ALUMINIUM UTENSILS AND
DISEASE
The Dangers Inherent In the Widespread Use of the
Metal
by H. Tomlinson, M.B., Ch.B., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.
1958 COPYRIGHT
PREFACE
Introduction
1. The proposition
2. Homoeopathy
3. The varieties of
aluminium contaminated food
4. Evidence by other authors
5. Diseases
associated with aluminium intoxication
(1)Ulcers in the mouth
(2)Spasms of the oesophagus
(3)The Stomach
(4)The duodenum
(5)The small bowel
(6)The appendix
(7)The large bowel and
kidneys (8)The rectum
(9)The skin, the
ductless glands and cancer (10)Thrombosis
(11)The eyes
(12)The mind (13)Migraine
and rheumatism (14)Colds and
hay fever
6. Radiesthesia
7. Additional
details regarding food contamination
8. Illustrative cases
9. Conclusion
Appendix: the symptoms of aluminium intoxication
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Preface
It has long been in my mind that I should write a little book about a
subject close to my heart, that is, about the dangers incurred in using
aluminium ware in food factories and kitchens. There has been so little
public notice of the matter, which I consider is of very great importance,
that I feel it incumbent upon me to do what I can to publicize the evils
inherent in this metal, and the dangers of its use in the preparation of
food.
I can still remember, as a young man who had just started his university training, seeing my father on his deathbed suffering from gall-bladder and pancreatic disease. I wondered then what he had done to end up in such a state. Now I know.
My best thanks are due to my secretary, Mr. Peter A. Langham, for typing the manuscript, correcting the proofs, and for again relieving me of my part of the task of guiding a book through the various stages prior to publication.
I am also indebted to Mr. Emmanuel Kaye, who has kindly written in the Introduction a short account of his experiences as a sufferer from disease caused by aluminium.
H. T.
14. Wimpole Street, London, W.1. May 1958
Introduction
I am very pleased to write an introduction to this book because I know, to
my cost, what evil aluminium can do, and because this book takes the subject
much further than it has been taken before.
When I was twenty-four I began to have abdominal pains which I fund were aggravated by drinking beer or wine, and I therefore gave up all alcohol. A year later the pain recurred and I consulted a doctor who put me on a light diet and prescribed bismuth. Six months later I had to have further treatment and was then given a different diet and belladonna was substituted, which again only gave me temporary relief.
However, as the pain recurred it was agreed to send me to a specialist who decided to examine my saliva and stomach secretions and diagnosed that the pains were due to lack of hydrochloric acid. He therefore prescribed this acid with certain changes of diet. When the symptoms recurred I was sent to a further specialist and underwent further tests and X rays. The conclusion then reached was that my stomach evacuated too rapidly. Once again changes were made in my diet and bismuth and similar drugs prescribed. Not only did my pain continue, but I suffered great inconvenience especially when travelling.
I married at thirty-two. It was difficult and disheartening for my wife, as not only were my special diets constantly changing, but none gave permanent relief. In the end we lost confidence and I went to stay at a nature cure resort. While there the course of fasting, fruit diets, etc., much improved my general health but failed to eliminate the pain after I returned home.
A characteristic of these attacks was that while temporary relief was afforded by treatment, each subsequent attack became progressively more severe, until when I was thirty-nine, I had an attack which completely prostrated me and nothing this lime would move the pain. I was distressed not only with the physical pain, which could be excruciating, but by the exhaustion and mental depression which accompanied it. For a long time I had been consulting leading physicians recommended to me as the foremost specialists in digestive disorders, and I now felt that if they could not get to the bottom of my trouble life was just not worth living. After much anxious thought, I decided to try some entirely different approach. I had heard and read of Radiesthetic analysis and I approached the President of The Medical Society for the Study of Radiesthesia.
Radiesthetic analysis disclosed that I was suffering from aluminium poisoning. I was given an homoeopathic antidote together with a list of foods which tests had shown to be aluminium-free and within a few weeks I found my pain had completely vanished. I still found, however, that when I dined at a restaurant or with certain of my friends a reduced pain was liable to recur, and subsequent tests would show that aluminium was again present. Various homoeopathic antidotes were tried until a constant remedy was found. I have benefited greatly, and therefore can wholeheartedly commend a close study of this book to any fellow sufferer, or to anyone interested in investigating this important subject.
I have recommended 85 people for radiesthetic examination. Of these, 42 were found to be allergic to aluminium. These 42 were complaining of no less than 25 different troubles. Every one has been either completely cured, or much benefited.
Emmanuel Kaye.
Hartley Whitney, Hants.
May 1958
This little book sets out to try and show how very harmful to health is the use of aluminium cooking utensils to a very large number of people. As one does not, in medical practice, see and test many folks who are quite healthy, it is impossible to give an accurate figure of the number of people who are adversely affected by aluminium. But one thing is certain—of those patients who have come to me because their health is imperfect, about one in every two is what I call an aluminium sensitive. It seems likely that about one in every three of the population is aluminium sensitive. To these people the use of aluminium utensils in the kitchen is dangerous to a minor or major degree. In every such case aluminium acts as a slow insidious poison, leading on to greater and greater degrees of disease as time passes. The human body shows an extraordinary power to remain healthy. All the wonderful and mysterious processes which go on in the human body seem able to maintain their efficiency as if directed by some all-knowing power—as indeed and in truth, they are.
The body processes only go wrong because and when harmful forces act on the body. Such forces include external agencies such as injury, exposure to infection, evil influences of other minds, chemical and cosmic poisons, and harmful elements in food and drink. The latter is what we are concerned with at the moment. If food and drink be contaminated by a poison, this can be a very potent factor in causing disease, because food and drink are constantly entering the system, four times daily at least. If therefore the use of aluminium is harmful, the gateway for attack is wide open. This then is the proposition that this book sets out to prove—that the use of aluminium in connection with food is harmful to a very large number of people. It must be admitted that the medical profession as a whole does not subscribe to the idea, and for this reason: the subject is a very difficult one, unless one has the key to it in one's hands. Nothing about the subject is taught to medical students and the average medical man is apt to ridicule the idea. But if he does do this, surely that would only be a case of "ignorance is bliss".
How can anyone, medical practitioner or not, express an opinion about a matter unless the subject in question has been studied in great detail? Common sense will not do. The simplest truths are easy to miss. I have been a medical man for forty years and because of the work I have done in relation to the aluminium question I can state, without a shadow of doubt, and with all the urgency at my command, that the use of aluminium in the preparation of food and food products is one of the most harmful factors in modern civilization.
Quite a number of medical men and others have written papers showing and stressing the harmful effect of aluminium. One of the earliest of these was Dr. Le Hunte-Cooper, who wrote about the subject in 1932 and 1942.* This author, and others beside him, had not the knowledge of modern Radiesthetic procedures and techniques to help them in their work; they arrived at their conclusions by trial and error, and by their mental acuteness—the more credit to them. But because of the difficulty they experienced in proving their proposition, their papers received no general recognition.
* The Danger of Food Contamination by Aluminium (1932), John Bale Sons and Danielson Ltd., London.
There is also intense and understandable opposition to the theory of the harmfulness of aluminium, for there is a vast amount of money in the aluminium industry. An American firm selling stainless steel kitchen equipment advertised through their travellers that aluminium was harmful and advised clients to buy only stainless steel equipment. The aluminium manufacturers proceeded to get an injunction in the courts restraining the firm in question from making further such statements, and also published papers condemning as unknown cranks one or two people who had published articles showing how lethal aluminium could be. The arguments used in these publications were quite childish to anyone who has a true and full understanding of the subject, but to one who has not such knowledge, they could seem very reasonable. Understanding, and a true understanding, is the crux of the matter. Surely if it can be shown that the use of aluminium is harmful to health, then rationally minded people will cease to use it in the kitchen, and also in factories where food is manufactured.
There are, of course, plenty of substitutes for aluminium ware. No one need use it. Probably the best substitute is stainless steel. It is easy to keep clean, lasts a lifetime, and in the form in which it is now sold, with bonded copper exterior base, it is an extremely efficient cooking utensil. The drawback is the higher initial cost, but this is really compensated for by the much longer working life of the stainless steel saucepan, for instance, as compared with its aluminium counterpart.
Other substitutes are the enamelled saucepans and kettles. These are easy to keep clean, can be purchased in attractive colours, and give remarkable service. People complain that the enamel chips off—which sometimes occurs—but very often this is due to careless use. Thick-based enamel ware can be obtained for use on electric cookers. Pyrex ware is also excellent in every way. Copper and iron utensils are also of use in certain cooking operations, as is earthenware.
I think it was the First World War which was responsible for the introduction of aluminium utensils into the kitchen in a widespread way. The factories which had been producing aluminium components for the aircraft industry were able, at the end of the war, to turn their energies to the making of cheap aluminium saucepans, kettles and other kitchen equipment. People hailed these cheap saucepans because they were tired of the weight and of the difficulty of cleaning iron pans. It was impossible then to foresee the damage which would accrue. And so for forty years or thereabouts the use of aluminium in the kitchen has become commonplace, and now probably 90 per cent of all households cook their food and boil their liquids in aluminium ware. The use of aluminium continues to spread, because the majority of people are blind to, and oblivious of, the harm which it can cause. It is cheap, conducts heat well, and nowadays is used for a great number of purposes including the manufacture of saucepans, frying pans, poachers, toasters, kettles, porridge cookers, colanders, sieves, egg slicers and whisks, teapots, spoons and forks, fruit squashers, coffee pots, pressure cookers, vats used in jam making and beer and stout manufacture, ice-cream freezers, milk storage tanks, buckets used on farms, and milking equipment. In fact the use of the metal is so widespread that 70 per cent, of all processed foods may be aluminium contaminated. It is used in the manufacture of grease-proof paper, and as the reflecting material in some electric fires, and artificial sunlight lamps. There is also aluminium contamination in many gas and water heaters.
The reader is asked therefore to read the rest of this book carefully, and to consider the evidence produced. It is only by spreading knowledge of the harm that aluminium usage can cause that the public will cease to buy articles made of this dangerous metal and will demand cooking utensils made of other material. What the public demand that they will get, in the long run. Knowledge of the matter is more widespread than it used to be. Quite a number of shops selling kitchen equipment know of it. This is all to the good. But no one must have a blind belief, they must understand, and know, why aluminium can be harmful. The evidence is plain for all to see. Everyone values the maintenance of their good health, and should therefore consider the matter. All who have abdominal symptoms of any sort should realize that the cause may very well be aluminium poisoning.
Homoeopathy
To understand the aluminium question it is necessary to learn
something about homoeopathy, because this science is concerned in the
production and cure of the symptoms that the use of aluminium can produce.
Homoeopathy exists in England almost as a backwater, aside and apart from
the great bulk of the medical profession. Yet it has its own Faculty, and
hospital, and teaching school, and is recognized by the State, and its
remedies can be prescribed on National Insurance prescriptions. Our late
King had his own homoeopathic doctor, as has our present Queen. So
homoeopathy is orthodox and of high standing in its own sphere. Yet the
average medical man knows nothing of it and has no interest at all in the
subject. Here again one comes across the picture of people denying a subject
of which they have no knowledge. I was speaking on the telephone to a
medical colleague and mentioned that a patient of his ought to be treated
with homoeopathic remedies. It was like waving a red flag in front of a
bull. He said, "I certainly couldn't agree to that". Ignorance is bliss—once
again.
It is of interest to recall that the practice of homoeopathy was founded by a German doctor, Hahnemann, about 150 years ago. Not content with the medical work of his day, he resolved to try the effects of various substances on healthy subjects. He found that each substance produced a number of effects, but all these effects did not appear in each subject. If a substance caused one subject to notice twelve symptoms in various parts of the body, another subject might only experience three symptoms which might or might not be included in the twelve experienced by the first. But by using a sufficiently large number of subjects he obtained a picture of all the symptoms which that substance could produce. He realized that in a given subject, only a certain number of those symptoms might be present, and one or other of the symptoms might be outstanding, though not necessarily the same symptom in each case. He then found that disease produced similar lists of symptoms, and that if he gave to a patient who was not in health that remedy which from his experience had caused these identical symptoms in a healthy subject, the disease symptoms vanished and a cure resulted.
He found also that the remedy given had to be very minute in amount, and was led thus to the principle of potentization. Potentized remedies are made in the following way: One part of the remedy is diluted with either 9 or 99 parts of an inert substance which is either sugar of milk, or spirit. The remedy is triturated or rubbed down by a machine, with the inert substance, till the two are finely mixed together. This makes what is called the first decimal or first centesimal dilution, according to whether the dilution is 1 in 10, or 1 in 100. One part of this dilution is next taken and again triturated by machine with a further 9 or 99 parts of the inert substance, thus making the second decimal or centesimal dilution. In the same way, the third decimal and centesimal dilutions are made. After this, further dilutions are obtained by using rectified spirit or distilled water, or a mixture of the two. Dilution can thus be carried on to any desired degree. When the process has been carried on for, say, a thousand times, there will be little left of the original remedy in terms of weight and ordinary meaning. But though matter is more space than solid, nevertheless there is always an entity carried on with each dilution.
Hahnemann found, and all other doctors using homoeopathic treatment since his day have also found, that potencies affect the body more powerfully than the crude substance from which they are derived—in other words, they are potent. A pinch of common salt given to a patient will have little effect, but a high potency made from it may have outstanding effects if it is given to a patient who has the symptoms which the common salt can cause in a group of subjects.
The reader must therefore realize the existence of homoeopathy, its fineness of detail, the excessive work incurred by its practice, its care, and its outstanding thoroughness in treating the patient as a whole. It is present as a living force, recognized by the State, and the reason why it is not more generally taught and available is that it is not taught at the ordinary university schools, and that is why it lies in a backwater. It is practised all over the world, and no one can with impunity deny its results, and its honesty. Its results are plain to see, but in an imperfect world it is easier to use the ordinary commonplace medical approach of specialism and the instrumental diagnosis of changes in local parts of the body, and the use of drugs.
Where does homoeopathy enter into the aluminium question? The answer is, that it does so in two different ways. First of all, when a food is made in a factory or cooked or heated at home, and if aluminium ware or machinery is used, then the agitation caused by the heating process causes a potency of aluminium to be formed which is distributed through the food.
I have conducted some experiments on the nature of the potency of aluminium formed in food when manufactured or cooked in aluminium vessels. If tap water is boiled in an aluminium saucepan for two minutes the water becomes charged with aluminium in 500c* potency which is a high and potent force. If the pan is then emptied and washed out once and refilled from the tap it will still be charged with the same potency of aluminium, and indeed, to really get rid of it, it is necessary to wash the pan out four or five times with fresh water. Water boiled for five minutes increases the potency to 700c, and after ten minutes it reaches 1m*. The boiling of liquids of any sort in an aluminium vessel liberates in the fluid a potency of aluminium which increases in its potency value according to the length of time during which the boiling takes place.
Processed foods, such as, for instance, a shop-made custard pie, may show other effects. A particular one tested was sold in an aluminium shape. The pastry touching this shape gave a reaction for aluminium 6x*—a low potency. This was due to the contact of the pastry with the aluminium, and the reason why only a low potency of aluminium developed was that there was no liquid boiling inside the aluminium shape. According to the actual process concerned—the amount of heating, or the amount of boiling—so the potency will vary. A breakfast cereal gave an aluminium potency of 8x, whereas the waxed paper in which it was packed gave a potency of 30c. An Advocaat drink gave a potency of 500c, a dog biscuit of 100c, another biscuit in the same packet but of a different composition gave a potency of 6*.
The other way in which homoeopathy enters into the aluminium question is that the cure of the symptoms is only possible by and through the use of homoeopathic remedies in potency, plus of course the cessation of the intake of aluminized food.
* note: x after a potency number indicates a decimal potency, whereas the letter c indicates a centesimal potency. 1m is a centesimal dilution repeated one thousand times.
3. Varieties of
Aluminium Contaminated Foods
It is necessary now to indicate the sorts of foods which in general are
often found to be aluminium contaminated. Such a list would comprise many
breads (mostly from the use of aluminium contaminated salt), many cakes,
pastries, biscuits, especially non-plain biscuits, and chocolate biscuits.
Many processed breakfast foods, some jams, marmalades and honeys, the latter
from the use of aluminium extractors. Many self-raising flours, chemicals,
baking powders, flavouring and colouring agents, dried and processed potato
chips, certain salts and condiments, and sauces and pickles. Much bacon is
aluminium contaminated, also sausages, meat and pork pies and the like. Some
milk is also contaminated, and many beverages, including some stouts, many
aerated drinks and some soda waters, much ice-cream and frozen food. Some
cold tap water is contaminated by the use of softening agents, or
fluoridation or chlorination processes, and many hot-water supplies in the
kitchen give an aluminium reaction. Many prepared soups, some coffee
extracts, many chocolates and sweets, custard powders, and jellies are also
at fault. As mentioned before, grease-proof paper is very often contaminated
by aluminium. An example of this was a make of jam which I tested. I knew
this was made in stainless steel vats, but the jam at the top of the jar
gave an aluminium reaction, because the surface was sealed with a piece of
grease-proof paper which gave an aluminium reaction and contaminated the top
layer of the jam. It may be asked: If, then, aluminium is so prevalent in
processed foods sold over the counter, how can its effect be avoided? The
answer is that only such makes of foods as do not give an aluminium reaction
should be consumed by an aluminium sensitive.
It is my habit to give each patient of mine a list of foods which have been tested and found to be aluminium free, and these foods are to be consumed instead of other makes. This is not to say that only these particular foods are aluminium free, and all others contaminated. Owing to the large number of food preparations, I have only been able to test that number of foods sufficient for a balanced diet. Certain foods which are unprocessed by man are always aluminium free. These include fresh meat and fish (not salted fish), eggs, most cheese (but not cheese spreads), most raw fruits and vegetables (but not necessarily tinned fruits and vegetables); most natural foods are aluminium free, and the only way they can become contaminated is by their being kitchen cooked in aluminium. In the absence of aluminium utensils, there need be no aluminium contamination on a desert isle!
I give now a list of processed foods which have been tested and found to be aluminium free. This is in addition to the unprocessed foods mentioned earlier as being aluminium free.
SOME FOODS GIVING NO ALUMINIUM REACTION
|
Fresh foods Baking powders Biscuits |
Romany's Honey Bake
Crisps Bread, rolls, etc. Breakfast foods Butter, margarine, fats Cake mixes Cheeses Custards, blancmange Drinks |
Oval tine Flavourings Flours, corn flours Fruits, dried Gravies Jams, etc. |
Syrup, Lyle's Golden Laxatives and herbs Miscellaneous Soup powders, etc. Sweets Tinned foods Toothpastes Yeast |
4. Evidence by Other Authors
Though aluminium came into use mainly after the First World War, aluminium
cooking utensils were first made about 1892 on a small scale, but in later
years sometimes a £1m. worth of aluminium metal was used per year in the
manufacture of kitchen ware—a fantastically large sum.
In 1913 an orthodox medical paper, The Lancet,1 caused an investigation to be made into the question. They reported that if the aluminium is acted on by the food it could be injurious to health. But they had not the knowledge to pursue the matter further, and hence their investigation was of no great value. In 1931 S. Judd Lewis made a special investigation of the subject.2 He found that most normal human blood contained no aluminium unless the blood sample was taken after an aluminium-cooked meal, when it was then found to be present.
1. January 4, 1913 pp. 54-55.
2. "The Assimilation of Aluminium by the Human System", Biochemical
Journal, Vol. XXV, 1931.
There is, in many natural foods, such as vegetables and fruits, a tiny amount of aluminium which can be detected by chemical tests. This however is not found in the plant in metallic form, but as a protein complex—i.e. it is taken up into the make-up of the plant, and as such would not appear to have the same effect as pure aluminium in the metal form. Further, no one has excluded the fact that such aluminium complexes are not natural to the plant, and may be due to contamination by man-made agencies such as chemical manures. It must also be remarked that aluminium is easily attacked and dissolved by acids and alkalies—and there are many such in foods. Caustic soda used for cleaning aluminium saucepans, for instance, will also dissolve a certain amount of aluminium each time it is used. Hard water acts also on aluminium, and in a certain new housing estate there were many complaints by occupiers of the new houses that holes had appeared in aluminium saucepans and kettles. About ten years ago, in a jam factory, I saw a number of aluminium vats which had been used for jam manufacture. In each of these vats were hundreds of depressions where the aluminium had been eaten away by the acids of the fruits used in the jam manufacture. This one factory alone had therefore sold for years aluminized jam to its unsuspecting customers.
In Dr. Le Hunte-Cooper's book previously mentioned he described certain tests he had carried out. If London tap water was simply stood in an aluminium vessel for twenty-four hours it dissolved 2.45 grains of solid per gallon of water, of which aluminium formed the major part. If milk was boiled in an aluminium saucepan about 1.4 grains of aluminium were taken up by 1 gallon of milk, but if certain fruits were stewed in an aluminium vessel as much as 85 grains per gallon were at times taken up by the fluid. Such results were not obtained if an enamelled saucepan was used.
Another important examination of the subject has been made by a Russian scientist in Moscow. The work took over two years, and in his published conclusions he stated that many foods were altered in colour if cooked in aluminium ware, and some of these foods were also altered in taste. He established the presence of an increased percentage of albumen in the faeces of men and animals fed on an aluminized diet, and this is the same as proving a mild inflammation. He further states that he clearly appreciated that a person may feed on aluminized food for years without symptoms of any kind, but that, unseen and unheard, there are progressive body changes going on, which may suddenly manifest themselves in a form of serious disease.
In 1932-4, in the United States, the coffee manufacturers organized an investigation into the best method of making coffee. There had been some outcry against the use of coffee because it was thought to produce abdominal troubles. The manufacturers therefore arranged this investigation. The conclusions were that coffee made in glass vessels was not injurious to health. They also found that it was impossible to make good coffee in an aluminium vessel, as the taste and colour were altered and abdominal symptoms frequently followed. Other American investigations into the question have been done by Dr. C. T. Betts of Ohio,* who concluded that he himself was suffering from aluminium poisoning. He maintained that many people in the U.S.A. consumed 11-15 grains of aluminium daily. Dr. H. G. Wells, of the University of Chicago, concluded from research work that the blood, kidneys, and alimentary tract were affected by aluminium absorption. He also stated that the ovaries and testes are particularly affected. This again I can support wholeheartedly, because I often find a glandular imbalance in aluminium poisoning. A glandular imbalance is an extremely potent cause of disease, and this has some bearing on cancer because cancer is associated with hormone disharmony—here the connection between aluminium and cancer is manifest.
* Aluminium Poisoning, The Anti-Cancer Club of America, Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A.
Another American investigator is Dr. G. W. M. Williams,1 who suggested that metals such as aluminium may affect the blood constituents, and alter their functions, thus leading to disease. Further, Dr. W. E. Holderf2 has published some books on aluminium. He gives no less than 100 references indicting aluminium as a cause of disease, and inter alia, states aluminium compounds arc classified as protoplasmic poisons.
J. T. Kent, a famous American homoeopathic doctor, wrote a number of text-books on homoeopathy, and in these books gave a large number of symptoms which could be caused by the intake of aluminium in potency form. These text-books, of course, are, although written fifty years ago or more, still standard text-books in homoeopathic circles.
Dealing with the mental symptoms of aluminium,3 this author states—"It especially takes hold of the intellect, and so confuses the intelligence that the patient is unable to effect a decision; the judgment is disturbed. He is unable to realize; the things that he knows, or has known, to be real seem to him to be unreal, and he is in doubt as to whether they are so or not." The patient affected by aluminium "is very sad, constantly sad. Incessantly moaning, groaning, worrying, fretting and in a hurry. Wants to get away; wants to get away from this place, hoping that things will be better, full of fears. All sorts of imaginations. A sort of general apprehensiveness. When he meditates upon this state of mind he thinks he is going to lose his reason. He thinks about this frenzy and hurry and confusion of mind, how he hardly knows his own name, and how fretful he is, and he wonders if he is not going crazy, and finally he thinks he really is going crazy."
1. Aluminium in Food,
Ministry of Health Report, 1935.
2. Why Humanity Suffers, Redcloth Publishing Company, Toronto.
3. Materia Medica, Boericke and Tafel, Philadelphia.
Such is a little extract from Kent's article on aluminium, but he deals in an equally graphic manner with many other symptoms that aluminium can cause.
All investigators have observed that the effect of aluminium compounds on living cells was deleterious, even when these compounds were present in remarkably small amounts. A small quantity of aluminium acting for a long time may produce results quite as marked as a larger quantity acting for a shorter space of time.
To come nearer home, we have the opinion of Dr. J. E. R. McDonagh,1 who is one of the foremost original thinkers in medicine today. He has written during his lifetime numerous books showing evidence of intense work and original thinking. Dr. McDonagh states he is firmly of the belief that aluminium is an extremely important agent in increasing intestinal intoxication. He refutes the argument that the defenders of aluminium postulate, that the amount of aluminium ingested is so small as to be harmless, in that the fact is not realized that a chemical substance may do more harm in the body by the dissemination of its activity (i.e. potency), which cannot be detected by ordinary means. Dr. McDonagh —who again I stress, is an original thinker of brilliant attainments—is firmly of the opinion that aluminium cooking is a factor capable of causing extreme harm to the body. I have known Dr. McDonagh for very many years, and I am a deep admirer of his work. The predecessor in my own work, Dr. Guyon Richards, records in his book The Chain of Life2 meeting many cases of aluminium poisoning during about two and a half years practice. In particular he points out the liability of aluminium to cause what we call chills and colds by its causing the growth of bowel germs—again a factor I constantly come across myself. Dr. Richards stated that, "I have no doubt at all that aluminium is doing a grave amount of harm amongst the population at large, and it is probably causing a serious loss of work energy."
1. The Universe Through
Medicine, Heinemarm (Medical Books) Ltd.
2. Health Science Press.
Another British medical man, Dr. E. Pritchard, wrote an article in the British Medical Journal in October 1932 in which he stated that he had plenty of evidence of chronic aluminium poisoning amongst his own family, and his friends, and his dog. Dogs are in fact very prone indeed to the aluminium effect, much more so than cats. Dr. Pritchard further states that infants appeared to be very susceptible to the acute effects of aluminium poisoning, and that symptoms in adults do not as a rule arise until they have been exposed to the harmful influence for some time. He gave an example of a convalescent home in which were twenty-two babies. It was the custom to feed the infants on soup made in an aluminium pan. This resulted in widespread diarrhoea in the infants, which entirely stopped when the use of aluminium was discontinued. Some of this soup was given to a dog daily for two years and the dog also developed diarrhoea, and finally died, and the cause of death was not clear to the veterinary surgeons.
Dr. E. H. Rink, in an article in the British Medical Journal of August 1932, also reported two cases of aluminium poisoning. The first patient had abdominal pain for eight years and was thought at first to have chronic appendicitis. The other patient had severe dyspepsia for ten years and was diagnosed as a colitis. Both patients recovered completely on the cessation of the use of aluminium in cooking.
Dr. A. France, in an article in the British Medical Journal in 1932, also recorded his own case. He had been suffering from abdominal pain which at times was severe, and no satisfactory diagnosis was made. After ceasing the use of aluminium the pain disappeared. Naturally enough, his attention having been aroused by his own case, it was not long before Dr. France recognized the same condition in many of his patients. Finally, some American physiologists, led by a Mr. Underbill,* worked on the aluminium question. They proved that the aluminium content of the blood increased after the ingestion of an aluminized meal. They found that the metal was deposited in various organs, especially the liver, kidneys, spleen, brain, and muscles. They proved that there is a relation between the age of a dog and the quantity of aluminium stored in its body and also that the same relation held good in man.
In all, during the last forty years or so, there have been about fifty papers written by medical men and others all stressing the dangers incurred in the use of aluminium. Taken as a whole, dare one neglect the evidence?
* "American Journal of Physiology", 1929, Vol. 90, 40.
5. Diseases
Associated with Aluminium Intoxication
A list of the more common symptoms associated with aluminium will be found
in the Appendix. I shall explain later on how I do the work of detecting
aluminium and other disease agents, but it should be realized that if a
practitioner tests each patient he sees, for aluminium, over many years, he
will learn for himself what sort of symptoms he most commonly meets, and
which accompany an aluminium reaction. Certain of the symptoms described are
met with frequently, and the practitioner sees a clear picture of the more
common effects.
The system most often affected by aluminium is the abdominal organs from mouth to anus, and so I will discuss this part of the anatomy first.
These are a pretty frequent symptom. The patient complains of recurring ulcers on the mucous membrane of the cheeks and lips, and unless the cause is rectified orthodox treatment rarely cures them.
The oesophagus is the tube connecting throat and stomach proper—i.e. the tube down which passes all food and drink. This is a rare aluminium symptom. The patient complains of inability to swallow—liquids passing no more easily than solids. It is due to an uneven action of the muscles making up the tube. Orthodox treatment is the use of sedatives, and the passage down the oesophagus of instruments to dilate the oesophagus. Again, if the cause is not realized and remedied, the condition will become chronic, and not yield to treatment.
This can be the seat of gastric ulcers. Again this is not a common symptom, but it does occur. These ulcers heal with the application of aluminium-free dieting and suitable homoeopathic remedies.
Herein lies one of the most important and prevalent results of the use of aluminium—duodenal ulcers. How very common they are, with all their attendant misery, pain, and discomfort!
When I qualified in 1918 I had not been taught anything about them, and only heard of them soon after qualification. Since then they have steadily increased, and now cost the country millions of pounds in X-ray investigations alone. The costs of the Health Service are rocketing up, and money is spent in dealing with end results of disease which could and ought to be prevented by the dissemination of knowledge regarding aluminium. The rise in the incidence of duodenal ulcers runs pari passu with the rise in the use of aluminium utensils. Duodenal ulcers will heal with the adoption of anti-aluminium treatment, though the scarring and deformity of the duodenum produced by the healing of such ulcers will remain and cause symptoms necessitating operation in some cases. I am well aware that aluminium hydroxide in its ordinary chemical state is used in the orthodox treatment of such ulcers. Such use is due to its ability to combine with the acid of the stomach. But these salts of aluminium are not potencies, and in most cases they do not harm the body, and may in fact help the healing of an ulcer. It must be clearly recognized that, because they are not potencies of aluminium, they do not act like potencies and are not harmful. The same argument applies to many assertions made by aluminium defenders, that aluminium is present in some natural foods. Aluminium in such is not in potency form, but as an aluminium protein combination which is harmless. It is the energy potency of aluminium which harms the body, not its salts or protein complexes. I have yet to find a duodenal ulcer case which does not give an aluminium reaction on test. Let everyone beware, who uses aluminium, that they may be heading for this complaint and its sequel of operation. The common idea that nervous strain is the cause of duodenal ulcers will not bear investigation. On examination, all such cases prove to be aluminium sensitive.
This is not often affected by local change, but it is affected by an alteration in the germs which normally grow in the bowel contents. For the sake of clarity, I will deal with this in relation to the large bowel.
I regard aluminium as a potent cause of appendicitis. It is extremely common for aluminium sensitives to get acute appendicitis, whereupon the appendix is removed and those patients cannot get appendicitis again. No one worries as to why those people got the appendicitis in the first place.
(7) The large bowel and kidneys
This is the organ commonly affected in all aluminium sensitives. It is generally the very first organ to suffer damage.
The changes due to aluminium poisoning are of two sorts. There is first of all an alteration in the function of the large bowel, which, if the poisoning goes on, may advance into changes in the bowel itself, shown on an X-ray examination. The functional changes are in three directions. There may be diarrhoea or looseness of the bowels—the motions are light coloured, not formed, but passed in little pieces. The patient may go to the lavatory three or four times daily, especially on rising and after meals. This diarrhoea is habitual, and goes on month after month, with remissions for a time, now and again. If there be not diarrhoea, the opposite may occur. The patient is constipated. There is inability to expel the motion even with hard straining.
Some of these patients actually pass one motion daily, but on examination, their rectal passages, which are the end of the bowel, are still filled out with motion. This means that food takes an inordinate length of time to be expelled from the body, leading to some putrefaction and poisoning of the system. This condition is called intestinal toxaemia, and it is a very potent cause of disease. Intestinal toxaemia is the cause of many forms of rheumatism, and muscular fibrositis, and gouty changes. It can also cause blood changes such as certain forms of anaemia, and even pernicious anaemia. The toxaemia usually causes a general feeling of lassitude and tiredness.
Other effects produced are an alteration in the normal species of germs present in the bowel. Very often other races of germs can get a footing, and grow, and these germ growths are the hallmark of the poisoning. Such germs can get into the bloodstream and be excreted by the kidneys—and here you get a group of diseases in kidneys and bladder: kidney inflammations, stones in the kidney, inflammation of the bladder are all pretty common sequels.
The most advanced change in the large bowel is ulcerative colitis, in which ulcers develop in the bowel. The patient has chronic diarrhoea, and anaemia, and passes blood and mucus in the motions. Years ago, as a young man recently qualified, I experienced great difficulty in treating or even helping these patients in any way. I then did not know what caused their condition. I do now. There is nothing more gratifying than the healing of an ulcerative colitis case with anti-aluminium measures. Such cases are extremely sensitive to the use of aluminium and will soon break down if they get the wrong food. The large bowel or colon, then, is by far and away the most important organ to be affected, because it is always the organ to bear the brunt of the poisoning, and it is one of the most important organs in the body. Surgeons used in the old days to remove the whole or part of the colon. A very brutal procedure!
The lower end of the bowel, the rectum and anus, is also often affected by aluminium. The rectum often shows a muscular weakness whereby large faecal masses are retained inside the organ unknown to the patient. The constipation and the consequent straining at stool can cause piles, so piles are often present in aluminium cases, and in particular external piles around the anal opening. Itching in the anal region is a particularly prevalent symptom in aluminium poisoning, and is a special pointer indicating aluminium trouble.
It will be seen therefore how potent aluminium is for causing damage to the abdominal organs. It must be stressed that if the abdominal organs, or some of them, are so affected, generally other systems escape. The poisoning generally fixes on one system to wreak its worst effect.
(9) The skin, the ductless glands and cancer
The skin is often affected by aluminium in that rashes and itching are present. These are really due to the intestinal intoxication produced by aluminium, and are not a primary effect of aluminium on the skin.
The same remark applies to glandular dysfunction. The so-called ductless glands, the pituitary, thyroid, suprarenal glands, and the sex glands, may get into a disturbed state, and then many and diverse symptoms can appear. The intestinal intoxication produced by aluminium is a potent factor in upsetting the gland balance, and it is the ability to produce this effect which gives aluminium its part in being one of the causes of cancer. Cancer is certainly more prevalent in aluminium sensitives than others, and cancer in the alimentary tract is the most frequently occurring cancer. Cancer has also been more prevalent during the aluminium era than before it.
Dr. Tchizevsky1 showed by experiments on mice that those animals fed on aluminized food are forty times more likely to develop cancer than mice fed on non-aluminized food.
Dr. Betts of Ohio published a book, under the auspices of the Anti-Cancer Club of America,2 condemning the use of aluminium.
Dr. Olds of Philadelphia stated in a publication written by him that all foods cooked in aluminium caused increased cancer reactions, and even water boiled in an aluminium vessel had the same effect.
H. W. Keens, a biochemical research worker, has written two books published in 1934 and 1937.3 He concludes that excess of free aluminium in the soil, resulting from the use of artificial fertilizers is a primary cause of cancer. In other words, the soil is unbalanced in its chemical constituents, and foods, which derive from the soil, then become similarly unbalanced. This leads in turn to an imbalance of chemical elements in the human body, and this causes disharmony, disease, and cancer, the latter by chemical imbalance in the ductless glands—-which control the ability of tissues to grow. Mr. Keens states that aluminium is not a natural constituent of animal tissue, and that it is only in recent times that increasing amounts of aluminium have been found in human tissues. I am quite certain that Mr. Keens is right in all his assertions, except that I am sure that it is aluminium in potentized form which is the evil factor in soil, and food, and finally in the human body. Many, if not all, chemical fertilizers contain aluminium energy, and so react on test. Aluminium in potency definitely upsets the biochemic elements in the body. I find, from repeated tests, that sulphur is first of all affected and apparently driven out of the body. In association and close linkage with the sulphur is copper—which is its partner in nature. The next element to be driven out is magnesium, and then silica, and then calcium and potassium. Copper and magnesium are very important elements in hormone and ferment reactions in the human body, and so small changes in their energy value can cause great effects, and one of these effects can result in cancer. Let everyone beware, then, that if they persist in using aluminium utensils they can be cooking for themselves a dish of death. The next part of the body to be discussed in relation to aluminium is the vascular system—in particular the heart, veins and arteries.
1. Aluminium as a Factor
Contributing to the Rise and Progress of Different Pathologic Processes in
the Organism, "Acta Medica Scandinavica", Vol. 83, 1934.
2. Aluminium Poisoning, The Anti-Cancer Club of America, Toledo,
Ohio, U.S.A.
3. Cancer, Its Prevention and Death in the Pot, The C. W. Daniel Co.
Ltd.
A most important effect of aluminium poisoning is thrombosis —that cause of sudden death which has so greatly increased during the aluminium era. The thrombosis generally occurs in a vein, and it is peculiar that its first effect is often an attack of clotting in a leg vein. But whether or not this does occur, clotting may occur in vessels in the legs, or lungs, or heart, and if in the heart, sudden and dramatic death may follow. Does anyone think that God meant that man in his prime should suddenly be transported from this life without warning? Surely such catastrophes are due to man's own errors, and not to God's lack of care in the construction and functioning of the human being. I have repeatedly, by anti-aluminium measures, in patients who have already had heart thrombosis, prevented any subsequent attacks. Further, each and every case of cardiac or lung thrombosis I have seen and tested gave an aluminium reaction, and I rate thrombosis as being high up in the list of damage that aluminium can do.
Another organ which is sometimes affected is the eye. Aluminium causes a slowly progressive impairment of vision, partly due to changes in the muscles of the eyeball, and partly to changes in other eye tissues. Many of such cases drift to eye hospitals where various treatments are given, generally with no effect. The dramatic improvement in such a case on the institution of anti-aluminium measures is gratifying and noteworthy. Such cases are extremely sensitive to aluminium, so that small slip-ups in food will bring on a prompt deterioration in the sight.
I well remember seeing a poor lady of between sixty and seventy, who was living by herself in one of London's smaller hotels which cater especially for retired people, and which are almost 100 per cent aluminium users. This lady was slowly losing her sight, but could not afford to go elsewhere. It was impossible to treat her as her food was so hopeless, and I had to leave her to her approaching blindness. Such cases are tragic, and so unnecessary.
In the part of this book dealing with the symptoms that aluminium can produce, mental symptoms are described. These are fairly frequently met with—the commonest one in my experience is an inability to make up one's mind, but many other mental symptoms can appear.
Another group of diseases which aluminium causes are certain rheumatic conditions, and also migraine attacks. Migraine attacks are invariably, in my experience, due to aluminium poisoning, and are generally a sequel to the intestinal intoxication. Aluminium causes many forms of fibrositis, arthritis, gout and other varieties of so called rheumatism. Rheumatism is the cause of immense sickness and loss of work, and disability. The intestinal intoxication caused by aluminium can be a very potent cause of rheumatism, either directly, or by its effect on the hormone producers, the ductless glands. If the framework of the skeletal and supporting structures of the body becomes diseased, it is extremely common to find intestinal intoxication as the prime cause, and such an effect of aluminium can be a very important matter.
Another important sequel of aluminium poisoning is "colds". The common cold is always with us, and the multiplicity of cures is also with us as well. My work teaches me that the majority of chills and colds are due to the growth inside the bowel of streptococci and allied germs. The effect of this germ growth is a watery catarrh of the nose. The nose and adjacent parts can then in turn become secondarily infected. The link between aluminium poisoning and the incidence of colds is that aluminium upsets the bowel and therefore leads to abnormal germ growth therein. Hence colds are more prevalent in aluminium sensitives than in aluminium non-sensitives.
Hay fever is caused by intestinal intoxication, and aluminium being the commonest cause of such, it will be evident that the use of aluminium ware is concerned in the causation of hay fever.
There is no doubt in my mind that the liability to be easily affected by aluminium is an inherited factor which follows the ordinary laws of inherited traits. What I think is inherited is a particular form of biochemic alteration from the usual normal, and that such biochemic alteration results in the biochemic balance being more easily disturbed by aluminium. In every aluminized person with symptoms, one can always get a history of similar troubles in one or both parents. A sensitiveness to aluminium can develop in a person who has never met with the metal before—as in the case of a savage on a desert island who, on contact with civilization, can develop aluminium symptoms. What is inherited is a certain biochemic background which makes the attack of aluminium possible. And, remember, we are all omnibuses in which our tainted ancestors ride.
6.
Radiesthesia
Radiesthesia is the science dealing with the detection of radiations by the
human body unhelped by scientific instruments of orthodox type. It is the
practice of this science which has elucidated the whole aluminium problem.
Without the use of radiesthesia one would just have to rely on the ordinary
clinical observation used by the majority of the medical profession, and
this fails to show the dangers of aluminium. Radiesthesia includes divining
or dowsing for water, oil, and minerals in the earth's crust. Dowsing for
water has received publicity for many years, and has been practised since
the dawn of history. Stonehenge is sited where it is because sensitive
dowsers fixed the sun stone at a point where a great number of lines of
influence in the ground intersect. The circle was not put where it is
blindly and without reason.
In dowsing for water a divining rod, which is often a forked twig, is mostly used. The operator holds a fork of the twig in each hand, with the stem pointing away from him. If the dowser gets over underground water the point of the twig will dip or rise, and an experienced dowser can be relied on to indicate where underground water is to be found, and at what depth, and what sort of water it is.
The other type of radiesthesia relates to dowsing and divining for disease states in man and animals, and in relation to crops, agriculture and the soil. In this department of radiesthesia a pendulum is used. This is simply a small ball of wood or other material suspended by a thread which the operator holds between finger and thumb. If such a pendulum is held over a sample from a patient—by sample I mean a blood spot on absorbent paper, or a piece of cotton wool soaked in the patient's urine—it will move in certain directions, either in a circular direction, or will swing from side to side. If a mental question is asked, the pendulum will respond and give the answer. Samples of various diseases and of metals such as aluminium, can be held in the same hand as the pendulum and act as witnesses of what is to be detected. What in effect is done is to find out what organs in the patient's body are functioning in an abnormal way, whether there is any deficiency in food, or in vitamins, or in chemical elements, whether there is an aluminium reaction or not, whether there is infection, and if so with what germ or virus. The age of the patient, the sex, whether pregnant, and if so, the sex of the unborn baby, are all matters commonplace to the work. Also the detection of a so-called cancer reaction is an easy matter, and a very important one. Other points to be found out are what I call the vitality rates of the patient—an index of his vibratory rate which can be normal or below normal. Further than that, it can show whether his etheric or non-physical body is normal or otherwise. Lastly, radiesthesia can select the appropriate homoeopathic remedy purely by the movements of the pendulum. It can also indicate the potency of the remedy, and the frequency and duration of the doses of homoeopathic medicine needed. The pendulum will clearly indicate how the patient is getting along, and also what is really going on in obscure disease.
There has been some correspondence in a daily paper recently about patients and doctors. The doctors say that a large proportion of patients come to them with what they call neuroses, and ask for their bottle of medicine or what not, and that these patients just waste time and money. The patients say they do not feel well, and come for help, which very often they do not receive in full. Only radiesthesia will explain these obscure cases.
This then is the science of radiesthesia which gives the key to the matter of aluminium poisoning.
I will now describe briefly just how an aluminium reaction is to be detected by the average person with reasonable intelligence, using apparatus available in any household.* Take an ordinary wooden reel of black cotton, make a nick with a knife on the outside rim, unwind about twelve inches of the thread and pass the thread from the reel where it has been wound, through the nick and then through the centre hole to the other side of the reel. Now cut off the free thread so that its length is about six inches. The thread can now be held between thumb and ringer of the right hand, assuming the operator is right handed, and this constitutes a pendulum.
* For full details, see my book The Divination of Disease, Health Science Press.
The operator should now sit on a wooden chair which has armrests. This should be pulled up to a table. The operator should sit at the table facing magnetic east or west—the position being found by a compass. On the edge of the table in front of the operator is placed a piece of plate glass.
To test a food for aluminium three more articles are necessary. Firstly, a sample of aluminium, which can either be a small piece of aluminium, or a little bottle containing aluminium in a 3x potency. The latter is the more active, and it can be obtained from a homoeopathic chemist. Secondly, a bar magnet, and thirdly, a rule marked in inches and tenths of inches.
This is the procedure. A sample of the food to be tested is placed in the centre of the glass sheet in front of the operator, after the bar magnet has been passed three or four times across the glass from side to side. The pendulum is held by the thread by the right thumb and forefinger at a distance (measured by the rule) of three inches from the bobbin top to the place where it is held between thumb and forefinger. The pendulum is thereby tuned to aluminium, and to increase this tuning the bottle of aluminium in 3x potency is held in the palm of the hand holding the pendulum. Having got as far as this, the pendulum is rotated in a circular motion clockwise over the food, i.e. the operator starts this motion by a gentle movement. As soon as the pendulum is gyrating clockwise the operator tries to hold the thread steady. He must not think of anything— i.e. his mind must be a blank.
If the food being tested contains an aluminium potency the pendulum will continue to gyrate. If, however, the food does not contain aluminium in potency the pendulum will not go on gyrating, and the circular movement will be replaced very soon by a to-and-fro movement called an oscillation. Naturally it takes some practice for a novice to get reliable results, but sooner or later the art will be learnt, and then the operator will distinguish between water boiled in an aluminium pan and water boiled in an enamelled one. As soon as one food has been tested and removed, the surface of the glass must be sterilized by the passage of the bar magnet across the glass three or four times.
Such, then, is the procedure for the radiesthetic detection of aluminium energy. Its truth is vouched for by its ability to distinguish between water boiled in aluminium ware and water boiled in non-aluminium ware. If it can do this, it must be reliable. Similar procedures are used in medical radiesthesia, but it is not necessary to describe these procedures here. They are naturally more complex. If, however, an aluminium reaction is given by a sample from a patient, always that patient's physical vitality rate is lower than the normal, and one or more organs will also react abnormally. It is almost universally true that in aluminium poisoning the colon or large bowel will always react abnormally, whether or no additional organs from the abdominal group or other systems react abnormally as well.
The detection of aluminium poisoning and its resulting damage is, then, done by these radiesthetic procedures. The finding of the remedy, which will be in potency, is also done by the same procedure. The remedy in potency, if correct, will restore the physical vitality rate to normal—and will also correct the abnormal readings for those organs which reacted in an abnormal way—and destroy the aluminium reaction.
This remedy, in potency form, is generally indicated for up to fourteen days. If the patient's sample is then retested there will be either a partial or a complete improvement in the readings. The patient will also generally notice a marked improvement in how he feels. What has been achieved up to this point is a correction towards normality of the patient's whole body, whereby the changes caused by the aluminium intoxication have been overcome. The test and the treatment assumes that the patient's diet during this fourteen-day period has been aluminium free. This is very often not the case, for the following reasons. Most patients take a little time to reorientate their kitchenware and food purchasing, and many have to eat out for business reasons. Hence, in practice, the remedy in potency designed to deal with the patient's state at a particular time has to cope with a varying state after that time, because there may still be some varying input of aluminized food. Considerations of this sort lead me to conclude that a constant antidote to neutralize the incoming aluminium energy would have to be found.
If a radiesthetic examination is made of the percentage prevalence of the chemical elements making up the human body, it will be found that in aluminium intoxication copper and sulphur are present in a lower percentage than normal. This discovery led me to try by radiesthetic work to see if those two elements did counteract a dose of aluminium in potency form. This proved to be the case, and in general if one or two aluminized meals out are eaten on one day, one dose of copper and sulphur in 10x potency taken on the same day will neutralize the incoming aluminium dose. In actual practice, therefore, besides giving a patient the homoeopathic remedy worked out by radiesthesia, he is also given some copper and sulphur in 10x potency, one dose weekly to neutralize odd food leaks, and an extra dose to offset the effects of meals out, if and when he has to have meals out.
After the first two weeks' treatment is over, the patient's sample has to be retested. If the dieting and the remedy action have been correct, his vitality or vibration rates will be higher or nearer to normality, and his sample will give no aluminium reaction. Generally a further remedy in potency will be indicated, very often magnesium, or silica, or calcium, or phosphorus. This further remedy is given to the patient with additional copper and sulphur lox, and tests are repeated at monthly intervals for a period. The whole procedure is very delicate, as one is trying to convert the biochemic make-up of the body to normality whilst there may be some varying amount of aluminium in potency form entering that body during the period of treatment. With co-operation from the patient, it is usually possible to keep him aluminium-free, and as the period during which the patient is under treatment lengthens, he assumes a more constant tendency to remain normal both in the readings and in how he feels, so much so that he may himself finally become able naturally to overcome the effects of occasional doses of aluminized food. In a few cases he may even reach the point where he becomes immune to aluminium for a time—which means that the process whereby aluminium acts has passed to the non-detectable stage preceding manifestation.
With the continuance of the anti-aluminium regime, the patient's symptoms will disappear—often very quickly. Duodenal ulcers will heal, and eye troubles improve. No symptoms caused, however, by a definite structural change in an organ will wholly disappear necessarily. Damage done by past disease may need other measures, such as surgery, to cope with it.
Lay readers and medical men who do not practise homoeopathy may think that radiesthesia is not exact enough or scientific enough to be relied on in relation to diagnosis and to selection of a remedy. They may think it is an obscure way of finding out what is wrong, that a Radiesthetic operator may simply be deluding himself in thinking certain things and making the pendulum act according to his preconceived ideas. Again the answer is, that a person who has not studied radiesthesia cannot understand it, and those who have studied it will be enthusiastic in its praises.
I have shown how potencies are the crux of aluminium poisoning. Potencies are simply forms of energy not to be detected by ordinary scientific instruments. The most sensitive detector known is the human mind itself, which is more sensitive and wonderful than any man-made instrument. In radiesthesia it is the human mind which reacts to the unseen forces in potency. No other mechanism could be involved to prove these forces. No instrument can prove the effect of prayer, but radiesthesia can and does.
A doctor has a patient before him. The patient tells the doctor about the symptoms of disease that he has noticed. The doctor listens and records them. Then he looks at the patient, feels the patient's body, listens to certain parts of the patient's body. He can do special examinations, such as chemical analysis of certain secretions and excretions, he can use instruments for finding the blood pressure, or those used in special physical examinations of certain organs. Having done all this he may find no indication of disease, and may just try and reassure the patient, telling him there is "nothing wrong". No patient goes to a doctor if there is really nothing wrong. On the other hand, the doctor may conclude that the patient's symptoms add up to a particular physical complaint which he will name. In very many such cases he has no idea at all by what process the disease has come about or progressed from the normal, and still less how to correct it by natural means. Those doctors who use radiesthesia do all these examinations and arrive at the same diagnosis—but they are not content to leave the matter there. They use the pendulum over the patient's sample, and the underlying cause of the disease is made apparent. Radiesthesia makes clear the actual disease process going on, and that is the important thing.
The common cold is common but few medical men have a true knowledge of its cause. Those who use radiesthesia know that the first step in the production of a cold is by the growth of bacteria of an abnormal kind, in the bowel. Radiesthesia gives knowledge that cannot be obtained otherwise. It throws a flood of light on any obscure case, and without it I should be blind, deaf and dumb. It is to be hoped, then, that the reader will understand the reason why only radiesthesia gives the key to aluminium poisoning. Only it is able to unlock the door— and there is no other key which could possibly fit the lock.
7.
Additional
Details Regarding Food Contamination
This chapter is designed to give the reader some additional information on
aluminium contamination of food.
Once again it is to be stressed that one is dealing with aluminium in potency form, and not with the actual chemical salts of aluminium, or with such in actual weight, though the ingestion of aluminium in potency form may be accompanied by the simultaneous ingestion of aluminium salts which can be detected in the body by ordinary chemical tests. Such would occur when, for instance, an acid fruit is boiled in water in an aluminium saucepan. The acids of the fruit react on and dissolve the aluminium metal, forming salts of aluminium which will be ingested when the cooked food is consumed. At the same time the agitation of the heating process will also produce an aluminium potency, and this is the lethal weapon. Hence, in the kitchen, no aluminium cooking utensil must be used. Only the cold-water tap should be used in filling kettles and saucepans, never the hot-water tap.
Many gas and electric water heaters give an aluminium reaction to the water. Softened water also should not be used for food but reserved for washing. The refrigerator is, or can be, a potent cause of aluminium contamination. The agitation produced by the freezing element acts in much the same way as boiling, and a potency of aluminium is formed thereon. This is dissipated over food kept in the refrigerator. The remedy is to see that all food kept in the refrigerator is covered up in dishes or kept in polythene bags.
Many makes of frozen food are also aluminium contaminated, but not all frozen food is so affected. It is, however, more likely that frozen food will give an aluminium reaction than that the fresh article will, and so, when possible, fresh food should always be purchased in preference to frozen food. Grease-proof paper should always be removed from foods when they arrive in the kitchen.
To find an aluminium-free bread, samples of locally obtainable bread must be tested for aluminium, which mostly gets into the bread from the salt used by the baker. One or two correct breads can easily be found, and the purchase of these breads must be adhered to, and from the same shop. It is generally necessary to retest the bread at intervals, as at any time the baker may change the source of his salt supply. Butter is also another problem. Dutch unsalted, and most Danish butters are all right, and only these should be used.
This is also the time to mention those people who live in aluminium caravans. Such persons live surrounded by aluminium, and a potency of this can be given off by the walls if heat is applied to them. Infra-red and ultra-violet radiation have the same effect on aluminium walls. Sunlight, therefore, striking the inside wall of such a caravan can dissipate aluminium in potency form to considerable distances. If, however, the aluminium is coated by a non-aluminized paint, it will cease to radiate.
Many artificial sunlight lamps made of aluminium are very strong emitters of aluminium in potency form. Such radiated aluminium potency may not necessarily do much harm, but in some cases it is an important factor. The exposed face or upper extremities cannot absorb anything like the same amount of aluminium as that which can enter the body via the mouth in food.
I mentioned earlier on in this book that most vegetables and fruits, being natural foods, are aluminium-free, and I want now to elaborate this matter. The truth is, that all that grows in the soil ought not to give an aluminium potency reaction, and this is generally the case. It is, however, the practice these days to grow certain vegetables and fruits, in an unnatural way. There are many more people to be fed than used to be the case, and the standard of living is higher. Hence some fruits and vegetables are grown under glass, and certain chemicals are used on the soil, and sprayed on to the plants with the double idea of chemically replacing deficient elements in the soil, and of directly preventing plant diseases. There is no doubt whatever that the correct way of keeping the soil in health is by the addition to it of humus and manure, and not by doping it with chemicals. Results can be obtained by the use of chemicals, but it can be proved that such chemicals harm the soil and render the plants grown therein harmful from the food point of view. Many substances used for feeding both plants and the soil in which they grow, give an aluminium reaction, most often in the decimal range. A plant growing in such treated soil will then often give a reaction for a potency of aluminium in either the decimal or centesimal range. The plant then becomes a poison to an aluminium-sensitive person.
Tomatoes are most often affected. Many tomatoes sold in shops give an aluminium reaction on test. A plant giving such a potency reaction will gradually get rid of it if it is no longer fed on chemicals which themselves give an aluminium reaction. The more a plant, or its soil, is treated by chemical means, the more likely it is to be harmful. The remedy is to try and obtain compost-grown fruits and vegetables, which are sold here and there. If the demand for these increases, so will the supplies increase. It is also important that fruits and vegetables grown in one's garden are also only compost treated. The fruits of the earth are not poisonous except when man makes them so.
To illustrate this: a patient of mine recently bought another house which has a seven-acre garden, in which his gardener proceeded to grow all the usual vegetables and fruits. The gardener started his work by applying lime and sulphate of ammonia to the soil, and grew good crops of the needed vegetables. I had, in the early autumn, reason to test some of the vegetables, when we found that nearly all the garden produce gave an aluminium reaction. Curly kale, sprouts, broccoli, and spinach all had aluminium in 10x potency present in them. Beetroot, potatoes, and savoys were contaminated by aluminium in 6x potency, and carrots in 3x potency. The soil around these plants also had an aluminium potency reaction. Later it was established that both the lime and sulphate of ammonia gave an aluminium reaction, and these chemicals were the cause of the contamination of the vegetables and fruits. The grass on the lawns did not give an aluminium reaction, and it later transpired that this had not been treated with either the lime or sulphate of ammonia.
This, being a serious matter for this patient, made me do further work on the problem. It was found that soup made from a vegetable which had given an aluminium reaction, did not itself react to aluminium. This meant that the cooking process, or the mixture of the vegetable with other ingredients to make the soup, had destroyed the aluminium reaction. This led to further investigation. I found that if I took two vegetables, each giving an aluminium reaction, and boiled one in a stainless-steel pan,* and the other in an enamel one, that the vegetable boiled in the stainless steel one lost its aluminium reaction, whereas the one boiled in enamel did not lose its aluminium reaction. Further, I established that if I dissolved a potency of aluminium in water and boiled this water in a stainless-steel saucepan, the aluminium potency reaction disappeared.
* It is advisable to use stainless steel utensils with a copper base, such as are manufactured by "Prestige".
If, however, the boiling took place in an enamel saucepan, the reaction persisted. When fluids are boiled in stainless steel, potencies of the metals used in the make-up of stainless steel are formed in the water. None of these potencies are harmful to the human body in the same way that aluminium potencies are, and they cancel out an aluminium potency. This is an important matter. It is therefore desirable that stainless-steel saucepans and frying-pans be used in preference to enamel ones. By this means odd leaks in the food will be cancelled out in a stainless-steel saucepan.
Protagonists for the use of aluminium bring forward the argument that as the soil contains a large amount of aluminium silicate, in the form of various clays, that this aluminium compound will be absorbed by the plants, and that when these plants are consumed some form of an aluminium salt will be ingested. This argument is fallacious, because the actual form in which an aluminium salt is present in a plant is unknown. It is true that the aluminium content of a plant can be estimated, in the form of aluminium oxide, which proves that plants can contain aluminium compounds in some form or other, probably as complexes with the plant protein. No aluminium in metallic form has ever been found in a plant, and, in any case, as the harmful effects of aluminium are due to a potency of metallic aluminium, it will be readily seen that the arguments about the soil and its aluminium silicate content are completely beside the point.
The pity of the whole subject is that all this poisoning of food is avoidable. The knowledge is there, no food need be contaminated, and the vast amount of illness due to the metal could, and still can be, avoided. All that is necessary is a strict adherence to natural methods of crop growing, and the use of stainless-steel equipment in place of other metals, in factories making foods. That, surely, is not beyond one's dreams—but new means of using aluminium are still being found, year by year. One of the latest is its introduction as a backing material for clothes. Sunlight shining on these clothes can project some aluminium potency energy on to the skin—not probably very important in itself—but it does make one think!
8.
Illustrative Cases
Case 1. This case, a male salesman, came to see me on 16th July 1956.
He complained of gall-bladder pain, and there was some question of
gall stones. He had been to see a surgeon, and was on the point of going
into hospital to have his gall bladder removed. He did not feel or look
well. As he was over sixty years old such an operation would have been a
serious undertaking. No doctor had explained the trouble to the patient, or
given him an understanding of the disease process present. This patient's
physical vitality rate when first tested was 75% physical and 85% etheric.
The normal for each of these readings is 95%. The organs reacting wrongly
were the gall bladder, the gall-bladder duct, the large bowel, the
parasympathetic nervous system, and the thyroid gland. There was a reaction
for gall stones, and also a reaction for cancer, which in this case meant
that the background cause for cancer was in operation, and that eventually a
diagnosable cancer growth might appear. One week later the vitality rates
were 80% physical and 85% etheric, when both the cancer reaction and the
aluminium reaction had disappeared. On 8th August 1956 the vitality rates
were 85% physical and 95% etheric, and only two organs reacted
abnormally—i.e. the parasympathetic and the thyroid. There was again no
reaction for aluminium, or for cancer, though the reaction for gall stones
was present. On 31st August the radiesthetic picture was unchanged. On 26th
September 1956 the vitality rates were 90% physical and 95% etheric— i.e.
normal in the spiritual make-up, and a good average in the physical. This
patient, very soon after the disappearance of the aluminium reaction, has
experienced no abdominal symptoms of any sort whatever, feels well, and has
escaped a major operation. Without the help of radiesthesia no one could say
what would have been the final outcome of his troubles.
Case 2. A male aged forty-five who was a director in a firm. The patient had a duodenal ulcer operated on three years before I saw him; and before then had had his appendix removed. He came to me because he was having constant attacks of duodenal ulcer-type pain. He did not feel well. His physical vitality rate was 85% and his etheric one 88%—i.e. he was comparatively worse in the spiritual sense than in the physical. The organs reacting wrongly were the duodenum, the large bowel, and the rectum. There was a reaction for aluminium present, and also one for duodenal ulcer. He was put on the radiesthetically indicated remedies in potency, and advised about his aluminium-free diet. He discarded all aluminium ware, and avoided meals out. One week later the vitality rates were 88% and 95%, the aluminium reaction had gone, though there was still a reaction for duodenal ulcer, and the large bowel and rectum reacted abnormally. Two weeks later the physical vitality rate was 91% and the etheric one 90%. There was still a reaction for duodenal ulcer but no organ reacted abnormally. One week later still the readings were nearly normal—vitality rates of 92% physical and 95% etheric, and the ulcer had then healed up. Since then his vitality rates have kept at 93% physical and 95% etheric. He has no pain and feels well, and can eat anything he likes, provided it is not aluminized by factory, shop, or at home. The dieting may have been a lot of trouble to him, but he has got better by correct treatment. The fact that he was put to trouble by the careful food selection is neither here nor there. It is the only way to solve a problem such as this.
Case 3. This case was a man aged thirty-six. He wrote to me on 9th November 1956 and told me that he had been very myopic all his life, but that his sight had gone much worse lately. His eye specialist told him he could do nothing for him. This patient's first test showed a vitality rate of 85% physical and 90% etheric. The organs reacting wrongly were the small and large bowel, and the choroid coat of the eyeball. An aluminium reaction was present. He was given the indicated remedy, and instructed regarding his food and his kitchen. The next test showed rates of 90% physical and 95% etheric, as did the following one. The aluminium reaction disappeared, and no organ reacted wrongly. He soon noticed and wrote me about an improvement in his sight. A few weeks later the physical rate went down to 85% though the etheric remained at 95%. The aluminium reaction was back again with the same organs which were originally affected being affected again. He also reported that the sight was not so good again. His next test showed him to have a vitality rate of 91% physical and 95% etheric, and his sight is slowly improving, though it is not yet possible to say that it will ever reach normality, for the aluminium poisoning has damaged the eyes. But at any rate, the cause of the trouble has been detected and is being treated, and so something and not nothing, is being done.
Case 4. This is yet another eye case. A male patient, aged forty-eight, came to me because he felt giddy when walking or doing his work. Examination showed a paralysis of that eye muscle of the right eye which moves the eyeball to the right of the patient. The consequence was that if the patient looked to the right he got double vision, and subsequent vertigo. Further examination showed that he was nervous and highly strung, and that his blood pressure was slightly raised. He gave a history also of past duodenal-ulcer trouble, and had to take antiacid tablets daily for acidity. The radiesthetic examination showed a physical rate of 80% and an etheric rate of 85%. The organs reacting wrongly were the large bowel and rectum, and there was also an increased hydrochloric acid secretion inside the stomach. No eye part reacted abnormally. He was put on the indicated potentized remedy and a few weeks later the eye was normal and the vitality rates 93% and 95%. His diet is now wholly non-aluminized, but within these limits he eats what he likes, and gets no abdominal discomfort. An interesting sidelight on this case came to light when his food was being investigated for aluminium. His wife was in the habit of keeping inside her kettle a chemical water-softener that looked like an artificial oyster. This object reacted to aluminium, and was a potent factor in causing the poisoning. But when I thought I had detected all his aluminium-contaminated foods, another leak suddenly appeared in that it transpired he was using a dental fixative for his false teeth which gave a strong aluminium reaction. It is always necessary to investigate all the things that go into such a patient's mouth, including toothpastes, dental fixatives, and in the case of female patients, lipstick, for women very often pass their tongue tip over their decorated lips!
I have never forgotten a particular patient whom I had the greatest difficulty in rendering aluminium-free. Back would come the reaction unless she was constantly taking the antidote. I had forgotten to investigate her work. She worked in a grocer's shop. Now a grocer's shop as a rule has a smell. Was the smell aluminium contaminated? I told her to expose pieces of fresh cotton wool in certain areas of the shop. This wool, on test, reacted to aluminium, whereas before exposure there was no aluminium reaction. I also found that she was constantly wetting her thumb and forefinger in damping them to help her pick up grease-proof paper for food wrapping; whereby she picked up aluminium from the grease-proof paper. The only solution was to get her away from grocer's shops—which I did. This solved the problem as regards the aluminium leaks.
Case 5. This case is under treatment still. She is a child aged twelve, and a very bright child at that! She came to me about two months ago with ulcerative colitis. She had suffered very much medical treatment, and had lately been given cortisone tablets, with the result that her face was moon-like, her weight much above normal. Her anaemia was severe. The ulcers in the bowel were going good and strong, with daily passage of blood and mucus. The distracted parents were on the verge of finding a surgeon to remove the affected organ—a terrible procedure in a young girl. No thought had been given as to why this child had the disease. No one knew. Maybe an act of God? Surely an innocent child of that age had done no wrong? The first radiesthetic examination about two months ago showed a physical vitality rate of 75% and an etheric one of 80%, both very low indeed, especially for one so young. The organs reacting wrongly were the suprarenal gland, the parasympathetic nervous system (these two were due to the cortisone), the red cells of the blood, and the red colouring matter of the blood, and the large bowel. There was an aluminium reaction and about ten ulcers were indicated in the bowel. Treatment acted like magic in her case, though there was a temporary relapse due to her going to stay in an hotel for one week. The position at the moment is that the child looks a different being, is not passing blood often, and her motions are much more normal. The number of ulcers is down to six and one can hope for a total cure in a matter of another month or two. Such cases are however very sensitive to wrong diet, and it is imperative that henceforth her diet be quite correct, which will be a trouble to her husband when she marries. However that cannot be helped, as it is a matter of life and death.
Case 6. A female aged fifty-three. This lady for five years has had attacks of cystitis—an inflammation of the bladder— associated with slight pain on passing water, and frequency. Last year she went into a nursing home for X-ray and investigation. The result of this was that the X-ray revealed a kink in one ureter, which is the tube connecting the kidney with the bladder. The patient was also undergoing the change of life. The first test showed a physical vitality rate of 84% and an etheric rate of 90%. The only organ reacting abnormally was the large bowel. An aluminium reaction was present. She was given the indicated remedy, and one week later the vitality rate was 85% physical and 93% etheric. Two weeks later still it was 93% physical and 93% etheric, and no organ then reacted abnormally, and there was no aluminium reaction. The etheric rate was still below normal, but this lady had an ill husband, and was evidently under some stress and strain. She has had no further attacks of cystitis, and if she remains careful with her diet she should have no further trouble. These bladder cases are quite common, and as a rule they are very susceptible to aluminium leaks in the diet.
Case 7. Female aged thirty-five. This lady complained of dyspepsia, which had troubled her for years. X-ray of the stomach and duodenum had proved negative. There was some constipation, and the tongue was coated. The physical vitality rate was 85% and the etheric 90% instead of the normal 95%. The large bowel reacted abnormally, and there was an aluminium reaction. She was treated for two months, when her vitality rates were normal and the aluminium reaction was keeping away. She was then feeling much better.
The lady's daughter had a vitality rate of 80% physical and 80% etheric—very low for a child. This child had just constipation without any other symptoms, other than a tendency to catch cold. She became quite normal both as regards the tendency to colds and as regards the constipation, during a period of treatment of two months.
Case 8. This was a female patient aged fifty-three. She complained of feeling run-down, had been told she was suffering from a toxic bowel condition, though the bowels were being kept open by taking cascara and liquid paraffin. She also had to get up once nightly to urinate, and had had ulcers in her mouth on and off, and troublesome muscular fibrositis. She had thus many aluminium symptoms, and also her appendix had been removed. The organs which reacted wrongly in this patient were the large bowel, the thyroid, and part of the automatic nervous system. There was also an aluminium reaction, so this case added up to bowel toxaemia, or poisoning, plus the change of life. I have had to keep her under treatment on and off for two years as she was running a home for old people and her food was cooked in the kitchen of the home. Time after time the aluminium reaction reappeared owing to food faults, but this patient had perseverance, and she is doing quite well now. It is often necessary of course to give cases like this a constant supply of aluminium antidote to be taken once or twice weekly, to try and neutralize unpreventable aluminium leaks.
Case 9. This was a young man aged twenty-four who had started his career as a teacher. He complained of lack of interest in the work, feelings of indecision and unreality. He was a typical case of the mental changes caused by aluminium. Since treatment he has been feeling quite happy, even though overworked.
Case 10. A female aged twenty-six, also a teacher. She came to me because she kept getting attacks of fever, did not feel well and also had trouble with backache. On examination the large bowel was packed full of motion. The examination showed that the gall bladder, the bowel and the ureter (the tube linking the kidney with the bladder) all reacted abnormally. There was excessive germ-growth in the bowel, and an aluminium reaction. She keeps in touch with me now and then, and is keeping quite fit. If she does not feel quite up to the mark she sends her sample to me, and I generally find an aluminium reaction, as it is not easy for her to supervise all her meals. So by treating her now and then she is kept normal, and she herself clearly realizes the cause of any feeling of illness, whereas before she was treated she was very worried, as she had come to think she was a very unhealthy person.
Case 11 was a harassed business man who was always having dyspepsia, and who had been the round of doctors and hospitals. He felt he could not eat this or that food, and was constantly taking various stomach tablets. In spite of food difficulties, he has been kept quite free from discomfort over the last two years. His last letter to me was to say that he had had no pain, and much more go, and was generally feeling very fit.
Case 12. A female aged fifty-two. She complained of feeling off colour—headaches, migraine attacks. There were also some slight mental symptoms—irritability, and fits of bad temper. The organs reacting abnormally were the large bowel, the thyroid and automatic nervous system, and there was an aluminium reaction. Her vitality rates reached 93% physical and 95% etheric, and she ceased treatment. After two years she came back for retest when there was a reaction for a duodenal ulcer in consequence of renewed aluminium absorption. This ulcer healed after a few weeks, and she is again feeling quite well.
Case 13. A young female office worker who complained of intense back pains. These had troubled her for some years, but they were getting so bad that her family were beginning to think her a neurotic. However, the urine examination showed that she was a very sensitive aluminium case with poisoning from the bowel causing the fibrositis. She had to be treated for a long time because she kept getting aluminium leaks, but she is now keeping pretty fit, and only has muscular pain now and then.
In many such cases aluminium seems to damage the large bowel so that the poisoning is kept going by the damage done to the bowel by the aluminium, and hence such cases may prove troublesome from the point of view of rendering the patient symptom free.
Case 14. A boy aged seven years was brought to me suffering from total deafness. He had been to an ear, nose and throat specialist, who advised the removal of his tonsils and adenoids. On examination this child proved to be a plain case of aluminium intoxication, which was dealt with in the usual way, with the result that his hearing was back to normal in twenty-one days, and he has had no further trouble.
Case 15. This is a case of a lady aged thirty-four years. For the previous ten years she had been suffering from debility and depression. After many consultations with physicians and hospital consultants, the conclusion reached was that she was suffering from pernicious anaemia, and she was on weekly liver injections. However, she felt herself getting steadily worse, and began to have suicidal thoughts. Investigation showed her to be a severe case of aluminium intoxication. She was eating much food cooked in aluminium. Within a few weeks of starting appropriate treatment her symptoms disappeared, and her liver injections were discontinued. Her health since then has remained excellent.
Conclusion
I have now reached the end of this little book. I started off by describing
the aluminium problem, and then I discussed homoeopathy, and its bearings on
the subject. I described how aluminium in potency form was the active lethal
agent, and how the cure must come about by the use of remedies in potency
plus the cessation of use of aluminium ware. Then I went on to describe how
aluminium comes to one—in what disguise—and in how very many insidious ways
it can make its approach to wreak its damage on unsuspecting people. Then
evidence was quoted by other authors, who published their opinions on the
matter. Next I presented a picture, taken from a homoeopathic text-book, of
the effects of aluminium in potency form on a considerable number of people,
and followed this by a description of those effects which I personally have
most often encountered.
The key of the whole matter was then shown to be in the science of radiesthesia. I have tried to explain that this key is the only one which could fit this lock. Radiesthesia is the only science which fully explains the aluminium problem. Results of its application are given in Chapter 7, and these results should bear much weight. It must be stressed that radiesthesia is a serious science which involves harder work than any other form of medical examination. To those medical men, few in number, who have, by years of practice in the subject, acquired accuracy, the results are outstanding. Radiesthesia is not a subject that can be learnt easily in a few months. It takes years—often years of self-sacrifice and burning of midnight oil. No medical man, with all his background of orthodox training, will use any method of diagnosis and treatment which he knows is not true. I have already stated that, without its aid, I should consider myself blind, deaf, and dumb. Many and many a time have I examined a patient, and found no signs indicating structural disease. Without radiesthesia I might have concluded that a certain case had, for instance, suffered a "nervous breakdown" —but lacking radiesthesia I would not be able to indicate the mechanism of such breakdown from health. Radiesthesia alone is capable of exploring the patient and indicating the beginnings of processes which can end in the structural changes of visible disease. I trust, then, that readers will see fit to think that the key is well forged. Radiesthesia is a new science in its relation to medicine, though one hundred years ago there was in London a medical man who made some use of it.
The science of Physics fifty years or so ago was a science of material objects, and their effects on each other. Then the universe seemed governed by material forces, in the form of weight, and mass, and character. Now the spiritual value of the universe is much more to the fore. Matter, as we know it, seems to be movement or energy in a lattice-work of thought. The thought belongs to him who created it. The potency effect of aluminium is nearer the plane of the spiritual than to that of matter. Causes of disease lie, far more often than is generally realized, in the spiritual and etheric plane.
I hope that this book will make some people, even only a few, discard their aluminium utensils, and buy selectively those foods they need. In particular I would recommend the use of stainless steel, copper based (not aluminium based) cooking equipment, such as "Prestige". Although initially stainless steel utensils are more expensive than enamel ware, they can last a lifetime. The maintenance of good health is of paramount importance.
Appendix: THE SYMPTOMS OF ALUMINIUM INTOXICATION
First of all, there is a group of symptoms affecting the mind.
There is a disturbance of the intellect, whereby the patient cannot make up his mind about problems facing him. He is unable to decide things. He may feel a sensation of unreality so that the exterior world will seem strange and different to him. This may involve him feeling (hat when he speaks someone else has spoken instead of himself. The same thing applies to his vision. This may cause; confusion in writing and speaking. He may use words and sentences that, in fact, do not make sense, and he cannot help saying them even though he will realize later that they are wrong. There is marked inability to follow a consecutive thought train—to reason out problems.
Another effect of aluminium is a depression—the patient is full of sorrow. Nothing looks bright in his future, fears loom ahead and darken his horizon. He may feel that insanity is around the corner, and in some cases he may actually consider that he is insane. Often his moods may change, the fears disappearing for a time and he becomes placid and more normal, but this state will not last long and he will revert to his former state of apprehensiveness and fearfulness. He is generally worse in the morning than in the evening. He is forgetful about financial matters most of the time, but has periods of intense worry and investigation about them. In some cases there are suicidal thoughts, often activated by sight of knives. Such suicidal thoughts are yet accompanied with great dread of death. There is often boredom, sluggishness and apathy, and nothing matters.
Another mental symptom is an alteration of the sense of time. Either time drags and there is eternity in a minute, or he feels that the minute is too short, so he must do things in a hurry or it will be too late. Such are the mental symptoms of aluminium.
Next come the eye symptoms. The eyelids may stick together during sleep, but the eyes water in the daytime. The eyes look red and irritable. The skin of the lids may be coarsened and rough, and itching may be present. There may be a halo visible around lights, or the sight may go slowly dimmer as if there were a fog. There may be visible bright spots, sparks, or fields of colour. There may be weakness or paralysis of one or more of the eye muscles, and, in some cases, of the ciliary muscle, which controls the size of the pupil. There can be inco-ordination of the eye muscles, so that the sight varies and cannot be kept corrected by glasses.
Also, the ears and the auditory system can become deranged, so that there is giddiness and a sensation as if things are revolving around, but closing the eyes often makes the vertigo worse. The vertigo can cause a staggering gait. There may be changes in the hearing, and noises are common.
The nose and throat also show marked effects—even in the colour of the nose, which is often reddened. It may also be cracked at the end. The mucous membranes of the nose and throat are often dry and irritable, though the nose may also water extensively, with frequent attacks of sneezing. There may be crusting in the nose passages, more often the left side than the right. These crusts may have an offensive smell. Attacks of "colds" are frequent, and there may be a yellow copious discharge, with headache.
Headaches are indeed prevalent and can be of many sorts. They may be periodical and associated with abdominal symptoms. The throat is often rough, swollen, and velvety-looking, but it can feel dry and irritable. This results in attacks of hacking cough which can dramatically end up in the arrest of breathing and duskiness of the face, and which to an observer can be very alarming. The coughing is generally worse in the morning, but the choking attacks occur most often in the evening. The throat feels sore on swallowing and there is a sensation as if it were packed full of grit. Considerably thick mucus is often accumulated in the throat. Ulcers may appear on the tongue, gums, or in the throat. There may be a constant sensation of tickling in the throat, causing a hacking cough which may end in vomiting and also, in women, in the passage of some urine.
The larynx is the next organ which can give rise to symptoms. The larynx can feel sore, irritable, and the voice will be altered and husky. There can be considerable coughing, due to the laryngeal irritation.
The oesophagus—the swallowing tube running from the throat to the stomach—is often the seat of symptoms. There can be a peculiar difficulty in swallowing, which is worse with fluids than with solids. There is a pain felt in the middle of the chest, which becomes worse when swallowing is attempted.
These attacks of pain and difficulty in swallowing are periodical. The sensation when food is being swallowed is that of a painful effort—force has to be used to get I lie food through to the stomach. Swallowing is therefore incoordinated. Then we come to the abdomen, where there can be many symptoms.
There can be changes in the appetite. Often there is a craving for indigestible matter, such as earth, dust, ink, tea leaves. Condiments generally disagree. Sometimes potatoes cause upsets, but other vegetables and fruits arc longed for. There may be lack of appetite or even nausea at the sight of food, and all food lacks taste. There may be regurgitation of acid fluid from the stomach. Generally alcohol easily produces intoxication. Abnormal sensations may be felt localized in the stomach area as if something is crawling about inside the stomach. Further, many types of dyspepsia arc complained of— pain after meals, pain between meals, sensations of heaviness, as if the stomach were loaded with a stone.
Then constipation—a frequent complaint. The stools are often very hard and slimy. Sometimes they are of large size, but in other cases they are hard and thin. It is characteristic that although the rectum is full of motion it cannot be expelled, even though there is great straining. The bowels may not be open for a week or more. Even when the stool is soft there may be just the same difficulty in expelling it, and when it is expelled there often remains a sensation as if the reel um is still not fully emptied. There is soreness or pain in the anus, often associated with fissures. The anus often itches, and the skin around becomes thickened and coarsened by rubbing. Bleeding is common, either during or after the bowel action.
On the other hand, diarrhoea may be present. There are three or four or more motions daily, passed with urgency. The motion is in little flakes or pieces. There may be great flatulence, mostly passing downwards.
Symptoms arising in the urinary system often occur. There may be involuntary passage of urine when coughing. On the other hand, straining may be necessary to pass any at all, and when this is attempted some soft faeces may also be expelled. Often there is frequent passing of urine during the night. Often the passage of the urine is painful and smarting and there may be discharge of pus from the urethral opening.
The skin of the face is often dry, hard and tense and it can itch very much. There are many kinds of skin eruptions, which generally itch, especially in bed at night. The skin may be thickened, cracked, roughened. There may be extensive ulcerations on the feet, but more especially near knees and elbows. The more the itching caused by these eruptions, the more the scratching, and hence a vicious circle is set up which leads to progressive worsening of the state of the skin.
Then the limbs, which often show symptoms. The legs may feel heavy and weak; there may be aching in the calves, which may cause staggering in the gait. The legs also feel weak even when sitting.
There may be pain in the soles of the feet as if there were a nail in the shoe, but on the other hand there may be numbness and a tendency for the limbs to go to sleep, especially when the limb is pressed against something hard. Often the limbs feel heavy. There may be pain radiating down the limb and, in some cases, paralysis may be present. The knees may tremble and the gait be unsteady and there may be a feeling of general weakness, with a sensation of lack of strength. There may be pains in the back, of a stabbing nature. A feeling that a cord or string is tied around the body can be present. In some cases paralysis of one side of the body or of a limb can occur. Twitching of the head muscles is sometimes seen.
Lastly, even the dreams can be abnormal—they are often of a frightening nature, causing wakening in terror, with severe palpitation.
Such then is a list of the more common aluminium symptoms which can be present.
CANADA
Why Humanity Suffers, by W. E. Holder (Redcloth
Publishing Company, Toronto, Canada, 1943) pp. 114-15 and 185-90.
Cancer in Humanity (Redcloth Publishing Company, Windsor, Ontario,
Canada, 1946), pp. 113-20 and 126-28.
FRANCE
Le Cancer de l'Aluminium, R. Odier (Les Neoplasmes, 1925), vol. 4, p. 145.
GERMANY
Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie, Abegg
(1906, vol. iii, Part i, p. 68).
Uber Aluminium-Kochsalz-Verbindungen, Buerstenbinder ("Deutsche
Aertze Zeitung", 227).
Akute Aluminiumvergiftungen, F. H. Merck ("Deutsche Aerzte Zeitung",
245).
Zum Aluminium Problem, O. Putensen ("Deutsche Aerzte Zeitung", 223,
231, 242).
Aluminiumgeschirre und Hygiene, G. Turan ("Deutsche Aerzte Zeitung",
221).
Aluminium und Darm, F. Von Halla ("Deutsche Aerzte Zeitung", pp. 195
and 201).
GREAT BRITAIN
British Homoeopathic Journal, January
1932; May 1942.
Aluminium and Aluminium Alloys in the Food Industry, Department of
Scientific and Industrial Research.
Food Investigation, Special Report No. 50 (London: His Majesty's
Stationery Office, 1948) (J. M. Bryan).
Aluminium—A Menace to Health, by Mark Clement (True Health Publishing
Co., 1949).
The Danger of Food Contamination by Aluminium, by R. M. Le Hunte-Cooper
(John Bale, Son and Danielson, Ltd.,
London, 1932, 3rd edn.).
Additional Evidence on the Injurious Effects of Aluminium, by R. M.
Le Hunte-Cooper (Bale, Son and Curnow, Ltd.,
London, 1936).
An Outline of Aluminium Pathogenesis, by R. M. Le Hunte-Cooper (Bale,
Son and Curnow, Ltd., London, 1942).
Cancer—Its Prevention, by H. W. Keens (The C. W. Daniel Co., London,
1934).
Death in the Pot, by H. W. Keens (The C. W. Daniel Co. Ltd., London,
1937).
Some Kitchen Experiments with Aluminium ("The Lancet",
4th January 1913), pp. 54-5.
The Assimilation of Aluminium by the Human System, by S. Judd Lewis
("Biochemical Journal", vol. xxv, 1931).
Medical Problems of Today, by J. E. R. McDonagh ("Nature of Disease
Journal", vol. iii, London, 1934).
The Common Cold and Influenza, by J. E. R. McDonagh (Heinemann
[Medical Books] Ltd., London, 1936), pp. 125, 126.
The Universe through Medicine, by J. E. R. McDonagh (Heinemann
[Medical Books] Ltd., London, 1940), pp. 132, 133.
The Nature of Disease, by J. E. R. McDonagh (Heinemann [Medical
Books] Ltd., London, 1946), pp. 56, 57.
Medical Report on Aluminium Poisoning:
1. Dr. Coram James, "British Medical Journal", 9th April 1932.
2. Dr. Alexander Francis, ibid., 6th August 1932.
3. Dr. Eric Pritchard, ibid., 2gth October 1932.
4. Dr. Guyon Richards, The Chain of Life, pp. 183 et seq.
(London, 1934).
Aluminium in Food, by G. W. Monier-Williams, F.I.C. (Ministry of
Health Report, London, 1935).
The Chain of Life, by Dr. Guyon Richards (Health Science Press).
Why Aluminium Pans are Dangerous, by Edgar J. Saxon (The C. W. Daniel
Co. Ltd., London, 1939).
The Clinical Aspect of Chronic Poisoning by Aluminium and Its Alloys,
by Leo Spira (John Bale, Son and Danielson Ltd.,
London, 1933).
Aluminium Cooking Vessels, "The Times", 23rd November 1935. Leo Spira.
Chemistry and Industry 54, by N. D. Sylvester (1935).
Divination of Disease, by H. Tomlinson, m.b., ch.b., m.r.c.s.,
l.r.c.p. (Health Science Press, 1953).
Dowsing, by W. H. Trinder (Camelot Press Ltd., 1941). Trace Elements
in Food (Chapman & Hall, London, 1949).
An Introduction to Medical Radiesthesia and Radionics, by Vernon D.
Wethered, b.sc. (The C. W. Daniel Co. Ltd., 1957).
SCANDINAVIA
Aluminium as a Factor Contributing to the Rise and Progress of Different Pathologic Processes in the Organism, A. L. Tchijevsky ("Acta Medica Scandinavica", vol. 83, 1934).
USA
Aluminium Poisoning, by Charles T. Betts
(Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A., 1928. Sponsored by the Anti-Cancer Club of America).
Dare We Use Aluminium Cooking Utensils?, by Charles T. Betts (Toledo,
Ohio, 1932).
Absorption and Excretion of Aluminium in Normal Man, by F. P. Underhill
("American Journal of Physiology", 1929), vol.
90, 40.
Materia Medica, by J. T. Kent (Boericke and Tafel, Philadelphia).