9, ^/B:tjhx}^x^ -j^^^. ^^ m v.. V /:4 ^^:, >^^ TV^ r^ jy\ N -v\ t::^- ^. y-y Vi-A -^^ n^' y-'Ay "^' -?a^^ ,»^^ . iH'AU -/^l*/ k^M^ k*^^ /? • >r>w. 1 -^ — - ^ — r ^ ^/t — 1 l^i^ .^ 1 7Z. ^ - i/^^ ii.- - /r^ w /een the constituents of the cells and those of the blood alone are different; that is, stomach cells produce stomach cells and gas- tric juice, whereas brain cells produce brain cells and cerebral fluid (or juice). The nucleus may be called the heart of the cell and the serum and protoplasm its blood and food. When we v/ish to refer to a whole cell, or to a nucleus or to any microscopically visible bodies that make up blood, tissues or organs we speak of "form.-elements." When we wish to refer to the purely fluid substances in the body, such as blood serum and lymph, whether inside Au top a thy — Cure Thyself ii or outside of the cells, we speak of "nutritive" or "cir- culating media." It is important that you should un- derstand that just as air and water and soil contain our nourishment so the gases and fluids and solids of serum and protoplasm in and around the cells and nuclei contain their nutriment or vital constituents in health and in disease. The active or "live" bodies or granules of the nu- cleus are nourished by the constituents of the serum of the cell-protoplasm, which in turn derives its nour- ishment from the blood serum and the lymph; and also by the same cell-protoplasm or serum are the by- products and waste materials of the living granules of the nucleus assimilated, and then passed over to the blood or lymph vessels or currents. Whatever the serum and protoplasm get from air, water, foods or poisons the nucleus must accept, and v/hatever the nucleus throws off or discharges as ob- jectionable or waste the protoplasm or serum or lymph must accept and remove. Nucleus and protoplasm live and behave like married couples, with the same happy or unhappy results. The substance of the cells as a whole is largely liq- uid. The solid bodies that make up our cells, blood and flesh are divided into "proteid" (fleshy) and "min- eral." The proteid matter is called "organic"; the mineral, "inorganic." That distinction is artificial, for both not only exist together in solution in the serum and form-elements of the blood and cells, but also in firm and permanent combination in the real "live" granular "proteid" matter of the nucleus or heart of the cells. None of the fluids or cells of the body can 12 Autolog y — Study Thyself live when deprived of either one or the other. The so- called inorganic (mineral) are fully as essential to liv- ingness and growth, as well as to health and recovery, as the organic (proteid). Therefore we cannot live or grow or get well with- out appropriating and assimilating what plants derive from beneath and above the ground surface. We thrive in identically the same way on the same elements of the same air, light, water and foods, and like them we remain healthy as long as we get the right quality and admixture; but like them we wither or get sick when we appropriate too little or too much of either or both kinds of foods. The things which keep the purely proteid or fleshy substance of our blood and tissues healthy, or prevent it from souring or decomposing, are the inorganic or mineral constituents — 'elements that we neither taste nor smell nor chew. For the most part they get into our blood and organs unrecognized by our senses with air, water and foods. Hence health is greatly a matter of haphazard with nearly everybody. That is why most children experience the afflictions of diseases of childhood, and people of other ages suffer from one or another impaired or disordered function, or succumb to severer diseases, such as appendicitis, pneumonia, consumption, typhoid fever, pleurisy, kidney disease, nervous ailments, insanity, and so forth. Blood and flesh will sour or rot inside as well as out- side of the body unless it is "preserved" in some way. You can't "embalm" live kidneys or livers or brains, but Nature can. To do so the blood must be supplied with the right kind and proportion of the inorganic- Autopath y — Cure Thyself 13 vital constituents which prevent or check fermentation or decomposition of cellular substance and products. To remain well or to regain normal health the blood and organs must ever be supplied from air, water and soil with the right variety and proportion of those in- organic constituents, or natural remedies, which com- bine with the normal or abnormal products, or poison- ous organic acids, which organs and germs and fer- ments manufacture in health as well as in disease. Therefore: The "living" cell-matter contains the only "living" cure-matter. All cells — well or sick — are fundamentally "one in structure and in function," as all bricks are. So, all cell-cure must be fundamentally one in structure and in function. When your lungs are sick — who or what does the repairing or curing — if not the lung-cells themselves? And with what — if not with air, water and the "detoxicating" food constituents? Let us pass to sick kidneys — who or what does their repairing or curing — if not the kidney-cells them- selves with the same elements of the same air and water and foods which lung-cells, or any other cells, utilize, or cure themselves with, when they are in the same predicament? If, then — there is but one fundamental "healthy" structure and function of cells (organs and tissues) ; and, but one fundamental "sickly" structure and func- tion of cells (organs and tissues) — why should there be more than one fundamental cure? There isn't. And that cure is of nature-made and of nature- preordained, and resides in the cell-matter, unknown 14 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself as life, but recognized as function, in the heart-gran- ules of the tissue-cells. It is that thing, which we call "function or nutri- tion," which enables a kidney-cell to manufacture kid- ney-tissue and urine with the same air and water and food-stuffs with which brain-cells manufacture brain- tissue and thoughts. The idea of believing that "contraries cure con- traries," or that "likes cure likes," or that "mind cures matter" — ! Drowning is cured by air- Asphyxiation is cured by air — Drowning is caused by water — Asphj^xiation is caused by gas — liquids — solids — Is air "contrary" or "similar" to water or gas — or "mind"? It's air — and that's all it is. And, without it, as air, no living thing — mind and matter — can cure itself. Likewise with water and food. On that one, simple, fundamental truth is Autology based. Autology is the offspring of the conception that Health is one; that Sickness is one; that Cure is one; that Livingness, Health, Sickness, Cure and Death are One — as Electricity, Light, Heat, Motion and Potency are One. It is impossible to conceive of sickness, or of cure, without some "health." Therefore, the "some" health becomes the cure of the "some" sickness. Or, the cell's own health cures the cell's own sickness. In other words, the well, or partly well, cells of an Autopath y — Cure Thyself 15 organ or tissue cure their own sick, or partly sick, cells. But, neither the well nor the sick cells of an organ or tissue can cure the sick or partly sick cells of another organ or tissue. For instance, lung cells can- not cure the sick cells of a liver or kidney or muscle or bone, etc., or vice versa. Nor can anything help to cure a sick cell (organ or tissue) unless that something is itself dis-organized and then re-organized in the countless cells of the vari- ous functionating tissues and circulating fluids of the organism, before being dis-organized and re-organized again by the well and the sick cells of the ailing organ or tissue. But — as air is air, and as such is not a cure ; and, as water is water, and as such is not a cure ; and as food is food, and as such is not a cure — therefore, "cure" is not a thing that exists outside of, or distinct from, the particular tissue-cells in whose "bosom" it (the cure) originally was (preformed and preordained by Nature) and is again re-formed with the elements derived from air, water, light and foods. Hence — "contraries" do not cure "contraries"; "likes" do not cure "likes"; "mind" does not cure "matter" — but self cures itself. In other words. Na- ture-made "living" matter cures its own self with self- made and self-same matter. That's the Rational and Scientific Basis of Autology and Autopathy. EUGENICS. (Race Culture.) Eugenics is that doctrine of Anthropology, the Study of Man, which teaches race-culture, or the raising of good human-stock. Comparatively little other attention, than to the moulding of features and of frames, have scientists here or abroad devoted in studying the relation which diet and hygiene bear to the development and improve- ment of human-stock. Science is apt to begin its investigations and experi- ments at the wrong end. Thus eugenists, or race- culturists, are endeavoring to determine the effects of diet and climate and environments on the "forma- tive influences" which tend to change or modify the featural or physiognomical types of families and indi- viduals, or which occasion peculiarities and aberra- tions in the mould and physical characteristics of, for instance, the nose, the chin, the mouth, the ears, etc. Thus, taking the Jew's nose as an illustration, Schu- f eldt says : "Nature's provision of a nose for the sense of smell, and the life of the Jew in the foul Ghettos, and amidst a thousand unnamable Oriental odors, is largely responsible for the Hebraic physiognomy. Where the air has not to be well filtered before it passes into the lungs, or where the sense of smell is not outraged, we have the open nostril of the Russian peasant, the negro, and the Esquimaux." 16 Autopathy — Cure Thyself 17 Then, Fauconberg reports: "A recent writer has noticed the greater chin and jowl of Americans, which marks them even in early infancy, and in his opinion is due to a too starchy diet," It has often been observed that good habits and wholesome foods enable a facially degenerated family to raise offsprings of strong and beautiful features. Now, the chief aim of scientists should not be to de- termine or to "record" the mere fact that certain effects or changes are produced in the mould of the nose, or chin, or mouth of individuals — under wholesome and unwholesome environments ; but it should be to group all observed effects under two classes, the normal type and the abnormal type, and to refer each class to the physical factors which determine its typical character- istics — not so much its featural or outwardly visible peculiarities of beauty or ugliness, but its qualitative brainal or cerebral, cellular or protoplasmic, constitu- tion. In short, let us trace featural and physiognom- ical results or effects of diet and environments to the fabric or makeup of brain substance — as determined by the formative influences of feeding and breeding. Or, better yet, let us concentrate our efforts to the feeding and breeding of brains with a view to influ- ence the formation and control the development of brain convolutions — thereby insuring not alone the production of the most superb types of frames and features, but also the incubation of the highest grade of intelligence. Such is the object of Autology. As the brain and the intelligence of any race, of any family, of any individual is of greater importance tha* 1 8 Auto logy — Study Thyself are their noses and smells, so the doctrine of how to raise brains and incubate mind with foodstuffs deserves more attention than that of influencing noses or chins. As a result of observation we know certain things about the "starchy" and the "onion" chin, the "potato" lip, the "smoker's" ears, the "sugar" mouth, the "tea- drinker's" teeth, the "city-dweller's" long-head, the "strenuous-life" type of face, etc. ; but little or no jus- tice has been done to the effects or influence of diet in moulding the brain and producing a high order of mental characteristics. It is one thing to focus scientific efforts to the ac- quisition of knov/ledge whereby we are able to under- stand and regulate the process of the digestion and assimilation of various foods in the alimentary canal, but it is quite another to penetrate deeper for the pur- pose of understanding and regulating the same proc- esses as they occur within the inmost recesses or hearts of the cells which constitute vital organs. In other words, brain "eupeptics," or the study of what constitutes good digestion and assimilation within the vacuole-stomachs of the brain cells themselves, should supersede the study of stomach or bowel digestion. As physiologists have transferred their investigations of the chemistry of digestion and absorption, from the stomach and bowel cavities, to the cellular vacuoles or cavities of the solid tissues, so should students of eugenics transfer their investigations of physical changes effected by diet and climate, on the facial or physiognomical characteristics of the individual, to the changes effected by diet and environments on the brainal or intellectual characteristics of the individuaL A ut op a thy — Cure Thyself xg It is unquestionably interesting to learn of "the beautiful nasal organ of Charles Dickens and the splen- did chin of Napoleon," but how much more educating and helpful it would be to determine the physical "how" and "what" which made it possible for "form- ative influences" to mould Dickens' and Napoleon's brain convolutions, and evolve intellectual character- istics, with such incidental results as Napoleonic chins, etc. Nature does nothing haphazardly. Utility is Na- ture's guide. She demonstrates this truth in forming noses, ears, mouths, fingers, etc., as well as fins and webs and wings; and, when forced, through environ- ments or nourishment, to utilize unsuitable physical elements, she does not refuse to turn out noses, ears, chins, etc. — but she gives these some peculiar size or shape or characteristic, called "degenerate" types or specimens. All "degenerate" types of face or features are due to the violation of the laws of Nature^-of those laws which compel us to have light, air, water and foods; but which leave it optional with us as regards utilizing "artificial" or "natural" kinds of light, air, water and foods. If "artificial" or degenerate ways of living, eating and drinking produce such marked variations or aber- rations of nose, or chin, or mouth, or ear- — then is it to be wondered at that the same artificial conditions also produce marked variations or aberrations of brain- matter and "mental" and moral products? Personally, I prefer to let noses, chins, mouths, ears and toes take care of themselves, and to devote my at- tention to brains — but to brains in the physical sense — 20 Autology — Study Thyself fully convinced by actual observation that when brain- matter is adequately and carefully fed and bred, in the sense that horses are fed and bred, all other tissue- matters and sense-organs are bound to be "beautiful" and "splendid" — the best and finest of their type. I know of one specimen whose featural and physiog- nomical and brainal and intellectual and physical char- acteristics are amply sufficient of themselves to con- vince the most skeptical mind that there is something in this new autologic doctrine of feeding and breeding brains and intelligence in children and others as you feed and breed "stock" in horses, etc. And, finally, that there is next to nothing in heredity. A robin redbreast does not fetch summer along, but his presence in your garden is sure proof that others are coming from the same direction and in the same manner; so, likewise, I infer that the presence in my garden of a thoroughbred brain, mind and body is sure proof that others should be forthcoming in other fami- lies from the same direction and in the same manner. Such is the heart and brain and soul wish of the writer. HOW TO RAISE BRAINS It's gotten to be no trick at all to raise thirty-thou- sand-dollar "pinks," or fifty-thousand-dollar horses, or billion-dollar trusts — but it still is the toughest proposition in the world to raise anything better than thirty-cent brains. Why? Because: People will learn to feed hogs or cabbages or puppies, but they don't care a darn how they feed their offspring. Anybody can raise gas in dough, which is like rais- ing mind in brain ; but just as yeast and fermentation do not produce bread, so mind and education do not produce brains. It takes air, light, water and food-stuffs to manufac- ture brains and mind, as it does to manufacture livers and bile, kidneys and urine. The best part of it is that it is quite as cheap and easy to feed a child stuff that goes to the making of brains and mind as it is to feed it "truck" that goes to the making of liver and bile, or kidney and urine. Listen! Suppose some one wants to "raise" a big liver or flatulous belly — it's no trick, is it? Why, then, should it be to "raise" a big brain and brilliant mind? You raise the first two by breathing, drinking and eating liver- and bile-producing air, beverages and dishes; so, you can raise the last two by breathing, 81 22 Autology — Study Thyself drinking and eating brain- and mind-producing air> beverages and dishes. And, what beats all, is that the air and drinks and foods which produce the best brands of gray matter and intelligence are the same that produce the finest quality of liver and bile, of kid- neys and urine, of lungs and blood, of stomachs and gastric juice, and so forth. But, on the other hand, the air and drinks and foods which produce the bulki- est and bile-fullest livers, the biggest and urine-fullest kidneys, the pouchiest and slime-fullest stomachs, are the air and drinks and foods which produce the meas- liest and most brainless minds. So long as the air which surrounds people is cooked and done up with a view to petting skins or notions, and so long as drinks and foods are chosen to tickle the palate and prepared to snug up v.7aist-bands, so long shall people be able to raise thoroughbred horses, dogs and hogs, and prize-winning fruits and flowers and " 'taters," but shan't for the life of them be able to raise thoroughbred or pedigreed children. To make a three-year story short, and in order to give you a "model" from which to cast any number of like products, permit me to relate an experiment in "raising" brains in a boy's head. I do not ask any reader to "believe" what I write, but I do want every reader to "understand" what I state and explain. If I told you that I had been "ex- perimenting" with American Beauty roses, and had succeeded in raising the finest yet, as was done with the Lawson carnation, you would see no reason why you should disbelieve me, for I would have "the" rose Autopath y — Cure Thyself 23 to show you. Well, Autology and I have been in- strumental in raising or growing the finest specimen of American Brain in the head of a boy whose health and development have been entrusted to me. And, as I foresaw, his mind and his bile and his urine and his bowels and his juices and his looks and his physique, and everything else about him, has taken care of itself, as the stems and leaves and petals and colors and fragrance of the sturdy American Beauty rose do, so long as the intelligent and watchful brain of the gardener studies and tends to the wants of the plant. The boy is just 3 years old. He has never had a sus- picion even of an ailment or a cold, though "exposed" in every conceivable way to "colds" and contagious dis- eases of children; though allowed to play bareheaded in the hottest of sunny days, and to play bareheaded in the coldest of bleaky days. But an intelligent mother's eye is ever focused on him, and an intelligent mother's brain is ever attending to his L. A. W. F. — which, you know, means light, air, water and food. He has never "been taught" or "been thoughted" anything. He speaks and understands three languages, and thinks in the three languages. Do you realize fully what that means? He thinks in the three languages! In other words, his brain cells (not his mind) possess and exude the "smartness" of the Yankee, "I'esprit" of the French, and the "Gemiitlichkeit" of the Ger- man. And those he owns as his own, untaught and unborrowed and unthoughted — but simply because he 24 Autology — Study Thyself has been fed the physical elements of light, air, water, foods and example, which elements reach his brain- matter by way of his hair and nose and stomach and eyes and ears; and which elements are organized in and by his brain-cells into their own physical and men- tal products and by-products— not in and by his par- ents', but in and by his own. Not into liver "goods," but into brain "goods." And not by or through or from heredity, either. Of course, he wasn't born a cabbage ; nor is he being fed or bred like one. He's just a well-moulded and well-balanced casting of flesh and blood, of brain and brawn. Not cultured ; just nurtured. But his head is more in evi- dence than his belly ; and his facial expression conveys far more than truth and fiction ever could. Were it not that public environments and prevail- ing ideas are so unfavorable, and must ever be guarded and fought against with tooth and nail, how perfectly easy, simple and feasible that achievement could be duplicated by any one. The trouble is not because of expense or difficulty in supplying any child, of any parents, with the material elements and foods neces- sary to develop superior brain-cells, but it is because of the watchfulness required to prevent those brain- cells from "snapping" pictures of dusty, cobwebby, streaky, smutty things through sight or sound or feel. A child's spongy brain soaks in and photographs every gross and minute detail of every look and sound and behaving, without the least bit of regard as to whether the stuff or picture is good, bad or indiffer- ent. And it assorts them into albums, or pastes them in scrapbooks, to exhibit or refer to later. And just as Autopathy — Cure Thyself 25 it is almost heart-rending to part with old pictures, however tintypy they may be, so it is almost brain- rending to part with old notions or impressions. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. But what bends or what straightens the brain? It is quite imma- terial by what physical or mental name you call that "what," so long as you understand and know that by "food" I mean everything and anything which reaches the child's brain through his nose and mouth and hair, as well also as I mean everything which reaches the child's brain through his eyes and ears and fingers or skin. You "think" you quite comprehend what I mean, but I'm not sure that you do. Because it is the pre- vailing and accepted notion that it is proper to concen- trate and focus all public and individual energies to the implanting of knowledge into children's minds, overlooking the simple fact that you can't impress or implant pictures on barefaced or blurred or smudged plates of glass. My first contention is to forget that a child has a mind — ^which he hasn't got ready-made at birth — but that he has a brain — which he has got ready-made at birth — and never, never to forget forgetting the first, and never forgetting to remember the second. My second contention is that any child's brain shall manufacture the highest grade of brain-juice (which you call mind), as any child's stomach and liver and kidneys shall manufacture the highest grade of gastric juice and bile and urine, if you but feed the child properly, with your eyes and eeirs and mind focused on and into his brain-marrow. 26 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself Understand me well, please. I mean that there is no more sense in teaching a child's mind anything whatsoever, with the idea that that something is going to produce knowledge in that child's mind or brain, any more than there would be sense in pouring bile into a child's stomach with the idea that that bile was going to produce bile or liver in that child's body. I mean that the first principle and practice of Autology, or of Common Sense, is to feed the child's brain- matter through the child's nose and mouth and hair first and alvv lys, and only incidentally through his eyes and ears. His tongue and fingers and feet will do the rest without any coaxing. You can't teach a child to walk, although you can help to make him bov/-legged. You can't teach a child to think, except bow-leggedly. You can feed "walk- ing" into a child's legs, and so can you feed "think- ing" into a child's brain. You can no more think a thought into his head than you can think a walk into his legs. You can watch or guide his walking appara- tus, as you can watch or guide his thinking apparatus ; but the moment you overstep this limit,, in walking, that moment you invite bumps and bloody noses ; and so, in thinking, you invite chumps and silly notions. Withal, I haven't said a word about the boy's in- stinctive, intuitive reasoning faculty, which certainly is the direct product of natural digestion c~ reaction as it occurs in his brain-cells; for at the age of two he was already capable of squelching his father with the force and sense of his replies and arguments. Did he learn or inherit those replies and arguments? Never. Did he ever hear them before? Never. To illustrate: Autopath y — Cure Thyself 27 He was barely two years old at the time. His father was busy reading. The child was talking and bother- ing him. Snappingly, his father said: "Ruhig!" ("Keep quiet.") To which the baby deliberately and sternly remarked : "Karlchen ne peut pas parler avec ses pieds." ("Karlchen can't talk with his feet.") By which he meant that you can't think with your liver or bile. THOUGHT "INCUBATION." There is the making of a "thinking" chicken in the yolk of an egg. By whom? By the constituents of the "yellow" and "white" and shell. Through what? Through "incubating" heat. How? Let us see. A yolk is not "alive" with blood, or flesh, or bones, or feathers, or brains; nor is it "mentalized" with thoughts — before it is incubated and hatched. And what constitutes "incubating" or "hatching"? Merely this: Heating — a certain degree and duration of it — sets in motion the "functions" of the chemical "or- ganic" compounds which compose egg-yolk, as wind- ing sets in motion the mechanism of a watch ; and the egg, unalive and unmentalized, begins to breathe. Yes, begins to "breathe." The "incubated" egg actually inhales oxygen and exhales carbonic acid gas as plants and animals do; and perspires vapor or moisture through its shell-coat as we do through our skin. 28 Autology— Study Thyself Day by day, the activity or motion of the yolk-chem- icals increases and "attracts" the chemicals of the "white" and of the shell — and behold ! a brain, as well as feathers, appears into the world of "human" incu- bation. What's happened? Nothing much, apparently — but a chicken has been "hatched"; because heat-motion helped to start motion of a given kind, called breath- ing, inside of the egg-shell. If that heat, or the lack or excess of some "degrees" of it, had started another kind of motion, called "fermentation," inside of that same egg-shell — as often happens — the outcome or product would have been rot and stench instead of brain and mind. Wouldn't it? Deprived of oxygen and moisture inside and outside of the shell, deprived of albuminoids inside and out- side of the yolk; without phosphorus and minerals in the substance and shell ; v/ithout fats and cerebrine and cholesterine and lecithin in the yellow : would the "par- ent" elements, called Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon and Hydrogen, have organized themselves into blood, flesh, bones, feathers and brain? What then has occurred? Nothing much apparent- ly ; but heat started "function" or breathing in the egg- yolk; heat awakened or wound up the "still" mechan- ism of organized matter, thereby setting in motion cer- tain physical elements which moisture and minerals and albuminoids maintained until blood and flesh be- came "animated" with instinct — another form of mo- tion — which led its owner to fracture the eggshell that the chicken might wiggle out into surroundings con* taining vaster stores of heat, moisture, minerals, albu- minoids — and daylight, besides. Autopa thy— -Cure Thyself 29 No one assumes that "instinct" causes the egg to "breathe" or to turn into a "brainy" or mentalized chick — unless one means that physical "affinity" or chemical "tension" (motion) is synonymous with "in- stinct." No one claims that "mind" causes the egg-shell to inhale oxygen and exhale carbonic acid gas; or makes the yolk absorb, digest and assimilate the "white" and organize itself into the form of an "embryo" and then into that of a live "thinking" chicken — unless one means that "affinity" or "tension" between physical or chemical elements and compounds is synonymous with "mind." So there we are — either chicken-instinct or mind is simply a mode or form of physical or chemical motion, or it's nothing; either instinct or mind exists fully formed in the "dormant" raw yolk we eat, or it is actu- ally and only the outcome of chemistry pure and sim- ple — of physical or chemical action and reaction, as heat and light and electricity are. It is self-evident that "thinking" does not exist or operate in the unbrained or unhatched yolk any more than in the "unhatched" fecundated human ovum (or imborn fetus). And, though not so obvious, it is none the less correct to assume that the chicken's real in- stinct (thinking) is not aroused or initiated before or until the cramping of its habitat (shell) interferes me- chanically with its movements and further develop- ment. That which we ascribe to instinct in the chicken is nothing else than the outcome or expression of physi- cal or chemical motion acting against resistance or with affinity. 30 Autology — Study Thyself It is generally taken for granted that the function called "respiration" supposes the agency of brain or mind in the being or "live" thing that breathes; and this is because it was not formerly known that plants breathe as we do, and owing to the fact that very few scholars are even now aware that an egg breathes and actually starts to become a "mentalized" chicken by inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbonic acid gas as new born babies start to become "mentalized" in- fants. That which starts or "incubates" breathing in the egg is also that which starts and incubates thinking or mind in that same egg — as well as in any other va- riety of egg, be it a bird's, or fish's, or man's. One doesn't have to stretch imagination to any de- gree to perceive that there is considerable resemblance between the "human" head with its "gray" and "white" matter and the "egg"-head with its "yellow" and "white" substances. Furthermore, each brain-cell is virtually an egg composed of a shell called cell-wall, and a white called protoplasm, inclosing a "yellow" called nucleus — ^the core or heart of the brain-egg. Investigation of "procreative" cells in the male and female reveals the same makeup. Besides, it is well- known that the chemical constituents of brain-yolks, and of "generative" yolks, and of egg-yolks are alike and the same; and, that even the proportions of the various compounds forming these various "yolks" are quite similar. Now, then, if the "yellow" of a hen-egg can start or attend to its own breathing and eventually evolve its own brain which starts and attends to its own Autopathy —Cure Thyself 31 thinking business: why should we have to resort to the assumption that an incubated ("fecundated") hu- man egg (ovum) doesn't know enough to originate and maintain its own breathing and eventually evolve a brain which starts and attends to its own thinking? Why resort to the needless, not to say absurd, as- sumption that it is "mind" in human skulls that does the thinking when we know that it is the "yellov^" in a hen-egg that does the breathing, or a pair of lung- bellows and not "respiration" inside of human chests that does the breathing? Does Respiration, a mere rhythmical motion, "incu- bate" lungs or "hatch" breathing? Or is it not the chemical constituents or contents of lung-cells (or lung-eggs) which originate and maintain that form of mechanical motion called "respiration"? Does Mind, a mere rhythmical motion (memory and reason) "incubate" brains or "hatch" thinking? Or is it not the chemical constituents or contents of brain- cells (or brain-eggs) which originate and maintain that form of physical motion called "mental"? Breathing is not transformable into "live" or dead lung substance; nor is one individual's breathing or respiration transformable into another individual's chest or lung substance. How is it possible, then, to transform thinking into brain matter, or to transfer one person's thinking or thoughts into another per- son's brain matter or "yolks"? It can't be done. Hence, teaching, in the sense commonly understood and the manner usually practiced, is a waste of time, money and energy; besides the fact that it tends to store up in the brain convolutions a heap of "residual" men- 32 Autology — Study Thyself tal air of the useless or harm-tending kind that is locked up in most people's lungs who do not live a fairly ac- tive life. Even lungs that are active retain a certain amount of carbonic-acid-gas laden atmosphere in their cells; but this "poor" stock of oxygenated air is less, and it is more frequently exchanged for a better grade than it is in lungs that are inactive. So, likewise, brains that are self-active or self-acting — I mean in the same sense that lungs are self-active or self-acting — also re- tain a certain amount of carbonic-acid-gas laden thoughts in their cells ; but this "poor" stock of "resid- ual" non-thinking "air" is less, and it is more frequent- ly exchanged for a better grade than it is in brains that are not self-active or not self-acting. In other words, "taught" or memorized knowledge is no better for brains than "residual" or carbonized air is for lungs. The one needs pumping or puffing out of the brain as much as the other does out of the lungs. But — what's better — it is preferable to prevent teachers' or books' "residual" thoughts or mentalities from reaching the brain cells, or at least to so activate or vitalize brain cells that they may repel or expel or exclude such thoughts or knowledge. It can be done — by feeding the brain through the mouth, nose and hair. You can "learn" how to imitate the physical move- ments of another person's lung-exercises — though when running you imitate or rather originate only your own. You can "learn" how-to-imitate or how-to-repeat the socalled "mental" motions of another's brain-ex- ercises — though when drowning or in trouble you imi- tate or rather originate only your own. Autopath y — Cure Thyself 33 But, just as learn ing-to-imitate or repeat the "exer- cises" of some one else's breathing produces different results or no results at all in different individuals; so, likewise, learning-to-imitate or repeat the "exercises" of some one else's "thinking" produces different re- sults or no results at all in different individuals. Knowledge, or thinking, cannot be taught or be- thoughted into brains any more than into livers or lampposts. If the reading of this chapter merely produces the memory of words and sentences, or even of the ideas, I mean to convey to your brain, without those words and sentences or ideas causing your own brain cells or matter to breathe deep or even to get out of "think- ing" breath — then I have failed to accomplish any- thing as far as your brain (or mind) is concerned, and you are wasting your time reading. You should be placed and replaced in "predicaments" which call for arm and leg action in order to save your integument from harm or destruction. After a few weeks of such "predicamental" exercise, you'd be likely to "see the point" and derive some "thinking" benefit from the perusal of this chapter. I mean that any knowledge (or ideas) that doesn't set you or infants thinking, as fright sets you or chil- dren hopping, is rubbish. Knowledge or teaching can and does act as an in- cubator, or as heat — not on mind but on brain eggs or muclei (yolks) — but knowledge or teaching cannot and does not "hatch" thoughts or thinking any more than it "hatches" brain matter or chicken substance; any more than the old hen's mind or meditating, as 34 Autolog y — Study Thyself she sits day in and night out, hatches egg-matter or chicken-brain. But, as egg-yolk hatches its own breathing and blood and nerves and bones and feathers and brains, so does and must brain-yolks hatch their own thinking or mind. And no pow- er on earth or in planets can do it for or instead of brain "yolks" ; as no power there or elsewhere can prevent an egg-yolk from hatching putrefaction under unsuitable conditions of heat, air and moisture. So also no power on earth or elsewhere can prevent bram cells from hatching or incubating rot and stench — in act and fact and thought — under unsuitable conditions of light, air, water and foods, whatever be the mental and moral atmosphere surrounding the infant's or adult's skull. You no doubt are beginning to "capture" the two ideas that I wish to impart to your brain, namely "How Brains are Raised" and "How Minds are Incubated." Let us incubate these "raw" yolks or ideas a bit fur- ther. All cells of your body "own" some sort of internal motion, called function. For, cell-constituents like air- constituents and food-constituents (dead or alive, in plants or animals) are never still — they never sleep. But all cell-motions are not alike in their products and manifestations. Some produce lung substance and manifest respiration; some produce liver and bile and manifest glycogenation (formation of liver and muscle sugar) ; some produce ova and spermatozoa and mani- fest procreation; and some produce brain substance and manifest ratiocination or thinking — the rarest pro- Autopath y — Cure Thyself 35 duct or function discoverable in up-to-date brain sub- stance outside of pure business or commerce. Giving this proposition a twist, it may be stated in this way: As the business of the lung's cell-constitu- ents is to reproduce themselves first, last and all the time and, incidentally, to resort to or rather to evolve breathing in order to accomplish their object — the pro- duction of lung matter; and as it is the business of the liver's cell-constituents to reproduce themselves first, last and all the time and, incidentally, to "elect" or to evolve bile and glycogen in order to accomplish their purpose: So it is the business of the brain cell-constituents to reproduce themselves first, last and all the time, and, incidentally, to resort to or evolve thinking or mind- making in order to accomplish that purpose. Hence mind is but a form of bile^-only that it is invisible; but so very expressible that at times one can "see" that an individual's brain has jaundice by the hue of his teachings or ideas. You know what a "bilious head" means — in a way ; but not in the right, physical way. It means simply that as a liver can't quit mak- ing bile, good, bad or indifferent, so a head or brain can't quit making mind, good, bad or indifferent. So that when the liver makes "bad" bile it goes to the brain, and, to get even, when the brain makes "bad" mind it goes to the liver. Is that your version of psychology? It's mine. It works to a Tee in practice, in health and sickness; never gets lame, or lost in the clouds. It's not a bit soap-bubbley. The same holds good about what your kidneys and urine do to your brain and mind; and, in revenge. 36 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself what your brain and mind do to your kidneys and urine. If you don't feel like admitting that your urine has any effect on or anything to do with your thinking or mind, then please don't admit that your thinking or mind has any effect on, or anything to do with, your urine. Most assuredly there is a difference between urine and mind; but none other than there is between a visible electric light and an invisible electric current. The one, the urine, is the visible product of kidney "yolks" ; and the other, the mind, is the invisible pro- duct of the brain "yolks." Thinking is just as much a function of kidney "yolks" as urinating is, and urinating is just as much a function of brain "yolks" as thinking is. If kidney cells didn't do some deep thinking day and night, es- pecially at night, I wonder what v/ould become of people's brain cells and mind thinking! Considering how human beings live, drink, eat and behave. Passing now to seeds, such as grow into plants and flowers, let me state this: That just as the growing and grown product of a seed bears the "living" stamp of (i) the "make" or kind of seed planted, and (2) the physical or material conditions that sur- round the seed from the instant it comes in contact with soil, and throughout its growth and existence; BO also, must and shall the growing and grown pro- duct of human seed bear the "living" stamp of (i) the "m.ake" or kind of seed planted (race), and (2) the physical or material conditions that sur- Autopath y — Cure Thyself 37 round the human seed from the instant it cornea in contact with the soil, and its light, air, water and foods, and throughout its growth and existence in and through that soil, light, air, water and foods. Again — just as the growing and grown product of a cell (plant or animal) bears the "living" stamp of (i) the "make" or kind of cell produced, and (2) the physical, material conditions that evolve it from the instant it comes in contact with soil, light, air, water and foods ; So also, m.ust and shall the growing and grown pro- duct of brain cells bear (i) the "thinking" stamp of the kind of brain cells produced, and (2) the physical and material conditions that sur- round them (the brain) from the instant the brain comes in contact with the soil, light, air, water and foods. Finally — just as the growing or grown product of kidney cells bear (i) the urinary grade of the make or kind of kid- ney cell-constituents ingested, digested and assimilated by the individual, and (2) the physical, material conditions that surround or reach the kidneys from the instant they (or their owner) come in contact with light, air, liquids and foods ; So, also, must and shall the growing or grown pro- duct of brain cells bear (i) the thinking or mind-grade of the make or kind of brain cell-constituents ingested, digested and assim- ilated by the individual, and 3S A u t o I o g y — Study Thyself (2) the physical, material conditions that surround or reach the brain from the instant they (or their own- er) come in contact with light, air, liquids and foods. Therefore, what's the sense in "teaching" the brain any more than in teaching the kidneys? As you can't teach kidney cells to urinate except by giving them the elements of light, air, water and foods, so you can't teach brain cells to think except by giving them the elements of light, air, water and foods. And just as urine varies in quality and quantity, and other things, with the kind of light, air, water and foods taken in or absorbed by your body, so mind (or thinking) varies in quantity and quality, and other things, with the kind of light, air, water and foods taken in or absorbed by your body. Somehow, v/hen I hear or read some one talking or writing about the "objective" and "subjective" minds, or psycholog}'', I always seem to see bile or urine coursing through or "watering" the talker's or writ- er's brain cells; for tliere can be no denying that all up-to-date brands of psychological or new-thoughted- ness bear a decided biliary or urinary stamp. Won't some one please tell us how many more in- finitesimal fractions of an instant would a blood-and- flesh brain, or an "objective" or "subjective" mind keep on thinking or thought-making — than would a liver or stomach keep on bile- or juice-making, if the individual were denied air? Or how m.uch longer "mind" would keep on cogitating than kidney cells urinating if "mind" were denied water? Or how much longer "mind" (or brain) would keep on working than blood corpuscles navigating if either were denied com- Autopath y — Cure Thyself 39 mon, ordinary soil minerals, like sodium and potassi- um? But what's the use — for who can deny the fact that with each thought produced (mind you I say "pro- duced"; and not borrowed) brain cells or nuclei per- spire a little urinary and biliary moisture as well as they exhale some carbonic acid gas for the "benefit" of the liver and kidneys and lungs? And who can deny that, per contra, with each action or reaction produced in the kidney or liver cells or nuclei each liver or kidney cell or nucleus breathes forth a little mental or thinking moisture or something for the "benefit" of the brain (or what some people call mind) ? It is the claim of Autology that the "type," as well as the sum total, of that socalled "mental" or thinking moisture has as much to do with the kind or brand of "mind" found or produced in brains as the type and sum total of the biliary and urinary moistures found or produced in brains (or minds) have to do with the kind or brand of biliary and urinary moistures found or produced in livers and kidneys. Who can gainsay that every kidney cell, or liver cell, or stomach cell, or fat cell, or bone cell, or blood corpuscle, is endowed with thought or mind-incubat- ing brains of their ov.'n? Or that every brain cell is endowed with bile- and urine-incubating livers and kidneys of their own — just as planets are provided with suns and stars and constellations of their own? No one. Who can say that the same laws (or mechanism) that govern the production and operation of physical 40 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself bile and urine in "living" tissues do not also govern the production and operation of "mental" mind and thoughts in "living" brains and other tissues — ^just as the same laws (or mechanism) that govern the pro- duction and operation of physical electricity and light in the heavens also govern the production and opera- tion of physical electricity and light in the factories, or the "mental" (so-called) electricity and light in blood corpuscles and brain cells? And now comes the practical application of the fore- going cogitations, or "hatching" of mind in brain through light, air, water and foods. Again livers and kidneys turn up — ^because people "think" they know more about bile and urine than they do about mind. But they don't. And they think they do simply because they can control better the quantity and quality of the bile and urine their livers and kidneys produce than the quantity and quality of the mind and thoughts their brains excrete. I say excrete, instead of secrete or produce ; because very few brains actually secrete a perceptible moisture of mind or thoughts, although their fingers and feet and eyes and skins and vulgar internal organs do pro- duce a wonderful stock of it or them (mind or thoughts). Watch dancers' legs and hands and eyes and see the amount and type of mind or thoughts those legs and bands and eyes "secrete" ! As the quality and quantity of the bile and urine your organs produce vary with and depend on the character, quantity and proportion of the natural ele- ments found in light, air, liquids and solids ; so also do the quality and quantity of the mind and thoughts Autopath y — Cure Thyself 41 your brains or cells produce vary with and depend on the character, quantity and proportion of the natural elements found in light, air, liquids and solids — and on nothing else, much. As mind can't produce "live" air, so mind can't pro- duce "live" thoughts, or living health or sickness. Time does not make watches. Mind does not make "brains." But as watches keep time when physically wound up, so brains keep mind when physically wound up. How can brain cells be physically wound up so as to keep and "tick" forth good, reliable "ment- al" seconds or thoughts? Just exactly in the same way that liver cells can be physically wound up to ooze out good, reliable bile drops, or kidney cells to "drip" good, reliable urine drops. That's simple enough, isn't it? Yet, much simpler than you think. Let's see. A wool-thread is made of wool-fibres ; a silk-thread, of silk-fibres. A nerve-thread is made of nerve-fibres ; a muscle-thread, of muscle-fibres. A honey-comb is made of bees-wax filled with bees-honey. A muscle- comb (a bundle of muscle cells) is made of muscle- wax (membrane) filled with muscle-honey (proto- plasm) ; a liver-comb is made of liver-wax (cell-mem- brane) filled with liver-honey (protoplasm and bile) ; a kidney-comb is made of kidney-wax filled with kid- ney-honey, or urine-protoplasm; a bone-comb is made of bone-wax filled with bone-honey or marrow; an ovum- or spermatozoon-comb is made of ovum- or sperm-wax filled with ovarian or seminal honey; and, finally, a nerve- or brain-com.b is made of nerve- or brain-wax filled with nerve or brain honey. But of what "make"? 42 A u t o i o g y — Study Thyself That depends. That's why there is more apparent and real difference between individuals' and nations' minds, ideas and morals than there is between their biles, urines and corruptions; for, pray tell me, what can nerves and brain do when forced to transform into mind a type of jelly that's better apt to fill up livers or kidneys with? Hence, the average individual "thinks" more about and better with his stomach, or liver, or bowels, or kid- neys, etc., than about or with his brain. It stands to common sense that a "misfit" in the way of liver pro- toplasm may "just fit" the brain-comb of a certain in- dividual ; but it is bound to remind its new owner (the brain) or you of its original owner (the liver), for which it was meant. That is the only reason why most people keep everlastingly thinking of their livers, stomachs, kidneys, etc., etc. What else could or can they do — seeing that their brains which demand mind- producing physical elements and compounds are served naught else but liver or bile and kidney or urine pro- ducing material, possibly seasoned a little vnth "men- tal" catsup? Organized material which is naturally adapted to the production of that form of serum, protoplasm and slime which suits the purposes of livers, kidneys, bow- els, sexual organs, etc., cannot but tend to evolve "thinks" and acts in accord with the ways that livers, kidneys, bowels, etc., would think and behave if they occupied the cranial cavity of the individual. The fact that an individual's brain can't crawl out of its bone-prison, any more than a yolk can out of its shell, does not mean that it can't incubate or hatch mind or Au top a thy — Cure Thyself 43 thoughts of an order that other tissues or organs emit or produce — just as an egg-yolk is capable of incubat- ing and hatching stench quite as well as a chick. In a word, when brain cells are forced to feed, year in and year out from infancy to maturity, on the kind of light and air and liquids and solids which are best adapted to forming liver and bile, kidneys and urine, slime and "discharges" ; it follows that such brain cell- substance must necessarily incubate and hatch some sort of bile-tainted, or urine-tainted, or slime-tainted, or something else-tainted minds or thoughts — some sort of dyspeptic, or epileptic, or jaundiced, or catarrh- al, or rheumatic, or immoral, or criminal notions and actions. That, to me, is as clear as day — so self-evi- dent that it looks like repeating a platitude. Why then has not the human brain seen this subject-matter or problem in that physically "mental" and "moral" way? Presumably because the up-to-date brain hates to go back as much as it is not fed to move ahead; it is "tickled" to read of hov/ Columbus smashed one "pole" of that historical egg and thus made it "stand" upright on the royal table, but it is quite as much at a loss to initiate action in its cells as Columbus's contempo- raries were to "incubate" a chicken without a hen. Any farmer's son or daughter knows how now-a-days — giv- en the eggs; and when the "chicks" are hatched, giv- en the light and air and water and foods. And so, likewise, shall parents and youths know how to incu- bate mind and hatch brains and genius, given the brain-substance producing "yolks"; and when the in- fants are bom, given the light and air and water and foods. That's all. That's livingness. That's brain 44 Autolog y — Study Thyself and mind. That's health and licknesi. That's mor- ality and immorality. Therefore, our brains and minds, like the chicken's, are the product or outcome of the awakening of phy- sical and chemical compounds existing in the "incubat- ed" or impregnated ovum-cell (or egg) by means of heat, air, moisture and food — which condition and ele- ments enable those blood and flesh compounds to move in that type of motion (call it by any name you like) which organizes the "yellow" and "white" into "liv- ing" brain or tissue, as a rule ; but sometimes disorga- nizes the "yellow" and "white" into putrefactive gases and ashes. That there is some sort of physico-mental matter in the egg-yolk, as in seed-yolks, is certain ; but that the hen's mind or socalled "hereditary" influence has less to do with incubating a chicken's brain or hatching a chicken's mind in the egg she sits on than has the heat of her body is absolutely certain. For anybody can turn the same "hen" trick in an incubator. Also, that there is some sort of physico-mental mat- ter in human brain-yolk is certain; but that parents' or heredity's minds have less to do with incubating children's brains or hatching children's minds in hu- man skulls than have heat and light and air and water and foods, or than have children's own hair, noses and stomachs, is likewise most positively certain — even though no one can turn the same trick in an ordinary incubator. Correct must begin to appear to you this' "physical" or autologic doctrine of raising brains and hatching minds therein, as glycogen and digestive juices are Autopathy — Cure Thyself 45 hatched in their respective organs, instead of raisiiig and hatching foreign or unsuitable substances and products in the brain as is so universally done in homes and schools and shops and offices under the prevailing systems of diet, schooling and belief. And, logical and scientific must appear to any reader the contention that heredity, or birth, or atavism, or genius, etc., has nothing at all to do with the gifting, or the raising, or the hatching, of brains, or of minds, or of ability, talent or genius in a child's skull. Do I mean to say that geniuses are not bom? I do — flatly. Do I mean to insinuate that the child of a University Professor does not inherit a more brilliant brain or mind than does the child of ignorant parents? I do — most assuredly do. Geniuses are not born. Chumps are not born. But brain-matter is born just like kidney-matter, not knowing exactly what it's going to do or become until it finds out what kind of light and air and food it is about to get through the medium of the blood, which, in turn gets them from the bedroom and moth- er's breast — perhaps; and perhaps from the dickens knows where. At any rate I know from where in at least 999 in 1000 "cases"; and the thousandth, or more correctly speaking, the millionth, gets the outdoor light and air and "wholesome" mother's milk. That's how geniuses are "born" — which means "raised." That's how "chumps" are not "born," but are actually un- born after they come into this ready-made world of genius-filled light, air, water and foods. Like kidney or liver substance, brain-matter is cast after a mould and cast out into a world of natural and 46 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself "artifical'* light, air, water and foods whose respec- tive properties are to hatcii and raise various but vary- ing grades of physico-mental products in brain tissue, as well as various and sundry grades of bile, urine, di- gestive juices, slime, etc., in other tissues — in confor- mity with the different grades of either the natural or the artificial lights, airs, waters and foods which par- ents feed on before conception and which mothers feed to their fecundated ova and developing embryos dur- ing the months of pregnancy ; and in conformity with the grade of the said physical substances which fath- ers and mothers, guardians or teachers, nurses or rela- tives and others "feed to" the growing children. I grant that the geniuses of the past as well as the geniuses of the present day and of some days to come were or are "born" ; but not at all in the accepted meaning that obtains. They were "nurture-born" of and in conditions and environments which accident- ally happened to "match" the natural conditions, in the way of physical light, air, water and foods, which normally and "selectively" could not fail to hatch and raise that species of brain-matter and mind-juice which tradition is wont to call genius. Of course a Farmer's boy is the son of a farmer, as a Professor's boy is the son of a professor; although the "son" of a country cabbage may produce a city cabbage, and vice versa. But, really, is the farmer's son born with m.ore of a "farmery" brain and the pro- fessor's son born with more of a university brain? Has his mind more of the barn or soil taint or tint and the other more of the classical or mosaic? If so, then the country lad must also have more of a farmer's liver and bile than the professor's offspring. Autopath y — Cure Thyself 47 And pray tell me, what can have happened in that farmer's son's brain-matter and liver that he seeks and wins the Presidency of the University or Country? And, what can have transpired in that professor's son's brain-matter and liver that he drifts into and becomes — well, you know the old story? He, too, was born with a brain and a liver; but either these organs swapped places as time flew on or both had to live on the same bilious kind of light, air, liquids and solids. It becoming a question of "survival of the fittest" the liver "survived." Things progressed fairly well for a time; the brain did vicarious duty for the liver and the liver for the brain ; some book-knowledge was absorbed by both; but — sad to relate, even a brain surrounded by all that so-called heredity, talent and genius can offer cannot long absorb and hatch "men- tal" and "moral" goods when its physical light and air and drinks and eatables are of the rottenest and rank- est make. That's all, but that's it. Boys and girls, sons and daughters of the*country and of the city, let me whisper this admonition to you: Don't live and don't sleep and don't study in rooms (at home or at school) where the light and air are such that you can't or couldn't raise beautiful roses in pots set in the "living" room, in your bed room, in your school room. Don't. And don't drink what you wouldn't give your pet canary to drink. Don't. And don't eat mixtures at any meal that would make you "sick to your stomach" if you were asked to eat the same after it is all mixed together in your or any- body's stomach. Don't. By so doing, by so avoiding, you shall soon "raise" a brain and "hatch" a mind that 48 Autology— Study Thyself shall surpass your elders', your teachers', your supe- riors' — unless they take the hint from you and do like- wise. Lest my meaning may not be fully grasped, let me add, that as the quality and taste, or grade, of honey produced by bees vary, or varies, according to the light, air, moisture and foods (and never the thoughts) on which bees feed their stomachs (and never their minds), so also must the quality and ability and mor- ality, or grade, of "brains" produced by children vary according to the light, air, water and foods (and never the thoughts) on which they feed their stomachs and lungs and bodies. The only positive as well as rational method of pro- ducing a high order of mind and morality in children, as well as in maintaining the like throughout man's and woman's career, is to feed the infants', the chil- dren's and the youths' noses and stomachs with physi- cally material, or mentally and morally physical light, air, water and foods. Toward this achievement shall the next generation devote much of its money and energy. As matters stand today, most infants are forced to evolute into morally or mentally deficient brains or minds; because Education's chief aim is to implant 'Cental" and "moral" knowledge (so-called) in chil- dren's minds while, conjointly. Civilization is stupidly compelling children's brains and functions to live and operate on mindless and immoral light, air, water and foods. If only children were "tended" until of age as rose bushes are, how safe it would be to give their brains Autopathy — Cure Thyself 49 and functions free play, then ! And what superb phy- sko-mental and moral blossoms and flowers child- plants would produce ! Just as rose bushes that have been watchfully and intelligently lighted, aired, wa- tered and fertilized until the age of blooming produce beautiful color-and-perfume-laden buds and roses — without being taught or thoughted or mentalized or moralized. In a word, as plants manufacture their own physical, mental and moral colors and perfumes by organizing in their buds the elements of light, air, water and foods, so, likewise, children manufacture their own physical, mental and moral functions, vir- tues and vices by organizing in their budding tissues and juices (organs and blood) the elements of light, air, water and foods. So also do adults. Sure enough the rose bud may prove to be a La France rose instead of an American Beauty or some other variety of the rose, but rest assured that a gar- dener who understands his business and "tends" to the light and air and water and foods of that rose bush up to the budding period does not worry about what sort of flowers the La France or the American Beauty will produce, even though the stems are cut from the par- ent stock. He knows that the blossom will be the most superb specimen of its type. The gardener will never expect or attempt to convert a carnation into a chrysanthemum or a chrysanthemum into a peony; but he knows that he can cultivate and fertilize a car- nation plant into producing a "pink" that will rival a chrysanthemum in many respects and surpass it in many others; or a chrysanthemum that will rival or surpass a peony. In other words, he aims to raise and .50 A u t o 1 o g y— Study Thyself hatch the finest specimen of flower-brain and color- mind in a given type of plant and he succeeds. And so would parents if they used the same quality of cul- tivating and fertilizing sense and physical light and air and water and nourishment that the gardener uses. The gardener calls his method "cultivating and fer- tilizing" — and he succeeds in producing geniuses in flower-brains or buds. You call your method "culturing and mentalizing" — and you fail to produce geniuses in child-brains or minds. You should fail. For a child or brain won't stand "culturing" or "mentalizing" any more or with anything else than a plant or bud will. But, as plants and buds, children or brains will stand all of and the same kind of cultivating and fertilizing; and under such cultivating and fertilizing they too will produce the most superb, gorgeous specimens of their types. In no other way and by no other means. Did you ever see a gardener standing over a rose bush, lecturing or mentalizing it by reading or talking to it book lore, while keeping that potted or plotted bush in artificial light, or carbonized air, or "watering" it with beverages or fertilizing it with inappropriate material, etc? Well, how can you expect that you or teachers or books can cultivate and fertilize children's brains or minds by talking or readijig or otherwise while keeping them potted or unpotted in artificial light, carbonized air, or "watering" or "feeding" them with brainless and mindless liquids and foods? You can't— that's all there is to that. And that's why when I "show" a fine specimen which Autology has raised or hatched, cultivated or fertilized, some say: Autopath y — Cure Thyself 51 "O, well, he inherits his brain and mind and looks and physique from his father and mother." Quite compli- mentary that — but nevertheless no more correct than saying that the Lawson carnation inherited its brains and mind from the gardener who "raised" it. If the physical elements of light, air, water and foods (L-A-W-F) which children's hair, noses and mouths transmit to their brains are inappropriate or deficient in certain respects, it is evident that their brain function or mind, juices or products, thoughts and behavior, is or are bound to be or become mentally and morally impaired or perverted, deficient or vicious ; for the products and by-products of their nervous sys- tem as well as of all the functionating organs or tissues of their organism are or become deficient or deleteri- ous, — physically, mentally and morally. Therefore, I say, mentalize or think nothing into children's heads any more than into their kidneys or livers, but let their hair and noses and mouths have the light and air and water and foods that their toe- nails as well and as m.uch as their mind-juice demand. If you do, you'll be giving your child, and incidentally yourself, the sort of light and air and water and foods that Mentality and Morality demand and thrive best on. By a providential disposition of nature, mentality and morality demand and thrive best on that "make" of light, air, water and foods which functionality of our organs and tissues demands and thrives best on. And, fortunately, the mentality and morality and func- tionality of all children and all adults, of all organs and all tissues, demand and thrive best on the same 52 Autology — Study Thyself make of light, air and water — thus leaving us only the problem of the quality and mixture and proportion of the various foods proper to solve ; the solution of which problem is quite a simple one. During what is called intra-uterine life (before "birth"), or during the incubating process of the fetus (human embryo), the most appropriate "physical" and "mental" and "moral" foods for the children are also the best foods for the mother. And the most appro- priate foods for the mother during the months of pregnancy are also the most wholesome and brain- some foods for her during the periods preceding and following pregnancy. Only this — that the bulk of the proper mixture of foods fluctuates somewhat with heat or force and tissue requirements which work and changed conditions impose on the mother. Natural hunger easily settles this question when a mother looks upon the period of pregnancy in a sensible, re- spectable way ; and when the mother understands why and what she eats — I mean when she eats and lives for the purpose of supplying her own blood with those natural elements of light, air, water and foods which invariably go to making brains and mind in her own head as well as "wholesome" bile and excretions in her own body. If writers would only quit scribbling about "prenatal influences"; about the alleged influence of the mother's mind on the fetus's mind (v^^hich it hasn't got) — and if, instead, they would Rip- Van- Winkle it off until they are prepared to understand that mothers can't "influence" or think anything that pertains to mentality or morality into their skulled or unskulled fetuses when these same mothers are stuffing their Autopath y — Cure Thyself 53 own placentas, or their infants* umbilical cords, with a variety of air, liquids and eatables that are suitable for producing rank bile or slime, not to call it worse names. An advantage that mothers and infants have over their fellow-beings, called plants and flowers, is that human-plants are capable of seeking and getting the most suitable forms of light, air, water and fertilizers or foods which they and their children need. That's something flower-plants can't do— ^at any rate when most human-plants get hold of them. But — and this is where the trouble arises and why the child-product is so frequently a failure, as it is often with the flower-product in the average hands — the mother accepts or seeks some spurious brand of light, air, water and foods which ignorant or foolishly "cultured" minds and morals and habits impose on her and around her. Hence more sheep brains and minds are "influenced" into the world than sheep liv- ers and biles — though, to be logically and scientifically correct, brains and minds are made to acquire the properties and functions of sheepishness only after they have been subjected to the conventional feeding and lighting and airing and watering of civilized man- ners, customs and schoolings which obtain in all kin- dergartens, schools and universities. I mean it and I can prove it. I've seen it and I've been there — and so have most readers. It'll be a cold day v^en any power on earth or elsewhere attempts to light and air and water and feed any child of mine with sheepifying light and air and water and foods of the "'moBtar as well as of the physical brand. I've got no kick com- 54 Autolog y — Study Thyself ing, except that it has taken me nearly as many years to disacquire the physical and mental structure and texture which conventional environments and dietetic ignorance imposed on me during the years I spent in schools and universities. I grant that parents and the public don't know any better, and thus are wont to rely on the advice of some who are supposed to know; who "think" they know — but who neither Know nor Think. They mere- ly repeat or reuse borrowed, bethoughted physical and mental and notional light, air, water and foods — as they rebreathe their own exhalations and compel others to do likewise. Without presently going into tedious details and explanations as to what foods are best adapted for raising brains and incubating or hatching minds in men, women and children, for breakfast, dinner and lunch, I desire to state some reasons why certain articles of foods proper are best suited to produce high-grade brains and minds as well as superior brands of other tissues and products. It being obvious that all other organs and functions, than brain and mind, are never at a loss to develop and improve themselves and to produce a good, serviceable grade of their respective secretions and excretions when the brain has sense enough to help itself to the kind and to the amount and to the proper mixture of the foods that are best suited to its own physical, men- tal and moral purposes or operations — I may be per- mitted to ignore the ordinary physical organs and functions. Silk goods are made of silk, stitched with silk, trimmed with silk (or better) and repaired or mended Autopathy— Cure Thyself 55 01 replaced with silk. Calico is not — nor is there ingenuity enough to invent a process whereby cotton is made into silk. So, likewise, there isn't a tissue or process or ferment in the body that ca.n transform liver "cotton" into brain "silk," or produce mind from bile. You can "contrast" different or antagonistic colors, but you cannot "match" colors unless the pigments which "own" the colors are alike. On the other hand, you should know that brain substance produces brain protoplasm like itself, and that brain protoplasm produces physical and mental products; and that brain substance calls for like ma- terial in repairing or mending its substance, and "matching" its products. And you should know that you can "contrast" different ideas, but you cannot "match" ideas unless the constituents which "own" the ideas or thoughts are alike. Again, you know that the nearer to mother's milk is bottle-fed milk, the better and more adapted it is for the child's nutrition and growth. And the more wholesome the mother's milk the more "wholesome" the brain and mind and behavior of the infant. Therefore, the nearer to "wholesome" brain mat- ter and mind-juice is the mouth-fed food ingested the better and more appropriate it is for the brain's phys- ical, mental and moral nutrition, development and be- havior. Let us, then, see of what brain substance is made, and for purposes of comparison and elucidation, let us see of what procreative and egg-yolk substances are made. 56 Autology — Study Thyself Brain-matter consists of — Water, Fats, Protagon, Cholesterin, Nuclein, Cerebrin, Lecithin, Minerals. Now, chemical analysis of egg-yolk and of seminal fluid reveals a composition of like constituents, bear- ing the same names. Egg-yellow contains an albuminoid called "vitellin" which is closely related to the albuminoid of blood (globulin) ; and contains also a ferruginous nuclein called "hematogen" (blood producing) and discovered by Bunge, of Germany. Its other constituents are protagon, lecithin, fats, cholesterin, cerebrin and phos- phates, in which it is rich; also sulphates and traces of iron. The chemical constitution of generative substance is also represented by albuminoids, lecithin, cerebrin, cholesterin, fats, phosphates and sulphates. And, besides, the relative proportions of the con- stituents of the foregoing substances are respectively very similar— only that the brain and egg yolk are richer in fats and the other in phosphorized proteids. My reasons for calling attention to the chemical constitution of generative matter (ovum and sperma- to2:oon) is because embryology cannot afford to over- look the fact that, as the egg-yolk is rich in those highly organic substances which "incubation" helps Autopathy — Cure Thyself 57 to evolve into the highest type of chick of its kind, so the richer the fecundated human egg-yolk is in those highly organic bodies which "pregnancy" helps to evolve, the higher the type of child born of parents. Which, mind well, does not mean that a poor type cannot after birth be evolved through light, air, water and foods into the equal or rival of the highest type born of other parents. But it is in the nature of things and sense that it is better to begin a thing well than it is to begin it ill, and then to make it well. Therefore, eggs constitute the best and brainiest food for father and mother and child before and after conception and birth. It is stated in books on dietetics that eggs are a "complete" food in themselves, although they lack starch; but no definite study has been made that I know of with a view to determining and demonstrating that a diet consisting largely of eggs, properly pre- pared and carefully associated with other foods whose constituents act as synergists (friends) and not as incompatibles (enemies), and particularly with certain "vegetables" which supply the organism with depur- ating earthy compounds, is the kind of a diet which shall produce the highest types of "fecundated ova" in mothers and of brains and minds in newborns, as well as in growing children and youths. After that, say after the age of fifteen or sixteen, parents or com- munities would have no reason to worry as to what became of children's brains or minds, for their habits of breathing, drinking, eating, thinking and behaving would be firmly rooted and "fixed" for life — at least in the majority. They would continue to seek the 58 A u t o 1 o g y—Study Thyself light and air and water and foods and thoughts and behavior which their hair and noses and mouths and brains had grown up on and been accustomed to. Eggs should be eaten by parents and children every day in the year; but particularly by the "expectant" and by the "nursing" mother. But they should never be prepared or cooked in a way, or mixed with cer- tain other articles of diet either on the stove or in the stomach, which nullify or destroy the blood and brain producing bodies which they contain. In order to em- phasize this point, let me remind you that submitting an egg to a certain "cooking" degree of heat before placing it in an "incubator" modifies or destroys some- thing in its highly organized "proteid" yolk-constitu- ents which creates the "embryo" or evolves into blood and brain "plasm;" whereas submitting it to the body temperature does not. Let me also remark that cer- tain articles of food, either before they are swallowed or after they are digested, contain or give rise to fer- mentation or decomposition products which either modify the fats and proteids of the yellow or combine with them to form chemical compounds which are neither hematogenic (blood-producing) or brain-pro- ducing; but which are transformed into objectionable gaseous and slimy products in the alimentary tract. Hence it is that so many people claim that eggs do not "agree" with them or that eggs sicken their stomachs — which is not and never so. Milk is not an appropriate food to mix with eggs for reasons that would require too much analytical explanation to take up now. I may say, however, that eggs are an "animal" food, nitrogenous and fatty, Autopath y — Cure Thyself 59 and that milk is also an "animal" food, nitrogenous and fatty; and, I may add, that it is chemically and physiologically unwise to mix or combine two differ- ent kinds of "animal" nitrogenous and fatty foods in the stomach at the one meal. At best, the one or the other becomes a "surplus" or remains behind as an "excess" or waste to ferment or decompose as it would and does when exposed to air and moisture. In a word, the excess rots in the alimentary canal as it does in the eggshell or milk bottle. No more, nor less. Some of the rotting products may be disposed of by the organism in the form of fat or bile, but cer- tainly not in the form of brain and mind. I should like to enter into proofs, chemical and clinical, to convince readers why eggs and meat don't go well together, for blood and brain; why bread in addition to meat and potatoes is a mistake; why salt, sour and sweet, in certain mixtures and proportions, are inimical to blood and brain structure and func- tions; why eggs and toasted bread with "sweet" but- ter and, off and on, a little fine bacon is an excellent breakfast combination for young and old, for blood and brain, for tissue-building or renewing and for heat and force-producing in the body; why rice and cream, or eggs and rice, is the best lunch-combination for the body tissues and functions and purposes; and why a little fresh meat or fish or fowl with potatoes (baked or boiled with the peel) and green peas or string beans, or carrots, or onions, or parsnips, or tomatoes, is the brain's choice for dinner, for nerves and blood, for muscles and bones, for stomachs and bowels, for liver and kidneys, for strength and endur- ance, for nutrition and health. 6o Auto logy — Study Thyself As bread, potatoes and rice are the three "staple" starchy foods, let bread be eaten with breakfast, rice with lunch or supper and potato with dinner. Do not indulge in any two or the three at the same meal ; for second choice goes to waste or fermentation, as a rule. As peas are rich in nitrogen and fats and in the ox- ides of potassium, sodium, calcium and magnesium, and also in phosphoric acid, favor them. Not only because of their nutritious value, but because the earthy or soil minerals which their substance is com- posed of furnish to your blood what no doubt con- stitutes the heart and core of those body-compounds which "preserve" serum and lymph or which prevent the organism from constantly sickening or souring itself. In the way of "seasoning" brains and minds, as well as other organs and products, use more "ordinary" light and air and water and less "culinary" salt and vinegar and sugar; but be sure and pepper your ap- petites and passions with "cayenne" moderation and sense. (See end of volume for Baby's Foods and Every- body's Foods.) THE BODY'S JELLIES, JUICES AND SLIMES It isn't fair to say that our body is three-fourths "water." We're not as "thin" or clean as that insinu- ates. The truth is that our body is four-fifths slime and jelly — a little more at "sweet sixteen" and a little less at venerable sixty. The jelly of which we are made is moulded into variously shaped masses (or- gans), or strips (membranes), or tubes (blood vessels and canals), or shredded bundles (muscles and nerves), etc. Some of the jelly masses are gray and white (brain and nerves) ; some are quite red (blood, liver, spleen, muscles), etc.; but all of the masses and strips and tubes and fibres are bathed in and out in common, ordinary, vulgar slime — ^politely called "juices," or "mucus," or "serum," or "plasm," or "protoplasm." The name "mucus" is given to the stuff which is popu- larly known as slime — it oozes from mucous mem- branes. The name "serum" is given to the stuff which exudes from blood, or brain, or joints, or pleura, etc.,^ it is popularly known as "dropsy" or "water" when it accumulates to excess. The name "plasm" is given to the clotting liquid which forms the blood stream and in which float the red and white blood corpuscles. The name "protoplasm" is given to the jelly which constitutes the mother-substance of the cells of organs 61 62 Autolog y — Study Thyself and tissues — known as flesh proper. And the ma- terial called "juice" is that which comes from digestive organs, or glands — the stomach juice being the one generally supposed to be the most important. If you were to collect a cup full of each one of these various juices, or to squeeze pieces of any one of the organs or tissues of the body (including the skin) and thus extract their juices, as you do when "pressing" fruits — you would find that the various juices and mucus and serum and plasm and protoplasm which you have extracted or collected are one and all alike and "slimy." In other words, healthy as well as un- healthy organs and tissues and fluids are of "slime" slimy. That need not make you love thy brother or thy- self less, but it should make you marvel more at the omnipotent Wisdom that devised a means or a ma- terial which answers all the gaseous and "fluid" and "solid" needs and conditions of the body — a fluid or jelly or slime which in the same place and in different places acts as a lubricant and a nutriment and a digestive and a reconstructive and a detoxicant and an eliminant — at one and the same instant. And, still more wonderful is the fact that these "slimy" sub- stances and liquids should contain the mysterious "live" things or agents that attend to all the functions of the organism; and that these "live" agents, called "ferments," should live and act and travel in such a vehicle as ordinary slime. Ferments are nothing more nor less than ordinary "yeast" things. The "yeast" of bread, of beer, of "mold," of vinegar, of sour milk, of saliva, of stomach Autopathy — Cure Thyself 63 juice, of pancreatic juice, of bowel juice, of brain and nerve juice, of muscle juice, of urine, of bile, of mar- row, of generative organs, of bacteria, etc., etc., are fundamentally alike in their structure and function and products. Their unlikeness is merely one of na- tionality. Those which exist and operate in the human body, or in any particular organ or tissue or fluid of the body, are native born and bred; others are aliens which may become naturalized. To my mind, the source of unhealthy or foul dis- charges or oozings, which necessarily must come from or become part of the blood tar, is clearly traceable to an excess of one or more, or to a poor grade or bad mixture, of the tissue-yeasts (ferments) and their products — becoming overcrowded at home or invading neighboring or foreign territory. To make my meaning clear, let us assume that some organ, say your liver, manufactures an excess of "bile" or "liver-sugar" yeast or ferment. Not necessarily a sick variety of it, but an excess of the healthy kind. Now, that excess must find work to do, or obey the mandates of the conditions which lead us to say that "idleness is the devil's work shop ;" or that overcrowd- ing leads to "slumming." Finding no natural exit through the bowels, or work to do in the small intes- tine, it must roam around through the streets and lofts and alleys of the body — till it is either "turned out or locked up" as catarrh, or cold, or rheumatism, or biliousness, or pleurisy, etc.— or until it stirs up a free-for-all fight in the way of "fevers." You may ap- ply the very same truth and reasoning to the digestive ferments, and to the muscle ferments, and nerve fer* 64 A u t o 1 o g y— Study Thyself merits, and brain ferments, and lung ferments, etc. Plus their slimes of course. But bear well in mind that it is not at all necessary to assume that any given fer- ment-endowed juice or slime must be "sickly" or "microbe-infected" in order to occasion any or all of the disturbances to which your flesh and skins or hol- lows and tubings are heir to. In the department store of the body, the Head Slime of each organ or tissue is "Boss" — and will brook no outside or inside interfer- ence or imposition without protesting or "flaring up." Therefore — and this is what I desire to engrave deep in your brain — do not deceive yourself with the idea that your sickness necessarily means that something's got into you that doesn't belong there. For, the "aver- age" case of sickness is mostly due to too much some- thing "good" going from your blood or stomach or liver or bowels to your head, or lungs, or skin, or bladder, or kidneys, or womb, or muscles, or nerves, or fat, etc., etc. That "excess" or "overstock" contains certain chemicals which invariably pick a quarrel with the resident-chemicals of other organs and tissues. The result of which quarrel may be anything in the way of disease, or fever, or feeling out of sorts. Let us figure this out in this way. You probably do a fair amount of work every day — and, assuming that you are not engaged in doing hard manual labor out of doors, you have a notion that you bum up or use up all the fuel or force producing foods that you eat. Let us say that you eat some bread and some other va- riety of "starchy" or "cereal" or "breakfast" food for breakfast. Then again some bread and butter at noon, besides potatoes or rice, etc., and once more some Autopath y — Cure Thyself 65 bread or "cookies" for or with your supper. That of course is over and above other dishes that you eat— and I say nothing about slops, drinks, gravies, "sweets" and "pastries." Well, then — all the bread and other starchy and sugary or doughy or sloppy things that you eat are converted in your system into liver-sugar or muscle-sugar, called glycogen. There is practically no tissue-value in glycogen. It's most all fuel to be burned up — to produce heat and force, no- tions and corruptions. Anything in the line of bread or dough, of flour or pastry, of starch or cereal, of sugar or sweet, of cake, pie, pudding, preserves, etc. — is not properly speaking assimilable food. It is combustible, or inflammable, or inflammatory fuel— regular soft and hard coal. It gives you steam and heat and motion, but it gives you gas and slush and fever and inflammation too. In the first place, it gives off heat by splitting into carbonic acid gas and water. In the second place it produces a wasteful mess of slimy fermenting juices and refuse, which soon or late raise the supply beyond the requirements of your system, and, consequently, encroach upon every organ and tissue of your body from cellar to attic — a mess that cannot fail to sour, or to "fever" up ; or failing in that, to raise your internal body pressure to a dangerous or explosive point, as happens in volcanoes. If you can make yourself understand the fact that your body is ever mouldering and trying to raise its heat beyond 983^ degrees F. — ^toward the boiling point — and that it is only prevented from so doing be- cause it is surrounded by a cooler, moist atmosphere; and, particularly, because you are constantly pouring 66 Auto logy— Study Thyself water into your tanks and tubings and tissues; and still more particularly, because you are (unawares) introducing therein certain reconstructive and re- frigerating ingredients in the way of mineral salts and vegetable acids, derived chiefly from fresh fruits and green vegetables ; in a word, if you can make yourself understand that if it weren't for the fact that instinct and environment compel you to check the progress of your internal mouldering and heat-producing, and that your body is provided with outlets and valves — you'd soon crumble to ashes, or explode, or belch forth like a miniature volcano. Indeed, most people have had spells of "erupting" like volcanoes (fever, headache, delirium, etc.), or belching forth lava (slime, catarrh, corrup- tion, etc.). And why? Simply because of their stocking up too much with glycogen and sugar and slime-pro- ducing foods. Not actually because they ate too much all told — but because they used no knowledge, no judgment, no sense in the proportion of the three common classes of foods — namely (i) in the material which repairs or renews the tissues; (2) in the mate- rial which keeps up the normal "simmering" heat or force of the body; (3) in the material which absorbs, regulates, checks and disposes of the steam or heat or ashes or clinkers or waste produced in their body fur- naces and boilers. Material No. I is mainly found in eggs, meats, fish and milk. Material No. II is mainly found in air, bread, pota- toes, rice, corn, cereal foods of all kinds, sweets and pastries* Material No. Ill is mainly found in water, green vegetables and fruits. Autopath y — Cure Thyself 67 But — and here is where cooks and commerce and civilization are off — refrigerating material No. Ill, the preventive, antidote, regulator, cooler and electric ma- terial of the human body — is usually rendered inert or detrimental by being mixed or modified in unnatural ways and shapes and dishes. Thus the essential proper- ties or ingredients of green vegetables and fruits are transformed into used-up waste, possessing either negative or detrimental properties when taken into the stomach with other foods. I mean sim.ply this — that the process of canning and preserving or of gravying and saucing frequently re- moves the most vitally essential acids and salts con- tained in the vegetables and fruits, and usually changes them into inert, and often into injurious compounds — which only serve to clog or brittle up your tissues and blood vessels, thus impairing the functions of your digestion, assimilation and elimination. Shouldn't fruits ever be cooked or preserved or canned, etc.? They shouldn't. If you or some one else can extract and preserve their juices in a pure, natural state — all right. Make use of these juices instead of your "tooth- somes" which invariably prove to be "unwholesomes." Shouldn't vegetables ever be cooked or preserved or canned, etc.? Sometimes, and some of them — as you will learn in this book. If you grasp the idea that stomach juice or stomach slime is the all-essential healthy stuff for your stomach and entire body, but that it has absolutely no business to trespass or to contaminate; and if you grasp the idea that this is true of the juices or slimes of any or of all the other organs and tissues — 68 A u t o 1 o g y— Study Thyself you can dig deeper into this subject yourself. Which is really a simple one of food-mixing under given con- ditions of air and water and work and fun and sleep. That's all. If you are at all versed in photography, or in cooking, I can give you a good hold on the thread — and all you've got to do is to pull to get at the spool of my idea. Your "developers" are the digestive juices or "ferment" containing slimes of your organs ; the coat- ing on your "plate" is the fleshy jelly of your tissues, containing chemicals that possess the property of act- ing and reacting with the chemicals found in your juices or slimes. You know how accurate you must be in mixing the ingredients of your "developers" together. And you know that accuracy, though so very important, is nothing compared to the care which must be exercised in not mixing or tainting the "develop- ing" or "toning" or "fixing" solutions v/ith even a trace of another. Each and all are all right where they be- long and when they are wanted, but not otherwise. Ex- cept this — that there is a way of combining some of them together to advantage. But the greatest of care must be exercised in compounding and associating the ingredients in given proportions ; for even the slightest excess of "bromide," for instance, will "sicken" the plate or picture. So, likewise, in baking, if you add too much yeast or soda or butter, etc., etc. Well, the very same holds good in the human body. The juices or slimes of joints and brain as well as of mouth and stomach, are "developing" and "toning" and "fixing" solutions. The living substance proper called protoplasm, is the coating pasted on the inside and out- side walls of your cells and their granulated sand. I£ Autopath y — Cure Thyself 69 you mix too much starchy foods (bread, cereals, pota- toes, etc.) with albumen foods (milk, eggs, meats, fish, etc.), and do not increase proportionately the amount of air, water and vegetable acids and mineral salts to your mixture or solution; you're bound to spoil your inside and outside "plates" or "negatives" and the "picture" of your health, here or there, is bound to turn out bad. You can have it "retouched," of course — Though it's not my intention to make of Autology a Science or Practice that shall make you ashamed of yourself, it is my fixed determination to make of it a Doctrine whose motto is: Look your mistakes square in the face, rip them to pieces your own self; then reuse and reset the pieces to match and fit your own organs and tissues, your own health and work and age and fun and surroundings. If you do that you will find that the texture and feeling and looks and utility of your organs and functions are as "fine," after they have gone through the process of Autopathic treatment as your sick or soiled silks or laces or "fineries" are after they have gone through the process of "dry" or "moist" cleaning treatment. "How am I to know hov/ to mix my air and water and foods so as to remain perfectly well after going through the process of Autopathic treatment?" you are anxious to ask me. That is a question which you will find answered clearly in the rest of this book. So clearly that the dullest mind can find no excuse for not understanding and utilizing it under any and all condi- tions. But don't skip a single line of the preceding and intervening pages in your longing for the priceless information. Get to it as you got to your age — ^word by 70 Autolog y — Study Thyself word. If you don't, therell be "lapses" or "forgeti" in your understanding of Autopathy (to cure thyself) which may lead to disappointment or failure, or that may postpone your long sought for recovery or enjoy- ment of well-being, well-feeling and well-thinking. To understand your ailments is to know how to cure them. That's to know how to avoid them also. Another reason why I dv/ell somewhat on this sub- ject of "living slimes" is because the civilized custom of making and partaking of soups and broths is un- healthy. Soups are mostly "teas" made of "dead" ani- mal slimes, seasoned with some of the urinary and ex- crementitious materials which are "held up" at the time of killing the animal — thus preventing the said refuse from reaching its destination, the bladder and intestines. Hence it is that, in spite of esthetic scruples, I have made you acquainted with the sundry but alike slimy juices and products which attend to all the wants of and soak and make up animal tissues. After this, you should not wonder so much at the nastiness of certain discharges which sickness produces, as you should that "healthy" slime can possibly contain the material and wherewith that enters into the manufac- ture and make-up of so much lovable sweetness and brilliant intelligence as this world exhibits. There isn't an "open door" or inch of tubing or web of tissue in the body which does not manufacture and depend on slime for its sustenance and function. You are perhaps familiar only v/ith that which calls for a handkerchief or cuspidor. However, the lungs and the eyelids are oiled and dependent on the same kind of Autopathy— Cure Thyself 71 slime and so are the stomach, bowels, rectum, bladder, womb, etc., etc., and brain and mind and procreation and growth and development-and genius as much as idiocy. Think it over. , Love thy neighbor as thyself, more or less. And Autopathy shall make you realize that your own world and shoes are the most scrumptious places to hve m. after all. THE SAMENESS AND ONENESS OF SYMPTOMS, DISEASES, PROD- UCTS AND "DISCHARGES" That's a broad statement— more comprehensive than has ever been conceived by any student of Livingness. Nevertheless, we can together prove that it is based on Truth and Sense. Many writers have before made the assertion that "there is only one disease"— or "only one poison" — and that "the only one" disease or poison is "impure blood" — and that the cause or causes of this "impure blood" is one thing or another. What "thing" or what "other"? Some ascribe the cause of "the one disease" or blood poison to improper "thinking" ; some, to im- perfect "breathing"; some, to lack of "water drink- ing" ; some, to the lack of "physical exercise" ; some, to excesses in "eating," etc., etc. In a word, one and all see a speck on your face and, not understanding its origin and character, claim that your features are one mass of smut. Such brain- vision is afflicted with a form of myopia or short- sightedness — ^which, when it attempts to focus itself on the subject of "health" and "sickness," becomes cross-eyed. Accordingly, instead of giving you a name or a definite idea of what that one blood-smut consists, or of what's at the bottom of the "impure 72 Autopath y — Cure Thyself 73 blood," and how to wipe it off from your system, as you would from your nose — they tell you to "think" it away; to "breathe" it away; to "water" it away; to "starve" it away; to "colon-flush" it away, etc. That kind of information or advice is on a par with that Vv/hich one youngster gives another when he whis- pers: "Say, kid, run home and tell your ma she wants you." I wonder me how 'tis that their advice does not create a vacuum first, and then a cussedness, in people's brains as does the youngster's in the kid's! When some one advises you to breathe deep and tells you that shallow breathing is the cause of your impure blood, ask him to sit down with you and show you his brain-full of pennies and let you count them in your own hands and ways. Ask him to name that one sole blood-poison — ask him to name its father and mother and brothers and sisters and relatives, in a v/ord, to give you its pedigree and history — -ask him how and whom and where it mated and unmated— ask him the explanation, the arithmetic-like explanation, of the effect that deep breathing is going to have on that "one sole poison" that he accuses your blood of befriending; or how shallow breathing manufactured that one sole blood-counterfeit. Do they, one or all, even hint that the "raw" material of which the blood poison is composed happens to be made from some- thing that you know or can be made to understand as well as anybody? They don't. Oh, yes; I know that they pipe off soap-bubbles about the oxygen of the air oxidizing or burning up the poison, etc., which, like baby's soap-bubbles, seems beautiful, indeed, but— Evanescence I Can two soap- bubbles occupy the one and same spot or volume or 74 A u t o 1 o g y— -Study Thyself space, in air, at the one and same time? Can they? Well, then, can one oxygen-bubble occupy the same spot or volume in the tubes of your blood vessels, closed at both ends and on all sides, at the one and same time that the said spot or volume is filled with a carbonic gas-bubble? You, or some one, will up and say: "The oxygen drives it out or burns it up." In the first place, carbonic acid gas is not burnable or oxidizable. It's already burned or oxidized. It's ashes or clinkers in your blood-tubes or lung-furnace. In the second place, it's not drivable. It comes out of and through the same tube-opening or bellows (throat or lungs) that oxygen goes in. You, or some one, will nov/ say: "It's an exchange of the two gases within the air spaces or alveolar cells of the lungs — ^the oxygen displacing the carbonic acid gas ; and, having replaced it, is taken up or absorbed by the blood in larger amount." Let us see if this is correct. Yes, it's an exchange of the two gases in the lung cells ; but lung cells or chambers are cut off on all sides from the blood vessels and they cannot swap more carbonic acid gas for oxygen than they (the lung cells) happen to contain at the time, and they can't be the possessors of more carbonic acid gas than the blood vessels have "breathed out" into them. And the blood vessels are not provided with a billion of bellows puffing away at your beck and call from within the billions of the cells and nuclei of your brain and liver and kidneys and toes, and the dickens knows what not. We're piped and jointed all right enough, but every pipe ends where it begins and every joint is "wiped," as plumbers say. The only "leaks" ever sprung by the human organism are sprung by the mind, or "corruption." Autopath y — Cure Thyself 75 Going deeper into our subject, let me refer you to what I say on "The Twin-ness of Blood" — where I show you that, in health as well as in sickness, the fundamental or "poisoning" difference between good or "pure," and bad or impure blood is virtually and actually to be found in the fact that venous or impure blood contains more carbonic acid gas dissolved in its serum and combined with its red corpuscle than arte- rial or pure blood contains. Now, carrying this a lit- tle further, you can readily understand how easy it is for the arterial or pure blood to become infected or made impure by an excess of carbonic acid gas — com- ing either directly through the capillaries from the "carbonized" venous blood or from the free carbonic acid gas in the air of rooms, or from excesses in what are called "carbohydrate" foods, which are "starchy" foods that happen to be rich in carbon, and which, therefore, liberate a large amount of carbonic acid gas when they are burned up in the system. All "cereal," or "starchy," or "sweet" foods are converted in the liver into glycogen (liver sugar), which then is stored away in the muscles, where it is converted into glu- cose, which then breaks up into water and carbonic acid gas, which gas must at once be picked up or dis- solved by the venous blood and passed over to the lungs, and to the kidneys, and to all the manufactur- ing membranes of the entire body from head to foot. Mark well what I say, "To all the manufacturing mem- branes of the entire body." Mark this well, please — not because no one else ever recognized or discovered that one fact in studying the mechanism of the living body but because that one fact shows the wonderful wisdom and economy practiced by the Maker in so 76 A u t o 1 o g y— Study Thyself constructing your Living Plant that the waste or refuM products (so-called "poisons") of one tissue or tissue- compound, say of glycogen or muscle-sugar, namely, carbonic acid gas (itself a poison) becomes actually a most essential and indispensable constituent of the special by-products turned out by various organs or tissues of your organism. What do I mean? I mean just this: That that which is burned or used up or oxidized in the organs or tissues of your body, and which all past and present writers and teachers claim is "waste" or "poison," is not poison, but is actually an essential foodstuff which other organs or tissues now must have in manufacturing their specialized products or juices. How can I prove that? I can prove that by analyzing the chemical composition of the various juices of the body— those produced or oozed out by the brain and cord, as well as those that ooze out of the mouth, and lungs, and stomach, and liver, and pancreas, and intestines, and genito-urinary or- gans, and joints, and other spaces, or canals, or sheaths existing in or between or around your organs and tissues. "Without troubling you with a complicated compara- tive table of the amounts of carbonic acid gas which enters in the makeup and function of all the various essential juices and fluids of the body, let me reproduce here a table of proportions of the various constituents of the saliva (spit). In one thousand parts (grammes) of saliva there is found of : Phosphoric acid 0.51 (about 8 grains) Sodium 0.43 (nearly same) Calcium (lime) 0.03 (just a bit) Autopath y — Cure Thyself 77 Magnesium 0.0 1 (almost none) Chlorides 0.84 (about 14 grains) Oxygen almost none Nitrogen almost none Carbonic acid gas 200 (over 6 ounces) If to that datum you add this other that the salivary glands manufacture from 18 to 36 ounces (from over one pint to over one quart) of saliva in every twenty- four hours, you will begin to get an idea regarding what the human organism does with its so-called "poison" or waste. As you see, it uses that waste not as a "poison" but as a very useful product and derives as much good from it as "packers" nowadays derive from what was formerly considered offensive refuse. But, even as "packers" have learned that the refuse or waste must be "refined" and re-refined, and not be improperly assorted or combined, and as they have recognized that the refuse of some animals or organs is not productive of as high a grade of by-products, or fertilizers, so the human economy cannot turn out high-grade by-products (digestive, biliary, urinary and brainy) from a low-grade or bad mixture of the body's so-called "refuse," or "waste," or "poison." Do you now see why every learned, as well as every unlearned individual or writer, in matters of living, well or sick, is talking through his hat or groping in darkness? If now you will further absorb the fact that the amount of free and combined carbonic acid gas that enters into the formation and composition of gastric and pan- creatic and intestinal juices, as well as in the forma- tion and composition of bile and urine and brain and spinal cord — as well, also, as in the formation and com- 78 Autology— Study Thyself position of the serum (and red corpuscles) of the blood and of the lymph — is proportionately about as large as just stated regarding the saliva, you will readily admit that "the one poison" which makes "impure blood" is a mighty useful and essential and beneficial poison. What ails it, then, that it causes so much mischief? Nothing ails it — it all ails you — simply because you breathe and drink and eat and do — and don't breathe and drink and eat and do — things (chemical things) which either prevent your organs or tissues from ac- cepting or utilizing the "grade" of the carbonic acid mixture v/hich the blood and lymph unload in your "retorts," or which render them (retorts or tissues) unable to "refine" and "re-refine" the mixture or mess into a sufficiently high grade of spit, or stomach or pancreatic or bile or brain or urine by-product. That's all. Nothing goes to waste or to poison, but all goes to money, in the "stock yards" of Chicago; but a large bulk of everything- — mental and physical — goes to waste or poison— or penury — in the "stock yards" of the "thinking," "breathing," "watering," "feeding," "flushing" "packers" (I mean everybody). Did you know that your body manufactures every twenty-four hours about one-tenth your weight of gas- tric juice? Fancy now what a muddle your body must be in when that gastric juice is of a low grade and can't be pawned off for standard! And that your pancreas produces from one-fourth to one-half of one pint of pancreatic juice, and your liver from one pint to one quart of bile, and your intestines from one- eighth to one-fourth pint of their juice, and the kid- neys about three pints of urine ? And that is far from Autopath y — Cure Thyself 79 comprising all the juices which remain in and around all your tissues and organs and glands. The foregoing data are sufficient, I believe, to con- vince you that your usual sources of information re- garding health and disease are rather primitive, not to say murky, and that he who writes and asserts that there is only one disease and only one poison, and who quits you there to ramble away or evaporate into words and "spread-eagles," is befuddling himself or parrotting some one else. And, I believe, they are suf- ficient to convince you that I am right in claiming that "what's burned or used up or oxidized in the organs or tissues of the body, and which all past and present writers and teachers claim is waste or poison, is not poison, but is actually an essential nutriment which other organs and tissues utilize to manufacture their special by-products or juices." Yet, I haven't mentioned the lubricating sub- stances of the body — namely, the "mucus" or slime — which is produced by all your mucous membrane-lined organs and tissues, and the "serum" or "lymph" which is produced by all your serous membrane-lined organs and tissues. In fact, all the organs and tissues of your body are lined either inside or outside with the one or the other of those membranes. Indeed, we have no way of knowing what is transpiring beneath or behind or under either one of those two membranes except by examining what it pleases them to squeeze or let ooze out through their meshes and filtering cell-walls. But we know this much, that what is artificially compressed through the mucous membrane of a tonsil, or stomach, or blad- 8o Auto logy— Study Thyself der, or womb, etc., or through the serous membrane of a brain, or lung (pleura), or joint — or the skin itself — is not a particle the same "stuff" or juice which Na- ture, in her mysterious way, turns out or oozes out as her by-products. That's why we are safe in assuming that the "refining" processes take place within the cells of the mucous and serous membranes of the body, and that's why I am safe in concluding that the source of the so-called "poison" which causes all symptoms or diseases is to be found in the fact that the refining cells of these membranes are the seat or plant where the whole secret of the production of high-grade or low-grade by-products is kept and operated. These two membranes assort and refine the material offered them by the organ-cells proper and then turn out the various grades of their respective by-products through their meshes and walls and reject the unusable, which then must accumulate in the tissues to be burned up in "fevers" or be disposed of as "discharges," or "ef- fusions," or "exudates," or "dropsy," or "catarrh," etc. You may not have a very clear conception of what is a mucous membrane and a serous membrane. A mucous membrane is the kind of skin which lines the inside of your eyelids, nose, mouth, throat, air tubes, stomach, bowels, appendix, genito-urinary organs, etc., and which produces or manufactures, in health, what is called mucus (besides the special by-products be- fore mentioned), and in disease what is called "slime," or "catarrhal" discharge, and sometimes a mixture of slime and pus (matter or corruption). A serous mem- brane is the kind of skin which lines the outside of the lungs and the inside of the chest walls (called pleura), and the brain (called dura and pia Autopath y — Cure Thyself 8i mater, meaning hard or tough and soft or delicate mother-skin), and the nerves (called neurilemma), and the ends of bones where joints are formed, and the spaces between the abdom- inal and pelvic fleshy walls, and the numerous vital and pelvic organs therein placed, etc. This serous- make of membrane manufactures or exudes, in health, a thinnish, straw-colored lubricant, which enables any two organs or tissues to come in contact and rub to- gether without your feeling it ; whereas, in sickness, it becomes "effusion," or "exudate," or "water," and ac- cumulates, as you know, in articular rheumatism and pleurisy, for instance. So, also, in brain fever or men- ingitis. And it also may become purulent (corrup- tion), as in empyem.a (matter or pus in the chest). I believe that you are now prepared to follow me understandingly in the further observations and de- ductions I wish to make. SECRETIONS, EFFUSIONS AND "DIS- CHARGES." You understand that all "symptoms" — such as fever, pain, redness, swelling, etc. — are phenomena manifested by each and every organ or tissue in condi- tions of impairment and disease; and that there is no real difference between the "sickly" symptoms and the "healthy" signs manifested by organs or tissues in sickness and in health, aside from a mere difference in the degree of the heat (fever), or sensation (pain), or color (redness), or size (swelling). 82 Auto logy— Study Thyself If now you wttl investigate the produda Of fey- products of the organs and tissues of your body, in health and in sickness, you will readily recognize that there is no real, distinctive difference between any given "healthy" product and its corresponding "sickly" product, aside from the difference in the quality (or adulteration) of the two^ — I mean the "healthy" and the "sickly." For instance, the so-called pale, watery blood of anemia is just as much blood as the red, plastic blood of plethora, except in the proportion of the white and red corpuscles and the richness of the serum. So with the saliva, gastric and intestinal juices, cerebro-spinal fluids, genito-urinary secretions or excretions of these two individuals. It's only a dif- ference in the "grade" — not in the "stuff" itself. The "mucous" secretion of the mucous membranes any- where in the bodies of these two individuals—one "healthy" and the other "sickly" — is exactly the same slime and lubricant ; only this : that the sickly kind is more diluted or less oily, or more "ropy" and less watery than the healthy kind. That's all. Were it not of such importance to your future states of health I would not ask you to follow me in the fur- ther investigation of the origin and character of your juices and their derivatives or by-products in health and in sickness. But as it is absolutely necessary for you to become thoroughly conversant with the under- lying principles of Autology and with the most im- portant facts on which it rests, in order that you may utilize this common sense system of cure to advantage for yourself and others, as well as to be able to combat the delusive arguments of others, or to impart th» Autopath y»-— Cure Thygelf S3 knowledge which you ehall own as yours if you rea(i re-read and study this booli;, I desire to set before your mind two masses of "stuff." One is a mass of coal tar. The other is a mass of blood clot. The two are not very much unlike — I mean in the analogy of the pur- poses which they serve respectively and in the by- products or derivatives which are obtained by "treat- ing" them. Coal tar is a product, as you know, obtained by man in the manufacture of illuminating gas from bitumi- nous coal ; whereas blood is a product obtained by Na- ture in the manufacture of carbonic acid gas from nu- tritious food. The processes or steps through which coal tar is put in the retorts and tubes or "condensers" and distillers of the commercial plant, in order to ob- tain therefrom the wonderful stores of endless gaseous, liquid and solid compounds and products, are no less numerous or wonderful than are the processes or steps through which blood is put in the retorts and tubes or "condensers" and distillers of your vital plant, in order to obtain therefrom the wonderful stores of endless gaseous, liquid and solid tissue compounds and prod- ucts. The blood is an extremely complex mixture, but no more complex than coal tar ; and the human laboratory does not extract or compound or refine more deriva- tives or by-products from blood than man-made ap- paratus or laboratories do from coal tar. Indeed, the number of substances or derivatives obtained from the coal tar business is far in excess of those manufactured by the human apparatus. Nevertheless, do you know that the thousands of products and by-products which are directly derived from or related to coal tar are made 84 Autology— Study Thyself or found to fit into practically one class of substances, namely, the Benzene Series? Do you realize that carbolic acid and aniline are products of coal tar as well as benzene and naphtha- lene? Is it more surprising to hear or find that "mucus" and "urine" and "bile" and digestive juices and brain fluids belong to the one and same class of blood derivatives than it is that coal produces illumi- nating gas, coal tar, benzene, carbolic acid and aniline, and a thousand and one seemingly most dissimilar sub- stances? Let us now turn to all your organs and tissues. They are all classifiable under two headings, namely : Class I. Those organs and tissues that serve the double purpose of inlets and outlets and that are in di- rect or indirect communication with the outer world. Among these are the eyes and ears; the mouth and throat; the nose and air tubes, including the lungs; the entire alimentary canal, from the stomach (or esophagus, gullet) to the anus (end of rectum) ; the genital organs proper of both sexes, including the Fallopian tubes and uterus and external genitals of the female and the prostate and external genitals of the male; the urinary organs or tissues of both sexes, including the pelvis or reservoir of the kidneys, and the bladder, and the appendix; the liver, the pancreas, the kidney tissue proper, the ovaries, the testes, and the skin. Class 2. Those organs and tissues that have neither inlet nor outlet in direct or indirect communication with the outer world. Among these are brain and spinal cord, bones and marrow, heart, spleen, lym- Autopath y — Cure Thyself 85 phatlc glands, blood vessels, nerves, muscles, fat, blood corpuscles, and the cavities or spaces of the joints, skull, spine, pleura (chest), peritoneum (abdomen), periosteum (bone membrane), pericardium (heart), and the enveloping sheaths of nerves, muscles and tendons. The above two classes comprise all the organs and tissues of your body. And, when further considered from the viewpoint of their by-products or derivatives in health and in sickness, or from that of the origin and location of their diseases, they may be classified into mucous membrane-lined and serous membrane-lined organs and tissues, or cavities and spaces. This simple "dual" classification is perfectly logical and scientific, because diseases or ailments invariably start in or first affect their inner or outer linings or sacs — sheets or pillow cases. The substance proper of organs or tissues becomes involved or affected only by extension, as fire extends or liquids soak — by which I m.ean that "colds," "catarrhs," "rheumatisms," "fevers," "infec- tions," "biliousness," etc., begin or reside either in the mucous lining of the organ-cavities, as nose, throat, lungs, stomach, bowels, bladder, pelvic organs, etc., or in their serous lining, as in the membranes of the brain (meningitis, or brain fever), or of the abdomen (peri- tonitis, or inflammation of the bowels), or of the joints (arthritis, or articular rheumatism), or of the bones (periostitis), or of the pelvic organs (cellulitis, ovaritis, cystitis, prostatitis, etc.), etc. Looking at things more closely you will find that Class I belongs properly to the mucous mem- brane set of organs and tissues. Hence, they are directly or indirectly subjected to or affected by 86 A u t o 1 o g y— Study Thya^f aatarrhal inflammations or discharges — infiammatlona or discharges that may be only mucous or slimy, or also purulent (namely, muco-purulent) . Chemical analysis shows conclusively that the mucous discharge or effusion from the "healthy" and the muco-puru- lent discharge from the "sickly" mucous membrane of the eyes and ears, the respiratory and aliment- ary tracts, the urinary and genital tracts — ^in both sexes — are not only alike, respectively, whether well or sick, but also alike no matter by what organ or tissue the discharge is produced or oozes from — ^however apart or different the organs may be. For example, the catarrhal or muco-purulent discharges from the eyelids, the lungs, the womb, the bladder, the stomach, the bowels, the pelvis of the kidney, the appendix of the cecum, the urethra, etc., are essentially alike — not alone in their appearance, etc., but also in their phy- sical or chemical makeup. Hence, they must be the one and same product, and they must have been manu- factured by the various tissue-cells out of the same, identical, fundamental blood or tissue compound or "live" coal tar. What is the difference whether the "discharge" comes from the lungs, or the womb, or the prostate, or the stomach, etc., so long as the com- position of the discharge is one and the same, and so long as directly or indirectly the source of that dis- charge is the blood "tar"? None whatever. Which proves that my contention—namely, that as the con- stituent-origin (the chemical bodies circulating in the blood and permeating that class of organs or tissues) is one and the same, and as the constituent-products (the catarrhal or muco-purulent discharges) are one Autopathy — Cure Thyself 87 and alike, throughout all the organs and tissues which belong to Class i (namely, the organs and tis- sues which communicate directly or indirectly with the outer world through channels or hollow organs that are lined with mucous membranes) — is not only well founded but also the only logically tenable one. Which furthermore proves that any and all diseases of those organs and tissues, or channels, or passages, must be treated or cured in exactly the one and same way. Hence, you must grant that, thus far at least, I am on sane terra firma in claiming and insisting that Autopathy is the one treatment for the hundreds of this class of so-called different ailments or diseases — whether acute or chronic, infectious or contagious — that affect the various mucous membrane-lined organs or tissues or conduits. To be reasonable or logical you cannot concede to me an iota less than all and every- thing I claim — if you concede one single item of my broad claim. Let us nov/ pass to Class 2, which consists of organs or tissues that are either inclosed with serous mem- branes or that (themselves) inclose spaces or cavities filled more or less with serum or lymph. Among these are the brain and spinal cord and nerves, the joints, the pleural cavity, the lymphatic spaces and vessels, the peritoneal, including the abdominal and pelvic or- gans of male and female (lined outside by peritoneum), the bones, lined outside by periosteum, etc. I do not think it necessary to devote many words to prove that the "healthy" and the "sickly" products of the enveloping membranes of the brain, of the spinal cord, of the nerves, of the bones, of the ovaries, of the 88 Auto logy— Study Thyself testes, of the peritoneum, of the pleural cavity, of the lymphatic spaces, and of the joints are alike and the same; namely, serous or sero-purulent ; or that the serous or the sero-purulent discharge oozing from the brain membranes is chemically the same as that oozing from the joints, or pleural cavity, or ovary, or testes; or that a serous effusion in the brain or spinal cord, or in joints, or in dropsy, or in the scrotum, or in the chest, or in edema (anywhere) is physically and chem- ically alike, and that it and all originates directly or indirectly from the same constituents of blood tar. Therefore, I must again ask you, "What is the differ- ence whether the effusion (called effusion because the discharge remains closed in a sac) comes from the brain or nerves, from the ovaries or testes, from the bones or chest, from the joints or lymphatics, so long as the composition of the discharge (effusion) is one and the same, and so long as the source is directly or indirectly the blood tar? None whatever. Which proves that my contention- — namely, that as the con- stituent-origin (the chemical bodies circulating in the blood and permeating that class of organs) is one and the same, and as the constituent-products (the serous or sero-purulent effusions) are one and alike, through- out all the organs and tissues which belong to Class 2 (namely, the organs and tissues which do not com- municate directly or indirectly with the outer world through channels or hollow organs, but which are lined outside or inside by serous membranes) — is not only well founded but also the only logically tenable one. Which furthermore proves that any and all diseases of those organs and tissues, or channels, must be treated or cured in exactly the one and same way. Hence, you Autopath y — Cure Thyself 89 must grant that, thus far at least, I am on ssne terra firma in claiming and insisting that Autopathy is the one treatment for the hundreds of this class of so-called different ailments or diseases — whether acute or chronic, infectious or contagious — that affect the various serous membrane-lined organs or tissues or conduits. To be reasonable or logical you cannot con- cede to me an iota less than all and everything I claim — if you concede one single item of my broad (ening) claim." Broadening, indeed, as you are about to wit- ness. You have noticed that I have so far avoided refer- ences — that is, I have not quoted world-known author- ities for the data which I state. There are two rea- sons for this. In the first place, because the facts which I state and upon which I base my deductions and conclusions are known to every learned student of medicine, or biology, or physiology. In the second place, because the deductions and conclusions, as well as the bedside or practical observations and experi- ences which confirm my deductions and conclusions, are as nev^ to "authorities" the world over as they are to you, whoever you may be. Therefore, I can quote no one in that regard but my own knowledge obtained from my own study and experience and experiments. But I am now coming to a phase of the subject of Autology where I appreciate the opportunity of be- ing able to quote eminent chemists or biologists, be- cause most physicians or students are not versed in the observations which form the basis of and absolute- ly confirm the truth which I am about to put forth— namely, that there is virtually and actually no intrinsic go Autolog y — Study Thyself physical or chemical difference between the "healthy" or "sickly" mucous-membrane products of diseases and the "healthy" or "sickly" serous-membrane prod- ucts of diseases of any class or classes of organs or tissues or channels in the entire organism; and that, therefore, there is no real difference between the con- stituent-origin and the constituent-products of any and all ailments or diseases— be these acute or chronic, in- fectious or contagious. Before proceeding I wish you to bear in mind that, though there are any number of makes or brands of syrups, or of whiskies, on the market, the syrups are all composed of water and sugar, and the whiskies of water and alcohol. In other words, all syrups are es- sentially alike in their constituents or composition, and differ merely in the quality and proportion of the water and sugar; and are, therefore, all called and known as syrups; and they are all used and treated as syrups; and they are all subject to the one and same disease; and the one and same treatment will cure their ail- ment or ailments. So also with whiskies or liquors. The actual differences between the various brands are merely incidental differences of color, or density, or taste, or "age," and not of essential constituents. Please bear this in mind as you read what follows regarding serous effusions or sero-purulent effusions, and mucous secretions or muco-purulent discharges anywhere in or from any organ, or tissue, or cavity, or channel that communicates, or that does not communicate, directly or indirectly, with the outer world. My references are Herter (in the United States), Hoppe-Seyler, Bunge, Hammersten (in German lan- guage), A. Gautier, Bouchard, Charrin (in French Ian- Autopath y — Cure Thyself 91 guage). I can add hundreds of names to this list in each country and other lands, "Backed" in my statements by the "findings" of world-renown authorities in the field of biology (Liv- ingness), I am able to assert that tlie healthy and the sickly serous effusions — such as are found, for instance, in the pleural cavity (or in pleurisy), in the peritoneal cavity (or dropsy or ascites), in the skin (or edema), in the pericardium (or pericarditis), in the tunica vaginalis (or hydrocele), in the ventricles of the brain or between the membranes of the brain or the spinal cord (or meningitis, or cerebro-spinal meningitis), or in ovarian cysts, or in blisters, or in synovial mem- branes (or synovitis or rheumatic effusion), etc., etc. — possess the same physical and chemical properties and composition. Indeed, much more so than do the vari- ous and sundry brands of syrups or liquors or beers. Here is what these serous products are found to con- sist of in diseases as well as in health, namely: Urea, creatine, uric acid, tyrosine, leucine, some fatty mat- ters and cholesterine, and exactly the same kind of mineral salts as are contained in the blood-serum, be- ing chiefly those of sodium and potassium — ^with a large quantity of carbonic acid gas. On the other hand, I also contend that the mucous secretions or discharges of any and all organs or tis- sues, in diseases as well as in health, are found to be composed of the same constituents that make up the serous, with the mere incidental difference that the gelatinous and transparent substance called mucine (of mucus or slime) is denser than the gelatinous and transparent substance called serine, or synovin« (of serum or lymph or joints). That's all. ga A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself And as for pure pus, or sero pus, or muco pus — it*s all pus, no matter where found or how mixed or pro- duced, and it contains a little of everything that's good and bad in the v/hole body, blood, brain and all. Ac- cording to Hoppe-Seyler, Gautier and Ranvier, pus contains Albuminoids, Nuclein, Lecithin, Fats, Cholesterin, Cerebrin (brain essence). Salts. Now, really, if the so-called progressive or "learned" men who are inventing new "animal" or organic cures were at all consistent they would not waste millions of money, or horse-power energy, or brain in extracting their alleged v»7onderful elixirs of life, which they inject into human beings — ^but they would proceed to devise some quick natural means of forcing the system to manufacture pus. Why not? Pus is proven to con- sist of the very substances which they are extracting from the genitals or other organs of the lower ani- mals, which they inject into people. All they can ever expect to get from those indecent juices are nuclein, lecithin and cerebrin — call it what they like. If you shall ask, "Why, then, do not their preparations pro- duce the same symptoms or ailments in the human body that pus does?" then I shall answer they do. They produce the identical same poisonous results — to-wit: the symptoms of fever, malaise, or infection which invariably follow the serum-injection. But, as Autopathy — Cure Thyself 93 in the case of an abscess or pus discharge, the pouring of the chemical pus-poisons into the blood is constant and continued for days or months ; whereas in the case of the "injected" antitoxins or "serum" the dose is small and given only at distant intervals — the mani- festations of fever and infection are milder and of shorter duration than in the case of pus or abscess in- fection. Hence the practice of injecting "sera" or antitoxic cures into children or people is fraught with the same danger and is based on the same stupid de- lusion as was the formerly existing practice of trying to cure lupus or tuberculosis of the skin by infecting the affected area with erysipelas. Like a thousand and one ridiculous and pernicious practices that have had their day, so the present ridiculous and pernicious craze for antitoxic sera is having its days — and vic- tims. Not, however, without achieving some cures on the hit-or-m.iss luck of which the whole "castle-in- Spain" system is based, without a single scientific or common sense reason or explanation for the "hit" as well as for the "miss" results — cures or deaths. Sup- erstition, or Suggestion, or Eddyism, or Dowieism, or, to go back, Perkinism (with his little rods), or Faith- ism (the man with a horse-chestnut in his breeches pocket) can cite and show more such cures to the yard or yarn. Coming back to our subject, I may then ask you this last question: What, then, is the difference whether the mucous or muco-purulent secretion or discharge, or the serous or sero-purulent secretion or effusion, or both, constitutes the source or cause, or the product or effect, of the ailment or disease ; or what is the differ- ence whether the disease or ailment which is caused by, 94 Autolog y— Study Thyself or is producing, th€ one or th« ether "discharge" or "effusion" resides or originates in any one particular organ or tissue, or hollow, or space, seeing that the composition of the juicy substance (whether called discharge or effusion) is one and alike in the very tis- sue-cells and the cavities or channels of any and all organs or tissues of the body, and seeing that their transient or permanent habitat is the blood? None whatever. Which proves that my final contention (the contention of the Science and Practice of Autology) — namely, that as the constituent-origin and the con- stituent-products and the constituent-habitat (or seat) of any and all diseases or ailments, acute and chronic, infectious and contagious, in child, man and woman, are virtually and essentially and chemically and func- tionally one and alike in any and every organ and tis- sue — is not only well founded but also the only one which a sane mind can hold. Which furthermore proves that any and ail diseases of any and all organs or tissues or fluids of the body must be treated and cured alike and with the same remedy. Hence, you must grant this : Either I am on abso- lute terra firma or I'm way off ; either Autopathy is the remedy or cure for any and ail ailments or diseases or it isn't for a blessed one. If you concede one pinch of truth to Autology, you must concede that Autology is truth and sense all through. If you concede one genuine cure to Autopathy (and that you and nobody else can help doing) then you must concede that it is a cure for all ailments. Try it once^ — or try it again — after you have read every word of this book and see. Autopathy — Cure Thyself 95 However, although the organs and tissuee and fluids of your body shall respond equally well to Autopathy or autopathic instructions, you must not overlook the fact that the response or results may appear sooner and greater in some "cases" than in others, depending somewhat upon the character and location of the "sick" organ or tissue, and upon age, circumstances and en- vironments, but never upon the nature or cause or name of the disease, or fever, or ailment. Never. In a general way all those organs and tissues which be- long to Class I (communicating directly both ways with the outer world) will respond to and be cured quicker by Autology than the others. The reason for that is a simple, physical one. It's easier and quicker work to chase a dog out when you've got a clean sweep back and front, and it's easier and quicker work to do likewise when you've got one opening to outdoors, than when you haven't any and must wait till you or the animal find or make one. Common sense tells you that. For instance, you can as a rule get rid of a spell of vomiting or sick stomach quicker than you can of a vomity or sick brain. The stomach is opened both ways, and the brain isn't. You can get rid of a cold or pneumonia quicker than you can of nephritis (Bright's disease), or pleurisy, or inflammatory rheu- matism. The nose, or throat, or lungs are nearer and in more direct communication with the outside world than are the kidneys, or the joints, or the chest cavity (pleura). And so forth. But I can hear what some are thmking. They have, for instance, some bladder, or some womb, or some prostatic, or some nasal, or some throaty or some bronchial, or some rectal trouble, 96 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself and they want to ask me how it is that these tissues, or organs, or hollows, being so very near and in direct communication with the all outdoors, they don't get well quick, real quick — don't you know? And I am led to ansv/er in this wise: A neighbor once had a kitten — wiser than the "maid" — v/ho was trying to chase the kitten out of the house, but who (the maid) did not want to close both the front and the back door, because the weather v/as so hot. So when the kitten was chased out one door, and that shut, it skitted in the other door. This picnic kept on until the girl made up her mind to put up with the kitten. Well, most people who are sick and who happen to get hold of the right means that is sure to chase out the sick- kitten, or cause of their sickness, never think or take the trouble to prevent the same or similar sickness- producing kittens from getting in through the opened doors of their bodies. Hence, the ailm.ent and the discharge comes and goes, perhaps, but it's sure to turn up, as did the kitten, always. Therefore, do not start to chase your ailment with Autopathy until you have found out the trick or wrinkle of keeping doors and v/indows opened all you want and still shut the kitten out for keeps. The rest of this book tells you all the particulars and solves the riddle for you and everybody for now and all times. Lest you might assume that I have intentionally omitted diseases of the skin, such as are known as eczema, or "salt rheum," or pimples, or acne, or black- heads and coarse skin, or psoriasis, or "shingles," or herpes, and another hundred more or less ; or lest you might assume that my system, or Autopathy, does not include those diseases, as well as measles, scarlet fever Autopath y — Cure Thyself 97 and other ailments or derangements which are evi- denced by a rash or an eruption on or in the skin — I shall devote a few remarks to this class of ailments to convince you that they are amenable to the same im- mutable principles, or law, or cure of Autology. The same chemists or biologists before quoted will tell you that the fibrous, or interstitial, or tegumentary (skin) tissues of the body ooze out under compression a fluid, effusion or "discharge," which resembles in appearance and composition the "healthy" or "sickly" juice, or effusion, or discharge of serous or of mucous membranes and organs and tissues. Hence, when these last mentioned organs, or tissues, or membranes cannot dispose of the "discharge" or "poison" — either because the total accumulation or production of the "discharge" is too great, or because all the other tis- sues, or hollow organs, or outlets resist or object — then the comparatively dense and tough tissue of the skin is called upon to assist in the elimination or disposing of the acrid or poisoning discharge. That's why babies' and children's and youths' skins are more com- monly affected and afflicted by fever-diseases, as well as by deranged conditions of the stomach, or bowel, or blood; and also and likewise by changes in the char- acter of the liquids and solids taken as nourishment, to-wit: by fruits and vegetables at certain times of the year. Thus it becomes impossible to puncture the armor of Autology even in diseases or affections of the skin, or in conditions which mar the looks or complexions of women as well as of men. Autopathy is as effective and speedy and certain in g8 Autology — Study Thyself its effects and results in this class of ailments or afflic- tions as in any and all the others mentioned. Again, it may appear that derangements of the blood, or of the nerves, or of the muscles are not comprised in the two mentioned classes of organs or tissues; and, therefore, not to be treated or cured by Au- topathy. Nevertheless, a moment's thought will sug- gest to your mind that the blood itself must suffer when it is overstocked or understocked with the sub- stances which it turns over to your organs, or to your serous and mucous membranes, or to your skin, to be utilized or disposed of. And, likewise, that your nerves, or your muscles, or both and aL, must suffer and complain when they are compelled to work or operate under such unnatural conditions. Accordingly your mind will perceive and understand how and why the same Autopathic instructions will cure neuralgia, or myalgia (muscular rheumatism), or neurasthenia, or general and local debility, or fagged-outness, or headache and backaches, or heart pains and side pains, or ovarian pains and stomach pains, or soreness and weakness anywhere and everywhere in- side and outside of the body — as well as they will cure infectious or fever diseases, or catarrhal, or bil- ious, or rheumatic, or other ailments — of which the number is almost unlimited and to which endless list the healing professions still keep and intend to keep on adding as accident, or convenience, or necessity, or hunger suggests or demands. That's easier than to study and think — and it's easier and more fascinating to shoot up in a balloon than it is to dig down and build a foundation on bedrock, and then v/ith stone Autopath y — Cure Thyself 99 and cement to raise a tower of Truth and Sense that any one who wills may and can climb step by step and see beyond with that feeling and realization of cer- tainty and security and safety which never falls to the lot of balloon-notoriety or soap-bubble popularity. Therefore, as a gas-plant is a factory of illuminating gas and coal tar, so the human-pknt is a factory of car- bonic acid gas and blood tar. Both plants and their respective products are equally useful, beneficial and negotiable in their proper places and for their respec- tive purposes ; but both "plants" and products are abso- lute nuisances and poisons otherwise. HUMANITY'S INHERITANCE AND BLESSINGS THE UNBORN'S PRAYER. AT FIRST— To be conceived in the beatitude of Love; To be born of judicious parents ; To be nursed at a wholesome breast ; To be bred on physical environments. AND THEN— To learn but not be taught ; To think but not be thoughted. TO BE CONCEIVED IN THE BEATITUDE OF LOVE. Were you? You don't know. Yet you do know, if you're a "parent," which means that you were. And so was and is every living creature. God or Nature was not that thoughtless or unjust as to permit any of His or Her offspring to be conceived in any other state than that of Natural Beatitude, between the 100 Autopathy — Cure Thyself loi wedded "ferments" — whatever may have been the con- ventional, or social, or arbitrary, or legal, or artificial "states" between the wedded or unwedded parents. Hence no one starts handicapped in this human "race" as far as Natural Beatitude is concerned. TO BE BORN OF JUDICIOUS PARENTS. That's different. If you were; good. If you were not, you were truly handicapped. But you could or should have won your "race" just the same, with brain or with brawn, and thus have made up for that disadvantage, as many have done and are doing. How? As far as I know the world is in the darkness re- garding this problem — which is ignorantly accounted for by what is variously called "Heredity," "Luck," "Pluck," "Genius," "Prenatal Influence," etc. — all of which belong to the same category of foolish know- nots to which belong Witchcraft and Superstition. Nevertheless the light shed by history, through its hu- man torches in the form of brilliant or illuminating brains produced by extinct, and by ancient, and by modern, and by contemporary races, lifts the haze or gloom of midnightness from this living puzzle. Most great Brains were born in what are commonly but wrongly supposed to be injudicious environments, if not of injudicious parents. The proof of that is around you, before your eyes, in every town or com- munity. Because a farmer's boy aims and lands up high in New York or Chicago, and it is found that he 102 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself was neither "bom of judicious parents" nor born in "judicious" surroundings — from which you forget that he broke loose as soon as he could dispose of his axe or buy a pair of shoes — would-be learned men exclaim: "Ah ! but there was blood in his mother's veins." And if there wasn't, "wise" men are ready with the as- sumption that "there was blue blood in some grand or great grandparents." "Blue blood" indeed! There's as fine blue blood in your veins now as in anybody's. The dubious or dif- ferential point is this, however : Does your blue blood contain too much carbonic acid gas to the pint or to the amount of oxygen? Well, when "heredity" hides her face, or skips a generation or two, then she's called Atavism. "Ata- vism" is heredity gone Rip Van Winkling. She gets drunk. Is turned out. Sleeps a generation or so. Wakes up. Meanders back to town. To find as many skulls filled with the same kind of stuff that the "dog- gone" old skulls were. Sometimes Heredity's name is swapped for that of Genius. And that's when off-brains write about Caesars and Napoleons being degenerates or crimi- nals, and lay their "fits" or "degeneracy" or crimes at Genius's door; when the truth of the matter is that they (the fits, degeneracy, etc.), should be laid at their (the Caesars', Napoleons', Byrons', Wilds', etc.'s) bed- room and dining-room doors, or somebody else's. You know what I mean. Young growing Brains that till and fertilize and cul- tivate their own matter to the pinnacle of mental re- nown and that then allow their stomachs and livers Autopath y — Cure Thyself 103 and other organs to beweed and befoul them (brains) never live to a ripe, healthy, sane old age. They can't. The rest of their organs or functions is too many. Heredity, atavism, luck, pluck, talent, character, genius, success, progress — one and all exist only in light, air, water and foods, whose constituents alone create the afore-mentioned endowments, when judiciously combined and reorganized by the indi- vidual's blood and organs. Atavism, Heredity and Genius are words on which Ignorance falls back when she is cornered. It means that if you are a toper or a star and your father wasn't, then somebody between you and Adam (inclusive) was. It means that a chump would rather "chappy" his vanity by blaming ancient history for his deficiency than his own stupid habits or crass ignorance. What of it if you haven't been bom of judicious pa- rents or grandparents? A nice heap of judiciousness you'd find at the bottom of everybody's ancestral cis- tern if you went far or deep enough. If you be young at this reading, and you have "judi- cious" parents — ^you are fortunate indeed! Because yours is the opportunity, without excuse for missing it, of possessing early in life the "mens sana in corpore sano" (a sound mind in a sound body) which five, aye a hundred generations or "breedings," could not pos- sibly endow you with. And, here, kind readers, let me think aloud for the immediate and future benefit of growing boys and girls, as well as for the happiness of your aging or de- parting days. 104 Autology — Study Thyself The "learned" are instructing the mind — but not educating the brain of your children. They are stuffing their minds, but starving their brains. Hygienists, Die- tarians, chefs and cooks are "slopping" livers but "milking" brains. What can be expected from all that? If not odoriferous and malubrious notions and prod- ucts? Pick up your papers, read from some of your books, sit with your children in school or out of school, and listen. Then let me see you blush from shame or anger. And, after taking a walk around the block or garden, step into your house or their school rooms or sleeping rooms. Does it smell and feel just as heavenly sweet and "judicious" as you found it outdoors? Well, is your son or daughter breathing and thinking in those places what's "judicious" or injudicious for their mind and character, as well as for their lungs and blood? Madam, what's that you're cooking or putting on the table? What kind of a mess is it going to fill up their stomachs with? What kind of mind or brain producing stuff is that, if you please? Shocks! they get enough learning at school or at work. Does he? Does she? Can you imprint "learning" on mush or slime or slush? Can a brain "hold up" the liver for food? Can you make silk with cotton? Shoddy looks a bit like wool — ^but you know what shoddy is. Well, "shoddy" brains or minds can repeat shoddy knowl- edge printed in books, or oozing from "watered" brains; but what counts in this world and every other world is the brain matter that "thinks." And no brain matter can think or improve its thinking on messed-up Autopathy — Cure Thyself 105 air and drinkables and eatables. I don't care what you or anybody believe, I know this much, and Nature and History back me up, if you will give your infant or child from now on the kind of air and water and foods that God and Nature made for him or her, that brain will take care of its future education and prog- ress and promotion. Neither you nor anybody can down or squelch it. So, by "judicious parents" I simply mean this: Give your unborns and newborns and oldborns natural air, light, water and foods and mark well that if you can't afford anything else, that will be giving them and your- self and humanity a glorious inheritance and blessing. Degenerates and criminals and good-for-nothings are not born. Hence degeneracy or criminality or good-for-nothingness is always acquired and never in- herited or transmitted. It is always taught, or pounded or hounded or jawed into children; or it is nursed (I mean breast or bottle nursed), or it is fed (I mean mouth and nose and stomach fed), or it is bred (I mean home or school or street bred) into childhood or youth. It is never transmitted from humanity's rear, called heredity. You may say : "He looks and talks and acts like his parent or relative." Well, did you expect him to look and talk and act like a monkey? Whose talking and walking and acting did he have to ape or pattern his own after? "But he complains of his stomach, or head, or kid- neys ; or is subject to headaches, or fits, or catarrh or rheumatism ; or has weak eyes, etc., etc., like his father io6 Autology — Study Thyself or mother." Well, at whose table did he leam to feed and drink, and in whose bed or room did he learn to sleep and breathe ; and by whose light did he learn to read and study, etc.? Can't you see that 2+2 make 4 and that 2-I-3 make 5, or that a nature-made brain, or stomach, or kidney, or eye, etc., plus sickly nur- ture-made milk, or air, or food, or light, or education, or example, make dunces and fools, degenerates and criminals? A child's brain is like a fresh onion, ready to give off and to absorb bad and good smells alike. The brain of infants and children, young and old, acquires its characteristics and knowledge by aping and repeating what parents and nurses and teachers do and say- — in their talk and thoughts, in their drinks and foods, in their manners and behaviors. For that matter people's brains and tongues and bodies keep that mimicking up or down to the grave. Hence the public's admiration and worship for "self-made" men and women — which means simply that the "self- made" men and women broke loose from their former nests and broods and environments. Heredity is cheap or second-hand imitation. Genius is genuine nutrition. Sickness is cheap or second-hand imitation. Health is genuine nutrition. Heredity's alleged sicknesses are acquired or repro- duced purely by imitating the sick air and light and drinks and foods and manners and behaviors of parents or associates. In no other way. Genius, or perfect brain matter, is acquired or repro- duced purely by imitating the healthy air and light Autopathy— Cure Thyself 107 and drinks and foods and manners and behaviors of — not parents' or associates' — of Self. In other words of Nature. And genius endures until the brain's associa- tions or vices modify its air, light, drinks, foods and habits. After which the owner of the genius-brain acquires (not inherits) his or her just deserts. TO BE NURSED AT A WHOLESOME BREAST. What's a '^wholesome breast?" It's a breast whose glands are supplied with blood containing a proper mixture of the three "materials" before mentioned. No more. Those three things always manufacture a plen- tiful supply of mother's milk — of the "brand" that enables any brain, organ, or tissue to develop into the equal of any contained in skulls or covered with skins or membranes. Try it on your babies — follow it up in the mixtures they get when old enough to eat at your table ; old enough to go to school ; old enough to learn a trade or profession — and see. If you do, and have judgment enough not to display your bad "temper" or "manners" before them, and not to answer their ques- tions with meaningless explanations ; and, particularly, if you've got sense and grit enough to say "I don't know" when you cannot convey to their brains the kind of information that their minds can see and taste the meaning of as their eyes can see the color and their tongues taste the juice of oranges or apples; if you do that, I say, your child or children shall surpass you, in brain and physique, in mind and development, io8 A u t o 1 o g y— Study Thyself in success and progress, long before they reach ma- turity. But don't forget to do it with and to your own brains and minds, too. For children's brains are ever watch- ing and imbibing yours, its refuse as well as its produce. TO BE BRED ON PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENTS. Nature takes millions of years preparing for the birth of a baby — and parents attend the event with little or no preparation. Hence the commonest thing in this world is a "cute" baby, and the rarest object is a ra- tional man or woman. The reverse is true among the plants and beasts. The baby ! The child — the youth ? And then the nine- ty-nine sheep and the one shepherd! And why? Be- cause parents start in with the idea that they are going to teach "it" (!) a thing or two — when Nature spent millions of years envolving the "it" for the sole pur- pose of imparting to overgrown "its" some things and many. Who wins? Nature. For she tries again — ^here or elsewhere. But the neuters outnumber the other genders by millions to one. Who is to blame? Not nature. She brings "baby" into this world ready-made— brain and all ; into a ready- made world ot natural environments — air, light, water and other foodstuffs. But men and women have sub- stituted other provisions for these natural conditions— Autopath y — Cure Thyself 109 so the air is vitiated, the light is artificial, the water is deficient and the foodstuffs are "predigested" or un- natural. Hence — what a "cute" baby ! What a "bright" child (?). What an unknown quantity in the world's progress ! Everything but courting and honeymoon is left to others. No brains are fed (I mean fed) into the unborn and the born baby. How do you expect to bring up or supply men and women except by accident? Nature does not make apples out of peaches, which means that brain cells cannot make brains with what liver cells manufacture bile. There is the whole secret of ability, talent and genius. Manufacture your babies as you like. If they are bom at all they will be born human — and then it rests with you to make intellectual peers or mental waste baskets out of their brains. If you feed their brains with the elements found in air, light, water and grow- ing things they will develop into eminent intellects in spite of you; but if you overlook the physical elements that sustain and evolve organic and inorganic blood- and-flesh functions, and lay stress on feeding their brains and stomachs with "mental" air and light and water and foods, your children are bound to become, nonentities or degenerates. The baby! If people understood the things which surround and control their own existence and living- ness the best "schooling" would be at home. But as long as it may take quite a few centuries before the home becomes the only recognized schoolroom and the parents the best and proper "teachers" of their own children — let parents so regulate the air and light and no A u t o 1 o g y— Study Thyself heat and liquids and solids which surround and enter their children's bodies that their brains may possess a positive affinity for the facts and truths which teachers and others try to impart to them, and possess as nega- tive or repelling a tension against all false notions or hypotheses or "mentalities." In other words, I claim that a brain whose blood is fed right cannot make a mistake between a false and a correct idea or thought any more than fingers or toes can between hot and cold sensations. TO LEARN BUT NOT BE TAUGHT. By which I mean to earn but not to borrow your knowledge. You earn to own other people's money. So, you must learn to know other people's knowledge — not merely learn to borrow it. You either lose or return borrowed money. So, likewise, you either lose or return borrowed knowledge, or knowledge that has been taught to you and not learned by you. "To be taught" anything is to be trained to repeat it as parrots or trained animals are taught. You cannot impart it any more than they can — although you may for a time convert it into cash or notoriety, as "freaks" do; but soon or late your apish or "streaky" knowledge will bring you grief. Rather practice ignorance as you practice economy than to practice or believe knowledge that you do not thoroughly understand in and out and clear through. Autopathy — Cure Thyself izz You would not dare to fool with a steam engine or an electric power-plant unless your own brain and fingers owned the "know-how" of running it. Yet you pitch right in blind-folded fooling with the mechanism or functions of your own brains and organs, as well as with that or those of your children. And what's more you usually or frequently pass their brains over to others, in the way of books or teachers or associates or servants, to finger and fidget and run as best or worst suits the convenience or habits or passions of those strangers. Must you never let your children out of your sight? Surely you must and can. But be sure that you keep and have an eye too on and for those to whose care you entrust your children, as you are wont to keep and have on and for people who are investing or earning your money. And that's the easiest thing in the world to do. If you've got a ranch or kennel, or stock farm, or mine, or boat, or house, somewhere — you make a point and practice of keeping an eye on things, don't you? Well, isn't it worth your while to keep an eye on your child's inside things too? Yes, take an occasional run to the little or big school house; and raise a rumpus, if necessary. Your son's or daughter's brain, or lungs, or eyes, are worth it. If you are not endowed with that faculty which enables some people to gain their point without making a fail- ure or fiasco of it — then "think it over" after the fol- lowing plan* 1X2 A u t o I o g y — Study Thyself TO THINK BUT NOT BE THOUGHTED. "To think but not be thoughted" means to work your own brain but not to let others work it. It also means to work other brains when other brains don't suit the workings of your brain. This of course can be done for bad as well as for good ends. I am only interest- ed in the latter; for if everybody worked their own brains for good ends it would become impossible for any brain to work any other brain for evil ends. Therefore, if your child is in somebody's keeping or care or schooling, and you discover that their brains or eyes or ears or stomachs or lungs are "being thought- ed" wrongly — either in the way of air, light, drinks and foods, or in the way of learning— then take your choice : Either put up with it ignorantly as most par- ents do and have done, but be prepared to suffer or submit to the consequences which generally follow in the future health or career of som.e one or other of the sons and daughters of most families; or insist on changes being made to suit reason and sense and health of brain and eye and lung and blood; or let "school- ing" or "training" or "graduating" "go hang" rather than your children. How glorious it is to think! To think oneself and for one's self and with one's own brain, I mean. To think is work, of course. And it's a habit too. Just like smoking, or talking, or dancing. But read- ing, or repeating, or talking is not thinking or to think ; any more than puffing away at an empty pipe is smok- ing. You know what work it is at first to learn to dance, for most people ; and how you have to put your Autopath y — Cure Thyself 113 mind and soul into your feet and companion and music. Well, it requires the same putting of mind and soul into your brains and books and thoughts, or others', in order to acquire and enjoy the habit of learning to think. To be thoughted is exactly like being "wall flow- ered" at dances. A sure, swift and easy v/ay to acquire the habit of "To Think" for yourself and your own good is to open this book at any page after you have read it through. Read that page, look it square in the eye, and ask your- self this question: "Is he right?" If you think so, or do not think so, ask yourself the question: "Why?" But be sure and be careful that you do not answer your question with ideas or notions that you have bor- rowed from others. If that page contains statements or information which absolutely "fit" or mate with your own knowledge or experience or judgment, never you mind what you may have read or heard or been taught or thoughted before or elsewhere. If that page contains statements or information which does not co- incide with your own knowledge or experience, then comes your opportunity to do some thinking on your own account. But beware that you do not pick out from your experience or surroundings some "excep- tional" event or happening, or some mere hearsay, (which tradition, and not truth, has handed down to you through a thousand and one mouths), and then use that exception to deny the rule, or that hearsay to pervert the truth. Exceptions and hearsays never enter in arithmetic and money; that's because figures and dollars can't 114 Autolog y — Study Thyself "be thoughted." But the moment arithmetic is manip- ulated for purposes of statistics, or money for purposes of cheating, then exceptions and hearsays and lies creep in right and left. And that's because you do not compel your own brain to think out the exception back to its rule, and the hearsay or information back to its delusion. If you did you would always find that ex- ceptions must never be used to prove or disprove the rule, and that hearsays must never be used to prove or disprove the truth. Don't believe or accept anything that is akin to Exception or Superstition — or that sa- vors of Hearsay. That stuff is all contaminated. It's bound to sicken your mind. It's sure to lead your brain astray — or to mortgage it in such a way that it becomes impossible for it to absorb or assimilate any real, useful knowledge with that section or convolu- tion. As you work by rule and acts, so think by rule and facts. Not by guesses, hearsays, or exceptions. Thus only, and by such only, are big brains made and brilliant minds produced and strong characters formed, and enduring success, health and happiness gained and retained. In no other way and by no other means. Therefore, do think — but do not be thoughted. Do learn — but do not be taught. As you observe, Autology aims its shafts as well as its truths and sense at the brain; for 'tis the brain that's responsible for all the good and bad, all the in- telligence and ignorance, all the health and sickness, all the glory and misery of the individual, of the fami- ly, of the community, of the nation, of the world. A ut op a thy — Cure Thyself 115 The brain creates a child's future. If you bring up your child's brain with the idea that you are its "teacher" you will develop a mentality that will abort before your boy or girl is twenty-one. The only rational method of developing children's intellect is by feeding their brains through their lungs and stomachs. Judicious fertilizing with environments and air and light and water and nourishment is alone productive of genius. I am convinced that talent or ability or genius is fed into a brain as it is fed into a muscle. Feed your child's lungs and stomachs with an abund- ance of pure and substantial physical brain foods, and omit the artificial and mental, and your child's brain will actually know more at the age of seven than you did at twenty. But— do likewise with your own brain. The liver is a big organ — ^because it is the store- house of fuel and the power-plant of brute force and animal passions. The brain is a big organ too — because it is the store- house of knowledge and the power-plant of intellectual force and mental conceptions. You need both. You've got both. Which do you like "best?" Autology's choice is the Brain. WHAT YOU ARE MADE OF AND WHY YOU EAT If you can answer that in a "business" way, you can repair and renew what's in you at will. If you can't, then health is a mere matter of luck with you and you are more likely to stay sick than to stay or get well. You are not made of very many things — ^just about as many as pennies go in a dime plus two or three. Your blood and flesh is made up chiefly of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, and those Nature has "seasoned" with a little sodium, potassium, calcium, iron, sulphur and phosphorus. Undoubtedly for the purpose of giving your flesh and tissues a little "body," and to "preserve" them and make them conductors and generators of electricity. Now, let me ask you, "What do you breathe and drink and eat for?" Of course, you will answer, In order to supply my body with the elements or sub- stances just mentioned. But I will ask again, "Does it make any difference in what form you get the foods which contain those elements?" You suppose so. But you ought to know. The real object of foods is to pro- duce force and heat in the body and to repair or renew or build up tissue. Hence, foods are divided into "flesh formers" (or tissue builders) and "force pro- ne Autopath y — Cure Thyself 117 ducers." The force producers furnish fuel, or main- tain animal heat and supply energy, or muscular ac- tion. The "tissue builders" (or flesh formers) consist of meats, fowl, fish, eggs, milk and animal fats, and are called "animal foods," or "nitrogenous." The "force producers" are cereals, or starches, vegetables proper, fruits, sugars, gums, vegetable fats and oils, and are called "vegetable foods," or "non-nitrogenous." Now, see if you can remember these things: First. — That to live you have to take in fuel for heat and motion, and for that reason you need "vegetable" or "non-nitrogenous" foods, such as bread, potatoes, rice, fruits, sugar, "green" and other vegetables, etc. Second. — That to live you have to keep adding ma- terial or repairing and renewing or rebuilding your flesh, and for that reason you need "animal" or "nitro- genous" foods, such as meats, fowl, fish, eggs, milk, etc. Third. — That there is also heat, or fuel, or force value in the tissue-building foods, and that there is also tissue or flesh value in the "force or heat" producing foods; but that there is miore "tissue" value in the "animal" foods and more "force" value in the "vege- table" foods. Please don't fancy that "vegetable" foods refer merely to green vegetables, as commonly understood, for "vegetable foods" refers as much to bread, rice, com, potatoes, etc., as to apples, oranges, pears, peaches, and to lettuce, celery, tomatoes, peas, beans, etc. Now, then, knowing what you are made of, and what ii8 Autology — Study Thyself you are eating for, and surely knowing what kind of work you are doing — you certainly ought to knov/ whether your body is in need of more tissue-forming foods than of force-producing foods. And you ought to know whether or not you have, in the past, attended to the general and special demands of your body or organs in that direction. The fact that you are ailing shows that you haven't. Suppose your work is mostly muscular exertion, then you need a greater proportional supply of "force- producing" foods, although you also need a liberal supply of tissue-forming or repairing foods. But if your work is mostly of the brain-type, then you need a larger proportional supply of the tissue- builders than of the other, in a sense to be explained. If your work is chiefly "brainy" and you assimilate an excess of the "fuel" foods, then the surplus is bound to accumulate as waste and decompose as poisons, and eventually cause sickness. But how are you going to determine how much of each and what proportion one to the other? In the first place you know what kind of work you do — as owners do about horses. No horse is let loose in the oat bin or hay loft. Its meal is measured out to him according to his pedigree, size, work, age, etc. But don't imagine that the brain-worker needs more meat and eggs (tissue-builders) than the brawn- worker, for the brawn-worker is using up . far more tissue than the brain-worker and really needs a larger proportional amount of tissue foods; and don't imag- ine that the brain-worker can get along with no cereals Autopath y — Cure Thyself 119 and fruits and vegetables (heat and force producers), although he requires a smaller proportional amount; and don't imagine that the respective amounts and proportions are not affected by age, and sex, and environments, and seasons, and climate, and holidays. During the period of growth more tissue-forming foods are required than after, because the body needs them to add to the sum total of each organ and tissue, besides repairing and renewing the worn and torn. After the period of growth the amount of tissue-form- ing foods must be diminished, as thereafter only enough is called for to keep up repair or renewal. Any excess goes to waste and sickness. And as the activities of life, or of business, or of occupation change, so must the total amount and pro- portions also be changed. A woman during the years of bringing up a family and caring for home, husband and children must eat more tissue and force-producing foods than after. And the man who steps from be- hind a counter to become manager or owner will need to change his diet. And the youth who leaves the farm for college, or manual labor for brain labor, must also change his foods. And so with youths who be- come parents. As you know there are a thousand and one consider- ations to take into account. It does look as if the mat- ter was indeed very complicated, and that, as dema- gogues would have you believe, it requires the expen- sive services of an expert to disentangle such things for you. But that is not at all necessary; for you know, or can find out, what you should weigh accord- ing to your height and age, and you have a good idea 120 Autology — Study Thyself of whether you earn your living and pleasures chiefly by means of your brain and nerves or by means of your liver and muscles. You may look upon your liver as the fount of physical and muscular power, and on your brain as the fount of mental and nervous power. If your demands on both brain and liver, or nerve and muscle, are about equally divided between them, then eat about an equal proportion of the two classes of food. But, as the tissue-forming foods (as meat and eggs) come in a more condensed form than the force-producing (as bread, potatoes, fruit and vegeta- bles), then, bulk for bulk, you will need, in the twenty- four hours, more of the latter than of the former. As the second class of foods are more numerous and vary more in the amount and density of their constituents, you must eat a greater daily variety and bulk of them, a matter which is not so important regarding the flesh- forming foods. For instance, you might be eating just the right amount of meat every day, but the wrong amount of bread and potatoes ; or you might be eating the wrong am.ount of meat or eggs, and the right amount and variety of cereals, vegetables and fruits, but at im- proper times, or improperly cooked, or improperly combined in one meal, or in one day. I find from experience that the improper cooking and the eating of foods at improper times of day, and the improper mixing of them at the same meal, is re- sponsible for more troubles and ailments, functional and organic, than the eating of too much of one kind of food or of all kinds. For those reasons I find it necessary to specify a Autopathy — Cure Thyself 121 diet for breakfast, dinner and supper, chiefly because of the mistakes people make in eating in the morn- ing what should only be eaten at noon or evening, and, in eating, at the same meal, foods which are "incom- patibles." Let me tell you something regarding "in- compatible" foods, a subject which neither physicians or hygienists pay the slightest attention to. All up-to-date medical books, treating of drugs, state what drugs are incompatible with other drugs, under each and every medicine treated of. For in- stance, take iodide of potassium, which is a specific for a certain constitutional disease, and the iodide (yel- low) of mercury, which is also a "specific" for the same disease. Well, if these two drugs are given to the same patient, they form a very poisonous com- pound in the system and aggravate all the symptoms. This is only one instance, of which there are thou- sands. I may call up the remark elsewhere made — that this is the reason why ignorance has given birth to the delusion, which ignorance still clings to, that "one man's food is another man's poison." Ignorance puts the blame either on the food, or on the individ- ual's "idiosyncrasy," instead of on its own idio(t) -sin- crazy. Well, then, as we are all made up of the same few elementary food constituents, and cannot operate our functions on any other, and, as markets and fields offer us a plentiful and varied supply of "eatables," con- taining both the force-producers and tissue-formers, there is no reason why anybody should suffer or sicken for the lack of some or the excess of others. And there is no reason why practically the same diet can 123 Autology — Study Thyself not answer the purposes of growth, development and repair, making allowances, in the quantity and pro- portion of the two chief classes of foods, for race and climate, sex and occupation, age and seasons. The same light ansv/ers. The same air answers. The same water answers. And the same or similar foods would answer, were it not for "cookers" and adulterators. They are the people who are mostly responsible for people's functional demoralization. Real sick people need absolutely nothing but light, air and water to live on. Half-sick people need just about half enough food to keep up heat and force and flesh, and no more, until normal health is again restored. Let them compel their organism to utilize the accumulated waste to make up the other half. To hear some (perhaps most) people talk, one would never suspect that nature compels them to eat for the purpose of supplying material to maintain "heat" and "force" and tissues, but, indeed, only for the gratifica- tion of a "good passage" once or twice a day. That may be a pleasure v/ith some people, but let me tell you that people who look upon that end-issue of their eating and living as a necessary nuisance have little or no trouble with their bowels. They never waste hours and dollars of earnings and pleasures in think- ing and fooling with their bowels; and they never join the class who fatten the stomachs and line the pockets of "flush-your-colon" shrews or ignoramuses. If people would devote their brains to the eating and drinking and doing that for which God or nature made man upright instead of horizontal, the rectal "Punch Autopath y — Cure Thyself 123 and Judy show" which a good portion of our public have to go through every day or so would certainly be missed by the alleged gutless spirits that hover around these days. Poor fishes and birds and worms, that know not what "colonic" flushings or rubberings mean! It seems to me that really sensible people v/ho eat because they want their bowels to move should eat the days their bowels do move and fast the days their bowels don't move. This may sound childish, but it contains more com- mon sense, and dead sure constipation cure, than any and all the pills and appliances and treatments in vogue. Try it, and you'll see how mighty soon your bowels will get a move on them; for starvation will appeal to your brain, and your brain will suggest hushing the qualms of hunger with water, and animal instinct will drive you to eating an apple, or a peach, or an orange, or a bunch of grapes; and there you are — a passage — and you're ready for a good square meal. But do make it "square up" with your stomach and system, as hereafter outlined. If you knew or felt what is going on in your cells or tissues, as you know or feel in your stomach or bowels or head, you would never blamiC "indigestion" or "constipation" or "biliousness" etc., for any or all of your symptoms. You are "dyspeptic" or "consti- pated" or "bilious," or anything else, not because your stomach or bowels or liver is behaving improperly, but because you have been or are compelling each and every one of the billions of cells of your blood and body to become "dyspeptic" or "constipated" or "bil- 124 Autolog y — Study Thyself ious" or "catarrhal" or "rheumatic" or "impotent" or "fagged out" or "irritable." Don't treat your bowels for constipation, or your stomach for dyspepsia, or liver for biliousness, or sex organs for their peculiar ailments or behavior; but do treat the billions of cells of your blood and tissues for any and all these ailm.ents. That's all ; and stick to that if it takes six months. It's worth it, every bit. More of this further on. THE ORIGIN OF DISEASE Livingness is not possible without some sort of nu- triment. Nevertheless, air, water and foods do not originate living organisms, being only factors in the permanence and reproduction of living objects. However varied and many be the functions and their products in the organism, they are qualitatively one and may be unified as normal or physiologic health. Hence the character of the active process — whether in the lungs, muscles, kidneys, nerves, brain, etc. — is chemically one and the same, and the result is health — but sometimes disease. Assuming that some organ is diseased, a study of its function means the study of the action of the proc- esses and products involved in that particular function. Therefore the physical or chemical constituents of the cells composing the designated organ become the fac- tors of the impaired function, or disease. In other words, if we know what kidney-health means we can find no difBculty in determining what kidney-disease means. Likewise it must be with lung-health and lung-disease, and so with every conceivable symptom or disease. As disease presupposes the existence of a function- ating organ, and as function implies the action of cell- constituents in that organ, the basic or fundamental 125 126 Autology — Study Thyself physical and chemical cell-constituents of cell-health and cell-disease are one and the same. Therefore all symptoms are caused by the same factors and proc- esses which produce normal cell-activities. Accord- ingly we find that "fever" is only a few degrees more of the same molecular or cellular heat which keeps the body at a normal temperature or heat of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Similarly we observe that "pain" is only an exaggerated degree of the same property of nerves which we call "feeling" or "sensation." When the lungs begin to cough it is inferred that "cough" is a symptom of lung disease, v/hereas scream- ing and weeping and sneezing are looked upon as signs of health. Barking in dogs and blushing in peo- ple are intensely healthy symptoms. Why, then, should coughing be considered in a different light? Physiologically and physically, they originate in the same way, and they are produced by the same healthy factors. Coughing is an exaggerated form of breath- ing, as crying is. Itching may be a normal or abnormal sensation or symptom. And so with tickling. Acute or temporary blushing is considered "normal," whereas "erythema" or reddened skin is spoken of as an inflammation. It is evident, therefore, that the physical or chemical basis of normal signs and abnormal "symptoms" is one, or that the same cell-constituents which produce the one also occasion the other. Therefore, fever, pain, redness or inflammation and so forth, as used in naming diseases, turn oiit to be phenomena which are indicative of the fact that dis- eases have no own or individual factor-entities apart Autopathy — Cure Thyself 127 from those which sustain cell-function or livingness in general and in particular. Therefore functions and symptoms and diseases are dependent on the same cell- constituents, have the same unit physical or chemical basis. It is then evident that symptoms or diseases are but conditions evolved by normal factors of health behav- ing with unusual activity or accumulating in the sys- tem beyond their normal quotient. Accordingly, the more physicians treat symptoms or diseases as such, the more they diverge from the true Treatment of Disease. There must ever be a change and an exchange in every process, as there is an action and a reaction in every motion. As there is always a fixed ratio between the one and the other, so in every function there is a definite correspondence between the elements which effect the change, or action, and those which constitute the exchange, or the reaction. Therefore what mate- rial enters into the composition of the organism mus^., besides furnishing energy and heat, be evolved into some corresponding exchange or reagent. In one breath, living is a simple problem of addition and subtraction — addition and subtraction being really the only two functions of livingness, as well as of mathematics. All organized matter consists of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. For these simple elements to take part in the forming of the various "living" liquids and cells of our organism they must be made to ac- quire the particular state and form of serum and blood corpuscles. 128 Autolog y — Study Thyself Among these four elements oxygen is the most ac- tive, and appears as the chief constituent of the blood, existing as absorbed oxygen or as carbon dioxide, or as compounds of these with mineral and proteid (flesh) bodies. A marked characteristic of oxygen is to combine more particularly with carbon. This re- veals the reason of the character of our foods, so rich in carbon, and of keeping up breathing asleep as well as awake, in disease even more than in health. Oxygen is the most universal and abundant of the elements we appropriate and assimilate through breathing, drinking and eating, as well as that carbon dioxide constitutes by far the greatest bulk of the waste products we eliminate. As the chief object of inspiration is to supply oxygen to the blood and tissues, it must be conceded that oxy- gen is the basic factor-element of livingness. Hence oxidation is the underlying process of all living func- tions, in disease as in health. But we cannot conceive of oxidation without dis- oxidation, as we cannot think of inspiration without expiration. Nevertheless, physiologists have over- looked this essential phase of the double process of internal or cellular respiration. Therefore I have coined the word dioxidation to express the reverse half of the function. Thus we have inspiration and expira- tion to express external or bronchial respiration, and oxidation and dioxidation to express internal or cellu- lar respiration. So that during inspiration the lungs take up oxygen from the air, and during oxidation the cells take up oxygen from the blood, whereas during expiration the air takes up carbon dioxide from the X-Eay photograph of a living ' ' rheumatic hand ' ' taken by Dr. E. E. Moras and exhibited before the Chicago Medical Society, March 4, 1903. Autopathy — Cure Thyself 129 biood and during dioxidation the blood takes up car- bon dioxide from the cells. What we get from the air, earth and growing things we return in kind to the air, earth and growing things. The appropriating and distributing of these essentials to the various tissues of the body is accomplished by means of certain functions, and the eliminating and returning of these same elements to the different things and beings is also accomplished by means of certain functions. As the respiratory, digestive and excretory organs and tracts are as strictly in communi- cation with the outer world as with the inner proto- plasm, and as all form-elements entering into the structure or composition of the complex organism are blood-related and blood-connected, and therefore com- prise the entire functional activities involved in living, growing and dying, then it follows that all secretions and excretions, as well as all assimilations and elimina- tions, are not only synchronous but also identical, or qualitatively the same in the unit of structure, the cell. If absorption is going on somewhere, it is going on everywhere; if secretion occurs somewhere, it occurs everywhere; if excretion takes place at any point, it happens at all points. So with assimilation and elim- ination. Therefore absorption, diffusion, secretion, ex- cretion, assimilation, and elimination are particular to no tissue, but are properties of all fluids and form-ele- ments, all being qualities proper of protoplasm. Being co-existent and co-active in manner and place, we may properly group all functional or physiologic activities and products in the one general class called the assimi- lative, thus unifying in the cell the absorptive, the se- cretive and the excretive functions, or processes. 130 Autolog y— Study Thyself DIOXIDATION VERSUS OXIDATION. During inspiration the alveolar cells of the lungs rob the atmosphere of nearly 5 per cent oxygen. On examining the return gush of air from which we miss that amount of oxygen we find it containing an excess over 4 per cent of carbon-dioxide. Therefore the way tissues and blood are disoxidated is essentially the way they are oxidated. Hence the process of taking in oxygen and that of taking out carbon-dioxide, the one, oxygen, being the functional factor of oxidation; the other, carbon-dioxide, being the functional factor of disoxidation, are essentially one and the same in thd and tissues need it for their night work, «nd your next day's use. Besides, artificially heated air Autopath y — Cure Thyself 225 is commonly second-hand or breathed air. Your own breathed or exhaled air is as bad as any other. By "breathed air" I also mean that which comes from a burning lamp, or gas jet, or stove, or furnace. Of course, people must "cook" and "heat" and "light up ;" but people can easily borrow from outdoors a plenti- ful supply of air to constantly displace and replace the carbonic acid gas-contaminated air which breath- ing and cooking and heating and lighting produce. That can easily be done during the day and night with- out expense or inconvenience. It requires just a little autologic sense. As before said, nothing short of twenty-four hours of natural air v/ill do for every day's supply, as far as your lungs and tissues are concerned. And large concerns, such as stores, and factories, and churches, and schools, and banks, and buildings, v/ould find that employers and employes, flocks and shepherds, pupils and teachers, clerks and professionals, as v/ell as cus- tomers and clients, would ov-n and exchange more good nature and courtesy and brotherly love, if people were trained to ventilate their organs or functions as they are their opinions or notions. This is saying nothing about the earnings and savings in dollars and cents which would thereby accrue to individuals and firms and communities. A thoroughly ventilated room or public building is soon saturated with an excess of carbonic acid gas from the exhalations of lungs and lights and heaters. To avoid such conditions or places for twenty-three hours and then to put up with them for an hou'^ — is about as bad as to escape drowning for twenty-three hours and then to practically drown during the next. 226 Auto logy — Study Thyself If you oxygenate (ventilate) your lungs for a couple of hours and carbonize (contaminate) them for twenty-two hours — what's the good and sense ? You'd be better off to die at once of asphyxiation — than by inches, or fits and starts, as most people do. Use, and use, and use natural air. It's about the only thing under the sun that you don't have to buy or be taxed for — ^yet. An ordinary lamp, or a gas jet poisons the air of a room as much as does the breath of a dozen or more people. Still, people will live and sleep shut up in just such an atmosphere — and then wonder that some babies and children don't thrive like some others, or that some people are bilious, or rheumatic, or phthisic, or catarrhal, or headachy, or debilitated, or sick thus and so — when others are not. Be sure, then — a plentiful supply of nature's air, and let that be cool or cold in season and place and time. Opening just one window from the top is seldom of any benefit, because the shade shuts or seals the opening, thus preventing the air from coming in. Opening a window from the bottom is better, but some outlet must be provided somewhere else for the slow but steady escape of the used-up or contaminated air. Under ordinary conditions, air cannot enter and leave a room through the same opening at the same time, any more than water can. Do not merely "flush" or "douche" your rooms with a volume or two of fresh air and then shut yourself up clam-tight. In a word, keep up an "even," steady circulation of outdoor air through your rooms or buildings. Don't let it "blow"— just let it "flow^'— Autopathy — Cure Thyself 227 in and through. If you should "catch a cold," by so doing, it will be the healthiest cold you ever had. WATER. Originally, water was always pure enough to drink. Water which dropped from the clouds was not "loaded" — ^and "spring" or "brook" or "river" or "lake" water was not "alive" with organic matter, or "dead" with insoluble earthy salts — as is most "well" and "piped" water. Therefore, in sickness at least, it becomes necessary to use pure or distilled water. Merely "boiling" or "filtering" water is not sufficient to make it pure in the sense I mean; for, though the one or the other process may "kill" or remove the or- ganic matter, it does not "extract" the earth salts which it contains. Sick or ailing people may ward off or palliate an oc- casional twinge of pain, or indisposition, or acid stom- ach, etc., by drinking socalled "mineral" or "alkaline" or "aperient" or "laxative" waters — but this habit is a pernicious one in that it plays blind man's buff with some vital organ or function, as time and future events will show to your eternal sorrow. In perfect health, drink as good plain, ordinary water as you can get ; and, in sickness, drink distilled water. I recommend distilled water to all my patients in health and sickness, and use it altogether at home. Babies and small children should not drink ordinary 228 Autology — Study Thyself water, not for fear of sickness from it, but because ordinary water is often saturated with "earthy ma- terial," which is deposited in the tissues of the body; whereas, distilled water is so absolutely free of cal- careous matter that it helps materially to dissolve and rinse out the deposits that already exist or that tend to form in the organs and tissues — particularly in the blood vessels, nerves, joints and skin. But, water is not to be drank at any time that you have accustomed your artificial "thirst" to call for it. Water is by nature meant to be a blood and tissue solvent, and for rinsing purposes — and not to assist actual digestion in the stomach and bowels. There- fore, do not drink water (or liquids) closer than one hour or so before m-eals, and not closer than one and one-half or two hours after meals — if you really v/ant the good, without the bad, effects of drinking water. If you indulge between those hours, you will not feel "thirsty" at meal time. For instance, let us assume that you eat at 7 a. m., and at 12 noon, and at 6 p. m. In that case, you may drink all the water you want between 9 and 11 o'clock in the forenoon, and be- tween 2 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon. If you eat so much salt that you feel desperately "thirsty" at meals or right after eating, then you ought to be will- ing to pay the penalty of staying thirsty for an hour or so. As regards drinking water before going to bed, there is no objection at all so long as that does not compel you to get up during the night. A glass of water, warm or cold, is always beneficial on arising from bed; but the best part of an hour should elapse between the drink and breakfast. Autopath y — Cure Thyself 229 How much water should a "body" drink? That question is really a joke. If you were to ask a horse- man, or even a "chore" boy the question "How much water should my horse drink?" — and, assuming he "took you serious," he v^ould, as he leaned against a hitching post and settled a pitiful look on you, say "that depends" — and forthwith put a volley of ques- tions about that horse of yours — its breed, sex, color, size, age, work, feeding, etc.— cr simply say "as much as he wants — but not always when he wants." Well, we're animals, too. Only that horses don't get water in the form of tea or coffee, beer or wine, cocoa or chocolate, etc., etc. Hence, they always know ex- actly how much they need, but they don't always know when — simply because they don't always have their own way about eating and what to eat. We do. Therefore, we neither know how much nor when to drink of water. Consequently, your safest course is to study anim.als' ways and to imitate them until your habits of eating properly prepared and mixed foods restores to your cells and tissues that nature-gift, called instinct, which wild tribes still possess in com- mon with wild animals. The trouble is not so much that we lack, or have lost our "horse sense" as that we are not owned and bossed by horsemen or animal keepers. If we were the whole science and practice of Prevention and Cure would revert to trainers and jockeys and bron- cho-busters. However, as matters stand in civilized communities, the future Health and Treatment of the nation shall pass, in a hundred years or so, into the hands of architects and chefs. But — in the meantime — how much water should a a30 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself body drink? If you do not drink a drop of any other beverage, "animal instinct" will soon tell you how much water your system needs "to drink." Or, if between meals, you drink, say three tumblerfuls of pure v/ater during the period of some three or four weeks — and drink absolutely nothing with your meals, with the exceptions mentioned elsewhere — your system will then tell you if that amount (six tumblerfuls a day) is sufficient or insufficient for you. The problem of water-drinking is not one of quan- tity — but it is one of common sense plus quality. By common sense I mean that you must do away with the habit of drinking water, particularly cold or ice water, at or near your meals; and especially avoid eating foods or dishes that are prepared with so much salt that they create a false thirst, which sometimes lasts for an hour or two after eating. If you will overcome those two pernicious habits your blood and tissues will tell you, through your mouth, just when and just how much water you need to drink between meals. This, of course, supposes that you are enjoy- ing good health and, therefore, require no extra amount of water to dissolve and rinse out a lot of useless and waste material which has been settling in your organs and tissues for years back. Naturally enough, a system, which is ailing and is undergoing treatment, needs an excess of water just as a soiled piece of linen does in washing and rinsing. With few exceptions, it is not advisable to drink anything, or more than a swallow or two just before going to bed. But it is a good practice to drink a full tumbler of warm or cool water on arising — pro- vided that no food is taken until at least three-quar- Autopath y — Cure Thyself 231 ters to one hour afterward. It takes, on an average, about that long for water to pass out of the stomach into the small intestine. There is, of course, no objection to your drinking a tumblerful of water about one hour or more before retiring. I have known of "cases" where a tumblerful of cold water taken just before bed time was the cause of insomnia, and it must appeal to you that, fre- quently, the cause of "having to get up during the night" is drinking two or three glasses of water (or something else) before going to bed, or between sup- per and bed time. Some may claim that this extra flushing of the kidneys during the night is good. They forget that "flushing the kidneys" means "work- ing" the kidneys overtime — when they also, as the brain, should have at least a partial rest. "Flush" your kidneys by drinking between meals, in day time, as you flush your brains by thinking between meals, in day time. By the time that you have recovered your well- being and health your own instinct will tell you how much water you should drink thereafter. Some days it may be two and some days it may be ten glasses. Some days you won't feel hungry, but will feel empty. That always calls for "watering" the sys- tem and never for "feeding" it. On such days — drink and drink and drink until you drink yourself hungry; but drink only pure or distilled water in which you occasionally put a tablespoonful or so of pure fruit juice — such as juice of the orange, apple, lemon, lime, or grape. By evening or next day your head or stom- ach or liver will be "in clover." 332 Autolo gy — Study Thyself FRUIT JUICES. Nature made fruits "full of taste" so as to seduce our palates. Otherwise, man would not eat them, be- cause most of them contain very little nourishment. The value of fruits resides chiefly in their juices — some of which possess digestive properties, as that of the pineapple; while all of them act as depurating agents or remedies. Mostly all "dried," or "stewed," or "cooked," or "canned," or "preserved" fruits are not fruits. Their substances and juices have, for the most part, been ar- tificially changed into "sweets" or "confection." The natural "detoxyl" or curative fruit-acids and fruit-salts have been removed or replaced or modified by the drying or cooking or preserving process. Most of them have become "unfit" as natural remedies — and are really used only as adjuncts to sharpen an appetite that is already artificial or gluttonous. There are, however, a few fruit-juices which are ar- tificially extracted and preserved in nearly their nat- ural state — so that they retain much of their remedial or beneficial properties. Such are the juices of the lime and grape. But, even here, it is not often the case that one cannot find many good fresh substitutes for these two fruit-juices. I refer to the juice of ap- ples, oranges and lemons. All people, young or old, fat or thin, bilious or gouty, anemic or plethoric (full blooded), can take the juices of apples and oranges with benefit. But "thin" or "anemic" individuals should, as a rule, avoid lemon juice; whereas gouty and full-blooded persons should favor it. Autopath y — Cure Thyself 233 The most generally useful and "wholesome" fruit- juice is that of the orange — but when taken as a reme- dy it should be strained (clear) through a coarse cloth. Diluted half or more with distilled water it is the most valuable and reliable remedy for tiny babies and in- fants, whenever and wherever they are ailing or con- stipated. But they should not be "nursed" or "fed" anything whatever nearer than one hour from, before or after, taking the orange juice-water. When it comes to "weaning" babies at night from the breast or the bottle, there is absolutely nothing to compare with the foUov/ing little scheme. Fill up your nursing bottle with the same quantity of orange- juice water that you are in the habit of using of the milk or baby-food m.ixture. Be sure that you use dis- tilled or pure water, and that you strain the orange juice — also that the orange is of the "sweet" kind. As a rule mix one teaspoonful of orange juice to one tablespoonful of water and sweeten just a little, if the child seems to want it. This you can easily determine by offering the child that mixture during the day. It is not wise to try and pawn this off on the child for the first "try" at night. Let him taste of it and get a liking for it during the day. You will then have no trouble at all to "wean" the child from nursing or drinking milk during the night. Thin people should "favor" grape and apple juices. Fat people should favor lemon and lime juices. Orange juice is fine for both. Fruit-syrups are not fruit-juices. Fruits should not be eaten with meals or other foods. The habit of "coaxing an appetite," or "topping off" 334 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself a meal with any kind of fruit or nut is absurd and un- hygienic. In orange season, a very excellent habit is to drink a full tumbler of the strained juice on arising. I have never known a case of constipation to be obstinate enough to withstand that when persevered in every morning, about one hour before breakfast — especially if one takes a walk in the interval. In "good-eating" apple season, squeeze out the apple juice yourself and take that instead of the orange juice. Why not eat the fruit instead? Well, in the first place you'd have to fill up pretty tight to get that much juice by eating the oranges or apples or grapes, at one lick. In the second place, you would ingest a mass of "woody" fibres, which your alimentary canal would have to dispose of. When your bowels and other tissues and functions are again at par — then eat the fruit itself. I- In season, and out of season, an excellent "lunch" consists of a tumblerful of the juice of oranges, or apples, or grapes — sipped as one would champagne. As for pineapples, they contain a wonderful diges- tive juice. Chew the fruit itself and suck the juice, but do not swallow the fibre. Irrational as it may seem, eat them only between meals — because every "lift" that you give your stomach juice in the way of "extra" digestive ferments, the more it learns to expect and to depend on that "lift" — as your bowels do from taking laxatives or cathartics or injections. Eat pineapples between meals, or make a whole lunch on them. Autopath y — Cure Thyself 235 Bananas are more nourishing than "fruity." Hence they should be used rather as "bread" or "starchy" food than as fruit. In fact, the imperfectly ripened banana is composed chiefly of starch. Melons are good to lunch on, or to eat betvreen meals, like any and every other fruit. It is the sickening habit of mixing all manner of "incompatibles," together in one's stomach, which cre- ates prejudices in people's minds against the very ar- ticles of food which are often most beneficial and cura- tive. To illustrate, let me cite a "case"— of which I can cite hundreds like. A young woman had had four severe attacks of ap- pendicitis in six months' time, and finally had con- sented to be operated on. But, the last moment, some of her relatives induced her to consult me. I learned that every time she ate cabbage or apples, there was sure to follow a severe attack of indigestion, or diar- rhoea, Of appendicitis — and, of course, she "had it in" for cabbage and apples — although she "loved them so." I explained that her experience proved to me that cabbage and apples were her best friends; and that, were she to use but not abuse them, they would never turn against her. I predicted that she would be able to eat apples and cabbage to her heart's content in six weeks' time — and would require no operation, and never again would be reminded that she had an appendix. Well, this "patient" was able, in a month's time, and has been able since (and that's four years ago) to eat what and as she pleases. But she has learned not to "mix dogs and cats" in her stomach. Cabbage and vinegar are antagonistic. Fruit acid and vinegar acid 236 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself are unfriendly. But well boiled cabbage and fresh ribs of beef with plain boiled potatoes and tender car- rots — without vinegar, or pickles, or sour beats, or pork and the like — will not injure the weakest and most fastidious of dyspeptic stomachs. But, do not "top" that meal off with pie or cake or puddings or raisins or cheese, or nuts, or fruits — or tea or coffee, or water, or beer — and never eat bread and butter with it. When you want a "boiled dinner" eat a boiled dinner — not a boiled-vinegared-sugared-pas- tried-corn-beefed pork of a dinner. Here is a sure test, that you can alv/ays depend on, as to whether you are eating properly or not for your stomach and the rest of you. As you know, that which you eat and drink gets mixed up and churned in your stom.ach. Here is the test: Take a big bowl, big enough to contain your din- ner. Pour in the soup, salted and peppered and cat- supped and crackered or breaded — as you may be in the habit of doing. Then chop up the meat and pota- toes in it, with the salt and pepper and catsup, or sauces and gravies and bread and butter and pickles — and then add the vegetables and gravies and water or milk or tea or coffee or wine or beer, etc., and then the pie and cheese, and ices, etc., etc. Then — but don't let it disgust you yet — stir up the mess — and don't let your mind suspect that it isn't for the occu- pant of your chair, though "fit" for the occupant of a back-yard pen — and salt and pepper it some more. Now, eat it. Scrumptious, ain't it? Well — don't you know that you serve just such a sickening mess to your stomach and blood and brain and other tissues nearly every day? Autopath y — Cure Thyself 237 Therefore, when you sit down at your or any table "size up" the situation — and mentally mix what you are about to physically churn. "VEGETABLE" JUICES. Vegetable juices are of no less importance and possess no less "health" value than fruit juices. Both serve the same purpose in preventing and curing sick- ness. The fruit juices— chiefly through the fruit acids which they contain; and the vegetable juices — chiefly through the vegetable or earthy salts (not table-salt) which they contain. It has become quite customary to utilize the juices of certain fruits for purposes of "cure." For instance, the well-knov/n "grape-juice" cure. V/hich, however, is not much of a cure in most "cases" and as usually followed or recommended. Because the process itself, as it takes place between the sickly constituents of the "patient's" blood or tissues and the "healthy" constit- uents of the grape juice, is not sufficiently well or at all understood by the advocates and followers of the cure. Hence, the failures. When Chemists wish to determine the pres- ence of certain objectionable or "poisonous" com- pounds in a given substance or solution — let us say in the contents of the stomach of an individ- ual who is supposed to have been poisoned — they invariably begin by using some certain reagent; and no matter how many reagents they may thereafter 238 Auto logy— Study Thyself employ in "treating" the suspicious material, they never use the next reagent until the "precipitate" pro- duced by the first is removed by filtering or washing or otherwise. In other words, they work on the old common sense principle of one thing at a time, or one step before or after the other. Well — you may properly look upon the whole out- fit of a sick body as being a great big stomach from head to foot, and filled with a mess of vomit containing some suspicious substances which you, or your attend- ants, want to get rid of. Accordingly, you decide on grape juice as the dead sure reagent or cure. Very well. You are given a tumblerful three times a day, let us assume. Your stomach passes it over to your intestines which part with it to your blood — by which it is conveyed to the billions of tiny cell-tubes or honeycombs of your tissues ; where the health-produc- ing reagents of the grape juice settle down to busi- ness — renovating and house-cleaning. In the mean- time, you sit down and fill up on slops or other "dishes." So, v/hen night comes, and sleep along with it, what happens? This. Just about the time when the grape juice cell-renovators are busiest who comes along but "sloppy" or "dishy" chaps looking for trouble, or to serve injunctions, and you wake up — to repeat the same foolishness again. When you start to do a thing, do it — and do it brown. If you want a grape cure — well then get board and lodging for your stomach, liver, blood, brain, muscles and marrow out of grape juice. In that way you'll get value received from the treatment. Autopathy— Cure Thyself 239 But as most "patients" prefer or are compelled to earn their "cure" at the same time that they are earn- ing their living — the above method is out of the ques- tion. And, fortunately, it can be modified to suit their convenience or means. In this way. Don't eat nor drink anything that is incompatible with the fruit juice or juices; or that is likely to be transformed in the system into by-products that are incompatible with the fruit acids or constituents. That's a puzzle, isn't it? Well, Standard Oil People have solved many and many a more intricate puzzle than that. And so have Chicago Packers. Here is how I have solved this problem. There's no incompatibility between the pure, fresh juices of ordinary fruits and the pure, fresh juices of ordinary "vegetables;" and there's no incompatibility between the constituents of those juices and the nutri- tive constituents of certain foods — among which are €g&s, wheat flour, rice and cream fat. Nevertheless the fruit and vegetable juices must not be poured to- gether or mixed together in the stomach; nor must they be swallowed with the foods proper; or so near the time of eating that there is likelihood of their meeting and combining in your stomach or small in- testine. The reason for this is that the "organic" con- stituents of eggs or starch or fat are split up in the stomach and bowels in a way which transforms them into compounds that possess decided affinities for the depurating or curing compounds of fruit and vegetable juices. Therefore, foods proper when mixed in the stomach or bowels with fruit or vegetable juices utilize 240 Autology— Study Thyself the best and bulk of the latter's curative constituents, which are intended to nullify or modify the objection- able or poisonous by-products that have formed and accumulated in your tissues. Hence the proper and only rational course to follow regarding treatment with the juices of fruits and of vegetables is to take them on an empty stomach with a liberal amount of pure distilled water ; then to take a walk in the "open," not alone because of the benefit derived from taking in oxygen but also because of the increased circulation of all body fluids and of the stirring up of old deposits that have settled in all the muscles and cavities and tissues of your body. By so doing the fruit or the veg- etable juices are more surely and universally mixed with the waste by-products which are the source of your ailment. Let them fight it out — but be sure that you supply your "favorite" with ammunition in the way of a little more juice and an abundance of distilled water every hour or so. Simply because there's no sense in soaping and resoaping your soiled linen when the water in which you are boiling or washing them is gray or black with dirt. They'll never turn out nice, white and clean. Clean, thorough housewives "change" and "rechange" their wash-water. So must you pour in clean water as your bladder pours out the dirt-laden water. Otherwise the little busy bodies of your cells and tissues cannot "wash clean." And when your bladder tells you that the rinsing process is "well on," then quit the juice and the water for a couple of hours, and get ready for another speU in the afternoon. But eat as elsewhere advised in this book. A ut op a thy — Cure Thyself 241 Keep this up for one week, or two weeks, or one month, or more, as your "case" may demand. Although I have been speaking of "vegetable" juices I have not explained to you the manner of preparing or extracting them. The most convenient way is to "hash up" the raw vegetables and then to press out the juice as you do with fruits. Or you may "grate" them and then squeeze out their juice. The "succulent" vegetables are best for this purpose. The most desirable vege- tables to use are onions, celery, carrots, parsnips, toma- toes, cresses, lettuce, cuciunbers and the like. It's ad- visable to mix them all up together. As to proportions of each and all, favor the onions and carrots most, es- pecially if yours is a liver or bilious or catarrhal or bronchial or lung trouble. The amount of the pure juice that should be taken varies from two to three tablespoonfuls three times a day. Each dose should be taken with one-half to one tumblerful of distilled water; and should be followed within one-half hour with another tumblerful of distilled water. WORK (INCLUDES THINKING). Work, as a remedy (preventive, curative, or pallia- tive) is as essential as light, air, water and foods com- bined. It is almost impossible to carry work too far. I mean to the point of producing permanent injury or disease— provided the work is done under natural con- 242 Autology — Study Thyself ditions of light, air, water, foods, and muscular ca- pacity, and provided that pleasures do not encroach too much on the individual's sleep, or conscience. A man who, for political or other reasons, is "on the go" for weeks or months, does not need rest or the springs or the woods because he has overworked ; but because he has overdissipated, or worked and talked and lived and slept in unnatural conditions of air, water and foods. A girl or woman who works all day, or not at all, and devotes overtime to dances and functions, etc., does not break down from physical labor, but from the same causes just mentioned. Work, work, v/ork! or think! think! think! and when your day's work or thinking is done, play, play, play— or let others furnish you fun, fun, fun — ^but al- ways and everywhere remember your L, A, W, F — light, air, water, foods. EXERCISK Most people (not children) make blundering mis- takes about exercise. During exercise, the mind as well as the body must be divorced from work, and must be wedded to pleasure. Work is not exercise. "Shopping" is not exercise — it's work. Housework is not exercise — ifs work. "Clerking" is not exercise — it's work. Chasing around on business is not exercice — it's work. "Running" stairs, or machines, is not exercise — it's work. Train- Autopathy— Cure Thyself 243 ing is not exercise — it's work. All forms of indoor "culture" exercises are not exercise — that's work. Pro- fessional sport is not exercise — it's work. And so on. What then is exercise? Exercise is Pleasure. Children "exercise" because they enjoy playing. Young people exercise when they play. Grown people exercise when they walk for pleasure. But walking for reasons of business or fame is not exercise. When muscular action is indulged in for its own sake, that is for the pleasure it brings or invites, then it is exercise. Exercise, to be beneficial or natural, must never have duty or money as its mainspring. Exercise must be pleasure. Amateur sports are pleasures; therefore exercise. But all physical culture exercises which are under- taken for the purpose of curing some ailment or con- dition of the body and which do not create in you the feeling and longing for them that you feel and long for hunting, or fishing, or baseball, or football, or courting — is work and not exercise. And you're bound to quit them before and without having derived the desired or permanent cure or benefit — unless the exercises are maintained through life, or adopted as a livelihood. In which case the alleged "exercises" become your work, and then rest, or reading or recreation becomes your exercise. Generally speaking, the best and cheapest youthful and useful and healthful exercise for middle-aged and older people — as well as for young people who are con- fined indoors by occupation or education — is walking, plain everyday walking with one's own legs. 244 A u 1 1 o g y — Study Thyself Men and women who keep up, or acquire, the habit of walking for walk's sake, winter and summer, rain or shine — are or remain younger and sounder and saner of mind and body at and after the age of sixty than others are or remain at or after forty. Don't run — that's work. Walk. Don't "practice"~that's work. Walk. Don't worry your diaphragm— that's work. Walk. Use your feet as dumb-bells and legs as indian clubs. Walk. But walk outdoors — if not "confined" for good or other reasons. Walking pumps air into your lungs, without work or effort ; drives blood to and from your tissues, without strain; and keeps people out of mischief. Besides, did you ever notice how much better and clearer you can think out many a subject or project or trouble while walking for exercise or pleasure? I am in receipt of a letter from a man who is just past 77 years of age; who looks and feels younger than he did at 50 — simply because he never misses his morning walk of a few or many miles. Last winter I received the visit of a man who is over 60, and w^hose health, between the ages of 25 and 45 was piti- ful in the extreme. Fully twenty years ago I had occa- sion to witness and appreciate that appearances were against this man's living out another year. About that time, business reverses compelled this "patient" to change his occupation. The change of workbrought on the need of walking, which soon became a pleasure. The results were simply marvelous — so that now, at the age of 65, this man's constitution and appearance Autopath y — Cure Thyself 345 are those of a healthy man of 40, with the same ambi- tion, ideas and capacity for work. Again, I may cite the case of a lady passed 68 — ^who had been "house-ridden" for 12 years, with all the ailments that a woman with deranged stomach, bow^- els, liver and pelvic organs could possibly have; and weighing 224 pounds, of fat mostly. This lady began autopathic treatment in October, 1903. At first, she v»^alked "half a block" morning and afternoon— each day increasing the distance by a few yards. Three months later, her weight v/as down to 179 and she actually enjoyed walking 5 miles to my office. To- day (and for over a year) her weight is 140 pounds, and she is a comparatively young, active woman — able to accomplish more and better work than, and to outdistance, her daughters ; as well as to get more enjoyment out of life. This is only one instance, which is like scores of others, where common sense — such as is distributed through this book — ^has accom- plished with little expense, effort, and inconvenience what seemed to demand "being bom over again." PLEASURES. Everybody knows which are good and which are bad pleasures. I can't dictate them to you. But I will tell you this —that if you make your pleasures useful, your bad or questionable pleasures v/ill soon give way to, or be re- placed by, good or healthful pleasures. 246 Autology — Study Thyself Pleasures are such arbitrary things, in their good- ness or badness; and they leave such essentially dif- ferent after-effects on different individual's mind or hearts — that there is no use in preaching or teaching. CLEANLINESS. Some call that "bathing" — I call it washing. People usually "wash" their faces — ^whatever they may or may not do with their bodies. This much I knovz, however, that they don't wash their faces for "health's sake" — ^but for cleanliness sake. If one could root out of people's brains that bathing is healthy, and replace it with the conviction that the body needs washing just the same and in exactly the same way as hands and face — there would be no trouble at all to make cleanli- ness popular, bath or no bath. If you bathe, or get bathed, for health's sake, you're likely to neglect it often, or by spells. Bathe, or rather wash, for sweet cleanliness and self- respect. A gallon or so of water will do fully as well as a tubfull. You don't wash your hands and face, the visible parts of you, because it's healthy — do you? Why, then, "bathe" the unseen parts for a different reason? If you are eating, or drinking, or behaving so bad that you need Turkish or steam baths, or anything else than the old-fashioned soap and water — why not re- sort to blood-letting or starved leeches? You'd get a heap more good out of one such treatment than you can ever derive from a legion of "sweat baths." Autopath y — Cure Thyself 247 If you really want a good "sweating out," one that won't merely sweat the water out of skin or fat, but that will stir up and bum and remove impurities from your very flesh and marrow — take a brisk five-mile walk. Then lay down and sleep it off, if you want to. Artificial or "passive" sweating is a delusion. Wash often, in cool or warm water, in tubs or with sponges, as and with what you like — but wash your bodies as you do your hands and face, and for no other reason. Dirty hands and faces and outer clothes won't hurt you near as much as dirty feet and bodies and under- clothes. Wash yourself — don't "bathe" yourself, except in summer for fun, or in swimming. Do it for yourself — and let others do it for themselves. For, when you do it yourself for yourself, you get the "wash" plus the "exercise." In other words, you derive the benefit of two natural remedies. The "forcible" editorial writer of the Hearst's "Even- ing" papers writes: "You need plenty of bathing — because all the work that your skin does in ridding the body of impurities is so much work saved for your in- ternal organs." This expresses the common belief. Hence I quote it. It's bogus knowledge and logic, however. In the first place, if this writer knew something about the chemistry of sweat, and about the chemistry of "impurities" — he would know that in four gallons of sweat there isn't two ounces of solid matter — and that these two ounces are nearly three-fourths table-salt with a little fatty matter. Think of having to sweat 248 A u t o 1 o g y — Study Thyself four gallons to get rid of about one-fourth of an ounce of urea — when the mere eating of a few bites less would accomplish the same result, without imposing any work on skin or internal organs. Don't imagine for an instant, that sweating a gallon doesn't perturb internal organs — which must hustle to head off the vacuum produced. In the second place — there is no logical connection between "you need plenty of bathing" — and the "be- cause, etc " Bathing, or v/ashing, cleans the skin, but I never knew that it scoured the internal organs, al- though it does "hold them up" on the water supply. In the third place, is the skin nature made to urinate with or through? And is the robbing of quarts of water, from the tissues and kidneys as well, for the sake of sweating out a few grains of so-called "im- purities," not a hundred, aye a thousand, times more injurious than letting those quarts of water find their natural vent? Don't you know, sir, that forcing out quarts of "impure" liquid from within one's hide lets out the pure water and leaves behind the impurities; as filtering through sheep-skin does? It stirs up a mess all right, but it leaves it in and behind for the internal organs to straighten up. The sam.e blunders are made in regard to artificial exercise and deep breathing — not that some of the re- sults of such teaching are not beneficial, but the teach- ing itself is based mostly on spurious and superficial knowledge of physiologic chemistry. Here is another quotation from the same editorial — ^which is sad to contemplate : "The iron in the blood — ^lots of it in the red corpuscles — takes up the electric Autopathy — Cure Thyself 249 force, etc." Well, let us see about this — "lots of it (iron) in the red corpuscles." In an average sized man the blood all told contains between 30 and 40 grains of iron — a mere pinch, so to say. It's too bad that the "opposite" column of all like "scribbles" is not dedicated to the story of the shoe- maker and some famous painter of ancient Greece. History tells us that the great painter was in the habit of exhibiting his paintings in public, much as "sign boards" are these days. He would hide behind the canvas, and listen to the remarks and criticism of passers-by. One day, hidden behind a portrait of a beautiful woman, there came to pass a shoemaker who, after commenting on the lady's shoe, allowed his gaze to maze his brain, and began to criticize the lady's ankles and — but, that the painter couldn't stand. So, coming from under cover he chastised the shoemaker for his impudence by shouting to him: "Hold on, man, stick to thy 'last* !" SLEEP. Sleep is nature's remedy par excellence ; but its ben- efits are too often offset by unnatural habits and en- vironments. For instance: Sleeping in a "heated" room. Sleeping many in a room. Sleeping in one's underwear. Sleeping in a room through which there isn't a con- stant flow of outside air. 250 Autology — Study Thyself Sleeping in a room that isn't flooded with sun or day light. Such conditions are far more objectionable or "un- healthy" than shortness of hours. A brain that becomes intensely interested in its work will have spells, lasting weeks or months, where 9. few hours' sleep proves amply sufficient. If you attend to all other "health-matters," as ad- vised in this book, it matters little about how many hours you sleep, or in what position. You'll sleep as long as your body or business will let you — no more, no less. POSTSCRIPT After standing alone for some fif- teen years, it is gratifying to me to note that a few of the most advanced ''''medical^'' and other Editors and Teachers— always last to "step aside from the sheep-path"— «r^ now begin- ning to recognize and teach and utilize the fundamental principles and prac- tices^ in matters of health and sickness^ of Eugenics and Heredity ^ which were first set forth in Autology. Incident- ally, they often forget to give Au- tology due credit; but then, that's immaterial — the People get the Good, anyway. 4 CENTRAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY University of California, San Diego A — ^ ^ ^^^^ DATE DUE ^^^^ DEC ^ ^K NOV07V*i ^^^^ ^^^P ^^^P ^^^§ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ \ T-f^i ^^tS(^ -^:r^^ -''-^^ ^^ m '^^^Yf M ^^^p 1 ^^^^ i^^P ^^^p^^-^^ UCSD Libr. "^^^^^^^m *^W^x^ \ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 000 804 3 vc>-. ;V