Diet in Cancerl; First Paper: Full Text of Nine Cases

Abstract

This paper is intended to be practical, giving histories of some cases where there were special diets adopted which seemed to be beneficial. It is offered as a contribution to medical knowledge to point out the way in which the writer thinks that organic disease should be approached, that is, through the function of nutrition; to show that alimentation is an agent of tremendous power, and to impress the idea that diseased tissues are sometimes amenable to food influences even in apparently desperate instances. In a second paper the theoretical side of the question will be considered.

Case Details

Personal Characteristics

A man about forty years of age

Clinical Characteristics

A tumor on his scapula, as large as a pint bowl. It was evidently osteosarcoma, had its usual crackling feel, and resembled very closely one in the same position which dr. Twitchell had seen a short time previously, and for which he had removed the whole upper extremity, even scapula and clavicle.

Remission Characteristics

He found the tumor had nearly disappeared, there being apparently only a trifling thickening of the skin.

Treatment & Mechanisms

Proposed Remission Mechanisms

He was to take from the brook which ran through his native farm a plant which grew there (the adviser did not say what it would be), and use a weak infusion of it for his only drink every day until the tumor had disappeared. His diet, besides this, was to consist of bread alone. This advice was strictly followed; the plant he used was ‘water dock.’

Non-Clinical Treatment

Diet of bread; infusion of “water dock”