—Dr. Max Bircher-Benner
In fact, there are places in the world where men and women are presently alive, healthy, and capable of reproducing well past the century mark—notably Abkhazia, in the region of the Caucasus Mountains, in the Soviet Union; Vilcabamba, in Ecuador; and the land of the Hunzas, an independent state of Pakistan.
Later, in Chapter 15, we shall discuss the lifestyles of these remarkable people in some detail, as well as many facets of research into this fascinating subject and some of the Cayce-Reilly guides for your own personal use at home. For the moment, it suffices to point out that their lifestyle is consistent with the Cayce recipe for longevity and prolonged youthfulness.
Paradoxically, while science is working hard to present us with the gift of added years, people are suffering increasingly from chronic and degenerative diseases. Dr. Max Bircher-Benner, one of the great medical pioneers and champions of preventive medicine, said many years ago, “The realm of the incurables has expanded alarmingly. So also has the ability of the medical profession to prolong life artificially. But it was not the Creator’s intention that Man should live by the aid of crutches or turn the planet into one vast hospital for the sick.”1
I corresponded with Dr. Bircher-Benner until his death in 1939 and we shared a common philosophy of health—particularly the importance of prevention in medicine. After all, few of us would choose to stay alive a few more years as invalids, a burden to ourselves and to our families. It is not enough to add more years to life. It is how much life you have left in those years that counts.
In this regard, modern medical science, despite its many impressive achievements in curtailing infections and treating disease, is not doing as well in preventing illness and keeping us well. It is health that we all want—not just better health care. Since we have renewed our friendship with the Chinese, we might emulate one of their old customs and pay doctors when we are well, instead of when we are sick.
Today, modern man and woman (and their children) are an endangered species. The health of the American people is undergoing a gradual deterioration. The need is for more and larger hospitals, more medical schools turning out more doctors, new drugs, and vast sums for research. In 1971, then-President Richard M. Nixon asked federal officials to draft a program that would make Americans the healthiest people in the world. The report revealed that although Americans spend more money for health care than any other nation, their aggregate health is worse than that of most other industrialized countries. We have more cancer, heart disease, diabetes, mental illness, arthritis, and birth defects than any other industrialized nation in the world. We rank fiftieth in total life expectancy. Americans are less healthy than they were twenty years ago and our life expectancy is going down. The president charged his then-Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Elliot L. Richardson (and former attorney general), with “finding out what is necessary to make this country healthier than any other country in the world.”
He had just to look around the country at the everyday life of its citizens. We are surrounded on all sides by stealthy enemies, all the more malignantly deceitful and dangerous because they tiptoe about in such attractive disguises and are so quiet. The eight deadliest of these in our modern lifestyle are hidden in the air we breathe; the water we drink; the methods of food production, shipping, processing, and marketing; the family kitchen, where the great American diet is planned and executed (no pun intended); the dependence on the family automobile, which has immobilized us into heart disease and other killing ailments when it doesn’t kill or maim us outright on the road, and its companion in crime, the TV set; the friendly neighborhood corner drugstore, which has turned us into a nation of pill-poppers and assisted our children into drug addiction; and the “job,” with its killing stresses of insecurity, competition, ruinous “coffee breaks,” and business lunches.
We do not have to succumb to these enemies. If we are willing to exert the effort and discipline to use them, protective measures are available to us. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” in health as in all other aspects of life.
But now a medical man, Dr. Bircher-Benner, tells us, “My brothers, your life is on wrong lines. Try to recognize the dangers threatening your health and learn how to avoid them, before it is too late. Prevention is possible, provided you take it seriously; it will be effective if you are strong and determined.”2
After fifty-five years of treating the sick and recycling and building health, fitness, and vitality in thousands of individuals, I have learned that people take better care of their cars and their lawn mowers than they do of their bodies and their health. Over and over I have heard the lame excuse, “But I haven’t the time to exercise, to watch my diet, to do all the things you say I should do.”
I invariably reply, “You don’t have time to keep well, but you will find the time to be sick, won’t you?”
Less wax on the car and more peanut oil on the body should be the rule in households for a stronger, healthier population.
Although I am a physiotherapist, my specialization for over fifty-five years has been in treating and recycling the complete person: the one who reflects in his or her body and mind the impact of the external world upon him/her. I have said many times that the same blood that flows through the intestines flows through the brain; but I can reverse that and say that the blood that flows through the brain, where we worry and are anxious and afraid, flows through the intestines, where we suffer from tension.
Many men came to the Reilly Health Service in Rockefeller Center with the same complaint. “When I was in the military service, I was in wonderful shape. I felt fine all the time. Now I am out of shape and feel logy and toxic all the time. Can you put me back into the same fine shape I was in?”
In 1971, then-President Richard M. Nixon asked federal officials to draft a program that would make Americans the healthiest people in the world. The report revealed that although Americans spend more money for health care than any other nation, their aggregate health is worse than that of most other industrialized countries. —H.J.R.
I might have answered simply, “Yes, just take workouts in the gym, take an occasional steam bath along with a tonic spray and perhaps a massage, and you will be in the same good shape that regular living and regular exercise gave you when you were in the service.”
But we must remember the man in service did not have to worry about a raise in salary, the mood in which he might find his wife on returning home from work, the possibility of being fired, or the payment coming due on the mortgage. He did not have to make decisions; they were made for him. Therefore, he was able to relax, and the relaxation, along with the release from responsibility and tension, was partly responsible for the good physical condition in which he found himself.
Eight Enemies to Good Health
Our modern society and lifestyles hide enemies to health in the:
air we breathe
water we drink
methods of modern food production
family kitchen
automobile
television set
corner drugstore
stresses of our jobs
Less wax on the car and more peanut oil on the body should be the rule in households for a stronger, healthier population. —H.J.R.
The problem of putting these men into the same condition of “feeling good” is not simply one of improved nutrition and exercise. Also required is a psychological adjustment in the whole area of living—an adjustment that all people are forced to make if they are