I came across this quote, which sounds very reasonable.
Bernarr Macfadden’s philosophy. This pioneer in health made an astute comment back in 1928—one that serves us well to follow today: “The reader should now be fully persuaded to accept the statement of our assurance that most disease is preventable. There is no physician of any school who will not agree to the proposition that if the body be healthy it has the power to resist the aggressions of any kind of disease. Even though one accept the germ theory to its fullest extent, we have shown that disease germs cannot grow and thrive in a healthy organism. No matter what contagion is, or how it works, it has no power over a healthy body.” (Macfadden’s Encyclopedia of Physical Culture, p. 66.)
So how does one keep healthy? Doing all the unmedicated things that I now have a new reason to fit into our schedule: eat well, take vitamins, exercise, less sugar, simplify and stress less, and get plenty of rest.
Those things are certainly cost effective compared to prescriptions and don't come with the risk of nasty side effects!
I'm grateful for modern medicine, but I often question the need to medicate everything as avidly as our society does. There is value for the mind and body in being outside for instance. Medically proven in medical journals that being outside prevents illness...sunshine and fresh air really are great medicine!
I really need to remember to make sure I take my own medical advice (not just send the kids out to play so I can get something done)!
2 comments:
Hope you are all settled back home. We enjoyed seeing you here.
I love that quote. I'm afraid that most people (myself included sometimes) want to be able to be irresponsible and still be healthy, but "wickedness never was happiness".
I just read an essay by David Abram, "The Ecology of Magic," that talked all about being healthy. It also mentions that only through acknowleging that other living things have a conciousness, can we be truly at one with the world around us. One thing that the essay mentioned was so good to me.
" Western industrial society, of course, with its massive scale and hugely centralized economy, can hardly be seen in relation to any particular landscape or ecosystem; the more-than-human ecology with which it is directly engaged is the biosphere itself. Sadly, our culture's relation to the earthly biosphere can in no way be considered a reiprocal or balanced one: with thousands of acres of nonregenerating forest disappearing every hour, and hundreds of our fellow species becoming extinct each month as a result of our civilization's excesses, we can hardly be surprised by the amount of epidemic illness in our culture, from increasingly sever ammune dysfunctions and cancers, to widespread psychological distress, depression, and ever more frequent suicides, to the accelerating number of household killings and mass murders committed for no apparent reason by otherwise coherent individuals...We are human only in contact, and convivality; with what is not human."
Sorry that is so long, I just loved it and loved the relevancy. Get your kids outside, ADD goes out the window.
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