We have then for modern mothers the message from these primitives to use the sea
foods liberally, both during the preparatory period in anticipation of pregnancy and during that
entire period. In Fig. 129 will be seen a woman of one of the Fiji Islands who had gone several
miles to the sea to get this particular type of lobster-crab which she believed, and which her tribal
custom had demonstrated, was particularly efficient for producing a highly perfect infant. FIG. 129. This Fiji woman has come a long distance to gather
special foods needed for the production of a healthy child. These and many primitive people have understood the
necessity for special foods before marriage, during gestation,
during the nursing period and for rebuilding before the next
pregnancy. For the Indians of the far North this reinforcement was accomplished by supplying special
feedings of organs of animals. Among the Indians in the moose country near the Arctic circle a
larger percentage of the children were born in June than in any other month. This was
accomplished, I was told, by both parents eating liberally of the thyroid glands of the male moose
as they came down from the high mountain areas for the mating season, at which time the large
protuberances carrying the thyroids under the throat were greatly enlarged. Among the Eskimos I found fish eggs were eaten by the childbearing women, and the milt of the
male salmon by the fathers for the purpose of reinforcing reproductive efficiency. The coastal Indians in Peru ate the so-called angelote egg, an organ of the male fish of an
ovoviviparous species. These organs were used by the fathers-to-be and the fish eggs by the7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 240/250mothers-to-be. In Africa I found many tribes gathering certain plants from swamps and marshes and streams,
particularly the water hyacinth. These plants were dried and burned for their ashes which were put
into the foods of mothers and growing children. A species of water hyacinth is shown in Fig. 130. The woman shown in Fig. 130, with an enormous goiter, had come down from a nine-thousand-
foot level in the mountains above Lake Edward. Here all the drinking water was snow water which
did not carry iodine. She had come down from the high area to the sixthousand-foot level to gather
the water hyacinth and other plants to obtain the ashes from these and other iodine carrying plants
to carry back to her children to prevent, as she explained, the formation of "big neck," such as she
had. The people living at the six-thousand-foot level also use the ashes of these plants. FIG. 130. This African woman with goiter has come down
from the 9000 foot level in the mountains in Belgian Congo
near the source of the Nile to a 6000 foot level to gather
special plants for burning to carry the ashes up to her family
to prevent goiter in her children. Right, a Nile plant, a water
hyacinth burned for its ashes. Among many of the tribes in Africa there were not only special nutritional programs for the
women before pregnancy, but also during the gestation period, and again during the nursing period. As an illustration of the remarkable wisdom of these primitive tribes, I found them using for the
nursing period two cereals with unusual properties. One, was a red millet which was not only high
in carotin but had a calcium content of five to ten times that of most other cereals. They used also
for nursing mothers in several tribes in Africa, a cereal called by them linga-linga. This proved to be
the same cereal under the name of quinua that the Indians of Peru use liberally, particularly the
nursing mothers. The botanical name is quinoa. This cereal has the remarkable property of being
not only rich in minerals, but a powerful stimulant to the flow of milk. I have found no record of the
use of similar cereals among either the English or American peoples. In Chapter 14, I presented
data indicating that the Peruvians, who were descendants of the old Chimu culture on the coast of
Peru, used fish eggs liberally during the developmental period of girls in order that they might
perfect their physical preparation for the later responsibility of motherhood. These fish eggs were
an important part of the nutrition of the women during their reproductive period. They were
available both at the coast market of Peru and as dried fish eggs in the highland markets, whence
they were obtained by the women in the high Sierras to reinforce their fertility and efficiency for
childbearing. A chemical analysis of the dried fish eggs that I brought to my laboratory from Alaska
as well as of samples brought from other places has revealed them to be a very rich source of
body-building minerals and vitamins. Here again, I have found no record of their use in our modern
civilization for reinforcing physical development and maternal efficiency for reproduction. As I have
noted in Chapter 15 special nutrition was provided for the fathers by tribes in the Amazon jungle,
as well as by the coastal tribes. Professor Drummond, a British bio-chemist, in discussing the question of the modern decline in
fertility, before the Royal Society of Medicine (4) suggested that the decline in the birth rate in
European countries, during the last fifty years, was due, largely, to the change in national diets
which resulted from the removal of vitamins B and E from grains when the embryo or germ was
removed in the milling process. He called attention to the fact that the decline in the birth rate7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 241/250corresponded directly with the time when the change was made in the milling process so that
refined flour was made available instead of the entire grain product. Of the many problems on which the experience of the primitive races can throw light, probably
none is more pressing than practical procedures for improving child life. Since this has been shown
to be largely dependent upon the architectural design, as determined by the health of the parental
germ cells and by the prenatal environment of the child, the program that is to be successful must
begin early enough to obviate these various disturbing forces. The normal determining factors that
are of hereditary origin may be interrupted in a given generation but need not become fixed
characteristics in the future generations. This question of parental nutrition, accordingly, constitutes
a fundamental determining factor in the health and physical perfection of the offspring. One of the frequent problems brought to my attention has to do with the responsibility of young
men and women in the matter of the danger of transmitting their personal deformities to their
offspring. Many, indeed, with great reluctance and sense of personal loss decline marriage because
of this fear, a fear growing out of the current teaching that their children will be marked as they
have been. On the presumption that all mentally crippled individuals will be in danger of transmitting these
qualities to their offspring there is a strong movement continually in operation toward segregating
such individuals or incapacitating them by sterilization. Several primitive racial stocks have
produced large populations without criminals and defectives by means of an adequate nutritional
program which provided normal development and function. May it not be that even our defectives,
when they have resulted from poisoning of germ cells or interference with an adequate normal
intrauterine environment, may be able to build a society with a high incidence of perfection, that will
progressively return toward Nature's ideal of human beings with normal physical, mental and moral
qualities? Because of its interpretation of the individual's responsibility for his mental and moral
qualities, society has not only undertaken to protect itself from the acts of so-called unsocial
individuals but has proceeded to treat them as though they were responsible for the injury that
society has done to them. Does it not seem inevitable that this apparently false attitude will change
if it be demonstrated that they are the result of a program of inadequate nutrition for the parents. As we have seen, the children born in many of the families of primitive racial stocks after the
parents have adopted our modernized dietary, may have marked changes in the facial and dental
arch forms. In our modernized white civilization this change occurs so frequently that in a
considerable percentage of the families there is seen a progressive narrowing of the dental arches
in the succeeding children of the same family. Since the position of the permanent teeth which erupt
at from seven to twelve years of age, can be determined by x-rays early in child life, this procedure
provides an opportunity to anticipate deformities that will make their appearance with the eruption
of the permanent teeth. In Fig. 131, may be seen the x-rays of the upper arches of three children. Even under conditions
causing the permanent teeth to develop irregularly the deciduous dental arch will not show the
deformity that will be expressed later in the permanent dental arch. The abnormal placement of the
developing permanent teeth, however, will show the deformity that is later to be produced in the
face even though the deciduous arch is normal in design. Both deciduous and permanent teeth can
be seen at the same time. In Fig. 131 it will be seen that there is a progressive deformity revealed
in the position of the permanent teeth in these three children. (Most severe in the youngest.) This
narrowing of the curve made by the permanent teeth is a condition characteristic of a large number
of individuals, occurring in at least 25 per cent of the families throughout the United States; in some
districts the percentage will reach 50 to 75 per cent.7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 242/250FIG. 131. X-rays of teeth of three children in one family show in the
teeth and upper arch a progressive injury in the younger children as
indicated by the progressive narrowing of the placement of the tooth
buds of the upper permanent teeth. Note the narrowing curve of the
arch. Another striking illustration of this progressive injury in the younger members of the family,
detected early by the x-rays, is shown in Fig. 132. Note the breadth of the arch of the permanent
teeth of the oldest child (to the left), and the marked narrowing of the arch of the two younger
children (to the right). FIG. 132. These x-rays illustrate the progressive injury in the two
younger children in this family. Note the progressive narrowing of the
permanent arch illustrated by the lapping of the laterals over the
centrals in the youngest, and decreasing distance between the
cuspids. While the application of orthodontic procedures for the improve- ment of the facial form and
arrangement of the teeth will make a vast improvement in facial expression, that procedure will not
modify disturbances in other parts of the body, such as the abnormal underdevelopment of the hips
and pelvic bones. If an improvement in nutrition for the mothers-to-be is adequately provided in
accordance with the procedures of the primitives, it should be possible to prevent this progressive
lowering of the capacity of our modern women to produce physically fit children. Fig. 133 is another illustration. The oldest child, ten years of age, is shown at the upper left. She
has a marked underdevelopment of the width of the face and dental arches. The nostrils are
abnormally narrow and she tends to be a mouth breather. She is very nervous and is becoming
stooped. In the lower left photograph, is shown an x-ray of the narrowed upper arch. At the right
is shown her younger sister, six years of age. It will be seen that the proportions of her face are
much more normal and that she breathes with complete ease through her nose. She has none of the
nervous trouble of her older sister. In the x-rays, below, at the right, it will be seen that her
permanent arch, as indicated by the positions of the permanent teeth, although not so far advanced
as that of her sister, has good design. The history of these pregnancies is of interest. The duration
of labor for the first child was fifty-three hours and for the second three hours. Following the birth
of the first child the mother was a partial invalid for several months. Following that of the second
child the experience of childbirth made but slight impression on the strength and health of the
mother. During the first pregnancy no special effort was made to reinforce the nutrition of the
mother. During the second pregnancy the selection of foods was made on the basis of nutrition of
the successful primitives. This included the use of milk, green vegetables, sea foods, organs of
animals and the reinforcement of the fat-soluble vitamins by very high vitamin butter and high
vitamin natural cod liver oil. It is a usual experience that the difficulties of labor are greatly
decreased and the strength and vitality of the child enhanced where the mother has adequately
reinforced nutrition along these lines during the formative period of the child.7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 243/250FIG. 133. In this family the first child to the left was most
injured in the formative period as shown in the form of the
face and dental arches above and x-rays below. The first
child required fifty-three hours of labor and the second three
hours, preceded by special nutrition of the mother. The problem of maternal responsibility with regard to the physical capacity of their offspring to
reproduce a healthy new generation comprises one of the most serious problems confronting
modern degenerating society. In a previous chapter I have discussed the difficulty that zoological
garden directors have had in rearing members of the cat family in captivity. It has been a very
general experience until the modern system of feeding animal organs was instituted, that unless the
mothers-to-be had themselves been born in the jungle the lack of development of the pelvic arch
would frequently prevent normal birth of their young. In the Cleveland Zoo a very valuable tigress,
that had been born in captivity, found it impossible to give birth to her young. Although a Caesarian
operation was performed, she lost her life. The young also died. One of the veterinaries told me
that the pelvic arch was entirely too small to allow the young to pass through the birth canal. Studies of the facial bones of this animal showed marked abnormality in development. The result of disturbance in the growth of the bones of the head and of the development of
general body design is quite regularly a narrowing of the entire body, and often there is a definite
lengthening. Statistics have been published relative to the increase in the height of girls in colleges
during the last few decades. This is probably a bad rather than a good sign as actually it is an
expression of this change in the shape of the body. I am informed by gynecologists that narrowing
of the pelvic arch is one of the factors that is contributing to the increased difficulties that are
encountered in childbirth by our modern generation. A typical case illustrating the relationship between the lack of pelvic development and deformity
of the face, is presented in Fig. 134. This girl presented a very marked underdevelopment of the
lower third of the face which produced the appcarance of protrusion of her upper teeth so that it
was quite difficult or impossible for her to cover them with her lips. An operation to improve her
appearance consisted in removing the first bicuspid on each side above and then moving the bone
carrying the anterior teeth backward with appliances, the width of the two removed teeth. This
changed the relationship of the teeth as shown in the two upper views in Fig. 134. The operation
greatly improved her facial appearance and she lost the inferiority complex which had prevented
her from mingling with young people. When she went to the hospital for her first child, there was
special concern because of her weak heart, and every effort was made to obtain a normal birth
rather than one by Caesarian section. This proved impossible and the Caesarian operation was
done. Great difficulty was experienced in saving the life of the mother and child. Her boyish figure,
of which she had been so proud, and which had been a part of her serious deformity, during her
formative period had nearly resulted in her undoing. She nursed her baby for some time but the7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 244/250overdraft of reproduction on her frail body was so great that she aged rapidly, her back weakened
and she stooped forward as shown in Fig. 134, lower right. In the view at the lower left, it will be
seen that the teeth remained in their new position. A point to keep in mind is that her physical
deficiency was probably directly caused by an inadequate nutrition of her mother during the
intrauterine development and prior to conception. It is, of course, possible that the father also
contributed a poisoned germ cell that constituted a disturbance in the architectural design of the
offspring. In this connection, it is important to have in mind the tragic influence of a program of
deliberate starvation of mothers-to-be in order that the bones of the baby may be soft and thus
provide an easy birth. Some literature has been published indicating the foods that would be
efficient in accomplishing this. This means almost certain wreckage or handicapping of the child's
life. FIG. 134. This girl suffered with a serious deformity of her
face. She also had very contracted pelvic arch. The facial
deformity was improved as shown. She nearly lost her life
with the birth of her first baby which was removed by
Caesarian operation. Note her badly deformed back from the
overload of reproduction. Information from many sources may suggest that the expectant mother needs more calcium and
more vitamin D. She may go to the pharmacy with a prescription or on her own initiative obtain
calcium tablets and so-called vitamin D as a synthetic preparation. We are concerned here with
data which will throw light on the comparative value of the treatment the modern mother will thus
give herself with that that the primitive mother would provide. Dr. Wayne Brehm who is associated with two Columbus, Ohio, hospitals has recently published
the results (5)  of a study of the effect of the treatment received in 540 obstetrical cases divided into7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 245/250six groups of ninety individuals each, on the basis on which their nutrition was reinforced in order
to study the comparative effects of the different treatments. The reinforcement of the diet consisted
in Group 1 of taking calcium and synthetic vitamin D as viosterol; Group 2, calcium alone; Group
3, viosterol alone; Group 4, calcium and cod liver oil; Group 5, cod liver oil alone and Group 6, no
reinforcement. For those receiving the calcium and viosterol there was extensive calcification in the
placentae, marked closure of the fontanelle (the normal opening in the top of the infant skull) and
marked calcification in the kidneys. For those receiving calcium alone there was no placental
calcification, slight closure of the fontanelle and no calcification of the kidneys. Group 3 receiving
viosterol had moderate to marked placental calcification, moderate closure of the fontanelle and no
calcification of the kidneys. Those receiving cod liver oil alone had very slight placental
calcification, slight fontanelle closure and no calcification in the kidneys. Those receiving no
reinforcement had very slight placental calcification, normal fontanelle closures and no calcification
of the kidneys. The effect on the mother was a prolonging of labor in Group 1 and at birth the fetal
heads were less moulded not being able to adjust their shape to the shape of the birth tube. These
infants had a general appearance of ossification or postmaturity. This strongly emphasizes the great
desirability of using Nature's natural foods instead of modern synthetic substitutes. It is a matter of great importance that the most serious disturbances in reproduction and
childbirth are occurring in the most civilized parts of the world. In Chapter 19 I have referred to
the important work of Dr. Kathleen Vaughan entitled "Safe Childbirth." She has not only had wide
experience among several tribes in India and in the British Hospitals but has collected a large
quantity of information regarding the experience of many races throughout the world. Her data
strongly emphasize the necessity that the growing girl shall be allowed to have an active outdoor
life not only until the completion of the building of her body at about fourteen years of age, but
through the child-bearing period. In practically all countries a restricted sedentary indoor life
greatly increases the complications associated with childbirth. She quotes Whitridge Williams to
the effect that: "At the onset of pregnancy the (males) are 125 to 100 (females), and he adds that
sex is determined in the germ cells, primarily or immediately after their union, and is immutable by
the time segmentation of the ovum begins." Notwithstanding this advantage, prenatal and infant
mortality reduces the proportion of boys to a level below that of girls. Dr. Vaughan in her
reference to the data on the annual report of the chief medical officer, the Minister of Health, states
as follows:
    Our infant mortality returns show that over half the number of infants dying before they are a
year old die before they have lived a month (and 6,744 of them before they are twenty-four
hours old), strongly suggesting that their vitality was impaired by the process of birth. The
figures of those who did not survive one month are 20,060, and of these more than half are
males. So we lose over ten thousand boys every year under a month old! (Public Health Report,
No. 55, British). Hear what Dr. Peter McKinley has to say on the subject. "The death rate of
infants in the period immediately subsequent to birth is nine times as high as that which occurs
later in the first years of life." He shows how the difficulty experienced by the mothers during
parturition leads to the death of infants at and just after birth, and says in this connection,
"Infant deaths under a month are significantly associated with the death rates of mothers in
childbearing." He quotes Netherland statistics showing that of stillbirths due to difficulty during
birth, male stillbirths predominate, and says, "These figures might be taken in support of the
view that the greater size of the male head is a cause of some greater difficulty in labour than
there is with a female birth." Here, indeed, in civilized childbirth is the laboratory where the sex
of the population is finally determined-the actual births of boys and girls are nearly equal in
number, but the small ones slip through; the larger children are the ones who are killed during
birth, or so damaged that life is heavily handicapped, and we are left with an enormous surplus
female population. This destruction of male infants, which goes on day by day and year by year,
puts the consequences of the Great War into the shade. Our surplus female population (now
reaching over one and a half million in excess of the male) is directly due to it. We have no need
of Pharaoh's midwives to kill our boys off at birth (Exodus i. 16). Civilization does it unaided, for
all civilized races as they pass their zenith and are on the downgrade have eventually had to
face the same problem, the outnumbering of men by women, and most of them have met it as the
East does to-day by female infanticide. A more intelligent policy would be to prevent the males
dying at birth. We see that difficult childbirth leads to a high maternal mortality, but it is also the
cause of a high infant mortality falling most heavily upon the male infants, and it is also
responsible for the production of mental defectives in ever-increasing numbers. Dr. Vaughan's work places emphasis on the necessity that the human body be properly built,7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 246/250especially that of the mother-to-be. She shows clearly that the shape of the pelvis is determined by
the method of life and the nutrition. In all primitive tribes living an outdoor life childbirth is easy and
labor is of short duration. She shows that this is associated with a round pelvis and that the
distortion of the pelvis to a flattened or kidney shape, even to a small degree, greatly reduces the
capacity and therefore the ease with which the infant head may pass through the birth canal. In Dr.
Vaughan's wide experience she has observed two ways by which a rough estimate of the pelvic
shape and capacity may be anticipated: first, by the gait of the individual, because the angle of the
hips is determined by the shape of the pelvis; and second, by the teeth and jaws. She has
recognized an association between facial and dental arch deformities and deformed pelvis. During my investigations in eastern Australia I was informed that the birth rate among the whites
had declined over a large area and to such an extent that many families had no children and many
women could produce only one child. The diets used in that district were very largely refined
white-flour products, sugar, polished rice, vegetable fats, canned goods and a limited amount of
meat. The alarm regarding the declining birth rate in Australia has recently been a matter of
discussion by the New South Wales legislature as indicated by an Associated Press dispatch from
Sydney, Australia, dated August 1, 1938: "A 'stork derby' with sweepstakes prizes was proposed
in the New South Wales Legislature today to boost Australia's falling birth rate." A report just received from the Bureau of Home Economics, Department of Agriculture,
Washington, presents figures for the average amount of the various foods used in different income
groups in different parts of the United States. These showed that in general about one-third of the
income up to $2500 was spent for food per family; further, that the total flour equivalent ranged
from 0.39 to 0.50 pound per capita per day. These quantities will furnish about 829 to 1063
calories per day, per capita. It will be seen at once that this provides a large number of the calories
required for growing children and sedentary adults per day. With this number of calories derived
from refined flour products there is no adequate provision for a normal amount of such body-
building materials as minerals and vitamins. These have been removed, largely, in the milling
process, and are largely denied to our modern civilization insofar as the cereal foods are
concerned. This includes vitamin E, so essential for the functioning of the pituitary gland, the master
governor of the body. One of the most important lessons we may learn from the primitive cultures is the detail of their
procedures for preventing dental caries. Since I have devoted an entire chapter (Chapter 16) to
this I will make only a brief comment here. Simply stated, the practical application of the primitive
wisdom for accomplishing this would involve returning to the use of natural foods which provide
the entire assortment of bodybuilding and repairing food factors. This means the recognition of the
fact that all forms of animal life are the product of the food environments that have produced them. Therefore, we cannot distort and rob the foods without serious injury. Nature has put these foods
up in packages containing the combinations of minerals and other factors that are essential for
nourishing the various organs. Some of the simpler animal forms are able to synthesize in their
bodies some of the food elements which we humans also require, but cannot create ourselves. Our
modern process of robbing the natural foods for convenience or gain completely thwarts Nature's
inviolable program. I have shown how the robbing of the wheat in the making of white flour
reduced the minerals and other chemicals in the grains, so as to make them sources of energy
without normal body-building and repairing qualities. Our appetites have been distorted so that
hunger appeals only for energy with no conscious need for body-building and repairing chemicals. A first requisite for the control of tooth decay is to have provided an adequate intake of the
body-building and repairing factors by the time the hunger appeal for energy has been satisfied. A
sufficient variety of foods must be used to supply the body's demand for those elements which it
needs in large quantities, that is, calcium and phosphorus, and the other elements which it needs in
smaller quantities, though just as imperatively. One of the serious human deficiencies is the inability
to synthesize certain of the activators which include the known vitamins. This makes necessary the
reinforcement of the nutrition with definite amounts of special foods to supply these organic
catalysts, especially the fat-soluble activators, including the known vitamins, which are particularly7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 247/250difficult to provide in adequate quantities. I have shown that the primitive races studied were
dependent upon one of three sources for some of these fat-soluble factors, namely, sea foods,
organs of animals or dairy products. These are all of animal origin. I have indicated in Chapter 16
the nutritional programs that have proved in clinical testing adequate for providing the body with
nutrition that will not only prevent tooth decay, but check it when it is active. The stress periods of
life, namely, active growth in children and motherhood, do not constitute overloads among most of
the primitive races because the factor of safety provided by them in the selection of foods is
sufficiently high to protect them against all stresses. I have indicated the type of nutrition that is
especially needed for these stress periods in our modern civilization. Also, that it is not necessary
to adopt the foods of any particular racial stock, but only to make our nutrition adequate in all its
nutritive factors to the primitive nutritions. Tooth decay is not only unnecessary, but an indication of
our divergence from Nature's fundamental laws of life and health. (See Chapter 16 for primitive
menus.) The responsibility of our modern processed foods of commerce as contributing factors in
the cause of tooth decay is strikingly demonstrated by the rapid development of tooth decay
among the growing children on the Pacific Islands during the time trader ships made calls for dried
copra when its price was high for several months. This was paid for in 90 per cent white flour and
refined sugar and not over 10 per cent in cloth and clothing. When the price of copra reduced
from $400 a ton to $4 a ton, the trader ships stopped calling and tooth decay stopped when the
people went back to their native diet. I saw many such individuals with teeth with open cavities in
which the tooth decay had ceased to be active. In undertaking to make practical application of primitive wisdom to our modern problems, the
field is so broad that only a limited number of items may be included. It is important to emphasize
the difference between the procedures used in the preparation of boys and girls for life in many of
the primitive groups, and in our modern social organization. Few people will realize the remarkable
training given the primitive children, with the fathers and mothers as tutors. To illustrate, among the
Indians of the far North in Canada near the Arctic Circle, the girls rather than the boys select a
companion for life. This is done with the help of her parents. Before a boy is considered worthy of
consideration he must demonstrate that he can build the winter cabin, provide the firewood for
maintaining the home of the parents, and all of the provisions of wild game, during the trial period
of several weeks. After an adequate demonstration of bravery as well as of skill, in which the boy
must kill a grizzly bear, he is accepted into the home for a period of trial marriage. The girl has the
privilege of making her choice by trial, but when the choice is made there is complete faithfulness
on the part of both. Girls are prepared for life's duties by being taught to make clothing, prepare
food, care for children and assist in the maintenance of the home. I have seldom, if ever, seen such
happy people as these forest Indians of the far North. In Chapter 10, in discussing the Australian Aborigines, I have similarly described the
preparation of boys for the responsibility of manhood. No modern college graduate has to win his
spurs under more exacting examinations and tests than do those boys. In Africa several specialties call for special training. The medicine men spend several years
under the training of a tutor. Each boy must provide a specified number of cattle per year which
are eaten by the group. Probably the most indelible impression that is left by my investigations among primitive races, is
that which came from examining 1,276 skulls of the people who had been buried hundreds of
years ago along the Pacific Coast of Peru and in the high Andean Plateau, without finding a single
skull with the typical marked narrowing of the face and dental arches, that afflicts a considerable
proportion not only of the residents in modernized districts in Peru, but in most of the United States
and many communities of Europe today. I know of no problem so important to our modern
civilization as the finding of the reason for this, and the elimination of the cause of error. Perhaps
few will recognize the significance of this important point. This may be the reason why the prospect
is not encouraging. One of the important lessons we should learn from the primitive races is that of the need for
maintaining a balance beween soil productivity, plant growth and human babies. Even in a country7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 248/250with so low a fertility as obtains in the greater part of Australia, the Aborigines for a very long
period were able to maintain this balance. Their system of birth control was very efficient and
exacting. A survey made by a committee appointed by the League of Nations indicates the need per
capita of approximately one-half acre of land for wheat, two acres for dairy products, and ten
acres for beef producing pasture for the supply of meat. When we realize that Ohio has been
occupied by our modern civilization for only one hundred fifty years and that it is estimated that
during that time approximately half of the topsoil has been lost through water and wind erosion we
realize that Nature's accumulated vegetable enrichment has been greatly reduced in this area within
a short time from this one source alone. In Chapter 20 I have shown that there is only enough
phosphorus in the top seven inches of agricultural land for approximately fifty crops of high-yield
wheat or one hundred crops of moderate-yield. Other grains make similar drafts upon the land. I
have given data indicating a relationship between progressive soil depletion and progressive
increase in heart disease. It is apparent that the present and past one or two generations have taken more than their share
of the minerals that were available in the soil in most of the United States, and have done so
without returning them. Thus, they have handicapped, to a serious extent, the succeeding
generations, since it is so difficult to replenish the minerals, and since it is practically impossible to
accumulate another layer of topsoil, in less than a period of many hundreds of years. This
constitutes, accordingly, one of the serious dilemmas, since human beings are dependent upon soil
for their animal and plant foods, for body-building. The minerals are in turn dependent upon the
nutritive factors in the soil for establishing their quality. The vitamin and protein content of plants
has been shown to be directly related to availability of soil minerals and other nutriments. A
program that does not include maintaining this balance between population and soil productivity
must inevitably lead to disastrous degeneration. Over-population means strife and wars. The
history of the rise and fall of many of the past civilizations has recorded a progressive rise, while
civilizations were using the accumulated nutrition in the topsoil, forest, shrubbery and grass,
followed by a progressive decline, while the same civilizations were reaping the results of the
destruction of these essential ultimate sources of life. Their cycle of rise and degeneration are
strikingly duplicated in our present American culture. Various therapeutic measures in use today have come to us from primitive peoples. One of the
greatest scourges of the world is malaria fever. Everywhere it has been fought successfully with
quinine. Indeed, many parts of the world would not have been tenantable for whites without it. Yet
few people realize that quinine was the gift of the ancient Peruvian Indians. In Chapter 15 I presented data regarding the treatment used by several primitive races for
preventing and correcting serious disturbances in the digestive tract. This consisted in the use of
clay or aluminum silicate which modern science has learned has the important quality of being able
to adsorb and thus collect toxic substances and other products. Important new light is now thrown
on the probable role of this substance in the primitive diet and its possible application in our
modern problems of sensitization reactions or allergies. In the first volume of my work on "Dental
Infections," I presented data relating toxic sensitization reactions to dental infections. These were
shown in both animals and human beings. I discussed the relation of these reactions to histamine
and emphasized their similarity to the effect produced by inocculation with histamine. An important
new chapter has recently. been added to this problem by the work of Dr. C. F. Code for which he
has received an award by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He reported
his findings before the Association meeting at Richmond, Virginia, in December, 1938. Dr. Code
has apparently discovered that histamine is the actual product responsible for the symptoms of the
various allergies. Its excess accumulation in the blood is the actual cause of the symptoms whether
expressed as asthma, hay fever or skin eruptions such as produced by pollens, various foods, dust
and other sensitizing agents. He has shown that the eosinophils, a type of white blood cell, are the
source of excess histamine in the blood. It is accordingly indicated that the primitive treatment by
the use of kaolin, aluminum silicate, as an adsorbent was used directly for controlling such7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 249/250symptoms. It is now further indicated that this treatment can be helpful for the prevention of
modern allergies. Previous investigations have shown that histamine is produced in the alimentary
tract as a putrefaction product of proteins by the action of certain micro-organisms of the colon
group. Modern science boasts the discovery of vitamin C, lack of which took its toll of thousands of
the white mariners through hundreds of years with scurvy. The first recorded cure of that disease
was made by the Indians in Canada when the British soldiers were dying in large numbers. The
Indians taught them to use a tea made from the steeped tips of the shoots of the spruce. When I
was among the Indians of the far north I asked a chief why the Indians did not get scurvy. He then
proceeded, as I have related in Chapter 15, to explain to me how the Indians prevented scurvy by
the use of special organs in the animals. While it is true that we have come to associate the absence
of vitamin C as the causative factor in scurvy, we do not know how many other affections may be
due to its absence in adequate quantity in our foods. Almost weekly, new diseases are being
associated with vitamin deficiencies in our modern dietaries. One of our modern tendencies is to select the foods we like, particularly those that satisfy our
hunger without our having to eat much, and, another is to think in terms of the few known vitamins
and their effects. The primitive tendency seems to have been to provide an adequate factor of
safety for all emergencies by the selection of a sufficient variety and quantity of the various natural
foods to prevent entirely most of our modern affections. Their success demonstrates that their
program is superior to ours. An important advance in modern international relationships provides
for exchange of professorships and, thus, interchanges of wisdom. We have shown a most
laudable and sympathetic interest in carrying our culture to the remnants of these primitive races. Would it not be fortunate to accept in exchange lessons from their inherited knowledge? It may be
not only our greatest opportunity, but our best hope for stemming the tide of our progressive
breakdown and also for our return to harmony with Nature's laws, since life in its fullness is Nature
obeyed. As I have sojourned among members of primitive racial stocks in several parts of the world, I
have been deeply impressed with their fine personalities, and strong characters. I have never felt
the slightest fear in being among them; I have never found that my trust in them was misplaced. As
soon as they had learned that I was visiting them in their interest, their kindness and devotion was
very remarkable. Fundamentally they are spiritual and have a devout reverence for an all-powerful,
all-pervading power which not only protects and provides for them, but accepts them as a part of
that great encompassing soul if they obey Nature's laws. Ernest Thompson Seton has beautifully expressed the spirit of the Indian in the opening
paragraph of his little book "The Gospel of the Red Man":
    The culture and civilization of the White man are essentially material; his measure of success
is, "How much property have I acquired for myself?" The culture of the Red man is
fundamentally spiritual; his measure of success is, "How much service have I rendered to my
people?" The civilization of the White man is a failure; it is visibly crumbling around us. It has failed at
every crucial test. No one who measures things by results can question this fundamental
statement. The faith of the primitive in the all-pervading power of which he is a part includes a belief in
immortality. He lives in communion with the great unseen Spirit, of which he is a part, always in
humility and reverence. Elizabeth Odell in the following lines seems to express the spirit of the
primitives,
Flat outstretched upon a mound
Of earth I lie; I press my ear
Against its surface and I hear
Far off and deep, the measured sound
Of heart that beats within the ground. And with it pounds in harmony7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 250/250The swift, familiar heart in me. They pulse as one, together swell,
Together fall; I cannot tell
My sound from earth's, for I am part
Of rhythmic, universal heart. REFERENCES
1. JACOBSON, A. C. Genius (Some Revaluations). New York, Greenburg, 1926. 2. BRASH, J. C. The etiology of irregularity and malocclusion of the teeth. Dental Board of
United Kingdom, London, 1930. 3. Waverly researches in the pathology of the feeble-minded (Research series, cases XI to
XX). Mem. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci., 14:131, 1921. 4. DRUMMOND, J. C. The Medical Aspects of Decline of Population. J.A.M.A., 110:908,
1938. 5. BREHM, W. Potential dangers of viosterol during pregnancy with observations of
calcification of placentae. Ohio S. M. J., 33:990, 1937. TABLE OF CONTENTS   
 
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        We have then for modern mothers the message from these primitives to use the sea
foods liberally, both during the preparatory period in anticipation of pregnancy and during that
entire period. In Fig. 129 will be seen a woman of one of the Fiji Islands who had gone several
miles to the sea to get this particular type of lobster-crab which she believed, and which her tribal
custom had demonstrated, was particularly efficient for producing a highly perfect infant. FIG. 129. This Fiji woman has come a long distance to gather
special foods needed for the production of a healthy child. These and many primitive people have understood the
necessity for special foods before marriage, during gestation,
during the nursing period and for rebuilding before the next
pregnancy. For the Indians of the far North this reinforcement was accomplished by supplying special
feedings of organs of animals. Among the Indians in the moose country near the Arctic circle a
larger percentage of the children were born in June than in any other month. This was
accomplished, I was told, by both parents eating liberally of the thyroid glands of the male moose
as they came down from the high mountain areas for the mating season, at which time the large
protuberances carrying the thyroids under the throat were greatly enlarged. Among the Eskimos I found fish eggs were eaten by the childbearing women, and the milt of the
male salmon by the fathers for the purpose of reinforcing reproductive efficiency. The coastal Indians in Peru ate the so-called angelote egg, an organ of the male fish of an
ovoviviparous species. These organs were used by the fathers-to-be and the fish eggs by the7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg. net. au/ebooks02/0200251h. html#toc 240/250mothers-to-be. In Africa I found many tribes gathering certain plants from swamps and marshes and streams,
particularly the water hyacinth. These plants were dried and burned for their ashes which were put
into the foods of mothers and growing children. A species of water hyacinth is shown in Fig. 130. The woman shown in Fig. 130, with an enormous goiter, had come down from a nine-thousand-
foot level in the mountains above Lake Edward. Here all the drinking water was snow water which
did not carry iodine. She had come down from the high area to the sixthousand-foot level to gather
the water hyacinth and other plants to obtain the ashes from these and other iodine carrying plants
to carry back to her children to prevent, as she explained, the formation of "big neck," such as she
had. The people living at the six-thousand-foot level also use the ashes of these plants.
The author emphasizes the significance of proper nutrition for mothers-to-be, citing examples from primitive cultures, to ensure the health and well-being of both the mother and the child.
What is the author's main point about the importance of nutrition for mothers-to-be?
The author notes that a larger percentage of children were born in June, which he attributes to the parents' consumption of thyroid glands of male moose during the mating season.
What was the observation made by the author regarding the birth rate in the Arctic region?
The author suggests that the decline in fertility is due to the removal of essential nutrients from the diet through the processing of grains, leading to the loss of vitality and the inability to produce healthy offspring.
According to the author, what is the primary cause of the decline in fertility in modern society?
The author argues that tooth decay is a result of a lack of essential nutrients in the diet and recommends adopting the nutritional practices of primitive cultures to prevent tooth decay and other health issues.
What is the author's opinion on the role of nutrition in preventing tooth decay?
The author believes that modern society can learn valuable lessons from primitive cultures, such as the importance of nutrition, and that adopting their practices can help prevent the decline of the population and the rise of health issues.
What is the author's view on the importance of learning from primitive cultures?