The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-10-18

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and, to make a long story short. he is
4 now at home again, perfectly well.
i tits complained at the camp that they
get only the patients that are given up
by hospitals and doctors of medicine,
hence, in many cases, the recovery is
slow. The simplicity of the place and
the methods is its most striking fea-
ture. They do not care much for symp-
toms; they use no medical terms and
have no medicine whatever in the camp
lit makes no difference what, the ALL
ment may be.
All are treated practically alike. All
go naked from the time they arrive. E
| AT first they demur at casting aside
their clothes. and here the physician
in charge has often to exert his pow
ers of persuasion to the utmost. Now
/ and then a man refuses absolutely to
dfsrobe and walk around: whereupon
| he is told he must go, that nature will
! not cure him unless he does as the
animals do, and as primeval man did.
i Only a few days ago youth came
4 from Providence, r.. l., to take the
cure, but when told that he must go
about naked he refused. There was
nothing for him to do but to leave.
| There are tents about the camp with
| little transoms at each end to admit
of a. free circulation of air. In the
/ tents are cot beds on which few sleep
| at night, but many soon get to prefer
| the grave.
/ This is about foot deep, and late
any afternoon you may see the pa
tients making their beds with rake
smoothing out the soil, removing the
/ pebbles and sticks and curving the
| loose earth to fit the form of the body.
| After supper they lie down with mos
quito hoods over their heads and a
blanket over them and sleep.
| The first night, it is said, few sleep
much. They feel strange cravings
| and creepings under them and mag
| inc that bugs and worms are moving
| about next to the skin. These they
| never find, and it is explained to them
that it is the electricity of Mother
| Earth at work drawing on the body.
| In few days what IS called the cri-
| sis comes. The patient becomes i'll,
| has nausea and is depressed. The
body, it is asserted, is now purging
itself of the sickness Some develop
boils, and others are sick at the stom-
ach for perhaps day. Soon, how
ever, it all passes away and then the
patient is left weak but improved.
One of the strange things connected
with sleeping in the earth is that after
a few nights of what the average hui
man being calls sound sleep comes a
change. One begins to sleep lightly.
as the animals do, and to awake at the
crackle of a twig.
He lies there awake but resting, gaz-
ling at the mountains and the moving
pine branches about him. He is warm
and comfortable and it is said the SEN
sations are most pleasant. He may
not sleep more than five or six hours.
| but he arises in the morning thor
oughly rested.
| In the morning the patients go to
| the bank of the Rockaway river, which
runs through the camp. There they
| take sitz bath and are rubbed dry
without towels, their attendants using
| their bare hands much after the man
ner of the masseurs. Then they are
| free, after they eat, to roam about the
camp as they please, but going naked.
They lie on the grass, play games
of quoits, read and spend their time
in various ways. Once or twice each
! day they don shirts and trousers and
go on WdlkS AROUND the II
they are strong enough.
As for eating, many eat nothing
in the morning, and the diet always
consists of uncooked fruits, nuts, gra-
ham bread and sweet butter and milk.
There is absolutely nothing else to be
/ had in the camp.
If anyone complains he is calmly
told he may leave, but, at all events
nothing else will be given him. Soon
most of the patients become reconciled,
for. no matter what their disease, they
find the food gives them no discomfort
| Not all those who come to the camp
are cured, as the physician admits,
! but he says it is usually because they
will not remain lon- enough to effect
a cure. The life is so unlike anything
| they have ever experienced that not
| a few lack courage to continue.
Only week or so ago patient came
! who had been unable to move three
! fingers of one hand because of rheu
| matism. The hand had been in this
condition for nineteen years. After
three days the patient grew indignant;
he could not yet move those fingers.
You have not been able to move
them for nineteen years and you expect
10 cure lHSln III three OdSS.
You can co." said the doctor and the
patient departed.
This summer there have been two
or three at the camp who were cured
there last year or the year before, and
who are so infatuated with sleeping
on the ground and the complete and
exhilarating sense of freedom that the
absence of clothes gives them that
they now prefer TO pass their summer
vacations in this way.
It is said that no patient has ever
yet caught cold in the camp, no matter
how raw or rainy the weather. DR..
Lauterwasser has offered any patient
SO who catches cold there.
There was one man. he explains.
"who wanted that $40 very bad. He
did all manner of foolish things TO
catch cold. At last he got mad.
why is it, he said, at home with
my clothes on, if I but stick my nose
out of the door 1 catch cold? Up here,
naked. I cannot so much as get
cough
At regular intervals during the day