The Dickinson press., 1899-03-25
FRESH AIR AND FOOD:
THE BLACK FOREST SURE CURE FOR
CONSUMPTION.

No Medicines. No incubation, Ne
Coddlins-simply Pure Air Day ana
Night, Enormous Meals, Carefully
Regulated Exercise and Rest.
There is an interesting article in The
Nineteenth Century in which Mr.. j.
A. Gibson tells how he was cured of
consumption. Nh. Gibson found him
self, at the age of 90, suffering from
acute phthisis. His case was pronounced
to be desperate by the doctors. He
weighed only 8 stone Z pounds. and the
disease had such a hold upon him that
no never expected to recover. However,
he went off into the country, as the
doctors advised, and after three months
Of complete rest and a diet of more
than half a gallon of milk a day he had
put on a few pounds weight. Then a
friend urged him to go to Nordrach in
the Black forest and place himself I'M
der DR.. Walther.
He did so, and in four months he
came back to England in a state of bar
barrie health. weighing 1917 stone and
with o chest measurement to correspond.
What was this magicaItreatment of DIR.
Walther7 Nourishment, rest and fresh
air-no medicines, no incubation, no
coddling, but simply open windows day
and night, enormous meals and careful
~ regulated exercise and rest.
It sounds an easy cure, and it began
to take effect instantaneously in MI.
Gibson's case. The first thing was to
gain in weight, and with this object in
view DR.. Walther fairly crammed his
patient. Mr.. Gibson gained in weight.
Everybody else gainedi in weight. There
was a competition as to who should
gain most, and people ate for dear life.
with all eye on the scale.
"We used to say among ourselves"
writes Mr.. Gibson, "that we had to eat
three times the ordinary amount of food
one portion to replace natural waste,
a second portion to replace the extra
waste from the disease and a third por-
tion to put on weight SO that the system
might be strengthened and finally get
the better Of the disease" Everybody
had to lie down for an hour before
meals. To bed at 8 and up at z; break
East at g., dinner at 1, supper at This
was the days routine, with a walk at
snail's pace.
From the moment of arrival until
leaving Nordrach the patient never
breathes one breath of any but the
purest air, as Nordrach is in the Black
Forest, at an elevation of 1900 feet,
surrounded by trees, and a long way
from a town or even q village. The
easement windows of the s%anitarium are
Kept wide open day and night, summer
md winter, and in some instances the
windows are taken completely out of
the frames.
Thus it is practically an outdoor life
the patient lives continuously. There is
therefore no danger Of chills on going
out in n kind Of weather or at any
hour, as the temperature within and
without ia equal. So pleasant does this
living in the open become and SO hardy
Is the patient made and so i%nvigorated
that on his return to this country it is
the greatest misery for him to have to
remain in a room with closed windows.
Being at such a considerable height
II, 500 feet, with a rise in the longer
walks of another 800 feet-the pa
tient, to get the same amount of oxygen
into the system, must breathe relative
" more of the rarefied air and thus ex-
pand the lungs. In this way the lungs
are completely flooded with pure air.
All the odd corners and crannies, which
he has hardly used for years, are venti-
lated, which the easy walking up hill is
eminently calculated to effect, while at
the same time the almost absolute rest
the patient enjoys allows the lungs to
be practically undisturbed, and so per-
mits the healing process to proceed.
The climate is much the same as in
England. There is quite as high a rain
fall, and in winter it is much colder.
But it has been demonstrated beyond a
doubt that climate has absolutely moth
ing to do with the case.
There the patients, who go out regu-
larly day after day in all kinds of
weather, sometimes walk for hours at a
time in the rain without eve thinking
| of changing their wet clothes afterward.
| This course MI. Gibson still adopts and
finds that such a wetting-sometimes
| twice in one day-never does him any
harm whatever.
He asked DR.. Walther if he thought
his system could be carried on with hope
of success in this country. He said that
it could be worked here quite as well as
at Nordrach, or as in the balmiest
| cline; that all that was required was a
place where pure air was to be had, sit
uated well away from a town, at a fair
| elevation, and the man to see that the
system was properly carried out. MI.
Gibson is now convinced that this is
perfectly true.
Absolutely nothing else is needed.
Freedom from wind, a high average Of
! sunshine, dry climate and all such other
things as + generally supposed to be
10 necessary go for nothing. And this
f; Is the crux of the whole matter. It is
possible to cure here, on the spot, al
most all the people of this country who
are ill Of phthisis. Why, then, are sani-
tariums not erected at once to cur the
hundreds of thousands of those who are
i'll and who have not the means to 20
abroad-hundreds Of thousands who are
as certainly doomed to death as if they
were already under the sod if some
such steps be not at once taken? It Is
sad to think that all these people must
die when they might easily be saved.
Judging a Mules Speed.
"When I was a young man," quotl
Officer Fayette Jones, "from a stand
point of years, I used to trade mules &C
c~asionally. One day I had a disput,
with a man to whom I had sold an ami
NAL about its speed. We were unable t,