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COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 
























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I 












PERSONAL BOOK 


OF THE 

Ralston Health Cluh 

” I 

INTRODUCING ITS 

-PERSONAL SYSTEM" 


Nor Love, nor Friends, nor Wealth, nor Power, 
Can give the Heart a Cheerful Hour 
When Health is Lost * * * Be timely Wise 
And Strongly Guard Earth’s Greatest Prize. 


THE 

PERSONAL BOOK 

IS ISSUED BY 

RALSTON UNIVERSITY COMPANY 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 

1911 

NORTHERN ADDRESS 

RALSTON COMPANY 

“RALSTON HEIGHTS" 

HOPEWELL, MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY 







COPYRIGHT 1910 

BY 

RALSTON UNIVERSITY COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


COPYRIGHT 1911 
BY 

RALSTON UNIVERSITY COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



©CI.A283272 



‘THE DEEDS THAT MAKE EARTH BETTER" 


DEDICATION 


TO 

E. R. E. 


r J 7 HE deeds that make earth better are imperishable flowers 

- that grow in the garden of human character. €JThey 

• are beautiful to look upon, and their fragrance 
reaches the highest courts of heaven. €JThey exhale a glory 
here, and breathe a welcome there. ^[They raise some part 
of life to paradise, they bring some part of heaven to earth, 
and in this union they proclaim their parentage. 


W. E. 


RfALSTON HEIGHTS” 
Hopewell, N. J. 


WILL YOU? 


* * * 

Will you read this book twelve times? 

If you will, we will make it worth your while. 

This book contains the most successful system of modern 
times; its results are attracting attention everywhere. 

We ask of you, as a personal favor, that you will carefully, 
slowly, patiently and thoroughly read every word of this won¬ 
derful work once a month for twelve months; for reading means 
adoption. If you read this book through once you will con¬ 
sciously or unconsciously live up to some of its standards; two 
readings will establish new lines of thought that will affect your 
daily existence; three readings will start new habits; and a dozen 
readings will bring your whole life into a clear understanding of 
the mighty influences that are at work to make you into a new 
being, so much superior to your present self that two photographs, 
one taken now, and one a year hence after twelve readings, will 
show two different personalities! 

Are you willing to become an example of perfect health, of 
vigorous energy, of powerful physique, and of magnificent ap¬ 
pearance, so that your friends and acquaintances will marvel at 
the change? 

If so, the Ealston Health Club will stand by you through 
thick and thin, and will prove its friendship at all times. This 
book is paid for; you owe us nothing; we ask no money; all we 
want is that you give the system twelve readings, and make your¬ 
self an example of its power. 


4 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


5 


Platt nf tlw -jferamtal look 

The Ralston Health Club teaches in this book that diet, 
fixed rules, exercise, and other widely used methods are power¬ 
less to bring the weakened human body back to normal condi¬ 
tions. All these things are good for a while; but they fall 
short of the great end desired. 

No two persons are alike. 

Each individual should know himself, and be shown the 
way to find his needs. 

The diet that is good for one person may not be good for 
another. 

There is a way to know what one wants, and this way is 
taught in the present work. 

While there are laws that are valuable at all times, there 
are no rules that lift the body out of its depressions, and the 
more this course is insisted upon, the less attractive life be¬ 
comes. New impulses are needed to take the place of those that 
are lacking in the broken temple. 

The better plan is to bid farewell to the old body, discard 
it part by part, and build a new edifice in its place. As it lives 
in the act of a constant change, this method is both feasible and 
simple. 

It is possible to become some one else; to have a new brain, 
new flesh, new blood, new nerves, new faculties, and a wholly 
different body. 

A person who is now in good health can do nothing better 
than to make the body IMMUNE by this process of a new creation. 

But one who is ill or weak can find no power in this world that 
will bring permanent health except under the plan of the pres¬ 
ent work. 

This Personal Book is complete in itself. 

It proceeds by a logical increase of value along the follow¬ 
ing steps: 

1. It removes part by part the old body. 

2. It uses perfect material and a high state of vitality in 
building or creating, part by part, a new body. 

3. It then shows the way to keep the new body always at 
the highest standard of health. 


6 


PERSONAL BOOK 


4. It recognizes the fact that nature, from the beginning 
of life, sets up processes that bring on ripening; that these pro¬ 
cesses are necessary in order to give the body of the infant the 
growth that brings strength and maturity; but that, after such 
maturity, the processes may be checked and controlled for a re¬ 
markable length of time. 

5. It brings the organs into their best functional duties, 
and the faculties into the highest state of usefulness. 

6. It recognizes the law of nature that the ripening pro¬ 
cesses cause a wearing out and breaking down of the faculties, 
and thus invite decreptitude long before life should be on the 
wane. 

7. It shows the individual what course is best to pursue in 
seeking personal health. 


IT TEACHES 

“THE HEEDS THAT MAKE EARTH BETTER.” 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


7 


CREED 

OF THE 

RALSTONITES 


BELIEVE that life on this earth may be made beau¬ 
tiful and productive of happiness in the highest degree. 
Our reason for so believing is based on the fact that Nature is 
filled with possibilities of extraordinary beauty in all her works, 
and she is constantly holding out to humanity the ways and means 
of a splendid enjoyment of her gifts. 

W RECOGNIZE the fact that the human race is facing 
X a struggle for existence, the like of which has never 
been known since the dawn of civilization. All the inventive genius 
of man is today concentrated on methods by which his greed may 
reap increasing profits, even to the extent of producing inferior 
and adulterated goods of every character that are needed as food 
for the people, so that at the present time it is almost impossible 
to obtain the necessaries of life in wholesome form. Health suf¬ 
fers. People who are only half-well go about their work as best 
they can. Their earning capacity is lessened. Others are too ill 
or too weak to bear their part in the battle of life. 


RECOGNIZE the fact that this lack of health is bring- 
K ing increased expenses to every family; that to meet the 


demands of the sick and the half-well, the medical profession is 
increasing its numbers much faster than the population is increas¬ 
ing; and that this great army of doctors must be supported by the 
people who still retain their earning capacity. 



8 


PERSONAL BOOK 


RECOGNIZE the fact that the demand for drugs and 
medicines is rapidly growing. The annual consumption 
of such concoctions is so great that a freight train extending from 
Maine to California would, if heavily loaded to the top of each 
car, carry only two-thirds of the drugs that enter the human sys¬ 
tem every year. A large proportion of this freightage consists of 
patent medicines, which contain the slave-habit drugs of opium, 
laudanum, morphine, cocaine and chloral, as well as alcohol; and 
the result of the wide sale of such medicines is the fastening on 
the people of drug habits which, once started, can never be thrown 
off. There are now in the United States more than one million 
victims of these narcotic drugs, and one hundred thousand new 
victims are being added every year! Thus in the effort to obtain 
relief from the illness due to the forced use of inferior and adul¬ 
terated foods, the people seek the help of medicines only to find 
themselves becoming slaves to drug habits that are worse than 
death. 


RECOGNIZE the fact that the earning capacity of the 
people in all ranks of life, in and out of business and 
the professions, is decreased by the forced use of inferior and adul¬ 
terated foods; and the expense of methods to cure the illness that 
follows, is constantly growing larger; added to which is the in¬ 
creased cost of all necessaries of life; reaching at this time a total 
burden so great that it is being only temporarily endured. These 
three influences are more than human conditions can meet, and 
much more than human nature will long submit to. Each influ¬ 
ence has its source in an inordinate greed that seeks all the profit 
it can reap, regardless of the suffering that is brought to the peo¬ 
ple at large. 

1 1 % THEREFORE stand face to face with three enemies 
of health: 

1. —The adulterators of foods. 

2. —The makers of drugged medicines. 

3. —The controllers of the necessaries of life. 

And, by the system contained in this Personal Book, we offer 
a double boon to humanity: 

—Perfect health free from the greed of these three enemies. 

b.—A rich longevity. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


9 


DEPARTMENTS 

OF THE 

Personal Book of the PLalston Health Cluh 


"TTsT" 

FIRST DEPARTMENT 

‘THE NEW VITAL BODY" 

- 1 - 

SECOND DEPARTMENT 

“THE NEW PHYSICAL BODY" 

- 1 - 

THIRD DEPARTMENT 

“THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCE" 

- 1 - 

FOURTH DEPARTMENT 

“GOVERNMENT" 


THE DEEDS THAT MAKE EARTH BETTER” 












10 


PERSONAL BOOK 


“THE DEEDS THAT MAKE EARTH BETTER" 


FIRST DEPARTMENT 

OF THE 

PERSONAL BOOK 

OF THE 

RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Nfut Tffital Snirif 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


11 


Chapter One. 


“VITAL LIFE ” 


The living fire that feeds 
the body is born within 
its nervous centers and 
may be wonderfully Increased. 



ONSTANT reference is made in this book to that 
power which is ever present in all things that live, 
and which holds the secret of health or illness. What 
it is, no one knows. What it does, is a matter of com¬ 
mon knowledge. The same elements that make np a 
living body, may be brought together by the chemist, but they will 
not become life. Something is lacking, and the chemist cannot 
give it. 

A plant cannot be fed on food that is wholly artificial. If 
potash and lime are added to the soil, they must be drawn into 
the life of the soil before they can nourish the plant. They thus 
become life, and are then said to be organized into living con¬ 
ditions. A live plant placed in soil that is rich but wholly arti¬ 
ficial, would not grow. Nor must more matter be added to any 
soil than the soil can take up into its own life and make natural; 
for such excess will destroy the plant. 

All food of the human body is of plant growth. 

It may come in the form of meat, but always from an animal 
that has fed on plant life in some way. A person who eats meat 
from a meat-fed animal, cannot long remain healthy; for such 
food is too far removed from the source of natural energy which 
is plant growth. 





12 


PERSONAL BOOK 


The kind of food that the plant thrives on is well known; 
and the same kind of food is necessary for the human body. The 
plant performs the duty of organizing lifeless material into living 
material. No other agency on earth can perform this duty. 
What is good for the plant is good for man; but man is not able 
to organize lifeless material into living matter. 

Nature is so anxious to keep her supply of life abundant 
that she breaks out everywhere into plant existence. If man will 
not cultivate the soil, nature will till it with weeds or any chance 
growth that she has at hand. The neglected farm, if not in grass, 
will run to a wonderful luxuriance of weeds for a few years; after 
which coarse brush will follow; and finally a forest will occupy 
the soil. If you set out a vegetable garden and leave it to itself, 
in a few weeks you will find a host of weeds for each and every 
plant you have induced to grow there. No place escapes this 
purpose of nature to keep her fund alive. 

She is merely converting all lifeless material of the soil into 
living matter. When the time comes that she will cease to do this, 
the earth will become a dead planet. 

Man is able to get together the lifeless material. He has 
tried for ages to bring life into it. But the one thing essential 
is lacking, and that is Uital mfe. 

This double term may seem to contain a repetition of mean¬ 
ing; but there is a distinction between life that is vital and life 
that is not vital. Thus the soil may be filled with live food ready 
for the plant; yet it does not become Uit&l ICtfp until it enters 
the plant and puts forth an energy that gives increasing power 
to that plant. 

In the human body another slightly different distinction is 
made, and it is this: The parts of the body that are not under 
the sway of the energy of nature, are said to contain life ; while 
the one part that is at any one time swayed by such energy is 
said to possess the dominant force known in this system as 

Uital Htfr. 

This energy is movable. 

In a healthy person it is present at the stomach during di¬ 
gestion. If it is absent then, there can be no real good in the 
meal itself. . The habit of eating when the Uxtal Htfe is some¬ 
where else, is one of the common causes of bad health arising 
from indigestion. The food will pass into a sour or fermented 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


13 


condition which will give rise to gases and to poisons that affect 
the heart, the liver and the kidneys, resulting in poor blood and 
loss of tone in the system. 

Httal IGtfe follows the source of greatest demand. It is mov¬ 
able and travels about the body. If you worry, your Utfai Slife 
will cling to your brain, and, being thus absent from your stomach, 
you cannot digest your food. Excessive joy does the same thing. 
Many a person is unable to digest a meal when good fortune has 
taken complete possession of the mind. It has always been sup¬ 
posed that worry alone would stop digestion; but the fact is that 
whatever will absorb the attention, whether excess of good or bad 
news, will draw the Uttal ICtfp from the stomach and thus leave 
that organ without the means of carrying on successful digestion. 
This fact is today well known, although it is new to the world at 
large. 

Many experiments have been made with this power, and some 
of these will be given attention in this system. 

To begin with, nature supplies each and every child at birth 

with its Itital Stiff. 

The parentage has much to do with the character of the 
supply to start with. But conditions may improve or lessen the 
first gift; as a daily change is going on all the time, year in and 
year out. What was weak to begin with may be made strong; and 
what was strong to begin with, may be made weak by the kind 
of treatment received. Many strong children come into the world, 
only to grow sickly by the diet and habits thrust upon them. 
Many others are weak when they come into the world, and grow 
strong by reason of receiving good food and care from the very 
start. The spark of life is often snuffed out by innocent igno¬ 
rance; or it is lessened by neglect and bad methods; or it is made 
to flame up out of almost nothing into a great power. It is like 
the fire on the hearth stone; almost gone out; but capable of 
being fanned into a new vigor if some one will only try. 

Grown persons are slowly dying because of this lack of knowl¬ 
edge and painstaking care. Their Uttal ICtf? is becoming weaker 
every day. Countless causes are at work; the foremost of which 
are errors in the selection and preparation of food. The rush 
and friction of modem life play their part as well. There is no 
rule of nature that has so few exceptions as that which declares 
that simplicity of food and habits is necessary to a strong vitality. 


14 


PERSONAL BOOK 


It comes down to the point of choice between two leading high¬ 
ways: one avoiding the excitement of fast living for the sake of 
good health; the other choosing to take chances of breaking down 
the constitution in the eagerness to live at a faster clip than ever 
before. 

The following statements are for study only, and 

MAY BE OMITTED BY THE GENERAL READER 
IF TOO UNINTERESTING. 

1. The power to throw off disease depends always in the 
first place on the amount of Uttal Sltf? present in the body. 

2. If the supply is abundant, it is never possible for a person 
to take any malady that is contagious. No matter how great may 
be the exposure to the germs of consumption, small pox, typhoid, 
meningitis, pneumonia, grippe, diphtheria, or any of the other 
dreaded diseases, no impression is made on the health of the 
person so exposed. This is not a theory; it has been proved many 
times, and is being proved today in all parts of the world. 

3. It is positively know that a man or woman whose Uttal 
iCtfc has been increased beyond a certain point, needs no other 
protection against sickness. The rules of hygiene never apply to 
such a person. It makes no difference how much germ-laden dust 
may be floating in at the windows or rising from the floor. The 
germs of tuberculosis die in attacking such a constitution. Im¬ 
pure milk, and typhoid drinking water from wells poisoned by 
surface drainage cannot bring harm. Every law of cleanliness 
may be broken with impunity. It is true that others who are 
less fortunate might suffer from such habits of carelessness; but, 
by the fiat of the survival of the fittest, the individual who makes 
his body vital in its life, is sure to go unscarred. 

4. The proneness to a common cold is merely the sign of a 
low state of the'Uxtal ICtfo as a vigorous degree of health is sure 
to ward off all colds. One person is careful every minute of the 
night and day; another is careless. Yet the former is subject to 
a cold many times in the year; while the latter never has one. 
It is not because of the hardening process that colds are kept 
away. Many a person has gone into fatal pneumonia by trying to 
make the body hard by lack of care. It all depends on the 
amount of Uxtttl IGtfp present. Nothing else determines the fact. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


15 


5. Much of the prevailing illness of the human race is due to 
the use of things as foods that are not foods; and an increase of 
Uital Safe will not bring immunity against such maladies. Thus 
appendicitis is due to adulterations in foods, baking powders and 
meats; and no person’s vitality can withstand poison; although 
some succumb to it more easily than others. Rheumatism also is 
the result of long persistence in eating too many non-food ele¬ 
ments, and vitality will not keep it away. All food elements that 
the body needs and uses are free from this influence; but, as 
those elements that are not food or that contain parts that are 
not food, are regarded as poisons, the use of them is an act of 
poisoning the body; and this explains rheumatism. Certain fruits 
at all times, and all fruits under certain conditions, contain 
poisons that result in rheumatism. A plain example of this fact 
is seen in the common tomato. It contains oxalic acid, which is 
a poison to the body; and a person who is easily subject to rheu¬ 
matism, will invite a severe attack by eating tomatoes in any 
form; while people who do not become rheumatic will find no 
harm in them. It all depends on how much poison the blood 
has already accumulated; a little more may be carried in some 
cases; in others a greater quantity will be safely absorbed. 

6. But, omitting such maladies as appendicitis and rheuma¬ 
tism which are due to poisons that are almost harmless in foods, 
other forms of sickness depend on the Uttttl ICtfe present in the 
body. You may become immune against contagious and against 
every germ disease; but you cannot become immune against poi¬ 
sons unless you stop taking them. Vitality is never able to defy 
such enemies. If therefore you would increase your Uital iEtfe 
you must make up your mind to lessen all poison foods that you 
are now in the habit of taking. Having taken this step, then you 
may successfully build up an enormous power that will protect 
you against everything in this world except violence or accident; 
and these may be lessened by the greater degree or precaution that 
will follow your advent into the ranks of the immunes. 

7. The child that hovers between life and death, will live if 
its vitality is not too low. There the turning point is met in all 
such cases. 

8. A man of iron will lay on a bed of sickness. He pos¬ 
sessed enough will power to save a thousand men; but his Utfctl 

was at low ebb. He had been losing it for years; and now. 


16 


PERSONAL BOOK 


when he was ill and needed it, he did not have it, and so he died. 
After the awful attack of pneumonia many a great man whose 
life would have been of great value to the nation, has faded away 
because the vital spark was too weak. In fact of all the deaths 
from pneumonia, nine in every ten come when the vitality has 
diminished below the mark where life can be sustained. The same 
fact is found in typhoid. If the patients had acquired a fair 
degree of vitality during the years of freedom from ill health, 
they would be able to survive the crisis in the fever. If they had 
acquired a large amount of'JJital they could never have been 
felled by this malady or any other contagious disease; in fact, 
they would never have been made ill. 

9. Except for the poisons that give rise to appendicitis and 
rheumatism, sickness is impossible in any human being who has 
built up the Uital Htfr. 

10. To this act of building up such life in the body, add a 
sensible selection of foods from day to day, and you will have 
solved the whole problem of health and longevity. 

11. A double duty is therefore taught herein: 

First, the building of Uiial IStfe 
Second, the avoiding of poisons in food. 

Having taken these two steps, you will find yourself absolutely 
and forever immune against sickness in every from. 

You will never have a sick day. 

You will never know what pain is. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


17 


Chapter Two 


LIFE CENTERS 


The human body is a machine 
that is fed by life electricty 
generated In the nervous centers 
and stored in countless batteries 


HETHER a man is awake or asleep, his body is at work 
as long as he lives. The vital life is attracted to 
whatever part is most in use. If the stomach is doing 
its work it holds the vital host aronnd its region. If 
the mind is busy, it retains the vital host. As this 
host or mass of traveling vitality cannot sustain two operations 
at the same time and do both well, it is best to separate them. 

You cannot carry on digestion when your mind is intensely 
engaged in any task. If a hard problem is there, then the mind 
holds the vital host, and the stomach will wait. It has been 
proved that a meal eaten just before a five-hour business meeting 
of the greatest importance, remained for all this time in the 
stomach in just the condition as when it entered. 

Dogs who have started on a hard run immediately after a 
meal, and been killed in the chase, have shown that digestion had 
not even been commenced. This proves that vigorous physical 
effort demands the vital host, just as vigorous mental effort re¬ 
quires it. So worry of the mind will attract the vital host, and 
the stomach will have to wait; or rather the food will ferment. 

An effective experiment has been made by hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of Ralstonites with the vital host. When it was found that 
the mind would indulge in thinking as soon as a person got in 
bed for the night’s slumber, it was suggested that the vital host, 
havihg no other call, took its place in the brain and compelled 
the mind to work. The thinking delayed and often destroyed the 






18 


PERSONAL BOOK 


night’s sleep. They then tried the experiment of taking a bowl 
of hot bouillon soup as soon as they had got in bed. This was 
an attraction to the stomach, enough to keep it active, and not a 
nitrogenous meal that would cause distress in digestion. Being 
in the stomach, the soup at once drew the vital host from the 
brain, and sleep intervened long before the bouillon was digested. 
This experiment has been tried so many thousands of times that 
doctors have now adopted it as one of the means of inducing sleep 
when it is lightly interfered with. 

As the vital host cannot be in the brain and the stomach at 
the same time, and as it is the cause of sleeplessness in light 
cases, the attraction to the stomach relieved the brain of its 
presence. 

The counter irritant used so much in medical practice pro¬ 
ceeds on the same law. The soaking of the feet in hot water and 
mustard is still a good remedy to draw the clogged and sluggish 
blood from the chest and head. 

When you suffer from indigestion and an inactive liver, un¬ 
dress, get in a bath tub, and bathe one side of the body from the 
hip bone to the armpit; then wipe it dry; using warm, and then 
hot water in the bathing; and cool water in the rinsing. Wipe 
it vigorously until very dry. Then wet the head and bathe the 
other side of the body from the hip bone to the armpit with cool 
water, and no hot water; and keep making it colder; then wipe 
dry. But just before it is wiped, note the extraordinary vitality 
of the side that was first bathed, provided you have not splashed 
any water on the first side when bathing the second side. 

This shows how the vital host travels about. It is an in¬ 
teresting and important experiment. 

The next night, reverse the sides, but bathe in like manner, 
and note that the vital host has gone to the second side. Its 
presence is so distinct that it is a source of wonder. 

Suppose your chest and lungs are weak, or the circulation is 
sluggish; all you need do is to invite the vital host to the weak 
part. This is done by undressing and getting in a bath tub, in 
a room where the temperature is eighty or more, or not much 
under eighty. Be careful not to get water on any part of the 
body except the chest, just where you wish the vital host to appear. 
Bathe that first in tepid water, then in hot water, then in hotter 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


19 


water, and finally rinse in cool, but not cold water. If no part 
of the body has been made wet but the front chest, or the whole 
girth of the chest around the body front and back, then you will 
be ready for the next step in the test, which is to wet the head 
and bathe the body from the hip bones dowm to the feet in mildly 
warm water, then in cool water, and finally in cold water. 

Avoid rush of blood to the head. 

Between the act of bathing the chest in the manner stated and 
the act of bathing the lower body, the chest should be wiped dry, 
not a particle of moisture remaining there. 

As soon as the chest is dry, and the cool water is put on the 
legs, the vital host will go to the chest in great volumes and there 
invigorate it for a while. You will notice the exhilarating effect 
of the presence of so much vitality. 

The oftener these experiments are made, provided the diet is 
plain and nutritious, the more the vital host will grow. Some 
persons have given it so much increase of volume that it has 
nearly taken the place of the elaborate natural system known as 
Life Electricity which is described in the final pages of this book. 

If your head is dry and you go into the ocean for a bath, the 
vital host will travel to the head, and may cause over-pressure. 
As all bathers are presumed to know this, they first wet the head 
in cool water and then go in with the whole body. As the head 
dries it must be again wet. 

An arm that was shriveled and that no doctor could restore, 
was brought back to its full size by this use of the vital host; it 
would be bathed in warm water which was gradually made hotter; 
then it would be cooled in mildly temperate water and wiped dry; 
after which the legs from the hip bones down to the feet were 
bathed in cool and then cold water; during which time the arm 
would receive the vital host and be nourished. Many repetitions 
brought it back to health. 

There are scores of pretended secrets for building the bust 
and filling in the hollows of the upper chest, so as to give better 
symmetry to that part of the body; but they depend on grease 
and massage, unless they adopt the plan in the work on Chest 
Culture which belongs to Ealstonites of the tenth degree. 

But the use of the vital host as a builder of any part of the 
body is so satisfactory that it is superseding all secret methods. 
It is healthy and safe, which means a great deal. 


20 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Suppose you wish to build up some thin part of the body, 
say the hollows of the chest; the first thing to do is to establish 
a plain diet in eating, according to the rules of this book; then 
take the vital bath. The hollows must be bathed with warm, then 
with hot, then with hotter water; then rinsed with cool water; 
allowing no water to go to other parts of the body. Wipe dry 
and thoroughly. Then wet the head and bathe the legs from the 
hip bones to the feet with warm, then with cool, then with cold, 
then with very cold water; and you will at once note the tremen¬ 
dous inflow of the vital host at the hollows of the chest, or 
wherever you seek to build the body. 

This is called creating a new body by the vital host process. 

Suppose the circulation of the heart is weak; send the vital 
host to that part in the same way. 

Here is an oft made experiment used to cure weak stomach. 
As is well known, when the stomach will not digest food the vital 
host will not visit it. Undress; bathe the region over the stomach 
with warm, then with hot, then with hotter, then with very hot 
water; rinse with warm, then with cool, then with cold water; 
wipe so as to cause great friction. When the region is dry, wet 
the head and bathe the legs from the hip bones down to the feet 
with cool, then with cold water; and at this time the vital host 
will be at the stomach. As it is not a thin surface flow, but a 
thick mass occupying much of the interior of the body, it will have 
entered the stomach itself, and have accomplished more good than 
any other known treatment in the world. 

Sluggish liver, and hardening of the liver, may be treated in 
the same way. In a large number of cases, the results have been 
like miracles. The circulation of the blood is of itself of great 
value, and this is the smallest of the effects produced; for the 
vitality is a still greater agent for recovery from an abnormal 
condition. 

If tried in the manner described, the vital host will accom¬ 
plish wonders; and it will grow with the using, just as any faculty 
grows with the using. 

It is well to make one experiment every time you take a 
bath as it does not interfere with the bathing; nor does it take 
longer. In the summer time some persons bathe mornings and 
evenings; in the winter once a day or three times a week. The 
oftener you generate the vital host, the healthier you will be; so 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


21 


bathe as often as yon please. The difference will be seen very 
soon in your personal appearance. 

The principle is this: 

There is in the atmosphere a vast fund of vitality, contain¬ 
ing the spark of life. No person has his full share. You can 
obtain more. Every time you draw the vital host to any part of 
the body, you catch from the general fund of the atmosphere a 
greater share. If your diet is plain and wholesome, it unites 
with the new materials and makes a better body with a New 
Identity. 

In the generating room of an electric power house, with all 
doors and windows shut, the general fund of electricity that is in 
the air is made to give up some part of itself under the force of 
the inviting energy of the engines. Yet that fund is never 
weakened. Enough in one room can be drawn to furnish the 
power equal to millions of horses, yet the fund is just as strong. 

So with the spark of life. 

The fund is there all about you; it needs only the generating 
effort of the body to draw it forth and to appropriate it. 

You can create a new vital body, part by part, in this way, 
and you can draw a new life to dwell in it. 

Try it. The results will surprise you. 

Storage of Vitality. 

One of the most remarkable of laws in life is the simplest. 

The body is all the time generating its life; but there is a 
fearful waste going on all the time. When this waste stops, the 
body accumulates an immense fund of vitality. 

In the study of personal magnetism, which is nothing at all 
like Life Electricity, the same rule is made to work wonders in so 
quick a time as to seem impossible until the process is watched. 

In this work now before us the following facts are our guide: 

1. When the body takes enough food to supply it with its 
needed nutrition, it uses but little of the vital host in digesting 
and assimilating it; and this amount is quickly restored by the 
natural life of the body. 

2. When the food supply is in excess of the actual needs of 
the body, as is the case in almost all instances where the health 
is not good, the vital host is called upon to digest and assimilate 
the needed food, and to break down and throw off the extra 


22 


PERSONAL BOOK 


accumulation. When it is not able to do all this work, fever or 
fasting or other agency must be called in to help it. But the vital 
host has been weakened at every step of this hard work. 

3. The art of eating enough wholesome food and no more, 
is the fine art of perfect health; for it leaves the vital host to its 
own accumulations, which means that it will build itself up when 
the overtax is removed from it. 

How to Measure Life Energy. 

The following method of making a gauge of your stored life 
energy, will prove interesting. 

1. Take the stronger arm, which is generally the right. 

2. Learn to open the fingers and thumb to the greatest 
spread. Anything less than the fully open digits will not do. 
The test rests on this one act. Each digit of the hand is directly 
associated with the brain, as will be seen in the book on Life 
Electricity. 

3. Hold the arm out directly in front of the body, on a level 
with the shoulder, and fully extended. The palm of the extended 
hand must face the ceiling and be parallel with it. 

4. Open the five digits to their full spread, tense and tightly 
apart each time. Shut them close bringing the fist together as 
if to crush an object in the hand. This wide open action and 
close shutting will make count One. When you open and shut 
the hand again in the same manner, it is count Two. 

5. Five full counts of opening and shutting will constitute 
One Per Cent, in the measure of your Life Electricity. 

6. The arm must not be lowered, nor the hand changed in 
any way from its position of action. 

7. If you can succeed in making ten counts of the double 
action of opening and closing, you will have a credit of two per 
cent, for your first trial. This is good. Twenty such actions 
would be four per cent, which is grand. Five hundred such 
actions would be perfect, which is impossible if done right, until 
you have built up a great vitality. 

Make your record in this book at this page, and report to 
the Ralston Health Club, Ralston Heights, Hopewell, Mercer 
County, New Jersey, on every Ralston Day, which is the fourth 
day of each month; if you so desire; otherwise, keep the record 
for your own future reference. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


23 


VITAL RECORD 

OF 


Whose Club Number is 


Date of first test... 
Date of second test 
Date of third test. 


Per cent, of Vitality 


« tc « 


« (( u 


a « a 


Date of fourth test 














PERSONAL BOOK 


“THE DEEDS THAT MAKE EARTH BETTER” 


SECOND DEPARTMENT 

OF THE 

PERSONAL BOOK 

OF THE 

RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


“Sty? N?ut Pfgsfrai 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


25 


Chapter Three 


how WE RIPEN 


The moment we are born 
we ail begin to die 
for It Is natural law 
that earthly life is mortal. 


MANITY, like all life, ripens. Nature sets up a law 
that works itself into death. The law is that of the 
first development from birth. No matter whether it 
is a plant, a blade of grass, an animal or man, the 
young days lead on into maturity, and this much is 
necessary. Nothing can be born at full size of an adult being, 
for there is not room enough to spare for that purpose. Having 
to begin small, it is necessary that size and strength should be 
added, and this is done by an excess of mineral matter in the 
nutrition. 

The sap in the plant is overloaded with mineral material; 
and the blood of the child is likewise charged with an excess which 
is found in almost all kinds of food. 

It is the mineral matter in food that changes the gelatine 
of the infant form into cartilage, and later the cartilage into bones. 

It is the mineral excess that increases the size of the hones 
so that the frame of the body shall keep getting larger until it is 
large enough; and, when the normal or desired size is attained, the 
bones stop growing while the mineral matter keeps coming into 
the blood through the food. 

Even in the vegetable kingdom every plant, every tree has a 
certain time in which to make its growth, a certain time in which 
to maintain its prime, a certain era through which to ripen, and 
a certain period for dying. 






26 


PERSONAL BOOK 


The same relationship exists in all the higher animals. 

In the nobler species of the animal kingdom below man, 
where care is given to the health of the animals, there is a uniform 
increase of life; and it is well known that the average age is 
closely allied to the time of developing the first period. 

The infancy and childhood period of plant and animal life 
is one-tenth of the average duration of such life; allowing careful 
attention to the life at every stage. This period is that which 
precedes the power of parentage. Where life is left to the vicissi¬ 
tudes of Nature, its duration does not follow any fixed rule, 
although many writers claim that it does, and from it they reach 
the same results that are to be stated here. 

Parentage in the human family is possible on an average at 
the end of twelve years. In some climates it happens three years 
earlier, and in others three years later; and life seems to be 
weakened or strengthened in proportion as such period is early or 
late. The longer the power of parentage is delayed, the longer 
should be life, all other influences being normal. 

Aside from this line of proof, there are many other facts that 
point conclusively to the intention of Nature to extend human 
life to an average of 120 years. 

The old time belief that seventy years is the limit, is not 
verified by the facts of the past centuries; for the average duration 
is actually less than thirty years; while, on the other hand, many 
of the most devout men and women of the church have lived to 
be ninety and over, no less than a thousand having passed the 
one hundred year mark. There are a few to-day who are more 
than 120 years old, some who are about 115, and quite a number 
who are 105 and over. 

The fact that the average age is less than thirty years is 
readily explained by the lack of proper food and regime. The 
surprise is that any person could reach even ninety under the 
errors of the times. 

It is necessary that the osseous tendency should occur in 
youth. This process makes the bones and gives the hardness. 
All foods and liquids, except fruits and distilled water, contain 
carbonate and phosphate of lime and other calcareous salts, which 
develop bones; and, by a continuous action, carry the tendency to 
every part of the body. When the bones become hardened, the 
body reaches its limit of growth. If a young person should eat 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


27 


such food and drink such water as the grown person ought to 
have, the bones would not harden for many years, and the body 
would attain to great size. This hardening of the bones deter¬ 
mines why some persons are small and other large. At birth all 
bones are gelatine. Life begins in gelatine and ends in bones. 
Ask any physician; he will tell you that old age is but the osseous 
tendency of heart, brain, and arteries; that ninety-seven per cent, 
of all people past middle life are ossifying, or turning to bones, 
in the heart, in the brain, and in the arteries; that a steady, 
gradual change in this direction is going on from youth to age; 
and that when any part of the body, excepting the bones, begins 
to secrete bony matter, weakness follows; resulting, first, in re¬ 
ducing the circulation, second, impoverishing the blood, third, 
breaking down tissues, and fourth, exposing the organs to the 
ravages of germ life. These facts are stated by Koch, Grumaine, 
Browne, Lews, Bichat, Bailie, and a score of others: and are 
proved by observation. 

To deprive the child of carbonate and phosphate of lime and 
other calcareous salts which develop and harden the bones, would 
result in rickets. But allowing it enough of these foods to slowly 
harden the bones, growth of the gelatine conditions would continue 
for many years, even until the child should attain thirty or forty 
years of age; with the result that an enormous size would be 
reached. This also would retard the ripening of maturity. 

There was once a time when the conditions of food and water 
were favorable to the slow development of the child. Tradition 
and various historical accounts state that there were giants in 
those days, and people lived for hundreds of years. 

The mistake that humanity has been making is in not study¬ 
ing the question of food and water. 

Nature provides the bone-making food and drink for the 
growing body; because she seeks to preserve the race. When 
maturity is reached, Nature leaves man to find out for himself 
what to eat and drink, and he goes right on eating and drinking 
the very things that were used in giving his body growth. 

All persons ripen. 

The process of ripening is only the hardening of the blood 
vessels in the organs. This compels them to work harder in order 
to sustain life, and they thus stiffen and become decrepit. It is 
the work of the mineral material in the food; which, being in 


28 


PERSONAL BOOK 


excess for the purpose of increasing the size of the body, carries 
its excess into the system after the body has attained its size. 

Each blood vessel, vein and artery is a hollow tube, having 
an active inner surface that urges the blood on by its motion. 
The excess of mineral matter in the blood is sure to linger on 
those delicate inner surfaces and gradually harden and stiffen 
them. 

As all flesh is composed of tissue that is filled with blood 
vessels, the latter when they lose their elasticity make the general 
body seem stiff; and so the man feels his age coming on. He gets 
out of bed in the morning and is not as limber as once he was 
when the blood was young. He rises from his chair and the legs 
are more like pipe stems than rubber. He is growing old. 

Experiments in feeding animals that are matured, with a 
diet that is mostly free from mineral matter, and giving them 
only distilled or pure, soft water, has resulted in prolonging their 
lives to more than double their extreme normal age. The test is 
simple and is easily within reach of every person who cares to 
make it. The result is the direct and certain proof that the 
contents of food and drink determine how long an organism will 
live. Scientific feeding of horses, and the use of rain water as 
drink, will cause them to live from forty to sixty years. There 
are horses at work today, and nimble too, that are thirty years 
of age; one such horse is close at hand as these lines are being 
written. A pet cat that has had only rain water to drink is now 
twenty-eight years old, and has not given up even one of its nine 
lives. 

Nature sets in motion certain laws, and leaves it to man to 
discover their variability. Nature produces new varieties of life, 
by her accidental departures from parentage. But man is able to 
make fast and lasting use of her laws by directing their impulses. 
He has developed in half a century a greater span of improvement 
in animal breeds than she would have made in ten thousand years, 
if at all. 

Nature realizes the necessity of an excess of mineral matter 
in the diet of animal and man; for the child would remain the 
child if there were not such an excess. It alone makes growth. 

Now she keeps right on witti the same food. The young 
heifer makes the cow because of the extra proportion of mineral 
matter in her food; but, when she has become the cow and does 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


29 


not need the material that caused the growth, she does not know 
how to avoid eating it, and so she goes right on and ripens, 
stiffens, gets old and dies. Man has not, in an extensive way, yet 
controlled her processes. He is beginning to do so. He has 
found that animals may be made to live much longer, even to 
more than double their normal lives, if their food and drink are 
deprived of the excess of mineral matter. 

It may be asked why, if growth is caused by the excess of 
mineral matter, the body will not keep on growing as long as 
that excess is maintained. Nature fixes the average size of each 
species, and the growth is checked under her commands when 
that size is reached; so that the continued excess of minerals be¬ 
comes the cause of ripening instead of extra size. But, on the 
other hand, it has been proved that an unusual proportion of 
mineral matter in food during the first part of the young life 
will set in motion an impulse to a size greater than the average 
when maturity is reached. To effect this end, the first part of 
infancy or the beginning of each life must be specially fed. 

The size of the child is determined by the size of its bones, 
and its bones are made by mineral matter in food and drink. 
When the food and drink that are taken in the first two years 
of the life of the child, contain an excess of mineral matter, the 
body of the child will grow fast, and this start will be maintained 
all through life. Animals are being fed along these lines, and 
the results are always the same. To dwarf an animal, give it food 
and water that are free from mineral excess; beginning at the 
first part of its young life; and it will not grow large. The same 
animal, if the food and drink were shifted to the reverse and 
contained a great excess of mineral matter, would become un¬ 
usually large. 

To repeat what has already been stated, if the animal when 
it has reached its growth, is given food and water free from an 
excess of minerals, it will not begin to ripen. The blood vessels 
will not retain in their inner walls the lime that deprives them 
of their elasticity; and so age will be delayed; a fact that is being 
proved every day now. 

Several laws that seem to contradict themselves now appear: 

1. The absence of mineral matter in the child will give it 
the rickets. 


30 


PERSONAL BOOK 


2. An excess of mineral matter causes bone growth, and 
the size of the body depends on the size of the bones. 

3. Too great an excess of mineral matter in the first years 
of infancy will start a tendency to a large body growth, but if 
begun in later youth it will hasten the development of maturity 
and stunt childhood. 

4. A slight excess of mineral matter in later youth will 
prolong youth and keep the body growing larger for several years. 

Human beings have tried the same law and have seen the 
wonderful effects of its operation. We all dread to have the body 
become stiff as age draws on. This stiffness is known to be due 
to the presence of mineral matter in the countless blood vessels of 
the flesh and organs. Some writers refer to it as becoming ossi¬ 
fied; that is, the blood vessels turn in part to bone. 

The Brain is a mass of fine blood-vessels. When these 
ossify or turn to a bony condition, the brain is said to lose its 
elasticity, and it is no longer flexible. Ideas become fixed. The 
old man cannot change his views. He is stubborn, mulish, obsti¬ 
nate, and can see but one idea, and that is the first that comes 
to him on every subject. A brain specialist knows perfectly well 
when the brain of a patient is hardening or turning to bone. The 
slang term, bonehead, has much more truth in physiology than its 
users imagine. 

The most direct enemy of the ripening process is distilled 
water. This may be had in the form of rain, or in the form of 
condensed steam. Vapor rises from land and sea, makes clouds 
and condenses to fall in the form of rain. That is nature’s dis¬ 
tillery. Exactly the same process occurs when water is boiled and 
its vapor is thrown off in the form of steam. This, when con¬ 
densed, becomes distilled water, and is just the same thing as rain 
water. 

In rising vapor or steam, impurities do not leave the body 
of the water. They remain behind as dregs. The vapor from the 
salt ocean is not salty. The steam from salt water is not salty. 
If there are impurities and foul contents in water, its vapor would 
not take them along. Thus nasty, filthy water, when distilled, 
rises pure in the form of steam, while the dregs, or leavings, are 
nastier still. 

Nature was looking out for the health of man when she made 
this remarkable law that only pure matter will rise in vapor. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


31 


There is a home where four generations have lived and drank 
water from a well that is charged with lime. There are young 
and old in that family today, and they are each and all aged 
beyond their years. 

Nearby there is a home where four generations have lived 
and drank rain water stored in a double cistern. The present 
generation are younger looking than their years; the grandmother 
being rosy of face and bright of eye, giving the appearance of a 
woman of thirty-five. 

People who use long-standing boiled water grow old beyond 
their years. They have the bad habit of putting tea on the stove 
in the pot, and allow it to simmer day in and day out; adding 
more water, but not throwing out the grounds as they desire their 
full value. They are drinking dregs of water; as the vapor that 
boils away is the only pure or distilled part of it. Some people 
let a tea kettle boil away hour after hour, and then use the water 
that remains. The good has gone out in the form of steam and 
vapor, while the dregs remain; and it is the dregs that hold the 
poisons and mineral excess that cause old age. 

We knew a family where all the members were old looking, 
when in fact they should have appeared ten to twenty years 
younger; and we dropped in to ascertain the cause. We found 
two causes in fact. One was a boiling kettle that sent forth a 
merry stream of vapor, and which was replenished from time to 
time by the woman. The water was hard enough to begin with; 
the many additions brought more hardness, while the vapor took 
away all that was good. Yet that woman used the dregs of the 
water to cook with and to make tea and - coffee. No wonder the 
family were aged beyond their years. 

The practice of allowing a coffee pot to stand all day on the 
stove simmering, while new water is added to take the place of 
the old, is a prolific cause- of quick aging. 

Another similar cause is the custom of allowing soups and 
broths to boil away the distillable parts of the water and meat 
juices, while the dregs of both water and meat juices remain in 
the pot or kettle. Hospitals, knowing the evils of this practice, 
use a cold method of extracting the juice from the meat; and they 
merely heat the extract when they serve it. On the other hand, 
the cook will allow the water to boil or steam all day long, or 
hours at a time, and the distillable parts to be. lost in the air, 
while the dregs are served on the table as food. 


32 


PERSONAL BOOK 


No wonder old age comes on fast, and no wonder humanity 
dies at an average of thirty years, while few persons live beyond 
a hundred. 

What are the foods that will preserve yonth in mature men 
and women ? They are the following: 

Helps to Prevent Ripening. 

1. Eggs from poultry that are given rain-water to drink. 

2. Milk from cows that are given the same kind of water. 

3. Young meat, if any meat is eaten. The meat of poultry, 
of game, of lamb, of steers and of any young life is free from an 
an excess of minerals, for the reason that the food of such life 
has supplied the growing bones with the hardening material. On 
the other hand the meat of mutton, old beef, and the like, contains 
a great amount of mineral matter, because the body has attained 
its growth in each case, and the excess is kept in the blood and 
flesh. 

4. Raw vegetables , as described in this book. 

5. The food fruits , as they have the nutritive value of meats, 
but lack mineral matter. 

6. The juicy fruits. These above all things else will absorb 
and drive out all excess of mineral matter. 

7. Rain water filtered through clean sand. 

8. Distilled water filtered through clean sand likewise. 

How to Keep prom Getting Old. 

There are several steps in this process, but they are as easy 
to take as any other duty in life. 

First, re-build the body by twelve trials in one year, as pre¬ 
scribed in this book. This will remove the accumulated minerals. 

Second, use the foods of the high standard of living as further 
described. 

Third, avoid foods and liquids that contain an excess of 
minerals. 

Fourth, avoid dregs in water, in coffee, in tea, and in soups, 
broths and meat extracts. 

Fifth, adopt the list above given of the eight helps to prevent 
the ripening of the body. 

Sixth, increase the vitality to a high degree. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


33 


Chapter Four 


PREPARING FOR THE CHANGE 


The things you most desire 
you must resolve to win: 
for then each thought and act 
conspires to reach the end. 


E VERYTHING that is acquired in this world by effort, 
must first be desired. In the study of psychic laws it 
is shown that every person can get what he wants; and 
the processes whereby he wins against odds is shown 
step by step. But this book is not engaged in psychic 
instruction, and the general natural law is sufficient. It is this: 
Make up your mind what you want; then make up your mind that 
you will get it; and each day will bring you nearer the goal. 

A simple explanation of what has been called a wonderful 
law is this: If you make up your mind what you want, your daily 
habits will all lean in that direction; and if you make up your 
mind to get what you want, your thoughts and efforts that other¬ 
wise would drift at random, will be employed in the one direct 
ehannel of activity towards that end. The brain soon becomes 
more intelligent along that line of endeavor, just as the man of 
intense employment in one kind of work soon becomes an expert. 
It does not require psychic keenness to show how things will surely 
shape themselves in the right way when your daily habits, your 
thoughts, your efforts, and your increasing intelligence are all 
focused on the attainment of one thing. 

Therefore when the statement is made that you can always 
get what you want in this world, if you want it hard enough and 





34 


PERSONAL BOOK 


make up your mind strong enough, to get it, it may be set down 
as a truth that cannot be denied. 

Nature puts human beings on earth for the chief purpose of 
giving them what they want and what they live for. 

It is necessary to want something in order to be in harmony 
with nature; and the person who is not in harmony with nature 
is inclined to think of suicide. In fact, all that keeps people from 
thinking of suicide is the hope of something some day that is 
better than the best things of today. 

What you were and what you did last year, were not worth 
living for. What you are and what you are doing this year, are 
not worth living for. If the coming years contain nothing more 
than what the past holds, you were better out of the world than 
in it. 

Every normal mind, every sane human being, is expecting 
something and hoping for something that has not yet been at¬ 
tained. This is Nature. Take hope out of human life, and you 
take the desire of life out of humanity. There must be something 
to hope for, something to want, something to strive for, something 
to attain. 

The desire and the prospect of securing something that 
allures, play a double part: 

1. It keeps a person from brooding and desponding, and is 
thereby the most potent agency of preventing self-destruction. 

2. It sets up an affirmative exhilaration that invites good 
health, or at least assists in bringing that boon. 

The last law is exemplified in the familiar case of the woman 
whose wasting body could not be given health, until she was prom¬ 
ised a splendid trip abroad when she got well. In a few weeks 
this hope brought results that all the doctors and medicines in 
the world could not effect. It was exhilaration to her nerves and 
mind. 

Not only is depression avoided, and bright health assisted, 
but the pleasure of living is based on the hope of something to 
be attained; the desire to wrest victory out of the coming years. 
Every worthy ambition is a stimulus to mind and body. The man 
who is a mere repeating machine day after day, and the woman 
who is a drudge at all times, having nothing worth living for 
set ahead as a goal to be sought, will fall prey to disease much 
sooner than the individual whose body is made elastic with the 
springing hope of better days to come. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


35 


“What is the use of it all?” is the thought that is constantly 
knocking at the brain of most every person whose only mission 
in life seems to be that of fighting hard to keep body and soul 
together, with a growing impossibility of doing even this much 
since the greed classes are placing the necessaries of life beyond 
human reach. 

It is an age when the mind must be made up to do something. 

We are all in a stream that admits of no floating, as the cur¬ 
rent is downward. We must pull at the oars and row up the 
stream where we shall soon come to the uplands of life and see 
the blessings and glories of the world. 

The first thing to be done is to resolve to rebuild the human 
body; to make it over and establish a new Temple in which to live; 
for this frame is truly a Temple and contains the choicest gift 
of the universe. 

As a New Temple it will be given a new brain, a new mind, 
a new nervous system, new blood, organs and covering; all of the 
best quality. 

You may create for yourself a new personality. 

To do this, to succeed so that your friends will wonder at you 
and at the change that has come over you, will be an ambition 
full of hope and bright with the fruits of a grand success. It 
is something to live for day by day. It is probably the greatest 
thing in life; for all the victories of civilization are intended to 
pay homage to the human body; and to rebuild this wonderful 
Temple is the greatest triumph of all civilization. 

Let that, then, be your first great ambition; your new found 
hope. 

Second in importance, but equally inspiring, should be the 
desire and determination to conquer the aging elements that begin 
to take possession of the blood almost as soon as it begins to flow 
in the veins. The elements that bring on age are the ripening 
processes of nature. They cannot be forever subdued, but they 
may be held back until the time comes for the exit out of the 
world, which should not be made amid the wreck of broken down 
faculties; but like a last sheep, in the full tide of enjoyment and 
satisfaction. It is sweet to live like a conqueror. 

The accomplishment of these two most important things in 
life will bring many attendant blessings; for perfect health and 
keen faculties are able to carve a fortune and win power. 


36 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Bemember at all times the following facts: 

1. Without hope and ambition, life is not worth living. 

2. Definite hope and ambition stimulate and exhilarate mind 
and body. 

3. The best goal of life is the building of a new body, a 
New Temple. 

4. The next best goal of life is victory over the aging ele¬ 
ments. 

5. Whatever you want, and are determined to secure, you 
can attain, if you make up your mind in earnest to attain it. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


37 


Chapter Five 


CREATING A NEW BODY 


When fails the old machine 
from many mendings worn 
’twere best to build anew 
with thoroughness complete. 



0 you want to be some one else? That is the quickest 
way of getting perfect health. It is also the quickest 
way of improving the body and mind. If you have 
a machine that is not up to date, or that has not given 
you the best satisfaction, you will perhaps get a new 
part where it is weakest, or you will repair the old part and keep 
it. Then when some other part gives out or shows weakness, you 
will treat that likewise. In time you will have nothing but a 
patched-up machine. Had you at the start got a new one, you 
would have been better off and the machine would have proved 
more useful and more pleasing. 

The same is true of the human body. 

It was not the best that might have been given you at birth. 
It was weak and defective. Since then, by the mishaps of life, 
it has come to prove rather uncertain in one or more of its parts. 
The heart is weak, and the lungs are far from being strong. The 
stomach, the liver, the kidneys and the blood are all below the 
standard needed for this age of rush and pushing progress. 

The nerves. What about them? They are certainly erratic, 
or you would not be so irritable. Every little thing worries you, 
and nothing goes just as you want it to. Weakness of vitality, 
proneness to get excited or nervous, and a depressing fear of the 
years ahead when you do not know how you will get a living if 
something goes wrong in your present circumstances, all serve to 





38 


PERSONAL BOOK 


keep your nerves in an abnormal state. You need something diff¬ 
erent. 

Your brain halts at the great problems of daily life, and fails 
to make clear to you the dictates of good judgment and sound 
action. You are not steadily rising in the world, as you would be 
if you had the breadth and depth of mind necessary for the effort. 
You are no farther advanced than you were a year ago. 

A sound mind in a sound body. 

This is the acme of earthly gifts. Heart, muscles, blood, 
strength, courage, energy, life, power and achievement are all 
locked up in the new mind in the new body. It is another in¬ 
dividual that you must become if you would better yourself in the 
highest degree. 

Will your identity be changed so that your friends will not 
know you? This question may be asked many times. We have 
known of men and women who have built in their brains new 
minds, new purposes, new ideas, new thoughts and new ambitions; 
and then they have become as different from their former selves 
as white is from brown. One man said of his friend and former 
business partner whom he had not seen for two years: “I cannot 
find one trace of Joe. He is as completely changed as if he had 
become another man.”—This was the verdict concerning his men¬ 
tal identity. 

You, if your body is weak, or your health deficient, or you 
have not the power that you need for your duties, will be more 
interested in the new physical being that awaits you, than in the 
mental change. 

The basis of the new life is vitality. 

You can discard all your nervous system, and start over again. 
This feat has been accomplished in numerous cases, and is now 
being taught in book form for the first time. Make up your mind 
that you want new nerve-fibres, new nerve-cells, new ganglia that 
store and hold your energy, and then new life-currents to travel 
over these many wires and send a brand new stream of living 
impulses into every tissue and muscle of the body. 

If you are asked what makes a healthy body, you may say 
vital life; and some one else may say, pure blood. Others may 
say, sound flesh; others, strong muscles; others, perfect organs; 
others fine digestion; others, normal assimilation of nutrition; 
others, true functional operations; and so on through the list. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


39 


It is true that all parts are related to all other parts; but one 
fails first. There are men with the best of rich blood and muscle, 
who are deficient in nervous vitality, and we have seen strong 
bodies fade away under this defect. One man of sound health 
suddenly collapsed with diabetes, because some one function di¬ 
rectly or indirectly connected with his liver failed without notice. 

No stomach is sound in the real sense. Because a meal can 
be digested is not evidence that it is well digested; and when gas 
ferments in it, or in the intestines, there are poisons generated 
that may go to the heart in a flash. “ Death from acute indi¬ 
gestion” is the report in sixty per cent, of all sudden demises at 
the present day; while appendicitis is no longer a patrician 
malady. Physicians state that autopsies show, even in cases of 
healthy persons who are killed by violence, a remarkable lack of 
health in the stomach and alimentary canal. One doctor who had 
practiced for fifty years made this assertion: “X have been present 
in more than three hundred autopsies, including a large number 
of persons who had been in what is known as the best of health, 
and I have never seen a case where the lungs did not show that 
tuberculosis had been present at some time in life.” Specialists 
in lung maladies all say that every man, woman and youth have 
within themselves the germs of tuberculosis; and only time and 
circumstances can determine what course they will pursue. 

For these reasons and for every reason, it is the act of wisdom 
for you to create for yourself a New Body. 

Let it be new in every part. 

New in lungs and heart; new in stomach and alimentary 
canal; new in all its organs; new in nerves and blood; new in 
brain and vitality; new in bones and muscles; and let a new iden¬ 
tity be given you so that those of your friends who meet you in 
later months will not know who you are. Of course where people 
see you every day or very often, the change, being gradual, does 
not alter your identity to them. They will notice that a won¬ 
derful improvement is going on in your life, and will be sure 
to inquire the cause. But those who see you but once a year or 
so, will need an introduction. 

The change is steady but powerful. 

It is complete and effective in every respect. Each step is one 
that will prove its value as it is taken, and the better feeling will 
be experienced from the very start. 


40 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Chapter Six 


HOW THE CHANGE BEGINS 


This part we take away 
that part is broken down 
and perfect made material 
the newer temple builds. 


L through the centuries men have half guessed at the 
greatest truth in human life. Once the doctor was 
called a leech, because he used the leech for sucking 
the blood from a sick person. Later on he was & 
lance, because he did the same thing with a cutting 
instrument. George Washington in his last illness had great 
quantities of blood taken from his veins in the hope that the 
impurities would be drawn off and health restored. The leech, 
or blood-letting doctor, guessed half the truth. His reasoning 
was partly correct. 

He believed, and correctly too, that the accumulated material 
in the body harbored sickness; and he took away as much of it as 
he dared, in the hope that it was forever removed. But he did 
not guess the other half of the story. 

Today the doctor is called the physician because he physicks. 

He half guesses the truth. Of course he physicks the body 
in order to draw out of it the defective material that is supposed 
to give rise to ill health. He reasons that, while the physic 
reaches directly only the contents of the intestines, their empti¬ 
ness brings much of the accumulated material of the body into the 
alimentary canal to lake the place of what has been drawn out. 
This is partly true. 

Then to assist that process, he sweats the body, and the skin 
gives up much of the bad material. If you have a severe cold, 






RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


41 


your doctor will give you a purgative, a sweating medicine and 
something to work on your kidneys. Thus he will have you giving 
up at all the avenues of escape. 

It is the same thing in principle. 

The leech takes the blood, and with it the poisonous matter 
that the blood contains. The lance does exactly that with the 
addition that he can draw off more in quantity. The physic, the 
sweater, and the diuretic all draw off accumulated material that 
is not desired in the body. 

Before the leech there was the faster. 

That was the same in principle. Every religion teaches fast¬ 
ing; and every religion connects health with morals. Christ 
healed the sick. His work was largely that of a healer. He is 
called the Great Physician. But long before that period, thou¬ 
sands of years before in fact, fasting was a religious rite as it is 
today. It was an inspiration. It half reached the truth. 

The principle all through these treatments is the same. East¬ 
ing proceeds to do some good on the law that as long as there is 
life in the body, its tissues and all its parts will go on changing 
by breaking down and passing away. Every minute you live your 
body breaks down millions of cells that make up its structure and 
parts. Nothing fails to discard some part of itself. The faster 
loses in weight just what is broken down in his body. If he is 
a pound lighter today than yesterday, he has suffered the loss of 
a pound of his body’s material. Some fasters lose from twenty to 
fifty pounds during the fast. To give up a small quantity of 
blood, say four pounds, means a great loss of that fluid and some 
danger to life. But the blood is only the river that is freighted 
with the material out of which the body is built together with 
some parts of it that have broken down; while the structural parts 
of the body are the real parts that are benefited by losses. 

The better portion should not be wantonly destroyed. 

The faster has come to us from out of the remotest ages. 
He is taught by his religion at the beginning, and then is com¬ 
pelled by nature later on to stop eating, so that the bad material 
that has accumulated in his body may be removed and better 
health ensue. Wise as is the law of fasting, it is strange that the 
other half of the truth has never been guessed. Some great good 
has come from the practice, but on the whole the heart’s vitality 
has been compelled to pay the toll of severe fasting. 


42 


PERSONAL BOOK 


This led to the morning fast that was practiced some years 
ago and that is still in vogue among the few that have not been 
claimed by death. It was based on the law of blood-letting, of 
the leech, of sweating, of the diuretic, of physicking; a law that 
seeks to draw poisonous material from the body; a half-way and 
half-right method; but as the habit of fasting did the same thing, 
at the same time lowering the vitality of the body to a dangerous 
stage, the morning fast was thought a happy compromise. It 
lessened the amount of food taken, gave the tissue and parts a 
chance to waste away, and yet did not persist long enough at a 
time to weaken the heart, as was supposed. But in the history 
of many cases of morning fasters, or persons who omitted their 
breakfasts, we found that there followed a desire to overload the 
system later in the day, which, coupled with the lowered vitality 
of the heart, brought death to a majority of the people who 
adopted that regime, including the inventor of it; just as Graham, 
the inventor of graham bread, died from its use. 

Everybody who gets a lot of bad material out of the body by 
the fasting process, feels better for it. This inner cleanliness 
gives the false hope of permanent improvement. It is a guess at 
half the truth. Let us look at the facts: 

1. The leech takes good and bad blood; and, if much loss 
follows, there is a shock to the system which the modem heart 
cannot stand. 

2. Blood-letting is the same process as leeching but on a 
larger scale. The results today would be fatal where a century 
ago they might have been merely weakening. 

3. Physic proceeds in a better way, as do the kindred pro¬ 
cesses of sweating and giving activity to the kidneys. These are 
in vogue today. They weaken the body, but do not attack its 
bulk of defective and poisonous material. 

4. Fasting deprives the body and its functions of food and 
fuel, compelling it to use up some of the material that has been 
accumulated. This material becomes fuel in place of food. Every 
part loses something, and is not renewed until food is again taken. 
The body is burning up its debris and junk. This is exactly what 
nature does when she sets a fever going. During the fever, she 
demands that fasting occur; and thus she gets rid of the bad 
material in short time. If the patient survives the crisis of the 
fever, and the nurse knows what to feed the body during conva- 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


43 


lescence, the malady will prove a blessing. In a garden, weeds 
compel cnltnre without which there could be no results worth 
while. When the human body is filled with bad material and 
the individual will not take steps to get rid of it, death will 
ensue unless nature steps in and sets the debris on fire. For this 
purpose many germs are created to light the fire. There are 
many kinds of fever. But the purpose of nature is seen in them 
all. She burns up the dangerous accumulation, during which 
process she forbids the use of foods. There are days in every 
fever when the patient can retain nothing on the stomach. When 
the latter is right for food, then hunger sets in. Here is a 
double process that beats anything man has invented. Fasting 
keeps out the new material, and fever burns up the old material 
in great haste. It is dangerous, but it is necessary unless man 
will act for himself. As in the world of plants, of flower, fruits, 
trees and valuable animals, man has applied his wonderful faculty 
for making use of natural laws in winning the laurels of new 
achievements, so nature expects him to find something better than 
fever and fasting for cleaning out his body and making a new self. 

Yet fevers make some remarkable changes in people. 

We recall the case of a young man who was painfully thin 
until he had typhoid fever at the age of twenty-two; and after 
he got well he took on good flesh, got rather stout but not fat, and 
was so different that his own college mate, seeing him afterwards, 
became angry because he was told who he was and would not 
believe it; he thought he was being imposed upon. In our earlier 
books of twenty or more years ago we refer to many cases where 
fever has left the body wholly different. The old material has 
been removed and the new material has been better than the old. 
A doctor says this: “If you ever have fever, begin anew with your 
body building. The chances are that you will lose much flesh in 
the fever; new flesh will be built; and here is the opportunity for 
building it well.” 

That is guessing or rather reaching the other half of the 
truth. 

The loss of blood from any process in the olden times should 
have been followed by extraordinary care in replacing it. 

Even when the body is physicked today, and cleaned out by 
sweating and diuretics, care should be taken to renew its material 
with the best foods that can be found. 


44 


PERSONAL BOOK 


The same is true of fasting. Take, for instance, morning 
fasting which has made so many persons feel better for awhile 
and then suddenly die of heart failure. It threw some bad 
material out of the body; but no attempt was made to supply 
something better at the next meal; nor was the loss of one meal 
sufficient to break down any substantial part of the body. It 
relieved the clogging from overeating the night before. 

Likewise the same law holds true of long fasts such as are 
now being taught by sensational health-writers. They do in fact 
clean out the body; but they are not followed by a better class of 
food. One-half the truth has been known for thousands of years: 
the breaking down of bad material in the body. The other half 
is now at hand; and it is the renewal of the body with perfect 
material. If bad material must be taken out, why bring back its 
like again? If the timbers of your house are decayed, take them 
out and bring in the best timbers you can procure. That is sen¬ 
sible. A man who had fasted for a week, began to eat anything 
and everything he chose, with the result that he needed another 
week’s fast right away; while another man who fasted a day, 
renewed his loss with first class material and is in perfect health 
at this time. 

What you are is determined by what you eat. 

If you build a jewel of gold it will be gold when done. It 
will not contain diamonds if no diamonds entered into its con¬ 
struction. You cannot eat one kind of food and be another kind 
of man. The pork-eater shows pork in his face, in the skin of 
his body and in the eyes. The man who has fed on clean grains 
gives evidence of the cleanliness of his body. 

A man is what he eats. 

Nature allows a large margin in waste material and bulk out 
of which the stomach and canal may select the nutrition required 
to sustain life. But what actually is assimilated, makes the man, 
and even affects his disposition. Experiments made in thousands 
of cases during many years, prove this fact. 

Every part of the body is breaking down every minute. 

This change is going on from the first moment of life down 
to the last breath. 

Change never ceases. 

Nature completely rebuilds the body, but it takes time except 
when fever is present. Fasting without fever merely uses up the 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


45 


body’s material instead of having food to use in carrying on the 
functions and activities. 

If your body takes in as much food each day as it loses, the 
result is that the supply equals the demand, and no draft is made 
on the accumulated material; but if it uses up more fuel than the 
food contains, the result is that a draft is made on the stored 
material. If no food comes into the body for twenty-four hours, 
there is sure to be a large draft on the stored material. 

As activity assists in breaking down the stored material of 
the body, a day of physical tax for persons who are strong enough 
to endure it, will assist nature in this process. The great dis¬ 
advantage of exercising is that it breaks down bad and good 
structures alike and does not replace either. 

To aid in removing the bad accumulations from the body, a 
special absorbent of effete matter should he taken copiously; and 
this is distilled water. It travels all through the body, omitting 
no part, and picks up everything that does not belong there. 

Under the system of the Personal Book the following steps 
are required to create a new body: 

First Step :—“One day's withdrawal of food.” This means 
that no food of any kind is to enter the body for thirty-six hours. 
The withdrawal begins after the evening meal of one day, continu¬ 
ing through all the next day and night, and may be broken at 
the morning meal of the third day. This is really the omission 
of three meals. 

Second Step:— “Activity .”—There should be as much activity 
as the person is able to endure easily without undue weariness. 
The strength must not be taxed. It is better to take eight hours 
sleep on the two nights between the meals. 

Third Step:— “Absorbent .”—Beginning as soon as the stom¬ 
ach is empty, which will be about two hours after the evening 
meal before the withdrawal of food, drink distilled water, or else 
pure rain water, at a cool temperature. The water should be 
prepared in accordance with the rules stated in a later part of 
this book under the title of water. One quart of this should be 
drank slowly and at brief intervals in the evening or night; then 
the next morning another quart should be drank before the middle 
of the forenoon; a third quart before the middle of the after¬ 
noon; a fourth quart during the second evening or night; and 
a fifth quart the morning following before anything is eaten. 


46 


PERSONAL BOOK 


The purpose of taking the distilled water is to pick np all dead 
and bad material in the blood and tissue and through all parts 
of the body. This with the fasting will quickly remove a large 
part of the accumulated matter and prepare the way for the next 
step which is that half of the process that is and has been for 
thousands of years wholly ignored. 

Fourth Step :—“New Material .”—When three meals have been 
omitted as stated, then on the morning following, great care 
should be taken to introduce the purest and most wholesome 
material into the body; for the latter will quickly assimilate it, and 
the whole character of the new creation will depend on the things 
that enter into its construction. Here is the turning point in civili¬ 
zation. In all the thousands of years that have passed during 
which people have lost their old bodies part by part, by fasting, by 
fever, by blood-letting, by leeching, by purgatives and by sweating, 
no one has thought to build new ones with perfect material. It 
is true that the patient who is getting well is told to be careful 
as to his diet, and he eats certain safe foods for a while; but no 
attempt is made to create a new body on the breakdown that has 
taken place. The diet of the convalescent is weak and designed 
for the sick room only; not for the strong man and woman. 

This turning point in civilization has the following features 
to be well considered and kept in mind: 

1. The removal of the present body is accomplished without 
the weakening effects that attend fever, purging, fasting and the 
other methods so well known. 

2. The creation of a different body that is to follow the 
present body, is based on the selection of the perfect material 
that nature affords to those who make the proper choice. 

3. Accompanying these two processes, a new fund of vitality, 
known as Htt&lSItfr/ i s supplied in a volume of power never before 
attempted by any system. 

4. It is to sustain this remarkable plan of a new creation 
that the present Personal Book is issued. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


47 


Chapter Seven 


NEW LIFE 


The world is brim full 
of good things given by nature 
for the joy and happiness 
of every earnest human being. 



attempt is made to introduce a special line of foods. 
Under some systems, you will be required to bunt up 
and buy certain things that are different from what 
you have been using; but the Ralston Health Club 
has no need of such specialties. In fact, it has been 
shown that the staple products of nature that have been in the 
household regime for all time, contain among themselves the per¬ 
fect material that is needed. The special diet is generally weak¬ 
ening. A person might be benefitted for a while by nuts and other 
concentrated food; for any change may be helpful as it relieves 
the body of its errors; but a weak after-condition follows, if 
persisted in. 

The modern doctor, if he is skilful, takes a start in the right 
direction. He seeks to repair the blood and the membranes. He 
knows that the life of the body originates in the membranes; and 
that the vitality arises in the nerve-centres; while the renewal of 
the body is made by the blood. Hence the following table: 

1. Life is in the Membranes. 

2. Vitality is in the Verve Centres. 

3. The Blood renews the body. 

4. Life is the act of living. 

5. Vitality is the energy that sustains the act of living. 

6. The Blood is the river that brings new material and takes 
away old material from all parts of the body. 





48 


PERSONAL BOOK 


7. The Blood, therefore, is the builder. 

8. It is not enough that the body exists; it must live, and 
in living it must carry on many kinds of activities. The synonym 
for life is activity. 

9. Existence would be useless if there were no activity. 

10. To sustain existence, there are organs in the body that 
keep active day and night. If one of them should stop at any 
time, death would ensue. These are called functions. They are 
involuntary forms of activity. They are kept going by the life 
in their membranes, for every organ is run by a membrane which 
furnishes it with vitality, and with a fluid that exerts a controlling 
influence on it. 

11. All other forms of activity are set in motion by the 
faculties which are directed from the brain, and this organ is 
surrounded by membranes that feed it with power and impulse for 
all its work. When a thought comes into the mind, the inner 
membrane is moist and the fluid that gathers there has a mutual 
action with the nerves that enter the brain. This is the thinking 
process; and, if the idea is stored away for future use, it becomes 
also an act of the memory. 

12. There are then two kinds of life: First, the functions 
of the organs; second, the faculties of the whole body as directed 
and controlled by the brain. The functions go on by themselves, 
like a clock that is wound up at birth or before, and that runs down 
when its mainspring has no more power to drive it. The faculties 
are run by thought, or by habits that originated in thought. 

13. The engine of the body is its organs. 

14. The body itself, apart from its engine and power, con¬ 
sists of bones, muscles and flesh. These are the only portions 
that can be lost or removed without causing death. No organ 
or membrane can be spared; except that one kidney, a part of the 
lung, part of the stomach and part of the liver may be dispensed 
with for a while, but with great disadvantage to the rest of the 
body. But a leg, an arm, an ear, or any part not in the engine, 
may be spared without causing serious loss of health. 

15. The engine of the body consists of the brain, the lungs, 
the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the alimentary canal adjuncts, 
and the skin; the latter being a covering of the most powerful 
little engines in the world, when their size is considered. Their 
duty is to force out a vast flow of poisons that are left by the 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


49 


blood just under their surface where the millions of pumps are 
placed. 

16. The Temple of man may therefore he summed up as 
follows: 

a. The body itself, including flesh, bones and muscles. 

b. The engine that drives the body, consisting of the 
organs and their membranes. 

c. The engineer, consisting of the mind and its brain. 

d. The power, consisting of nervous energy, which is 
an electrical force. 

17. The faculties are directed by the engineer, the brain. 

18. The functions of the organs which go on night and day 
of their own motion, are driven by nature. She wound up the 
clock at the beginning of life, and woe to that part of her mecha¬ 
nism that stops, even once! Listen to the heart. It knows no 
rest. It may skip a beat, but the ceaseless pulsation goes on, not 
for a minute, nor for an hour, a day, a week, a month, a season, 
a year, a decade; but until the power runs down. 

19. Nature also winds up the nervous coil, and fills the 
batteries with the charge; then makes it self-filling; and leaves 
it to run out of itself when neglected or worn away. From these 
batteries she carries wires to all the membranes, to all the organs, 
to all the bones, muscles and flesh; and the absence of a live wire 
in any part means paralysis of that part, just as the running out 
of the whole charge means total paralysis and instant death. 

20. Here is the process of living: 

a. Nature supplies the charge to the batteries. 

b. By wires she carries the charge to the membranes. 

c. The membranes diffuse the charge to the organs. 

d. The brain, being one of the organs, receives its 
charge in the act of thinking, or in its habits, and 
it directs the charge to the muscles. The latter 
move the bones and flesh, and so the faculties are 
given their activity. 

e. The batteries are the cells at the nerve-centres; and 
the wires are the nerves. A body that is paralyzed 
is dead; a part that is paralyzed is useless. There¬ 
fore the batteries and their wires, meaning the nerve- 
centres and the nerves themselves also, must be 
kept alive and full of vitality. 


50 


PERSONAL BOOK 


21. Vitality is the most important of all the qualities of 
the body and its health. 

22. This vitality, while it is stored in the central cells of 
the nerves, is generated by the membranes. These parts do a 
double work: they create electricity and send it to the nerve-cells; 
and they receive it back as needed, and diffuse it among the 
organs. 

23. In the waste of the body that attends fasting, or blood¬ 
letting, or purging, or fever, the membranes are the first to break 
down; and in the repair they are the first to be made anew. This 
is necessary in order to hurry the renewal of the lost vitality. 

In every healthy woman the uterine membrane breaks down 
completely every month and is wholly lost by sloughing off, while 
a new membrane comes to take its place. This shows the way in 
which nature acts. 

24. Albumin is the direct and perfect material for creating 
a new surface of any membrane. This fact is of value in the 
healing of a sore throat, or a weak bronchial passage, or a stomach 
that has been injured by poison or indigestion. It repairs the 
hurt walls of the intestines. The lung-cavity, which is held in 
the great membrane, is relieved of its congestion by albumin. 
Singers who suffer from laryngitis, hold the white of an egg in 
the throat until it is all absorbed in the buccal glands; and the 
injured membrane is healed, sometimes slowly, but surely. 
Asthma has been better controlled by this treatment and deep 
breathing than by all the medicine that have ever been used for 
that malady. 

25. The food of the membranes, therefore, is albumin. 

26. As a wasting away or removal of a part of the body by 
any process, leaves the membranes weak, and as they are the first 
to require repair in order to maintain the highest state of the 
vitality, the first food taken after the loss, must be the white 
of an egg. 


The scientific removal of a portion of the body by the methods 
set forth already, will be continued after the evening meal of 
one day, through all the next day, and up to the morning of the 
third day, which is the loss of only three meals; then the first 
breakfast must be as follows, assuming that the distilled water 
has been taken as required. 



RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


51 


The First New Breakfast. 

When the water has been taken, let the white of a fresh egg 
that is very cold, be sipped and held in the throat for a short 
time, and then slowly swallowed. 

Wait a minnte or two, and take the white of a second egg 
egg in the same way. 

In five minutes or so, take a glass of milk in which the white 
of the third egg has been broken and thoroughly mixed. But 
the milk must be sipped very slowly. Milk never should be 
poured into the stomach. It was not made for that use, and can 
never be nutritious if used as a drink instead of a food. 

The first new breakfast will have consisted of the whites of 
three eggs and a glass of milk. All this will be absorbed and 
actually assimilated in the body; a thing that has never before 
occurred in your life since you were born. There will be an eager 
hunger of the membranes for the food; the vitality will flow 
rapidly into the nerve centres; and back from them will come a 
current of electrical life, the strongest you have ever experienced. 

You have removed a goodly proportion of your bad body; 
and you are creating something new and perfect. 

During the forenoon take distilled water in plenty, not less 
than a quart; and nothing else; then come to your 

First New Dinner. 

It is not a real dinner; but is called so after the old-fashioned 
idea that everything you eat at noon time is a dinner, however 
small or great. 

The first thing is the white of an egg, sipped as in the morn¬ 
ing. 

Then the white of another egg sipped in the same way after 
a wait of a minute or two. 

Then the white of a third egg in a glass of milk, which must 
be sipped very slowly. 

Then a slice of old white bread, toasted to a nice brown, and 
broken in small bits into a second glass of milk without egg. This 
must be sipped slowly and not in a hurry. If you are hungry 
after this and are sure you can relish a second slice of toast, take 
it in as much milk as it will soak up; but take it slowly. 


52 


PERSONAL BOOK 


The milk should be fresh, and brought to steam heat but 
not boiled; then it should be made cold by placing it in ice. Do 
not put any ice in the milk. If you wish iced milk, add some 
salt to the cracked ice that is packed around the receptacle in which 
it is placed, and the milk will form some ice in itself, which will be 
safe to use. But melted ice is dangerous at all times. Safe ice 
water is made in the same way. 

Ice made of milk is called “milk ice.” 

First New Supper. 

The evening meal is to be merely a repetition of the noon meal. 
There should be a quart of distilled water drank in the afternoon. 
In the evening enough distilled water to quench the thirst should 
be drank, taking a little at intervals. 

Second New Breakeast. 

On the morning of the next day the breakfast should be pre¬ 
ceded by the drink of distilled water, between a pint and two pints 
being enough. 

The breakfast should consist of the following: 

A soft boiled egg, with the white not hard. To this add 
enough butter and salt to make it palatable. Take two slices 
of old bread toasted, and break them into the egg, or else mix 
the egg with small pieces of the toast; having in the first place 
buttered the toast. 

A glass of cold milk sipped very slowly through the meal. 

If still hungry, take another soft boiled egg with more toast 
and a second glass of milk sipped slowly. 

When food is taken slowly, three or four times as much of 
it is assimilated, as would be if it is taken in the usual manner. 
Thus an egg and broken bread, if absorbed for the most part by 
the glands of the mouth and then swallowed, will amount in food 
value to all the nutrition you can get from a two dollar dinner 
It is not what is eaten, but what is drawn into the structure of 
the body that counts real value. 

If you eat more than the body will absorb, the excess must be 
thrown off by the vital powers, which is a severe tax on those 
powers. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


53 


Vitality is saved by not taxing it in the work of getting ont 
of the system a mass of food that cannot serve it. As vitality 
is being generated all the time, the quickest way to build up a 
great fund of such power is to avoid wasting and overtaxing it. 
Like magnetism, it accumulates rapidly when you stop its loss. 

Our work at this stage is to prescribe just enough food to 
supply the needs of the body and not to allow a surplus. The 
result will be a quick growth of new vitality. 

Second New Dinner. 

This will consist of the following parts: 

A glass of milk into which a whole egg has been whipped. 

In this break small bits of old bread toast. Eat them slowly. 

A baked potato that is very mealy. Open it and spread it out, 
keeping the peal with it. Cut the latter into very small pieces. 
On the whole potato, pour some milk and enough salt to season it 
well, getting plenty of salt, but not too much. Eat it slowly. 
If still hungry repeat the potato part of the meal, by fixing a 
second one in the same way. 

Be sure the potatoes are mealy. 

Second New Supper. 

The noon meal should be repeated. 

In addition to what has been prescribed, take junket or corn 
starch pudding. If the latter is chosen, eat either milk or cream 
on it, but no sugar. 

Do not touch anything else. Follow this system carefully 
if you wish to see results. You may be tempted to eat pastry or 
something fried; but remember that nothing will so quickly break 
up the blood as crisp food. You are seeking to make a new body, 
not ruin the one you have. 

The Next Day. 

The next three meals should be the same as the last three 
just described. This will end the building process, for as much 
material will have gone into the body as the withdrawal of the 
three meals removed. There have been now nine meals taken. 


54 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Following these nine meals the diet is to be based on the 
general plan of this work, as will be described in the chapters 
to come. 

Thus there are two divisions to the plan of creating a new 
body: 

First .—The nine meals just described make the first division. 

Second .—In all life that follows there should be a 

High Standard of Living. 

All that is found in the remaining parts of this book, make 
up that high standard. 

But one trial of the methods that have already been set forth 
is not enough. You should repeat the whole process once a month 
for twelve months; and in that time all the old body will have 
been brought into the control of the new conditions. Assuming 
that you will make this effort in the manner and at the times 
stated, we will proceed to unfold the high standard of living in 
the coming chapters. 

As life depends on vitality to originate and sustain it, the 
study of the sources of vital energy must be given place in this 
work. Food alone is not enough. Likewise the personal needs 
of each man and woman must be measured and met as individual 
necessities, not as subjects of fixed rules or diet. This shows a 
four-sided system as follows: 

1. The methods that change the body. 

2. The high standard of living. 

3. The development of vital life. 

4. The personal needs of each man and woman. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


55 


Chapter Eight 


FIRST BUILDERS 


No accidental law 
or blind established rule 
bestowed the wondrous gifts 
that wait at every hand. 


HEN the body is ready for its new material the power 
of knowledge comes into play to guide it aright. As 
has been shown, many times the body is relieved of 
its defective material and is then fed with other de¬ 
fective material which defeats the attempt of nature 
to build it better than it was before. Two rules should be kept 
in mind: 

1. Some of the things that are eaten as food, are not food. 

2. All the wholesome articles of food may he so prepared or 
combined as to become injurious. 

This requires two acts of the judgment to pave the way for 
the right kind of builders: 

1. Proper food must be adopted at all times. 

2. The proper methods of preparation and combination 
should be employed. 

Fully half of the money spent in the household, goes for 
things that are not food, or that contain very little of food value, 
or that are are partly composed of poisons. 

Even when proper foods are purchased, they are too often 
deprived of their nutrition by the way they are prepared. 

It is thus seen that the search after health joins forces with 
the reduction of the expenses of living. 

When good money is wasted on bad food, or when it buys 
good food that is badly prepared for the table, the earning power 






56 


PERSONAL BOOK 


that brings such food into the house or that pays the bills, should 
stop to consider a road to a remedy. If fifty per cent, of the 
money is uselessly spent, it deprives the family of many hundreds 
and thousands of dollars in the course of years; money that is 
needed for comforts that are denied, and money that old age wants 
when the poorhouse looms up over the horizon. 

The highway to good health is the least expensive of all ways, 
and is lined on both sides with more pleasures than any other 
road that has ever been traveled. It costs less, and brings greater 
happiness. 

The two divisions are simplicity itself: 

1. Remove from the body its defective material. 

2. Build the body with perfect material. 

The latter is to be found in the two classes of foods men¬ 
tioned; those that are properly selected; and those that are 
properly prepared. 

Such foods are called Builders. 

The first of these Builders will now be considered. 
POTATOES. 

These are the white potatoes. 

As a food they are capable of almost sustaining life. The 
body must have certain elements; and what are lacking in white 
potatoes may be found in drinking water and pure air, so that 
a person can really live on nothing but potatoes if they are prop¬ 
erly selected and properly cooked. Like everything else they may 
be improperly selected, and like everything else they may be ruined 
in the manner of being cooked. 

There is a case of a woman living to be over one hundred 
years of age who ate nothing but white potatoes for the last forty 
years of her life, as her own relatives testified; and she claimed 
that in the earlier years she had but little else. Water was her 
only drink. She had berries, and other fruits whenever she could 
get them, but not very often. There are thousands of able bodied 
men today who live practically on potatoes, and they are in the 
best of health. 

These facts are not cited to make it appear that we advocate 
a potato diet. We believe in variety to a certain extent. We 
would never recommend the potato as the only good food to be 
found. But it holds high rank, and combines qualities that can- 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


51 


not be found in other things. It is vegetable and cereal, for it 
contains the material of vegetables, and the starch of t e grains. 
While bread has a value of the highest rank, it is constipating, 
and concentrated; but the potato is exactly what the intestinal 
canal needs; it is not constipating and is not concentrated. 

But it must be in good condition. 

Owing to these facts, it was the opinion of the doctors at a 
large meeting recently held in this country that, if hut one article 
of food were to be chosen on which to base good health and 
longevity, the white potato would be given that choice. 

In considering this product of the earth, let us apply the two 
rules that have already been referred to: 

1. Select proper food. 

2. Prepare it properly. 

In selecting potatoes the following facts must be kept in 
mind: 

1. A new potato must not be too new. The skin should be 
slightly flaky to show that it is ripe. Most new potatoes are eaten 
unripe, or at a stage of ripening that has not fully burst the 
starch cells, and the result is that the nutritive value is greatly 
lessened. 

2. A potato must not be green, even on one side. The whole 
potato should be discarded. This green color comes from exposure 
to the sun which converts the food value into a poison. 

3. A potato must not be waxy. Old potatoes become waxy 
and are not only not helpful as food but do actual injury to the body 
by settling up organic diseases. 

4. A potato should not be eaten after it has been allowed to 
make sprouts. There are ways of keeping a new, fully ripe potato 
in a new condition, so that it will retain for more than a year its 
good qualities. Some farmers know how to do this. Any Ralston 
Community should take up this matter and secure all the year round 
the best condition of this kind of food. 

Under the rule of proper selection we have four facts as guides. 
In the study of preparation we come to other facts that are equally 
as important. We will assume that you have learned how to select 
the right kind of white potatoes, and that now they are to be made 
ready for eating. 

1. The one thing to secure is a mealy condition of the potato. 
This can come only from one that is fully ripe, and that has not 


58 


PERSONAL BOOK 


been allowed to get waxy or soggy. The mealy potato has a high 
food value. 

2. The foremost way of cooking a potato so as to obtain all its 
great food value is to bake it. No matter how young or old it is, 
if it will bake to a mealy condition, the skin should be so prepared 
that it can be eaten with the rest of the potato. It is a mistake to 
bake the potato so that the skin is unfit to eat. 

3. In the skin itself there are food elements that are of the 
highest value, and that connot be carried so readily into the system 
in any other way. If a potato is young, the skin is delicious in 
flavor and valuable as an appetizer. When the potato gets old, the 
skin can be scraped until the rough outside is thinly removed; but 
even this is not necessary. The more skin that remains on, the 
better the potato is. 

4. Close to the skin in the potato itself, there is the highest 
percentage of food value; and this is thrown away by the cook. 
You can go into any kitchen and take the parings from the po¬ 
tatoes and weigh them, and you will be surprised at the great 
waste. Then analyse them and compare the results with an analysis 
of the contents left in the part of the potato that is usually cooked, 
and you will find that twice the latter value is thrown into the 
garbage with the skins; or, in other words, when a man spends a 
dollar for potatoes, sixty-seven cents of that dollar goes into the 
parings that are thrown out as worthless. He gets thirty-three 
cents for his dollar. 

5. In the homes of many rich families where economy is not 
involved, the members have been for some time eating the potatoes 
with the skins on; and now after a long period of trial their bet¬ 
tered stomachs and improved blood and health prompt them to de¬ 
clare that they would never for a moment go back to the old way 
of eating potatoes naked. 

6. The dislike of potatoes in their jackets is due to two 
objections: One is the necessary slowness required to eat them; 
and the other is the toughness of the skins. Slowness in eating is 
the most natural of all cures for stomach troubles which are now 
universal; and toughness is an advantage for it gives the teeth and 
their muscles much needed exercise. The habit of eating only 
mushy food, cramming the mouth full of it, and tucking it down 
the throat to urge it along, is the one great cause of defective teeth. 
If the skins of the potatoes were ten times tougher than they now are 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


59 


it would be worth while to masticate them. Dentists are advocating 
the eating of whole grain to strengthen the teeth. One of the best 
authorities in the world on the teeth says: “The only food fit for 
the race that wants good teeth is the kind that cannot be swallowed 
without hard chewing.” 

7. The baked potato, jacket and all, is the first great builder of 
a new body. Get it right and cook it right, and you have something 
that will do wonders for you when you have paved the way for 
making a New Temple. 

8. In eating a baked potato, it can be dressed with butter an! 
a little salt added; or it may be dressed with milk and salt; or with 
cream and salt. The better and more wholesome way is to use 
milk and salt; but there is not much difference in the value of the 
results. Gravy is not to be used; but beef juice slightly cooked as 
a dressing and salted, is highly valuable, especially for a person 
who is recovering from sickness. 

9. If mothers only knew the value of baked potatoes as step¬ 
ping stones from the nursing period to that of regular food-eating, 
they would be spared many hours and days of anxiety in bringing 
up their children. One of the first things the young stomach will 
take and digest, is a baked potato, dressed in milk and a little salt. 
It can be mixed with a large proportion of milk if relished. The 
jackets are not to be used with infants until they are able to chew 
well; and then the laxative effects must be observed and avoided. 
Soggy or waxy potatoes are decidedly hurtful to any stomach, and 
especially to that of a child. 

10. Boiled potatoes have some value as builders of a new body; 
but not half the value of baked mealy potatoes. In a boiled potato 
much of the great body-builder is lost in peeling it. Of course, it 
is possible to eat a boiled potato with its jackets, but few persons 
care to do it, while almost everybody soon learns to enjoy the baked 
potato and its jacket, when deliciously dressed. 

11. A boiled potato should be mealy. Some cooks can prepare 
them in almost any way except the right one. If you are so situ¬ 
ated that you must eat anything that is cooked, no matter how 
badly it is cooked, you are the most abject slave in the world. When 
a man pays a dollar for fifty cents worth of potatoes, as many are 
doing today; and then finds that sixty-seven cents of that dollar has 
been cut off and thrown out in the parings; and finally gets his 
sixteen cents of actual value out of the dollar in the form of soggily 


60 


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boiled potatoes, he needs to fall in love with his wife and win her 
aid to a revolution in the kitchen. This has been done and is being 
done every day in Ealston families; kindly, but mighty firmly. 
When husband and wife come to an agreement the cook, despite her 
independence which is increased in proportion to her ignorance of 
the natural laws of cookery, must begin to learn something more 
than the machine rules of procedure. Let no husband find fault 
with his wife. Let no wife find fault with her husband. Creep 
into each other’s confidences by the road of kindly inquiry; seeking 
each other s help and advice. A man who tried to reform his 
kitchen methods by picking here and there and exposing in an of¬ 
fensive manner the faults that prevailed, finally took our advice 
and said to his wife: “Your health is not what it ought to be. My 
health is not what it ought to be. I do not intend to make any 
criticism on the cooking. I appreciate the efforts made to prepare 
the meals. I do not like fads. I do not want any material 
changes. I would not for the world interfere with your plans; 
but you and I both suffer from stomach trouble and nervousness. 
1 want you to live long and I want to be able for many years to 
earn the money to make you well and happy. Will you do me the 
favor to study with me some ideas that may be of value? Will you 
agree not to turn the matter down until we have gone over it care¬ 
fully? Then I will abide by your decision.” Some such words 
would weigh deeply with any woman of sense. It is true that the 
world is full of silly fads; but Ealstonism has always had the repu¬ 
tation of being the only fadless health doctrine in the world. The 
Ealston Health Club reflects the most important truths in science 
and common sense; no more and no less. If you believe in it, never 
give up because your wife or husband refuses to listen. Learn a 
lesson from those persistent persons who by their eternal battling 
have at last won. A single victory does it all; so that a hundred 
defeats count nothing. Keep at it. That is true character. Learn 
how to win others to your views. 

12. When you come to mashed potatoes, look out. Conceal¬ 
ment is necessary in boarding houses, and is the policy of hotels. 
A waxy or soggily boiled potato is a candidate for the mashing 
bowl. If you do not know who mashed it you may take your 
chances of eating odds and ends cleaned up from the plates of guests 
and servants of preceding meals, or of badly selected or improperly 
cooked potatoes. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


61 


13. Hashed potatoes are likewise to be avoided. Do you think 
in these times that any cook who is compelled to economize will 
throw into the garbage can the leavings of the plates of other people 
or of the servants ? All that can be served again is brought to the 
common fund and then put on in some disguise. Look out for dis¬ 
guised food. In it you will get the leavings of dressings, odds and 
ends of butter scraped from dirty dishes, and all else that can go 
into the amalgam. 

14. The whole potato is about the only thing left in this world 
that cannot be adulterated by greed, or fabricated by invention. 

15. The roasted potatoes that attend the roast of meat, are of 
some value, provided the skins have not been pared too much away 
from the surface. By actual measure some potato parings are 
nearly half an inch in thickness, others more than a quarter of an 
inch, and few indeed as thin as they should be made; for it takes 
too much skill and care on the part of the cook to remove the skin 
in as thin a condition as is to be desired. 

16. The thick slices of potatoes fried a very light brown, but 
not crisp, are suited to winter cooking; but such food is not a builder 
of a new body. It may sustain the old body and help to furnish 
strength and vitality; but it has no usefulness in making the old 
temple over into a new one. The reason is that the high nutritive 
value is lacking. 

17. The crisp friend potatoes are all on the negative side. 
They tax the system. Many persons can digest them, but at some 
cost of vitality; and a majority of people cannot digest any crisp 
surface. Of all the poisonous forms of a good product, the so-called 
Saratoga chips are the worst. We have made this statement for 
thirty years, and it has been challenged. A man who boasted that 
nothing that was served at his hotel could hurt his stomach, tried 
everything and escaped harm. He challenged our statement, and 
we asked him to eat potato chips at every meal for a week, taking 
the usual variety of other food. He wrote back, “I will eat the 
chips at every meal as you suggest, and I will warrant that my 
stomach will be just as strong as ever; after which I will eat noth¬ 
ing but the chips three times a day and thrive on them.” He reached 
his third consecutive meal, and was a total wreck from gastritis, 
from which he died in six months afterwards. A companion of his, 
died of acute indigestion from eating the thin fried potato chips. 
In a large boarding house, thirty boarders were emaciated and half 


62 


PERSONAL BOOK 


sick from an excess of fried cooking; and, when at last the man¬ 
ager could be induced to omit that class of cooking the stomachs 
got better. Then the fried methods came in vogue again, and all 
the boarders became dyspeptics. They left, and new boarders took 
their places, only to fall victims to the fried food barbarism. The 
human stomach will not digest any crisp food or surface. The most 
it can do is to get rid of it after fermentation. There are many 
persons who can keep well apparently on such cooking, but their 
numbers are growing less every year, owing to the increased tax on 
their systems by the inrush of adulterations in all things that enter 
the body. The day of the fried food regime is nearly at an end. 
Sudden deaths from acute indigestion increased 129 per cent, in the 
last year. A doctor recently said: “There are more than a million 
graves in this land that have been filled by the frying pan.”—An 
expert and high authority on tuberculosis said recently: “Nothing 
breaks up the blood so fast as pastry and fried food, and nearly all 
victims of the white plague have been eaters of this kind of food.” 

18. Old and waxy potatoes are sometimes used in imitations. 
As pearl tapioca is made from such potatoes it should be avoided. 
The genuine tapioca is valuable as food. 

In closing this part of the present work a few laws may be 
stated: 

1. The food that will make a strong man sick, will not make a 
sick man well. 

2. The food that will make a sick man well, will give a well 
man better health. 

3. The food that will do harm to a patient who is recovering 
from illness, and that will not do harm to a well man, will not 
build up a new body. 

4. The food that will furnish strength and vitality to a well 
man may not build up a new body. Foods therefore have three 
natural divisions: 

a. The varieties that will build a new body. 

b. The varieties that will sustain life but that will not build up 
a new body. 

c. The varieties that will gradually weaken life, although they 
may be eaten safely by a small class of people. 

We have thus far found one body-builder, which is the mealy 
baked potato. If your body is made ready for the rebuilding 
process, then you will find this article of food very helpful; but 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


63 


if you have not yet taken the steps necessary to build your body 
over again, then the baked potato is helpful in determining what to 
eat to provide strength and vitality. As an illustration of this, a 
young lady clerk who was in the habit of taking her luncheons out, 
complained that her stomach was in very bad condition. A doctor 
recommended the baked potato with milk and salt and a slice of 
bread and butter. It was a simple and inexpensive lunch, but it 
brought her back to good health, and a freedom fiom headaches 
that had troubled her since she had begun to take her meals out. 

But we do not recommend the one-food diet. 

A proper and pleasing variety is best. 

If there are people who do not agree with you as to the 
value of the baked potato make a measure of their reasons. If 
they conduct hotels or boarding houses, the baked potato stands 
in the way of their using up the odds and ends that are left on 
the plates in the dining room. If their boarders will not eat 
mashed and hashed potatoes, how can such leavings be used? 
They are too valuable to the managers to be thrown into the 
waste cans. 

We cannot imagine any other class of persons opposing the 
whole potato. It shows on its face that it is not a made-up dish. 
When baked it performs a service that has saved lives, and in the 
feeding of children that have just been weaned it has proved its 
necessity to the human race. 

Take one or two daily during the period you are building 
a New Temple. 


64 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Chapter Nine 


GENERAL BUILDERS 


From out the crust of earth 
a teeming wealth proceeds 
to cheer the heart of man 
with multitudes of gifts. 


HIGH standard of living is maintained by the nse 
of foods and the cultivation of habits that do not 
weaken the vitality or accumulate defective material 
in the body. It is now assumed that you have made 
at least one trial to create a new body; and that, 
at the beginning of each month, you will make a further trial until 
you have twelve in all to your credit. This will complete your 
year. 

After each series of nine new meals, you should come into the 
use of such foods as will serve to keep the standard of health at its 
best. This list will be subject to the personal rules that are to 
apply to you as an individual. These will follow in their place. In 
the present chapter the high standard foods are described or re¬ 
ferred to in the following manner: 

HIGH STANDARD OF LIVING FOODS. 

1. Eggs as previously stated. 

2. Milk as previously stated. 

3. Toast as previously stated. 

4. Potatoes as already described. 

5. Breads. 

6. Cereals. 

7. Fruits. 

8. Vegetables. 

9. Specialties. 

10. Drinks. 






RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


65 


The above list includes about everything that nature holds 
or the earth affords. The first four have been fully described in 
the preceding chapters. We will now discuss the merits of the 
others. 

BREADS.—In proportion as the health is poor or the vital¬ 
ity weak, the breads should be old; but a vigorous person may 
easily digest any new bread that is free from the following ob¬ 
jections : 

а. It must not be soggy or heavy. 

б. It must not be made of chemically impure baking powder 
or other poisonous ingredients used to raise it. Yeast-raised bread 
rolls, and like articles, are generally better. Alum is present in 
most baking powders, and also in most 6elf-raising flours. It is 
a slow but destructive poison, as it eats the lining from the 
stomach and intestines, and thus opens the passage to the appen¬ 
dix, which causes appendicitis. 

c. It must not be fried, or greasy, or in any way connected 
with fried grease. 

d. It must not be pie-crusty, as pie-crust breaks up the blood 
quicker than any other agency. 

CEREALS.—The best of these is whole wheat free from the 
bran, cooked long and served with milk, slightly sweetened. 

RICE.—This cereal when cooked so as to be very light and 
not soggy, is very valuable when relished. It may be made into 
puddings or eaten as a vegetable, with butter, or with cream. If 
either cream or milk is used on rice, no sugar should be taken 
with it. 

PUFFED RICE, and also puffed wheat, are both excellent 
eaten with cream or with milk; but without sugar, unless a very 
small quantity of the latter is taken with the milk. Sugar mixed 
with cream causes fermentation and acid. 

SHREDDED WHEAT eaten in the manner described on 
the packages is also very nourishing. 

The last three articles are already cooked and need no at¬ 
tention in the kitchen. They save time and labor as well as fire, 
and are therefore helpful in the heated season. They include the 
full value of the wheat. 

The use of crisp food, as corn flakes, while palatable, is to 
be avoided, as there is no stomach so strong that it will not in 
time be sickened by rich conditions in any food. The same is 


66 


PERSONAL BOOK 


true of chip potatoes; they have caused many fatal attacks of 
acute indigestion. 

SAMP in the cool and cold seasons, as well as hominy and 
hominy grits, will be found very nourishing and most excellent. 
If eaten with cream, no sugar is to be used; but if eaten with 
milk a small quantity of sugar is allowable. Butter is good on it. 

Breakfast foods as sold in packages, aside from the above, 
are to be avoided. They are the refuse from mills that are de¬ 
voted to other purposes and that must use up what was once 
fed to cattle, donkeys and horses. This refuse is now put into 
flaming boxes and sold at high prices to the public. What is 
worth a cent or two a pound for animals, now brings ten or 
twelve cents a pound when fed to human beings. 

FRUITS are of two kinds: 

1. FOOD FRUITS. 

2. JUICE FRUITS. 

Food Fruits are dates, figs, raisins and bananas. 

Juice Fruits are pears, apples, peaches, grapes, plums, apri¬ 
cots, oranges, pineapples, grape fruit, cherries and berries. 

The Food Fruits take the place of meat and bread. 

The Juice Fruits take the place of distilled water; besides help¬ 
ing purify and give tone to the blood. 

A Food Fruit should be taken under the same circumstances as 
bread or meat are taken. 

Juice Fruits should be taken on an empty stomach in the 
morning; and it does not matter how near or far from breakfast 
they are eaten. Only the juice should enter the stomach; all pulp 
should be wholly thrown off; except that the skins of apples, pears, 
cherries and berries may be eaten, as they furnish valuable food 
and are medicinal in their nature. 

Dates, figs and raisins should be cooked or subjected to some 
method of sterilization, as they may need it. Raisins are par¬ 
ticularly beneficial when cooked, and give as much strength as meat. 

BANANAS are both bread and meat. Some years ago a well 
known doctor became an ardent advocate of a banana diet, and he 
proved the value of this fruit when the following conditions are 
observed : 

1. The banana must be cell-ripe. By this is meant that all 
green taste must be gone from the flesh, and the cells burst open so 
that it is mealy, but not old. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


67 


2. The skin should indicate the condition of the flesh by be¬ 
ginning to dry up, but not to a great extent. 

3. The banana should be taken as the first course of a meal; 
not after other food has gone in the stomach, and not when the 
stomach is to remain empty even for a few minutes. 

If the banana is eaten at the exact stage of ripening and at the 
time stated, it becomes, next to the baked potato, the best of all the 
foods that can be eaten. It is foolish to buy meat when a greater 
value is obtained from this food. 

A green, or slightly green, or un-mellow banana is dangerous, 
and may set up intestinal trouble. A few hours of time may deter¬ 
mine a great food or an unsafe one. An over-ripe banana is much 
better than one that is slightly unripe. There is no food that re¬ 
quires so much exactness of condition as this. 

GRAPES are the king of all the juice fruits. Some persons 
eat the skin, but this is not best. Most persons eat the seeds and 
pulp; and a few grapes so eaten will not do harm unless the stomach 
is sore. But the juice between the skin and the pulp is the real 
food of the grapes. As most varieties do not have much juice there, 
it is better to select such kinds as the white Niagaras, or the black 
Eatons, which are largely juice, especially the latter. 

APPLES with the skins, and best of all the baked sweet apples, 
jackets and all, are both food and juice. But the apple is a treacher¬ 
ous friend. It has fruit cells that are smaller than the point of a 
fine needle. They can be seen only with the microscope. Each 
cell is a hollow world, holding inside itself a valuable juice if that 
liquid has been generated by mellowness of the apple; in which 
case it is juicy and pleasant. But cooking an apple that is not fully 
self-mellowed, will separate all these cells, but will not ripen them or 
burst them open. Apple sauce seems mellow, but it is a mass of 
separated cells all of which are closed and solid. 

A raw apple may be eaten and be found juicy, while the cells 
are solid. It will disturb most any stomach and set up intestinal 
troubles. A raw, mellow apple whose cells have all bursted by 
nature never hurt any person unless the acidity was too great. 
If of the sweet variety, it is a food. Some persons are harmed 
by apples; others are benefited. The former have eaten the un- 
bursted cells. 

The pear is a diuretic and will make the kidneys free. Some 
pears are indigestible, but most of them are beneficial. 


68 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Grape fruit is excellent, if only the watery part be taken. 

The juice and not the pulp of sweet oranges is good. 

Sweet cherries that are fully ripe and very mellow are valuable 
fruit; indeed one of the best of the distilled-water fruits. 

Strawberries often cause the hives or some form of skin trou¬ 
ble; and lead to neuralgia. They should be eaten with caution. 
Many persons are not harmed by them. It depends on the condi¬ 
tion of the blood. 

Gooseberries lead to uric acid troubles, and set up rheumatism, 
gouty conditions and the like. 

Blackberries if very ripe and mellow are excellent, as they give 
strength and value to the body and blood. 

Currants are in the class with gooseberries; generally hurtful. 

Blueberries and huckleberries are not injurious. 

Dried currants are Corinth berries, which name is perverted 
into currants. They are indigestible. Cake or mince pies made of 
dried currants beckon a long, bony finger towards the undertaker. 

Pineapple pulp or flesh is wholly indigestible; yet the juice is 
excellent, and may be taken with sugar. 

The juicy fruits should not be cooked. Their value is in their 
distilled water which is wholly destroyed as such when the fruit is 
cooked. Sugar also neutralizes the wonderful power of the juices of 
most fruits, except that of the pineapple, and should be omitted. 
As the ripening process of the body is checked by distilled water, it 
is important that all juice fruits that assist in this checking work 
should be made use of as much as possble. Therefore: 

1. Do not cook fruit. 

2. Eat fruit without sugar. 

VEGETABLES are of two kinds: 

1. Those that can be eaten raw. 

2. Those that can be cooked. 

When you eat food that is nutritious, it is necessary that the 
nutrition that is derived from the food be woven into the parts of 
the body to repair the breakdown that follows the act of living. 
Even the beating of the heart, the respiration of air, the circulation 
of the blood, the act of thinking, as well as the operation of the 
functions and faculties, all cause breakdown, and all must be con¬ 
tinually repaired or the body will waste away. It is a nice balance 
between loss and renewal of each and every one of the millions times 
billions of cells that make up the structure of the body. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


69 


The nutrition that passes out of the blood to make up the loss 
of life, and even the process of digesting food, as well as the con¬ 
tinual act of throwing olf waste, must be carried on by messengers 
and builders, known as good bacteria, or angs. There are two classes 
of food that are taken daily, or should be taken daily in the body: 

1. Foods that contain the angs, or building bacteria. 

2. Foods that are nutrition or pabulum for the angs or build¬ 
ers. 

The first class of foods must never be subjected to heat; for 
cooking, or any form of sterilization, kills all bacteria, including 
the angs as well as the devs. Therefore if you heat, scald, boil or 
sterilize everything that goes into the stomach you would soon be 
weak in nerves, have bad blood, and rapidly take on the conditions 
of feebleness in organic life. Complete sterilization means com¬ 
plete death of all the vital elements that are put into the body. 

Foods that belong to the second class, are those that furnish 
nutrition to the bacteria of the first class. Nature intends all 
second class foods to be cooked; not to sterilize them, but to make 
pabulum of them, and thus fit them for the support of the angs in 
the body. The fearful mistake made by the raw food faddists was 
to have both classes of food raw; thus supplying the angs with noth¬ 
ing they could build on or with. If you set a group of masons, 
bricklayers, carpenters and other artisans to erect a house, you have 
there the angs; but if you give them nothing to build with, they 
must starve for material, starve for work, and annihilate each other, 
else go somewhere else for the means of livelihood. 

All the second class foods should be cooked; never eaten raw. 

Here we see the raw food principle on one side of the question. 

But there is another side of it, the facts of which were not fully 
known until within a few weeks of the writing of this book. 

As all food that contains devs, or bad material, or that may 
contain it, should be sterilized before being eaten, if disease is to be 
prevented, it follows that such food remains in the form of carcasses 
in the food itself; and these carcasses must be eaten with the food. 
Now as the human body requires a supply of angs or good bacteria 
every day, to cook, boil, heat or sterilize them would result in adding 
billions more of the carcasses to the food that is eaten. The rule 
is this: 

Whenever the foods of the first class, or raw class, are cooked or 
sterilized, their dead bodies are left in the food itself, and these 


70 


PERSONAL BOOK 


are so abundant that they will work serious damage to the system, 
in time. 

Still a third fact is now known; and it is this: 

When any organism dies, or any life is gone forth, what has 
perished gives out toxins or poisons in the form of gases and vapors, 
some of which are exceedingly dangerous. The most marked illus¬ 
tration of the quick acting of such toxins is seen in diphtheria 
which kills the child, not by the invasion of the germs themselves, 
but by the breath that each germ sends out. So in lockjaw the 
nerves are convulsed by the poisons set free by other germs. In 
rabies or hydrophobia, in horrible sufferings that last for days, and 
end in torture too terrible for one of the world to understand who 
has not been in the sick room where some strong man, or some noble 
woman, or some sweet child is paying the most agonizing of all 
penalties for the indifference of the public in allowing dogs freedom 
of range; in that saddest of all suffering the toxins do their awful 
work. 

If an animal dies in a field and is left to itself, it will be 
changed back into chemical elements by many kinds of life that 
will feed on its rot and decay. In fact, rot and decay are processes 
due to nature in the effort to effect the needed change. 

If the life that perished is small, it will likewise be reverted to 
elements and set free; but such alterations cause the escape of 
toxins or poisons. When bacteria die they also give out toxins. 
This fact is absolutely proved and known to all investigators of 
bacterial life. When the bad bacteria are destroyed in food by 
heating or sterilization, they remain in the food with their toxins; 
so that such food is not as beneficial as if it had been free from 
the germs. 

It contains death. 

But the first class foods, they that contain needed angs or 
builders of the body, if cooked or heated or sterilized, are not only 
deprived of their workers, but are loaded with dead carcasses, and 
to this danger is added the toxins that are set free on their death. 
These statements are not theory; they are absolutely proved facts. 
They have been known for years except the toxin effects following 
the death of bacteria in the foods that belong to the raw class. Let 
us sum up the three forms of danger that cooking does to the first 
class foods: 

1. It deprives the foods of their builders. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


n 


2. It puts death in the foods in the form of dead carcasses, 

3. It sets free the toxins that follow death. 

Now think of the human body as a temple that must be re¬ 
paired every minute of the day and night; and that builders are 
required to build and repair. Think then of the effect of killing 
your builders. This is what you will do if you cook the first class 
of foods. 

Then think of dragging into the temple every minute the dead 
bodies of friends and enemies alike. Finally think of the odors, 
the effluvia, the rank smells that arise from those dead bodies to foul 
the air and ruin the place as one of habitation. Here you have the 
effects of cooking the first class of foods. 

While other parts give a full description of the classes of 
foods, it is thought best to list them here to save the necessity of 
turning to other pages of this book for the information when 
merely a reference is wanted. 

The following are the foods that should not be cooked: 1. 
Lettuce. — 2. Celery. — 3. Young onions when digestible. — 4. 
Young cabbage when digestible. — 5. Young cucumbers when in 
very small quantity, and also when the system is clogged; otherwise 
they are dangerous. — 6. Young radishes, subject to similar restric¬ 
tions. — 7. Berries of all kinds, subject to the restrictions stated in 
the foregoing lines. — 8. Fruits of all kinds. — None of the fore¬ 
going articles should be sterilized or subjected to heat or cook¬ 
ing, unless there is disease in the locality, or worms are suspected as 
in dates and figs. — 9. Tomatoes, if you have no tendency to rheu¬ 
matism. 

The following are the foods that should always be cooked until 
they are mealy or free from gummy conditions: 

1. Potatoes. This includes only the white or Irish potatoes, as 
sweet potatoes and yams are not easily digested by any person well 
or sick. — 2. All fibrous vegetables, such as beets, turnips, carrots, 
parsnips, old cabbage, old onions and the like. — 3. All young 
cereals, such as green corn, green peas, green beans, and the like. — 

4. All grain, whether whole, cracked, rolled or ground into flour or 
meal.—Not one of the foregoing foods is intended to be eaten raw. 
They are the pabulum, or material with which the builders or good 
bacteria construct the temple of the human body. Until they are 
mellowed by cooking they are not suited for mankind. 

Thus the two classes of foods furnish the two forces that are 


PERSONAL BOOK 


n 

needed in the building of a new body wholly different from youi 
present self. 

The builders, or raw foods. 

The material, or cooked foods. 

It is not every kind of food that is good for the person. The 
condition of the health and its temperament and occupation has 
much to do with the selection of the diet. But it is a well proved 
fact today that some people eat much food and get frail results; 
while others eat little and are strong. Two rules follow: 

1. The more pabulum you eat, the more waste is put into the 
body and the greater is the vitality that is required to use and dis¬ 
pose of it. You cannot get along without it, as it is the material 
that is so much needed; nor can a house be built when a surplus of 
material prevents using what is actually required, by being in the 
way and blocking progress. 

2. The more evenly balanced the raw foods and the cooked 
foods are; with enough of the latter to furnish the supply needed 
for building the body, and of the former to act upon the supply, the 
greater will be your health, and the greater your vitality, for you 
will secure the required results with the least wear and tear, the 
least waste and the least amount of food. Try this and see. It 
accounts for the strange fact that one person on half the amount 
of food eaten by another person will derive twice the benefit. A 
man may be a heavy eater and not be well nourished; and another 
man may be a light eater and be well nourished all the time. 

And then it must not be forgotten that these rules, which are 
founded on the supposition that you know what is included in the 
raw food list, and that you avoid cooking that class, are to be 
applied to your physical condition. If you are in a laxative state, 
there is too much of the fibrous material going through your body; 
too much that is neither in the class of builders or class of material; 
but dead waste or indigestible matter that merely passes on without 
giving nutrition to the blood. In such a condition the raw foods 
may become useless, and having too little material with which to 
build they may add to your laxative condition. If you are con¬ 
stipated, such things as radishes, cucumbers and cabbage may 
be taken when they might do harm if you were in a laxative con¬ 
dition. It is true that some persons can eat cucumbers without 
harm; and it is equally true that cucumbers have quickly ended 
lives by their action on the intestines. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 73 

All sensible persons will go slowly in food selection; first 
finding out to a certainty what things hurt them, what help them, 
and what are neutral. This is the result of observation and test. 

Canned or tinned foods are never useful and they not on y 
fail to supply proper material to the body, but add the poisons 
of toxins and dead germ life with which they are loaded. A good 
Ralstonite never buys or uses canned or tinned goods m any torm, 
and avoids all package foods. Only such things as are ^tamable 
in bulk are found in the homes of the true Ralstomtes. And that 
is evidence of a high degree of common sense. 

That nature has given care and attention to the needs of 
the human body is seen in the fact that she has made the stomac 1 
of man capable of digesting three classes of food: 

1. It is able to digest some raw foods of the vegetable king¬ 
dom and all raw products of the animal kingdom. _ 

2. It is able to digest cooked foods of the vegetable kingdom. 

3. It is able to digest cooked foods of the animal kingdom. 

4. Bnt it is not intended to digest raw foods of the anima 

kingdom. . 

5. ISTor is it benefited by cooked products of the animal king* 

dom. . . . 

While there can be no iron-clad rule laid down at this time 

forbidding the eating of all meats, the time will come when there 
will be only three classes of foods used by humanity, and they may 
be summed up as follows: 

1. The products of animal life will hold the highest place 
in the supply of food and will be eaten raw; but no part of animal 
life itself will be eaten. There is a vast difference between the 
products of such life, and the life itself. _ Milk, cream, butter, eggs 
and honey are all products of animal life, but are not animal in 
any sense, and have none of the faults of meat. 

2. All vegetables and fruits that can be eaten raw will con¬ 
stitute the only raw foods of the vegetable kingdom. 

3. All the cereals that are useful will be eaten cooked. 

Here is the trinity of future humanity; clean, wholesome, full 
of vitality, and destined to a long life and lasting prosperity. 


74 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Chapter Ten 


NO TWO PERSONS ALIKE 


We differ as the flower 
is different from its kind 
Nor heart-beat, thought or mood 
can all men move alike. 


NCR, in fact always, it was supposed that health was 
a mechanical result from a mechanical cause; that 
# ^ ^ human beings were brought like machines into 

a normal condition; and that it made no difference 
what was eaten, as the nutrition would follow in any 
case. One person is offered something that in a chemical sense 
is good food, although the recipient does not want it; and another 
person is given what he wants, so that it is nutritious and not 
hurtful. The latter individual will thrive, while the former will 
lack vital power. 

4he purpose of food is not to make mere flesh and bone; 
but to create a vital body. 

Vitality must be present in the food, and this cannot enter 
m any instance where it is not invited by a power back of diges¬ 
tion. The stomach is a receptacle that holds the food and churns 
it in order that every particle will come in contact with some 
part of its surface. Much of it will be absorbed and passed into 
circulation by the sponge-like pores of the membrane; but this 
is mechanical; and it is generally a dry stomach or a catarrhal 
stomach that so absorbs it. 

Behind these conditions there is a power known to us as the 
vital host of digestion. It seems to come to the stomach like a ball 
of energy. When it comes, then digestion will be perfect and easy 
and the food will be drawn into the body and create new vitality; 






RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


75 


it will be fully assimilated. There will not be an excess of food to 
be thrown off by a great nervous effort that breaks down the powers 
of life. Recent experiments have revolutionized the whole theory 
of digestion and assimilation. 

What was not known a few years ago and is now fully proved 
is the following law: 

Vital life comes from vital digestion, and this is controlled by 
the third brain, and not by the stomach. The latter is merely the 
agent of the former. 

The third brain is located at the base of the head. It plays the 
most important part in other functions, as it controls the heart, the 
lungs, the liver and the kidneys, as well as circulation and all 
organic activity. That it furnished vitality to the stomach was 
well known, but that it actually determined what foods should be 
digested and what rejected, was not even guessed at until a short 
time ago. 

This wonderful third brain may make or may cure so danger¬ 
ous a malady as diabetes. A blow on the third brain has caused 
thousands of such cases. Worry of the mind that weakens this 
third brain by sapping its nervous centers, causes more cases of 
diabetes than a blow or strain on the third brain. The fact is that 
whatever does it injury, is sure to affect one or more of the organs 
that it controls. 

All life depends on the nerve-centers. 

There is a broad and wide muscle that is called the floor of the 
lungs or the roof of the stomach; its name is the diaphragm. It 
does the coughing, the sneezing, the laughing and the crying 
for all persons. If you tickle the sensitive nerve inside the nose, 
the excitement will reach the third brain, and the latter will order 
the diaphragm to move violently, first by sinking down, causing the 
lungs to draw in a quick and deep breath, then by a sudden jumping 
up which forces the air out through the throat and nose, ending in 
a great sneeze, the purpose of which is to eject the intruder from 
the nose. 

Joy causes the first brain, known as the cerebrum, to exhilarate 
the third brain, and the latter orders the diaphragm to respond, 
which makes laughter; for the quick succession of movements of 
that big muscle makes the air come and go quickly through the 
throat and mouth; and we laugh. Bad news or worry or depres¬ 
sion, make the first brain so weaken the third brain that the latter 


76 


PERSONAL BOOK 


gives a slow action to the big muscle at the floor of the lungs, and 
there is weeping, moaning and sadness. All vitality is at low ebb. 

Look at the process of nature: 

1. There is the first brain, known as the organ of living im¬ 
pressions that are bright or dark. 

2. This first brain makes all its impressions felt by the third 
brain, and the latter is vital or weak according to the nature of 
those impressions. 

3. "When the third brain has received its impressions from the 
first brain, it sends those exact impressions to all the organs that 
it controls; and the stomach and its powers of digestion will be 
most strongly affected by them. 

This process explains why worry has caused diabetes of the 
fatal kind, and wh}^ the heart beats slower under conditions of 
melancholy or faster and in better motion when the mind is bright 
and cheerful. The lungs follow exactly with the third brain. The 
number of respirations per minute and their depth, depend on the 
vital brightness of the first brain and its influence over the third. 

Health and digestion, life and vitality, all originate in the 
moods of the first brain; and are made real by the power of the 
third brain over the organs of the body. 

This great law must be recognized. 

How if you were asked what causes digestion and health from 
good assimilation, you would answer, the third brain ? This would 
be true, for there the control is exercised. 

But if you were asked what causes the third brain to in¬ 
fluence the making of health through digestion, you would say 
the first brain or what is in fact the intelligent brain; the brain 
that knows and acts upon its knowledge, and that masters the opera¬ 
tions of the body through the functions. It may be dry reading 
to say that the third brain is the master of the involuntary opera¬ 
tions of the body, which means the functions; and it is under 
the influence of the first brain; while the second brain masters the 
faculties, which are the voluntary operations of the body; the sec¬ 
ond brain being under the mastery of the first brain. So it is seen 
that intelligent thought and feeling may master both the functions 
and the faculties. 

The functions, being the duties performed by the organs, go on 
at all times, night and day; so that sleep is often a relief from the 
depressed moods of the first brain, unless there are troubled dreams. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


77 


The first brain is bright or dark as its knowledge is cheering 
and its moods are exhilarating, or the opposite conditions prevail. 

What is back of the first brain? 

Does it have any earthly master? 

If not, then it must be the prey of all influences, now flighty 
and now gloomy. But if it has a master, what and where is it? 

There is the most absolute proof that a master exists, and 
that this master is the soul in the mind and body. It need not 
necessarily be the immortal soul that belongs to another world, 
but that there is a distinct being of a personal nature, that is 
able to sway the first brain at will, is proved in the gigantic volume 
known as the Operations of the Other Mind, or Soul, which is the 
Personal Master of every man and woman. This is fully de¬ 
scribed in the booklet called Honor Values, which is allotted to 
every member of the Ralston Health Club without cost, as stated 
in the final department of this book. 

But it is not material for the purposes of this work to know 
whether or not the first brain has a master that can compel it 
to do its bidding. It is sufficient to know that the processes of 
digestion and health depend on the condition of the third brain. 

If the nose is irritated by dust or mucus the command is 
wired to the third brain to set the big muscle at the floor of the 
lungs to work. Here is the sequence of action: 

1. The cause. 

2. The response of the third brain. 

3. The action of the organ it controls. 

4. The removal of the cause, which is the result sought. 

Digestion proceeds along the same route. 

1. There must be the exciting cause. 

2. Then the third brain will respond. 

3. The stomach will receive the fluids that carry on digestion. 

4. The result desired will be attained, which is the assimila¬ 


tion of the nutrition into the general circulation. 

IT HAS BEEN PROVED THAT THE EXCITING 
CAUSE OCCURS IN THE MOUTH. 

By the word mouth we mean all its cavity and the upper 
throat .that holds the food until it is swallowed. . 

It was always supposed that the stomach fluids were called 
into the stomach by the presence of anything in that organ; and 
it is only very recently that the truth has been ascertained. The 


78 


PERSONAL BOOK 


great man who proved the real process, received the prize from 
the Nobel Fund, a sum of cash so large that its income alone will 
support several families indefinitely. Here are some of the facts 
that came to light: 

1. The presence of anything in the stomach will not draw 
in the fluids of digestion. 

2. Without these fluids there can be no digestion. There 
may be mechanical absorption, but no vitality or new life will 
follow. 

3. The old theory was that anything that entered the stomach 
would excite its walls and thus call in the fluids of digestion. 

4. It was even thought and taught that the scraping of the 
inner walls of the stomach would induce this flow of fluids. 

5. The school books taught that the stomach, when empty, 
had no gastric juice, but was dry, and that only after food came 
in did the fluids come to act upon them. 

6. The walls of the stomach were actually tickled with a 
feather, but no fluids entered. 

_ Then the roughest and sharpest kind of sand was inserted 
against the inner walls, yet the stomach remained perfectly dry. 

8. Real food was now inserted through the abdominal opening 
into the stomach. Bread and the coagulated white of hen’s egg, 
lay for hours in the organ and no digestion took place. Raw 
meat, after a long period, started a very slight flow of the diges¬ 
tive fluids, but there was no actual process that could be called 
digestion. The uncooked white of an egg passed through the 
porous walls of the stomach, but this was an absorption, and not 
digestion. No gastric juices were present. 

9. Now by one of the most ingenious experiments ever made, 
the full flow of gastric juice was secured without allowing any 
food to enter the stomach. This was done by cutting an opening 
in the lower throat, and dividing the food passage into two parts°, 
so that food put in the mouth may be drawn away before it can 
be sent to the stomach. It was naturally swallowed, but did not 
get any farther. The food selected was of a dainty kind, and 
was desired. As it was taken away from the gullet after it was 
swallowed, it was caught in a pan and eaten over and over again. 

10. The greatest of modern facts is this: Although not a 
morsel reached the stomach, the gastric juice poured into that or¬ 
gan in enormous quantities. The saliva at the mouth was free. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


79 


Enough of this saliva and of the gastric juices of the stomach 
were collected and used as solvents on other food, and was found 
sufficient to digest several large meals. It is on the same princi¬ 
ple that hospitals use hydro-chloric acid to digest meat without 
having to boil it or lose the good in the vapor. 

11. It was afterwards found that, if there was great hunger, 
a very low grade of food would start the flow of these stomach 
fluids which are known as gastric juices. Foods that ordinarily 
would be rejected by a person supplied with tempting varieties, 
will attract these fluids to the stomach, as soon as such foods are 
placed in the mouth. 

12. Then came the further facts: The degree of hunger de¬ 
termines the amount of flow, and the power of digestion. Food 
that a weak and indifferent stomach would not digest at all, 
would be the easiest of all things for the keenly hungry stomach 
to digest. More than this the sight of food, the odor of its flavor 
when pleasant, and the prospect of an enjoyable season at the 
table, all impel the flow of stomach fluids, and make digestion and 
health certain. 

In summing up the great work of the experimenter. Prof. J. 
P. Pawlow, we will use his own words: “The presence of diges¬ 
tion furnishes a beautiful illustration of the influence of mind 
on matter.” — “The inspiring stimulus is not mechanical, but 
psychic.” — “The preliminary essential to an orderly assimilation 
of food is a keen desire for it.” —“The passionate longing for 
food and this alone has called forth under our eyes, a most inter¬ 
esting activity of the gastric glands. * * * We are therefore 

justified in saying that the appetite is the first and mightiest 
agent of the vigorous secretion of the gastric juice. * * * 
There is only one thing to think of, namely, the eager desire for 
food and the feeling of satisfaction and contentment derived from 
its enjoyment.” — And he sums it all up in the great phrase. 
“Appetite is juice.” 

When appetite is everything, it should be guarded as the one 
inspiration to health. The eating of rich pastry, the drinking of 
sickly soda water and the indulgence in candies, especially when 
the stomach is empty as is the usual custom with women whose 
health is never good, seems like flying in the face of nature. 

When there is a keen appetite, do not abuse it, for then is 
the golden opportunity to take only the foods of the higher stand- 


80 


PERSONAL BOOK 


ard of living which have been already described in this book. 
The greatest crime against health is eating cheap, or rich foods at 
a time when the desire for food is strong. 

Another wrong is the custom of stuffing at a meal; that is, 
eating more than the body needs, because it tastes good. If you 
eat slowly and never wash down the food with drink, it will not 
be taken in excessive quantities. 

A third wrong is the habit of eating a heavy meal at the end 
of the day. Food is fuel. Fuel is needed to work on, and not 
to sleep on. The evening meal, being heavy, is a drag to the 
system all night, and in the morning there is the clogging fueling 
that prevents an appetite for breakfast. The man or woman who 
has no morning appetite, is abnormal, and there is but one rem¬ 
edy: eat no suppers or evening meals until the breakfast hunger 
is established. This is an infallible sign. 

The facts set forth in this department are summed up in a 
few laws: 

Law .—The health of the body depends on the wholesome ac¬ 
tivity of the stomach juices during digestion. 

Law .—The stomach juices will not flow in abundance until 
the third brain acts under the stimulant of appetite and an en¬ 
joyment of the food in the mouth or the prospect of such en¬ 
joyment. 

Law .—The third brain becomes inactive and refuses to stimu¬ 
late the stomach, no matter how attractive the food may be, if the 
first brain is depressed. 

Law .—Food that may lie in the stomach undigested from 
lack of gastric juices, will be acted upon by an inflow of such 
juices if an enjoyable condition is set up in the brain. 

It is this last law that explains why a man who is in the 
habit of smoking and who is deprived of his cigar or pipe, will 
suffer from indigestion; which will be relieved by a smoke after 
a meal. The power of this pleasureable enjoyment on the brain 
and palate is so great that smoking, if indulged in at all, should 
never take place until there is wholesome food in the stomach. 
This fact is not stated to encourage smoking. It is stated merely 
as a fact. If the habit of smoking is fixed, then the use of the 
habit should occur only on a full stomach. Kalstonites, as a rule, 
do not use tobacco in any form. But a habit is a habit, be it 
good or bad; and there is no reason why a smoker should be sub- 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


81 


jected to indigestion, when a good smoke will relieve him. It is a 
matter of health rather than ethics. 

The same law holds true of the bad habit of chewing gum. 
It is a boorish habit at best; but the use of it after eating a whole- 
Bome meal, will start the gastric juices to flowing and aid the 
health; while the use of anything in the mouth on an empty 
stomach will start the gastric juices to flowing just the same, and 
the walls of the stomach will digest each other to some degree. 
This fact, surprising as it seems, is well established. While the 
digestion is slight, it produces irritation and eventually inflam¬ 
mation. 

Chewing tobacco on an empty stomach will cause the juices 
to flow, and set up a tendency of the stomach walls to digest each 
other; just as chewing gum will do the same thing. 

Sucking candy, or eating anything that does not furnish food 
for the stomach to act upon, will draw the gastric juices into the 
stomach, and the latter, being empty, will begin to digest itself. 
Tripe is stomach, and it is readily digested whether cooked or raw. 

Water is the only thing that can be safely taken in the mouth 
when the stomach is empty, for the juices will not flow when 
water is present. On the other hand the drinking of water while 
eating, checks the flow of gastric juice. This teaches the law 
that water should be drank on an empty stomach, or after a meal; 
but not with it. As milk makes cheese in the stomach, it fur¬ 
nishes bulk and can be acted upon. 

There are many dainties that can be used to produce diges¬ 
tion after the food has been eaten; and these are often placed 
on the table to be used between the courses. 

By pleasing the palate with anything that is keenly relished, 
a strong flow of gastric juice has been brought quickly into the 
stomach, and digestion started where otherwise it might have fer¬ 
mented and caused severe illness. 

While it is much better to eat only the things that are whole¬ 
some, they often fail to tempt the appetite; and it is then useless 
to take them. Therefore the first rule of all is this: 

DO NOT EAT WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT. 

This does not apply to the rebuilding of the body during its 
first nine meals after the withdrawal of the three meals; for those 
nine meals make use of certain building foods as medicines; doc¬ 
tors call them food-medicines. They must be eaten in the order 


82 


PERSONAL BOOK 


and under the plan stated; and after them, there should be for 
a while an indulgence in the higher standard foods until the body 
is clean and well. Then make use of the law that you must not 
eat what you do not want. 

You must want what you eat, but it does not follow that you 
must eat what you want. In the chapter on food selection, the 
difference between these two laws will be fully stated. 

Having brought your body into a state of good health, you 
are then free to choose for yourself. 

You are not like others. Ho two persons are the same. You 
are benefited by things that would not be as good for some one 
else. For these reasons you should make a list of the foods that 
you most desire and that at the same time most agree with you, 
and this list should guide you at all times. When it is not pos¬ 
sible to obtain the things that you prefer, have at hand a second¬ 
ary list, and make your selection from that. 

1. It is better not to eat than to take something you do not 
want; unless your mind is weighed down by some great grief, or 
some influence beyond your control in the usual course of health. 
If such is the case, come into the Psychic Society under the plan 
stated in the booklet entitled Honor Values, which is referred to 
in the final pages of this book. Psychic is the synonym for mind. 
If the mind will not come into its normal cheerfulness, it should 
be trained to do so, just as the body is trained. A sad or un¬ 
satisfied mental state is sure to prey on the body and deprive it 
of its health. 

2. In eating what you want, learn to discard the non-food 
part of your list. People have not yet discovered all the foods 
that the earth produces, and they have been for centuries eating 
some things that are not foods. It is necessary to choose the right 
from the wrong. This is the work of the next chapter. 

3. In feeding the body for its highest health, cater to the 
mind and to the palate; let the palate please the mind, and the 
mind please the palate. 

4. When once you have a kingly appetite, do not abuse it 
by eating something rich on an empty stomach. This is the com¬ 
mon fault of girls, boys, young ladies, and also of women who 
are old enough to know that keen hunger, especially late in the 
day when it is almost ferocious, should not be broken into by 
something rich like cake, pastry, candy, soda water, ice cream, or 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


83 


other unwholesome things. Doctors’ bills are sure to follow, and 
the husband will really believe that his wife is going into a de¬ 
cline when she comes to the table with a sick headache or deli¬ 
cate appetite. If nature so blesses you that you are really very 
hungry, take advantage of the condition to build a new vitality, 
for out of normal hunger comes the new health. It is the one 
golden opportunity of life, and it should not be abused. 

5. Bat slowly so that every particle of the food that enters 
your mouth shall be thoroughly mixed with its saliva; for it has 
been shown that saliva from a hungry person will, if taken away 
and mixed with food, start digestion. Saliva is the most heal¬ 
ing of all fluids in nature, when it is normal. It is an antiseptic 
protection for the throat and teeth; but it must be in that con¬ 
dition that results from a thorough mixing with food that gives 
keen pleasure, and the food must remain long enough in the 
mouth to be blended with the mucus in which no water or other 
fluid has entered. Pood eaten slowly in this manner gives several 
times more nutrition than food that is swallowed. The eater is 
satisfied with one-fourth less at each meal. It also saves the loss 
of vitality by the wear and tear of fighting out of the body an 
excess of material for which the system has no use. A slow eater 
may be very fully developed in flesh, and yet eat only about one- 
fourth the amount of food taken by a thin person. It is not 
what enters the stomach, but how it enters, that determines the 
condition of the body that is built from it. 

6. Exercise that may invite an appetite, if indulged in at all, 
should be useful and general. Special drill has the disadvantage 
of bringing special results only; and then the drill ceases, as it 
must sooner or later, the results are all lost. It is much better 
to be usefully active in a normal, average manner that will be¬ 
come a part of daily life, than to take athletic exercises or any 
other treatment that cannot be continued indefinitely. Your habits 
are to determine that. What is good for you may not be good for 
another. The kind of life you lead, if it agrees with you, is the 
kind of life you should lead, if you prefer it. 

7. Be yourself. Do not try to follow any rules of diet, except 
to keep away from food poisons. Otherwise, act on the principle 
that no two persons are alike, and that you need to know your¬ 
self as an individual. 


84 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Chapter Eleven 


specialties 


From dull monotony 
to unsought variation 
is a step towards a better 
state of mind and body. 


^Jira) VERYBODY enjoys a change from the fixed routine 
^e daily nieals. A visit to another place, if only 
for a day, is sure to whet the appetite because of the 
prospect of newness, or a difference in the cooking. 
There is a sameness of odor to the foods that come 
from one kitchen all the time. The sense of smell may of itself 
invite appetite. 

But there are some things that the stomach will learn to crave 
all the year round, and three times a day, if a slight variation is 
made from time to time. The first of these is wheat bread. Wheat 
is the food of civilization. Corn meal has its place in the cold 
seasons, but it is what people call “filling.” It is valuable under 
Certain circumstances. Beef is attractive when cooked the first 
time; after that it ceases to hold the appetite. A person could 
take good, freshly cooked beef three times a day the year round; 
but this is neither necessary nor advisable. Mealy potatoes are 
as attractive as wheat bread if they are properly cooked. Other 
meats and game, as well as poultry and fresh fish, are means of 
tempting the appetite. 

Still there arises the liking for something different; and the 
stomach actually demands it. Raw milk is unattractive, while 
milk cooked in various pleasing desserts is eagerly eaten. Raw 
eggs are likewise not desired; but any form of cooking that turns 
the yolk to powder, and prevents the white from coagulating, is 





RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


85 


wholesome; although a slightly cooked white may be digested by 
a sound stomach. The fried white or yolk is wholly indigestible 
even by a hungry stomach. It becomes a wear and tear on the 
vitality. 

Variations in the methods of cooking meats, eggs, milk, bread, 
potatoes, vegetables such as the young peas, beans and limas, and 
other things, will prove a valuable means of building up the health 
through appetite; for variety brings appetite. 

There should not be a great variety at each meal. Mr. Roose¬ 
velt, when living in the White House, ate his midday meal of 
nothing but bread and milk. While a big dinner given to others 
might cost him thousands of dollars, his own meal cost but a 
few cents; and he, of all the eaters, was better nourished; for a 
bowl of bread and milk affords much more nourishment than a 
dinner of many courses. Yet human nature is so constituted that 
it will not accept the inexpensive diet; but wants the high-priced 
kinds, and the opportunity to complain of the increased cost of 
living. There are millionaires today who spend a small fortune 
dining their guests, and who sit down to bread and milk by the 
advice of their doctors; and are the better for it. If men and 
women were to eat only the most wholesome things, which are 
always the simplest and the plainest, there would never be a com¬ 
plaint against the high price of foods. 

Real food is abundant. 

The fewer different things there are at the same meal, the 
better. If it is a meat meal, then bread, potatoes and vegetables 
should be all that accompanies it; with as little bread as possible. 
Meat, potatoes and vegetables make the best alliance. 

Bread goes best with fruits, milk, eggs and the like. Meat 
and potatoes make a wholesome meal, if the meat is freshly cooked. 
The stomach does not do well with bread and vegetables. Po¬ 
tatoes go nicely with vegetables; or, in place of the latter, with 
eggs, milk and the like. 

Milk and meat do not do well together at the same meal, and 
eggs should not be taken when there is meat in the stomach. The 
two should be separated. 

Meats and desserts do not make good blood. It may seem 
strange, but it is a fact that desserts should be confined to a 
dessert meal. Ice cream, cake and such articles, should never be 
taken at the same meal with meat; for meat is the natural accom- 


86 


PERSONAL BOOK 


paniment of potatoes and vegetables,, and of nothing else except 
a small bit of bread, the less the better. 

Bread and milk, or bread and bntter, or bread and cake 
make a good meal; although it is a rule of nature that anything 
made of flour or any of the cereals needs milk in some form to 
turn it into good blood. The French have a very good custom 
for a regular breakfast which they seem to thrive on day after 
day and year after year. It consists of coffee made without boil¬ 
ing, taken half and half with hot milk that has not been boiled; 
accompanied by rolls or bread made out of the freshly ground 
wheat which is nearly the whole wheat, the outer coats of the 
grain being discarded. It is not a starch wheat flour which is so 
much used in dyspeptic America. Fruits open the breakfast. 

A lunch of cake and milk, if the cake is several days old, 
has very little added richness except raisins, but no dried cur¬ 
rants in it, will make good blood and give health. 

If a person is inclined to the use of meat, it should be eaten 
daily, but always in a freshly cooked form, and never fried. Meat 
should not be allowed to enter the stomach oftener than once 
a day. The penalty is sure to be paid sooner or later, if this rule 
is broken. The best time is at noon, and the next best time is in 
the morning, to eat meat. The least favorable time is in the 
evening meal; but, as most persons have no opportunity to take 
meat at noon, and do not care for it at the breakfast, it is gen¬ 
erally found at the evening meal. If eaten then in small quan¬ 
tity, and at least five hours before retiring, it may be assimilated 
without much trouble; but a man or woman who is not in the 
best of health, should not take meat then. As it is the natural 
accompaniment of potatoes and vegetables, this nitrogenous mix¬ 
ture is sure to keep the nerves of the brain and spinal cord uneasy 
all night, even if the body sleeps. The slumber will not be re¬ 
freshing. There is never a perfectly restful night where meat 
dinners are eaten late in the day or in the evening. But the most 
barbarous custom is that of night dinners. No wonder the per¬ 
sons who indulge in such a breach of natural laws, suffer untold 
nervous miseries sooner or later. 

The ideal meals are as follows: 

For the morning: Juicy fruits, baked potatoes, eggs, bread 
and other things that attract the appetite. If you have the coffee 
habit and it does not make you nervous or give you pains around 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


87 


the heart, then take a mixture of hot, but unboiled coffee, half and 
half with hot but unboiled milk. 

For the noon meal: If you are in the habit of eating meats, 
take them then, but not fried; and take potatoes in any form 
that is mealy, but not crisy fried. Vegetables belong to this meal. 
Other things that are attractive may be added; but desserts should 
not be eaten when meat is in the stomach, as they conflict and 
tax the heart and vitality. 

For the evening meal: Carbons, such as bread, cakes, food 
fruits like figs, dates, bananas, and raisins. But bananas, being 
a meat-bread may open any meal; but never should be eaten 
when there is any food in the stomach; nor should the stomach 
remain empty of other foods after bananas are eaten. They are 
the first course; they go with other food, but always a step ahead, 
and never behind. Other attractions may be taken at the even¬ 
ing meal. 

The theory of the morning meal is this: There should have 
been a light evening meal preceding, and more than twelve hours 
of rest for the stomach between that meal and the breakfast. This 
will find the morning meal inviting; whereas a heavy evening meal 
will clog the whole system, and you will arise in the morning with 
furred tongue, a bad taste in the mouth, and a clogged system. 
Gastric juice will not flow into the stomach, and thus the break¬ 
fast will be useless; yet if you omit it, you will find a headache 
or neuralgia haunting you all day. This derangement of the sys¬ 
tem is caused by the one barbarism of a heavy evening meal. We 
know of many thousands of men and women, mostly the latter, 
who were once addicted to fearful headaches, and who cured 
them by the following plan: A very light no-meat supper at six 
o'clock; a cup of hot clear soup, or bouillon just on retiring for 
the night, and a consequent keen appetite every morning for 
breakfast. Those who refused to change their methods, said boast- 
ingly that they preferred the headaches in the day time rather 
than give up their heavy evening dinners; so they were compelled 
to take drugs to check the headaches, and terrible cocaine and 
morphine habits have now ruined them body and soul. 

Which course was better? 

When there has been a light evening meal, and over twelve 
hours* of fasting during the interval between that meal and the 
breakfast of the next morning, the use of the diet that built up 


88 


PERSONAL BOOK 


the body in the plan set forth in a previous chapter is partly 
recommended. It is toast, lightly cooked eggs, baked potatoes, 
and milk prepared as stated. This is slightly varied from the 
Nine First New Meals; but is the same in principle. By adopt¬ 
ing it, there is a constant process of making a different body. The 
results are so valuable that they are worth the slight self-denial 
required to make them permanent. 

Do you have the smoking habit. If so, then enjoy it after a 
meal, and never on an empty stomach. It will aid digestion if 
you are a smoker; otherwise it is a useless and unhealthy habit. 

Do you like sweetmeats ? If so, eat them only when there 
is wholesome food in the stomach. If you indulge in them at 
any other time, when the stomach is empty, or contains rich 
things, you will bring on acute indigestion which is felling thou¬ 
sands of supposedly well persons every year. Candy and sweet 
things, and certain nuts help digestion when there is wholesome 
food in the stomach. It is sufficient to eat them sparingly, as 
they serve only to cause a great flow of gastric juice into the 
stomach and have no other benefit. As the smoker does not swal¬ 
low the smoke in order to digest his food, but gets the exciting 
cause at the palate of the mouth, so a small piece of candy, an 
almond nut, or other thing that is relished, will start such a 
flow of juices, and need not be swallowed. A man who liked ice 
cream, but who was always given indigestion when he ate it, found 
that a teaspoonful held in the mouth until it melted served to 
set up the process of digestion for the meal that was in his 
stomach. 

A woman who liked mints and who had a very sluggish 
stomach, could always start digestion by holding this candy in 
her mouth. A man who could not drink coffee on account of the 
bad effect on his heart, always took a cup and inhaled the at¬ 
tractive odor from it; and he found that it started digestion for 
him. 

A piece of cake that is nor rich will do the same thing. 

So will anything that is liked; and a trifle will be better 
than a quantity. The odor, the flavor, the taste, will generally 
do as much good as the actual eating of it. Many a man who 
has acquired a nicotine heart from smoking, now holds an un¬ 
lighted cigar in his mouth after a meal, and it helps him wonder- 
fully. It is the law of appeal to the palate. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


89 


A bit of fried bacon, crisp and of rich flavor, if chewed for a 
long time in the month and never swallowed, will start diges¬ 
tion by causing the flow of the gastric juices. Of this there is 
not the slightest doubt; yet the bacon itself if swallowed may 
cause acute indigestion. Fried potato chips will kill the vitality 
as quickly as anything in this world; but one held in the mouth 
for a short time and not eaten, will attract digestion; but not as 
readily as fried bacon. Fried things serve a good purpose at the 
palate and are fatal in the stomach. It shows that nature in¬ 
tends attractive things to be used as far as the mouth. No one 
swallows the smoke of a cigar. No one who chews tobacco, swal¬ 
lows the juice. No one who chews gum swallows the gum. What¬ 
ever fascinates the palate with pleasure, if taken when the stomach 
contains wholesome food, will assist digestion, and having done 
this much the agency of the good result may be dismissed. Bacon 
when fried crisp is one of the greatest appetizers ever made; yet 
it is indigestible in the stomach. Let it be discarded from the 
mouth like gum or other thing that is manipulated there as a 
mouth visitor only. 

The same facts apply to many other specialties that are at¬ 
tractive. 

In cold weather the system demands things that are not liked 
in hot weather. Corn meal is a great heater, and should not 
be used in the summer; but the white corn meal may be used iu 
winter, spring and fall to the great benefit of the body. A pint 
of sweet milk, two eggs, one-half teaspoonful of salt, one-half 
teaspoonful of baking soda, one teaspoonful of pure cream tartar, 
and enough white corn meal to make a soft batter, will furnish 
the ingredients. It should be baked in a medium hot oven over 
one hour. This is a wholesome cake that has more strength-giv¬ 
ing nutrition than its weight in meat, and is a better food. 

THE CONSTANT CAKES. 

The following are called the Constant Cakes, because they 
never cease to be welcome. When people once start to eating 
them, they are eagerly sought and are liked more than any other 
thing. They have the qualities of being a bread, and at the same 
time of being a cake with none of the richness or indigestibility 
of cake. They may serve as bread or as a dessert in a meal. It 
makes no difference whether they are eaten first, middle or last. 


90 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Their ingredients are the most wholesome and the most in¬ 
vigorating of any single line of food that can be eaten alone that 
has yet been discovered. 

How to make Constant Cakes: Get some Porto Rico mo¬ 
lasses, which is the old fashioned molasses of our great grand¬ 
fathers. Do not get the light colored molasses, but the good old 
dark kind. It is hard to find except in the large cities, but any 
grocer can get it if he chooses. We buy it for about half the 
cost of the lighter molasses, and it serves the purpose better, be¬ 
sides being more digestible, and does not contain glucose. Gro¬ 
cers claim they do not make more money on the Hew Orleans or 
light molasses; but the fact is they make a much greater profit on 
that, which is the reason why the Porto Rico is not carried in 
stock. In Boston Brown Bread, the Porto Rico is essential if the 
real article is desired. 

Having made a strenuous fight to get the black molasses, take 
two cupfuls of it, and one cupful of butter, and get them to¬ 
gether. When they have been warmed enough to soften the but¬ 
ter, take from the stove, and add to them the following: One- 
and-a-half teaspoonsful of pure powdered ginger, three well beaten 
eggs, and mix well. Add alternately, in small quantities, three 
cupfuls of flour and one cupful of boiling water in which three 
teaspoonfuls of baking soda have been dissolved. Ho cream tar¬ 
tar or baking powder will be needed. A goodly quantity of seeded 
raisins should be added. 

Cut into cakes of the usual size, four or five inches in diame¬ 
ter, keep them thin, and bake soft. They must not be made into 
a hard cake, as their usefulness will be impaired from the start. 
The soft, or bready thin cakes are what is desired. Remember 
this fact. 

What do the Constant Cakes contain: 

Wheat flour.—So does bread. 

Ginger.—This is beneficial to the body and attractive to the 
palate. 

Eggs-—These are food of the first value. 

Butter.—This is food also of high value, as well as cost. 

Black molasses.—This is free from glucose, and is both whole¬ 
some and attractive to the taste. 

Baking Soda.—This is one of the best known blood cleansers 
when not used in connection with cream tartar. The avoidance 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


91 


©f baking powder is an important fact in the making of the Con¬ 
stant Cakes. 

Raisins.—This is the meat of the tropics where flesh is never 
eaten. Raisins are givers of great vitality to the body, and attract 
the palate. It is not best to eat them uncooked, nor is wise to 
eat them alone. In the Constant Cakes they are in their best 

place. 

Ten persons ate three meals in one day consisting of nothing 
but fried potato chips, and all nearly died. On the same day ten 
other persons ate three meals in one day of nothing but Constant 
Cakes, and all thrived and were the better for it. 

They may be constantly with you. If you have to get a quick 
lunch away from home, take six Constant Cakes and they will suf¬ 
fice. There are bankers who eat nothing else six days in the week, 
every week in the year unless they are away. Some add a glass 
of milk, and the meal is then fit for a king. The strongest laborer 
or the most delicate sedentary person will find this combination 
a perfect one, and it will sustain life indefinitely. 

Have the Constant Cakes on the table at every meal, and 
catch up a few of them to take with you when you go out and are 
likely to be detained, for they will tide you over a hungry interval 
in the day. They are the best for children, the best for young 
people, the best for the lunch-eater, and the best for every man 
and woman who wants nutritive food in an attractive form. \ou 
will never get tired of them. A child who took six of them to 
school every day for the lunch, had to give up five to her friends, 
and some of these were divided into parts. In a short time, an¬ 
other scholar began to bring them, for they were soon popular. 
The mother of the second girl sent for the receipt, and this began 
the episode of a better food at the school lunch with the result that 
the children who brought the Constant Cakes were always in bet¬ 
ter health than the others; and they liked those Constant Cakes, 
which made digestion easy. 

Fully ripe and mellow bananas, very mellow and soft sweet 
apples, and bread sandwiches filled with sliced yolks of hard boiled 
eggs salted to taste, make attractive and health-giving lunches or 
even meals. 

Various mints, or small discs of cream candy, should be 
kept in the house to use at the end of meals, for the purpose of 
pleasing the palate and aiding digestion. 


9 2 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Roasted almonds, but not roasted peanuts, are helpful. So 
are boiled or roasted chestnuts if mealy. Oily nuts are bad. Raw 
peanuts, with the skins bleached off, are helpful if taken in small 
quantities and chewed fine. But peanuts are generally injurious 
to the liver and aggravate diabetes. 

It is always possible to add something attractive to the food 
list without resorting to pastry and fried things. These break 
up the blood, tend to cause tuberculosis, and lead to anaemia as 
well as atrophy, two conditions that weaken the organs all through 
the body. 

Omitting them, seek all the good things in the world that 
please the mind and tickle the palate, and eat like a royal guest 
at the table of nature. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


93 


Chapter Twelve 


FOOD SELECTION 


All Is not gold that glitters 
and It has taken centuries 
to discover what are foods 
and what are poisonous eatables. 



UMANITY has found many foods for its use, but it 
has not yet found them all; and some of the things 
that are regarded as foods, are not wholly so. The 
end of all nutrition is to make blood; and blood 
comes from a milk that is made in the alimentary 
canal. This milk comes from albumin, and the latter is found 
either in blood, or in plant life, or its products. 

Cattle and horses find albumin in grass. The Bible says that 
man shall eat grass. In the West the millers are grinding alfalfa 
into flour and the blend makes a very wholesome bread. It lowers 
the cost of food to a considerable extent. But because we mention 
this fact, it does not follow that we advocate such a mixture. At 
the present writing we see no objection to it. A starving man will 
eat grass and will keep alive on it. Even dry hay has saved men 
from death when they could get no other food. 

Albumin, being the one thing required to furnish the body with 
food, the first step to be taken is to find it in that condition that is 
most pleasing and most beneficial to man. The white of an egg is 
pure albumin. Any cereal, such as wheat, rye, corn, and rice, if 
ground into flour and cooked, will become albumin when fully 
mingled with the saliva of the mouth and the gastric juices of the 
stomach; otherwise it will ferment and cause distress and loss of 
vitality. So that it is a part of the work of eating to create 
albumin from foods that contain its parts. 





94 


PERSONAL BOOK 


The danger in the use of foods is that all the products of 
nature are mixed with parts that are not food. Thus the covering 
of wheat and other grains, is no more digestible than the nails of 
the fingers. The real food is that part of the wheat berry that is 
freed from the outer coats, but not all of them. The French 
method of grinding secures the best part of the wheat; while the 
American method either uses the whole grain or else takes only 
the inner starch. Neither course is right. 

Oats are subject to the same rule. The inner parts are called 
groats, and are very nutritious. The Scotch use them. But in 
America the entire oat grain is used, and the stomach and in¬ 
testines suffer. 

Rice is also mis-treated. In Japan they use more of the grain 
and do not bleach it; the result being that the people of Japan 
are the most healthful and the strongest in the world, as they 
practically live on rice. In America the inner parts are used, and 
they are bleached, which takes away their vital nature. 

Buckwheat is not a true food for man. It does not harm the 
body very much, but it lacks good nutrition, and causes headaches 
from its deficient nutrition. 

Yellow corn is oily and heating. It suffices in cold weather 
in the North to keep the body warm; but the man who eats yellow 
corn in the summer time will be uncomfortable from an excess of 
heat in the blood. 

In the United States white corn is an ideal winter food, and 
may be prepared in many forms. 

While bran is not digestible, there is much phosphate dust in 
any floury bran. This can be used by making lemonade without 
sugar, and mixing in it the juice of the bran as it is called. This 
is obtained by soaking the bran in water and allowing the latter to 
strain through cloth into the lemonade. A quart of bran in two 
quarts of water will furnish a large quantity. Strange to say this 
bran lemonade is both refreshing and nutritious. Ice water is not 
good to drink when one is heated. Baseball players put bran water 
in ice water, and drink the mixture, sipping it slowly. They find 
it very refreshing and invigorating. 

Yeast raised bread is the best. The yeast is lost in the form of 
carbonic acid gas. When baking powders are used, they leave a 
mineral in the bread or cake; and alum is a slow but steady poison 
which tears the lining off the intestines and exposes the appendix, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


( J5 


which gives rise to appendicitis. Any poison, or any adulteration, 
or any preservative, however harmless to the general health, is sure 
to act on the lining of the intestines, and sooner or later bring on 
appendicitis when it catches the vitality at low ebb. People who 
live in countries where the preservatives are not used in foods, 
meats and drinks, never are attacked with this modern malady. 

The carbonic acid gas that is set free by yeast, raises the bread 
or cake; and this gas should be given time to escape before the 
bread is eaten, if there is the slightest disorder in the stomach; 
otherwise new bread, rolls, and cakes may be eaten hot if chewed 
well and thoroughly mixed with the saliva of the mouth before 
being swallowed. They will turn to albumin when so masticated. 

For the weak stomach and for a low state of vitality in the 
intestines, old wheat bread toasted and eaten hot, is by far the best 
food, if broken in a soft boiled egg, or into a glass of milk. 

The albumin of the egg-white, is changed into a coagulated 
mass when it hardens under the influence of heat. It is then a 
source of strain on the vital powers to dispose of it when in the 
stomach. 

The same is true of the albumin of meat. If you wish a roast 
in its best condition with all the juice value held in, put the roast in 
a quick oven where the great heat will at once coagulate the whole 
surface of the meat, and prevent the juices from running out. On 
the other hand if the roast is put into an oven that is not very 
hot, much of the value of the meat will be lost. Whatever is co¬ 
agulated is turned into an indigestible condition. This explains 
why the crisp outer surface of a roast cannot be endured by a weak 
stomach, although the palate craves that part. It is good to set 
free the gastric juices, and serves this purpose when it is chewed 
and not swallowed. In the mouth it is an angel; in the stomach, 
it is not. 

This is true of all crisp surfaces. 

They serve to stimulate appetite and bring the fluids into the 
stomach; but they are useful in that way only as long as they 
remain in the mouth. The habit of quickly swallowing anything 
that has a delicious flavor is as wrong in fact as the act of putting 
delicate extracts of the rose in the nose where a violent irritation 
is set up. As long as fine perfumes feed the sense of smell at the 
portals of the nose, so long are they pleasant. As long as anything 
that has an exceptionally fine taste is kept in the mouth, so long is 


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the taste present; but as soon as it is swallowed, it is gone. Taste 
ceases with the dropping of the food to the stomach. The latter 
organ has no sense of enjoyment, except at the nerves of the palate 
in the mouth. 

Crisp meats and such an appetizer as bacon belong only in the 
mouth. 

Pie crust and every form of pastry is good flour turned into an 
indigestible condition. Its end is acute indigestion. In the mouth 
it is an angel of pleasure; in the stomach it is a demon of night¬ 
mares. Why not treat all pastry, all piecrust and all crisp meats 
and surfaces as you treat chewing gum; chew the pleasure out of 
them, and then annex the remains to the under part of the table 
or back of the bed post? In almost any large family you will find 
exhausted chewing gum sticking to the concealed parts of the furni¬ 
ture, if you make the hunt. 

Eich cake is a ferment-producer, because it holds in its con¬ 
struction a wholly wrong combination of things. Butter and sugar 
will not digest, but will ferment. Cream and sugar are about the 
same form of evil. The whites of eggs and sugar will cause fer¬ 
ment. Too much sugar in flour is bad. Cake that is not rich and 
that is kept for a few days, having no other fruit in it than dates or 
figs or raisins, will be good, and probably better than bread. Many 
persons make a whole meal from such a diet and thrive. 

While raisins are healthful forms of grapes, and never cause 
any trouble if they are not eaten raw, on the other hand currants 
that are dried are not from grapes, but from berries that are not 
regarded as food. Some persons can digest dried currants, but 
most persons, even those who are well, are harmed by them. 

Tapioca is a good food; but the imitation, pearl tapioca, is not 
food, and will hurt the stomach. 

A dead ripe and soft banana is filled to the brim with good 
albumin ready to make rich, red blood; hut a banana that is ripe 
looking, but that has not yet mellowed, has almost no albumin, for 
it has not been set free. Here an hour or two marks the line be¬ 
tween the best and the worst of conditions. Skill is required to 
determine when the banana is ready to eat. Always err on the side 
of over-ripeness, and you will be safe 

In the plum you can study this quick development of albumin. 
The sweet plums are very sweet and rich in flavor when their 
albumin has been set free by the ripening of the small cells within; 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


97 


an hour or so before this albumin is set free, the plum will be 
sour and unpleasant to the taste, and the flesh will be hard; but in 
a brief while the flesh will become mePow, and the sweetness will be 
present. 

Here is the secret of eating apples. Most apples are not food, 
because they do not contain developed albumin. When they are 
sweet and become very mellow, then they are food; otherwise they 
may cause intestinal trouble, and set up neuralgia and rheumatism. 

Cherries are dangerous and have caused quick death from bowel 
troubles when eaten before their albumin has been set free in the 
form of mellow flesh and good juice; but when these two qualities 
have entered into the cherry, it is one of the best foods in the world, 
and gives good blood to the veins. The same is true of peaches and 
of all kinds of juicy fruits. Of course, no person could live 
indefinitely on this class of fruits; but the food fruits, as the 
bananas, the dates, the figs and the raisins, will sustain life for a 
long time, and improve the health. 

Vegetables when raw are rich in albumin as they come closest 
to grass; especially lettuce. But the tubers, such as turnips, beets, 
parsnips, and the like, are too full of fibres to be useful for human 
digestion. The potato is free from fibers. Radishes are safe in 
very small quantities, but are fibrous and indigestible. They 
serve as an appetizer. 

Huts, such as the almond and the chestnut, when boiled or 
roasted, are good; and other nuts that are not oily may be taken 
raw. Peanuts should be avoided if there is liver disorder. 

Coffee, if it is real coffee, should not be boiled, but may be 
made by the drip method, or it may be brought to the boiling point 
with a tight cover to retain all the vapors. The latter takes away 
the good of everything. Coffee pots are now made for this purpose 
of holding in the moisture. The most vicious of all customs is 
that of boiling coffee, or making it too long ahead of its use. A 
poison is set free very soon after heat is applied to it, and this 
does great harm to the stomach and eventually to the heart. Ho 
person should drink old coffee; have it just made when you take it. 

Tea is not a food. 

It deranges the heart, the nervous system, and the kidneys in 
time. You never saw a tea drinker who was not nervous. When¬ 
ever they are found, they are taking medicines between meals, and 
at night for some form of head or nervous troubles. 


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Iced tea is a slow form of suicide, and is so pronounced by the 
United States chief chemist. 

Cocoa from an absolutely reliable source may be useful when 
cooked with milk as a drink; but be careful that it is pure. 

Chocolate is not pure at the present day. When we say that 
ninety per cent, of all chocolate is impure, we are not putting it too 
strong. The result of eating this adulteration, which is advertised 
as purity itself, is a backache, or a headache, or neuralgia, or heart 
irritation, or blood disturbance. To be safe, never allow any choco¬ 
late of any make to enter the body. 

Let fruit syrups alone, and all canned fruits alone. Let canned 
goods alone as far as you are able to get along without them. It is 
one of the Ralston Mottoes: “We never buy canned or package 
goods/’ If you do buy them you are not sure what you are getting. 
But there are some pure foods put up in packages. 

Let hygienic foods alone. Let alone all substitutes for food or 
drink. Let cereal coffee alone, or your heart will pay the penalty. 

The only condiments are ginger and salt. All spices are in¬ 
digestible and linger in the system to form centres for uric acid 
crystals. Salt contains the important part of the gastric juice, 
which is needed. But too much salt causes fatty degeneration be¬ 
cause it breaks down good tissue of an organ. 

Ice cream is generally made of sugar and cream flavored. 
Sugar and cream set up gas and ferment, and derange the stomach. 
Frozen custard or water ice are more wholesome. 

Avoid fancy drinks. It is well known that many of them are 
drugged in the hope that a fixed habit will be formed. 

Do not eat re-cooked meat. It is bad enough when fresh; but 
when it has been cooked over, it is useless as food; the strain on the 
vitality being greater than its nutritive value. A dog will never eat 
thoroughly cooked meat; he will starve to death first. He knows it 
has no food in it. 

Look out for hashed foods. Let them alone. 

Sausages would never be eaten by humanity if they saw them 
made from the first selection of the ingredients. In them are some 
good things, but there are added a lot of tendons, muscles, cartilage, 
and parts of dogs, goats, horses, cows that died from disease, and 
everything else that can be hidden in the concoction. It is the most 
barbarous product of an age of boasted civilization. 

Is a man who eats sausage really civilized ? 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


99 


On the same principle let mince meat alone. If it were pure, 
it would nevertheless be indigestible, owing to the presence of cur¬ 
rants and of chopped un-mellowed apples, both of which are enemies 
to the body. 

Let fried potato chips alone. They are even worse than sau¬ 
sages. 

Quick and fatal acute indigestion will follow these errors. 

If you are traveling on the road and come to a sign which says, 
STOP, LOOK, LISTEN, you will stop, if you have sense, and 
you will look and listen. But the other day one of the ablest 
clergymen of a great city came to a railroad crossing when the 
gates were down. His little girl was with him. She had come 
down as far as the tracks to see him off. He kissed her good bye, 
and plunged under the gates just in time to be struck by a rushing 
train, and he died before the eyes of the daughter whom he had 
just kissed. It was no suicide. He thought he had time and op¬ 
portunity to pass over the tracks despite the warning of the low¬ 
ered gates. So he gave up his life to the god of chance. 

The same is true of warnings in the diet. Thousands of peo¬ 
ple who are in good health, die every year from aoute indigestion, 
and other thousands suffer from appendicitis. These troubles are 
caused by the willingness of humanity to take chances in what they 
eat. 


STOP! LOOK! 


LISTEN! 


100 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Chapter Thirteen 


SUGAR PROBLEMS 


From earliest infancy 
the craving taste has sought 
the sweet and tempting products 
of the 'uicy sugar cane. 



ANY facts are known about sugar at the present day 
that were not known a generation ago, or were over¬ 
looked. These facts may seem on their face to be 
too scientific for the general reader; but they hold such 
a close relationship to the health of the body and its 
re-building that they cannot be evaded. If the following array 
shall prove too dull for you, take it slowly and allow your brain to 
rest between items. If you master only one fact a day, you are 
gaining wisdom. 

1. Sugar is almost pure carbon. This element exists in many 
forms. 


2. The only real food of life is carbon. While it alone is not 
sufficient, all other foods are mere incidents to carbon. This is ex¬ 
plained in another part of this work. 

3. All the energy, strength, power, heat, life, motion, and en¬ 
durance of the body must come solely from its fuel, which is car¬ 
bon; just as carbon is the only fuel of the locomotive or other 
engine. Nothing else but carbon gives power and active life to 
the human body. 

4. Carbon is found in foods in several groups. The first and 
most important group is that of starches, which are the products of 
the grains. The second and next important is the group of animal 
and vegetable fats. The third is the group of sweets, known as 
sugars and syrups. 





RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


101 


5. Some doctors are wholly antagonistic to sugars; others 
recommend them. At an association of dentists held in July, 1910, 
at Asbury Park, New Jersey, it was agreed that “sugar is nothing but 
crystalized acid,” and is one of the most harmful agents that enter 
the body. It was urged on all dentists to fight against the use of 
sugars and candies among children especially. There is no doubt 
that sweets have much to do with the early decay of the teeth. 

6. It would seem thus that a case had been made out against 
sugar. But there are strong natural facts on the other side. In 
the tropics the heat is so great that heating foods ought not to be 
eaten, if theory is to prevail. But as life consists of fuel-power, 
and as carbon is the only fuel power that can possibly be taken into 
the body, it must be eaten in the tropics. While it is a heat-produc¬ 
ing food, its discomforts never show themselves unless an excess is 
eaten, or it is wrongly combined in preparation. In the tropics the 
products of the sugar cane furnish direct power with the least pos¬ 
sible tax on the digestive system; and these, when used in connec¬ 
tion with such a fruit as the banana, give the desired strength and 
lead to good health. As the non-heating foods are nitrogenous, their 
use in hot weather tends to weakness of the digestive system, and 
consequent diarrhoea. Sugars have an opposite effect; as they tend 
to constipation, as do all power-foods. 

7. The voice of nature is the best guide when it is rightly un¬ 
derstood. This voice speaks aloud in children. They all crave 
sweets. The craving is so great that, once started, it rejects the so- 
called wholesome foods for sweets. As this demand is universal, it 
cannot be ignored. 

8. Here again there is a double question. Children under two 
years of age cannot digest sugars or sweets of any kind. Such 
foods pass through their bodies unchanged except by dissolution. 

9. The excessive use of sugars and sweets among infants will 
set up diarrhoea, the very trouble that is checked by the same foods 
in adults. But babies will digest animal carbons, such as cream 
and fats, from the very first hour of life. Honey, free from the 
comb, if known to be pure, is easily digested by young children 
whose systems will not absorb sugars. Honey is animal carbon. 

10. Vegetable fats, such as olive oil, cocoa oil, and the like, 
are digested by infants. 

11. Sugars and sweets occupy, therefore, a place by themselves. 
They are called the products of the sugar cane. 


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12. Nature suits her products to the climate in which they are 
grown. What is obtainable in the far North is best suited to the 
people who live there. What is at hand in the temperate zone is 
suited to its inhabitants. So what grows in other parts of the 
world is best for the people who dwell where it is found. Nature 
never contemplated transportation lines. This fact does not pre¬ 
clude us from using the foods of other lands if we find them agree 
able and not hurtful. But it would undoubtedly be better for each 
nation if it confined itself to its own products. In the far North 
animal carbons predominate; in the temperate climes, the grain or 
starch-carbons abound; and in the hot zone and tropics the sugars 
are at hand. 

13. Unmixed foods are hurtful. The nitrogens if taken as 
such are sure to set up intestinal troubles. So the carbons are not 
good alone. Sugars and sweets in proper combinations, even in our 
climate, have a great value; but, alone, they become dangerous acids. 

14. Giving straight sugar or candy to a child old enough to 
digest it, will very soon cause trouble. If the child is under two 
years of age, as has been stated, it will not digest it, and diarrhoea 
will follow; but if it is older the result is the formation of gases 
from fermentation. 

15. Ask your mother what she most fears in the child that is 
in ordinary health, and she will say colic. Now colic is fermen¬ 
tation which sets free gases that distend or stretch the walls of the 
intestines and cause griping pains. Did the mother ever stop to 
think that colic cannot arise except from fermentation; and that 
nothing ever ferments except carbon ? It is the carbon in milk that 
causes its souring and gas-making habits. It is the carbon in bread 
and cake that set up gases in the system. Much of the misery in 
children is due to the practice of giving candies and sugars to them 
at too early an age, and of giving it straight when they are old 
enough to digest it. 

16. There are two rules of golden value that should be under¬ 
stood and adopted: 

First RuleCandies and sugars should never be allowed to 
enter an empty stomach. 

Second Rule:—Sweets should never be combined with animal 
carbons. 

17. As sweets are carbons from the vegetable kingdom, coming 
from the sap of trees, as the maple, or from the sap of canes, they 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


103 


are known as vegetable carbons; and vegetable carbons when com¬ 
bined with animal carbons, set up poisons and fermentations of the 
most injurious character. In other words the animal and vege¬ 
table carbons will not mingle safely when in concentrated form. 

18. Some persons are blessed with an iron clad digestive sys¬ 
tem, which will withstand for a long time any kind of abuse; but, 
as the present era is known as the age of stomach breakdown, there 
is nothing to hope for when the following combinations are sanc¬ 
tioned. A person who would be safe must avoid them. 

a. Sugar and butter. 

b. Sugar and cream. 

c. Sugar and eggs, or sugar and albumen, which is largely 
carbon. 

19. The combination of sugar and butter in what is known as 
hard sauee, is a severe attack on the blood and digestive system. 
Persons who have eaten it freely have been made almost deathly 
sick by it. Anything that is food can be eaten by itself or in a 
natural combination. 

20. The combination of cream and sugar leads to gas in the 
stomach and intestines; where there is but little taken and other 
food is in the stomach to mix with it, the fermentation is lessened. 
But it slowly day by day increases its power of harm until at last 
the collapse comes in the form of chronic dyspepsia or organic 
breakdown. Tests have been made by the thousands in the use of 
ice cream, with the same result. Some persons are able to go for 
many years without being seriously harmed by ice cream, but they 
fail quickly when the time comes. 

21. The combination of sugar and egg, especially the white of 
an egg, while not so bad as the sugar and butter or cream, is hurt¬ 
ful for the reason that fermentation is set up and the most deadly of 
all poisons that enter the body, carbonic gas, is generated. 

22. As sugar when not combined with natural foods becomes a 
destroying acid in the body, it should not be taken on an empty 
stomach. It is not injurious in small quantity when the stomach 
contains wholesome food, and none that is rich m its character. 
As an acid in crystal form, as stated by the dentists, it is powerful 
enough to eat the enamel from the teeth; and anything that can do 
that is an enemy. 

23. Yet, in spite of its bad record, sugar holds an important 
place in nature. It is good when treated right; and it is bad when 


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mis-applied. The strongest and perhaps the strangest of all facts in 
food laws is the intense craving that people of all ages have for 
sugar or its carbon. 

24. A child that has never had anything sweet, will be wonder¬ 
fully attracted and fascinated by sugar. It can be led by it. Noth¬ 
ing in all its horizon of life is one per cent, as pleasing. If it can 
not get sugar in the form of candy or cubes, it will crave it in the 
form of sweet cakes. Let a boy have before him a few slices of 
bread with good butter to spread on them; and at the same table 
a few cakes made of the same flour with sugar added; and he will, 
if left wholly to his own inclinations, devote himsely solely to the 
cakes. We know a man who gets his own breakfast, as his wife is 
not in good health. She leaves for him plenty of good bread, and 
plenty of cake. For the last thirty years he has eaten nothing but 
cake for breakfast; and as he is now nearly seventy years of age and 
seems well, it must follow that he has fuel enough to begin his day’s 
work with. On two occasions only was he made ill. One was when 
the cake was too rich for him; the other was when he supplemented 
it with confectionery. As a matter of fact, the cake he has eaten for 
thirty years has been plain, not very sweet, and well combined with 
flour. In effect it is chemically the same as bread and butter ; for 
the sweetening in the cake is carbon, as butter is; and the rest of the 
cake is principally flour such as is used in making bread. A banker 
tells us that he has for more than twenty years eaten nothing for his 
mid-day meal except half a dozen home made ginger cakes; and that 
he learned to like these from seeing one of the bank clerks make his 
noon meal from them. He now says that this clerk has, for more 
than forty years, made his noon meal solely of ginger cakes. Noth¬ 
ing but water has been taken with them. 

25. Most any child will prefer sweet cakes to bread and butter; 
yet the chemical composition is the same in both. 

26. The intense craving of all humanity for carbon or the 
product of carbon is a fact that cannot be ignored. It means that 
nature has something in mind that must be learned and adopted. 

27. The craving for alcoholic beverages is just as strong as 
the craving for carbons. But the same person does not crave both. 
If a young man is brought up to like sweets, he will never crave 
alcohol. The reason is plain. Carbon and alcohol are different 
forms of each other. You cannot get alcohol from anything but 
carbon. All whiskey is made from the starches of grains, which are 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


105 


carbon. Rum is made from molasses, which is liquid sugar from 
the sugar cane. It can be made from sugar. It is a very simple 
matter to produce alcohol from any sugar. Grapes contain much 
sugar as is seen in raisins; and gin and brandy are alcoholic forms 
of that sugar. A man who craves alcohol has very little use for 
candies or sweets. And the reverse is true; train a man to like 
sweets and he will not seek alcohol. His system cannot stand both. 
But the craving is about the same. Some doctors say that sugars 
and candies do more harm than alcohol; but sugars and candies do 
not make men criminals and murderers, a feat that alcohol accom¬ 
plishes in thousands of cases every year. 

28. There is but one real food, and it is carbon. It is found 
in fats, oils, starches and sweets. All else is incidental although 
necessary. To get carbon is the one chief demand of all living 
creatures. It happens to appear in a very intense form in sugars, 
and in alcohol, and the human race is divided into two classes, one 
seeking sweets and the other seeking fermented sweets. 

29. One man in Hew York has made millions of dollars in the 
manufacture of candies which young men have used as baits for 
catching young ladies’ hearts. The stomach is next door to the 
heart, and love has been born in many a box of bonbons. These 
together with soda water with its sweet syrups, and its ice cream 
with its sweet flavors and sugar, have made life seem one intense 
dream of bliss. 

30. As alcohol when abused holds the devil in its spirits, so 
sweets when abused point the way to the grave. In this country 
there are countless thousands of girls and young ladies with spend¬ 
ing money who, near the close of the afternoon, find themselves in 
the vicinity of the candy store and the soda fountain. They can no 
more pass them by than the man with a thirst can clear himself of 
the call of the saloon. More than this, young ladies near the close 
of any afternoon have the keenest appetite of the whole twenty-four 
hours; and they indulge freely in the ice cream soda and the con¬ 
fectionery. In many such cases, where physicians had been in¬ 
formed of the practice in a certain city, parents saved their daugh¬ 
ters from certain stomach ruin; while in other cities the girls are 
doctoring for indigestion and organic trouble, and their parents are 
paying the bills, not knowing that the whole cause is the silly and 
senseless indulgence in sweets on an empty stomach. And the 
sweets are in the most vicious form. In one home a young lady 


106 


PERSONAL BOOK 


comes into the house just before the evening meal. In her stomach 
there is a glass of ice cream soda, and nearly a pound of candy. 
She cannot eat anything at the table. Her mother becomes anxious. 
Her father consults the doctor. The cause is not known. But ill 
health and a large medical bill are the first results. If you do not 
believe this statement, go to any store where soda water and con¬ 
fectionery are sold; go in the late afternoon, shortly before the even¬ 
ing meal; and note the facts. You will be surprised to see the 
quantities of candies that delicate misses eat on stomachs that are 
worse than empty; having soda water as the first course. It is an 
intense craving that does all this. The power of the mind should 
mark the huamn being as superior to animal desires, so that the 
latter may be controlled. 

31. By many thousands of tests it has been ascertained that 
nature has a purpose in this craving, and in every form of craving. 
This purpose is discussed in a still more important department of 
the present book. To learn how to take advantage of it is one of 
the chief duties of the human race in this era. 

32. The present chapter may be summed up as follows: 

a. Sugar in certain combinations or under certain conditions 
is a decided enemy of the body. 

On the other hand if sugar is taken in proper combinations 
with other things, and under proper conditions, it serves a most 
useful purpose. 

c. The universal craving for sweets is a part of the plan of 
nature to assist in the work of building the body; and the correct 
understanding of this plan is one of the most important studies 
of life. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


107 


Chapter Fourteen 

THE SEVENTEEN WONDERS OF LIFE 

O Nature, gracious mother of us all, 

Within thy bosom myriad secrets lie 
Which thou surrenderest to the patient eye 
That seeks and waits. 


VERY human being exists in a body that is a most 
wonderful temple. It is full of mysteries that have 
baffled science and investigation for many centuries. 
Today there are vast libraries written on the sub¬ 
ject of this body and its remarkable operations, and 
yet we are hardly on the threshold of knowing the truth. Much 
is known, so much that a great public building could not hold 
all the works that relate to this knowledge; and yet less than 
one per cent, of the truth has been reached. And, whereas, 
a few years ago one doctor covered all the practice of his pro¬ 
fession, now there are specialists who are trained by years of 
study each in some subdivision of the body; a specialist for the dis¬ 
eases of the stomach, one for the heart, one for the liver, one 
for the lungs, one for the eyes, one for the throat, one for the 
nerves, and so on through the whole list. 

Still the wonders grow. 

If you go into a hospital you will be amazed at the great 
volumes and the myriad implements and instruments that have 
been produced in the cause of curing the ills of the human body; 
and you will ask yourself the question. Did Nature when she 
created this temple of life intend all this elaboration of science 
and invention to save the body from the grave? The increase of 




108 


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books, of drugs, of apparatus, of instruments, of treatments, has 
kept pace with the advance of civilization; and which is the cause 
of the other? 

Is civilization the cause of all the diseases that now over¬ 
whelm the human race? 

In the simplicity of Nature, far away from all the skill of 
doctors and surgeons, it is possible to live long and live well. Yet 
the skill of doctors and surgeons is helping humanity in straits 
where no other help is available. It all seems a mystery. It sounds 
like a paradox to say that doctors and surgeons are saving life 
and doing a vast deal of good in the world, despite (the fact that 
the numbers of medical books, medical apparatus, surgical instru¬ 
ments, hospitals, drugs and treatments are increasing all the time, 
and patients are increasing all the time. There are more sick 
people than ever before. Vitality is lower than ever before, doc¬ 
tors, surgeons and treatments are far more numerous than ever 
before; and yet they are all doing more good than ever before. 

You cannot find fault with the doctors and surgeons because 
they are increasing rapidly every year. Their services are in de¬ 
mand. 

Yet woe to the person who must be doctored! 

Far away from all this influence of science and skill, or knife 
and drug, even in the heart of a great nation, even in the region 
of a vast population, but far outside the pales of the baleful science 
of medicine, there is the simplicity of Nature that takes care of 
all its followers and bids them fear no illness. 

The commonest fault of the masses of sufferers is their lack 
of knowledge of the operations of Nature in the life of the body; 
and to teach this knowledge we present here the chart of the Sev¬ 
enteen Wonders of human life. Each wonder is briefly described, 
but in such a way that you ought never again to abuse the power 
it brings to you. 

If you will turn to the next page you will find small lines 
near the seventeen wonders. Follow the extent of each line so that 
you will see to what inner part of the body it leads. 

The arms and legs are the only parts of the temple of life 
that do not contain vital organs. All the regions above the hips 
are filled with vital operations. Everywhere organs are present, 
and every organ is surrounded by a membrane that brings electrical 
power into the organ and thus maintains its energy. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


109 


CHART OF LIFE. 



SEVENTEEN WONDERS OF THE BODY. 

















110 


PERSONAL BOOK 


!• First Wonder .—This is found in the surrounding mem¬ 
branes of the brain, which are three in number and lie directly 
under the skull. When they are active the brain is at work, 
either day or night, in wakefulness or sleep. When the mind 
is at work, a flow of mucus is poured from these membranes 
into the brain; and the blood, by its increased circulation, brings 
additional nutrition to feed the work of this organ. The phos¬ 
phate foods serve to maintain the health and strength of the 
brain better than any other class. The best brain food is whole 
wheat deprived of its coarse bran. Bran itself sometimes has 
clinging to it a phosphatic meal which is used in bran-lemonade. 

The three membranes that surround the brain are known as 
meninges, and when they are inflamed by breathing foul air which 
carries germs into the general circulation of the blood, the dis¬ 
ease is known as meningitis. In crowded tenements and in badly 
ventilated houses, it is a common malady, and is often fatal. The 
best method of prevention is outdoor life free from road dust; 
and indoor life where pure food and cleanly methods are found! 
Living in dusty rooms is dangerous. 

All in-door dust is laden with disease. 

2.—Second Wonder .—The thinking brain next claims our 
attention. It consists of convolutions that nearly fill the skull. 
They are located at the head of the spinal column, which is the 
seat of life. The spine feeds all the organs, and extends from 
the highest to the lowest. Its vitality travels with the demands 
made upon it; as when the mind is very active the stomach cannot 
digest its food; for the vitality will not supply both functions 
at the same time. 

3 .—Third Wonder .—The little brain comes next. It is the 
dark mass at the base of the skull at the back. It is called the 
cerebellum; while the thinking brain is called the cerebrum. The 
little brain attends to all muscular activities of the whole body 
that are voluntary, which means all the things you do either 
from choice or from habit. The big brain thinks out what you 
decide to do in work or in play, and the small brain executes every 
command of the big brain. What the latter begins and repeats, 
the little brain will in time catch up and proceed with of itself, 
not waiting to be told by the cerebrum. If this were not so, you 
could never become skilled. If you play the piano and desire 
to put m motion more than one note at a time, as when cords 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


111 


of six or eight notes are played, your thinking brain will not be 
aJble to attend to all these activities, for it cannot think of so 
many things in a fraction of a second. Hence the small brain, 
which controls all the muscles of the body, will do all the execu¬ 
tion required if it is given practice enough. This is why many 
hours a week of practice is necessary to make you an accomplished 
player. The same law holds true in all matters of skill. 

4. —Fourth Wonder.—If you will look at the front of the 
CHART OF LIFE you will see the opening at the forehead where 
the eye is set. It conveys information to the brain, and there¬ 
fore leads directly into that great organ. What reaches ’the eye 
stimulates the brain, and by that means reaches the spinal column 
and extends to the stomach and all the organs. If you see on 
food something that displeases you, or the surroundings are unin¬ 
viting to the eye, the stomach will hold back its digestive juices 
and do harm to the health. Therefore one of the best steps in 
modern civilization is to bring pleasure to the stomach through 
cleanliness and neatness in the dining room, on the table and in the 
views round about. Hospital nurses know this law perfectly well 
and act upon it at all times. 

Cleanliness is inspiring. 

5. —Fifth Wonder .—By following the fifth line on the Chart, 
you will note the entrance to the ear. It, too, is located so that 
its impressions reach directly into the brain and through that 
organ they affect the spinal column and the stomach. As life 
comes from food, it is important that eating should be aided by 
every pleasure possible. Hot all persons can have music near at 
hand during a meal, as is the custom in some homes, and in many 
hotels; but distracting noises may be avoided, and disagreeable 
conversation should be kept out of the dining room. Flowers 
please the eyes and their fragrance enters the brain by the nose; 
and there are ways of bringing pleasing sounds to the ears. Some 
persons love the song of birds, some the flowing brooks, some the 
sea-like sounds of rustling leaves, some the whole voice of nature; 
and these are a few of the ways in which summer days may be 
brought into the enjoyment of eating, even at the windows of 
the dining room. But the buzzing of flies and other insects, the 
discordant tones of scolding men and women, the shrill shrieks 
of bad-mannered children, and the horrible din of dirty city life 
can never bring health through the organ of hearing. 


112 


PERSONAL BOOK 


6 .—Sixth Wonder .—You would 
never for a moment think that 
the nasal passage is a wonder. 

Wait a moment. The disease of 
diphtheria is one of the most 
deathly and most to be feared of 
all maladies that take an epidemic 
form. It begins in the throat 
and is caused by the dust laden 
air taken in at the mouth on 
which the germs of disease are 
borne to the delicate membrane 
at the back wall of the throat where they begin to build colonies 
and increase very fast. 

In the nasal chamber, the Sixth Wonder, there is a great 
sponge, put there by Nature to save human life. If children and 
older persons are taught to inhale through the nose, there will 
never be a case of diphtheria, or other throat disease; nor a case 
of pneumonia or consumption. The germs float on indoor dust, 
and can get to a person in no other way. In schools where diph¬ 
theria epidemics have prevailed, all children have escaped who have 
been rigidly trained to inhale through the nose; even in play and in 
running, when much air is needed, it is possible to maintain nose¬ 
breathing. 



The great nasal chamber 



7 .—Seventh Wonder .—The upper 
throat is the resonance chamber of the 
voice, in connection with the nasal 
chamber just described. It is in the 
upper throat that catarrh lodges at a 
place where it is hard to get at. As all 
catarrhs begin by the bad habit of 
mouth breathing, the most natural 
Particle of Dust Highly cure is to cultivate the good habit of 
“ a rfie“ C on ^surface d Se nose inhalation. When the upper 
fumption, la ^ippe^’ small- throat is blocked by mucus, you cannot 
ffir“2et 8 es 8carl ' t feTer and sing in clear tones or speak with the 
lesonance that is necessary to a good voice. But the greater danger 
is the formation of catarrh that drops eventually to the lungs and 
stomach. By so doing it carries disease-germs to vital organs and 
may set up fatal maladies there. 











RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


113 


8. — Eighth Wonder. —This happy provision of Nature should 
be studied in connection with the nasal chamber and the upper 
throat. The hard palate, which is shown by the number 8, is a 
very hard bone, probably the hardest in the body. It is a sound¬ 
ing board. Your piano has a sounding board, and a resonant 
chamber; so has the violin, and so have all musical intruments 
that are musically pleasing. 

The roof of the mouth consists of a very hard bone which is 
covered by a thin membrane. The bone is soft at the back, as, 
we shall see, but it becomes harder and thicker as it proceeds for¬ 
ward to the front upper teeth. In speaking and in singing, you 
can throw your tones at will, after a little practice, at whatever 
part of the sounding board you please. If you are gloomy and 
sad. Nature will cause you to make known this fact by throwing 
your voice against the soft or back part of the palate, where a 
deep, or dull, moanful sound will be made. You may be sad and 
a trained singer, and so be able at will to throw your voice for¬ 
ward against the front part of the hard palate, where the tones 
will be bright. But this is art and not nature. You may thus 
conceal your real moods. 

Some persons are natural actors. 

As every musical instrument must have a sounding board, so 
there must be a resonant chamber close to it; and the upper throat 
and nasal cavity furnish the resonant chamber for the hard palate. 

9. —Ninth Wonder .—This is the snoring attachment known 
as the uvula. If you will look into a mirror with your mouth 
wide open, you will see this little tongue hanging down at the 
back end of the hard palate. 

People who breathe in through the mouth are troubled with 
the hanging down of the soft palate or uvula. In speaking, yon 
will raise it a little, or you would snore at every word you tried 
to speak. But when you go to sleep the uvula will drop down 
in the passage of the throat, and there vibrate, making the familiar 
sound of snoring. This is a fault, but very prevalent. It may 
be cured by doubling two new habits: 

a. —First, learn to inhale all day long through the nose. The 
air can go out at the mouth, but it should never go in at the mouth. 

b. —Second, learn to raise the soft palate as a constant habit. 
This is a necessity in singing. If you have a fine singing teacher, 
you will be taught to raise the soft palate and to become con- 


114 


PERSONAL BOOK 


scions of its position. The higher it is raised the more it en¬ 
larges the resonance chamber of the throat, and it is in this way 
that voices are increased in volume. These facts are very elemen¬ 
tary principles among accomplished instructors of singing. 

But they are most remarkable. 

10 .—Tenth Wonder .—The lower throat comes next, and plays 
a very important part in the health of the body. Here all the 
dust from mouth breathing is brought and lodged until it is dis¬ 
tributed into whatever part it is to set up maladies. Diphtheria 
begins here, as has been stated on a preceding page. But the 
germs of tuberculosis and of pneumonia, as well as grippe and 
other diseases, have their first camping ground in the lower throat. 
You can see that currents of air that have been inhaled through 
the mouth will naturally strike this part of the throat. All indoor 
air is laden with dust. You will never find such air free from 
it. If you must live in dusty rooms, or near dusty roads, increase 
your vitality and by that means drive off disease. But it is not true 
that children and invalids can control their vitality unless they 
become Balstonites, and they should be taught to keep out dust- 
germs by inhaling always through the nose. Day habits of inhala¬ 
tion soon become night habits; for what you do all day long as a 
habit is adopted by the little brain and made a night habit as well. 

11 -—Eleventh Wonder .—We come now to the tongue and 
tonsils, and nearby are the glands that carry on mouth digestion, 
the most powerful of all curative measures. Dust from mouth¬ 
breathing will set up irritation and inflammation of the tonsils, 
and this too may be prevented by nose-breathing. Some of the 
infantile maladies are caught in the same way. 

The tongue is the seat of the fourth sense. We have seen 
the eye as the first sense, the ear as the organ of the second sense, 
the nose as the organ of the third sense; and now we have the 
tongue as the seat of taste. The whole muscular and nervous 
system of the body constitutes the fifth sense, touch. 

The tongue and its glands must be pleased with the taste of 
the food given it. As the eye, the ear and the nose may find 
something inviting or repugnant in connection with the eating of 
food, so the tongue and the palate may be aided or shocked by the 
flavor of the eatables offered. Thus all four senses help to make 
appetite. It has been well proved that the process of digestion is 
checked, stopped, or made energetic through these agencies. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


115 


12. —Twelfth Wonder .—We now find the vocal cords and the 
swallowing gate demanding onr attention. Nature is economical. 
She uses the same thing for two or more purposes, as may be seen 
in the study of the palate and the nasal chamber. The throat 
becomes divided into two parts; one is the passage to the stomach, 
and this will be seen in the Chart as located close to the spinal 
column. The other is the passage to the lungs, and is shorter. 
Fresh, pure air is needed to put oxygen into the blood so that it 
will have the power of motion to distribute its nutrition as it cir¬ 
culates to all parts of the body. To get air to the lungs, the 
throat is divided into the two passages described. If you swallow 
anything, even a drop of water, and it does not take the back pas¬ 
sage, you may strangle. A fine piece of meat fibre, no larger than 
a small hair, has caused death. 

It is very necessary to let the air enter the front passage, 
but that must be tightly closed when you swallow any food or 
liquid. This swallowing gate is the epiglottis, or little cover over 
the glottis which is the entrance to the windpipe. 

Under the gate we find the two muscles made of cartilage 
which vibrate into tones either of song or speech. Vowels are 
made by shaping the tone column as it passes through the mouth; 
and consonants are produced by methods of interference with the 
tone column, as by the teeth, lips, and tongue; but the beginning 
of sound is at the glottis edges just under the swallowing gate. 

13. —Thirteenth Wonder .—The passage in the throat under the 
swallowing gate, is known as the windpipe. It leads to the lungs. 
If catarrhs are allowed to remain in the throat, or if mouth-breath¬ 
ing is not cured, it is only a question of time when disease germs, 
floating on dust, will find lodgment there and set up sore throat, 
or some other troublesome affection. Here the terrible malady of 
asthma begins, and from this very cause. Here tuberculosis, trac¬ 
ing its track down from the dust left in the throat, will softly and 
insidiously wend its way to the lungs where it will very soon set 
up a domain that is hard to overthrow. The throat is the key to 
life and death. 

14. — Fourteenth Wonder— As the windpipe reaches the lungs 
it proceeds in branches which are called the bronchial tubes, to 
enter the greatest organ of life in the body. Here the dreaded 
disease, known as bronchitis, is set up. It always is a heritage of 
mouth-breathing. 


116 


PERSONAL BOOK 



The lungs themselves 
are now reached. Of all 
the deaths of people above 
the age of eighteen years, 
more than fifty in a hun¬ 
dred go to their graves 
from some form of lung 
disease. Here the vital¬ 
ity is made to show its 
greatest powers or its 
most depressing losses. 
The act of breathing is 
the act of life. You may 
cease its process for a 
short time, but not for 
The Lungs and Bronchial Tubes. many seconds without dis¬ 
tress. It is possible to hold the breath for a minute or two; but 
Hature never holds it in absolute cessation very long. 

Yet when a person is low in spirits, the respiration is very 
feeble, hardly noticeable by an observer. So when the attention 
is wrapt, as in some game or in a theatre. To overcome these 
bad habits, it is best to increase the natural respiration by two or 
three hundred per cent. This means that a person who inhales 

a gallon of air in a certain 
time, may be taught, or may 
learn, to inhale three gallons of 
air in the same time. 

15. — Fifteenth Wonder .— 
Located in the midst of the 
lungs is the heart, that wonder¬ 
ful engine, the strongest for its 
size of all the engines in the 
world, which begins to beat 
long before birth and which 
never ceases until the spirit 
goes forth to the unknown 
world beyond. Ho one can tell 
what makes it beat. The sur¬ 
prising fact is that it keeps 
going. Yet it never once stops 
during life. 



Interior of heart, showing sections. 




RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


117 


FRONT VIEW OF THE VITAL ORGANJS 



Situation of the stomach and i ts surroundings. 

D, The Liver. 

5’ Lu P§ s - E, Large Intestine. 

C, Stomachy G, Small Intestine. 

The above illustration is placed here in order to make clear 
by a front view, the situation and relation of all the parts that 
are involved in the processes of respiration, circulation and diges¬ 
tion. 

16 .—Sixteenth Wonder .—The dark, back passage from the 
throat is seen in the Chart coursing down by the edge of the 
spinal column to the stomach where it enters. Here the con¬ 
tents of the mouth, passing the swallowing gate, are drawn to 
the organ of digestion. This organ rests close to the spinal column 
which contains the monumental pile of vital energies, and close 
communication is set up with the mouth, the brain and the senses; 
all of which affect and control digestion. 

See Chart of Life on page 109. 



118 


PERSONAL BOOK 



Inside View of the Stomach. 



One of the glands that secrete the gastric 
juice, magnified 150 diameters. 


The interior of the organ that 
receives all food and liquid is 
shown in the accompanying illus¬ 
tration; and the outside view of 
the same organ is seen near it. It 
must be understood that the most 
important process of life is that 
which builds the body, and gives 
it all its powers for self-sustaining 
and for the work and duties of liv¬ 
ing. What a man eats, that is he. 
But what a man digests deter¬ 
mines what he is in a different 
meaning. Food that the stomach 
will not act upon is better out of 
the body than in it. Digestion is 
controlled at the mouth, is set in 
motion by the glands that secrete 
the gastric juice, and is aided by 
the walls of the stomach. Until 


the taste-buds of the tongue and 
the mouth glands are aroused, 
there can be no activity of the glands that secrete the gastric juice, 
and all food that enters an inactive stomach will ferment and set 
up poisons that lead to disease. Owing to the prevalence of food 
adulterations at the present day, almost every stomach is diseased. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


119 


17 .—Seventeenth Wonder .—The last in the nobler vital 
group is the spine, to which reference has already been made. If 
there is such a part of the body as the seat of life, it must be in 
the nervous system that centers here. Life itself is electrical, and 
here there are countless storage batteries, from which endless 
wires radiate to all parts of the body. As this column is made 
of many sections, it will bend easily and old age is shown most 
clearly by the curving of the back. This can easily be avoided, 
as there are many Ralstonites above the age of eighty who are as 
erect as young soldiers and in whom no trace of the feebleness of 
age can be found. 

The spinal column is affected most readily by the manner in 
which a person walks or sits. It is bad to lounge much of the 
time. Either lie flat on the back, or flat on one side, or prone on 
the stomach; but avoid the half sitting and the half lying position, 
as it brings the fluids into a partial stoppage, and weakness ensues. 
Paralysis has been instigated by the lounging habit. There is 
but one rule, and it is that the spine should be kept perfectly 
straight, either lying down or sitting up, or standing, or walking. 
Study this. The body has been so shaped that it is possible to sit 
in a chair and keep the spine straight. Easy chairs that permit 
leaning back are comfortable, but not beneficial. That which we 
most like to do, or to eat, does not always seem to have the endorse¬ 
ment of Nature. 

Keep the spine straight. 

In bed when ready to go to sleep, lie flat on the back if you 
have not ever-eaten at the noon or evening meal; otherwise die 
flat on the stomach, with the head on its side. A person who is 
nervous, or who does not fall to sleep readily, should lie in a 
prone position, with the weight on the front of the body. Never 
lie on the right or left side unless you have established such habit 
and can repose better that way. 

Protect the spine. 

In walking, be careful not to use the greatest pressure of the 
step on the heel. The heel should touch first, but the weight 
should quickly be carried over to the front of the foot on every 
step. This takes the jar and strain from the spinal column; 
and, after a person gets used to it, weariness in walking will be 
unknown, and the vitality of the whole body will be greatly 
increased. 


120 


PERSONAL BOOK 


In and around the spinal column there are countless cells where 
human electricity is being stored every minute of life if the vital¬ 
ity is good. Out from these cells a multitude of currents of elec¬ 
tricity are rushing to supply the body with its needed power of 
action. A bone cannot move of itself, and each of the two hun¬ 
dred bones of the body has two muscles, one to pull the bone one 
way, and another to pull it back. A muscle cannot move of itself. 
It must have some power to move it, and this power is present 
in the nerves that are attached to all muscles. The nerves are 
like wires over which electricity travels. While the bone does 
the physical work, and is moved by its muscles; while these muscles 
are directed by their nerves, and the nerves are furnished their 
power by human electricity, there can be no flow of such electricity 
until the brain sends forth the order to act. Thus we find the- 
engineer in charge of the most wonderful machine in the world; 
mechanism so marvelous that not even its simplest part can be 
imitated by the cleverest invention of man. 








RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


121 


Chapter Fifteen 


PERSONAL ADVICE 


On every highway in this life 
are dangerous curves and hidden tracts 
where death and wreckage lie in-wait: 
beware the sign! stop! look! and listen well! 


EFORE a person is sick there is a cause. If the person 
has been in good health, the cause has been invited by 
some act or habit that could have been prevented. 
Contagions may be headed off by a high vitality just 
as an iron tower will intercept a conflagration. In 
this chapter, the primitive laws of sickness and its causes will be 
considered. It is not therefore a part of the great work of Ralston 
Doctors that is described in the final pages of this book. 

1. When the vitality is weak, nature sets up a warning either 
in the form of a headache or neuralgia. 

2. Loss of vitality which is followed or attended by pains in 
the head or back or neck, should at once be treated by rest. A day 
sleep or rest for a few minutes, if repeated several times in the day, 
will break up that kind of suffering. 

3. When chocolate of the adulterated kind is taken, there will 
be pains in the head the same day or the next day, and perhaps 
pain around the heart. Rest and the white of an egg will help; 
but the diet must be both wholesome and limited, and long mastica¬ 
tion is necessary for each mouthful taken. Stimulants will do no 
good. This rule applies to all forms of neuralgic pains that attend 
indigestion, as from eating pastry or crisp foods, or other harmful 
things. 

4. When the heart is not normal in its action or gives a heavy 
or sharp pain, or beats rapidly, look to the diet. The causes may 






122 


PERSONAL BOOK 


be iced drinks, ice cream, fried foods, crisp foods, rich foods, coffee, 
substitutes for coffee, oat meal, a heavy dinner late in the day in 
place of a light supper, or other indiscretion. 

5. Don’t expect a good night’s rest if you eat a meat meal late 
in the day. Insomnia cannot be cured in that way, and is gen¬ 
erally caused by such methods. 

6. The natural cure of insomnia is to have simple, plain and 
wholesome foods thoroughly masticated in the mouth, and eaten ac¬ 
cording to the plan of this book. Meats and vegetables should 
never be eaten later than the noon meal. The non-use of the eyes 
and brain after the evening meal, the habit of remaining out of 
doors between the end of such meal and bed-time, and the drinking 
of a bowl of hot bouillon at the time of retiring, will restore the 
system to a normal condition and bring on sweet sleep. 

7. Don’t go without a meal unless you do so under a plan of 
health arranged according to scientific laws. To omit food and 
then crowd the system is slow suicide. 

8. When you have come into possession of a keen appetite, 
treat it as the most welcome guest of your existence; for in that 
appetite may be found the key to any kind of health or body condi¬ 
tion that you desire. The worst thing you can do is to satisfy it 
with cheap or low grade food or rich stuff. Then is the time for 
creating a new body. 

9. A cold is a fever intended by nature to bum up some excess 
of material in the system. As such process is aided by free perspi¬ 
ration and by deeper respiration, you should rest during the first 
approach of the cold, for during rest the pores of the skin are very 
active and the lungs breathe much more air than when you are sit¬ 
ting or standing. 

10. The grippe is a cold with special germs at work to bring on 
serious results. It should be treated in the way just mentioned. 
We have known of case after case being headed off by instant rest 
and day sleep if possible. Reduce the diet to the whites of eggs 
and milk. 

11. Contagions cannot be caught when the vitality is high. 

12. As nearly all diseases arise from indoor dust or street dust 
blown in the house, there are two courses to pursue; one is to keep 
the dust out, and the other is to raise the state of the vitality to the 
highest degree, and then two defences will be made for the threat¬ 
ened maladies. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


123 


13. Exercises are good under some circumstances; but men and 
women who are fully sedentary should not be given taxing exer¬ 
cises. After the age of forty, new muscular habits are not ad¬ 
vantageous. 

14. Yet a person who has diabetes should be kept on the feet 
all the time, should not be allowed to sleep more than six hours at 
night, and never at day, and should be fed on a special diet. This 
treatment has saved many lives. 

15. On the contrary a person who has consumption should not 
exercise at all. Every effort of the muscles breaks down tissue that 
is needed. Here the diet must be special. Rightly managed, there 
is hope of a cure in every case. But these instances are cited to show 
that, in one class of conditions, exercise is essential and in other 
cases it is often fatal. 

16. If you have rheumatism look to your diet. No first class 
doctor attempts to cure either diabetes, consumption or rheumatism 
with internal medicines. “It is criminal practice,” says an expert 
in these maladies. 

17. If you meet a man or woman with rheumatism or gout, or 
any kindred malady, you may ask with a certainty of receiving an 
affirmative reply, “Do you eat fruit, especially apples?” If the 
answer is no, then there will be found to be fibrous vegetables in 
the diet, such as beets, parsnips, turnips, pumpkins, radishes, cooked 
cabbage, or an excess of raw food. Pieplant is a common cause 
of the disease. Gooseberries as eaten in England are responsible 
for ninety per cent, of the rheumatism there, and the gouty habits 
of the people. It is the national fruit, and all acid. 

18. The first principle in the cure of rheumatism is to stop 
the dietary cause and jump to an opposite diet. Relief comes al¬ 
most as by magic, and then the victim goes back to the fruit, vege¬ 
table or acid foods, with a new attack. Like neuralgia this disease 
can be controlled wholly by re-building the blood and body in the 
manner stated in the earlier part of this book. 

19. When the lungs are weak or partly destroyed, the natural 
means of assisting them is by developing the unused cells of which 
there are countless thousands. This can be done by increasing the 
automatic habits of breathing so that three times as much air is 
taken into the lungs as formerly. Side-breathing, which expands 
the body under the arms to the right and left, reaches the new cells. 
No medicine or apparatus can be of help. 


124 


PERSONAL BOOK 


20. Catarrh of the nose, throat or upper passages to the lungs 
can always be wholly cured by increased respiration and a plain diet 
of the proper kind. The extra amount of air dries up the mucus, 
as it is formed at the surface of the membranes; the volume of air 
taking it all away. 


21. Appendicitis can be surely prevented by avoiding foods 
that contain preservatives. The latter are present in each kind of 
food in small quantities, and the government officials are inclined 
to believe that so slight a quantity cannot be very harmful The 
system might throw it off if it entered in only one thing; but it is 
present m meats, m canned goods, in package goods, in much of 
the milk, cheese, butter and cream in use, in preserves of all kinds, 
m ruit juices, m tinned tomatoes, in soups and vegetables that are 
put up m tins; and it is coming into flour, the staple of life. The 
wear and tear on the intestines is too great for nature to endure 
and the lining is eaten away or so irritated that it becomes in¬ 
flamed, with the result that appendicitis, the guardian of protec¬ 
tion from adulterations, is involved and must be cut out, leaving 
humanity no sentinel to take its place. 

22. Many people who are predisposed to pneumonia have by 
building up an enormous lung capacity, driven away all tendencies 
to this fatal malady. 


23. The hair and eyes follow the general condition of the 
blood m nine cases out of ten. There are, of course, exceptions. 

ut the oculist is enabled by looking at the eyes to detect the 
presence of blood disturbance, and kidney disease, as well as other 
troubles. The natural treatment is to be careful of the eyes to 
avoiding reading in twilight or by any light that is dim or that is in 
front of the face. Never read print that is too fine. Do not read 
on the cars or in any vehicle that is in motion. In proportion as the 
diet is plain and the variety of food less, the sight improves with 
care Fresh air m the house day and night, will also prove of help 
The hair needs good blood to feed it, good scalp conditions to grow 
it, and massage of the scalp to cultivate it; with many frequent 
washings to keep out the germs that destroy the roots. White 

beneficiaT aP ’ S ° aP * ^ ° r shnilar antise P tics are 


24. Anaemia is the beginning of 
lungs and every organic trouble, as well 
loss of the red corpuscles in the blood. 


consumption, or of weak 
as blood disorders. It is a 
The eating of acids is one 


RALSTON HEALTH GLEB 


125 


common cause; such as vinegar, lemon juice, and the like. Girls 
who are addicted to the use of pickles, are always anaemic sooner 
or later. Another cause is the use of pastry and fried foods. 

25. Actual experiments and observations show that nothing 
will break up the blood so quickly as pastry, rich cakes, piecrust, 
thin fried potatoes, and fermenting foods like ice cream. A person 
who has been cured of consumption should never eat any of this line 
of foods; for the malady will surely return. In tuberculosis the 
one fight is to keep the tissue from being lost; and pastry destroys 
tissue in well persons, so that it is sure to hurry the progress of 
this dread disease when once it has secured a hold on the system. 

26. Avoid boiled water, and boiled foods, as they contain the 
dregs that make old age faster than any other cause. When the 
steam and vapor have gone from the contents, what remains should 
not be taken. 

27. Paralysis comes generally from a draught. A person who 
is perfectly well, but whose vitality is low, may invite this malady 
by sitting at an open window, standing or sitting by an open door, 
or in some way becoming exposed to the cooler current of wind. 
It does not make any difference how mildly cool the current may 
be; if there is a difference between the air and the heat of the 
body, it will do possible harm. 

28. Don’t sit by an open car window, especially if it is one 
seat in front of you. The party who opened the window does not 
feel the draft for it blows backwards to the next seat behind. We 
have a record of several cases where exposure to the draft from an 
open car window has paralyzed the face of a person, or the side. 

29. The ground is a conductor of human electricity, if there is 
the least dampness on it. A cold cement step, or stone step, or 
grassy bank will soon draw off your vitality. Look out for the 
party who wants you to stop and talk in cool or cold weather when 
the street or walk is cold or damp. Rubbers will protect you to a 
great extent; but leather shoes will not, and some of the worst colds 
have followed this habit of remaining standing even for a few 
minutes only, on cold walks. Dry wood is safer. 

30. Do not linger in the open doorway to say a long goodby to 
some person. Pneumonia awaits you. The caller may have her 
wraps on and so not feel the exposure; but you have the warm room 
back of you and the cold air in front, while you are clothed for 
the room temperature. So look out. 


126 


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31. When you have dyspepsia, remember that this is a malady 
of the stomach, and the natural cure is to carry on digestion in the 
mouth by the buccal glands of the throat. If you do this, the 
stomach will have a rest and recover; but it must not be wholly 
empty when you are carrying on mouth digestion. The best food 
for it at such a time is the white of an egg taken at the rate of one 
every five minutes until you have finished the meal; but not more 
than four whites are to be used. If milk does not injure the 
stomach, or give it distress, you can whip the whites of two eggs in 
a glass of milk, and sip it during the meal. 

32. But the process of creating a new body, as described in the 
earlier part of this book, is the best of all methods of overcoming 
dyspepsia. 

33. If you have liver troubles, depend for some time on mouth 
digestion, as this stimulates the third brain which controls the liver 
and kidneys, as well as other organs. 

34. If you have kidney troubles, avoid alcohol, and all bever¬ 
ages except distilled water. 

35. Hardening of the liver follows the use of alcohol; and is a 
very common disease at the present day. 

36. A person who is subject to sun heat and the fear of stroke, 
should avoid in the summer time all forms of corn meal foods, all 
alcohol, all fats and heavy meals. The eating should be light, and 
distilled water should be the only drink. 

37. Don't drink water that you know nothing about. Over 
three-fourths of typhoid in the cities comes from people who have 
been away on a vacation of a week or more; although one drink 
from an infected well is enough to start the trouble. 

38. Don't drink raw milk that you know nothing about. While 
it is much better than sterilized milk as a food, it is not safe to take 
when human life is at stake; therefore let it be brought to the 
boiling point and then made ice cold before it is drunk. 

39. All raw vegetables, fruits and other things should be thor¬ 
oughly washed and cleaned before being eaten; as dust and insects 
cover them with germs of disease. 

40. Don’t drink much liquid when you are warm; hold the 
fluid in the mouth as long as you can and the thirst will be 
quenched. 

41. Don’t take a bath on a full stomach, as the nervous system 
suffers a shock that sometimes causes paralysis. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


127 


42. Don’t take a cold water bath if you are very irritable or 
nervously weak. The sudden attack on the vitality saps the nerve 
centres of their best life. It is said that there are no cold water 
bathers who are not very nervous. Many of them have died of 
nervous prostration. The better way is to bathe in tepid water, 
and rinse off in water that is slightly cooler which may be gradually 
changed to cold water. This prevents loss of vitality by the shock 
of a cold dash or plunge. 

43. Don’t wear slippers when you have been accustomed to 
high shoes; the vitality is lessened and colds ensue by the exposure 
to the cold strata of the room near the floor. A person who is used 
to slippers or low shoes might not suffer; but high shoes are a 
means of protection against colds. 

44. Don’t wear thin soled shoes out of doors. The feet are 
close to the ground and the body’s electricity will escape very easily 
if there is an opportunity. The people who wear thick soles are 
better able to ward off a cold or the grippe. 

45. When the stomach is empty don’t put anything in the 
mouth that is not to be swallowed, as it causes the gastric juices to 
flow, and these act in a digestive manner on the walls of the 
stomach, causing great redness and incipient inflammation. 

46. Don’t smoke on an empty stomach; it will do the thing 
just described, and also will make you nervous. 

47. Don’t chew anything when the stomach is empty. Swal¬ 
lowing the saliva will not suffice, as that fluid passes into the glands 
and does not reach the stomach. 

48. Don’t go out of doors with insufficient clothing on. Change 
the garments to suit the changes in temperature. In winter, wear 
suitable undershirts and vary them with the warmth and cold. 
Have three weights; one very heavy, one medium, and one very 
light. Do not take off the underwear too soon in spring. It is 
better to suffer from heat than from pneumonia. 

49. Don’t wear next to the skin any wool or flannel. Open 
mesh goods are safest and best. 

50. Don’t remain in a cold room without putting on extra 
wraps. The lower the temperature, the more clothing you should 
wear. 

51. In cold weather the best health is secured when the arti¬ 
ficial heat of the house is lowered, and the natural heat of the 
body is increased by wearing double undervests. 


128 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Chapter Sixteen 


“LAWS OF LIFE” FOR YOU 

Youth is not rich in time, it may be poor: 

Part with it as with money, sparing ; pay 
No moment but in purchase of its worth : 

And what’s its worth ask death-beds, they can tell. 


)U have reached that stage in your earthly existence 
where you realize the importance of knowing the 
exact needs of your body. If you have always been 
well, and are still well, you understand the value of 
maintaining the good health with which you are 
blessed. Prevention is better than cure, and this fact y'ou are 
wise enough to appreciate. If, on the other hand, there have taken 
place in your body certain organic changes, or your blood has 
begun to fail, or your vitality to weaken, it is all the more impor¬ 
tant that you should know what to do to check the advance of 
disease or the invitation of premature death. 

The moment you were born there began the road-building 
of your journey to the grave. When you were only twenty-four 
hours old, you were one day nearer death. So all through your 
infancy and youth, even through the years in which you were 
robust and full of the vigor of life, the influences that break down 
the health and sap the vitality, were engaged in hurrying you on 
to that end from which there is no escape. 

As all nature ripens and dies in her created forms of life, 
so all humanity has come to expect ripening and death. What 
is most feared is the breaking down of the faculties and the decrep¬ 
itude and helplessness of infirm age. “I would rather go to my 
grave at the end of maturity than to live on and on in weakness 





RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


129 


and dependence/’ is the thought of almost every man and woman 
when age begins to show itself. 

It is an awful thing to be old and decrepit. 

It is an awful fate to lose sight, or hearing, to find all the 
senses failing, and the body stiff with senile decay, while one lives 
on and on in uselessness and helplessness. 

Yet Nature says, “Decreptitude is a crime.” 

The explanation is this: Decreptitude is unnecessary, and is 
therefore an imposition on those who must take care of you. If 
you are now decrepit and helpless, come into the Giant Liaws of 
Life here and now and throw off the burden. Live! Live anew! 

There are four roads to death. You may be traveling on one, 
or two, or three, or all of them at this time. Find out the facts. 
Know yourself, and see what of these roads you have been journey¬ 
ing on, and how far you have progressed. 


THE FOUR ROADS TO DEATH: 


1. STIFFENING. 

2. CLOGGING. 

3. POISONING. 

4. WEAKENING. 


A full explanation of what is meant by the terms used will 
be given here, and then you must analyze your own condition by 
the rules that will follow these accounts. 

First Road to Death. — STIFFENING. — What ultimately 
bends the hack and takes the elasticity out of the body, is a tendency 
that begins the day one is bom. It comes from the conditions 
that surround the life of every person in the battle for food. When 
the race came on earth it was in need of sustenance, and Nature 
supplied many things in the crudest forms. If a man is ship¬ 
wrecked on a wild island he will first seek water and food. He 
cannot go without them for many days. The water may be at 
hand or far away. Once he secures it and learns its source, he 
will dwell as near the locality ,as possible. Then he must find 
his food. There may be birds, fish, animals, fruits or other forms 
of sustenance about him; lacking all of which !he will eat grass 


and leaves like the lower animals. 

The same conditions have confronted humanity from the 
beginning of time. The use of more refined forms of food is 
always developed from crude supplies. But wherever it is found 
it is a gift of the earth. Fish have eaten food that originated in 
some way in the earth; so have animals whose meat man eats. 



130 


PERSONAL BOOK 



And so have birds. All have been fed by the product of the soil. 
The latter is largely mineral. In fact it is all mineral at the 
start, and has become blended into nutritive forms by the aid of 
animal life. 

Then whatever you eat, comes from the soil, and you cannot 
escape the mineral nature out of which it is extracted. Nature 
has never done for man what he has been able to do for himself. 
She has never discovered for him the laws or the secrets that 
have been most useful to him as he has marched onward along 
the grand highway of civilization. He has had to do everything 
for himself, and so he has suffered. The food is in the soil, and 
he must get it out. It is mixed with the soil, and man eats soil 
when he eats any kind of food. There is nothing that enters his 
stomach that does not contain some soil, some minerals, some cal¬ 
careous matter that is sure to remain in his veins and tissue, and 
sooner or later stiffen his body. 

This is the whole secret. 

The day will come when man will discover something more 
than his wizard genius has yet found out; he will learn how to 
get the food from the earth free from this soil. But today he is 
still ignorant of the fact. When, however, he does learn this 
great solution of life, he will effectually close up one of the Four 
Toads to Death. 



RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


131 


As it is, he eats every day some soil. It 
is mineral, and like any mineral it stays 
in fine deposits in the body, gradually 
interfering with the operations of life 
and bringing on stiffness and infirmity. 

There are millions of persons who are 
never ill, but who become aged and still 
in all parts of the body; developing this 
condition so gradually as to escape 
notice until they are decrepit. They 
die of old age after many years of help¬ 
lessness and dependence, with faculties 
impaired and body almost useless. 

It is the mineral matter in their 
food that has done all this harm. 

The veins of the heart, of the eyeballs, 
of the ears, of the whole structure of 

,i , „ The solids and liquids that 

the body everywhere, are very small, enter the stomach have great 

They throb and urge onward the rush influence on the health of the 
i» r-i t n , ,, , „ kidneys. When these organs 

Ol blood through the system. You can are once broken down there 

easily see the damage that is done when is no cure - Medicines make 
i-t . . -| „ „ . them worse. 

the inside surfaces of these tiny veins 

are lined with deposits of mineral matter that is taken in through 
the food and water. There are some children who show traces 
of age in their youth; there are many young men and women who 
are growing old in their veins too soon; and all persons eventu¬ 
ally succumb to this adanvcing process of undue ripening long 
before they are old enough in Nature to die. It is not a theory 
but a proved fact that youthful conditions should endure long past 
a hundred years. You may be traveling this Boad to Death, or 
you may have come upon one or more of the shorter ones. In any 
case, get away from all. They are unnatural. 

Second Road to Death. —CLOGGING.—While stiffening is due 
to an excess of mineral matter in food and drink, clogging is due 
to the collection of animal soil in the blood, tissue and all organs. 
This animal soil is the breakdown of the food that is eaten. Nutri¬ 
tion is extracted and carried into the circulation by the blood, and 
brought to bear upon all parts within the system so that they may 
be built up rapidly and effectively. But when they have served 
their purpose, then they break down and become a burden to the 



132 


PERSONAL BOOK 


blood. This fluid must bring in the building material, and it must 
carry out the debris or ruins of inward life. 



Effects of Clogging the Kidneys. 


The above picture, taken from actual photograph, shows the dead animal 
soil collected around the kidneys and adjacent parts. It was the cause of death. 

All blood therefore that flows in your veins is carrying new 
material to every portion of your body, and is taking out the break¬ 
down of life. The two go together, except that as soon as the blood 
can take the worn out material to the lungs, or to the skin, or to 
the kidneys, or other parts, it lets it go. This is the hardest of all 
the processes of life, and is the cause of all diseases; or at least 
it is the first cause. If you are careful to eat only as much as the* 
body requires, and to select no poisons in what you eat and drink, 
you will find that the blood will carry the two burdens in perfect 
manner. But you cannot escape poisons, as they blend with all 
foods, and with most liquids, nor can you guage your appetites 
unless you are able to ascertain with scientific accuracy how much 
is required to satisfy ninety per cent, of your hunger, leaving the 
remaining ten per cent, for an attractive force for the next meal. 
As you cannot do these perfect things, there is but result, and that 
is an excess of material that will clog the system. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


133 


This clogging manifests itself in two ways: 

1. In constipation. 

2. In dead soil deposits all through the body. 

Both conditions are serious. One period of constipation, while 
apparently very harmless, tells a story that should he heeded at 
the very outset. Organs suffer losses that can be repaired only by 
the best methods in after years. Constipation gives due notice of 
trouble! but dead animal soil is hardly ever detected except by a 
faulty complexion and unpleasant breath; but even these indica¬ 
tions are sometimes faint and not understood. The light field of 
the eyeball which surrounds the iris, and which is known as the 
white of the eye, begins to lose its beautiful clearness as soon as the 
accumulation of dead animal soil throughout the whole body 
reaches a condition that threatens health. 

Dead animal soil covers the heart, is present all through the’ 
lungs, coats the stomach, clouds the kidneys, clogs the liver, and 
interferes with the normal processes of life. It is dead matter, and 
dead animal matter at that. 

Nature never allows dead matter of any kind to remain. 

She will send carrion flies or insects or birds to consume a 
dead horse, or a dead rat, or a dead piece of meat, or manure, or 
any offal that is left to itself. There are many kinds of decay in 
the body as in outer life; and Nature creates just the kind of bac¬ 
teria to devour it. If you have an accumulation of a certain kind 
of decay in your body, there will he bacteria ready to enter and 
devour it. Thus when the decay is of the kind that is devoured 
by germs of small pox, such bacteria will enter if they are available, 
and eat up all that kind of decay. When it is devoured, you will 
not be attacked by small pox again for many years. The prin¬ 
ciple of vaccination is to send into the blood a mild imitation of 
small pox in harmless germs that feed on the same kind of decay; 
and the result is in most cases that you will have no decay left 
in your body on which the real germs, or bacteria, of small pox can 
feed. The vaccine bacteria have cleaned up all that kind of dead 
animal soil, and that special kind accumulates very slowly. 

Other kinds of dead soil accumulate very much faster. The 
soil for typhoid bacteria comes in every day, and one attack does 
not insure the body against other attacks of this malady. 

Excess of dead animal soil in the system results in the attacks 
of bacteria to devour such decay, as Nature does not permit effete 


134 


PERSONAL BOOK 


matter to remain anywhere. Diseases, therefore, are Nature's 
method of getting rid of the clogging material in the body. 

The doctors guessed this truth many centuries ago, and all 
physicians are so-called because they are physickers. The first step 
in any cure is to open the pores, increase both the respiration and 
the perspiration, free the bowels and make the kidneys active; all 
of which methods serve to hurry the dead animal soil out of the 
body so that it can no longer furnish food for the bacteria of 
disease. It seems very simple. But the danger is that the germs 
of disease, having begun to feed on the dead animal soil, will in¬ 
clude the healthful parts as well, and death too often follows. 

There are two causes of clogging: 

1. Too much food. 

2. Unfit food. 

Both causes are present in the habits of the well to do classes. 



Two Hairs of the Head Highly Magnified 
These two pictures are very interesting. They show two hairs 
of the head, and the structure of the roots. One hair is clean at 
the scalp; the other is clogged, and will fall out because of the 
animal soil that is destroying it. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


135 


third Road to Death. —POISONING.—This does not mean 
acute poisoning, but the steady, daily taking into the system of 
material that is not food, most of which slowly changes the nature 
of the tissue in the organic life of the bod} 7 ", and makes the blood 
a burden carrier instead of a wholesome river of nutrition. 

A large margin is allowed bj 7, Nature for the disposal of this 
class of slow poisons. While a little hurts, a little more hurts 
more, and a small increase carried on day by day becomes an ac¬ 
cumulation of dangers, each of which is too slight to be regarded 
with fear. 

The word antiseptic seems a long one for a common mind 
to grasp, but it means something that destroys the germs of dis¬ 
ease, or the germs of decay. Milk decays by souring, and anti¬ 
septic chemicals are put in it to prevent or delay such decay. 
Millions of children have been killed to satisfy the greed of farm¬ 
ers and middlemen who seek to cover up habits of gross unclean¬ 
liness in handling milk. Yet without milk in some form, the 
human race w'ould die out in a short time. 

Hams, salt pork, and cured meats are treated with the coars¬ 
est kind of antiseptics; the grade of salt used is the most deadly 
of slow poisons, and people who eat meats that are not fresh will 
pay the penalty sooner or later. But fresh meats are embalmed. 
This is done by the use of chemical antiseptics. It is a crime, 
but the meat packers laugh at the law, and the people are help¬ 
less. Post-mortem examinations of the intestines of people who 
have been excessive meat-eaters show the presence of bacteria in 
great quantities of the most putrid kind; while similar exami¬ 
nations of non-meat-eaters show great comparative cleanliness. 

It is the accumulation of so-called “safe” poisons that do the 
greatest harm. 

Thus the can of tomatoes that you buy at the store contains 
so little chemical preservative that it will not do your body any 
harm in one sense of the word. It will never make you ill. The 
saccharine that is put in sugars, candies, and the fruit syrups of 
soda water fountains, as well as in glassed and tinned fruits and 
other goods, and even in the infant foods will not do you any 
immediate harm; that is, it will not kill you by acute poisoning. 
Yet in time your kidneys, without warning, will break down, and 
Bright’s disease, the incurable monster, will come upon you as 
in a night. 


136 


PERSONAL BOOK 



The above picture represents the actual size of the human heart 
(from a correct photographic view taken immediately after death) 
reduced or shrunken by atrophy, and due to taking antiseptic 
medicines which destroyed the healthful cells while overcoming 
germ disease. The medicines, the hundreds of thousands of 
barrels of which are taken annually by the great American people, 
are caught up by the blood; and, as some calculate, in every fifty- 
eight pulse-beats, the entire blood of the system passes through the 
heart. When this organ is affected, every organ and every function 
of the body suffers, and ill-health results. 


The pure food laws of State and United States are laughed 
at by all makers of tinned and glassed goods, and by almost all 
makers of package foods. The rapid increase of infantile paraly¬ 
sis, and of appendicitis, can be traced to the use of preparations 
in foods and liquids, of chemicals where Nature intended only 
her natural growth, and of preservatives that kill bad bacteria 
while killing good tissue. 

If infantile paralysis, which slays old, middle-aged and young 
with equal celerity and leaves no victim well who survives, were 
to become suddenly a world-wide epidemic, as a rebuke to the 
greed classes who thrive on the murder of humanity, it might 
wake up the people to a campaign of annihilation of these crimi- 



RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


137 


nal adulterators; but nothing short of a cataclysm can effect this 
needed end. The whole race is falling backward as the result 
of adulterations in food and drink. But who cares? Does the 
increase of doctors, of drugs, of hospitals, of operations, of uni¬ 
versal weakness and half-sickness all over the land arouse any 
interest in the study of their causes? Very little, if any. 

People who, becoming poisoned by adulterated foods and 
drinks, find themselves victims of some kind of breakdown, fly 
at once to drugs and patent medicines; thus adding quickly to 
the dangers of acute poisoning of some organ, notably the stomach, 
the heart, the kidneys, or the lung tissue; and so they drag along 
a miserable existence until death releases them or they invite it 
directly. 

All foods contain more than food value, and Nature makes 
her allowance great enough to permit the excess to be carried 
out by the intestines. But the chemical poisons that are found 
in almost all drinks, even well water, coffee, tea, and bottled 
liquids; and in all canned, tinned, and glassed goods, and package- 
foods; in all drugs and patent medicines; in syrups, fruit ex¬ 
tracts, candies, chocolates and everything that can be treated by 
the adulterator, furnish a mass of material that does not do 
enough immediate harm to bring the culprits to justice as mur¬ 
derers, but enough to undermine the best of human health. 

Meat is embalmed. Baking powders contain alum. Most 
flour is bleached or otherwise doctored. On the altar of greed 
all life is made a cheap sacrifice. The methods of deceiving the 
public are so intricate that only experts ean create them and 
detect them. 

The mind gives way under the influence of these combined 
poisons, and the power to resist the temptation of self-destruc¬ 
tion is lost. Insanity and suicides have increased at a fearful 
rate in the past twelve months, and will continue to increase 
until food adulteration is made what it in fact is—a capital 
offence. The slow poisoner is as wicked as the quick poisoner. 
The slow murderer is as much a felon as the quick murderer. 
Adulterators grown rich live in homes of opulence made possi¬ 
ble only under a system of felonies by which untold numbers 
of victims sleep in crime-made graves. 

Fourth Road to Death. -WE.AKENING.-This is the ap¬ 
proach of nervous weakness or low vitality that withdraws from 


138 


PERSONAL BOOK 


the body the electrical energy that supports all the operations of 
life. This force is created in the body every minute and its de¬ 
velopment depends on the health of the nerves themselves and of 
the nutrition that supplies them. 

Man is like a plant in his vitality. The plant that droops 
must be given sunlight in medium power, and fresh air without 
being subjected to harsh winds. What was once largely outdoor 
life has in recent years become indoor life. The office has taken 
the place of the held. The woman who used to have a garden and 
who did much of her housework by the open window or on the 
porch, has been succeeded by the woman who shuts herself in 
all day. The carriage and the wagon have given way to the closed 
car, or to the automobile that admits no chance for deliberate en¬ 
joyment of the fresh air. The odor of gasoline poisons the heart 
and weakens the lungs, while speed in travel through the open 
air breaks down the vitality very fast. These last statements 
are challenged by automobile owners; but doctors tell their neu¬ 
rasthenic patients to avoid automobile riding. 

The only point we make here is that human life depends as 
much on fresh air and mellow sunlight as the favorite plant; and 
modem methods of living are constantly narrowing the scope of 
outdoor life by increasing indoor habits and occupations. 

This fact, together with the ever-growing array of injurious 
chemicals that are entering the body through the impure foods 
and drinks now m use, makes such inroads on the vitality that 
the power to resist disease, and to combat its crisis, is being lost. 
Nervous prostration claims today a hundred victims where fifty 
years ago it destroyed the life of only one. The constant feeling 
of nervous depression brings on mental gloom and despondency', 
enemies of health and of enjoyable living. When a person see? 
no object m earthly existence, then the mind is diseased: and 
there is an ever-increasing army of men and women who think 
this life is not worth the living. 

One of the most remarkable effects is that of weakening that 
attends mental discouragement. Enthusiasm and optimism build 
vitality; but the depressed person actually seems to be without 

reath, so slight is the action of the lungs and the beating of the 
Heart* 


Death comes from the 
of the body, as often as it 


running down of the storage battery 

comes from distinct disease. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


139 


SEVEN ROADS TO LIFE. 

Thus far in this chapter we have presented the Four Roads 
to Death along one or more of which you are traveling at this 
moment. No one pretends that death is not a certainty. If so, 
there must be some process by which it is reached, and we have 
shown four of these processes. 

Opposed to these roads there are Seven Roads to Life, and 
they are described in the following pages with their relationship 
made clear as far as they are able to offset the highways of death. 


1. DISTILLATION. 

2. ELIMINATION. 

3. PERSISTALSIS. 

The Seven Roads to Life 4. NON-CLOGGING FOODS. 

5. INGESTION. 

6. OPEN-SKIN. 

7. DEEP RESPIRATION. 

First Road to Life. —DISTILLATION.—All Nature in her 
own departments, proceeds to effect her results through her law of 
distillation. Her fruits contain distilled liquid. She takes the 
vapor from the ocean and raises it to the sky freed from salt and 
all impurities. Vapor is pure. It floats inland, meets cold cur¬ 
rents of air, and falls in the form of rain or snow, both distilled. 
This is ideal drinking water when collected and given proper care. 
Nature causes boiling water to send forth vapor which, when it is 
condensed, is pure water. This is called artificial distillation; 
but it is of the same good quality as rain water when it is sub¬ 
jected to pure air for aeration, and it employs a great law of 
Nature in its production. 

The chief quality of distilled water is that it contains no 
mineral matter and therefore cannot cause stiffening of the veins 
in the body or any of its organs. The next quality of such water 
is its constant action of absorbing impurities whenever it comes 
in contact with them. It is a quick cleanser. The person who 
drinks rain water, or distilled water is sure to retain youth many, 
many years longer than the person who drinks hard water with 
its mineral matter. 

Second Road to Life. —ELIMINATION.—The many fruits 
furnished by Nature for the use of man have a distinct purpose 
in the world. They not only contain distilled water, hut also hold 



140 


PERSONAL BOOK 


qualities that serve to draw from the body the accumulated min¬ 
eral matter that causes stiffening. 

The great varieties of fruits teach the lesson of selection. By 
this is meant that one fruit is good for one person and another 
fruit is good for another person; or that one fruit aids one part 
of the body and another fruit aids another part. 

To illustrate what is meant we will take the use of the well 
known grape fruit, which is a bitter orange-looking ball of greater 
size. It holds a large quantity of juice. The pulp is injurious. 
Let the liquid part be eaten by a spoon, evading the fibre of the 
flesh, and avoiding the aid of sugar, and the liver will be given 
a wonderful cleansing in the course of ten days. This juice should 
be taken mornings on an empty stomach fully thirty minutes be¬ 
fore breakfast. The habit of taking it as the first or fruit course 
at the morning meal, is wrong; as is also the habit of taking grape 
fruit at other times of the day. 

The juice of the lemon, omitting all sweetening, is also val¬ 
uable in its effect on the intestines, if it is taken half an hour 
before anything else is eaten mornings and continued for ten 
days. As a rule only half a lemon should be used each morning, 
as too much juice will set up acid conditions in the system. 

To reach the kidneys, take the juice of any pear that is pleas¬ 
ing to the taste. This also should be taken half an hour before 
the morning meal. Bipe, mellow cherries cleanse the stomach. 
The juice of grapes builds better blood than any other one thing; 
and carries natural iron into the system, the iron being organized 
in the vegetable kingdom. When iron is taken direct from the 
mineral kingdom, it destroys lung tissue and leads to consump¬ 
tion. This is a wonderful law, and has been proven true in count¬ 
less cases. No food should ever be taken into the human body 
unless it has been organized in the vegetable kingdom. 

'The juice of peaches cleanses the skin, and also brings into 
the blood a great quantity of iron that has been organized in the 
vegetable kingdom. 

Blackberries that are naturally sweet and that may be eaten 
without sugar, build up the heart tissue and cleanse it to a re¬ 
markable extent. The juice alone is preferred for this purpose. 

The juice of a pineapple sweetened slightly with honey, which 
is a pure form of carbon-food, will help keep the throat and lungs 
in a vigorous condition. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


141 



The apple performs a service of 
such value that it is referred to 
under another head in this chap¬ 
ter. 

Nature, by special design, pro¬ 
duces apples in wonderful variety 
to meet the needs of the human 
body. 

If you are taking the juice 
fruits for food purposes alone, 
they may be eaten as the first 
course of the morning meal; but 
if you seek them strictly as elim¬ 
inators of bad material in the 
body, they should be all taken a 
half hour before anything else is 
eaten in the morning. Two or 
more fruits may be taken to¬ 
gether, if desired, but the juice 
alone must be used. 

APPENDIX. 


IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF “APPENDICITIS.” 

The above picture shows the intestinal canal from the 
stomach to the outlet at the extreme end. A little way up at the 
lower left hand corner of the illustration will be found a small 
attachment, c c, which is known as the appendix. It leads out 
from the intestinal canal, near the juncture of the small and the 
large intestines. As the above picture is supposed to be facing 
the reader, the appendix is in fact on the right side of the body, 
not far from the groin; and it is at this place that the common 
operation is made, by cutting open the abdomen and removing 


the appendix. 

Appendicitis is on the rapid increase, and is caused directly 
by putrid matter getting lodged in the appendix, from which it 
cannot be removed by the peristalsis of the bowels, as it is out 
of the way. But primarily the cause of this dreaded malady is 
the poisonous effect of adulterations in food, of which there are 
so many today that a book would be required to describe them. 
The delicate lining of the intestines becomes irritated, then in¬ 
flamed, and the membrane is sloughed off over the appendix, open- 



142 


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mg the latter to all the foul material in the passage. The result 
is a tendency to rapid mortification. 

Third Road to Life.— PERISTALSIS.—This is a wave ac¬ 
tion of the intestinal canal. When it ceases or is sluggish, con¬ 
stipation and danger of piles, kidney disease, liver disease' and 
APPENDICITIS, may follow. The only safe way is to travel 
all the Poads to Life, and keep the peristaltic action perfect at 
all times. There is one gift of Nature that does more to aid in 
this good result than any other thing. Write down in your mem¬ 
ory the saying: “An apple eaten before breakfast every morning 
will keep the doctor away.” But there are more than a hundred 
varieties of apples. Nature never made that number carelessly 
and blindly. I here are about forty kinds of apples that, when 
mellow, will be found exceedingly pleasing to the taste. But one 
kind may suit one palate, and another kind suit another palate. 
Yoiir variety is what you want. If you eat a kind that does not 
perfectly suit your palate, neuralgia or rheumatism may follow 
or the stomach may refuse to digest it. When the flesh of the 
apple touches the tongue, intense pleasure should attend the eat¬ 
ing of it. This floods the stomach with gastric juice and aids 
the effects sought. 

Study yourself and the results that follow the habit of eatin°- 
a good sized apple every morning a half hour before breakfast 5 
Be sure the fruit is mellow. Never eat a cooked apple, unless it 
be one that is baked. Baked sweet apples with milk or cream 
belong to the food class rather than this service. 

Fourth Road to Life. —NOH-CLOGGING FOODS._It has- 

been proved and known as a scientific fact for centuries that a 
thm person stands five times the chance of living to an extraor¬ 
dinary age in the possession of all the faculties that a fat per¬ 
son possesses. Let the latter be ever so careful in matters of 
health, he will not live as long as his thin friend. Another scien¬ 
tific fact is that the use of thin foods will aid long life and good 
ea does n ot mean that solid foods are never to be eaten; 

for the laborer and the soldier need staying powers and therefore 
foods that will remain a long time in the stomach and furnish 
sustenance. But the ordinary person is injured by staying foods 
as clogging is sure to result. Even the soldier and the laborer 
is helped by a mixed diet, some parts of which are liquid, as 
soup, milk, stews, plenty of water before a meal, and fruits. 



RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


143 



The glands of the human tace, which furnish saliva and 
the means of digesting bread, grains and sugars. 

Fifth Road to Life. —INGESTION.—This process is the first 
and most important part of digestion. It occurs at the mouth, 
and there are glands that are created for the sole purpose of being 
used to prepare food for the stomach. Part of these glands will 
be seen in the accompanying picture which gives a view of one 
side of the face. They send a flow of saliva to the mouth, and 
absorb in return the same saliva and all the soluble material in 
the form of nutritive food that has been made ready for its ac¬ 
tion. It has been proved that many kinds of food can be drawn 
directly into the circulation without going to the stomach, if 
they have been thoroughly masticated by the tongue and teeth. 
The whites of fresh eggs have thus been used to give strength and 
pure blood, without employing the stomach which may be inflamed 
from indigestion. 

Slow mastication of any food, by yielding a greater percent¬ 
age of nutrition, will lessen the quantity of poisons that enter the 
system. Ingestion serves many noble purposes, but among the 
best is the power it has to keep the body from becoming too thin 
or too stout. Ingestion consists of a thorough mixture of the 
food in the mouth before swallowing so that the taste-buds of 
the tongue will act on all of it, even the smallest particles. 


144 


PERSONAL BOOK 


“TASTE-BUDS.” — On the tongue there are wonderful 
growths that are known as taste-buds, which bring on digestion 
or else interfere with it. These taste-buds should become thor¬ 
oughly excited in the mouth by a long process of action with the 
food in order to make digestion perfect. 

Taste is the direct guide to 
the stomach; and the taste- 
buds are connected by the 
nerves with the stomach itself, 
so that they represent its 
health or disorder. If the 
stomach or its juices are out 
of tone, the blood is permeated 
by a change in the alkaline or 
acid conditions, and these reach the mouth both directly and 
indirectly. The taste-buds are in the tongue, and are mounted 
by hairlike projections called papillae. These cover the surface of 
the tongue. They rise up when you taste. Drop some vinegar on 
another person’s tongue or your own, and you will see the papillae 
stand erect. When you taste, these buds absorb the liquid, and 
inform the nerves; the nerves inform the stomach; the stomach 
telegraphs back its condition; and the food is not acceptable or is 
relished exactly as the stomach feels. Food that has no liquid is 
tasteless, until it excites the saliva and dissolves in it; therefore 
insoluble substances remain tasteless. The back of the tongue is 
most sensitive to salt and bitter substances, and, as this part is 
supplied by the ninth pair of nerves in sympathy with the stomach, 
such flavors, by sympathy, often produce vomiting. The edges 
of the tongue are most sensitive to sweet and sour substances, 
and as this part is supplied by the fifth pair of nerves, which 
also go to the face, an acid, by sympathy, distorts the countenance. 

When the food is acted upon by the taste-buds of the tongue 
the glands of the face and throat ingest into it a most power¬ 
ful fluid that gives the food a new character. One-fourth less 
food will supply all the needs of the body, bring the stomach and 
intestines into a splendid condition of health, keep the body neither 
too thin nor too fat, and remove all dangers of disease by making 
the accumulation of dead animal soil impossible. 







RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


145 


Sixth Road to Life .— 

OPEN-SKIN.—The pores 
of the skin are engines that 
pump both ways. They 
draw in air and drive out 
effete matter. They are 
clogged from two sources. 

This fact is important. 

When dead animal soil is 
abundant in the body it 
gets to the surface and lies 
about the millions of mouths 
of the pores of the skin, 
causing stoppage and set¬ 
ting up irritation. So dirt 
from without will also clog 
the pores. The remedy 
is a dry rubbing, or fric¬ 
tion bath, for the upper half 
mg and night in cold weather; and a hot water bath for the legs 
once every twenty-four hours. In summer a whole-body bath may 
be taken before breakfast every morning. 

Seventh Road to Life .—DEEP RESPIRATION.—It may 
not be known that the average person uses only about ten per cent, 
of the lungs in breathing, and that the remaining ninety per cent, 
is unused. Science teaches that used lungs are never the seat of 
disease, especially of pneumonia or consumption; but that the 
unused parts invite these maladies. 

This law is so important that it should be memorized. 

The ability to open one hundred per cent, of the lungs and 
to use them all, is the only safety from the most common and the 
most dreaded of all enemies of life, the white plague. 

But there is another rule and it is this: The greater the per¬ 
centage of the lung capacity that is used habitually in respiration, 
the greater is the vitality. Likewise, when the pores of the skin 
are free and active, in conjunction with the increased power of the 
lungs, weakness never remains; for energy is drawn in by the 
respiration of the pores of the skin and the breathing of the lungs. 
Keep these two departments active and you will not know nervous 
breakdown or loss of vitality. 






PERSONAL BOOK 


“THE DEEDS THAT MAKE EARTH BETTER" 


THIRD DEPARTMENT 

OF THE 

PERSONAL BOOK 

OF THE 

RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


“Slip iytjljpr Intelltgpnrp” 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


147 


Chapter Seventeen 


THE NEW CIVILIZATION 


No age is truly civilized 
that cannot check the flood 
of suffering disease and wrongs 
that overwhelm the world. 



HIS is the age of the highest civilization known to man. 
Inventive genius is at white heat. Its products are so 
amazing that, if a person who went out of life fifty 
years ago, were to come back to earth now he would be 
overwhelmed with the vastness of what he looked 
upon. Great engines, great buildings, great hotels, great boats, intri¬ 
cate and complicated mechanism in every branch of the operations 
of life, and an endless array of luxurious equipment specially made 
for luxurious people, confront us at every turn. There is no doubt 
that invention has made remarkable progress. 

A stream can rise no higher than its source. 

All true power serves to aid not crush humanity. 

Civilization can never be greater in fact than the capacity of 
man to assimilate it and make it a part of his genuine existence. 
Life is so complex today that neither the nerves, nor the mind, nor 
the heart can endure the strain that so much inventive genius has 
imposed upon them. But if the good works of such genius overload 
the powers of man, what shall be said of the evil that the same spirit 
of inventive genius is accomplishing in its vast output of adulterated 
goods, the thousand tricks in business, in chemical compounding, in 
alteration of products, in concealment, and in endless misguiding 
conditions? If the accumulated mass on the one hand, and the 
insidious energies of subtle poisons on the other, make life a difficult 
burden to bear, what is to be said of the rush, the hurry, the wear 





148 


PERSONAL BOOK 


and tear that are now necessary in order to keep moving with the 
tide of progress? 

Of what use is a civilization that breaks down the mind, over¬ 
strains the heart, and rends the nerves with pain and torturing 
agonies? The question arises, is inventive genius a real civiliza¬ 
tion ? In the old pagan days of luxurious splendor, many arts that 
are now lost, then prevailed and gave evidence of the power of the 
human mind for inventive genius; but there was no civilization. 

We are proud of the progress made in surgery today; but which 
is better: To be cut into by men of skill, or to so live that no 
surgery is required ? Which is the wiser civilization ? 

We are proud of the advance made in medicine, and the world 
looks w r ith admiration on the increasing army of doctors that are 
now so numerous that they require inventive genius to earn a liveli¬ 
hood. There never was a time when there was so much knowledge 
of diseases, and so many maladies to be treated. The civilization 
of today says: “Let well enough alone.” But the man who owns 
a horse that may be stolen locks the bam before the horse is lost, 
and thus prevents the loss. He does not let well enough alone. If 
he did, he would be spending money to get back the horse. By 
refusing to let well enough alone, he anticipated the loss and so was 
put to no loss and to no expense. This is the civilization that is 
taught by the Ralston Health Club. Which is better: To be con¬ 
stantly hunting for lost health, or to prevent the loss and save suffer¬ 
ing and cost? 

The Hew Civilization is founded on the best common sense of 
the human brain, instead of inventive genius. It seeks to set up 
good health in advance of sickness so that the latter may never 
come. As far as the present civilization has achieved results to 
this end, the Hew Civilization will let matters alone; but wherein 
the former has failed, the latter will succeed. 

1. The First Step .—“DRINKING WATER.”—Nothing is so 
important as pure drinking water. It cannot be obtained from 
water works, nor from rivers, nor from wells, nor from springs. 
There are but two sources: One is from the clouds, which is natural 
distillation; and the other is from condensed steam, which is arti¬ 
ficial distillation. Rain is the best of all drinking water, but it is 
often hard to get in a state that is free from an unpleasant taste. 
Condensed steam has the same taste; but gives it up when exposed 
to clean, cool air. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB . 


149 


All great ocean boats, and all government vessels use condensed 
steam for drinking water. It enables them to convert the salt sea 
into pure, clear and absolutely wholesome drinking water. The 
principle is a simple one: That part of water that rises to the 
clouds in the form of vapor is only the pure part; all that is bad 
being left behind. All that rises from boiling water in the form 
of vapor or steam is likewise pure; the bad portion being left. But 
the first steam carries with it some of the flavor of the impurities; 
so that double distillation or triple distillation is better. This is 
done by taking the condensed steam, re-boiling it, and condensing 
its steam. 

In almost every large city in the civilized world, water distilla¬ 
tion is carried on. It also prevails, as has been stated, on the boats 
that do the great business of the oceans, and on battleships. There 
will come the time when no other water will be drank. The reason 
is plain. Fire and some kind of water are obtainable in all parts of 
the globe. The process of catching the steam is so simple that it 
does not even require inventive genius to get it. Any plumber can 
run a pipe from a boiler to a receptacle; the pipe being arranged 
at the top of the boiler to catch the steam and the latter will be 
condensed on the way to the receptacle. To aid in its quick con¬ 
densation, the steam should be led through a coil of pipes, and these 
should be placed in the air or in cool water. But steam does not 
travel faj- before it condenses. 

One of the best authorities on the causes of mortality in this and 
other countries, says: "There is not the slightest doubt that more 
than ten million persons in this land have died from the use of 
impure drinking water; and it is safe to say that ten million more 
victims will die of the same cause before the world reaches that stage 
of civilization that will set up public water stills in every city and 
town. War is called the dark blot on our civilization; but war 
claims in its years of strife less than a hundred thousand slain men; 
bad drinking water kills the people by the million. As the public 
water stills are the only solution of this barbarism, as they are sure 
to come in time, why not set them up now and save more victims 
than a hundred big wars will bring?”■—Why not? The public is 
too busily engaged in the exploits of inventive genius to turn its 
thoughts to the simple matter of saving millions of human lives. 

But the Ralston Community will attend to it for Ralstonites. 
The cost of the water still is very slight, and a fair charge for the 


150 


PERSONAL BOOK . 


water by the gallon would more than pay all expenses of running it 
and of the help employed, leaving a profit in time that could be 
placed to the credit of the Community fund. This is the First Step 
in the New Civilization. It requires energy to do anything import¬ 
ant; but the Rulers and the Founder of a Ralston Community will 
show the world what is meant by energy. 

Any water can be distilled. But let it be double or triple 
distilled; then set it aside for two days slightly exposed to a clean, 
cool air, where the steam flavor will be wholly lost. Then it is the 
pure water of nature. It can be filtered through sand, if the latter 
can be made perfectly clean and baked with a high heat to destroy 
the germs. 

Do not wait for some one else to take this first step. That 
spirit of waiting is the fault of the human race in all ages. 

2. The Second Step .—“THE DAIRY.”—While nearly ninety 
per cent, of the human body is composed of water, and while water 
contains two or the parts of the vital food of life, all parts are con¬ 
tained in milk. People ridicule the use of milk as belonging to 
childhood only; but it is the fluid that is built by all the contents 
of the stomach taken daily into the system. Digestion whether in 
man, woman or child, has for its purpose the turning of all food 
and fluids into milk. In the cow, by a trick that is as old as the 
race, this fluid is caught on its way into the general circulation. 
The bag is provided by nature as a depository for the young during 
its few weeks’ of nurture from its mother; but nature will keep on 
sending the milk to the bag as long as there is a demand for it. 
Let this cease and the bag will dry up, and the milk will then enter 
the general circulation again. Every man is a milk-maker in his 
own body; for milk is the intermediate state of the nutrition be¬ 
tween digestion and blood-production. It is called chyle, and its 
receptacles are called lacteals; both words that are allied to milk, as 
the latter is known as the lacteal fluid even in the cow. 

These facts are stated to explain why, when a patient is con¬ 
valescing and cannot absorb anything else, he is given an exclusive 
milk diet. The very thing he cares little for when well, he craves 
when hungry and ill. If nature ever gave any blessings to the 
race, she gave the cow for the direct benefit and saving of humanity; 
for, without milk, there would be the end of all mankind before the 
next generation. In fact, it is difficult to carry nutrition into the 
system without the aid of milk sooner or later. A person may go a 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


151 


long time without it in some form, but sickness and morbid condi¬ 
tions will ensue. All doctors agree to this fact. When asked what 
is the one single best food in all the earth, they answer immediately, 
milk. It is necessary in infancy, it should enter largely into child¬ 
hood, it cannot be omitted in sickness in adults and it does more to 
maintain health than all other kinds of food combined. Every man 
and woman needs a little each day. 

These are admitted facts. 

Being true, they point the way to a Step in the New Civiliza¬ 
tion. 

Milk as now produced under the auspices of present day civiliza¬ 
tion, is not clean, nor is it pure. The New Civilization intends to 
see that it is pure. Every Ralston Community will establish, 
through honest farmers, a dairy business that will be right when 
started, and will be kept right all the time by inspection. Pure 
milk raw is better than impure milk sterilized; many times better. 

Let the Founder and the Four Rulers of your Ralston Com¬ 
munity establish such a dairy as has been suggested. It cannot 
lose money. The milk will be brought directly from the dairy to 
the homes of the Ralstonites, and the profit of the middleman will 
be avoided. Energy is required to accomplish anything worth 
while in the world; but you possess that energy. Never let up in 
your efforts. Discouragement is the steel that tries the soul. 

3. The Third Step. —“POULTRY.”—The gifts of nature that 
are most necessary to humanity are pure water, pure milk, and clean 
eggs. While these are not enough, they constitute the foundation of 
a wonderful Temple. That eggs are regarded as necessary may be 
seen from the fact that millions are stored away every week in 
cold places where they are held for the winter rise. This cold stor¬ 
age plan effects three results that are injurious: 

The price is forced up during the months when eggs are most 
plentiful and most needed. 

The winter prices are held up by the power of the manipulators 
to control the output. 

The eggs themselves are deprived of their nutritive value to 
such an extent that they are nearly worthless as food. 

It is unnecessary here to discuss the usefulness of eggs and of 
poultry. The young cockerels make high-priced broilers, selling at 
fabulous prices; and the old stock have a market value greater than 
ever before; so that if a Community were to keep poultry solely for 


152 


PERSONAL BOOK. 


the eggs, the stock would bring profits. Below, as the result of 
many experiments made by us or to our knowledge, are some gen¬ 
eral facts that should be used by the Community in establishing a 
poultry plant: 

1. Pullets hatched in February, March and April, and even as 
late as May in many localities, will lay eggs in the fall and through 
the winter, when prices are exorbitant. 

2. Pullets hatched in September of one year will lay during the 
next spring, summer, fall and winter. 

3. Hens that are not forced to lay their full number of eggs 
after May, and are allowed some rest for several months, will lay 
eggs in the fall and winter. This matter has been managed suc¬ 
cessfully for the purpose of securing winter eggs when prices are 
high. 

4. A record should be kept of the egg production so that hens 
may be secured that will lay in twelve months not less than 140 
eggs each. By selection, discarding lazy and non-profitable hens, 
this result is being brought about wherever it is intelligently tried. 

5. The idea that hens need a large run on the ground is not 
held today. There are pens containing one thousand hens each, all 
crowded together, and elevated several feet, where every hen is 
healthy and a large egg-producer. Chicks need ground to run on, 
but not very much. Then they begin to lay, they can be better 
cared for if given a raised house, with plenty of sunlight, and air 
without drafts, than if they run out and pick up filthy matter. The 
cleanliness of the food and water is of the highest importance. 

The result of such methods will be the supply of all members 
of a Ralston Community with fresh eggs known to be cleanly fed. 
Old hens cost more for feeding and they moult longer in the year. 
A healthy pullet ought to lay eggs for eighteen months without 
moulting very much; and after she has laid eggs for that length of 
time, she becomes too old to be profitable for egg-laying, and is still 
young enough to make good flesh for the meat market. 

Let every Ralston Community, by its Four Rulers and Founder, 
select some locality where a poultry establishment may be set up. 
Many farmers who are honest will gladly take part in the manage¬ 
ment, and thus save the expense of a salaried man. 

There are in this land today millions and possibly billions of 
eggs that are to be used by humanity. But these eggs were not fed 
with clean food, nor are they as wholesome and nutritious as they 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB . 


153 


would have been if they had been properly produced and kept. 
They are necessaries and the people will have them, good or bad. 
For this reason it is the part of the New Civilization to set up 
poultry establishments and secure for themselves fresh eggs at 
living prices. The difference in the health of the members will pay 
the largest known dividends. 

Who has the energy to move in this matter? 

Let your Four Rulers attend to it. 

4. The Fourth Step .—“WHEAT FLOUR.”—When man came 
upon the earth he found wheat waiting for him. It is one of the 
few products that contain all the parts of the human body. Milk 
and eggs are closest to the body and contain in more direct form 
all its parts, and are free from the old age and ripening material 
of the grains and meats. But wheat stands next to milk and eggs 
in real value, and its mineral-old-age material can be thrown from 
the human system by the use of distilled water described in the 
First Step of the New Civilization. 

Wheat is grown in a husk called bran, which is wholly in¬ 
digestible. This husk is ground into graham flour and in break¬ 
fast foods. Such articles should be avoided. 

They are not food in fact. 

Mills that produce white flour extract the starch only from the 
wheat, leaving several layers of the highest nutritive value as well 
as the husks to be disposed of in some other way. The white starch 
is not the real value that was created for man. It is a weak, sickly 
and puny part of the grain. It may be adulterated by the addition 
of different minerals. We have seen a barrel of finely ground white 
earth, so light and fluffy that it afforded a most attractive appear¬ 
ance. There are clay eaters in some parts of the country; but when 
people pay a high price for flour they have a right to expect flour 
from wheat and not from milled earth. The bleaching process, the 
addition of poisonous alum, and other foreign ingredients, and skil¬ 
ful alterations of flour under the control of inventive genius, will 
furnish the history of the next few years. It makes no difference 
to the millers who is made sick or who dies; if only they can add to 
their dividends. Food adulterators do not believe in any future 
punishment, and so they are willing to commit murder in the name 
of commercial profits. Laws cannot reach them. Great corpora¬ 
tions and little politicians control the situation. They rule not only 
the government but the human race as well. 


154 


PERSONAL BOOK. 


Thus we see the dizzy height of present day civilization making 
graves for men, women and children through the climacteric vie 
tories of inventive genius. 

Deception is the goal of human achievement. 

The New Civilization turns in the other direction. 

It learns that wheat is the one food created for man. From 
wheat is made the staff of life, as old as the race. But is was only 
in recent times that the starch was taken for bread, and the better 
part discarded for other uses. The United States Government has 
discovered in France what is known as the Schweitzer process of 
grinding wheat, which is not in any way imitated in this country. 
In a Bulletin issued by our government, this process is described and 
the remarkable nutritive value of the bread made from it is also 
noted. Such bread has all the strength-giving powers of the best 
beef, and furnishes a better line of food than any meat. Laborers 
and business men feed almost exclusively on such bread. There are 
millers in this country that pretend or claim to make similar flour; 
but there is no truth in the assertion. The difference between the 
so-called whole wheat bread of America and the half wheat bread 
of France, is very distinct; although both are vastly superior to the 
starch-wheat bread now used by every one in America. The French 
bread has the following advantages over any and all kinds of bread 
made in this country: 

1. It is made from wheat freshly ground the day it is used. 

2. It uses half the outer layers, and avoids those that are harsh 
and indigestible. 

3. It affords a bread the flavor of which surpasses any food that 
can be lifted to the lips of man. 

4. It gives strength greater than meat or any other food. 

5. It cannot be adulterated, bleached, blended, or altered. It 
is pure from the hand of nature, and there is no other way of get¬ 
ting it. 

6. Each family has a mill of small size that grinds the wheat, 
or else a number of families band together for the purpose and 
secure a larger mill. This custom prevails universally in France. 

7. No corporation can lay the weight of its leaden hand on 
the purse or the health of the consumer. 

8. The wheat can be purchased from the farmer, or can be 
raised by a Ealston Community. It can be stored ahead in such 
quantities as may be desired, and used daily. To get the rich, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


155 


palate-attracting flavor of the bread, the wheat must be ground the 
day it is used. 

9. The cost of the bread is less than one-third the cost of white 
starch wheat bread now in use; and the strength-giving power is 
fully ten times as much. But figuring on the commercial side 
only, a family can cut its expenses down to about one-third in this 
department. As bread is the stafi of life, and as the French process 
makes it more attractive than any other food, it can be safely as¬ 
serted that if this process is once adopted by a Ralston Community, 
the cost of living will be reduced to a remarkable extent. More than 
this, the health of the body will be enhanced to a high degree. 

It seems revolutionary. 

But French civilization is far ahead of American civilization in 
this one respect, although far below it in barbaric riches of cookery 
in other departments. French pastry fells more men than war. 

We do not know of any French wheat mills having been intro¬ 
duced in America. No one has yet taken the trouble to do so. 
People are so busy with the present day civilization that they do 
not have time to look up and see the sky or the signs of the times. 
Death catches them still busy and absorbed. 

But the New Civilization, as borne forward by Ralston Com¬ 
munities, will take the necessary step to procure a mill large enough 
for its families. 

Do not let this matter drop from your mind. Show yourself 
worthy of something better by actually doing something better. It 
seems as if the present day civilization had hypnotized men and 
women; as they give little heed to the causes of ill health, but go 
on doctoring the results of ill health until death clips them. One 
death in a family is not enough to wake the parents from their 
lethargy. In a city where the people had warning that the drink¬ 
ing water was polluted by typhoid germs, it took seven years of 
fatalities and many thousands of deaths to wake the people up. 
Beautiful children sleep now in young graves, and afflicted parents 
mourn their loss and take flowers to the cemeteries; but the same 
parents will not lift a finger to save the lives of other children in 
the same family. As a doctor says: “The living do not care, and 
the dead cannot care; so what is the use?” And we stand at the 
apex of present day civilization. 

The New Civilization looks to the cause, and builds a sound 
body with a sound mind. 


156 


PERSONAL BOOK 


There are many groups of people in France today who eat the 
delicious bread of their process, and privately owned mills are every¬ 
where in use. The time will come when such mills, or others like 
them, will be made in America, or be imported here from France, 
and the cost of living will be reduced two-thirds in this one line 
alone. Then will the problems of health and of food be solved. 

To Americans this is a great step. To the progressive French, 
it has already been taken, and is an old story. 

Now let your Ralston Community through its Founder and 
Four Rulers, set up a Community Mill, and bring these dual bless¬ 
ings as soon as possible. 

5. The Fifth Step. —“DUST.”—There is no doubt that eighty 
per cent, of all the dreaded maladies arise from dust. This danger 
is described in many recent official publications. Under the micro¬ 
scope a. piece of dust so small that it cannot be seen except in the 
sunlight of a window, looms up like a vast world, filled with every 
variety of landscape. In its nooks and cavities, and sitting proudly 
on its ridges and promontories, are the germs of tuberculosis, of 
small pox, of measles, of mumps, of scarlet fever, of meningitis, of 
pneumonia, of grippe, of catarrh, of diphtheria, and many contagions. 
These germs ride with the dust and stop with it. It may affect 
the eyes, the nose, the face, the neck, the lips, the throat, the 
bronchial passages, the lungs, the hands, or other exposed parts of 
the body; and, being taken into the circulation, it soon has control 
of the whole system. 

But fresh outdoor air, and clear sunlight are more than they 
can endure. Here are nature’s antiseptics. Fresh air in a room 
has value, but no antiseptic powers. Some remarkable cures have 
been effected by consumptives who, after trying everything else, 
have moved to the South where they could live day and night under 
the sky. But it is only in the parts of the South that are rainless 
the year round, or nearly so. Some States have excellent climates, 
but consumptives who go there have not lived day and night under 
the clear sky, and have not always recovered. Some get well, but 
many do not. Yet in States where there is almost no rain in a 
year, and the patients remain wholly in the open, the cures have 
been many, even when started late. 

In cities and in the country throughout the United States, the 
dust has reigned supreme until of late. Now oiled roads are being 
built, and houses are using rugs instead of carpets. Brooms and 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


157 


brushes, as well as dust rags, are being abandoned. Curtain and 
drapery collect dust in heavy masses and let it go when agitated. 
Colds, grippe, catarrh, and pneumonia follow. Many cases can be 
traced to the use of curtains and drapery. 

Schools, public buildings, halls, theatres and churches are being 
oiled out instead of swept out. The old way was to sweep all the 
dust of a church into the air, then let it settle down on the seats 
where the in-coming people would be sure to get it all in their 
nostrils and thoats. Even where the sexton dusts the seats after the 
sweeping, the dust merely dances up into the air, and then comes 
down again. Where did he think it was going when he chased it olf 
the seats with his feather duster ? In schools where the old methods 
of sweeping and dusting prevailed, sore throats and other troubles 
were common; but in some of those same schools where the oiling 
system is in use, such maladies ceased unless they found a similar 
source at home. 

It is a well-proved fact that no disease arises out of doors. 

All contagions begin in the house, or else in bodies weakened 
by house atmosphere. 

The members of a Ralston Community should pledge them¬ 
selves to reduce as much as possible all indoor dust, and all nearby 
out door dust. While disease does not arise in outdoor life, this 
means when such life escapes the blowing dust of the roads; and, 
while pure fresh air and clear sunlight are nature’s antiseptics, 
they do not act on masses of filthy dust that rise in clouds from a 
manured highway, although they will in time defeat all dangers if 
given ample opportunity. Sunlight and fresh air act slowly; the 
air must be fresh and pure; and the sunshine clear and strong. In 
cities there is no pure air, and the sunlight is cut off by trees and 
buildings from doing its best work. 

A Ralston Community can do much to keep outdoor dust from 
entering the houses. The roads may be watered or oiled. Then 
much can be done to keep the indoor dust from being inhaled, or 
filling the air, or falling on the dining table, or on plates or food. 
This is accomplished by decreasing the carpets to rugs, oiling the 
margins of the floors, getting the free dust out at windows long 
before the rooms are used again, and lessening the draperies and 
curtains. The vacuum process of cleaning is a blessing. These 
cleaners are now sold at a very low price and will be still lower 
One will serve all the families of a Ralston Community. The 


158 


PERSONAL BOOK 


users can contribute a few cents per hour for the time it is re¬ 
tained, and this will add to the Community Fund. 

With the disappearance of dust, more than eighty per cent, 
of all maladies will go away; and some of the most dangerous of 
the fatal maladies will be kept out of reach. Lift the shade at a 
window where the sun is shining, and see if there are flecks of dust 
in the air. This tells the story. Something is yet defective. 

Make the fight. It is worth while. Educate the people. It 
is the dawn of the New Civilization. 

6. The Sixth Step. —“INSECTS.”—It has been proved that 
malaria, chills and fever, and other diseases, are carried by the bite 
of the mosquito into the human system. It has also been proved 
that typhoid and many other contagions are conveyed by the house- 
%• 

Never let a mosquito in the house. 

Keep all flies out; admit not one. 

This can be done for it is being done today. Screens are very 
important. Next in value is watchfulness, for the individual who 
belongs to present day civilization will stand at the open screen 
door and talk while droves of insects enter past him. He has the 
same degree of intelligence as the young man who rocks the boat 
when a party is out rowing. 

As screens are imperfectly used at times, it is well to remember 
that mosquitoes breed in stagnant water standing in pails, cans, 
pools and ponds. The liberal use of crude petroleum on the surface 
once a week, will kill the eggs. It is cheaper than the doctor’s bill. 

Flies are being kept away from houses in numerous instances 
by not allowing manure to remain in the air near by. Flies lay 
their eggs in anything that is filthy, notably manure. 

Each Ealston Community should see that there is no filth left 
on the surface of the ground within five hundred feet of any mem¬ 
ber’s home. In cities there are stringent laws covering this matter; 
but they are not always enforced. Attend to that. Privies should 
be tightly sealed from the air. Garbage should not be left uncover¬ 
ed. Compost put on the land should be worked at once into it. 
Nothing has been more clearly proved than that outdoor cleanliness 
will keep files away from the whole locality. “I have not seen 
a fly in this house, nor near it. But I think there are thousands of 
flies around the screens of the next house,” said a man who was 
visiting in the country. The next house was a thousand feet away. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


159 


It had manure from dogs, cats, horses, and other life lying all 
around; while the first house was surrounded by perfectly clean 
grounds. It costs almost nothing to be exempt from disease. The 
price is the willingness to wake up and take notice of the coming 
dawn of the New Civilization. 

7. The Seventh Step .—“RALSTON STORES.”—It is a part 
of a better civilization that useless profits should be brought to an 
end. In the matter of milk, the farmer receives the lowest possible 
price, and the consumer pays the highest. In the matter of eggs, the 
poultryman is not paid what he should get for them; the buyer 
takes his profit, the cold storage company makes its share, and the 
retailer charges the consumer the final profit. If the poultryman 
were to sell eggs direct to the consumer, he would receive more 
money and the consumer would pay less. Three middlemen would 
be got rid of. 

A Ralston Store is a place where goods are on sale that are 
bought at first price, with but one profit; and no profit in fact after 
they leave the producer or wholesaler. There is no middleman and 
no retailer to take part of the price. Such things as milk, cream, 
butter, eggs, fruits and vegetables, can be secured from the farmers, 
if there is no Ralston Farm conducted under the management of 
the Ralston Community. Other goods, even clothing as well as 
groceries and provisions, can be obtained from the manufacturers 
in most cases. 

The saving in the cost of living will be so great that it will 
amaze those who join the Community and try it. If some honest 
grocer could be induced to set aside a part of his store for a Ralston 
Community, he would find his general business increasing all the 
time. Some years ago this was tried in several places, and the 
grocers found it to their advantage to come into the Club. There 
business greatly grew, and their prosperity was never so great as 
then. At first thought it looks as if a Ralston Community would 
hurt the business of a store-keeper; but the facts of actual experi¬ 
ence show differently. Grocers and others were not in favor of the 
movement until they tried it. 

In any event, there should be Ralston Stores to protect the 
people from adulterated goods and from excessive profits. It all 
depends on the interest and determination of the men and women 
who organize the Ralston Community. Here is the first genuine 
opportunity to reduce the cost of living. 


160 


PERSONAL BOOK 


A Ralston Store would be known as a reliable place for the 
entire public to trade in. The goods could be sold to Ralstonites 
at cost; and to others at a fair profit; and the benefit of the gain 
could be carried to the cash fund of the Ralston Community. 

In conducting a Ralston Store:— 

Avoid impure or low grade goods. Do not be tempted by cheap 
prices. Let the store win the name of being reliable, so that all 
persons may know they are getting unadulterated goods that are 
fresh and honest in quality and value. 

Avoid goods that bear the name “pure,” “hygienic,” or some 
similar title. The adulterator makes a loud claim for purity, or 
for hygienic qualities. Pure food displays are dyspepsia breeding 
concoctions. Domestic science as taught today is the science of 
making wicked food combinations appear attractive; and its pupils 
are little girls whose minds are too young to know better; thus 
being molded in error while yet plastic. 

Avoid goods bearing our name. If the source of a stream is 
polluted with the foulest of offal, you do not want any part of the 
outcome. So if the use of a valued name is stolen, the goods to 
which it is wrongfully attached must ever be tainted with dishon¬ 
esty. The adulterator is a murderer; he slays hundreds of people. 
You do not want him to make your foods or other goods. 

Turn to the rising sun. 

Seek a new civilization by founding or entering a Ralston Com¬ 
munity and displaying your ability, your will power, and your 
energy of execution. Live men and women are wanted today by 
this new civilization. Do not wait for some one else to start the 
good work. Have your share at once in “The deeds that make 
earth tetter 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


161 


Chapter Eighteen 


RALSTON COMMUNITIES 


In union there is strength: 
but In the Idle fragments 
of the best constructed car 
a noble power is sacrificed. 


RGANIZATION is necessary in every line of success. 
The Ralston Health Club has tried for a third of a 
century to execute its doctrines and carry on its wor& 
by its book alone; but we now find that it can accom¬ 
plish the great results for which it exists, only by set¬ 
ting up local organizations. These are to be known as Ralston Com¬ 
munities. 

The true definition of a Ralston Community is this: An 
agreement existing between forty or more persons who are members 
of the Ralston Health Club, who hold Membership Cards under the 
plan of the Personal Book. The method whereby cards are issued 
is stated in the final page of this book. The Rules of Organization 
are as follows: 



“HOW ORGANIZED.” 

RULE ONE.—A Ralston Community may be organized in any 
city, town, borough, village, or country locality where forty or more 
Card Members may be found. A Card Member is a person who 
holds a Membership Card under the Personal Book. Two or more 
Ralston Communities may be organized in the same place, if there 
are enough Card Members; or one Community may contain as many 
members as such Community desires to admit beyond the number of 
forty; but the same person cannot join two Communities. 





162 


PERSONAL BOOK 


“MO AGE LIMIT.” 

RULE TWO.—There is no limit to the age of a member. In 
many families the father and mother become members, and then 
bring their children into the Club. There are thousands of young 
boys and girls who are Ralstonites at the present day. No better 
inheritance can be left to children than perfect bodies. 

“ALL MAY VOTE.” 

RULE THREE.—Every member of a Ralston Community is 
entitled to vote, no matter how many Honors such member has won, 
or what the age may be. A young child would have the same vote 
as the father or mother. This is the only organization where every 
person in the family has equal right to attend, and all are entitled to 
vote. It is the only organization where the whole family are ad¬ 
mitted; thus preventing separation evenings or day times when 
meetings are held. 

“SECURING THE CHARTER.” 

RULE FOUR.—A Charter is issued by the Ralston Health 
Club of America to the Ralston Community when application is 
sent in according to the following form: “To Ralston Health Club, 
Ralston Heights, Hopewell, Mercer County, New Jersey:—We, the 
undersigned, being forty or more Card Members, agree to organize 
a Ralston Community; and we promise to abide at all times by 
the Rules set forth in the Personal Book governing such organiza¬ 
tion. Our names are stated below, and our full addresses are ap¬ 
pended, together with our Club numbers as written on our Member¬ 
ship Cards. We therefore ask that a Charter be issued to us and 
full title and authority given to our Community of Ralstonites.” 
The foregoing application must be copied in ink, and all signa¬ 
tures must be in ink, with names and addresses clearly set forth. 

“NAME OF THE COMMUNITY.” 

RULE FIVE.—A Community receives such name as the char¬ 
ter members desire except that the first three words of the name 
must be made uniform in all organizations as follows: The first 
word must be either First, Second, Third, etc., and the next two 
words must be Ralston Community. Thus the first Community to 
be organized in Washington would be named, “The First Ralston 
Community of Washington, D. C.” The next would be named, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


163 


“The Second Ralston Community of Washington, D. C.” But the 
locality need not be a part of the name if the charter members prefer 
some other title. 

NEW MEMBERS AND STRANGERS.” 

RULE SIX.—Not less than forty Card Members must make 
application for a charter. After the organization has been effected, 
which may be done as soon as the Charter arrives, new members may 
be admitted by the unanimous vote of a Committee of Four. The 
members of the Committee are called Rulers. Every stranger to 
the locality who holds a Membership Card in the Ralston Health 
Club is entitled to attend all public meetings of any and every 
Ralston Community; but no private meeting or celebrations without 
the unanimous consent of the Four Rulers. 

“THE OFFICERS.” 

RULE SEVEN.—The following are the officers of each Rals¬ 
ton Community: The Founder; the President; the Secretary; the 
Treasurer; the Four Rulers. The Founder is so named in the ap¬ 
plication and must be the first signer of same. He holds office for 
life. The first President is named by the Founder and twenty or 
more others of the charter members. The Secretary, Treasurer and 
the Four Rulers are all appointed by the President. The same per¬ 
son cannot hold two offices except that the Founder may become 
President or a Ruler. 

“DUTIES OF THE OFFICERS.” 

RULE EIGHT.—The duty of the Founder is to keep the Com- 
munity keenly interested at all times in its great opportunities for 
the betterment of the human race. The duty of the President is to 
preside at all meetings of the Community, and at all meetings of 
the Four Eulers. The duty of the Secretary is to keep a correct 
record of all transactions of the Community, and of all other mat¬ 
ters that the President may wish to have recorded. The duty of the 
Treasurer is to handle all moneys of the Community, to receive and 
to pay out such funds as the Community may order, and to audit 
all bills and accounts. 

“DUTIES OF THE FOUR RULERS ” 

RULE NINE._The duties of the Four Rulers are many, and 

may be briefly stated as follows: They are to make and cause the 


164 


PERSONAL BOOK 


execution of all laws and rules of the Community so that they do 
not in any way conflict with the Rules herein set forth. The Rulers 
are to pass upon all questions of meetings, entertainments, celebra¬ 
tions, and measures for the improvement of the Community and 
the betterment of the public health. They shall determine what 
fees, if any, are to be paid by members of the Community for the 
maintenance of the same; but no officer or other person connected 
with the Community shall receive a salary or shall be paid for 
services rendered the Community; but outside parties, when prop¬ 
erly employed, may be compensated under special contract only, and 
goods purchased are to be paid for likewise, provided no member 
shall sell anything to the Community. 

“ACQUIRING PROPERTY.” 

RULE TEN.—The Community may acquire and hold property 
which shall be purchased only on the written consent of three- 
fourths of all the living members of such Community; and the title 
to the same shall be in the charter name of the Community. A 
valid power of attorney may be executed by the written signatures 
of three-fourths of all the living members of the Community; such 
power of attorney being given to the Four Rulers, whose action 
under the same shall at all times be unanimous in order to be legal. 
The Four Rulers, acting under said power of attorney, or in the 
absence thereof, three-fourths of all the living members of the Com¬ 
munity, may buy or sell any property in the name of the Com¬ 
munity, provided no member thereof shall have any interest direct 
or indirect in the property so bought or sold. 

“LIFE SUPPORT FOR THE FOUNDER ” 

RULE ELEVEN.—If the Founder shall for not less than ten 
years have performed his duty of keeping the Community at all 
times keenly interested in the betterment of the human race, and 
shall have maintained constant enthusiasm in the many grand op¬ 
portunities for doing good both publicly and privately, in saving 
life, lessening suffering, driving out disease, securing pure foods, 
decreasing the cost of the necessaries of living, and safeguarding the 
health of all members; then, after the end of ten years so spent in 
such forms of higher usefulness, the Founder shall, if his circum¬ 
stances require it, become the special honored charge of the Com¬ 
munity, shall be provided with a home for life and all the com- 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


165 


forts and attention that a man who has been a blessing to the 
world should receive. It will be found that ten years of savings in 
the cost of living alone for each and every member of the Com¬ 
munity will in that time amount to a vast fortune; and, as each 
Community should grow to a very large membership, a few cents a 
week from each member would be more than sufficient for con¬ 
tributing full honors to the Founder. The reason is this: Life on 
earth is wasted in almost every instance; and when people come to 
die, even if they have become successfully rich, they realize how 
empty it has all been and how little they have done for the world. 
On the other hand the Founder who does his duty well is greater 
than a king, and his happiness must be the greatest of all persons, 
for he does the most good. A woman may organize a Community 
and become a Founder. 

“THE FOUR SECTIONS.” 

RULE TWELVE.—The Four Rulers govern four sections of 
the Community; each section being one-fourth, by actual count, of 
all the members, or as near as may be. The President, after ap¬ 
pointing the Secretary and the Treasurer, shall divide all the mem¬ 
bers into the four sections, consulting with them, and seeking to 
satisfy all. The four sections should be equally balanced in their 
interest in the success of the Community. After they are so divided 
the President shall meet each section separately and select a Ruler 
who shall be agreed upon by the section; but, if this cannot be done 
by a majority vote of the section, the President shall make his own 
choice of Ruler. 

“LENGTH OF SERVICE, AND ELECTIONS.” 

RULE THIRTEEN.—The Founder shall hold office for life. 
The President shall hold office for a year, or until his successor is 
elected. The Secretary and Treasurer shall hold office during the 
term of the President; and a newly elected President shall appoint 
such persons to be Secretary and Treasurer as he desires. The Four 
Rulers shall hold office for two years; but any Ruler shall be re¬ 
moved from office when a majority of his section so request and the 
other three Rulers consent thereto; or when three-fourths of all 
members of the section so request in writing. Thereupon the Presi¬ 
dent shall appoint another Ruler for that section. When any Ruler 


166 


PERSONAL BOOK 


has held office for two years, he may be re-appointed by thp Presi¬ 
dent, or the latter may appoint another Ruler for that Section. 
When the President has held office for a year, the Four Rulers shall 
hold an election, and the choice of any three Rulers shall determine 
who shall be President for another year. The same President may 
be re-elected; but no Ruler shall be a candidate for the office of 
President or hold the same within one year of the time he has held 
the office of Ruler. 

“PREVENTION OF FRAUDS” 

RULE FOURTEEN.—It shall he the duty of every officer and 
every member of a Community to see that no disadvantage is taken 
of the organization. Private or secret agents of concerns who have 
goods to sell will make an effort to enter as members, or will seek 
the names and addresses of members so as to constantly urge them 
to buy their goods. Likewise those concerns that attempt to reap 
fortunes by wrongfully giving our name to their products, and thus 
taking advantage of our many years of work in behalf of honest 
goods, using our success to bring about their own, will seek by 
subterfuge and cunning to win a hold on every Ralston Community. 
As they are traitors to the cause and belong to the greed class which 
we are fighting, their goods should not be used or countenanced by 
any loyal Ralstonite. It seems hard to be compelled to make war 
on our own name; but, since the first dishonest man came on earth, 
there have been people, who instead of depending on their own 
ability, have become parasites on every one who wins success; and 
the Ralston Health Club has had over two hundred such parasites 
who named their products after it, in whole or in part; but enough 
to deceive the public. We have no goods to sell, and we do not 
endorse any. It is therefore made the imperative duty of every 
Ralstonite, in and out of a Community, to avoid using or counten¬ 
ancing the use of goods or products that bear our name. A breach 
of this rule is the most serious offence against Ralstonism; for there 
can be no harm so great as that which clothes itself in a false as¬ 
sumption of honesty. Dishonest food-makers, knowing that the 
Ralston Club is fighting adulterated goods, believe that if they can 
use the name of that Club they can win the confidence of the pub¬ 
lic. The same is true of the manufacture of shoddy clothing and 
other things. From other sources, such as the. manufacturers of 
patent medicines, and all selfish interests that are a part of the 
greed classes, will come influences that are disguised. Their agents 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


167 


may seek membership, and seem fully accredited, all the while in¬ 
tending to bring discord into the Community. The Founder is 
especially commissioned to avert any form of discouragement. He 
must be magnetic and arouse enthusiasm. 

“OUTINGS AND CELEBRATIONS.” 

RULE FIFTEEN.—The Four Rulers shall establish public 
meetings, private meetings, socials, special events, celebrations, 
“Ralston Days,” and outings for the entire Community, or for their 
sections, whenever in their judgment it is wise to do so. They shall 
also bring about the New Civilization which is fully described in 
another part of this Personal Book. 

“THE SAVINGS FUND.” 

RULE SIXTEEN.—Every member of a Community shall pay 
into the treasury of such Community ten per cent, of all money such 
member shall save each month by the aid of the Community. Thus 
if a member whose living bills have been fifty dollars a month, 
saves half of that amount, or twenty-five dollars, he shall pay in ten 
per cent, of the latter sum. A larger percentage shall be paid if 
every member of the Community agrees in writing to do so. The 
money so paid in shall be invested in a manner that is safe, and 
shall be spent when so ordered in accordance with Rule Ten. It 
should be the ambition of every Community some day to own 
property, erect buildings, establish homes, and prove to the public 
their influence and power for success. 

“RALSTON STORES” 

RULE SEVENTEEN.—The Four Rulers shall establish a 
Ralston Store where every member may purchase goods at cost 
price; and where the general public may buy goods at a fair profit. 
All net gains-of a Ralston Store shall be paid over to the Treasurer 
of the Ralston Community, and shall be subject to control under 
the provisions of Rule Ten, and Rule Sixteen, as far as such Rules 
apply. 

“RALSTON DAY.” 

RULE EIGHTEEN.—The Four Rulers shall make plans in 
advance for the observance of “Ralston Day which occurs on the 
fourth day of every month. The methods that are most pleasing 
are as follows: 


168 


PERSONAL BOOK 


If the weather permits, some outdoor excursion or ramble 
should be provided. Flowers, fresh air, and exercises in the woods 
or in touch with nature, should be sought. Some time there should 
be a Ralston Grove near by; and a Ralston Garden at hand; as well 
as a Ralston Playground, or Common, which will furnish more 
pleasure and health than the expenditure of ten times the cost in 
other ways. It all depends on the executive ability of the mem¬ 
bers of your Community. You will find that it will pay to arouse 
public interest by actually saturating your locality with Ralston- 
ism. Take pride in it. The home and school exercises should be 
made pleasing on every fourth day of the month. Flowers, fruits 
and wholesome repasts may be made to blend with song and music, 
with physical games and inspiring talks on the blessings that earth 
affords to all who seek her gifts. 

“RALSTON CALL.” 

RULE NINETEEN.—A week or so in advance of every Rals¬ 
ton Day, which is the fourth of the month, the Four Rulers shall 
cause to be printed in the local papers, and to be read in the 
churches and schools, the following notice of the coming day, which 
is known as the 


RALSTON CALL. 

On the fourth day of the coming month Ralston Day will 
be observed. This should be devoted to the practice of health, 
and to the enjoyment of life’s blessings by association with 
nature. Flowers, fresh air, pure foods, pure water, and health 
producing games and pleasures should be sought, in the hope 
that the mind, heart and body will be greatly benefited thereby. 
The deeds that make earth better are imperishable flowers in 
the garden of human character. They are beautiful to look 
upon, and their fragrance reaches to the courts of heaven. 
They exhale a glory here and breathe a welcome there. They 
raise some part of life to paradise, they bring some part of 
heaven to earth, and in this union they proclaim their parent¬ 
age. 

The foregoing Ralston Call should be printed on small slips of 
paper and forwarded to the newspapers, and to all others who are 
asked to announce them. Let this be done every month. It will 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


169 


increase the interest of the public in your Community; and, when 
you secure a majority of the men and women there, you will be the 
one power that will sway it in all things. There is no limit to the 
possibilities of success. Do not be annoyed by lukewarm people, 
nor by those who oppose every movement for the betterment of the 
world. It has generally happened that one man or one woman 
has had to stand the brunt of the whole battle when a great era 
was being ushered in. Be that person, if you must; but, above 
all things, never be discouraged by enemies or by adverse criticism. 
Failures are the stepping stones to success when the heart never 
knows discouragment. 

“BEQUESTS AND GIFTS.” 

RULE TWENTY.—Many wealthy men and women are mem¬ 
bers of the Ralston Health Club, and some of them have proffered 
gifts or asked the privilege of making bequests in favor of the 
Club. To one and all we make the following statement: No be¬ 
quests, gifts or other advantages will be received by the Club, and 
any such contributions will be turned back to the donors or their 
estates. But wealthy members whose lives have been saved by the 
Club, or whose health has been vastly improved, and who are de¬ 
sirous of rewarding their benefactors, should seek out the persons 
who invited them to join the Club, and should bestow all favors 
on them; or may, in case of a desire to benefit the general public, 
give aid and property to one or more Ralston Communities. The 
Ralston Health Club does not wish to centralize in itself either 
money or power, but is making plans to place its full government 
in the hands of all the Ralston Communities, so that it may be 
free to promulgate its teachings unhampered by great wealth or 
great obligations. 



170 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Chapter Nineteen 


ARE DOCTORS HONEST? 



N almost every mail we receive inquiries asking us 
if we have reason to believe that the present day 
distrust of physicians is well founded. “Are doctors 
honest ?” everybody wants to know. There are two 
sides to the question. 

The general disposition to attack a person or a profession is 
one that ought not to be encouraged unless it is done under the 
law that self-perservation is the first demand of nature. If doc¬ 
tors, or a great number of them, are not to be trusted, then human 
life is in danger, for there is no class of people that can do so 
much injury to mind and body as the doctor. The entire public, 
m fact, is at his mercy or in his power. He can diagnose any 
intestinal pain into appendicitis, rush his patient to the favored 
hospital, drug the victim into unconsciousness in a few seconds, 
divide the large fee with the surgeon, and becpme that much 
richer. 

Random abuse has no weight with unprejudiced people. Calm 
facts are wanted. Let us get at the truth in the proper way. 

In the first place there is always a test of the honesty of doc¬ 
tors, and it is this: If the patient, exercising a reasonable degree 
of care in his habits, does not become permanently cured by his 
physician, then the latter is either dishonest or unqualified. This 
is proved by the fact that every normal human being who pur¬ 
sues natural habits, once well, stays well. Medicines beget more 
maladies than they cure. The person who is compelled to keep 
doctoring is being deceived by some one, as it is unnatural to re¬ 
main weak and sickly. The rapid increase of doctors, surgeons, 
drug stores, hospitals and medicines, shows that the race is fast 
going to pieces, and that some one is guilty of the greatest crime 
known.in history; for sickness is keeping pace with this awful 
increase. 



RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


171 


In preparing the present edition of this Personal Book our 
attention has been called to an article that appeared in Current 
Literature for January, 1911, entitled “America’s Medical Hell.” 
The article which seems to he editorial in its nature, begins: “Upon 
the heels of that terrible indictment of the medical schools of the 
United States which has so stimulated general interest in the work 
of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 
comes an even more harrowing revelation from one himself a 
physician. * * * it revives all the horrors of the torture cham¬ 

bers of the Middle Ages. To make matters worse the profession 
has formulated for itself a code of ethics quite inconsistent with 
any sense either of social responsibility or of moral responsibility. 

“Frenzied finance, of which we have heard so much, seems 
to Doctor Barnesby a display of childish innocence in compari¬ 
son with the horrors of frenzied surgery. The lacerations and 
dissection of 'human beings in this country by medical men whose 
fondness for the sight of blood grows to mania with them would 
have to be witnessed at first hand in order to be quite believed. ISTo 
such carnival of butchery has ever been witnessed in any land or 
in any age since the downfall of the sanguinary empire of the 
Moguls. The operating tables of the United States drip with the 
blood of helpless sacrifices to the blind worship of the terrible 
god of medical science. The devotees of this religion are safe, 
partly because they are licensed to glut their savage instincts by 
their diplomas, but for the most part because the physicians who 
know the worst are forced by the superstitions of the time to look 
on and shudder without betraying the criminals. Hence the rise 
and spread of the successful conspiracy against American health 
and life.” 

The early history of America contains accounts of the savage 
rites of human butchery, one of the most common of which was 
that of sacrificing the patient alive. A beautiful maiden was se¬ 
lected and placed naked on a raised platform where her plight 
could be seen by tens of thousands of people. The operator would 
then skillfully cut her heart out while her tied body quivered with 
the agony of the torture as the organ, dripping with her life blood, 
was held aloft for all to see. So deftly was the operation performed 
that she would gaze on her own heart ere consciousness left her. 

The thirst for the sight of blood increased with the preva¬ 
lence of this custom, as it does today with the medical profession. 


172 


PERSONAL BOOK 


In the article referred to there are quotations and extracts 
from the work of the doctor, some of which may be repeated here: 

“For example. Doctor A., finding that Doctor B. has lost a 
patient through carelessness or stupidity, may forfeit his career 
if he so much as hints at the truth to the victim’s family. * * * 

“Doctor So-and-So, we will say, has made a mistaken diag¬ 
nosis and given wrong treatment till the precarious condition of 
his patient arouses him to a realization of his mistake. If he is 
wise he will immediately consult with another physician. It is al¬ 
most an absolute certainty that the latter will agree with all he 
has done, since he has everything to lose and nothing to gain under 
the circumstances by irritating or antagonizing an associate. If 
a stranger is summoned, the case is somewhat different. The doc¬ 
tor will see the patient, talk learnedly about the malady, and then 
assure the distressed family that their physician has done about 
the right thing, though owing to a complication that has appar¬ 
ently just arisen he would suggest a certain modification of the 
treatment which he will communicate to the physician in charge. 
And so the farce is over and the patient perhaps doomed, simply 
because the code values a doctor’s reputation and dignity above 
that of a human life.” 

In another case referred to by the same physician, it seems 
that a lady of wealth and social position had employed an emi¬ 
nent doctor and paid him liberally to remove her appendix. He 
performed the operation and she felt much better. She was loud 
in her praise of him. The next year she became suddenly ill. The 
eminent doctor was away and she sent for another who told her 
that she had appendicitis. She was thunderstruck. As she grew 
worse, another operation was then performed and the appendix 
removed, although she had already paid a high price a year before 
for its removal. 

In still another case involving the methods in vogue in hos¬ 
pitals the author of the work referred to speaks of an accident in 
which a woman had a fracture of the arm, a common injury which 
yields in every instance to ordinary skill. But as the arm was 
bruised and discolored, the hospital surgeon, without advising the 
woman, gave her a sleep producing drug and amputated the whole 
arm! Doctor Barnesby says: “This, I will admit, is one of the 
most outrageous cases of malpractice I have ever known. Such a 
monstrous blunder may seem almost incredible, but the facts are 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


173 


exactly as I have related them. A malpractice suit is on foot. If 
it comes up for trial the surgeon will have several of his clique on 
the stand to swear that there was nothing else to do under the 
circumstances. They will perjure themselves, of course, but this 
is the proper etiquette under such compromising conditions. Many 
another surgical malfactor has escaped in this manner when, if 
justice were done, he would now be serving time in the State’s 
prison, or waiting his turn in the electric chair.” 

It is a well understood fact, known not only to the medical 
profession, but to the public as well, that doctors must, by their 
code, swear falsely on the stand whenever it is necessary by so 
doing to save their associates from verdicts for damages, or pun¬ 
ishment at law. This willingness to commit perjury which is in 
itself a serious crime, shows the extent of the wickedness that pre¬ 
vails among the doctors. To merely lie may not be a crime; it 
may indicate nothing more than dishonesty; but to swear falsely 
in a court trial is perjury, one of the most black-hearted of crimes. 
There is not the slightest doubt that ninety per cent, of the doc¬ 
tors are willing to thus debase themselves. 

Who, then, is safe? 

But we think there is a still greater source of danger that 
has been launched on the public by the doctors in the last few 
years. It is briefly stated as follows: 

Owing to the discovery by chemists of many subtle poisons, 
and of many slightly injurious agents that can be introduced into 
the human body without means of detection, so small a quantity 
as one-hundredth of a grain may be added to a medicine or drug 
and escape any analysis except the most searching. It is for the 
interest of chemists who prepare drugs, and also for the interest 
of druggists as well as doctors, to maintain a perpetual attack on 
the human system. 

In addition to this means of keeping a person from getting 
permanently well, there is a still more subtle process which does 
not involve the chemist or the druggist, but rests wholly in the 
machinations of the physician. Today science has advanced far 
enough to ascertain that certain elements and compounds will unite 
with certain organs or parts of the body, while letting other parts 
alone; and that some medicines will relieve a malady while set¬ 
ting up another form of slow, but chronic irritation elsewhere in 
the body. 


174 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Thus the chemist, the druggist, and the doctor possess today 
the means, each independent of the other, of prolonging sickness, 
but when all three combine, as their interests dictate, what escape 
has the sick man or woman? 

If your body has received a terrible wound which is almost 
healed when a doctor tears it open afresh, what are you going to 
do if he continues this practice indefinitely ? Yet the hidden 
wounds in your body are known to him if he is skillful; and if he 
belongs to the ninety per cent., and you pay your bills, he does not 
intend the hidden wound to get wholly well. 

If you fall into the quicksand and a doctor succeeds in reach¬ 
ing you and ties a rope to your leg, he thus prevents you from 
sinking to your immediate death, and he has you in his power. 
The rope will not let you perish, for when you sink too far, the 
doctor pulls your leg and you are brought partly back to solid 
ground; but he knows how to keep you from getting back to per¬ 
manent safety, and this he will not do as long as he can extract 
money from you. 

Did you ever see a big cat play with a small mouse? The cat 
does not let the mouse die, but allows it some freedom, and a 
hundred times the mouse thinks he is just on the edge of freedom 
when the claws and the teeth of the cat pull him back into cap¬ 
tivity. The onlooker knows that the mouse can never get away, 
no matter how much latitude and independence are given him. 

So in the medical profession today, among the ninety per 
cent, of the doctors, it is a game of big cat and little mouse; of 
quicksand and leg-pulling; of the never healing wound in the 
body, and the best part of the condition is that the public are wak¬ 
ing up to the truth. Not only the great Carnegie institution, not 
only the advanced sciences, not only leading periodicals, not only 
conscientious doctors, but the intelligent force of the public search¬ 
light everywhere can be seen taking concerted action against the 
ninety per cent of dishonest doctors. In that ninety per cent are 
many great physicians and surgeons of mighty fame and high rep¬ 
utation. 

The test is this: Does the doctor permanently cure his pa¬ 
tients if they obey his instructions and are reasonably careful in 
their habits? If not, then he is either dishonest or stupid. The 
Ralston Health Club, without using medicines or apparatus, brings 
its patients into complete health, and they remain well all their 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


175 


lives. On the other hand, the patrons of physicians keep on doc¬ 
toring and feeing their doctors all their lives. 

That is one side of the question. 

On the other side we find physicians who are honest. We 
know they are honest because their patients get well and stay well, 
and their further practice does not come from those whom they 
have cured, but from those who seek aid because of the recom¬ 
mendation given by those who are cured. Thus if the doctor per¬ 
manently cures A., he loses A’s future patronage; but he secures 
new patronage from A’s friends and acquaintances ever after. If 
A. sends fifty new patients to the doctor, the latter’s practice is 
sure to increase,and if the fifty new patrons send each a number, 
then the increase will steadily grow. 

This is not theory, but it is actual fact that is today being 
demonstrated as the “new ethics of the medical profession.” Doc¬ 
tors who cure permanently in a brief period of time, and at mini¬ 
mum expense, are sure of an immense practice, as soon as these 
facts are known. 

The question then arises. How can a doctor who permanently 
cures his patient expect to find patrons enough to give him an 
increasing practice ? The answer is that he will find them among the 
patients of the ninety per cent, of dishonest physicians; for it is 
correctly estimated that less than ten per cent, are trustworthy. 
The vast majority are piling up human wrecks as fast as they can; 
and it is the duty of all good Ralstonites to aid in diverting this 
horde' of unfortunate victims away from their danger into the 
right direction. 

A woman who is a loyal and enthusiastic Ralstonite tried to 
induce a large number of her friends to join the Club. Some did 
join and were made well and have remained well. Others thought 
nothing could cure them unless prescribed by doctors. The wo¬ 
man says: “Seeing the bent of their minds I asked the names of 
the doctors they had consulted. I then found that these doctors 
had a long list of patients who were chronic sufferers. I next found 
a doctor who really cured his patients. He told me quietly that 
he was a Ralstonite. I induced one of the uncured women to take 
her case to him, and in a very short time she was well, and is well 
today. This cure convinced the other women, and they went to 
him and were cured. All of us are now sounding his praises, and 
he is curing the patients that the other doctors have kept sick so 


176 


PERSONAL BOOK 


many years. The thought occurs to me that all good Ealstonites 
should do likewise. Hunt up a regular doctor who honestly wants 
to cure his patients, and take to him all people who think they need 
medical help and who will not join the Ealston Club.” 

It makes no difference how a person gets well, if he only is 
made permanently well. That is all we ask. If therefore your 
friends who are always doctoring, will not take up the powerful 
system set forth in this book, but think they must have medical 
treatment, then you can do them and humanity a great service by 
hunting up some doctor who cures and whose patients, once cured, 
never have to doctor again all their lives. Find that kind of a doc¬ 
tor. It is often the case that he is a Ealstonite. If he is not, then 
help him to get all the light on Ealstonism that you can. A doctor 
may be honest who is not a Ealstonite; but you can rest assured 
that he is unknowingly making use of the great basic truths taught 
in this book. 

A dishonest doctor, one of the ninety per cent, could not pos¬ 
sibly be a Ealstonite. His one great purpose is to keep his patients 
sick, or half well, or half cured, like the cat playing with the 
mouse. 

When a doctor is a Ealstonite, that fact is prima-facie evi¬ 
dence that he is honest; for he is sure to permanently cure his pa¬ 
tients if they obey him. He can be honest and not be a Ealstonite, 
but he cannot be a Ealstonite and be dishonest. We are constantly 
having applications from physicians who wish to join this Club. 
From that time forth they become valuable physicians in their 
communities, for their lives are devoted to the permanent cure of 
their patients. Their success in one case brings new patrons and 
they in time are sure to have the leading practice. 

It is a well established principle that medicines never cured a 
human being, and never will. But this does not mean that they 
are not useful in a crisis, or in an acute attack. In such instances, 
the man or woman is foolish who will not employ a doctor. An 
honest physician is always a benefit to every person who suffers. 
It is a duty to call in medical aid when circumstances require im¬ 
mediate help. 

For this reason it is a great advantage to have a doctor at hand 
who is a Ealstonite. 'Can you find one or more in your com¬ 
munity? If you can, let him know that you can help him, that 
other Ealstonites can help him, and that we can help him. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


177 


If there is none, then can you discover the most honorable 
doctor there, and make a Ealstonite of him? 

We have said that there are many physicians who are Ealston- 
ites, and that more are constantly joining this Club. They are 
making permanent cures and their practice is increasing. How 
blind are those doctors who hate Ealstonism even as his dark 
majesty hates angels! When a doctor speaks against this Club 
you can be sure he knows of Ealstonism; and you should avoid 
him and have all your friends avoid him, for the person who 
knows our teachings and who is an enemy to them, belongs to the 
class referred to by Dr. Barnesby. They would swear falsely. He 
who would in this age of human suffering prolong the agony of 
the unfortunate who know not which way to turn for safety, is 
an enemy to his kind. 

The Ealston Health Club has but one great end in veiw which 
is that each Member shall become an example of perfect health. 

When any doctor can prove that he has the same end in view 
in his practice, then he can look with honest gaze into the eyes of 
his fellow mortals. 

In the midst of the debris of human suffering, in the chaos 
of physical wreckage that has been dumped into the lap of civiliza¬ 
tion by the great majority of practicing physicians of today, there 
are whole-souled men and women engaged in the noble work of 
saving as many of these victims as possible, saving them by the 
hardest kind of work and study and struggle, saving them from the 
hands of monsters who have made them useless to themselves and 
to the world, and seeking in sincerity to open the flood gates of a 
new life on earth. 

Forget not the test: The patient who is permanently cured 
at a minimum cost has an honest adviser; but the patient that is 
continually “doctoring” is the dupe of a schemer. 

The time has come when every person of intelligence should 
turn away from the direction of these growing dangers that men¬ 
ace the race, and should come into the fold of safety. 

There is but one place today where absolute safety from all 
these evils can be found, and it is in the Ealston Health Club. 
Others have been safe here for many, many years; why not you 
and your friends? 

If you and your loved ones become faithful Ealstonites, there 
will never be any danger of surgeons’ knives or physicians’ drugs. 


PERSONAL BOOK 


“THE DEEDS THAT MAKE EARTH BETTER- 


FOURTH DEPARTMENT 

OF THE 

PERSONAL BOOK 

OF THE 

RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


“(fammmmt” 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


179 


BUSINESS DEPARTMENT. 

Chapter Twenty 

PERSONAL SYSTEM 
OF THE 

RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 

FOR CLUB-NUMBER MEMBERS 


IS WELL KNOWN the entire system of the Ralston 
Health Club comprises one hundred degrees, arranged 
solely at the request of Members or for their benefit to 
reward them for their efforts in securing new members. 
So many persons regained health that their friends 
and neighbors wondered and asked them how they had done it. In 
reply they said they had found health by joining the Ralston Club. 
This caused many of the inquirers to likewise join. Soon a Mem¬ 
ber would be the means of adding many recruits; and as it was 
found necessary to recognize the good results, this led to the plan 
of degrees; one being awarded for each new member. 

Under the Personal System, this plan of degrees will be aban¬ 
doned. 

The Ralston Health Club will be limited to fifteen degrees, and 
specially powerful works will be included in that scope; thus accom¬ 
plishing more real good in fifteen degrees than was secured in one 
hundred degrees of elaborate emoluments. 

This does not mean that the former degrees will be taken away; 
we have no right to do that. All agreements will be fully carried 
out as made, and all Members under the high degree plan who wish 
to proceed with it will be allowed to do so. 

But we strongly advise all new Members to enter the present 
plan of the Personal System, and to seek fifteen degrees instead of 
the hundred, as the results are more concentrated and therefore 
much more powerful in each life. 




180 


PERSONAL BOOK 


THE PERSONAL SYSTEM OF THE CLUB 
is devoted solely to the needs of each Member, and to no other 
purpose. It consists of four works, each having a specific line of 
usefulness unequaled by any other work in existence: 

FIRST:—“THE PERSONAL BOOK.” 

SECOND:—“LIFE ELECTRICITY.” 

THIRD:—“CHEST CULTURE.” 

FOURTH:—“DOCTORS of the RALSTON CLUB.” 

The “Personal Book” is the present work. It is complete in 
itself, and covers all the ground needed. 

The book of “Life Electricity” contains a course of one hun¬ 
dred lessons including ten steps to graduation in reaching the life 
centers of the body; something that was never before attempted. It 
is designed for persons who have inherited a weak constitution. 

The book of “Chest Culture” is designed to make the fight 
specially for perfect lungs and a perfect heart, in this era when more 
than half of all humanity have weak lungs and a heart of low 
energy. These two organs give way at the present day very sud¬ 
denly, owing to the rush and hurry of living. Fifty per cent, of all 
deaths among women are now due to lung troubles; and seventy per 
cent, of all deaths among men are due either to lung disease or to 
heart failure. There was never a time when such a work as “Chest 
Culture” was so much needed as now. It has been in use for many 
years, and no person who has secured it in time has ever died of 
lung or heart disease. It is a perfect guaranty of safety; better than 
a policy of insurance. 

The fourth great course is known as “Doctors of the Ralston 
Club,” but the title of the giant work is “Complete Membership.” 
It enables any Ralstonite to cure others either in his family or 
among the neighbors, as it has a natural cure for all curable 
maladies. A letter just at hand from a Member says: “I have 
cured seventeen cases of rheumatism in this locality by the treat¬ 
ment of the great Ralston Book. In all these cases, doctors and 
medicines were useless. I have not had a failure.” 

Other Members have made all kinds of wonderful and almost 
miraculous cures, some for fame, some for financial reward, and 
some to win blessings that are beyond price. You can help human¬ 
ity best by first making yourself an example of perfect health 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


181 


through the influence of the “Personal Book.” Let people see the 
change in you, and tell them the cause. 

Now what are you to do? 

You will be grateful and will frankly admit that your better 
condition is due to the great Personal System of the Ralston 
Health Club. If your less fortunate friends learn the cause, 
they will ask how THEY can secure similar benefits. You can¬ 
not keep the truth from them. 

They will see the wonderful change in you. 

In spite of all you can do, one or more of your friends will send 
for the “Personal Book,” and your Club-Number will receive credit 
for the recruits so brought into the Club. 

When your Club-Number has received one credit, you will be 
the owner of ONE HONOR, which will be recorded on our ledgers. 

When your Club-Number has received two credits, you will be 
the owner of TWO HONORS, etc. 

Now when your Club-Number has received five credits, you will 
be the owner of FIVE HONORS. This will mean that you have 
been the cause, willingly or unwillingly, of five persons joining the 
Club by procuring the “Personal Book” through your Invitations. 

Securing these FIVE HONORS has cost you nothing, not even 
any effort; and they will never be taken away from you. 

What will you do with your FIVE HONORS? 

You can sell them without losing them, which seems a paradox. 
If you so desire, you can sell them to the Ralston Health Club and 
receive five degrees and be recorded as a fifth degree Ralstonite; 
thereby receiving the great course known as “LIFE ELECTRIC¬ 
ITY.” You will thus have secured, free of all cost, one of the most 
important works in existence, and will also have sent five persons 
on the road to perfect health, happiness and long life. 

The whole process is simple and is being enacted every day in 
all parts of the world where Ralstonism is practiced: You improve 
your own health until your friends demand to know the cause; you 
tell them the cause; and they become Ralstonites. 

Could anything be easier? 

Could anything be grander? 

The Ralston Health Club, if it buys your FIVE HONORS 
and allows you five degrees, will give you free of all charge the 
most wonderful system ever taught for reaching the spark of life 
and increasing it. This is known as LIFE ELECTRICITY. 


182 


PERSONAL BOOK 


LIFE ELECTRICITY. 

It is the fifth degree work of the Personal System of the 
Ralston Health Club. 

It is so important that we are compelled to describe it very 
fully at this place. 

LIFE ELECTRICITY is a new use of the laws of nature! 

It is not in any way connected with magnetism and has noth¬ 
ing to do with that force. 

LIFE ELECTRICITY is founded on the recently made dis¬ 
covery that all weakness, all sickness, and all processes towards 
death begin in the nerve-centres; no matter what the affecting 
cause may be to start with. 

The course of One Hundred Lessons in Life Electricity builds 
up the nerve-centres, step by step, until they are so strong and 
so full of vitality and renewed life, that nothing can reach them 
to do harm. As they direct and control all functions of the or¬ 
gans of the body, this process means a wonderful improvement, 
and the coming in of a new life that is amazing in its power. 

All over the world the successful, honest physicians are pre¬ 
scribing our system of “LIFE ELECTRICITY” to their patients. 
One doctor said to a woman whom he had not been able to bring 
into good health: “You inherit a weak constitution, and I might 
as well tell you now that you will find but one means of help 
worthy of notice, and that is the course of treatment called Life 
Electricity issued by the Ralston Health Club of Washington, D. 
C. I prescribe that in place of further medicine. I say this, 
knowing that I shall lose you as a patient in the future.” It was 
a hard sacrifice to make, but the doctor was brave and honest. 
The woman secured “Life Electricity.” In one month she wrote: 
“I began to get new life from the first day and now I am well 
and filled full of the happiness of living. But what about the 
physician who generously gave me up and has lost the hundreds 
of dollars he might have received from me had he not told me 
to buy the course in Life Electricity?” 

How many doctors are willing to give up for life their pa¬ 
tients whose money flows steadily into their pockets? 

When once a physician prescribes “Life Electricity” to a 
patient, it is like dismissing that patient with the words: “Good 
by. You are now leaving me forever. I have been honest with 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


183 


you in prescribing Life Electricity in place of medicines. You 
have been paying me more than a hundred dollars a year. Here¬ 
after you will pay me nothing. I must live. For weeks I have 
been struggling against the desire to prescribe the Life Electricity 
course for you; but my conscience has won the victory. My in¬ 
come will be lessened, but you will get well/’ 

Is your constitution weak? 

Has your vitality at any time been sapped to the core? 

Do you lack the courage and energy of purpose to make the 
fight for perfect health? 

You need LIFE ELECTRICITY. 

Many persons obtain the first book of the Ralston Health 
Club, but lack the will power to take up the battle of life for 
themselves. They are just the persons who need LIFE ELEC¬ 
TRICITY. Medicines will not help them. Doctors will not 
help them. Treatments will not help them. Travel and special 
systems of cure will never give them the slightest benefit. They 
lack that one fundamental essence of existence, courage of pur¬ 
pose for a brave fight; and this can come from only one source 
which is LIFE ELECTRICITY. 

It gives will-power, energy of mind and heart, ambition, ac¬ 
tive interest, and the driving enthusiasm that wins. As Theodore 
Roosevelt said to his fellow soldiers: "I am no better than you 
are. Every one of you can do all I have done if you will fully 
make up your minds to do so.” The inability to make up the 
mind is due to “lack of human electrical energy” as Edison puts 
it in his description of the man who fails because of a weak 
will power. 

Has your youth gone too early? 

Have your faculties lost their fullness of power? 

Are you nervous, depressed at times, disposed to be melan¬ 
cholic or apprehensive of the future years? Are you afraid of a 
breakdown in case you live to be old? 

Then NOW is the time to build LIFE ELECTRICITY. 

In placing this course of One Hundred Lessons and Steps 
to Graduation within reach of every man and woman at the Fifth 
Degree of the Ralston Health Club, this organization has done 
a great service to humanity; and all persons are wise who secure 
that great system as soon as possible. 

Five Honors will bring it to you. 


184 


PERSONAL BOOK 


“CHEST CULTURE” 

This is a name for a much greater course than it expresses. 

It is the Tenth Degree System of the Ralston Health Club. 

Ten Honors will secure it free; or five Honors after you 
win the Fifth Degree System. 

It is shown in the reports of mortality among adults, or 
persons above the age of eighteen years, that one person in every 
six dies of consumption; and as many more die of pneumonia or 
other form of lung trouble. 

It is also shown that, where tuberculosis is checked, either 
the heart is weakened, or the lungs become an easy prey to 
pneumonia. 

YOU will probably die of some form of lung or organic 
malady. 

A medical cure that drives out tuberculosis at the expense of 
the heart or other vital part, is substituting one evil for another. 

The error is in the basic methods. 

To make lung troubles and heart troubles IMPOSSIBLE, 
the great system known as “CHEST CULTURE,” was estab¬ 
lished years ago and has done more real good in the world than 
any other aid to suffering humanity. No person has died of any 
form of lung or heart disease who has made use of this System. 
It has a record unsurpassed in the history of the race. 

It proceeds as follows: 

1. Its first great work is to cure all weak lung-cells. 

2. It then brings into use the thousands of lung-cells that 
are left undeveloped; for it proves that in every case of weak 
lungs and consumption, there are great masses of unused cells 
which, if they are not developed, will die with the individual. 

3. It proves that the germs of tuberculosis present in the 
lungs, will all be killed and driven out by the method employed 
in this great system. 

4. The difference between the most modern treatment of con¬ 
sumption in sanatoriums, and CHEST CULTURE, is that the 
former seeks to nourish the body to the highest degree of endur¬ 
ance and thus establish a competition between the germs of death 
and those of life; while CHEST CULTURE slays ALL the 
germs at once, drives them OUT, and then repairs the cells that 
are hurt, while it OPENS the unused cells and sets them to work. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


185 


By this method there is never any chance for the disease 
itself; it is doomed the moment the patient begins the adoption 
of the System of CHEST CULTURE. 

5. It changes the chest-frame, giving it a new shape and a 
proper carriage; filling in all hollows in the upper right and left 
zones where you are certainly hollow now; and it beautifies the 
neck, the form of the shoulders and the entire region, thus pro¬ 
ducing a marvelous perfection of the body where it counts most 
for appearance as well as health. There is no other method to be 
found in this wide world that can do any of these things. All 
parents, all children, and all persons who seek to be kingly and 
queenly in bearing and demeanor, should begin at once the prac¬ 
tice of CHEST CULTURE. 

6. By bringing the vital zone into its best form, it invites 
an ideal shape of the entire body. The step changes; the car¬ 
riage is much more graceful; the individual becomes easy and 
full of attractive manliness and womanliness; and nature is at 
her best in the temple of life. 

7. All the faults of form are studied and overcome. 

8. A magnificent presence takes the place of the old ways. 

9. The CHEST is the seat of life, the seat of vitality, the 
seat of magnetism, the seat of the soul. Hot only in outward 
form should it be developed; not only in its inward vitality and 
nealth should it be cultivated; but as the zone of life where the 
spark of human existence is every moment being created, the 
CHEST should be brought into a new heritage. This has been 
done by the method of the System described, and is going on now 
in every part of the civilized world where our members are for¬ 
tunate enough to possess this grand work. 

10. All the laws of grace are studied and the body is made 
easy and naturally refined in all its motions and attitudes. The 
relation between a depressed and faulty carriage of the chest and 
the attendant errors of the body is thoroughly shown and cor¬ 
rected step by step until they disappear. 

This remarkable System of CHEST CULTURE is placed at 
the Tenth Degree of the Ralston Health Club. 

The members are fortunate indeed to be able to secure so 
great a boon to life. 

A total of fifteen HONORS, or five in addition to the last 
number referred to, will bring you to: 


186 


PERSONAL BOOK 


“DOCTORS” OF THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 

This is the name of the Complete Membership System; so 
called because it contains treatments for each and every curable 
disease in the whole list of human ills. They are issued all in one 
giant book under the name of “COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP 
BOOK” 

When there is any fixed disease of which some person in 
your family or among your neighbors is the victim, then you 
call a DOCTOR of the Ralston Health Club; which is done by 
employing the proper line of treatment set forth in the System 
of Complete Membership. 

If you have but two books, it is certainly far better to own 
the Personal Book, and “Life Electricity.” Together they will 
make you wonderfully secure against sickness. 

If you can have but three books, you should have the Per¬ 
sonal Book, also “Life Electricity,” and “CHEST CULTURE.” 
Since the chances are that you will otherwise die either of con¬ 
sumption or pneumonia, this plan of safety will make such result 
impossible. You will be independent of all such dangers. This 
security is worth more than a fortune of a million dollars. 

The fourth and last course in the Ralston Health Club is 
established to enable you to do good in the world. You do not 
wish to go through life without helping your fellow beings. Sup¬ 
pose you were to come into an immense fortune and were to have 
much more of this world’s goods than you could ever use for your¬ 
self ; or suppose, by hard effort carried through many years, you 
were to win success: what then? Is life well spent that is devoted 
to you alone? There are many persons of humble means who 
deem it a part of right living to help their friends and neighbors. 

Most people are lacking in health. 

Around you there are some who can never get well if they 
are to look to medicines for relief. There are consumptives in 
your town who have been failing steadily under the treatment of 
medicines. Somewhere else there are high priced sanatoriums 
where men and women are actually cured of consumption; but 
they never give medicines! The expert physicians know that it 
is a crime today to use medicines in this malady. The success¬ 
ful sanatoriums are using the methods that were inaugurated more 
than thirty years ago by the Ralston Health Club in the cure of 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


187 


this all-prevailing malady. This is the method that is employed 
in the great book which we call “DOCTORS” of this Club, or 
technically known as Complete Membership. 

That method actually cures. 

It makes a direct attack on the disease itself; while CHEST 
CULTURE builds a magnificent body and extends its work 
through a whole volume to the most needed of all means of help 
to mankind. 

Now this is one only of the “DOCTORS;” this treatment 
that is contained in the Book of Complete Membership. There 
are more than forty others. To show you what can be done let 
us quote a part of a letter from a woman who has all these 
courses of the Club: “I have enjoyed such perfect health myself 
that my neighbors often ask me how I got well after I gave up 
using medicines. With the exception of the book to begin with, 
my other hooks cost me nothing, as I won them by taking de¬ 
grees. I found around me a number of women who could do the 
same, but who do not have the ambition to help themselves.. One 
by one they fail and die. Since they will not do for themselves 
and try to get well, I deem it my duty to help them all I can. 
By the aid of Complete Membership I have saved from death a 
beautiful young girl who was far gone with tuberculosis. A young 
man has also been saved solely by my effort. I am now doing 
for others and will have very soon a role of a dozen or more vic¬ 
tories. These folks who are brought to good health from the very 
edge of the grave, really become useful citizens. They are strong 
and able to work. The young man is now helping to save two 
others who were very far gone with the same disease. I have never 
known what happiness is in this life until I was able to give my 
knowledge to others. When I see people about me who are alive 
and well, hut who would have been in their graves but for me, 
my heart leaps with joy at the pleasure of doing good. Now I 
enjoy living because I have given life to others.” 

This strikes the keynote of it all. 

Take another instance. A man who had suffered from rheu- 
matism for many years despite his use of medicines, became wholly 
well by the methods of our Complete Membership. Then he 
hunted up all persons he knew who had rheumatism, and he cured 
them. In another community a member of this Club who had 
come into perfect health, heard of a very wealthy business man 


388 


PERSONAL BOOK 


who was dying of nervous prostration due to inability to sleep 
nights. The merchant said he would give his fortune to any one 
who could save him. Expert physicians tried and failed. Our 
member took to the sufferer the treatment which is provided in 
the book of Complete Membership, and the very first night the 
rich man got some sleep; the second night he got more; and in a 
short time he was entirely well. Many Ealstonites are practicing 
nature today and receiving financial rewards by so doing; but most 
of them love the work of saving life and not making a business 
of it. In every grade of social rank there are men and women 
who are helping others to get well; in other words, they are 
practicing Ealstonism, or nature, by employing the “DOCTOES” 
of the Ealston Health Club. 

Almost everything is reached by that giant System. 

Stomach troubles, nervous disorders, blood defects, organic 
weakness, skin eruptions, heart, liver and kidney maladies, and 
everything that has not passed into the incurable stage. We 
claim to have the only certain cure for diabetes. A man who 
was made well of this disease when all hope had gone, has since 
helped eight others to recovery. He used the great volume of 
Complete Membership, which we call “DOCTOES” of the Club. 

Headaches and weakness of the nerves are today bringing 
more misery to people than they are able to endure; yet they are 
sure of finding relief and permanent cures in Complete Mem¬ 
bership. 

These are examples only of the greatness and vast import¬ 
ance of the giant work. It has been before the public for more 
than twenty years and has been steadily growing all the time in 
order to keep up to date, so that nothing shall exceed it in value. 

. completes the courses of the Ealston Health Club, for 
which reason it is called Complete Membership. Being a Degree 
book it may be obtained free of expense at the Fifteenth Degree 
which is the last under the new or Personal System. 

HOW TO GO AHEAD. 

Let us assume that you can own the Personal Book, which is 
the volume now open before you; and that you have none of the 
other courses as yet. 

If you possess ambition to attain wonderful health, you will 
adopt all the teachings of this book. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


189 


You will change completely. Even your identity and ap¬ 
pearance can be so changed that you will seem to others to be a 
new individual. 

This is true ambition, for the human body is the Temple 
of Life. 

You cannot escape the attention of others. They will want 
to know how it is done. Strangers from afar will hear of you. 
This has been the history in the past, and is bound to be the 
history of the future. Invitations which we send to you freely, 
will always be on hand in your house, and all you need do is to 
answer every inquiry by an Invitation. If people ask your advice 
from a distance, just mail them Invitations bearing your Club 
Number. As you are allowed Members’ discounts, all persons who 
receive your Invitations must mention your Club Number in or¬ 
der to receive the discounts which you have the power to give 
them. Thus your Club Number will be credited with the ac¬ 
ceptances of the Invitations which you send to other people. 

Every such acceptance brings you AN HONOR. 

Some persons have thus received hundreds of HONORS. 

You need only fifteen to bring you to the highest Degree 
of the Ralston Health Club, which is the Fifteenth Degree. 

But when you have received only FIVE HONORS the Club 
will buy them of you, and you need not wait till you have reached 
the fifteen. The Club buys them of you by paying you in De¬ 
grees, each HONOR being good for a Degree. Five HONORS, 
if you wish to sell them, will be exchanged for five Degrees; and 
then you will be entitled to the great System of “Life Electric¬ 
ity,” free of all charge of every kind. It will be sent to you at 
the expense of the Club. 

Soon, however, you will find that you have reached TEN 
HONORS. If you wish to sell them, the Club will buy them by 
giving you in exchange the Tenth Degree; and you can then 
claim CHEST CULTURE free; all cost of delivery being paid 
by the Club. 

These must be obtained in their order. 

Foundation course: “Personal Book.” 

Fifth Degree course: “Life Electricity.” 

Tenth Degree course: “CHEST CULTURE.” 

Fifteenth Degree course: “DOCTORS” of the Ralston Health 
Club; known as Complete Membership. 


190 


PERSONAL BOOK 


THE INCREASE OF HONORS. 

A healthy mind is necessary to a healthy body. Enthusiasm 
is the magnetic stimulus to a healthy mind. Therefore you should 
become an enthusiastic Ralstonite. 

Let the Club be known. This you can do without soliciting 
new Members. Let its existence be known by answering all re¬ 
quests for information by Invitations which speak for themselves. 

If there are some about you who are ill, help them without 
asking them to buy a book of membership. Help them freely 
without seeking any reward or advantage. 

If others are ill who are not near at hand, merely send them 
Invitations to which your Club Number is added. 

Let the existence of the Club be known at all times. 

It is your Club. All the funds that the Ralston Health Club 
has received in the many years of its existence have been spent 
in its work, and not a cent has ever gone to the benefit of an 
owner or officer. Besides such receipts, many thousands of dol¬ 
lars have been contributed by private individuals to carry on its 
vast plan of saving life and lessening human suffering. There¬ 
fore it has no interest in the commercial side of its business; 
nor does it ask its Members to become agents for the sale of books. 

Like a church, or any fraternal organization, this Club wants 
its good work known; and the best way of making it known is by 
the use of its Invitations which are granted freely to Members. 

The Club makes no pretence of charity. It charges a low 
price for life membership including its Personal Book; and it 
sends for life to all Members who desire them, its reports and 
greetings; so that the small fee which is hardly the value of the 
Personal Book is eventually used up in carrying the membership. 
The early members gave a large fortune to the Club. 

In addition to this, the Club buys of its Members all HON¬ 
ORS up to and including the Fifteenth. As these HONORS 
have cost the Members nothing, the purchase of them whereby they 
are turned into Degrees, means a large expense to the Club. This 
plan was originated many years ago by the Members themselves, 
and consented to by us. It was based on the fact that, if a Mem¬ 
ber becomes an example of fine health, he cannot keep that fact 
from the world, and others are bound to come into the Club, 
thus bringing credit to that Member which is rewarded by HON¬ 
ORS, one for each new recruit. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


191 


ADDITIONAL HONORS 

If you come into possession of HONORS and do not wish to 
Bell them to the Club; or, if you secure more than fifteen HON¬ 
ORS, you can sell them to Ralston University Company in ex¬ 
change for still greater values. To illustrate this point, suppose 
you have obtained fifteen HONORS and do not wish to sell them 
to the Ralston Health Club for Degrees; you can sell them to 
Ralston University Company, of which the club is a part or 
branch. Or suppose you do sell all fifteen HONORS to the 
Club, and should have more HONORS, perhaps twenty, or fifty 
or any number; the excess can be sold to Ralston University 
Company in exchange for other and greater values. All this is 
fully explained in the booklet which can be had for nothing by 
applying to Ralston Health Club, Hopewell, New Jersey. The title 
of that booklet is 


“Sjrnuir Hah»a” 

It tells you what can be done even if you were to secure a 
great number of HONORS. While you cannot sell the same 
HONORS twice, your sale of them does not lessen the number 
you obtain. If you were to secure fifteen and sell them to the 
Club for Degrees, you would still have fifteen HONORS. You 
do not lose them by selling them; but those that have been once 
sold cannot be sold again. Cash is never paid for HONORS 
either by the Club or the Ralston University Company; but some¬ 
thing better and more valuable is given in the purchase. 

For the same reason we do not sell HONORS for cash. 

You cannot buy an HONOR by sending us the price of a 
Personal Book; but if any other person, mentioning your Club 
Number, sends to us the price of a Personal Book intending to 
become a Ralstonite, then that person receives the book and much 
more than full value for his money, while you receive the HONOR. 

All new recruits must be genuine. Some members seek to 
win Honors by buying copies of the "Personal Book” to give 
away to others. This serves the purpose only when the others 
really become genuinely interested. 

Connected with this branch of the present work are coupons 
which you are entitled to use by cutting them off one at a time 
as you require them. 


192 


PERSONAL BOOK 


PERSONAL ADVICE FREE. 

We aid all Members who are trying to help themselves. 

We have found that the present system of the Personal Book 
exerts so great an influence on the lives of all persons who take 
an interest in its teachings, that the most important step is to 
become familiar with those teachings. This is done, not by one 
reading, but by several. You may feel sure that you can grasp 
all that is said when you peruse this book once; but the person 
does not live who will not find many new truths in its pages on 
every repeated reading even up to the twelfth. 

Therefore if you will carefully, slowly, patiently and thor¬ 
oughly read every word of this book once a month for twelve 
months, you will be given the rank of good standing in our 
records. 

There will come times when you will need personal advice on 
matters that cannot be found in any of our books. 

The Ealston Health Club stands unique in the world. For 
nearly thirty-five years it has been the one great investigator of nat¬ 
ural causes and natural cures of disease without the use of medi¬ 
cines or apparatus of any kind. It has saved more than a mil¬ 
lion people from untimely death; it has cured countless others 
of maladies that doctors could not cure; and it has done more 
than any other agency to relieve human suffering. All this time 
it has never advertised, and has never made display of any kind. 
Carrying no salaried officials, having no luxurious offices, sound¬ 
ing no public trumpet, it has gone on with its grand work in 
silence and with victories unparalleled in the history of mankind. 
During all this time, and amidst this accumulation of experiences, 
it has gathered knowledge of so great volume and value that it 
now has at its disposal mountains of facts. 

Our books aim to contain nearly everything that is helpful; 
but there are many subjects of importance that do not get inside 
the pages of any book. No two cases are alike. Sometimes our 
Members need advice and need it urgently. Our practice hereto¬ 
fore has been to make moderate charges for personal advice by 
mail; ranging from one dollar up to five and even as high as 
twenty-five dollars per letter. A large part of this cost consists 
in the time required to secure the information and to verify its 
accuracy, as well as writing the reply. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


193 


Under the Personal Book system, which is the most liberal 
ever established, we will try for a while to give private advice free 
of charge, if the following Buies are observed : 

Rule 1. —The Free Personal Advice is not a right to be 
claimed by a Member, but is a gratuity from us. This hook has 
not been sold on the promise to give such advice. The Personal 
Book itself is worth much more than the price charged for it. 
No promise of free advice was made as an inducement to pur¬ 
chase the book. 

Rule 2.—The Member must become interested in the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club; must be enthusiastic in speaking of the Club 
to others; and must try to adopt its teachings so as to become 
an example of what the Club can really do. The least interest 
one can take is to read this book through twelve times, once a 
month for twelve months. There will never be a case where 
adoption of its truths will not follow twelve such readings. 

Rule 3.—The Advice Form at the end of this section must 
be copied , not cut out. If cut, it will cause loss of standing as a 
Ralstonite. 

Rule 4.—The inquiry must be plainly written and must not 
contain more than one hundred words. Long letters cannot be 
read, and of course not answered. The name and address of the 
writer must be plain and complete; and the Personal Club Num¬ 
ber given correctly. 

Rule 5.—The subject of the advice sought must be some¬ 
thing that is not published in our books. 

Rule 6.—No fees of any kind are required. Most Members, 
however, send us a few stamps when they write, asking us to 
“use them for the good of the Club.” If stamps are included, 
they should be so noted in the letter, as we wish to account for 
the same. Stamps should be “ones” or “twos” of the United 
States, as foreign stamps cannot be used. We are always for- 
waiding to countless numbers of people, not only our Invitations 
for their benefit, but an almost unlimited mail that brings us no 
returns; and stamps flow from our office in a steady stream, pil¬ 
ing up an expense that would be relieved if each Member would 
bear a part of it. But this we do not ask. That matter is left 
wholly to your inclination. 

SCOPE OF THE ADVICE. 

All Ralstonites who are brought into perfect health quickly 
seek new channels of usefulness in this world by joining our two 


194 


PERSONAL BOOK 


other organizations, the Magnetism Club, and the Psychic So¬ 
ciety, admission to which is free under the Honor System de¬ 
scribed in the booklet. Honor Values, which can be obtained with¬ 
out cost by using the Coupon on the final page of this book. 

In those two societies many questions arise as to the power 
of personal achievement, especially in the Magnetism Club, and 
we are often asked for private advice and help along lines wholly 
new. We try in every way to assist all ambitious persons. 

When the health is perfect, there are faculties that must be 
given means of development and new realms of usefulness; other¬ 
wise a person of perfect health would be no greater a being than 
an animal. Faculties are implements by which power and suc¬ 
cess are achieved in this world. A weak body makes an irritated 
mind. A well body induces a vigorous mind, in which are born 
multitudes of wholesome desires for doing things of importance 
while life is at its best. 

How magnetism is not hypnotism; the latter puts to sleep 
or dulls the will of the subject; while magnetism arouses, charms 
and attracts. It is, therefore, just the opposite of hypnotism. 
Personal magnetism is personal worth. It is value added to every 
trait of the mind and heart. It intensifies the charm of conduct, 
of speech, of intercourse, of self-possession, of splendid control, of 
every attractive quality that is natural; and all the while there 
are exercises of the most powerful character that develop fire of 
nerves, of eye, of heart and of mind to a degree that is astounding. 

It is thus easy to see why every healthy man and woman 
enters the Magnetism Club. Then there are many questions as 
to the methods of controlling others in the family, in the busi¬ 
ness world, in the professions, in society, and everywhere, with¬ 
out manifest effort; and these we try to answer whenever a Mag¬ 
netism Club Member writes to us, provided the answer is not 
already given in the magnetism books. We cannot re-write the 
books in letters. 

The Psychic Society is a still grander organization, and the 
Members of that club often ask for private advice. 

The word Psychic means mind, but mind of a higher grade 
than the animal or brute intelligence. It is that state of mind 
that is above the lower forms of life. True Psychic intelligence 
has nothing to do with cults, or fads, or spirits, or anything but 
the two great minds of the universe. It is admitted on every hand 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


195 


that the most important study of the coming decade will be that 
of psychic laws. Humanity is turning from the present day cli¬ 
max of the material, to the true knowledge of the mind in its 
two gigantic realms. 

The Psychic Society deals only with facts. It has nothing 
to do with the occult; but on the other hand confronts all occult 
phenomena with an array of facts recently discovered that make 
all mysteries as clear as the light of the sun. 

The greatest misfortune of humanity is its slavery to super¬ 
stition, fear, depressing influences, forebodings, and belief in luck 
and chance. Suicides and insanity follow such slavery. The 
health suffers, and many incurable cases are made so by the evil 
that hangs like a pall over such a mind. Here is where the Psy¬ 
chic Society brings good health when all other hope is lost. Only 
a short time ago, a young woman of wealth was given up by her 
physicians when she went into a rapid decline. Nothing would 
save her, it seemed. She joined our Psychic Society, her mind 
was cleared at once, and she is today in perfect health of mind 
and body. 

Private advice is given to our Psychic Members under the 
rules. 


HOW TO APPLY FOR FREE PERSONAL ADVICE. 

Read the Rules, then copy the following Advice Form, and 
sign it carefully. Do NOT CUT it out, as you will thereby for¬ 
feit your standing. 

ADVICE FORM. 

To Ralston Health Club, 

“Ralston Heights,” Hopewell, Mercer Co., New Jersey. 

I own and keep for my exclusive use a copy of the “Personal 
Book.” My Personal Club Number is. 

I have resolved to read every word of the Personal Book 
slowly twelve times, once a month for twelve months. I am an 
enthusiastic member of the Club and make my interest known to 
others. 

I have read the Rules and will abide by them. 

My name and full address are. 

I ask advice in the following matter: 

(The statement should follow and he confined to one hun¬ 
dred words.) 





196 


PERSONAL BOOK 


Preparations for a Great Movement. 

Ralstonism is on the eve of a great and far-reaching move¬ 
ment! Gather all yonr forces together as soon as possible! The 
years passed have served to test the great strength of the Ralston 
Doctrines. They are right. They have won the approval of good 
men and women. They have endured and overwhelmed all ad¬ 
verse criticism because they are right. 

We ask no gifts of money or labor, no open efforts on your part; 
nothing but your ever present desire to make the great principles 
of health known to others. This is all; wherever we refer to 
active loyalty, remember what it means. 

Now think of the revolution that must eventually be wrought 
in the world if each member of the Health Club is actively loyal. 
That desire to win others to your great doctrines will eventually 
develop into an influence; and one by one, like stars beginning to 
shine at night, your influences will blossom into results, and you 
will have won members into your club. Think, too, what a moral 
change will be wrought; for all physiologists agree that ill health 
causes irritability, morbid nerves, defective moral nature, and more 
than nine-tenths of all the wrong in the world. The key of moral 
reform is turned by the hand of Health. 

The Ralston Club can never die. It was wrought in inspira¬ 
tion, and its principles are Nature’s richest laws, framed by an 
all-wise Creator solely and absolutely for man’s happiness. Its 
plan of existence reaches far forward into a rapidly multiplying 
growth which no power of man can check. The many great names 
now enrolled upon its list, and the intense interest they take in 
spreading its influence and increasing its membership speak of a 
Higher Power working in the hearts of men and women to make 
the world better. 



RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


197 


©t}? ®tfm Coupons 

This copy of the Personal Book is perfect when, at the time 
it is delivered to the person who is to own and use it, there are 
attached Three Coupons on one page, following these two pages. 
of description. It is imperfect when the Three Coupons have been 
removed by some person who is not the owner and personal user 
of this copy. For these reasons you should be very careful not to 
deliver to another person this copy if it does not contain all Three 
Coupons; as it will lead to trouble and loss of rights which go with 
the volume. 

As soon as you have decided to dedicate this copy to your 
own use, then appropriate the Three Coupons. This is right. They 
belong to you as the personal user. 


THE FIRST COUPON 

1. Membership Card .—The possession of this Personal Book 
gives you the right of life membership if you wish it. No Club 
Number is necessary unless you wish to have HONORS; in which 
case a Membership Card is necessary, bearing your Club Number. 

The Membership Card is good all over the world. By show¬ 
ing it you establish your right to be known as a Ralstonite. 

THE SECOND COUPON 

2. Honor Values .—The next coupon is to be used to ask 
for a free copy of the booklet of HONOR VALUES, which will 
explain how you may dispose of HONORS in case you have an 
accumulation of them. 

While there are other courses of reading and study that are 
for sale by Ralston Company, of which this Club is a part, it is our 
sincere desire that you do NOT BUY anything further of us, as we 
want you to receive everything free under the plan set forth in 
HONOR VALUES. 

THE THIRD COUPON 

3. Invitations .—The third coupon is one that asks for In¬ 
vitations to the Ralston Health Club. These are sent freely, and 
you in ay have as many as you will use judiciously. At first it 
may be well to send for twenty Invitations. Then you may send 



198 


PERSONAL BOOK 


for more at any time you desire, and as often as you wish. Sim¬ 
ply state your Club Number when you write for them. 

A Club Number will not be issued to a person who does not 
own a Personal Book and keep the same for individual use. 

A Personal Book can be used but once for the purpose of 
securing a Club Number. Two persons cannot obtain Club Num¬ 
bers from the same Personal Book. There is so much in the book 
that requires individual use and ownership that every man and 
woman should have a copy. In a family of man and wife, the 
husband, without suggestion, procured a copy of the first book 
for both. In a family of four children and two elders, six copies 
were bought, so that each could have an individual book and all 
could count themselves Ralstonites. 

The FIRST COUPON on the next page is of great value, be¬ 
cause it enables you to secure a Membership Card, and a Club 
Number, which is absolutely necessary before you can begin to 
take HONORS. Therefore see at the start if the First Coupon 
is in this book. If it is not, find out of whom you obtained the 
book. We never send them out unless each copy is verified and 
the First Coupon known to be in its place herein. It is a seriously 
defective book if such Coupon is lacking. The only thing to do 
is to find the person from whom you got the book and demand 
a perfect copy. If that is not possible, then send the defective 
book back to us, and remit $1.25 for a perfect copy. As we never 
send out books that lack the First Coupon, we cannot exchange 
the books free. 

After you once obtain a supply of Invitations and need more, 
you can write for them; always letting us know your Club Num¬ 
ber, as we do not know you by name. 

Without knowing your Club Number we cannot find your 
records; nor can we award HONORS. Therefore it is highly im¬ 
portant that you never fail to send your Club Number. Many 
members have it engraved on their letter heads as a coat-of-arms, 
and even attach it to everything that it can be placed upon. 

HONOR VALUES. 

* * * This booklet, which is known as “Honor Values” 

is a gold mine of splendid surprises for you, and a copy should be 
in your possession as soon as possible. For all purposes address 
Ralston Health Club, Hopewell, New Jersey. 


FIRST COUPON— For “Membership Card.” 


TO RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 
"RALSTON HEIGHTS," 

HOPEWELL, NEW JERSEY. 

I wish to be recognized as a member of the Ralston 
Health Club, and I enclose ten cents for a MEMBERSHIP 
CARD bearing my Club Number under the Personal System. 
I own a copy of the Personal Book. My name and address 
are as follows: 

(Name). 

(Town).. 


(State) 

P. O. Box or Street 

and Number if any 


SECOND COUPON— For “Honor Values.” 

TO RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

I am a Member of the Ralston Health Club, and my 
Club Number is (or I am today sending for 

Membership Card.) I intend to acquire HONORS as a 
Member, and therefore ask for a free copy of the booklet of 
“Honor Values.” 


THIRD COUPON— For “Invitations.” 

TO RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

I desire.-.Invitations to join the Club. 

I will use them carefully and judiciously. 







































































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MAR 9 


19!! 








One copy del. to Cat. Div.