But a broad view of metabolism and nutrition recognizes that all cell changes, whether good or bad, depend on the character and composition of the blood furnished to the tissues, although little definite may be known concerning it. Thus, no one has demonstrated the single causative change in the blood in arteriosclerosis, gout, rickets, scorbutus, etc., but no one questions that it exists, and we direct our therapeutic measures accordingly, largely from experience.
The same is true in cancer. Most careful and prolonged study of the patient in every respect has shown a certain uniformity in regard to particular deviations from health, the correction of which has been followed by a complete disappearance of tumors classed as malignant, so that the connection must seem obvious to an unprejudiced mind. And yet it cannot be claimed that the exact, single cause of the cancerous growth has been demonstrated, and from the nature and character of the systemic disorders found, it is evident that there can never be any single remedy which can be rightly claimed as a cure for cancer.
But that cancer can be cured by medical means and without the knife is absolutely certain, as the experience of many testify, and as the writer has observed in so many cases during the past 30 and more years. Many of the instances in the hands of others have occurred unexpectedly, and without definite or careful study and record of the measures employed. But in some way the condition of the blood and system has become altered so that there has occurred a retrogressive process which resulted in the absorption of the tumor. I may say that this was the case in regard to the earlier patients in my own practise, when I observed that tumors of the breast, which had been diagnosed as cancer by surgeons, disappeared under dietetic and other measures given for some skin affection; later observation and study have crystallized my views and confirmed my methods of procedure, which I hope to make plain, as briefly as possible, lack of time to explain everything must make me a little dogmatic.
An absolutely vegetarian diet is the first requisite in the treatment and prophylaxis of cancer, for, as mentioned, this has been found experimentally to inhibit, often to a remarkable degree, the production of artificially produced cancer in rats and mice, and experience throughout the world has shown cancer to be extremely rare in vegetarians. This diet, which should be maintained indefinitely, must be rigorous and absolutely vegetarian, excluding animal protein, even eggs and milk; butter is the only article allowed which does not grow, and of this one quarter of a pound is to be taken daily, by a person weighing 150 pounds. Cereals are to be freely employed, eaten slowly, with a fork, and with butter, and not with milk and sugar, though the latter may be used moderately, where it seems necessary and where it perfectly agrees with the patient.