The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-03
HEALTH IN THE SOUTH SEA

with just the dimmest hutter of life in It to make it perambulate, turned his back upon men and tie habitations of men and dragged himself for five miles through the brush, away from the city of Portland Ore Of course he was crazy. Only a lu- natic would drag himself out of his deathbed.
 But in the brush Darling found what he was looking forrest Nobody bothered him with beefsteaks and pork No physi- clans lacerated his tired nerves by feeling his pulse, nor tormented his tired stom- ach with pellets and powders. He began to feel soothed. The sun was shining Warm, and he basked in it. He had tbe feeling that the sunshine was the elixir of health. Then it seemed to him that hls for the sun. He stripped off his clothes and bathed in the sunshine. He felt bet ter. It had done him good-the first re- lief in weary months of pain.
 As he grew better he sat up and began to take notice. All about him were the birds fiuttering and chirping, the squir- rels chattering and playing. He enviej thep their health and spirits, their happy, carefree existence That he should con- trast their conditions with his was ireyi- table; and that he should question why they were splendidly vigorous while Inc was a feeble, dying wrath of a man, was | likewise inevitable. His conclusion was the very obvious one, namely, that they lived naturally, while he lived most un- naturally; therefore. if he intended to live, he must return to Nature.
 | Alone, there in the brush, he worked out his problem and began to apply it. He stripped off his clothing and leaped and gamboled about, running on all fours, climbing trees; in short. doing physical stunts and all the time soaking in the sunshine. He initiated the animals. He built nest of dry leaves and grasses in which to sleep at night. covering 1t over with bark as a protection against the early fall rains. Here is a beautiful ex- ercise," he told me, once. Tapping his arms nightly against his sides; T learned | it from watching the roosters crow..' Another time I remarked the loud, bsuclling intakes with which he drank CO., coanut milk. He explained that he had
 
 concluded that there must be something in it. He tried it and found it good. and thereafter he drank only in that fashion. | He noted that the squirrels lived on | fruits and nuts. He started on fruit and nut diet, helped out by bread, and he grew stronger and put on weight. For three months he continued his pri:nordial existence in the brush, and then the heavy | Oregon rains drove him back to the babi- tations of men. Not in three months could a 90 pound survivor of two attacks 1 of pneumonia develop sufficient rugged ness to live through an Oregon winter in the open.
 | So Darling went thence in search Of | a climate which would not only be de- sirable. And he found it, in Tahiti, the garden spot of garden spots. And so 1t was. according to the narrative given. that he wrote the pages of his book He wears only loin cloth and sleeveless fshnet shirt His ripped weight is 165 pounds. His health is perfect. His eye l sight that at one time was considered ruined, Is excellent. The lungs that were practically destroyed by three attacks of pneumonia have not only recovered, but are stronger than ever before.