The blog is about health and gives useful information on health and disease.

In Sweden fasting is used not only in the hospitals and clinics by medical practitioners, but also by thousands of health enthusiasts around the country as a positive health measure to improve health and prevent disease.

Here are a few headlines from the clippings of Swedish magazines and newspapers lying on my table:

“Fast for better spring condition!”

“Fast this summer to keep in shape!”

“Eleven fasting vikings walk from Gothenburg to Stockholm (300 miles) without food!”

“Without food for 143 days!”

Every spring and summer several groups of Swedish health enthusiasts and hundreds of individuals fast for one, two or more weeks. This is done not for the cure of any particular pathological condition, but as a kind of spring cleaning to purify their bodies from the toxins and the waste matter accumulated during long winter months of sedentary life and the lack of fresh foods. In addition, many Swedes take a regular Fasting Cure at the various biological clinics in the country under expert supervision.

*7\58\2*

Ingredients:

one part Epsom salts.

eight parts fine white sugar.

just enough water to barely dissolve the above.

Mix all three ingredients together and heat to boiling. Have a small container of cold water beside the saucepan and put a drop of the hot mixture into the water from time to time. Continue to boil until the test drop will form a firm ball when dropped in the water. When the mixture reaches the stage where the ball is easily made, it is ready. Remove from heat and pour onto a greased plate or wax paper. Allow to cool slightly. Pull into ropes and cut into pieces before it gets too hard to be manageable. When this whole procedure is done correctly, it will produce a tough, hard candy lozenge.

How To Use The Lozenge.

Choose a time for this treatment when you have two to three hours to spend outdoors in the garden or on a long hike through the woods. Take a piece of the candy and work it around in the mouth. It will dissolve, filling your mouth with saliva. Do not swallow this. Neither white sugar nor Epsom salts are good in anyone’s stomach. Spit the mixture out; then, have another piece of the candy. Repeat this over and over for about three hours. After the last piece, wash the mouth out thoroughly with water. This will remove what is left of the sugar and the salts.

What is happening is this: The sugar activates the mucous membranes causing them to pour forth copiously. The Epsom salts, long recognized for their drawing power, take the toxins out with the saliva and thus get right to the root of the infection, with cleansing power.

For this treatment to be effective, it is essential that the prescribed amount of time be spent upon it. Natural treatments always take longer than taking a pill, but they are much better for the body and effect a much more permanent change in the end. Considerable relief should be experienced from this first treatment, but if you find that the cleansing has not been complete, then follow it with second and third treatments, as necessary.

Case History

As a fruitage of many years of bad eating habits, one man had developed quite a catarrhal condition. He became interested in the practice of healthful living and found much improvement in his health and vitality as a result. But the catarrh persisted. He tried to overcome it by fasting, fruit regimens and restricting himself to very simple dieting, but all without success.

Then he became acquainted with the Epsom salts cure and determined to give it a try. For over three hours one day while working in the garden, he sucked on the lozenges and, as fast as the saliva filled his mouth, he buried it along the rows of vegetables. He found that he did not need to continuously have the candy in his mouth for the process to continue. Once the saliva had been set going, it continued to leak into his mouth, and he only needed to add further candy at quite long intervals.

For the first time in many years, he experienced relief from his ailment, and what wonderful relief it was! However, after several weeks, there was a slight recurrence of the trouble. He had another session with the lozenges, which he now kept in an airtight jar. This time it was much shorter, lasting only about an hour or a little more. This apparently removed the last residues of the catarrhal infection, for in the intervening sixteen years he has had no further trouble with it.

It will be found that there is only a very slightly unpleasant taste as the sugar is so strong, and no one should have any difficulty with it from this point of view.

*37\62\2*

For the application of heat to an injury that is beginning to grow old and where swelling is pronounced, steam is very good. The method is as follows. Take some form of steam-generating equipment, such as an electric kettle, electric fry pan, or an electric jug. In all cases, leave the lids on or just pushed a little to one side or use the spout or vent for the steam escape. Place this a couple of feet below the injured part and form a tent with a blanket or heavy covering that covers both the injured part and the kettle. One article of furniture that lends itself well to this form of tent is a wooden chair. Place the kettle or steam utensil so that the steam rises and strikes against the bottom of the chair. Have the patient rest his leg or arm on the chair seat and envelop the whole with a blanket.

The steam will circulate around the injury, thoroughly heating and sweating it. The kettle will need to be regulated by turning it on and off; otherwise, the heat becomes too intense and the patient may be scalded. Every 5 or 10 minutes, bathe the area with ice water, or simply wrap a cloth saturated with ice water around the part.

In certain areas where electricity is not available, the steam can be generated by using a primus or other pressure fuel stove. Simply stand the primus on the floor with the kettle on top of the flame. Mount a plastic or metal pipe on the spout from which the steam will pour and insert the pipe into the tent. The pipe will need to be a little higher where it enters the tent than the level of the spout. Plastic waterpipe is ideal for the purpose.

Hamstrings, bruises, strains, sprains, and even the damaged tissues around broken bones can be very successfully treated in this way. In fact, before a broken bone is delivered to the doctor for setting, a thorough course of hot and cold treatments should be given to clear away pain, swelling and congestion.

*28\62\2*

At this point it would be well to explain another related treatment in this line, the castor oil pack. It is one thing to have an acid stomach and intestines, but when this situation becomes chronic and the glands and tissues round about the stomach area become clogged and break down because the system is becoming over-acid throughout, sterner measures need to be taken. Castor oil is a harsh laxative and should not be used internally. However, when used externally it penetrates through the skin to underlying tissues and breaks up the congestion being felt in the glands and tissues of the intestines. This congestion is then taken away through the eliminative organs. The quicker you can get rid of this loosened poison, the better, so periodic enemas would be beneficial, or better still, colonic irrigations.

How to make the pack:

Use a towel or an old sheet torn into a square about the size of a towel. Lay this on the table or bed. In the middle of this, or perhaps just slightly above center, fold a plastic bag large enough to cover the abdomen. (Plastic liners for small litter containers are fine for this if you cut off the sealed end so they will lie flat.) On top of this place a piece of thick cloth or a double thickness of sheeting. Warm the castor oil by placing the bottle in a pan of warm water for a few minutes until it becomes free-flowing. Pour this over the cloth on top of the plastic until it is evenly distributed.

Pick up this pack and place it, oiled side in, around the patient’s abdomen, securing it comfortably behind with a pin. He may feel a little over-burdened or frustrated for the first few minutes, but he should just relax and let it do its work. It will not be long until he will feel comfortable enough to drop off to sleep. In the morning just remove the pack and wipe over the skin with soap and water. Wear the oil pack on the abdomen for 3 nights in a row, then go without it for 3 nights. This pattern (3 on, 3 off) is repeated until 15 nights have been completed in this manner.

Castor oil is also useful in the case of painful hemorrhoids (piles). Take a piece of cotton (cotton wool) and dip it in castor oil. Insert this into the rectum. If the piles are protruding, lie down and gently encourage them back into the rectum with the cotton wool dipped in castor oil. Leave the cotton wool in place all night. If very painful piles are experienced, then a fresh piece with castor oil needs to be used about every two hours. However, it will not take long to ease the pain and shrink the piles.

Although castor oil should not be used as a laxative, olive oil is excellent for this purpose. One to two teaspoons taken 15 to 20 minutes before breakfast will relieve constipation and will also promote healing to the mucous membranes lining the digestive tract. For those who have inflamed, irritated stomachs, it is better than any drug. If you find this hard to take first thing in the morning, try it at noon before the mid-day meal, or in the evening before retiring.

*18\62\2*

This little boy started to go down with a fever in the morning and was sponged with cool water on and off through the day. In the late afternoon the temperature began to rise again, so an Epsom salts bath was tried. He went to sleep after that until seven p.m., when he awoke with a raging fever. The temperature taken from the arm pit registered 102° F. The wet pack was suggested. The child’s parents tried a slightly different variation of this treatment, but we record it here to show that the particular method is not as important as the general compliance with principle. For the sake of recognition, we will call it a cold compress. This will reduce a fever in the same way as the wet sheet, but only part of the body is covered at one time. Just like the wet sheet pack, in the cold compress the cloth must be removed as soon as it warms up and replaced with another cold cloth.

These parents understood the principle and worked at it in their own way for their child. First they placed him on a blanket; then they took a wet tea towel, folded it in four, and placed this down the front of his body. Next, a hot water bottle was put at his feet, and he was then wrapped up in the blanket. To quiet his fears, the parents assured him that they were doing all they could to relieve his troubles and sang hymns to help calm him. He soon responded to this soothing influence and allowed them to work away on him. It took three applications of the wet towel before his temperature dropped to 100° F. After the third application to the front, they rolled him over onto his stomach and applied the wet towel to his back. This time it did not take so long to bring the temperature down, and he was soon cool all over. He was relaxed, and it was easy to see that he had relief at last. The temperature did not rise again. He slept well that night and was soon over his problem.

*9\62\2*

A medicinal herb used in Europe since ancient times, St Johns wort or hypericum has recently caused excitement among scientists with its anti-viral action against the HIV virus which causes AIDS. This proven anti-viral activity may also lead to a breakthrough in the treatment of multiple sclerosis although research into its effect on both these retroviruses is still in its early stages.

St Johns wort taken internally has a proven effect on anxiety and depression and a reputation for suppressing urination, useful knowledge for parents of bedwetting children. It is a sedative and will relieve the pain of neuralgia as well as lessen the irritability triggered by menopausal change.

The aromatic herbal oil easily extracted from the plant’s bright yellow flowers has astringent and anti-inflammatory properties and is an excellent dressing for sunburn and superficial wounds.

St Johns wort grows well in Australia, so well in fact that it is considered a noxious weed in some states.

*58\69\2*

Anna was 78 when she was first referred to Dr Volz by a local consultant. By that time, her experiences with recurrent episodes of depression went back a quarter of a century. In the early 1980s she was treated with lithium carbonate, which was discontinued when it resulted in thyroid troubles. In the early 1990s she was treated with amitriptyline, one of the older anti-depressants, which caused her severe dry mouth and, on one occasion, an episode of fainting when she got up one night to go to the toilet. Then Prozac (20 mg per day) was tried, and even though it helped her depression to some degree, it caused unbearable sleep problems. Sometimes it would take her as long as two hours to fall asleep at night and then she would wake an average of three times during the course of the night.

When Anna consulted Dr Volz, he judged her to be moderately depressed while on Prozac, scoring 21 points on the well-known Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, on which the higher the score the more depressed the individual. Because of the severe sleep difficulties, Dr Volz decided to switch Anna to St John’s Wort. He did this without any overlap between medications, immediately discontinuing her Prozac and starting St John’s Wort (900 mg per day). Four days later Anna reported an improvement in the quality of her sleep, but her mood had deteriorated slightly and she now scored 24 on the Hamilton Rating Scale. Her dosage of St John’s Wort was increased to 1,800 mg per day. After three weeks her Rating score dropped to 20, after six weeks to 15 and after another four weeks to 10. Anna’s depression continues to improve. Once again, St John’s Wort triumphed where other medications had failed.

There are several lessons to be learned from Dr Volz and his patients. For many people, like Greta, herbal remedies are simply more acceptable than synthetic drugs. Perhaps it is because we are used to eating plants that they seem more natural than pills do. Even though we need double-blind studies, which include placebo controls, to make sure that any effects of a medication are specific and not just due to a placebo effect, it is hard not to become a believer in the anti-depressant effects of St John’s Wort when one encounters patients such as Greta. Adamantly opposed to the very idea that she was depressed and uninformed about the purported anti-depressant effects of St John’s Wort, her symptoms nevertheless responded completely, suggesting a specific effect of the herbal anti-depressant. An added advantage of St John’s Wort over the older anti-depressants is that, like the SSRIs, it does not appear to have any adverse effect on electrical conduction in the heart. For this reason, Dr Volz felt quite comfortable in using it to treat Greta’s depression even though her EKG had revealed some abnormalities in her cardiac conduction.

In Anna’s case, we see the importance of persevering with an anti-depressant treatment. After she was switched from Prozac to St John’s Wort, she initially appeared to get worse before her slow but progressive improvement over the course of the next several months. Her depression was moderately severe when she first consulted Dr Volz and had apparently been somewhat worse before she started Prozac. Nevertheless, St John’s Wort successfully turned it round, indicating once again the potency of the herbal remedy. Despite this potency, the mildness of the herbal antidepressant was apparent in the ease with which this elderly woman was able to tolerate it in dosages that are very much higher than those widely recommended for the treatment of mild-to-moderate depression. This was in marked contrast with the synthetic anti-depressants she had previously taken and on which she had developed unacceptable side-effects.

*33\75\2*