more and more, and I found that I could overcome a distaste for certain foods if I tried.

      Some years ago a woman patient of ours who had scleroderma went on a very clearly defined diet, eliminating pork products, among others. Some three years after that, free of the scleroderma, she visited her mother, who wanted to know, “What can you eat now?” The answer came back, “I can eat anything I like!” Her mother served ham that night, and was rebuffed when the woman didn’t eat any. “But you said you could eat anything you like!” The answer came back, “That’s right, but now I don’t like ham!”

      It was after our family relocated and established our base in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1955 that we learned of Edgar Cayce. A whole new world opened for me. Not only did Cayce teach me about diet and nutrition, but he also introduced me to the concept of reincarnation. Understanding that concept, I no longer find it strange to realize that I am a continuing spiritual being moving through time and space, appearing here at this time, but having had lifetimes in the past that helped to create attitudes and emotional reactions that helped chart the course of life I am taking this time around.

      This helped me look at the whole human being as the center of my attention as I practiced medicine, and it moved me away from the concept of being only a specialist in the diseases that attack the body. This represented a drastic change in my thinking. Care for the body properly—and the body becomes normal. A normal body has no diseases. So why not direct our efforts to normalizing the body? It fascinated me as I realized that I had rediscovered an ancient truth that had once been mine in previous incarnations.

      Late in the 1950s, we had adopted the practice of using only whole wheat bread. A friend had told us about the only place he knew where real whole wheat bread was available. Stoll’s Bakery was run by Mormons, who years ago recognized the value of whole wheat over the white, degerminated flour. It became a place we visited weekly. We would buy twelve to sixteen loaves to freeze and use for our growing family of six. In all of metropolitan Phoenix, this was the only place where we could find good, wholesome, naturally prepared whole grain bread.

      At that point we took up one of our minor crusades—to make whole wheat bread more available for our patients and others throughout the Valley of the Sun. Each of our patients was given the same instructions: “Tell the manager or the check-out person at the grocery store you go to that you want some good whole wheat bread. And, if they don’t supply it for you, that you’ll go to another store.” Most store managers want to meet the desires of their customers, so gradually it happened.

      Much has changed during the intervening years. Health food stores have flourished. Even the supermarkets put health foods on their shelves, provide good whole wheat bread, and sometimes have special health food sections.

      More important than that, however, to me in my own practice of medicine, has been the growth of my own understanding of the nature of the human body—the variety of ways in which it works, which I learned from the Edgar Cayce readings.

      I realized from the Edgar Cayce readings, for instance, that biochemically the body must have a stable acid-alkaline balance in all the body tissues, but most importantly in the bloodstream, the lymphatic system, the mouth, the stomach, the small and large intestines, the urinary tract, the vagina, and portions of the lower bowel. All of these locations carry slightly different levels of pH (hydrogen-ion concentration). Altering that acidity or alkalinity in any significant manner can spell disease.

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