More and more people are beginning to realise that the liver is one of our most important organs and needs to be kept functioning properly. Since the liver does not send out an alarm until a disorder has made considerable progress, it is to our advantage to be especially aware of certain symptoms which can serve as early warnings. If we know and understand the various causes of liver trouble, we will be in a good position to take precautionary measures and protect this vital organ.

Almost 50 per cent of the people in Switzerland, my native country, are ill because they are overfed. The variety of things available to satisfy their palate is too great. So overindulgence is largely responsible for their disorders, whereas the opposite is true in the Far East where malnutrition is the cause of liver problems. It is astonishing to find that even in countries where rice is grown and is the staple food, only white rice is sold at the market. The only exceptions are in rural areas where the peasants prepare their own natural, or brown, rice. Generally, however, the people like only white rice and prefer to buy and cook it. The majority of the population is totally ignorant of the nutritional value of brown rice and of the many benefits it offers in its natural state as compared to denatured white rice. True, in Switzerland and elsewhere ignorance prevails as well, but at least rice is not our principal food.

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Ulcers at the cardiac end of the stomach are rare; they are much more frequent in the region of the outlet of the stomach, the lesser curvature. As mentioned earlier, the first thing to occur is an irritation of the stomach lining. This irritation alone may cause some pain, but generally the patient ignores it and hence it goes untreated. When ‘hunger pains’ set in, which are so called because they characteristically appear when the stomach is empty and disappear when some food is ingested, the lining is already affected and there is a strong possibility that an ulcer is beginning to develop. The stomach wall, now no longer protected, is being eroded by the action of the gastric juice and it is this which causes the pain. Normally, the walls of the stomach are saved from self-digestion by a protective enzyme. If the mucous membrane of the stomach is already damaged, causing pain, the patient need only eat a little food and the discomfort will be relieved at once, because the gastric acid must now act on the food and is simultaneously absorbed by it.

If the pain sets in about half an hour after meals, this is an indication that the ulcer is located in the duodenum, generally 4-5 cm (about 2 inches) away from the outlet of the stomach.

A neglected ulcer, one that has not been treated, continues to grow and in time becomes a crater-like formation. Even though the wall of the stomach becomes thicker, the ulcer may eventually perforate it and allow the chyme to leak into the abdominal cavity.

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The pain of neuritis can be eased by repeatedly applying hot water compresses. Still better results are obtained by using herbal poultices, well heated before application. For an even more intense effect, put the herbs in a linen or cotton bag, immerse this in hot water, wring it out and apply it to the affected area.

Another alternative is to pour slightly warmed St John’s wort oil onto a piece of woollen cloth and apply this. If you mix potter’s clay with St John’s wort oil, again, slightly warmed, and apply the resulting paste, not forgetting to place a hot water bottle on top to retain the heat, the effect will be intensified.

A very simple, old-fashioned method, though perhaps rather unpleasant, has also proved beneficial. Soak a piece of cloth or cotton wool in hot paraffin, place this on the inflamed area and cover with more cotton wool or a woollen cloth. This treatment is useful for pain in the back, arms and legs. There is nothing cheaper or simpler, even though it may be rather smelly. Take care to remove the compress as soon as the skin begins to turn red and feel warm, because paraffin can burn and blister the skin. Anyone living in a rural area where paraffin lamps are still used can easily take advantage of this method of treating neuritis.

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If you own a car you may at times hear a noise when you are driving, a noise that comes and goes. To find out what it is, you decide to take the car to a garage for a check-up, but just at that time, the noise is not there, and naturally the mechanic cannot find anything wrong with it. A few weeks later, however, your car stops in the middle of the road because the defect that had not been found and therefore not taken care of, has developed into a serious fault.

It is even harder to detect a disorder in the human body, especially if it is not a question of an actual organic disease. At times, all possible methods of examination used by the physician or naturopath do not disclose any clue of a malfunction. Intuition can be a great asset in the medical profession, but it is not enough to help those patients who feel very unwell yet the doctor is unable to put his finger on what ails them. Indeed, it often takes many years of experience to understand such patients. Many of these

patients are women, whose complaints are often simply attributed to a hysterical nature or their imagination, as in psychosomatic illnesses. However, this diagnosis will only force them into deeper despair.

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WHITE OR BROWN RICE?

In the United States it has been the custom for quite some time to treat high blood pressure with a rice diet. A Swiss sanatorium has employed the same diet to combat hypertension with the satisfactory result that the pressure decreased significantly, but at the same time the diet produced a bad side effect – the patients became anaemic. What could have caused this unfortunate result? Well, it was quite simply due to a lack of knowledge. No one took into consideration that white rice is not at all suitable for diet purposes; having had its goodness to a large extent removed, it gives rise to typical deficiency symptoms. Did not the outbreak of beriberi make the world aware of this fact?

A mono-diet of rice is indicated only if it is based on the whole grain; it must be unpolished brown rice. Only then will the patient benefit and the blood pressure drop without any accompanying deficiency symptoms. It is a good thing to observe this in everyday cooking as well, because brown rice is far more nutritional than the refined white kind, as brown rice contains 9.5 times more minerals (nutritive salts) than white rice. During the refining process, not only is the external cellulose husk removed, but so too is the tasty silvery membrane and the germ. While this process makes for a nice white rice grain, it devalues it at the same time. It is an open secret that the removed ‘wastes’ of the rice grains are not thrown away but are bought by the pharmaceutical companies to be included as ingredients in their tonic medicines. It is always good to look behind the scenes if you can, because you often discover some useful hints for better health.

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WHITE OR BROWN RICE?

In the United States it has been the custom for quite some time to treat high blood pressure with a rice diet. A Swiss sanatorium has employed the same diet to combat hypertension with the satisfactory result that the pressure decreased significantly, but at the same time the diet produced a bad side effect – the patients became anaemic. What could have caused this unfortunate result? Well, it was quite simply due to a lack of knowledge. No one took into consideration that white rice is not at all suitable for diet purposes; having had its goodness to a large extent removed, it gives rise to typical deficiency symptoms. Did not the outbreak of beriberi make the world aware of this fact?

A mono-diet of rice is indicated only if it is based on the whole grain; it must be unpolished brown rice. Only then will the patient benefit and the blood pressure drop without any accompanying deficiency symptoms. It is a good thing to observe this in everyday cooking as well, because brown rice is far more nutritional than the refined white kind, as brown rice contains 9.5 times more minerals (nutritive salts) than white rice. During the refining process, not only is the external cellulose husk removed, but so too is the tasty silvery membrane and the germ. While this process makes for a nice white rice grain, it devalues it at the same time. It is an open secret that the removed ‘wastes’ of the rice grains are not thrown away but are bought by the pharmaceutical companies to be included as ingredients in their tonic medicines. It is always good to look behind the scenes if you can, because you often discover some useful hints for better health.

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