The pancreas secretes only about one-fifth of the amount of juice produced by the much smaller salivary glands, yet its secretion is much more concentrated and important. As many as four enzymes are secreted into the small intestine immediately adjacent to the bile duct. One of these enzymes, rennin, is also produced in the stomach. It turns milk into curds, a job that is mainly done by the stomach. When the stomach fails to function effectively the pancreas has a marvellous capacity to take on part of the stomach’s work load, since it can produce rennin just as efficiently as the stomach. Diastase, or amylase, changes starches into sugars, such as glycogen, dextrin and maltose. Trypsin, like pepsin, breaks down proteins into peptones and finally into the basic building blocks of protein, amino acids. The fourth enzyme, lipase, together with the bile, hydrolises fats into fatty acids and glycerol. In fact, the body cannot break down, digest and assimilate proteins, starches and fats without the enzymes secreted by the pancreas.

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Intestinal worms should never be considered harmless or their presence accepted as a necessary evil. Although in most cases we are dealing only with threadworms and roundworms, these intestinal parasites can still be quite harmful. The tiny threadworm (Oxyuris vermicularis) is often the cause of much discomfort. These worms, as well as the roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides), secrete toxic metabolic substances which are absorbed by the body. The result is a change in the blood composition and an adverse effect on the general condition of the person afflicted. Children with calcium deficiency are especially prone to infestation with worms, which constitutes a double dose of trouble for them since their power of resistance is already low and the damage will thus be magnified.

Today it has become much easier to eradicate these intestinal parasites, in as far as non-poisonous plant remedies are readily available. So do not let them settle in the intestines. Papaya preparations greatly facilitate the eradication of threadworms in the colon and of roundworms which inhabit the small intestine. Papay-asan is made from the tropical plant Carica papaya and is actually able to digest all kinds of worms that settle in the small intestine and the colon. Papaya is a palm-like tree with leaves similar in shape to fig leaves, but much larger. Its fruit, also called papaya, resembles a melon. When ripe it contains only a tiny amount of the vermicide enzyme papain, so it is from other parts of the plant that Papayasan is made.

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The patient should start the day early in the morning by walking barefoot on dewy grass, as recommended by Kneipp. This exercise draws the blood down to the feet and takes into the body the energy obtained from the earth. The result is a wonderful feeling of relief. If the weather does not allow this, paddling or stamping in cold water followed by physical exercises, preferably in the open air, can be done instead. In the course of the exercises, rhythmic movements, singing and vocal breathing exercises will help to disperse any mental blocks and free the inner self.

Breakfast should consist of pure, natural foods: various fruits, wholegrain muesli, wholewheat bread, butter and honey. Avoid the customary breakfast of milky coffee, white bread or rolls, and choose only natural wholefoods which contain the nutrients the body needs.

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Physical therapy is also beneficial. For about half an hour each night a hot and moist compress made with hay flowers and camomile should be applied to the kidney area. Hot sitz baths will also help. If the stones should cause bleeding, the patient should take Millefolium, Hamamelis virg., Echinaforce, Tormentavena and Cantharis 6x.

While carrying out these recommendations take the Rubiaforce treatment. Drink less liquid when taking Rubiaforce tablets. After completing one box of tablets wait a week before starting on another, but during this interval drink as much liquid as possible in order to thoroughly flush out the kidneys and prevent the formation of new gravel or stones. At the end of the week begin to take another box of Rubiaforce tablets; drink limited amounts of a weak kidney tea with Nephrosolid. Follow up with a further week without medication but drinking plenty, as before. The treatment is completed after the third week on tablets and a further week when, again, plenty of liquids are consumed.

Even though the stones will have disappeared after this treatment, it would be wise to repeat it in a shortened form every three months, just to be on the safe side. However, the diet must be watched all the time. If available, a tea made from Chanca piedra, a plant found in the tropical jungles of Peru, will enhance the effectiveness of the Rubiaforce treatment and can be taken in conjunction with it.

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It is interesting to note that the heart may continue to beat even when the person is already dead. On the other hand, it is also possible for the heart to stop beating although death has not yet occurred, as in the case of suspended animation (apparent death, or asphyxia). A strong electric shock, for example, causes a spasm in the heart which may temporarily suspend its function, but death itself does not occur until later, when the oxygen supply is cut off completely and carbon dioxide accumulates because it is no longer eliminated.

Vesalius, the father of modern anatomical research, wanting to determine the cause of death of a nobleman he had treated, performed an autopsy during which he noticed, to his horror, that the heart was still beating. Witnesses who were present at the autopsy took him to court. He was found guilty of having performed a post-mortem examination on a living person and he was sentenced to death. This illustrates that life does not always coincide with the activity of the heart. So, even if death has occurred, the eyes are glassy and breathing has stopped, the heart may nevertheless continue to beat for a little while.

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Archangelica officinalis UMBELLIFERAE

Angelica is one of the oldest-known herbs. It is a native of cold countries, Russia and Lithuania and Iceland, and as far south as Germany. It is classified as a biennial, but if it is not allowed to flower and is cut back hard it will grow as a true perennial.

The legends about angelica are many. It was introduced into England in the sixteenth century with already a wide reputation on the Continent as a powerful remedy for coughs, colds and rheumatic complaints—all the troubles of the cold, damp climates in which it grows naturally and, as Nature has ordained, where it is most useful to man.

In Europe, it flowers on St Michael the Archangel’s day, 8th May, and it figured in many rites and rituals for this festival. In England it gained a strong reputation as a stomach strengthener, and was used extensively, the roots in particular being chewed as a protection from the plague. Angelica root was said to actually cure even after infection had already taken place, and it was an ingredient in the “Four Thieves’ Vinegar”, a concoction of powerful herbs drunk by four robbers who pillaged the bodies of those dead from the plague, and maintained apparent immunity themselves.

In Norway, bread was often made using the dried powdered roots; but all parts of the plant are valuable, the leaves to use dried in pot-pourri (pick them before flowering commences), and the stems and bark stripped and candied, or cooked with rhubarb to take away its tart taste. The seeds are used to flavour liqueurs such as Chartreuse, and are also used commercially in perfumes.

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Samuel Hahnemann, the brilliant exponent of the homoeopathic school of natural medicine, found yet another principle relating to herb usage. He discovered that by giving massive doses at varying strengths of a particular herb certain symptoms could be produced in healthy people, and he formed the theory that a person showing this same set of symptoms in illness might be cured by an infinitesimal dose of the same herb. Application of his discoveries has provided some astonishingly effective results in the field of natural medicine. This is an over-simplification of a very complex theory, and further reading on the subject can be very rewarding.

I do not think any of us can scoff at something that works, and works not only on humans but on animals as well, thus confounding those who cry “Faith Healing!” and “If you believe in something hard enough, you will be cured.” Homoeopathic doses of herbs are even being used to activate the compost heap. Work done in England recently has shown that a concentration of one in ten thousand parts of yarrow (Achillea millefolium) added to the compost heap is the most effective “dose”. I have proved this myself, and the short time taken to produce rich well-decomposed compost has been very valuable to me in my herb nursery, where all the plants are organically grown and natural compost is one of their chief foods.

In 1927, in Baker Street, London, a Mrs Leyel started up a small shop selling dried herbs and herbal preparations, known as the “Society of Herbalists”. Interest in the use of herbs grew to such an extent that in 1936 a new Society of Herbalists was formed by admirers of her work, by those who had benefited by using herbs, and those who wished to gain more knowledge to help in healing others. The hundreds of members became thousands, and Mrs Leyel wrote many books that have become reference works for those studying natural medicine.

Another herbalist with a world-wide reputation is Juliette de Bairacli Levy, an Israeli lady who has spent a large part of her life living amongst some of the primitive peoples in so-called “under-developed” countries, learning from them their herbal lore and usage. The American Indians, the natives of several South American countries, and the gipsies all over the world, have given her a wealth of information on how they manage to raise their families and their live-stock under extremely poor conditions. In many cases, their health and vigour, even in old age, should bring shame on our affluent, enlightened society, with its increasing toll from asthma and obesity and early coronaries. Two of her books are listed in the bibliography at the end of this book, and I can recommend them to those wishing to raise livestock by natural methods or to care for the health and well-being of the family without recourse to unnatural products.

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Summer savory Satureia hortensis LABIATAE Winter savory Satureia montana

A beloved culinary herb of ancient Greece, savory has an annual variety, summer savory, as well as the perennial or winter savory. Both have similar flavour, and winter savory is the kind I have found best to grow. It is evergreen, of a spreading rather low habit of growth, with woody little stems on which appear tiny starry white flowers in spring and early summer. It has a pleasant aroma when the leaves are crushed, and a special affinity for beans, peas, and the squash and marrow family. A sprig added to the water when steaming chokos will make you wonder why they are still such a lowly vegetable. Remove the sprig after cooking, as the hard stem is not very palatable. The herb is used in sauces and to flavour herb vinegar and the softer leaves can be stripped from the stem and added sparingly to soups, too. It will stand longer cooking than most herbs, with no deterioration in flavour.

Open sun suits savory well, and moderate conditions, and it is easily grown either from seed or hard-wood cuttings, taken in summer or early autumn.

Often added to herbal medicines for its warming qualities and pleasant taste, disguising some of the more unpalatable herb flavours, it has been used also, like rue, to sharpen sight.

Savory was taken to America by early British settlers, and has naturalized well. Crushed leaves rubbed on a bee-sting alleviate the pain. Try a few well-bruised sprigs of savory steeped in white wine for a refreshing tonic drink. If the flavour of basil is too strong for you in a recipe, substitute savory. If you are partial to young button squash or the dark green zucchini, slice them thinly, saute quickly in butter to which a savory sprig has been added, and serve immediately.

An unusual conserve can be made using the herb. It goes equally well with cold meat as a garnishing jelly or on toast as a jam. Try it drizzled over ice-cream too, as a piquant sauce. Top the dish with a sprig of fresh applemint or pineapple mint.

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Vegetable Hotpot

1/2 stick celery

4 medium carrots

2 small onions Chopped cabbage Mustard or cress sprouts 4 tablespoons oil

1 cup stock

2 tablespoons cornflour Small handful hyssop leaves Salt and cayenne pepper

Wash and dice all the vegetables (except the sprouts), and add to the hot oil, tossing to coat them evenly. Saute over moderate heat for several minutes. Add the hyssop and seasonings, then add the stock, cover and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the sprouts just at the last minute, heat through and serve immediately. Do not overcook, as the vegetables should be crisp and chewy.

It is frequently used in the perfume industry, its concentrated oils being blended with other fragrances in eau-de-Cologne.

Plant hyssop as a low hedge around the vegetable patch. Its flowers will bring the bees, and its roots have been found to cleanse the soil and keep many soil pests at bay. Don’t, however, grow it near radishes: the two plants are not compatible, and the radishes will have poor flavour.

Hyssop has also been found to improve the yield from grapevines if planted along the rows, particularly if the terrain is rocky or sandy, and the soil not as easy to work as it might be. So add another plant to the list of those that can improve the health and productivity of food crops. Some day soon, as man’s distrust of artificial growing methods forces him to turn back to Nature, all these green natural “chemical factories” will once again be given the opportunity to work for us.

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Allium schoenoprasum LILIACEAE

There is in every cook’s opinion

No savoury dish without an onion;

But lest your kissing should be spoiled

The onion must be thoroughly boiled! So said Jonathan Swift, and so at one time or another have all of us felt about the pungent smell of onions. This anti-social property is also shared by their small cousins, onion chives and garlic chives. But those of us who have any knowledge of natural medicine know that the onion family, with garlic at its head, is one of the greatest blessings to mankind in all the plant kingdom. I venture to say that if more people questioned their natureopathic physicians on the use of garlic in “miraculous” treatment of asthma and bronchitis, there would be an astonishing decrease in the misery caused by these diseases. Chest complaints cannot all be laid at the doorstep of smog and pollution. Some come from bad nutrition, causing imbalance and consequent bodily malfunction, which our foetid air only aggravates; and for most of these inherent bodily weaknesses garlic or one of its chive relatives can be of inestimable value.

I don’t propose in this book to deal with garlic itself. The study of all its cleansing properties would fill a very much larger volume; but I hope to write at length of it in a further book.

Chives have, to a lesser degree, very similar properties in the safeguarding of general good health and the warding off of disease. They contain, amongst other valuable constituents, iron, pectin and sulphur, and are a mild natural antibiotic. They help to strengthen the stomach and combat high blood pressure, and have a tonic effect on the kidneys. Every invalid recuperating from serious illness should have chives every day in the diet, for they have a stimulating effect on the appetite and, like all herbal medicine, have no troublesome side-effects. Chives also reduce the indigestibility of fats in food—a boon to those cholesterol-level watchers.

The herb came to Europe via the Asian cultures, and it is mentioned in early Chinese herbal writings. Marco Polo is credited by some with spreading its fame anew around the Mediterranean.

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