Then my doctor suddenly discovered that my blood pressure was too low. Each morning I would get up feeling 
a little weaker than before. At last I got so weak it was all I could do 
to walk from the house to my office a few blocks away. As I would 
pass down the street, the town jester would call out to me: 
"Say, Doc, which cemetery did you escape from this morning?" That greeting did not pep me up any. But all the while I had 
inside of me a secret determination to get well. I cultivated that and it 
pulled me through. It was in June of 1925, 9½ years after I came to Hereford that I 
had my crisis. My wife, Mattie, had drawn.out of me, tactfully, a little 
at a time what disposition I wanted to make of my affairs. She had put 
me to bed and kept my circulation going with hot water bags. I had an 
electric pad at my feet. That was th e time of life an old friend recalled 
to me not long since. "I saw you when, if you had gone one step farther," Perry 
McMinn said, "you would not have come back." Then everybody who knew me thought I had come to the end of 
my row. Like Mr. Ready-to-Halt in "Pilgrim's Progress," I had 
received my summons and was all set to cross over on the other side. In my own mind, all the while, I kn ew better. I fully realized my 
condition and I made this plain to Mattie, but I told her I would be a 
man again. PART II. IN WHICH I SEEK FOR REASONS WHY 
  
 
 
CHAPTER 13. I START ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY 
 My quest for health led me to a sanitorium in Denver, where I 
spent five weeks, and onto another in Chicago, where I stayed another 
five weeks. I learned that both ins titutions were right up to the minute 
on foods but both had a lot to learn about the human organism. By this time my condition had be come desperate. Everyone who 
knew me thought I would die any day. One morning my next door 
neighbor, Rex T. dropped by. He was going to Canyon to consult a 
naturopath, Dr. H. A. Brown, wh o had built up a reputation by his 
remarkable cures. "Come along with me and let this new doctor look you over," my 
neighbor invited. "He can do no worse by you than the rest have 
done." I took him up on that. When Dr. Brown had finished his check-up of Mr. T. and had 
prescribed for him, I asked the doctor to put me through the mill in the same fashion. When he had finished his examination Dr. Brown gave 
me a grim, frank report: 
"You are just about dead, old man. You have the dirtiest colon I 
have ever found. I can clean it out, if  you are not too weak to stand the 
shock." By the way in which he went at  his examination I was persuaded 
that Dr. Brown had gone right to the root of my trouble that had 
eluded the diagnosticians whom I previously had consulted. Intuitively, I felt that here was the chance I had sought for so long to get back my lost health. Anyway, I had nothing to lose. I was at the 
end of my row. But in my own mind, I knew I could make it. So when 
Dr. Brown looked inquiringly at me  I had my answer: "Shoot, I am 
rarin' to go." Right off the bat Dr. Brown prescribed a long fast. He told me to 
drink a glass of hot water every hour and to take nothing else into my 
stomach. Once every 24 hours I was to wash out my colon with a hot 
enema. The remedy was drastic, but as I realized it was being applied 
to a desperate condition. For that clogged up, inert colon of mine was 
constantly saturating my bloodstr eam with poisonous waste, I was 
suffering from low blood pressure and anemia "to the nth degree." Knowing that my life depended upon it, I took my medicine. It was 
tough at the start. Like most people I thought if I missed a meal, I'd 
starve. All my life until then, I had habitually eaten too much. The 
excess sugar and starch—in white bread, potatoes and syrup, instead 
of being food, reacted as filth because it could not be assimilated—
had been stored up and this had meant extra pumping for my 
overworked heart. Now, I was about ready to drop. After two or three days of it, my craving for food vanished. I no 
longer felt hungry. Every morning I walked down to my office, 
opened up on schedule and did my day's work. As a rule, that meant 
spending long hours on my feet. On the seventh day of my fast, I put 
in a five-tooth bridge for John L. Wilson. On the twelfth day of my fast, Dr. Brown looked me over and 
told me I was nearly, but not quite ready to break it. Stick it out for a 
couple of days more, he suggested. At the end of fourteen days, Dr. 
Brown put me through his mill and told that, except for one bad spot I 
had a clean colon. And he added: "You cannot go on now. You must 
have nourishment. Maybe Nature will complete the clean-up." As it turned out, happily for me, Nature did just that. Without Dr. Brown's friendly but firm warning, I would have 
realized well enough that I had now come to the critical turn in my 
fight to live. I had to break my fast by degrees. I must follow the 
schedule he gave me to  the minute. One false step would probably kill 
me. Right then, a light lunch, even  a bowl of soup would have been 
speedily fatal. Dr. Brown started me off on a small glass of orange juice every 
two hours. For the next day I could have a glass of milk every seven 
hours. On the second day, one glass every two hours and on the third 
day, one every hour. For the next two weeks, or exactly as long as I had fasted, I was on a milk diet exclusively. Then my system rebelled at the treatment. I no longer could digest my milk ration. It poisoned 
me. So Dr. Brown told me to fast for one day. Then put me on a diet 
of milk alternated 50-50 with fruit and vegetable juices. I kept that up for four months and then began on potlicker and boiled vegetables, such as mustard greens, turnips, cabbage and carrots. That was the 
first solid food I had eaten for almost five months. I felt like a new man. For the first time since I was a boy I knew 
the feel of bounding health. When on my fast my weight had dropped 
to 120 pounds, four months later I weighed 178 pounds. That was eight pounds above par. I had failed  to weigh regularly. My potlicker 
diet soon dropped me to 172 pounds. I kept that weight for several 
years. Then gradually I dropped to my present weight, between 145 
and 150 pounds. Since Dr. Brown treated me, 20-odd years ago, his profession, 
naturopathy, has devised new and better methods of cleaning and 
invigorating the colon than by a prolonged fast. He has abandoned that 
method, he informs me, as too dangerous. Coming out of the fast 
imposes to heavy a strain on the pa tient's will power. I had will power 
like an iron horse, without it, I could not have made the grade. However, as I have proved to my own satisfaction, an occasional 
short fast—one, two or three days, as conditions may warrant— can 
be immensely useful. As I can realize now, looking back over my experience, it was 
food eaten as appetite and taste dictated, nothing else, that reduced my 
health to its lowest ebb. When I began eating according to formula my 
health rose steadily to the high leve l where I have since maintained it. Whatever the disease it is self created. Disease cannot attack a healthy 
body. At this writing I am enjoying what seems to me the best health of 
all my 83 years. On that point, following my last check-up, my family 
physician, Dr. L. B. Barnett of Hereford, gave me welcome 
confirmation. He told me: 
"The best 15 or 20 years of your life lie ahead of you." Thus heartened, I can picture myse lf a hale and hearty, energetic 
and peppy centenarian. You ask, how do I mean to do it? Well, as 
nearly as I can phrase it, my formul a is to subsist on natural foods, 
mostly raw, like our mineral rich  Deaf Smith County wheat fresh 
ground at the mill, raw vegetables grown in the same mineralized soil, 
and occasionally raw beef—that ta stes good when put through the 
liquifier, mixed with raw fruits and vegetables. For one thing, I watch my weight closely. When I pick up a 
pound or two, I'll cut down and cu t down my intake, until I have 
reduced my weight back to normal. At my age—and as I believe for any adult person, stored-up fat can be deadly. My aim, then, is to consume just enough food properly balanced, proteins, oils, fats, sugar 
and starches, to supply energy for my bodily machine and to keep that 
machine in repair. If I do that, always building up the wear and tear of each day's 
living, and the while supplying the catalysts needed to spark the vital 
processes, I see no reason at all why I cannot round out my 100 years 
and more—through it all keeping the feel of youth. One of my findings teaches me definitely, that our body is made 
of the food which is taken into our body—perfect or imperfect, it is 
our creation—barring the time when we  have no say. To say the least 
we are made of the food consumed—whether well or sick, we create it. Man was placed here to rule and to be the "big boss" and to 
choose his way of life and living and to have what ever he may desire, 
if and when he obeys the natural laws given him. These principles 
have been demonstrated and proven in my life. There have been two, so-called, outstanding diseases developed 
in my body. Viz. Arthritis and shaking palsy. My constant search for 
natural foods with plenty of minera ls and vitamins relieved me of 
these annoyances. These are the immunizers. Disease attacks only 
when natural laws have been disobeyed. The minerals and vitamins 
we must have. These are not plentiful in our popular foods. CHAPTER 14. AFTER I GOT ONTO THE RIGHT TRACK 
 All the 25 years I have lived since I got onto the right track as to 
diet and living habits generally, have been years of mental growth for 
me—and consequently the most enjoyable years I have known. I have 
gained back the bouyancy and the vision— day-dreaming reader, if you insist on calling it that—of my lost youth. My secret? It's yours for the asking, reader. Eat body-building 
foods which are also brain-building. I mean, for example, wheat which 
has a high phosphorus content—the so rt that grows in our Deaf Smith 
County soil—but consumed whole, bran, shorts and all, not as white 
flour that comes from the mill. The potatoes, beans, carrots, lettuce, 
mustard greens and all the food crops which grow in our soil are rich 
in those same elements. Now, as modern chemical analysis shows, the human body is 
more complex than the old school sc ientists ever suspected. Besides 
nitrogen (protein), calcium, phosphorus, potassium and water (oxygen 
and hydrogen), your body contains iron, cobalt, copper, zinc, chlorine, 
sodium, magnesium, manganesem sulphur, boron, flourine, iodine and 
carbon—but in various salts and in organic form. Besides to keep it functioning properly, the body needs the various vitamins (doubtless 
including some that biochemists have not yet discovered) and the 
vitamin factors, such as thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic and 
pantothenic acid. In fact our body must have food containing every 
element found in the earth. Modern biochemistry bears out what the Psalmist declared 3,000 
years ago: "Man is fearfully and wonderfully made—curiously 
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth." All those elements are essential to keep the body functioning. When some run short because a person's food does not contain them, 
trouble results. Whatever the disease, we create it. I have arrived at the conclusion that there is a type of food for 
each organ or function of the body. There is wheat for the brain and 
nervous system because it supplies phosphorus. There is milk, the best 
source of calcium (when it is taken raw) for the bones and teeth. There 
is iodine for the thyroid gland, and so on. Our body must be supplied with every mineral and vitamin if health is to continue. If, instead of giving quinine for chills or calomel to prod a 
sluggish liver, the doctors would prescribe the right food in the place 
of drugs for whatever deficiency the patient's impaired bodily 
functioning (metabolism, the doctors  call it) indicated, I do believe, 
they would get better results. I saved my life by this method. It works. This food medicine, according to my theory, would contain the 
elements which the sick body needed to restore its upset balance, but 
in the organic form which can be assimulated. From the viewpoint of the man who feeds upon them, the great 
function of plants is to take the inorganic minerals found in the soil 
and turn them into organic minerals that the human body can 
assimilate. That is true of the base minerals like calcium (lime), 
nitrogen (protein), potash and phosph orus. It is equally true of iron, 
copper, magnesium, boron, chlorine, fluorine and the other trace 
minerals. To my way of thinking, the organic minerals in grain, vegetables, 
milk, meat and eggs—that nourish the bodily tissues and keep them 
functioning—are the real source of rejuvination. But for maximum 
benefits, those foods should be eate n in their natural state—both raw 
and unrefined. CHAPTER 15. FOR ME LIFE BEGINS AT SIXTY 
 Through 20-odd years preceding my 60th birthday, I was 
constantly "enjoying poor health." I thought myself going down hill 
all the time and, as it seemed to me, I stayed alive only by means of 
sheer will to live. Though I told n obody, I never doubted for a moment 
that I one day would regain my health. As it turned out, I was well along toward my goal when I 
emerged from that fast that Dr. B., Canyon naturopath, prescribed for 
me. For the first time in years, I was free of the waste matter which 
had clogged up my lower digestive tr act. My sores had healed and the 
cause of my anemia, poor assimilation, had been removed. From then 
on, it was just a matter of eating the food needed to rebuild my wasted 
body and restore the lost balance to my bodily functioning. My recovery was more rapid than I had reason to expect. Before 
long, I would call myself a full man, once again. The 20-odd years 
since I reached 60 have been the healthiest, most productive and 
altogether the most enjoyable I have known. I have done this without 
dieting in the ordinary sense. Day by day, I eat what I like, but you 
know, reader, taste for health-building foods can be cultivated. I have learned to like unrefined foods right out of nature's garden. I take my 
wheat ground up on my hand mill, bran shorts and all, soaked in raw 
whole milk. Both are produced on Deaf Smith County's completely 
fertile soil. Together the wheat and the milk contain about all the 
elements that my body needs. I could live on the two, but I like 
variety. So, day by day, I eat whatever my garden or the market can 
supply me, — carrots, mustard greens, lettuce, raw cabbage, baked 
potatoes with the jackets on; grapes, peaches, apples or whatever fruit 
happens to be in season—or, better still, whatever can be had out of 
my quick-freeze plant. It does not matter so much what the foodstuff is—so long as it is 
eaten unrefined. Where practical, the stuff is better eaten raw. I have my doubts whether much vitamin value survives cooking. For my use, 
pasteurizing spoils milk completely. I suspect that the 145-degree heat 
kills off vitamins and disorganizes the mineral values so that it has 
little food value left. Yes, reader, I eat a little meat, not too much. Sometimes I take 
that raw. I will grind steak up fine and mix it with chopped-up 
cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, toma toes or whatever vegetables I 
happen to have handy. A mixture like that, with a little olive oil or 
vinegar on it, disguises the meat so effectively that you hardly realize 
it is there. The whole concoction ta stes good and it is easy on your 
digestion. When I was fighting anemia all those years, a diet of raw liver 
mixed with raw vegetables, and supplemented with raw milk, would 
have prevented my illness and set me on my feet again, I suspect. Some black hull wheat from Deaf Smith County, ground up whole, 
soaked in milk produced on high plain pastures, undoubtedly would 
have speeded my recovery. This no doubt would have satisfied my 
hunger and prevented anemia due to over eating of demineralized 
food. Along with this natural diet, I get plenty of outdoor exercise. Usually I walk where I want to go around town. This is just about my 
whole secret of keeping young, though the calendar says I am 82 years 
old. So whenever my doctor checks me over he finds all my organs 
sound and functioning normally. Only  a few short months ago I had a 
two-day check-up at the local clinic. The report which came to me was 
typical: 
"We found no evidence of age. Organs and body tissue normal." Since I have back my physical health, my mental activity has 
picked up. As I lie abed by night I am so besieged with thoughts and 
visions that nothing will do but I must get out of bed and write down what has come to me. Mostly in that manner, I have accumulated papers enough to make several books. Reader, I often feel like I am a boy again. For I find the visions 
which come to me as fascinating as new toys at Christmas. When I 
consulted a psychologist in whom I was interested about this second 
childhood of mine, he answered me, as it seemed, bluntly: 
"Mentally you have no age." On due reflection, I can believe that. CHAPTER 16. I DISCOVERED THE TOWN WITHOUT A 
TOOTHACHE 
 
Before I had practiced dentistry in Hereford very long the truth 
began to dawn upon me that I was in a different sort of country from what I had known before. When I moved there in 1916, Deaf Smith County was mostly 
grassland. Nearly everybody made a living by raising cattle. Until two or three years before that nobody had thought of tapping the shallow 
water table for irrigating truck farm s. Except for scattered seedlings, 
that ranchers had planted, there wa s hardly a tree in sight. But the 
grass was luxuriant and kept the cattle fat. At first I wondered why so few people came in to get their teeth 
fixed. My toothache patients were few and far between. Now, in 
Albertville, Alabama, where I prac ticed for 17 years, everybody 
suffered from tooth decay. So I was always swamped with patients. I constantly worked overtime filling cavities. By contrast, in Hereford only a few people needed filling. The 
typical patient would have only two or three decayed spots in his 
mouthful of teeth. He had none between his teeth, where I had found 
most cavities in my Alabama patients' mouths. In Albertville, I was extracting teeth almost every day. In Hereford, except for wisdom 
teeth about the only extracting I ha d to do was for older persons who 
wanted false teeth. Pyorrhea, not decay, had ruined their natural teeth. Indeed, there was so little business fo r a dentist in Hereford, I decided 
I would have to find a new location or starve. So, when I would go up to the district convention in Amarillo 
every year I would make a point of asking some fellow practitioner from the Panhandle, Oklahoma or New Mexico: 
"Doctor, do you know of a good location that is open? Why 
down at Hereford I hardly get enough business to keep going. If it 
wasn't for putting in dentures for elderly pyorrhea patients, I'd have to 
close up shop." "But, Dr. H—," the dentist would answer, "You are in one of the 
best dental towns in this part of the country." One time, when I asked Dr. G. of Tucumcari, New Mexico, that 
question, he promptly offered to trade places with me. We didn't 
follow through, however. Dr. G. is still practicing in the same spot and, from what I hear, doing all right. When I located here, Deaf Smith County was newly-settled. Few 
families had lived there for long. The country roundabout Hereford 
was all cow pasture. I had my office in a building that stood in a 
pasture when it was first built. Se emingly everybody had grassfed 
beefs to kill and eat. About half the families kept at least one cow 
each. Cowmen as a rule do not like dairy cows. To begin with my natural-born curiosity had set me to searching 
out the reasons why so few people in the Hereford country came in to 
get their teeth fixed and why so few ever had toothache. Soon after I began to practice in Alabama I had worked out in 
my own mind, but had not yet crystallized the theory in words, that the 
right kind of foods, in the right amounts and properly balanced, if 
consumed from babyhood up would produce a healthy body and, with 
it, sound teeth. At the time, the idea was so novel, that I merely toyed 
with it and did not follow it up. When I began to get the lay of th e land at Hereford, I realized 
that the people who lived there were getting the kind of food that built 
healthy bodies and sound teeth, but what was it? For the most part, the people ate home-raised beef, white bread 
made from shipped in flour and Irish potatoes, also shipped in. As I have told the reader, Dr. C. A. Pierle of Canyon first gave 
me the idea that milk from cows that had grazed on the native grass 
was mainly what produced healthy mo uths. With this clue in mind I 
would say to a patient who had come in with a mouthful of sound 
teeth he wanted cleaned up: 
"I see that you like milk and drink lots of it. You like your 
buttermilk and clabber, too." "You have me sized up about right, doctor," the astonished 
patient would answer. "How di d you ever guess all that?" Naturally, nobody in or around Hereford had thought once giving 
their food or milk credit for producing their sound teeth. They did not 
suspect that what they had to eat or drink was any different from what 
people in other parts of the country lived on. Very few people are 
aware of the fact that what one eats determines their health. Even today, very few Deaf Smith County residents seem to 
appreciate the fabulous riches of their soil. The greater number do not 
know how to value the food crops which grow in that soil loaded with 
health-giving minerals and vitamins. My inquiries among people who live in distant States have about 
convinced me that no other agricu ltural area can match in total 
nutritive value the wheat, green vegetables, other food crops, beef and dairy products that come from Deaf  Smith County's mineralized soil. Most maladies which afflict mankind, I say, can be eliminated by 
living on the correct foods. Whatever ills the people suffer from, they 
themselves have created—mostly by their faulty eating habits. I can 
cite you Scripture to bear me out: 
"Brethren, I have fed you with milk, and not with meat," Paul 
writes in his first epistle to the Corinthians. "For hitherto ye were not 
able to bear it." Again, the apostle writes to the Hebrews: 
"Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age." To be sure, the language of thos e passages is figurative. Milk 
matured the child. Meat was fit food for the understanding adult. Even so, in our Plains country, those persons who drink plenty of 
milk from childhood up, almost unfailingly are found to possess keen 
minds along with their sound teeth. I GET SOME CLUES AND FOLLOW THEM UP 
As I had a pretty strong suspicion that the food which my 
patients had lived on would give me the key to their mouth condition, 
I would question every person who came to me about his eating 
habits. The more I found out in that manner, the more I was convinced 
that I was on the right track. I had noticed that a poorly balanced diet, whether too much or too little, would show up in a bad mouth. My patient would have cavities in his teeth—a sign that he was 
getting too much starch and not enough protein in his diet. Another 
patient would have puffy and bleeding gums. He was a victim of 
pyorrhea, as a result of eating too much meat and gravy. As I kept telling my patients, a balanced diet contains all the 
elements needed to build the supply, keep it in repair and supply it 
with energy. That kind of foodstuff, eaten regularly — in the right 
amounts, but with variety that w ill keep the appetite whetted, will 
produce a strong, healthy body and sound teeth. But, if the diet lacks 
some essential element, the bodily machine will soon be out of kilter. Sooner or later the teeth will suffer along with other tissues and organs. To cite an instance: Mr. W. P., a Deaf Smith County ranchman, 
had been my patient for years. Until middle age, he had nearly perfect 
teeth. One day in his late 60s, Mr. W. P. came into my office. My 
check up showed 22 recently fo rmed cavities in his teeth. "Mr. W. P. (I told him), I see that you have gone and dropped the 
diet that had kept your mouth he althy all these years. You are not 
getting the fresh vegetables, salads and other nourishing foods like 
you have lived on most of your life — and you are not drinking milk 
like you did." "You are right, doctor," Mr. W. P. confessed. "I have developed 
a strong appetite for white bread and syrup." About the same time another old acquaintance of mine, J. N. 
Jacobsen, then 77 years old, came in for a check-up. Mr. J. had an 
almost perfect mouth. All his life he had needed but one tooth 
extracted and two filled. He had no cavities then, but firm gums and 
healthy mouth tissue. "How long has it been, Mr. J., since you had these fillings put 
in?" "Let's see, that was 60 years ago when I was a boy in Denmark." "How long have you lived in Hereford, Mr. Jacobsen?" "I have 
been here 41 years." "I suppose you brush your teeth after every meal, like the books 
say, and all that?" "No, doctor, I don't. I have been too busy making a living to fool 
with a toothbrush." "Well, what do you eat as a rule?" "Anything at all that grows in our garden. As you know, doctor, 
it is the best in town." "But you do eat some meat?" "Once in a while, I'll eat a steak or something." Through the 30-odd years that I practiced in Hereford I kept 
questioning my patients like that. To my way of thinking, the answers 
I got proved my theory: A natural, ba lanced diet of unrefined food will 
produce sound teeth and a sound body. Never once, since I formulated that tenet, have I found a bad mouth in a person who lived on that sort 
of diet — fresh vegetables out of the home garden, whole wheat 
grown on our completely fertile Deaf Smith county soil, with plenty of 
milk from cows that had grazed on our home pastures. The best test 
was milk. That was the only food that, until recent times, people 
generally consumed raw. On the other hand, when a patient did come into my office with a 
lot of cavities in his mouth, I could tell him what had caused his teeth 
to decay. "You are eating too much white bread, hot biscuits and cake, 
sugar and syrup, pies and jellies (I would tell the patient). As a result, 
your body is not getting the protein and minerals it needs for healthy 
functioning. You are not taking in calcium enough to build strong 
bones and sound teeth. You do not drink enough milk or eat enough 
raw foods to keep you supplied with vitamins and minerals. Those are 
the spark plugs for your bodily machine. You do not eat enough 
roughage, such as bran, for healthy elimination of waste matter." "I guess you have me sized up about right," doctor, the patient 
would answer. "I do have a dainty appetite." Well, it is an unhealthy appetite (I would warn) and it is your 
worst enemy. Just keep indulging that appetite a few years longer and 
you will be needing a full set of false teeth. I can make you some good ones. They won't decay at all and you can take them out to clean them 
at will. If that is what you want, just go on feeding that jade appetite of 
yours. But if you want to keep your natural teeth you will have to 
change your eating habits drastically and change right now. Now, you go home, Mr. S. and begin eating sensibly. Take some 
wheat bran — or some home milled whole wheat would be better — 
soaked in whole raw milk for breakfast, or, if you prefer, you can heat 
the cereal. With it take some fresh fr uit or if you can't get that, some 
fruit or vegetable juice out of a can. That is better than coffee or tea, 
but milk in some form is your best drink. Then, for dinner have some fresh vegetables out of your garden 
— string beans or blackeye peas or what have you — and drink the 
pot liquor. Take part of your dinner raw — tomatoes and lettuce 
leaves will do nicely. You can have a little meat and just a dab of 
butter, but no hot biscuit and syrup. Eat whole wheat or corn bread. If 
you must have a dessert, let it be stewed or fresh fruit. Repeat that, with whatever vari ety your wife can concoct, for 
supper. With all that, you must contrive in one way or another to 
consume your quart of milk a day. You can beneficially take part of it 
in buttermilk or clabber, co ttage cheese or ice cream. Mr. S. now you go and follow this schedule I have mapped out 
for a year. Then come and tell me about it. By that time, I'll guarantee, 
I'll be able to give you a be tter report on your mouth. Such is the good counsel I would drum into my patients' ears, 
day in and day out, during my entire practice; but, for the most part, 
the advice would go in at one ear and out at the other. That was what kept me in the dental business. CHAPTER 17. I TRY TO "SELL" MY  FELLOW DENTISTS 
 
After I had established the fact s concerning the Deaf Smith 
County natives' immunity to tooth decay to my own satisfaction, and 
had formulated my theory as to the reasons for that immunity, I felt 
that I ought to tell my fellow dentists about my discovery. I had not forgotten that talk at a luncheon table during an Alabama State Dental 
Convention several years before (Chapter 10) and the encouraging 
word I had received from Dr. Young of Anniston. Whenever I'd go to Amarillo for the Panhandle District 
Convention of the Texas Dental Association, I would eagerly talk up 
my discovery to any brother practitioner who would listen. I'd meet up 
with an old friend in a hotel lobby or on the street corner and before 
our talk had gone far beyond the us ual polite inquiries, "how's the 
folks and how's business", I'd be talking with all the enthusiasm I 
could muster about my findings. My report would run something like this: "In Deaf Smith County where I prac tice, most of the people born 
and raised there grow up with sound teeth. Ranch people do not drink 
milk, they will not milk a cow. If it weren't for people moving in from 
other parts of the country, I'd have almost no tooth repair business. About 90 per cent of my business consists of making new sets of teeth 
for pyorrhea patients. After a newcomer has lived in Hereford a few 
years, provided he has drunk lots of raw whole milk, he develops 
resistance to teeth decay. Even the tooth cavities which he brings with 
him when he comes to Hereford will be glazed over, if he has drunk 
raw milk. It is my conclusion that certain elements in the Deaf Smith 
County soil, when taken up by crops and pasture grasses, and from 
there taken into the human body in bread, meat and vegetables, in 
milk and in butter, create an immunity to tooth decay. Milk does the 
immunizing job better than any other food, simply because milk is the one foodstuff that everybody did consume raw until recent years." As a rule, my fellow practitioner would hear me out patiently, 
then shake his head and walk away without comment. I suspect that 
my old friend, Dr. R. L. Rogers of Amarillo, spoke for them all when 
he said to me: 
"Doctor George, your story sounds fantastic to me. It stands to 
reason that dental conditions in Deaf Smith Country are identical with 
dental conditions here in Amarillo or anywhere else. Common sense, 
as well as, dental science tells you that." Nevertheless, I kept on investig ating. The more patients I found 
with perfect, or nearly perfect mouths and the more I questioned them 
about their eating and drinking habits, the more firmly I was 
convinced that I was on the right track. After eight or ten years, I concluded reluctantly that telling my 
story was of no use. I decided on a different tact. I would gather facts, 
say nothing and abide my time. Then, when the opportunity did 
present itself I'd spring my discov ery on the scientific world. I received a powerful lift from Dr. C. A. Pierle of Canyon. For 
years, that distinguished scientist, the head of West Texas State College chemistry department, had served the Texas State Dental 
Association as laboratory technologist. He unfailingly participated in 
district conventions in Amarillo. Dr. Pierle gave me the most valuable 
cue which I received from any source during all the years in which I 
investigated dental decay and its underlying causes. One time I heard Dr. Pierle challenge a group of dentists who 
were threshing out the fluorine theory: 
"Why all this talk of fluorine in your drinking water? You will 
find more fluorine in milk than in water." As he had spent the better part of a lifetime on the chemical 
laboratory, Dr. Pierle, scien tist, knew whereof he spoke. Another time I heard Dr. Pierle sum up a spirited discussion of 
dental decay, its causes and its prevention in one line: 
"Examine your milk drinkers." I kept that line with me at my dental chair in Hereford, and put it 
to work. I asked every patient who came to me: "How much milk do 
you drink every day. Do you drink raw milk? Do you drink buttermilk and clabber?" For years I made inquiry of my patients as to their milk habits. Almost invariably I found that the possessor of a mouth full of sound 
teeth had been a consistent milk drinker from early childhood. A 
surprisingly large number liked e ither buttermilk, clabber or both. The significant fact is that the milk those patients drank came 
from cows that had grazed on native grass in Deaf Smith County 
pastures. In winter, as a rule, the cows had grazed on green wheat. CHAPTER 18 
 
A STATE OFFICIAL LENDS ME AN EAR 
 In spite of all the discouragement I had met with, I kept on 
investigating and piling up evidence which bore out my theory. At last I got a break. Dr. Edward Taylor, director of dental health for the Texas State 
Board of Health, had come up from Austin for our district convention 
at Amarillo (January, 1939). When I found Dr. Taylor disengaged for a minute or so, I called 
him aside and told him briefly what I had found out about the Deaf 
Smith County people's seemingly immunity to tooth decay. "Believe it or not, Dr. Taylor, there are men and women in the 
Hereford country where I practice who live into middle age and even older without a single decayed spot on their teeth. I have tried for 
years to tell my fellow dentists here at the convention about my discovery; but they just laugh at me. None will believe me and up to now, not a single one has accepted my standing invitation to come to 
Hereford and let me show them. This same phenomenon existed in 
their own practice, but without a comparison the truth is not seen. "Finally, I decided it was no use trying to sell my ideas to my 
fellow practitioners. I determined to  keep my own counsel and keep 
on investigating. The more facts I uncovered, the more firmly I was 
convinced that I was on the right track. "Doctor, we have something down there—and I believe it comes 
out of our mineralized soil—that builds immunity to tooth decay. That 
is my theory and there is proof of it right in the people's mouths. I do 
not ask you to take my word for it, Dr. Taylor. Come to Hereford and see for yourself." Though Dr. Taylor had listened to me patiently and seemed 
interested, he did not commit himself at the time. I thought that would 
be the last of the matter. But about si x months later, a letter came from 
Dr. Taylor: "Would it be all right for me to come up and see you—
say, one day next week?" he inquired. "Sure," I answered, "come right 
ahead." When Dr. Taylor arrived, I called the city superintendent of 
schools by telephone: "Dr. Edward Taylor, with the State Board of Health at Austin, has come up for a dental survey. The Doctor wants 
to visit the homes of typical Hereford families and inspect their teeth. He wants the families picked just at random. Could you get one of 
your teachers to show Dr. Taylor around and introduce him ?" The superintendent said that could be arranged. Of course, Dr. 
Taylor's guide knew nothing of the survey objective and nothing of 
dental conditions in the families to be visited. During his stay in Hereford and vicinity, Dr. Taylor looked at the 
mouths of 56 persons. Forty-three were native-born and had lived in 
Deaf Smith County all their lives. All those life-long residents had not 
a single decayed tooth. The greater number had never had a toothache 
in their lives. "Dr. Heard, this thing is simply incredible," Dr. Taylor said when 
he had finished. "I am going to do something about it." So when the public schools opened the following September 
(1939), Dr. Taylor sent a public health dentist to give all his time to 
the study of the Hereford pupils' teeth. There were 810 children, ages 
6 to 18 years, enrolled that year. The survey ran through two full 
years. In his bulletin, "Factors in Caries Immunity in the Deaf Smith 
County Area," Dr. Taylor sums up the survey findings; Out of 289 
children, age 6 to 18 years, who had always lived in Deaf Smith 
County, only 111 (38.4 per cent) showed tooth decay— averaging only 1.29 decayed spots per child. The public health dentist had found only half as much tooth 
decay as Drs. Dean and Jay had fo und in Galesburg, Ill. Until then, 
Galesburg had shown the lowest tooth decay rate among school 
children of any city in the United States. Like Hereford, Galesburg has fluor ine in its drinking water. Its 
1.9 p.p.m. compares with Deaf Smith County's 2.2.p.p.m. For comparison Dr. Taylor carried out dental surveys in two 
Texas towns that had no fluorine in their water and other areas with 
varying amounts of fluorine. Abilene's school children showed 4.04 
and Tyler's showed 6 decayed spots each. Beginning at Tyler, the report concludes, "the tooth decay rate 
drops as we approach Hereford geographically." CHAPTER 19. I BECOME A CELEBRITY OVER NIGHT 
 After Dr. Edward Taylor got up before the American Dental 
Association's research section, at its annual convention in Houston on 
an October day in 1941, and reported what he said might prove to be 
"one of the most important discoveries in dental history." Until then, I had pursued my stud ies and observations with out 
much thought of their bearing on the dental profession as a whole. I 
was concerned solely with my own little corner of Texas. I wanted, 
first of all, to convince my fellow dentists in that area that I had 
something. My practice in Alabama gave me a comparison which is 
our best proof. Nobody would listen to me until Dr. Taylor came up to the 
district convention at Amarillo in January, 1939. Except for that lucky 
visit, the world probably would not know to this day about that 
discovery of mine: the right combination of elements in the soil, when 
taken up by food plants and then consumed, as nearly as practicable in 
their raw state, will prevent tooth decay. The next morning after Dr. Taylor 's report, my office telephone 
rang wildly. The Amarillo News Globe, and also our hometown paper, 
the Hereford Brand, wanted my picture in a hurry. I asked, "What is 
this for?" "Haven't you seen the papers? You are in newspaper front 
page headlines all over the country." The Associated Press correspondent had put the high spots in Dr. 
Taylor's Houston report on the wires. Clever feature writers had seized 
upon the dramatic points in the speech and had played them for all 
they were worth. Indeed, here was news which came home to 
everybody. Imaginative reporters forecast "a world without a 
toothache." That would be achieved simply by adding the right 
elements to the soil in which food crops grow and in the drinking 
water. Actually, as Dr. Weston Price an d other authorities have shown, 
the problem is not so simple as that. But it seemed that simple at the 
time to those newspapermen. As for my part in the picture, Dr. Taylor had made me out a sort 
of cross between a hero and a martyr: "If this research continues successfully, it will be the old story of a man being mocked for proclaiming a fantastic truth." My 20 odd years of futile effort to  get my fellow dentists to listen 
to that truth; my determination to stick to my guns and wait for the 
recognition which I knew would come ; my unflagging search for new 
evidence to back up my conclusions; and all the while a world 
suffering the excruciating pains of toothache quite needlessly: all that 
was duck soup for the news writer with a flair for dramatic stuff. In his speech Dr. Taylor had added his own little touch of drama 
a bit exaggerated, he later remarked—by telling his distinguished 
audience how I had called him aside and whispered my story into his 
ear because for years the dentists in the Amarillo area had ridiculed 
that story. Don't take my word for it, I had said to Dr. Taylor, "Come up to 
Deaf Smith County and see for yourself". "It is now Dr. Heard's turn to laugh," Dr. Taylor commented, 
"but being a Texas gentleman and a philosopher, he doesn't." For months after that I was swam ped with interviewers, callers, 
scientific inquirers and mere curiosity  seekers. Besides, I was besieged 
with telephone calls and the letters piled high on my desk. Each day 
fresh ones would come in. To have answered them all would have required a battery of secretaries. I could not have paid their wages. This being a celebrity, I quickly discovered, was not all it was cracked 
up to be. Some months after Dr. Taylor gave his findings to the American 
Dental Association, Collier's sent Mr. J. D. Ratcliff to Hereford. I told 
Mr. Ratcliff my side of the story and took him to see some typical 
Deaf Smith County families—children, adults, middle aged and 
elderly persons—who had perfectly sound teeth. Our visitor took a 
batch of story-telling pictures which he used to illustrate his article. Then he went to Austin and obtained  Dr. Edward Taylor's side of the 
story along with his photograph. Mr. Ratcliff's article came out with  a great splurge of black type 
headlines and pictures in Collier's of December 19, 1942. His title, 
"The Town Without a Toothache," has been linked with Hereford ever 
since. With more than a million copies printed, Collier's really put 
Hereford on the map. Then in February, 1943, The Reader's Digest reprinted a condensed version of th e article. Thereby our town became 
known around the world. In his article Mr. Ratcliff ha d said: "Mention toothache in 
Hereford and the people would not know what you were talking about. Even their oldest horses have full sets of sound teeth. The town may 
possibly contain the answer to your own dental difficulties." As I have undertaken to show in these pages, that statement is 
not strictly accurate. It is a bit of intentional and pardonable 
exaggeration. As I have also stated emphatically in these pages, I disagree 
completely with the theory that the fluorine in the water (from 2.2 to 
2.7 p.p.m.) is mainly what prevents tooth decay. I also question the 
theory of certain dietitians that the "astonishingly high" phosphorus 
content of the wheat, carrots, turnip  greens, cabbage and lettuce grown 
in the Deaf Smith County soil—ranging from 30 per cent above the 
average in the greens to seven times normal in the wheat—is the 
principal factor. It is more reason able to suspect, as Dr. Taylor 
apparently does, that the calcium or magnesium, or perhaps those two 
elements together, are responsible. I say that the trace minerals listed in the spectograph analysis of 
our wheat—boron, iron, copper or iodine—or most probably, Dr. 
Weston A. Price's "activator X" does the business. Anyway, the final answer must wait on more research. All along I have contended and I here repeat that it is not this or 
that mineral, but all the minerals and vitamins combined that build 
perfect teeth. Every farmer who grows food or feed crops should have his soil 
analyzed and supply the missing elements. This hunt for specific minerals which build sound teeth seems 
foolish to me—but to refuse to eat food which contains all the 
elements the body needs until that food has been refined and those life 
giving elements taken out—as in case of white flour and white 
sugar—is positively idiotic. To feed a growing child white bread and refined sugar and 
pasteurized milk is like leaving out cement and using dirt for mixing 
concrete. It is no wonder the child who is habitually fed like that is pale, 
stunted, sickly and sometimes delinquent. Nine times out of ten your 
child criminal is more sinned against than sinning. My considered opinion is that not only; much child crime, but 
anti-social behavior in youth and adult, such as reckless driving, could 
be prevented by correct diet. Correct food will keep the human 
machine running smoothly and efficiently. Correct food will not only 
set the body right, but will rectify thinking and morals. Anti-social behavior results when the nervous, hence the mental, 
equilibrium is upset. A common cause of that trouble is an excess of 
white flour, sugar and other refined carbohydrates, hence a lack of 
body-building protein and especially nerve-steadying minerals and 
vitamins in the food intake. As laboratory tests on white rats have proved, that unbalanced 
diet is the source of high strung nervous tension back of reckless 
driving. That same tension create s a craving for alcohol and other 
false stimulants. Faulty diet makes the alcoholic, and in some cases 
may produce the narcotic addict. CHAPTER 20. IN WHICH I PROMOTE A RACKET 
 Even after Dr. Taylor and his staff had completed their two-year 
survey of dental conditions in the Hereford area and he had reported 
his findings to the American Dental Association, my fellow 
practitioners in the Texas plains coun try remained as skeptical as ever. As I was to learn on my visits to the Amarillo convention each 
spring, most dentists resented all the fanfare which my discovery had 
created. They liked least the play that Collier's gave Mr. Ratcliff's 
article, "The Town Without a Toothache," (December 19, 1942). All 
the publicizing was none of my doings. I was as much surprised by the 
turn of affairs as anybody else. Ye t some took the attitude that I had 
overstepped the bounds of dental ethics. One time my good friend, Dr. R. P. Purcell of Amarillo, told me 
that I had "created a racket." That criticism did not disturb me. I realized that I was being 
unorthodox, like all the discoverers of essential truth before me had 
been. But I could not believe that any line of inquiry which promised 
to benefit humanity could justly be called unethical or rackey. Then I recognized, as I still recognize, the fact that dental science 
still has a lot to learn about the causes and prevention of tooth decay. On that point, in the second paragraph of his bulletin, Dr. Taylor 
warns his public: "This report is to be  particle and preliminary . . . The 
studies we have begun warrant a continuation on a larger scale." Previous surveys had been conducted with guinea pigs, monkeys 
and isolated tribes. The Hereford area surveys used normal people 
living typically American lives as guinea pigs. When I'd ask an old resident how he had managed to live 60-odd 
years without tooth decay, he would answer—as Mr. Ratcliff quotes: 
"Never thought about it. Funny thing though; you could bring spindly 
fishbone cattle up here from Mexico, graze them for awhile and they'd 
turn into fine, big-boned animals." All the horses in the county have 
fine teeth. The oldest dog in town, age 16 years, still has all his teeth." In his Collier's article, Mr. Ratcliff quotes Dr. Taylor as ascribing 
the low dental decay rate in Deaf Sm ith County to fluorides, sunshine 
and calcium, as to phosphorus in the soil. Later Dr. Taylor added that 
the high magnesium content of Hereford's water (67 p.p.m.) probably 
had something to do with preventing tooth decay. Evaluating the part which each mineral in soil and water plays, 
Mr. Ratcliff concludes is a "job for a trained research group, armed 
with money and talent." The minerals in water are not food and can't 
be assimilated. "What is needed is more fundamental work on the causes of 
tooth decay. This research in Deaf Smith County has opened the door 
for it." With that conclusion I agree completely. It follows that my 
findings and theory merely have supplied a new point of departure for 
dental research. I am content to refl ect that I have started something. For all that, it was an occasion of  intense gratification to me 
when the Texas State Dental Association at its annual convention in 
Houston unanimously endorsed my findings and voted me a life 
member, exempt from dues. That was one of the big moments of my life. My gratification 
over the honor was heightened by the circumstance that the motion 
which led to it had been introduced on the convention floor by my old 
friend, Dr. R. L. Rogers of Amar illo. For years Dr. Rogers had been 
the most outspoken and unsparing critic of my theories. Now I could feel as though my lifelong labors had been as bread 
cast upon the waters. It appears that people have not discovered the difference between 
organic and inorganic minerals and vitamins. They do not differentiate 
the two kinds of fluorine—one is a food, the other is a poison. The 
water in Hereford is about 2 p.p.m. while in wheat it is many hundreds 
p.p.m. In wheat it is a food, in water it is a poison. CHAPTER 21. I PURSUE MY STUDY OF FOODS AND 
SOIL 
 
During the years since the State Board of Health completed its 
study of the Hereford school children's teeth, under Dr. Taylor's direction, I have kept right on gathering evidence which seems to bear out my theory: The Deaf Smith County natives or long time residents 
owe their immunity to tooth decay mainly to having lived upon home 
grown foodstuff, which they consumed in the unrefined state, as it 
came from the soil. That type of food contains the minerals and 
vitamins, abundantly supplied by our mineralized soil, which are essential to keep the life proces ses going. If those minerals are 
removed as when the flour mill removes the bran and shorts from our 
wheat, then the special benefits to  be derived from our soil are lost. There are plenty of people right here in Hereford, the famed 
"Town Without a Toothache" who demand refined white flour and who would rather take their vegetables from a tin can shipped in from elsewhere than fresh from their mineralized soil. Those are the people, 
as I have proved to my own satisfaction, who make up the 40 percent 
that Dr. Taylor's field men found, suffered the same tooth decay as 
elsewhere—say, as in my old town of Albertville. The fact is, I am firmly persuaded, that those people who reject 
natural for refined foods suffer from slow starvation which affects not 
only the teeth but every organ in the body, including the brain. Therefore delinquency. In his California laboratories, Dr. Frances M. Pottenger, Jr., 
proved that fact when he fed his white rats on the same denatured, refined foods that many parents feed their children. The result; the glossy coat of the rats became dull and their hair ruffled. The little 
brutes then were vicious and dangerous to handle. Is it any wonder, 
then that children fed upon the same deficient and refined foods 
sometimes turn out to be problem boys and girls? The natural inference to be draw n from this experiment is the 
right sort of food—that is, food which contains all the vitamins and 
minerals which the growing body requires for its proper 
development—given children in the right proportions would prevent delinquency as well as tooth decay and other maladies. Nature's unrefined foods also nourish the brain which is the seat 
(though not the source) of the person's moral being. Again I say that, in fact, Hereford is "The Town Without a 
Toothache" only for those natives and long time residents who live 
entirely or mainly upon the fo9ds grown in our mineralized soil and 
consumed without processing which destroys or damages their 
vitamin and mineral content. It is e qually essential that the people who 
would eat for sound teeth give up pies, puddings, cakes and other 
white flour products, along with candy, jellies, preserves and syrup. Since the Hereford country became famous for its freedom from 
tooth decay, people keep writing from all over the country to ask me 
about the tooth-building virtues of this or that foodstuff. My answer is 
that any sort of food crop which grows in our mineralized area, or in 
any completely fertile soil is likel y to be good—but that it takes a 
considerable variety to supply all the elements required for proper body building (which would include the building of sound teeth). For sake of appetite, variety is desirable. However, just two 
articles of food, if produced in our  mineralized area and not tampered 
with—wheat and milk—will supply a completely balanced diet. I mean that the whole wheat grain and raw milk should be 
consumed. When it is milled for white flour, wheat is robbed of its minerals. Milk, when pasteurized, loses vitamins and may lose the activator which helps the body assimilate its calcium. It is my 
conviction that a person could live upon whole wheat grain soaked in 
milk and nothing else, and thrive upon such a diet; but after a while 
the fare would grow monotonous. Both body and mind would demand 
a change and would revolt to get it. That is why I recommend variety in the diet. It is wise to know the soil in which one's food grows. That soil 
should be analyzed and the elements which are lacking or in short 
supply for producing healthful foods should be added. That goes for 
the trace minerals as well as for nitrogen, calcium, 
86 potash and phosphorus. It takes all the elements to build sound 
bodies. A lot of minerals besides phosphorus, calcium and magnesium 
go into the making of sound teeth. Only a dash of iodine, boron, 
fluorine or copper may be required, but unless that dash is supplied, 
the building process is impaired an d the foundation laid for tooth 
decay. CHAPTER 22 
 
ON OTHER TOWNS WITHOUT 
TOOTHACHE 
 
Driving downtown in Hereford on the way to Canyon one day 
during World War II I gave two soldier boys a ride. They told me that they had come from Laurens County, South Carolina. That was where my maternal grandparents, the De ndy family, had lived. I learned 
these boys knew about some of my distant cousins. Naturally, the first thing I noticed  about my passengers was that 
both of them apparently had perfect teeth. Have either of you boys ever had toothache or had a tooth filled? I asked them. "No, sir," the boys answered in concert, "in our whole lives we 
have not been to the dentist once." Do the people you know back in Laurens County have mouths 
full of sound teeth like yours? "Most of them do," one of the boys said. "Among all my chums 
back home, I cannot remember one who had a filling in his teeth." And none ever had the toothache? "None that I remember of, 
sir." men it occurred to me that there might be less tooth decay in 
Laurens County, South Carolina, than in Deaf Smith County, Texas. Laurens county is in the western part of the State (some miles 
south of Spartanburg) but still, I susp ect, within the limits of South 
Carolina's famous "iodine belt." That is a mineralized area comparable 
with the Texas high plains. It is doubtless far richer in iodine than our 
Hereford country. The essential thing is that the soil should contain, as it apparently 
does contain, all the minerals essential to body-building, including the 
"activators" which spark the life processes. On my trip through the Southeast in the spring of 1947, I verified 
what the two soldiers had told me concerning South Carolinian's teeth. When in Charleston, I had a chance visit with a dentist, Dr. 
...................., who told me he was 65 years old. His father and 
grandfather before him had practiced in that same office. He handed 
me a mirror and invited me to have a look at his mouth. I found a 
beautiful set of teeth, spotless but slightly worn. As I told that dentist, I saw no reason why Charleston should not 
match my home town of Hereford as "A Town Without a Toothache." Altogether what I saw in the Ca rolina iodine belt confirmed my 
theory: whether in Hereford, Charleston, New Orleans, New York or 
Los Angeles, if the people only will  eat Nature's food, produced in 
completely fertile soil, in ample variety, and will drink plenty of 
whole raw milk, produced from fertile pastures, they can avoid 
toothache and most other aches that commonly plague mankind. On the other hand, during my leisurely trip through Alabama, 
Florida and Georgia that year, I was struck particularly by the inhabitants' lean and hungry look. In that part of the country, though he may eat his fill every day, 
the average person is undernourished. The reason for that is plain to be 
seen. The soil is thin and worn out. More than one hundred years of 
cotton farming have robbed it of nitrogen, and washed most of the 
topsoil into the creeks and rivers that carried it down to the sea. On top of that, what foodstuff the people do get from their scant 
soil is largely spoiled by refining. Most persons in those parts won't 
eat whole wheat grain or bread made of it. They demand white flour, with the grain's most valuable mine rals and vitamins taken out. They 
want that flour made into hot bisc uits to eat with butter and syrup. They won't use the outer green leaves on a head of lettuce. They won't 
chop a head of cabbage or a bunch of carrots and eat them raw. That is 
saying, people back east are very much like people in Texas. I say that people living in the southeast could have as sound teeth 
as Dr. Taylor and his staff found in Deaf Smith County, Texas. To 
begin with, they might enrich their soil with whatever minerals a 
chemist's analysis showed to be lacking—not neglecting to add plenty 
of organic matter, whether in the form of manure, compost or plowed 
under trash. Next, the people might eat the food crop, just as it came from the 
soil—lots of it raw and none of it refined. As evidence I found there convinces me, the South Carolina 
iodine belt even today—though some of it has been farmed for almost 
300 years—contains all the elements required to build sound bodies, 
including sound teeth. Furthermore, I do not doubt there could be sufficient food crops 
produced in the completely fertile  soil now to be had—or soil that 
could be built up by known methods, using both organic and chemical 
fertilizer, to supply our entire popula tion with a proper diet—the same 
that has given our Deaf Smith County residents their nearly perfect teeth. Let me add this word of warning: the food stuff thus produced 
would be of little value unless the pe ople consumed it partly raw and 
completely unrefined. The important fact that dentistry, with its single track mind 
overlooks is that poor teeth spell a poorly nourished body. Apparently, my profession is interested primarily in finding a 
drug or chemical which applied to the teeth will kill the bug that bores 
into the enamel—and so prevent de cay. Of late a great many cities 
have been experimenting with fluor ine applied to small children's 
teeth or by adding a part or two pe r million to the drinking water. I doubt if the method will work unless at the same time, and 
consistently, the children so treated are fed upon a diet, including 
whole raw milk, which contains about all the elements of which the 
body is made. The children so nourished, I say, will be building sound teeth 
along with sound bodies. What counts the most, those children will be 
developing sound brains. Build brain cells and with them the capacity 
to think, to tell the false from the true—and cultivate the moral 
sensibilities—and we will be rearing a generation without 
delinquency, a generation immune to the delusions abroad in the 
world today. It takes right nutrition to make a man of independent mind, one 
who thinks for himself and stands on his own feet. CHAPTER 23. I FIND SUPPORT FOR MY THEORY 
 Just as I was leaving Hereford for New York to appear on the 
"We the People" broadcast (that was in January, 1948) an old 
acquaintance of mine, Louis Smith, who runs a farm a few miles from 
Hereford, hailed me and volunteere d a bit of corroborative evidence 
on "The Town Without a Toothache." "Dr. Heard, as you know, I have lived here in Deaf Smith county 
practically all my life, I have raised a family of five daughters. All of 
them are grown up and some have families of their own now. Not one 
of them ever had the toothache or a single decayed tooth." What did your girls have to eat as they grew up, Mr. Smith? I 
asked him. ''Well, doctor, they ate mostly what we produced on our farm —
green vegetables out of our garden or canned vegetables off the pantry 
shelf; fresh beef whenever we k illed a yearling, side meat and ham 
from the smokehouse; and, oh yes, we kept cows and the girls always 
had all the fresh sweet milk or buttermilk they could drink." That's what did it, Mr. Smith, I told him—especially the milk. The fluorine in our water may have helped a little, but that is not the 
whole story, only a small fraction of it. And that is what I am going to 
tell the country when I broadcast in New York. But the program 
director told me what to say. * 
Almost daily during my dental practice, I was reminded that the 
average mother knows little about wh at her children eat. The mother 
will set a table full of assorted vict uals before them and then will let 
each child eat according to his taste. Too frequently it turns out that the children devour white bread 
and syrup, jams and jellies, hot bi scuits, cakes and pies. And they 
hardly touch the spinach, lettuce, slaw or salad. As they are stuffed on 
sweets, the children do not drink milk enough to build strong bones 
and sound teeth. For a case in point, one day Mrs. Johnson brought her twin boys, 
Tom and Bill, 14 years old, into my office for a check up. After I had looked over their mouths, I remarked: You boys do 
not eat the same food. "Oh yes, they do," Mrs. Johnson put in. "Both have eaten at the same table all their lives." Long experience had taught me never to argue with a mother 
concerning her child's doings. So I turned to the boys: Bill, do you like 
the stuff that Tom eats? "Naw," answered Bill, "I wouldn't eat what 
Tom eats." Now, Bill's mouth was healthy, his teeth sound and spotless, his 
gums firm. That boy had consumed his share of raw vegetables and 
fruit and had always drunk his milk. Maybe he asked for a second 
glassfull. By contrast, Tom's mouth was red and congested. His gums were 
puffy and easy to bleed. Tom was a heavy meat-eater and liked lots of gravy on his bread and potatoes. That boy sniffed at his spinach or 
turnip greens, pushed aside his salad or raw tomatoes. As I told him, Tom is breeding for himself a nice case of 
pyorrhea. If he didn't change his eating habits, he would be coming 
back before he was an old man, for a set of false teeth. In my practice I have noticed that and informed thoughtful 
parents generally were more interest ed in seeing that their children got 
plenty of proteins, starch, sugar and fat in their daily diet. Their home 
demonstration agent had instructed them concerning the calories that supply energy and the elements which build bone, muscle, blood, 
brain and nerves. But I say that a diet can contain all those elements and still be 
deficient enough to cause bodily ills or to induce tooth decay. Perhaps 
the children's food lacks certain essential minerals and vitamins: iron, 
magnesium, iodine, fluorine; vitamin A, B, C, D or G; thiamin, 
riboflavin, niacin or folic acid. To be available to the human body, I say, those minerals must be 
organic and colloidal. They have to be supplied through plants which 
have taken them up from the so il and processed them—or through 
animals that have fed on those plants—that is, in the form of meat, milk, butter and eggs. Then, if the fo od is not supplied in its natural, 
unadulterated and unrefined state, a considerable portion of the 
essential mineral and vitamin content is lost. For those reasons, I always advise d my patients: It is better to 
consume your wheat ground up hulls and all, without the bran or 
shorts taken out. Better bake potatoes with the jackets on and eat them 
whole. Do not throw away the outer leaves of mustard, spinach or 
lettuce. For it is the husks, peeling and outside leaves that store up the 
most minerals and vitamins. All my research and all the au thorities I have investigated 
together have about convinced me that cooked meats of all kinds are undesirable foods. CHAPTER 24. I TRY OUT MY THEORY ON A PATIENT 
 Some years back I had the opportunity to test out my theory 
concerning the curative value of the right foods. My brother, D. Heard, then 80 years old, had run a farm at 
Millersville, Alabama, through most of a lifetime. It was his life time 
habit to put in a full days work, from sunup 'till sundown, hardly 
missing a day until his health broke down. When he went to the hospital in Birmingham, the doctors there 
gave him a going-over and then informed him that he had an incurable 
heart condition.
Man_Vs_Toothache_by_George_Herd.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Then my doctor suddenly discovered that my blood pressure was too low. Each morning I would get up feeling 
a little weaker than before. At last I got so weak it was all I could do 
to walk from the house to my office a few blocks away. As I would 
pass down the street, the town jester would call out to me: 
"Say, Doc, which cemetery did you escape from this morning. " That greeting did not pep me up any. But all the while I had 
inside of me a secret determination to get well. I cultivated that and it 
pulled me through. It was in June of 1925, 9½ years after I came to Hereford that I 
had my crisis. My wife, Mattie, had drawn. out of me, tactfully, a little 
at a time what disposition I wanted to make of my affairs. She had put 
me to bed and kept my circulation going with hot water bags. I had an 
electric pad at my feet. That was th e time of life an old friend recalled 
to me not long since. "I saw you when, if you had gone one step farther," Perry 
McMinn said, "you would not have come back. " Then everybody who knew me thought I had come to the end of 
my row. Like Mr. Ready-to-Halt in "Pilgrim's Progress," I had 
received my summons and was all set to cross over on the other side. In my own mind, all the while, I kn ew better. I fully realized my 
condition and I made this plain to Mattie, but I told her I would be a 
man again. PART II. IN WHICH I SEEK FOR REASONS WHY 
  
 
 
CHAPTER 13. I START ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY 
 My quest for health led me to a sanitorium in Denver, where I 
spent five weeks, and onto another in Chicago, where I stayed another 
five weeks. I learned that both ins titutions were right up to the minute 
on foods but both had a lot to learn about the human organism. By this time my condition had be come desperate. Everyone who 
knew me thought I would die any day. One morning my next door 
neighbor, Rex T. dropped by. He was going to Canyon to consult a 
naturopath, Dr. H. A. Brown, wh o had built up a reputation by his 
remarkable cures. "Come along with me and let this new doctor look you over," my 
neighbor invited. "He can do no worse by you than the rest have 
done. " I took him up on that. When Dr. Brown had finished his check-up of Mr. T. and had 
prescribed for him, I asked the doctor to put me through the mill in the same fashion. When he had finished his examination Dr. Brown gave 
me a grim, frank report: 
"You are just about dead, old man. You have the dirtiest colon I 
have ever found. I can clean it out, if  you are not too weak to stand the 
shock. " By the way in which he went at  his examination I was persuaded 
that Dr. Brown had gone right to the root of my trouble that had 
eluded the diagnosticians whom I previously had consulted. Intuitively, I felt that here was the chance I had sought for so long to get back my lost health. Anyway, I had nothing to lose. I was at the 
end of my row. But in my own mind, I knew I could make it. So when 
Dr. Brown looked inquiringly at me  I had my answer: "Shoot, I am 
rarin' to go. " Right off the bat Dr. Brown prescribed a long fast. He told me to 
drink a glass of hot water every hour and to take nothing else into my 
stomach. Once every 24 hours I was to wash out my colon with a hot 
enema. The remedy was drastic, but as I realized it was being applied 
to a desperate condition. For that clogged up, inert colon of mine was 
constantly saturating my bloodstr eam with poisonous waste, I was 
suffering from low blood pressure and anemia "to the nth degree. " Knowing that my life depended upon it, I took my medicine. It was 
tough at the start. Like most people I thought if I missed a meal, I'd 
starve. All my life until then, I had habitually eaten too much. The 
excess sugar and starch—in white bread, potatoes and syrup, instead 
of being food, reacted as filth because it could not be assimilated—
had been stored up and this had meant extra pumping for my 
overworked heart. Now, I was about ready to drop. After two or three days of it, my craving for food vanished. I no 
longer felt hungry. Every morning I walked down to my office, 
opened up on schedule and did my day's work. As a rule, that meant 
spending long hours on my feet. On the seventh day of my fast, I put 
in a five-tooth bridge for John L. Wilson. On the twelfth day of my fast, Dr. Brown looked me over and 
told me I was nearly, but not quite ready to break it. Stick it out for a 
couple of days more, he suggested. At the end of fourteen days, Dr. Brown put me through his mill and told that, except for one bad spot I 
had a clean colon. And he added: "You cannot go on now. You must 
have nourishment. Maybe Nature will complete the clean-up. " As it turned out, happily for me, Nature did just that. Without Dr. Brown's friendly but firm warning, I would have 
realized well enough that I had now come to the critical turn in my 
fight to live. I had to break my fast by degrees. I must follow the 
schedule he gave me to  the minute. One false step would probably kill 
me. Right then, a light lunch, even  a bowl of soup would have been 
speedily fatal. Dr. Brown started me off on a small glass of orange juice every 
two hours. For the next day I could have a glass of milk every seven 
hours. On the second day, one glass every two hours and on the third 
day, one every hour. For the next two weeks, or exactly as long as I had fasted, I was on a milk diet exclusively. Then my system rebelled at the treatment. I no longer could digest my milk ration. It poisoned 
me. So Dr. Brown told me to fast for one day. Then put me on a diet 
of milk alternated 50-50 with fruit and vegetable juices. I kept that up for four months and then began on potlicker and boiled vegetables, such as mustard greens, turnips, cabbage and carrots. That was the 
first solid food I had eaten for almost five months. I felt like a new man. For the first time since I was a boy I knew 
the feel of bounding health. When on my fast my weight had dropped 
to 120 pounds, four months later I weighed 178 pounds. That was eight pounds above par. I had failed  to weigh regularly. My potlicker 
diet soon dropped me to 172 pounds. I kept that weight for several 
years. Then gradually I dropped to my present weight, between 145 
and 150 pounds. Since Dr. Brown treated me, 20-odd years ago, his profession, 
naturopathy, has devised new and better methods of cleaning and 
invigorating the colon than by a prolonged fast. He has abandoned that 
method, he informs me, as too dangerous. Coming out of the fast 
imposes to heavy a strain on the pa tient's will power. I had will power 
like an iron horse, without it, I could not have made the grade. However, as I have proved to my own satisfaction, an occasional 
short fast—one, two or three days, as conditions may warrant— can 
be immensely useful. As I can realize now, looking back over my experience, it was 
food eaten as appetite and taste dictated, nothing else, that reduced my 
health to its lowest ebb. When I began eating according to formula my 
health rose steadily to the high leve l where I have since maintained it. Whatever the disease it is self created. Disease cannot attack a healthy 
body. At this writing I am enjoying what seems to me the best health of 
all my 83 years. On that point, following my last check-up, my family 
physician, Dr. L. B. Barnett of Hereford, gave me welcome 
confirmation. He told me: 
"The best 15 or 20 years of your life lie ahead of you. " Thus heartened, I can picture myse lf a hale and hearty, energetic 
and peppy centenarian. You ask, how do I mean to do it. Well, as 
nearly as I can phrase it, my formul a is to subsist on natural foods, 
mostly raw, like our mineral rich  Deaf Smith County wheat fresh 
ground at the mill, raw vegetables grown in the same mineralized soil, 
and occasionally raw beef—that ta stes good when put through the 
liquifier, mixed with raw fruits and vegetables. For one thing, I watch my weight closely. When I pick up a 
pound or two, I'll cut down and cu t down my intake, until I have 
reduced my weight back to normal. At my age—and as I believe for any adult person, stored-up fat can be deadly. My aim, then, is to consume just enough food properly balanced, proteins, oils, fats, sugar 
and starches, to supply energy for my bodily machine and to keep that 
machine in repair. If I do that, always building up the wear and tear of each day's 
living, and the while supplying the catalysts needed to spark the vital 
processes, I see no reason at all why I cannot round out my 100 years 
and more—through it all keeping the feel of youth. One of my findings teaches me definitely, that our body is made 
of the food which is taken into our body—perfect or imperfect, it is 
our creation—barring the time when we  have no say. To say the least 
we are made of the food consumed—whether well or sick, we create it. Man was placed here to rule and to be the "big boss" and to 
choose his way of life and living and to have what ever he may desire, 
if and when he obeys the natural laws given him. These principles 
have been demonstrated and proven in my life. There have been two, so-called, outstanding diseases developed 
in my body. Viz. Arthritis and shaking palsy. My constant search for 
natural foods with plenty of minera ls and vitamins relieved me of 
these annoyances. These are the immunizers. Disease attacks only 
when natural laws have been disobeyed. The minerals and vitamins 
we must have. These are not plentiful in our popular foods. CHAPTER 14. AFTER I GOT ONTO THE RIGHT TRACK 
 All the 25 years I have lived since I got onto the right track as to 
diet and living habits generally, have been years of mental growth for 
me—and consequently the most enjoyable years I have known. I have 
gained back the bouyancy and the vision— day-dreaming reader, if you insist on calling it that—of my lost youth. My secret. It's yours for the asking, reader. Eat body-building 
foods which are also brain-building. I mean, for example, wheat which 
has a high phosphorus content—the so rt that grows in our Deaf Smith 
County soil—but consumed whole, bran, shorts and all, not as white 
flour that comes from the mill. The potatoes, beans, carrots, lettuce, 
mustard greens and all the food crops which grow in our soil are rich 
in those same elements. Now, as modern chemical analysis shows, the human body is 
more complex than the old school sc ientists ever suspected. Besides 
nitrogen (protein), calcium, phosphorus, potassium and water (oxygen 
and hydrogen), your body contains iron, cobalt, copper, zinc, chlorine, 
sodium, magnesium, manganesem sulphur, boron, flourine, iodine and 
carbon—but in various salts and in organic form. Besides to keep it functioning properly, the body needs the various vitamins (doubtless 
including some that biochemists have not yet discovered) and the 
vitamin factors, such as thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic and 
pantothenic acid. In fact our body must have food containing every 
element found in the earth. Modern biochemistry bears out what the Psalmist declared 3,000 
years ago: "Man is fearfully and wonderfully made—curiously 
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. " All those elements are essential to keep the body functioning. When some run short because a person's food does not contain them, 
trouble results. Whatever the disease, we create it. I have arrived at the conclusion that there is a type of food for 
each organ or function of the body. There is wheat for the brain and 
nervous system because it supplies phosphorus. There is milk, the best 
source of calcium (when it is taken raw) for the bones and teeth. There 
is iodine for the thyroid gland, and so on. Our body must be supplied with every mineral and vitamin if health is to continue. If, instead of giving quinine for chills or calomel to prod a 
sluggish liver, the doctors would prescribe the right food in the place 
of drugs for whatever deficiency the patient's impaired bodily 
functioning (metabolism, the doctors  call it) indicated, I do believe, 
they would get better results. I saved my life by this method. It works. This food medicine, according to my theory, would contain the 
elements which the sick body needed to restore its upset balance, but 
in the organic form which can be assimulated. From the viewpoint of the man who feeds upon them, the great 
function of plants is to take the inorganic minerals found in the soil 
and turn them into organic minerals that the human body can 
assimilate. That is true of the base minerals like calcium (lime), 
nitrogen (protein), potash and phosph orus. It is equally true of iron, 
copper, magnesium, boron, chlorine, fluorine and the other trace 
minerals. To my way of thinking, the organic minerals in grain, vegetables, 
milk, meat and eggs—that nourish the bodily tissues and keep them 
functioning—are the real source of rejuvination. But for maximum 
benefits, those foods should be eate n in their natural state—both raw 
and unrefined. CHAPTER 15. FOR ME LIFE BEGINS AT SIXTY 
 Through 20-odd years preceding my 60th birthday, I was 
constantly "enjoying poor health. " I thought myself going down hill 
all the time and, as it seemed to me, I stayed alive only by means of 
sheer will to live. Though I told n obody, I never doubted for a moment 
that I one day would regain my health. As it turned out, I was well along toward my goal when I 
emerged from that fast that Dr.
Dr. Brown, the naturopath, suggested that the doctor's diet might not be the cause of his illness.
Who suggested that the doctor's diet might not be the cause of his illness?
Dr. Brown prescribed a long fast, drinking a glass of hot water every hour and taking nothing else into his stomach. He also instructed him to wash out his colon with a hot enema once every 24 hours.
What was the doctor's initial treatment by Dr. Brown?
The doctor was instructed to start with a small glass of orange juice every two hours, then progress to a glass of milk every seven hours, and eventually switch to a diet of milk and raw vegetables.
What did the doctor's diet consist of after the 14th day of his fast?
The doctor was surprised to find that the people in Deaf Smith County, who consumed a diet of natural foods, had nearly perfect teeth and did not suffer from tooth decay.
What was the surprising discovery the doctor made about the people in Deaf Smith County?
The doctor concluded that diet plays a crucial role in maintaining health, and that a balanced diet of unrefined food can prevent tooth decay and other diseases.
What was the doctor's conclusion about the role of diet in maintaining health?