Under this heading Dr Knaggs deals briefly month by month, and according as space permits, with questions of general interest.

Correspondents are earnestly requested to write on one side only of the paper, giving full name and address, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. When an answer is required by post a stamped addressed envelope must be enclosed.—[Eds.]

BOILS: THEIR CAUSE AND CURE.

Miss L.C. writes:—I should be deeply indebted to you if you would advise me in the following matter. I have been suffering from a recurrence of boils on different parts of my body during the last six months. I have consulted a local doctor, but he can find no reason for their appearance, but suggested I should try a mixed diet, to include some animal food, rather than adhere to vegetarianism as I have done for some two years past.

My diet is about as follows:—

On rising.—Tumblerful of hot water.

Breakfast (eight o'clock).—One egg, toasted bread (wholemeal) and butter, with either a little lettuce or marmalade and either weak tea or cocoa.

Lunch (one o'clock).—Steamed green or root vegetable, with cheese sauce or macaroni cheese or similar savoury, or nuts. Boiled or baked pudding or stewed fruit with custard or blanc mange.

Tea (four o'clock).—Tea or cocoa, with or without a little bread and butter and cake.

Supper (7 o'clock).—Vegetable soup, milk pudding and a little cheese, butter and salad and wholemeal bread.

I am forty-nine years of age, lead a fairly active life, frequently taking walking exercise. I am very tall and weigh twelve stone. Have had no serious illness, but been more or less anÆmic all my life.

If you can tell me whether there is anything wrong in connection with my diet and suggest the cause of, and treatment for, the boils I shall be exceedingly obliged.

In order to help this correspondent to permanently get rid of these boils, we must first ascertain what those troublesome manifestations are and look to the causes which produce them.

A boil is a small, tense, painful, inflammatory swelling appearing in or upon the skin, and is due to the local death or gangrene of a small portion of the skin's surface. This eventually comes away in the form of a core, and, until this has cleared away, the boil will not heal or cease to be painful.

Boils occur chiefly on the neck, arms or buttocks. If very large they are known as carbuncles, and if they occur on the fingers or toes they are described as whitlows. It is often the friction of a frayed-out collar or cuff, of tight waist clothing, or, in the case of whitlows, the introduction of some irritant or poison between the nail and the skin that determines the precise site at which they will come.

Boils, although rarely dangerous to life, are usually accompanied by pain severe out of all proportion to the extent of surface involved. This gives rise to much broken rest and loss of vitality, which at once ceases when the boil has finished its course. Boils usually occur in series or crops.

Now large numbers of people wear collars and cuffs with frayed edges, or handle irritants with their fingers, but they do not necessarily contract boils or whitlows. Therefore, we see that there must be other factors to be taken into consideration to account for their presence. The orthodox germ-loving practitioner may tell you that a boil is a purely local disorder and that a certain form of microbe, known as the Staphylococcus pyogenes, is the cause of it. This germ, he asserts, lives normally on the surface of the skin and, when this surface becomes broken, it enters the part and infects it, thereby starting the boil.

If this is true every person who wears old collars or dabbles his hands in dirt should without exception contract boils. This is obviously untrue.

The factor to be considered, then, is this. What is it that induces boils in one person and not in another under identical circumstances? The answer is obvious. The boil is not a local disease at all, but is a manifestation of some constitutional defect, or of some impurity of the blood stream, which enables this microbe to find a congenial breeding ground.

The people who suffer most from boils are young or middle-aged adults, and we usually find the two extremes among sufferers. There is the full-blooded, often overfed, individual and there is the pale, debilitated and emaciated person whose constitution is broken down by worry, overwork, sexual troubles, unhealthy surroundings or badly selected foods.

If we inquire into the constitutional history of these cases we shall almost invariably discover that the digestive or assimilative processes of the body are not working smoothly. This may be due to the worry or overwork, or to unhealthy surroundings which dis-harmonise the digestive and nutritive functions, or to nervous exhaustion from one cause or another, or it may be due to the wrong diet, which is filling the colon (or large bowel) with fermenting poisons.

When the body is clogged in this manner nature often proceeds to get rid of the accumulating waste through the skin. By a vigorous effort on the part of the life-force the impurity is thrown outwards to the surface. Looked at in this light a boil is really a most salutary cleansing agent, and the Nature-Cure practitioner, who calls it a “Crisis,” often does everything in his power to produce boils when treating chronic diseases.

The alternative is often some more deeply seated form of elimination, resulting in serious organic disease of the organs or tissues. One of the first signs of improvement in disorders like diabetes, consumption, arthritis, Bright's disease, or even cancer, is the appearance of boils, showing that the vitality has improved to an extent sufficient to enable the foreign matter to be expelled by means of relatively harmless boils. The hydropathic expert also tries to induce this condition by means of his mustard and water packs.

If our correspondent wants to rid herself of her boils she must adopt all means to improve her vitality and to cleanse her body of its impurities. She can do this along many lines. She can take a holiday and rest from her work; or by positive thinking she can set to work to get rid of her worries. She can learn to laugh as often as possible, and to breathe deeply, slowly and fully. If her house is unsanitary she should make it sanitary, or move elsewhere.

Then she must restrict her diet and take only those forms of food which create a minimum amount of poison in the system. She must cleanse the colon daily with warm water enemas, and encourage the action of the kidneys in doing their rightful part in the elimination of poisons by the drinking of distilled water or a good herbal tea on rising, and of clear vegetable broth at night.

Clay packs, applied cold, are the best form of treatment for application to the boils themselves. They should never be cut or squeezed, as this only intensifies the trouble. Hot applications, as poultices, are bad, because they induce the boil to mature prematurely, and also are conducive to reinfection of the skin in other parts. Drugs or medicines are of very little use in the treatment of boils, because they do not go to the root of the trouble. The only remedy that I have found of any avail is yeast. In former times this was taken in the form of fresh or dried brewers' yeast, and it was, if unpleasant, a very effectual remedy. Yeast yields a free supply of what is called nuclein and nucleinic acid. These, chemically, are identical with the same substances found in the human cells. Nuclein is a powerful antiseptic. It has been found that the toxins or emanations from diphtheria and other deadly germs are precipitated and destroyed by nucleinic acid.

It is for this reason that yeast extracts, such as Marmite, often have a beneficial effect in disorders accompanied by the formation of pus matter.

Our correspondent's diet should be amended as follows:—

On rising.—A cupful of unseasoned Marmite.

Breakfast.—One scrambled or lightly poached egg with stale, yeast-made, wholemeal bread and nut butter, with lettuce or other salad food. No marmalade; no tea or coffee.

Lunch.—1 to 2 oz. of grated cheese or flaked pine kernels, finely shredded raw cabbage, or grated radishes, or grated raw roots with oil and lemon dressing. No cooked savouries, no puddings, nor stewed fruit with custard or blanc mange should be taken.

Tea Meal.—Cupful of Marmite, only.

Supper.—Clear, unseasoned, vegetable broth, with Veda or wholemeal bread, or Granose biscuits, with nut butter and some fresh fruit.

At bedtime.—A cupful of Marmite.

Note.—The unseasoned Marmite should be used, as the ordinary kind is rather heavily salted.

A BAD CASE OF SELF-POISONING.

Mrs H.W. writes:—I should be very glad if you would give me enlightenment on one or two points about my diet. I am suffering from a somewhat dilated stomach, also a catarrhal condition of nose, throat and alimentary canal, with constipation and much flatulence in the bowels. My teeth are decaying quickly, my nails have got softer, and I have become anÆmic and generally debilitated, being unable to properly assimilate my food. All my joints crack when moved, and the knee joints creak as well. Is this a uric acid condition, or do you think it merely due to a lack of nourishment, causing a lack of synovial fluid? The joints are not swollen and not painful, they merely crack. My whole system seems to be over-acid, and my mouth gets sore and ulcerated. I have got very thin, having lost a stone in twelve months.

I notice that you always advise for dilated stomach greatly restricting the liquid part of the diet. Will you tell me just how much one may drink in a day, because when I go without drinking my constipation and other troubles are worse and the urine gets thick and muddy.

You also deprecate milk. This puzzled me until you explained to a correspondent last month in The Healthy Life. Will you tell me if the same applies to dried milk—will it tend to increase intestinal trouble? I am anxious to know this because I have been relying somewhat on Emprote and Hygiama lately, for I had got so that I could scarcely digest anything.

Do you consider it better to use the enema than to take a mild aperient? I do not want to start with the enema again if I can possibly manage to do without, because I found that my bowels depended upon it. And that is why I want to ask if it is absolutely necessary when on an antiseptic diet to entirely avoid fruit. I find it so necessary to keep the bowels working naturally.

I do want you to answer me these questions, because I have got so worried and fearful (people's theories are so varied) that I scarcely dare eat any food at all. I am at present taking only two meals daily (I like the two-meal plan best): at eleven a.m. and 6 p.m. I take a cup of weak coffee on rising, without milk or sugar—this warm drink seems to start the peristaltic action and I then get bowel action. I think of changing the coffee for Sanum Tonic Tea or Dandelion Coffee.

At eleven o'clock I have an egg with Winter's “Maltweat” bread and almond butter, and some conservatively cooked vegetable (celery or carrot or spinach).

At six p.m. I have one or two baked apples, a teaspoonful or two of malted nuts, or Emprote, and more “Maltweat” bread and butter.

At four p.m. I take a cup of barley water or carrot water, and at bedtime another cup of barley water.

Do you think that if I went on to a milk diet for a time it would do good?

This correspondent seems to be suffering from auto-toxÆmia, or self-poisoning in a severe form, and a condition of what is termed arterio-sclerosis or premature old age. Associated with it are evidently symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, which is affecting her joints and teeth. It is not one of ordinary gout or uric acid poisoning. The trouble no doubt has been caused by past errors of diet, so that the present efforts at reform have come too late to be of service to her. Something more than diet is now needed to clear the acids and toxins from the system. It is not a simple case of digestive catarrh, for the whole body is affected. The present diet will answer very well as it stands.

The first thing to do is to obtain a well-fitting dilatation belt. This must have leg straps and firmly support the lower half of the abdomen. The next thing is to promote skin action so as to encourage the clearing out of poisons along this line of elimination. Vapour baths, wet-sheet packs or alkaline hot baths can effect this purpose. An alkaline hot bath should be of a temperature of 105 degrees Fahr. or more, and to the bath should be added ¼ lb. of bicarbonate of soda and ¼ lb. packet of “Robin” starch. She should remain as long as possible in this so as to well clear the acids from the skin and induce as much skin action or perspiration as possible. The first baths must be of very short duration, and she should be careful to avoid chill after the bath; it is best to lie prone and completely relaxed for half-an-hour at least after the bath. Finally massage and Swedish movements directed to the entire back will help to disencumber the central nervous system, which is evidently very badly depleted of its vital force. It is, of course, a pity the correspondent cannot get away to a properly organised Nature-Cure home and have the continuous attention and treatment which her condition really necessitates.

H. Valentine Knaggs.