The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-09-20

Providence, X. l., to take the cure, but when
told that he must go about naked he re-
fused. 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
free circulation Of air. In tho 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 patients making
their beds with a 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 mosquito hoods over their heads and
| blanket over them and sleep.
The first night, it is said, few sleep much.
They feel strange cravings and creepings
| under them and imagine that bugs and
worms are moving about next the skin
These they never find. and it is explained
that it is the electricity Of Mother Earth
at work drawing on the body.
In few days what is called a crisis comes.
The patient becomes i'll, has nausea and is
| depressed. The body, it is asserted, 10
now purging itself Of the sickness. Some
develop bols, and others are sick at the
stomach for perhaps day. Soon. how
ever it all passes away and then the pa
tient is left weak but improved,
One Of the strange things connected
with sleeping in the earth is that after
few nights of what the average human
being calls sound sleep comes change
One begins to sleep lightly, as the animals
do, and to awake at the crackle Of twig
He lies there awake but resting, gazing
at the mountains and the moving pine
branches about him. He is warm and
comfortable and it Is said the sensations
are most pleasant. He may not sleep
more than five or six hours, but ne arises
in the morning thoroughly rested.
In the morning the patients go TO the
bank OF the Rockaway River, which runs
through the camp. There they take a
stz bath and are rubbed dry without towels,
the attendants using their bare bands much
| after the manner 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 va
rious ways. Once or twice each day they
don shirts and trousers and go on walks
around the country, if tn ey are strong
! enough.
| As for the eating, many eat nothing in
| the morning. and the diet always con-
| sists Of uncooked fruits, nuts, graham
! bread and sweet butter and milk. There
! is absolutely nothing else to be had in the
! camp
| If anyone complains he lis calmly told
| he may leave, but, at all events, nothing else
will be given him. Soon most OF the pa
tents 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 1t is usually because they will not re-
main long enough to effect cure. The
! life is 80 unlike anything they have ever
I. experienced that not few lack courage to
continue,
| Only u week or SO ago patient came
who had been unable to move three fingers
OF one hand because Of rheumatism. The
hand had been in this condition for nine
teen years. After three days the patient
grew Indignant; he could not yet move those
you have not been able to move them
for nineteen years and you expect nature
to cure them in three days. You can go,
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.
1t is said that no patient has ever yet caught
cold in the camp, no matter how raw OF
rainy the weather. DIR. Lauterwasser has
offered any patient $40 who catches cold
there.
"There was one man." he explains, awhe
wanted that $40 very bad. He did al
manner Of foolish things to catch cold
At last he got mad.
why is it, he said, at home with ny
clothes on, II but stick my nose out OIL
the door l catch cold? Up here naked
cannot so much as get a cough
At regular intervals during the day The
} patients have mud packs applied to them
A consumptive has wet clay plasterec
over his chest; the victim Of nervous disc as'
has it packed along his spine, the suffer e
from kidney trouble has it on the back
and SO on.
Once the mud is applied the patien
lies ia a grave for three or four hours a
q time, covered with loose earth. All thi
is as the wild animals do. Light, air, mud
, the earth sleep and fruit and nut die
are tho whole treatment