How and When to Be
Your Own Doctor
by Dr. Isabelle A. Moser
with Steve Solomon
This book is not copyright; it is public domain material.Reproduction and dissemination is encouraged as long asthe entire book is kept intact and remains unaltered.Steve Solomon, June, 1997. Table of Contents
Forward by Steve Solomon – 2Chapter 1: How I Became a Hygienist – 8Chapter 2: The Nature and Cause of Disease – 32Chapter 3: Fasting – 57Chapter 4: Colon Cleansing – 112Chapter 5: Diet and Nutrition – 137Chapter 6: Vitamins and Other Food Supplements – 207Chapter 7: The Analysis of Disease States—Helping the Body Recover – 231Appendices: – 279
Forward
Tis a gift to be simple
Tis a gift to be free,
Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves
In a place just right,
It will be in the valley
Of love and delight. Old Shaker Hymn
Favorite of Dr. Isabelle Moser
I was a physically tough, happy-go-lucky fellow until I reached my late thirties. Then I began to experience more and more off days when I did not feel quiteright. I thought I possessed an iron constitution. Although I grew a big foodgarden and ate mostly “vegetablitarian” I thought I could eat anything withimpunity. I had been fond of drinking beer with my friends while nibbling on saltysnacks or heavy foods late into the night. And until my health began to weaken Icould still get up the next morning after several homebrewed beers, feeling good,and would put in a solid day’s work. When my health began to slip I went looking for a cure. Up to that time the
only use I’d had for doctors was to fix a few traumatic injuries. The onlypreventative health care I concerned myself with was to take a multivitamin pillduring those rare spells when I felt a bit run down and to eat lots of vegetables.So I’d not learned much about alternative health care. Naturally, my first stop was a local general practitioner/MD. He gave me his
usual half-hour get-acquainted checkout and opined that there almost certainlywas nothing wrong with me. I suspect I had the good fortune to encounter anhonest doctor, because he also said if it were my wish he could send me aroundfor numerous tests but most likely these would not reveal anything either. More
than likely, all that was wrong was that I was approaching 40; with the onset of
middle age I would naturally have more aches and pains. ‘Take some aspirin andget used to it,’ was his advice. ‘It’ll only get worse.’
Not satisfied with his dismal prognosis I asked an energetic old guy I knew
named Paul, an ‘80-something homesteader who was renowned for his organicgarden and his good health. Paul referred me to his doctor, Isabelle Moser, whoat that time was running the Great Oaks School of Health, a residential andoutpatient spa nearby at Creswell, Oregon. Dr. Moser had very different methods of analysis than the medicos, was
warmly personal and seemed very safe to talk to. She looked me over, did somestrange magical thing she called muscle testing and concluded that I still had a verystrong constitution. If I would eliminate certain “bad” foods from my diet,eliminate some generally healthful foods that, unfortunately, I was allergic to, if Iwould reduce my alcohol intake greatly and take some food supplements, thengradually my symptoms would abate. With the persistent application of a littleself-discipline over several months, maybe six months, I could feel really wellagain almost all the time and would probably continue that way for many years tocome. This was good news, though the need to apply personal responsibilitytoward the solution of my problem seemed a little sobering. But I could also see that Dr. Moser was obviously not telling me something. So I gently pressed her for the rest. A little shyly, reluctantly, as though she wereused to being rebuffed for making such suggestions, Isabelle asked me if I hadever heard of fasting? “Yes,” I said. “I had. Once when I was about twenty andstaying at a farm in Missouri, during a bad flu I actually did fast, mainly because Iwas too sick to take anything but water for nearly one week.’
“Why do you ask?” I demanded.“If you would fast, you will start feeling really good as soon as the fast is over.”
she said. “Fast? How long?”
“Some have fasted for a month or even longer,” she said. Then she observed
my crestfallen expression and added, “Even a couple of weeks would make anenormous difference.”
It just so happened that I was in between setup stages for a new mail-order
business I was starting and right then I did have a couple of weeks when I wasvirtually free of responsibility. I could also face the idea of not eating for a coupleof weeks. “Okay!” I said somewhat impulsively. “I could fast for two weeks. If Istart right now maybe even three weeks, depending on how my schedule worksout.”
So in short order I was given several small books about fasting to read at
home and was mentally preparing myself for several weeks of severe privation,my only sustenance to be water and herb tea without sweetener. And then camethe clinker. “Have you ever heard of colonics?” she asked sweetly.“Yes. Weird practice, akin to anal sex or something?”“Not at all,” she responded. “Colonics are essential during fasting or you will
have spells when you’ll feel terrible. Only colonics make water fastingcomfortable and safe.”
Then followed some explanation about bowel cleansing (and another little
book to take home) and soon I was agreeing to get my body over to her placefor a colonic every two or three days during the fasting period, the first colonicscheduled for the next afternoon. I’ll spare you a detailed description of my firstfast with colonics; you’ll read about others shortly. In the end I withstood theboredom of water fasting for 17 days. During the fast I had about 7 colonics. Iended up feeling great, much trimmer, with an enormous rebirth of energy. Andwhen I resumed eating it turned out to be slightly easier to control my dietaryhabits and appetites. Thus began my practice of an annual health-building water fast. Once a year,
at whatever season it seemed propitious, I’d set aside a couple of weeks to heal
my body. While fasting I’d slowly drive myself over to Great Oaks School for
colonics every other day. By the end of my third annual fast in 1981, Isabelle andI had become great friends. About this same time Isabelle’s relationship with herfirst husband, Douglas Moser, had disintegrated. Some months later, Isabelle andI became partners. And then we married. My regular fasts continued through 1984, by which time I had recovered my
fundamental organic vigor and had retrained my dietary habits. About 1983Isabelle and I also began using Life Extension megavitamins as a therapy againstthe aging process. Feeling so much better I began to find the incredibly boringweeks of prophylactic fasting too difficult to motivate myself to do, and I stopped.Since that time I fast only when acutely ill. Generally less than one week on waterhandles any non-optimum health condition I’ve had since ‘84. I am only 54 yearsold as I write these words, so I hope it will be many, many years before I findmyself in the position where I have to fast for an extended period to deal with aserious or life-threatening condition. I am a kind of person the Spanish call autodidactico, meaning that I prefer to
teach myself. I had already learned the fine art of self-employment and generalsmall-business practice that way, as well as radio and electronic theory,typography and graphic design, the garden seed business, horticulture, andagronomy. When Isabelle moved in with me she also brought most of GreatOak’s extensive library, including very hard to obtain copies of the works of theearly hygienic doctors. Naturally I studied her books intensely. Isabelle also brought her medical practice into our house. At first it was only a
few loyal local clients who continued to consult with her on an outpatient basis,but after a few years, the demands for residential care from people who wereseriously and sometimes life-threateningly sick grew irresistibly, and I found myselfsharing our family house with a parade of really sick people. True, I was not theirdoctor, but because her residential clients became temporary parts of our family, Ihelped support and encourage our residents through their fasting process. I’m a
natural teacher (and how-to-do-it writer), so I found myself explaining many
aspects of hygienic medicine to Isabelle’s clients, while having a first-handopportunity to observe for myself the healing process at work. Thus it was that Ibecame the doctor’s assistant and came to practice second-hand hygienicmedicine. In 1994, when Isabelle had reached the age of 54, she began to think about
passing on her life’s accumulation of healing wisdom by writing a book. She hadno experience at writing for the popular market, her only major writing being aPh.D. dissertation. I on the other hand had published seven books aboutvegetable gardening. And I grasped the essentials of her wisdom as well as anynon-practitioner could. So we took a summer off and rented a house in ruralCosta Rica, where I helped Isabelle put down her thoughts on a cheap word-processing typewriter. When we returned to the States, I fired-up my “big-mac”and composed this manuscript into a rough book format that was given to someof her clients to get what is trendily called these days, “feedback.”
But before we could completely finish her book, Isabelle became dangerously
ill and after a long, painful struggle with abdominal cancer, she died. After Iresurfaced from the worst of my grief and loss, I decided to finish her book.Fortunately, the manuscript needed little more than polishing. I am telling thereader these things because many ghostwritten books end up having little directconnection with the originator of the thoughts. Not so in this case. And unlikemany ghost writers, I had a long and loving apprenticeship with the author. Atevery step of our collaboration on this book I have made every effort tocommunicate Isabelle’s viewpoints in the way she would speak, not my own. Dr.Isabelle Moser was for many years my dearest friend. I have worked on thisbook to help her pass her understanding on. Many people consider death to be a complete invalidation of a healing arts
practitioner. I don’t. Coping with her own dicey health had been a majormotivator for Isabelle’s interest in healing others. She will tell you more about it in
the chapters to come. Isabelle had been fending off cancer since its first blow up
when she was 26 years old. I view that 30 plus years of defeating Death as agreat success rather than consider her ultimate defeat as a failure. Isabelle Moser was born in 1940 and died in 1996. I think the greatest
accomplishment of her 56 years was to meld virtually all available knowledgeabout health and healing into a workable and most importantly, a simple modelthat allowed her to have amazing success. Her “system” is simple enough thateven a generally well-educated non-medico like me can grasp it. And use itwithout consulting a doctor every time a symptom appears. Finally, I should mention that over the years since this book was written I have
discovered contains some significant errors of anatomical or psysiological detail.Most of these happened because the book was written “off the top of Isabelle’shead,” without any reference materials at hand, not even an anatomy text. I havenot fixed these goofs as I am not even qualified to find them all. Thus, when thereader reads such as ‘the pancreas secretes enzymes into the stomach,’ (actuallyand correctly, the duodenum) I hope they will understand and not invalidate theentire book. Chapter One
How I Became a Hygienist
From The Hygienic Dictionary
Doctors . [1] In the matter of disease and healing, the people have been treated as serfs. The doctor is a
dictator who knows it all, and the people are stupid, dumb, driven cattle, fit for nothing except to beherded together, bucked and gagged when necessary to force medical opinion down their throats orunder their skins. I found that professional dignity was more often pomposity, sordid bigotry andgilded ignorance. The average physician is a fear-monger, if he is anything. He goes about like a roaringlion, seeking whom he may scare to death. Dr. John. H. Tllden,  Impaired Health: Its Cause and Cure,
V ol. 1, 1921. [2] Today we are not only in the Nuclear Age but also the Antibiotic Age. Unhappily,too, this is the Dark Age of Medicine—an age in which many of my colleagues, when confronted witha patient, consult a volume which rivals the Manhattan telephone directory in size. This bookcontains the names of thousands upon thousands of drugs used to alleviate the distressing symptomsof a host of diseased states of the body. The doctor then decides which pink or purple or baby-bluepill to prescribe for the patient. This is not, in my opinion, the practice of medicine. Far too many ofthese new “miracle” drugs are introduced with fanfare and then reveled as lethal in character, to besilently discarded for newer and more powerful drugs. Dr. Henry Bieler: Food is Your Best Medicine;
1965. I have two reasons for writing this book. One, to help educate the general
public about the virtues of natural medicine. The second, to encourage the nextgeneration of natural healers. Especially the second because it is not easy tobecome a natural hygienist; there is no school or college or licensing board. Most AMA-affiliated physicians follow predictable career paths, straight well-
marked roads, climbing through apprenticeships in established institutions to highfinancial rewards and social status. Practitioners of natural medicine are not
awarded equally high status, rarely do we become wealthy, and often,
naturopaths arrive at their profession rather late in life after following the tangledweb of their own inner light. So I think it is worth a few pages to explain how Icame to practice a dangerous profession and why I have accepted the daily risksof police prosecution and civil liability without possibility of insurance. Sometimes it seems to me that I began this lifetime powerfully predisposed to
heal others. So, just for childhood warm-ups I was born into a family that wouldbe much in need of my help. As I’ve always disliked an easy win, to makerendering that help even more difficult, I decided to be the youngest child, withtwo older brothers. A pair of big, capable brothers might have guided and shielded me. But my life
did not work out that way. The younger of my two brothers, three years ahead ofme, was born with many health problems. He was weak, small, always ill, and inneed of protection from other children, who are generally rough and cruel. Myfather abandoned our family shortly after I was born; it fell to my mother to workto help support us. Before I was adolescent my older brother left home to pursuea career in the Canadian Air Force. Though I was the youngest, I was by far the healthiest. Consequently, I had to
pretty much raise myself while my single mother struggled to earn a living in ruralwestern Canada. This circumstance probably reinforced my constitutionalpredilection for independent thought and action. Early on I started to protect my“little” brother, making sure the local bullies didn’t take advantage of him. Ilearned to fight big boys and win. I also helped him acquire simple skills, ones thatmost kids grasp without difficulty, such as swimming, bike riding, tree climbing,etc. And though not yet adolescent, I had to function as a responsible adult in our
household. Stressed by anger over her situation and the difficulties of earning ourliving as a country school teacher (usually in remote one-room schools), mymother’s health deteriorated rapidly. As she steadily lost energy and became less
able to take care of the home, I took over more and more of the cleaning,
cooking, and learned how to manage her—a person who feels terrible but mustwork to survive. During school hours my mother was able to present a positive attitude, and
was truly a gifted teacher. However, she had a personality quirk. She obstinatelypreferred to help the most able students become even more able, but she had littledesire to help those with marginal mentalities. This predilection got her into no endof trouble with local school boards; inevitably it seemed the District Chairmanwould have a stupid, badly-behaved child that my mother refused to cater to.Several times we had to move in the middle of the school year when she wasdismissed without notice for “insubordination.” This would inevitably happen onthe frigid Canadian Prairies during midwinter. At night, exhausted by the day’s efforts, my mother’s positiveness dissipated
and she allowed her mind to drift into negative thoughts, complaining endlesslyabout my irresponsible father and about how much she disliked him for treatingher so badly. These emotions and their irresponsible expression were very difficultfor me to deal with as a child, but it taught me to work on diverting someone’snegative thoughts, and to avoid getting dragged into them myself, skills I had touse continually much later on when I began to manage mentally and physically illclients on a residential basis. My own personal health problems had their genesis long before my own birth. Our diet was awful, with very little fresh fruit or vegetables. We normally hadcanned, evaporated milk, though there were a few rare times when raw milk andfree-range fertile farm eggs were available from neighbors. Most of my foodswere heavily salted or sugared, and we ate a great deal of fat in the form of lard.My mother had little money but she had no idea that some of the most nutritiousfoods are also the least expensive. It is no surprise to me that considering her nutrient-poor, fat-laden diet and
stressful life, my mother eventually developed severe gall bladder problems. Her
degeneration caused progressively more and more severe pain until she had a
cholecystectomy. The gallbladder’s profound deterioration had damaged her liveras well, seeming to her surgeon to require the removal of half her liver. After thissurgical insult she had to stop working and never regained her health. Fortunately,by this time all her children were independent. I had still more to overcome. My eldest brother had a nervous breakdown
while working on the DEW Line (he was posted on the Arctic Circle watchingradar screens for a possible incoming attack from Russia). I believe his collapseactually began with our childhood nutrition. While in the Arctic all his foods camefrom cans. He also was working long hours in extremely cramped quarters withno leave for months in a row, never going outside because of the cold, or havingthe benefit of natural daylight. When he was still in the acute stage of his illness (I was still a teenager myself)
I went to the hospital where my bother was being held, and talked the attendingpsychiatrist into immediately discharging him into my care. The physician alsoagreed to refrain from giving him electroshock therapy, a commonly usedtreatment for mental conditions in Canadian hospitals at that time. Somehow Iknew the treatment they were using was wrong. I brought my brother home still on heavy doses of thorazine. The side effects
of this drug were so severe he could barely exist: blurred vision, clenched jaw,trembling hands, and restless feet that could not be kept still. These are commonproblems with the older generation of psychotropic medications, generallycontrolled to some extent with still other drugs like cogentin (which he was takingtoo). My brother steadily reduced his tranquilizers until he was able to think and do
a few things. On his own he started taking a lot of B vitamins and eating wholegrains. I do not know exactly why he did this, but I believe he was following hisintuition. (I personally did not know enough to suggest a natural approach at thattime.) In any case after three months on vitamins and an improved diet he no long
needed any medication, and was delighted to be free of their side effects. He
remained somewhat emotionally fragile for a few more months but he soonreturned to work, and has had no mental trouble from that time to this day. Thiswas the beginning of my interest in mental illness, and my first exposure to thelimitations of “modern” psychiatry. I always preferred self-discipline to being directed by others. So I took every
advantage of having a teacher for a mother and studied at home instead of beingbored silly in a classroom. In Canada of that era you didn’t have to go to highschool to enter university, you only had to pass the written government entranceexams. At age 16, never having spent a single day in high school, I passed theuniversity entrance exams with a grade of 97 percent. At that point in my life Ireally wanted to go to medical school and become a doctor, but I didn’t have thefinancial backing to embark on such a long and costly course of study, so I settledon a four year nursing course at the University of Alberta, with all my expensespaid in exchange for work at the university teaching hospital. At the start of my nurses training I was intensely curious about everything in the
hospital: birth, death, surgery, illness, etc. I found most births to be joyful, at leastwhen everything came out all right. Most people died very alone in the hospital,terrified if they were conscious, and all seemed totally unprepared for death,emotionally or spiritually. None of the hospital staff wanted to be with a dyingperson except me; most hospital staff were unable to confront death any morebravely than those who were dying. So I made it a point of being at the deathbed. The doctors and nurses found it extremely unpleasant to have to deal withthe preparation of the dead body for the morgue; this chore usually fell to me also.I did not mind dead bodies. They certainly did not mind me! I had the most difficulty accepting surgery. There were times when surgery was
clearly a life saving intervention, particularly when the person had incurred atraumatic injury, but there were many other cases when, though the knife was thetreatment of choice, the results were disastrous. Whenever I think of surgery, my recollections always go to a man with cancer
of the larynx. At that time the University of Alberta had the most respectedsurgeons and cancer specialists in the country. To treat cancer they invariably didsurgery, plus radiation and chemotherapy to eradicate all traces of canceroustissue in the body, but they seemed to forget there also was a human beingresiding in that very same cancerous body. This particularly unfortunate man cameinto our hospital as a whole human being, though sick with cancer. He could stillspeak, eat, swallow, and looked normal. But after surgery he had no larynx, noresophagus, nor tongue, and no lower jaw. The head surgeon, who, by the way, was considered to be a virtual god
amongst gods, came back from the operating room smiling from ear to ear,announcing proudly that he had ‘got all the cancer’. But when I saw the result Ithought he’d done a butcher’s job. The victim couldn’t speak at all, nor eatexcept through a tube, and he looked grotesque. Worst, he had lost all will to live.I thought the man would have been much better off to keep his body parts as longas he could, and die a whole person able to speak, eating if he felt like it, beingwith friends and family without inspiring a gasp of horror. I was sure there must be better ways of dealing with degenerative conditions
such as cancer, but I had no idea what they might be or how to find out. Therewas no literature on medical alternatives in the university library, and no one in themedical school ever hinted at the possibility except when the doctors took jabs atchiropractors. Since no one else viewed the situation as I did I started to think Imight be in the wrong profession. It also bothered me that patients were not respected, were not people; they
were considered a “case” or a “condition.” I was frequently reprimanded forwasting time talking to patients, trying to get acquainted. The only place in thehospital where human contact was acceptable was the psychiatric ward. So Ienjoyed the rotation to psychiatry for that reason, and decided that I would like tomake psychiatry or psychology my specialty. By the time I finished nursing school, it was clear that the hospital was not for
me. I especially didn’t like its rigid hierarchical system, where all bowed down tothe doctors. The very first week in school we were taught that when entering aelevator, make sure that the doctor entered first, then the intern, then the chargenurse. Followed by, in declining order of status: graduate nurses, third yearnurses, second year nurses, first year nurses, then nursing aids, then orderlies,then ward clerks, and only then, the cleaning staff. No matter what the doctorsaid, the nurse was supposed to do it immediately without question—a verymilitary sort of organization. Nursing school wasn’t all bad. I learned how to take care of all kinds of
people with every variety of illness. I demonstrated for myself that simple nursingcare could support a struggling body through its natural healing process. But thedoctor-gods tended to belittle and denigrate nurses. No wonder—so much ofnursing care consists of unpleasant chores like bed baths, giving enemas anddealing with other bodily functions. I also studied the state-of-the-art science concerning every conceivable
medical condition, its symptoms, and treatment. At the university hospital nurseswere required to take the same premed courses as the doctors—includinganatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and pharmacology. Consequently, I think it isessential for holistic healers to first ground themselves in the basic sciences of thebody’s physiological systems. There is also much valuable data in standardmedical texts about the digestion, assimilation, and elimination. To reallyunderstand illness, the alternative practitioner must be fully aware of the properfunctioning of the cardiovascular/pulmonary system, the autonomic and voluntarynervous system, the endocrine system, plus the mechanics and detailednomenclature of the skeleton, muscles, tendons and ligaments. Also it is helpful toknow the conventional medical models for treating various disorders, becausethey do appear to work well for some people, and should not be totallyinvalidated simply on the basis of one’s philosophical or religious viewpoints. Many otherwise well-meaning holistic practitioners, lacking an honest
grounding in science, sometimes express their understanding of the human body innon-scientific, metaphysical terms that can seem absurd to the well-instructed. Iam not denying here that there is a spiritual aspect to health and illness; I believethere are energy flows in and around the body that can effect physiologicalfunctioning. I am only suggesting that to discuss illness without hard science is likecalling oneself a abstract artist because the painter has no ability to even do asimple, accurate representational drawing of a human figure. Though hospital life had already become distasteful to me I was young and
poor when I graduated. So after nursing school I buckled down and worked justlong enough to save enough money to obtain a masters degree in ClinicalPsychology from the University of British Columbia. Then I started working atRiverview Hospital in Vancouver, B.C., doing diagnostic testing, and grouptherapy, mostly with psychotic people. At Riverview I had a three-year-longopportunity to observe the results of conventional psychiatric treatment. The first thing I noticed was the ‘revolving door’ phenomena. That is, people
go out, and then they’re back in, over and over again, demonstrating thatstandard treatment—drugs, electroshock and group therapy—had beenineffective. Worse, the treatments given at Riverside were dangerous, often withlong term side effects that were more damaging than the disease being treated. Itfelt like nursing school all over again; in the core of my being I somehow knewthere was a better way, a more effective way of helping people to regain theirmental health. Feeling like an outsider, I started investigating the hospital’s nooksand crannies. Much to my surprise, in a back ward, one not open to the public, Inoticed a number of people with bright purple skins. I asked the staff about this and every one of the psychiatrists denied these
patients existed. This outright and widely-agreed-upon lie really raised mycuriosity. Finally after pouring through the journals in the hospital library I found anarticle describing psychotropic drug-induced disruptions of melanin (the dark skin
pigment). Thorazine, a commonly used psychiatric drug, when taken in high doses
over a long period of time would do this. Excess melanin eventually wasdeposited in vital organs such as the heart and the liver, causing death. I found it especially upsetting to see patients receive electroshock treatments. These violent, physician-induced traumas did seem to disrupt dysfunctionalthought patterns such as an impulse to commit suicide, but afterwards the victimcouldn’t remember huge parts of their life or even recall who they were. Likemany other dangerous medical treatments, electroshock can save life but it canalso take life away by obliterating identity. According the Hippocratic Oath, the first criteria of a treatment is that it should
do no harm. Once again I found myself trapped in a system that made me feelsevere protest. Yet none of these specialists or university professors, or academiclibraries had any information about alternatives. Worse, none of these mind-doctor-gods were even looking for better treatments. Though unpleasant and profoundly disappointing, my experience as a mental
hospital psychologist was, like being in nursing school, also very valuable. Notonly did I learn how to diagnose, and evaluate the severity of mental illness andassess the dangerousness of the mentally ill, I learned to understand them, to feelcomfortable with them, and found that I was never afraid of them. Fearlessness isa huge advantage. The mentally ill seem to have a heightened ability to spot fear inothers. If they sense that you are afraid they frequently enjoy terrorizing you.When psychotic people know you feel comfortable with them, and probablyunderstand a great deal of what they are experiencing, when they know that youcan and intend to control them, they experience a huge sense of relief. I couldalways get mentally ill people to tell me what was really going on in their headswhen no one else could get them to communicate. A few years later I married an American and became the Mental Health
Coordinator for Whatcom County, the northwestern corner of Washington State.I handled all the legal proceedings in the county for mentally ill people. After
treatment in the state mental hospital I supervised their reentry into the community,
and attempted to provide some follow up. This work further confirmed myconclusions that in most cases the mentally ill weren’t helped by conventionaltreatment. Most of them rapidly became social problems after discharge. Itseemed the mental hospital’s only ethically defensible function wasincarceration—providing temporary relief for the family and community from thementally ill person’s destructiveness. I did see a few people recover in the mental health system. Inevitably these
were young, and had not yet become institutionalized, a term describing someonewho comes to like being in the hospital because confinement feels safe.Hospitalization can mean three square meals and a bed. It frequently means anopportunity to have a sex life (many female inmates are highly promiscuous).Many psychotics are also criminal; the hospital seems far better to them than jail.Many chronically mentally ill are also experts at manipulating the system. Whenhomeless, they deliberately get hospitalized for some outrageous deed just beforewinter. They then “recover” when the fine weather of spring returns. After a year as Mental Health Coordinator, I had enough of the “system” and
decided that it was as good a time as any to return to school for a Ph.D., this timeat University. of Oregon where I studied clinical and counseling psychology andgerontology. While in graduate school I became pregnant and had my first child.Not surprisingly, this experience profoundly changed my consciousness. I realizedthat it had perhaps been all right for me to be somewhat irresponsible about myown nutrition and health, but that it was not okay to inflict poor nutrition on myunborn child. At that time I was addicted to salty, deep-fat fried corn chips and adiet pop. I thought I had to have these so-called foods every day. I tended to eatfor taste, in other words, what I liked, not necessarily what would give me thebest nutrition. I was also eating a lot of what most people would consider healthyfood: meat, cheese, milk, whole grains, nuts, vegetables, and fruits. My constitution had seemed strong and vital enough through my twenties to
allow this level of dietary irresponsibility. During my early 20s I had even
recovered from a breast cancer by sheer will power. (I will discuss this later.) Sobefore my pregnancy I had not questioned my eating habits. As my body changed and adapted itself to it’s new purpose I began visiting the
libraries and voraciously read everything obtainable under the topic of nutrition—all the texts, current magazines, nutritional journals, and health newsletters. Mychildhood habit of self-directed study paid off. I discovered alternative healthmagazines like Let’ s Live, Prevention, Organic Gardening  and Best Ways,  and
promptly obtained every back issue since they were first published. Along theway I ran into articles by Linus Pauling on vitamin C, and sent away for all of hisbooks, one of these was coauthored with David Hawkins, called The
Orthomolecular Approach to Mental Disorders. This book had a profound effect on me. I instantly recognized that it was Truth
with a capital “T”, although the orthomolecular approach was clearly in oppositionto the established medical model and contradicted everything I had ever learnedas a student or professional. Here at last was the exciting alternative approach totreating mental disorders I had so long sought. I filed this information away,waiting for an opportunity to use it. And I began to study all the references in The
Orthomolecular Approach to Mental Disorders  dealing with correcting the
perceptual functioning of psychotic people using natural substances. In the course of delving through libraries and book stores, I also came across
the Mokelumne Hill Publishing Company (now defunct). This obscure publisherreprinted many unusual and generally crudely reproduced out-of-print booksabout raw foods diets, hygienic medicine, fruitarianism, fasting, breathairianism,plus some works discussing spiritual aspects of living that were far more esotericthan I had ever thought existed. I decided that weird or not, I might as well findout everything potentially useful. So I spent a lot of money ordering their books.Some of Mokelumne Hill’s material really expanded my thoughts. Though muchof it seemed totally outrageous, in every book there usually was one line, one
paragraph, or if I was lucky one whole chapter that rang true for me. Recognizing capital “T” Truth when one sees it is one of the most important
abilities a person can have. Unfortunately, every aspect of our mass educationalsystem attempts to invalidate this skill. Students are repeatedly told that derivationfrom recognized authority and/or the scientific method are the only valid means toassess the validity of data. But there is another parallel method to determine thetruth or falsehood of information: Knowing. We Know by the simple method oflooking at something and recognizing its correctness. It is a spiritual ability. Ibelieve we all have it. But in my case, I never lost the ability to Know because Ialmost never attended school. Thus it is that I am absolutely certain How and When to Be Your Own
Doctor  will be recognized as Truth by some of my readers and rejected as
unscientific, unsubstantiated, or anecdotal information by others. I accept thislimitation on my ability to teach. If what you read in the following pages seemsTrue for you, great! If it doesn’t, there is little or nothing I could do to furtherconvince. I return now to the time of my first pregnancy. In the face of all these new
Truths I was discovering concerning health and nutrition, I made immediatechanges in my diet. I severely reduced my animal protein intake and limitedcooked food in general. I began taking vitamin and mineral supplements. I alsochoose a highly atypical Ph.D. dissertation topic, “The Orthomolecular Treatmentof Mental Disorders.” This fifty cent word, orthomolecular, basically meansreadjusting the body chemistry by providing unusually large amounts of specificnutrient substances normally found in the human body (vitamins and minerals).Orthomolecular therapy for mental disorders is supported by good diet, byremoval of allergy-producing substances, by control of hypoglycemia, pluscounseling, and provision of a therapeutic environment. My proposed dissertation topic met with nothing but opposition. The
professors on my doctoral committee had never heard of the word
orthomolecular, and all of them were certain it wasn’t an accepted, traditional
area of research. Research in academia is supposed to be based on the works ofa previous researchers who arrived at hypothesis based on data obtained bystrictly following scientific methodology. “Scientific” data requires control groups,matched populations, statistical analysis, etc. In my case there was no previouswork my dissertation committee would accept, because the available data did notoriginate from a medical school or psychology department they recognized. Due to a lot of determination and perseverance I finally did succeed in getting
my thesis accepted, and triumphed over my doctoral committee. And I graduatedwith a dual Ph.D. in both counseling psychology and gerontology. My ambitionwas to establish the orthomolecular approach on the west coast. At that time Iknew of only two clinics in the world actively using nutritional therapy. One was inNew York and the other, was a Russian experimental fasting program forschizophrenics. Doctors Hoffer and Osmond had used orthomolecular therapy ina Canadian mental hospital as early as 1950, but they had both gone on to otherthings. The newly graduated Dr. Isabelle Moser, Ph.D. was at this point actually an
unemployed mother, renting an old, end-of-the-road, far-in-the-countryfarmhouse; by then I had two small daughters. I strongly preferred to take care ofmy own children instead of turning them over to a baby sitter. My location and mychildren made it difficult for me to work any place but at home. So naturally, Imade my family home into a hospital for psychotic individuals. I started out withone resident patient at a time, using no psychiatric drugs. I had very good resultsand learned a tremendous amount with each client, because each one wasdifferent and each was my first of each type. With any psychotic residing in your home it is foolhardy to become inattentive
even for one hour, including what are normally considered sleeping hours. I havefound the most profoundly ill mentally ill person still to be very crafty and awareeven though they may appear to be unconscious or nonresponsive. Psychotics are
also generally very intuitive, using faculties most of us use very little or not at all. For example one of my first patients, Christine, believed that I was trying toelectrocute her. Though she would not talk, she repeatedly drew picturesdepicting this. She had, quite logically within her own reality, decided to kill mewith a butcher knife in self-defense before I succeeded in killing her. I had todisarm Christine several times, hide all the household knives, change my sleepingspot frequently, and generally stay sufficiently awake at night to respond to slight,creaky sounds that could indicate the approach of stealthily placed small barefeet. With orthomolecular treatment Christine improved but also became more
difficult to live with as she got better. For example, when she came out ofcatatonic-like immobility, she became extremely promiscuous, and wasdetermined to sleep with my husband. In fact she kept crawling into bed with himwith no clothes on. Either we had to forcefully remove her or the bed would behanded over to her—without a resident man. Christine then decided (logically)that I was an obstacle to her sex life, and once more set out to kill me. This stagealso passed, eventually and Christine got tolerably well. Christine’s healing process is quite typical and demonstrates why
orthomolecular treatment is not popular. As a psychotic genuinely improves, theiraberrated behavior often becomes more aggressive initially and thus, harder tocontrol. It seems far more convenient for all concerned to suppress psychoticbehavior with stupefying drugs. A drugged person can be controlled when they’rein a sort of perpetual sedation but then, they never get genuinely well, either. Another early patient, Elizabeth, gave me a particularly valuable lesson, one
that changed the direction of my career away from curing insanity and towardregular medicine. Elizabeth was a catatonic schizophrenic who did not speak ormove, except for some waxy posturing. She had to be fed, dressed and pottied.Elizabeth was a pretty little brunette who got through a couple of years of collegeand then spent several years in a state mental hospital. She had recently run away
from a hospital, and had been found wandering aimlessly or standing rigidly,
apparently staring fixedly at nothing. The emergency mental health facility in asmall city nearby called me up and asked if I would take her. I said I would, anddrove into town to pick her up. I found Elizabeth in someone’s back yard staringat a bush. It took me three hours to persuade her to get in my car, but that effortturned out to be the easiest part of the next months. Elizabeth would do nothing for herself, including going to the bathroom. I
managed to get some nutrition into her, and change her clothes, but that wasabout all I could do. Eventually she wore me down; I drifted off for an hour’s napinstead of watching her all night. Elizabeth slipped away in the autumn darknessand vanished. Needless to say, when daylight came I desperately searched thebuildings, the yard, gardens, woods, and even the nearby river. I called in amissing person report and the police looked as well. We stopped searching aftera week because there just wasn’t any place else to look. Then, into my kitchen,right in front of our round eyes and gaping mouths, walked a smiling, pleasant,talkative young woman who was quite sane. She said, “Hello I’m Elizabeth! I’m sorry I was such a hassle last week, and
thank you for trying to take care of me so well. I was too sick to know anybetter.” She said she had gone out our back door the week before and crawledunder a pile of fallen leaves on the ground in our back yard with a black tarp overthem. We had looked under the tarp at least fifty times during the days past, butnever thought to look under the leaves as well. This amazing occurrence made my head go bong to say the least; it was
obvious that Elizabeth had not been “schizophrenic” because of her genetics, norbecause of stress, nor malnutrition, nor hypoglycemia, nor because of any of thecauses of mental illness I had previously learned to identify and rectify, butbecause of food allergies. Elizabeth was spontaneously cured because she’d hadnothing to eat for a week. The composting pile of leaves hiding her had producedenough heat to keep her warm at night and the heap contained sufficient moisture
to keep her from getting too dehydrated. She looked wonderful, with clear shiny
blue eyes, clear skin with good color, though she was slightly slimmer than when Ihad last seen her. I then administered Coca’s Pulse Test (see the Appendix) and quickly
discovered Elizabeth was wildly intolerant to wheat and dairy products. Followingthe well known health gurus of that time like Adelle Davis, I had self-righteouslybeen feeding her homemade whole wheat bread from hand-ground Organicwheat, and homemade cultured yogurt from our own organically-fed goats. Butby doing this I had only maintained her insanity. Elizabeth was an intelligent youngwoman, and once she understood what was causing her problems, she had notrouble completely eliminating certain foods from her diet. She shuddered at thethought that had she not come to my place and discovered the problem, shewould probably have died on the back ward of some institution for the chronicallymentally ill.
As for me, I will always be grateful to her for opening my eyes and mind a little
wider. Elizabeth’s case showed me why Russian schizophrenics put on a 30 daywater fast had such a high recovery rate. I also remembered all the esotericbooks I had read extolling the benefits of fasting. I also remembered twooccasions during my own youth when I had eaten little or nothing forapproximately a month each without realizing that I was “fasting.” And doing thishad done me nothing but good. Once when I was thirteen my mother sent my “little” brother and I to a
residential fundamentalist bible school. I did not want to go there, although mybrother did; he had decided he wanted to be a evangelical minister. I hated bibleschool because I was allowed absolutely no independence of action. We wererequired to attend church services three times a day during the week, and fiveservices on Sunday. As I became more and more unhappy, I ate less and less; inshort order I wasn’t eating at all. The school administration became concernedafter I had dropped about 30 pounds in two months, notified my mother and sent
me home. I returned to at-home schooling. I also resumed eating. I fasted one other time for about a month when I was 21. It happened because
I had nothing to do while visiting my mother before returning to University excepthelp with housework and prepare meals. The food available in the backwoods ofcentral B.C. didn’t appeal to me because it was mostly canned vegetables,canned milk, canned moose meat and bear meat stews with lots of gravy andgreasy potatoes. I decided to pass on it altogether. I remember rather enjoyingthat time as a fine rest and I left feeling very good ready to take on the world fullforce ahead. At that time I didn’t know there was such a thing as fasting, it justhappened that way. After Elizabeth went on her way, I decided to experimentally fast myself. I
consumed only water for two weeks. But I must have had counter intentions tothis fast because I found myself frequently having dreams about sugared plums,and egg omelets, etc. And I didn’t end up feeling much better after this fast wasover (although I didn’t feel any worse either), because I foolishly broke the fastwith one of my dream omelets. And I knew better! Every book I’d ever read onfasting stated how important it is to break a fast gradually, eating only easy-to-digest foods for days or weeks before resuming one’s regular diet. From this experiment I painfully learned how important it is to break a fast
properly. Those eggs just didn’t feel right, like I had an indigestible stone in mybelly. I felt very tired after the omelet, not energized one bit by the food. Iimmediately cut back my intake to raw fruits and vegetables while the eggscleared out of my system. After a few days on raw food I felt okay, but I neverdid regain the shine I had achieved just before I resumed eating. This is one of the many fine things about fasting, it allows you to get in much
better communication with your own body, so that you can hear it when it objectsto something you’re putting in it or doing to it. It is not easy to acquire this degreeof sensitivity to your body unless you remove all food for a sufficiently longperiod; this allows the body to get a word in edgewise that we are willing and
able to listen to. Even when we do hear the body protesting, we frequently decide
to turn a deaf ear, at least until the body starts producing severe pain or someother symptom that we can’t ignore. Within a few years after Elizabeth’s cure I had handily repaired quite a few
mentally ill people in a harmless way no one had heard of; many new people wereknocking at my door wanting to be admitted to my drug free, home-basedtreatment program. So many in fact that my ability to accommodate them wasoverwhelmed. I decided that it was necessary to move to a larger facility and webought an old, somewhat rundown estate that I called Great Oaks School ofHealth because of the magnificent oak trees growing in the front yard. At Great Oaks initially I continued working with psychotics, employing fasting
as a tool, especially in those cases with obvious food allergies as identified byCoca’s Pulse Test, because it only takes five days for a fasting body to eliminateall traces of an allergic food substance and return to normal functioning. If theperson was so severely hypoglycemic that they were unable to tolerate a waterfast, an elimination diet (to be described in detail later) was employed, whilestringently avoiding all foods usually found to be allergy producing. I also decided that if I was going to employ fasting as my primary medicine, it
was important for me to have a more intense personal experience with it, becausein the process of reviewing the literature on fasting I saw that there were manydifferent approaches, each one staunchly defended by highly partisan advocates.For example, the capital “N” Natural, capital “H” Hygienists, such a HerbertShelton, aggressively assert that only a pure water fast can be called a fast.Sheltonites contend that juice fasting as advocated by Paavo Airola, for example,is not a fast but rather a modified diet without the benefits of real fasting. Coloncleansing was another area of profound disagreement among the authorities.Shelton strongly insisted that enemas and colonics should not be employed; thejuice advocates tend to strongly recommend intestinal cleansing. To be able to intelligently take a position in this maze of conflict I decided to
first try every system on myself. It seems to me that if I can be said to really own
anything in this life it is my own body, and I have the absolute right to experimentwith it as long as I’m not irresponsible about important things such as care of mykids. I also feel strongly that it was unethical to ask anyone to do anything that Iwas not willing or able to do myself. Just imagine what would happen if allmedical doctors applied this principal in their practice of medicine, if all surgeonsdid it too! I set out to do a complete and fully rigorous water fast according to the
Natural Hygiene model—only pure water and bed rest (with no colon cleansing)until hunger returns, something the hygienists all assured me would happen whenthe body had completed its detoxification process. The only aspect of a hygienicfast I could not fulfill properly was the bed rest part; unfortunately I was in solecharge of a busy holistic treatment center (and two little girls); there were things Ihad to do, though I did my chores and duties at a very slow pace with many restperiods. I water fasted for 42 days dropping from 135 pounds to 85 pounds on a 5' 7"
frame. At the end I looked like a Nazi concentration camp victim. I tended tohide when people came to the door, because the sight of all my bones scaredthem to death. Despite my assurances visitors assumed I was trying to commitsuicide. In any case I persevered, watching my body change, observing myemotions, my mental functioning, and my spiritual awareness. I thought, if Mosescould fast for 42 days so can I, even though the average length of a full water fastto skeletal weight for a person that is not overweight is more in the order of 30days. I broke the fast with small amounts of carrot juice diluted 50/50 with waterand stayed on that regimen for two more weeks. After I resumed eating solid food it took six weeks to regain enough strength
to be able to run the same distance in the same time I had before fasting, and ittook me about six months to regain my previous weight. My eyes and skin hadbecome exceptionally clear, and some damaged areas of my body such as my
twice-broken shoulder had undergone considerable healing. I ate far smaller
meals after the fast, but food was so much more efficiently absorbed that I got alot more miles to the gallon from what I did eat. I also became more aware whenmy body did not want me to eat something. After the fast, if I ignored my body’sprotest and persisted, it would immediately create some unpleasant sensation thatquickly persuaded me to curb my appetite. I later experimented with other approaches to fasting, with juice fasts, with
colon cleansing, and began to establish my own eclectic approach to fasting anddetoxification, using different types of programs for different conditions andadjusting for psychological tolerances. I’ll have a lot more to say about fasting. After my own rigorous fasting experience I felt capable of supervising
extended fasts on very ill or very overweight people. Great Oaks was graduallyshifting from being a place that mentally ill people came to regain their sanity tobeing a spa where anyone who wanted to improve their health could come for afew days, some weeks or even a few months. It had been my observation fromthe beginning that the mentally ill people in my program also improved remarkablyin physical health; it was obvious that my method was good for anyone. Evenpeople with good health could feel better. By this time I’d also had enough of psychotic people anyway, and longed for
sane, responsible company. So people started to come to Great Oaks School of Health to rest up from a
demanding job, to drop some excess weight, and generally to eliminate theadverse effects of destructive living and eating habits. I also began to get cancerpatients, ranging from those who had just been diagnosed and did not wish to gothe AMA-approved medical route of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, tothose with well-advanced cancer who had been sent home to die after receivingall of the above treatments and were now ready to give alternative therapies a trysince they expected to die anyway. I also had a few people who were beyondhelp because their vital organs had been so badly damaged that they knew they
were dying, and they wanted to die in peace without medical intervention, in a
supportive hospice cared for by people who could confront death. Great Oaks School was intentionally named a “school” of health partially to
deflect the attentions of the AMA. It is, after all, entirely legal to teach about howto maintain health, about how to prevent illness, and how to go about makingyourself well once you were sick. Education could not be called “practicingmedicine without a license.” Great Oaks was also structured as a school becauseI wanted to both learn and teach. Toward this end we started putting out a holistichealth newsletter and offering classes and seminars to the public on variousaspects of holistic health. From the early 1970s through the early 1980s I inviteda succession of holistic specialists to reside at GOSH, or to teach at Great Oakswhile living elsewhere. These teachers not only provided a service to thecommunity, but they all became my teachers as well. I apprenticed myself to eachone in turn. There came and went a steady parade of alternative practitioners of the healing
arts and assorted forms of metapsychology: acupuncturists, acupressurists,reflexologists, polarity therapists, massage therapists, postural integrationists,Rolfers, Feldenkries therapists, neurolinguistic programmers, biokinesiologists,iridologists, psychic healers, laying on of handsers, past life readers, crystaltherapists, toning therapists in the person of Patricia Sun, color therapy with lampsand different colored lenses a la Stanley Bourroughs, Bach Flower therapists,aroma therapists, herbalists, homeopaths, Tai Chi classes, yoga classes, Aricaclasses, Guergieff and Ouspensky fourth-way study groups, EST workshops, ZenMeditation classes. Refugee Lamas from Tibet gave lectures on The Book of theDead and led meditation and chanting sessions, and we held communicationclasses using Scientology techniques. There were anatomy and physiologyclasses, classes on nutrition and the orthomolecular approach to treating mentaldisorders (given by me of course); there were chiropractors teaching adjustmenttechniques, even first aid classes. And we even had a few medical doctors of the
alternative ilk who were interested in life style changes as an approach to
maintaining health. Classes were also offered on colon health including herbs, clays, enemas, and
colonics. So many of my client at Great Oaks were demanding colonics inconjunction with their cleansing programs, that I took time out to go to Indio,Calif. to take a course in colon therapy from a chiropractor, and purchase a stateof the art colonic machine featuring all the gauges, electric water solenoids andstainless steel knobs one could ask for. During this period almost all alternative therapists and their specialties were
very interesting to me, but I found that most of the approaches they advocateddid not suit my personality. For example, I think that acupuncture is a very usefultool, but I personally did not want to use needles. Similarly I thought that Rolfingwas a very effective tool but I did not enjoy administering that much pain,although a significant number of the clients really wanted pain. Some of thetechniques appealed to me in the beginning, and I used them frequently with goodresults but over time I decided to abandon them, mostly because of a desire tosimplify and lighten up my bag of tricks. Because of my enthusiasm and successes Great Oaks kept on growing. Originally the estate served as both the offices of the Holt Adoption Agency andthe Holt family mansion. The Holt family had consisted of Harry and Bertha Holt,six of their biological children, and eight adopted Korean orphans. For this reasonthe ten thousand square foot two story house had large common rooms, and lotsand lots of bedrooms. It was ideal for housing spa clients and my own family. Theadjoining Holt Adoption Agency office building was also very large with amultitude of rooms. It became living space for those helpers and hangers-on wecame to refer to as “community members.” My first husband added even more tothe physical plant constructing a large, rustic gym and workshop. Many “alternative” people visited and then begged to stay on with room and
board provided in exchange for their work. A few of these people made a
significant contribution such as cooking, child care, gardening, tending the ever-
ravenous wood-fired boiler we used to keep the huge concrete mansion heated,or doing general cleaning. But the majority of the “work exchangers” did notreally understand what work really was, or didn’t have sufficient ethical presenceto uphold the principle of fair exchange, which is basically giving something ofequal value for getting something of value and, perhaps more importantly, giving inexchange what is needed and asked for. I also found that community members, once in residence, were very difficult to
dislodge. My healing services were supporting far too much dead wood. This wasbasically my own fault, my own poor management. Still, I learned a great deal from all of this waste. First of all it is not a genuine
service to another human being to give them something for nothing. If a fairexchange is expected and received, positive ethical behavior is strengthened,allowing the individual to maintain their self-respect. I also came to realize what animportant factor conducting one’s life ethically is in the individual healing process.Those patients who were out exchange in their relationships with others in one ormore areas of their life frequently did not get well until they changed thesebehaviors. Toward the end of 1982, after providing a decade of services to a great many
clients, many of these in critical condition, I reached to point where I wasphysically, mentally, and spiritually drained. I needed a vacation desperately butno one, including my first husband, could run Great Oaks in my absence muchless cover the heavy mortgage. So I decided to sell it. This decision stunned thecommunity members and shocked the clientele who had become dependent onmy services. I also got a divorce at this time. In fact I went through quite adramatic life change in many areas—true to pattern, a classic mid-life crisis. All Ikept from these years was my two daughters, my life experiences, and far toomany books from the enormous Great Oaks library. These changes were however, necessary for my survival. Any person who
works with, yes, lives on a day-to-day basis with sick people and who isconstantly giving or outflowing must take time out to refill their vessel so that theycan give again. Failure to do this can result in a serious loss of health, or death.Most healers are empathic people who feel other peoples’ pains and stresses andsometimes have difficulty determining exactly what is their own personal‘baggage’ and what belongs to the clients. This is especially difficult when thetherapy involves a lot of ‘hands on’ techniques. After leaving Great Oaks it took me a couple of years to rest up enough to
want to resume practicing again. This time, instead of creating a substantialinstitution, Steve, my second husband and my best friend, built a tiny office next toour family home. I had a guest room that I would use for occasional residentialpatients. Usually these were people I had known from Great Oaks days or werepeople I particularly liked and wanted to help through a life crisis. At the time I am writing this book over ten years have passed since I sold
Great Oaks. I continue to have an active outpatient practice, preferring to protectthe privacy of my home and family life since I was remarried by limiting inpatientsto a special few who required more intensive care, and then, only one at a time,and then, with long spells without a resident. Chapter Two
The Nature and Cause of Disease
From The Hygienic Dictionary
Toxemia. [1] “Toxemia is the basic cause of all so-called diseases. In the process of tissue-building
(metabolism), there is cell-building (anabolism) and cell destruction (catabolism). The broken-downtissue is toxic. In the healthy body (when nerve energy is normal), this toxic material is eliminatedfrom the blood as fast as it is evolved. But when nerve energy is dissipated from any cause (such asphysical or mental excitement or bad habits) the body becomes weakened or enervated. When thebody is enervated, elimination is checked. This, in turn, results in a retention of toxins in the blood—the condition which we speak of as toxemia. This state produces a crisis which is nothing more thanheroic or extraordinary efforts by the body to eliminate waste or toxin from the blood. It is this crisiswhich we term disease. Such accumulation of toxin when once established, will continue until nerveenergy has been restored to normal by removing the cause. So-called disease is nature’s effort toeliminate toxin from the blood. All so-called diseases are crises of toxemia.” John H. Tilden, M.D.,Toxemia Explained . [2] Toxins are divided into two groups; namely exogenous, those formed in the
alimentary canal from fermentation and decomposition following imperfect or faulty digestion. If thefermentation is of vegetables or fruit, the toxins are irritating, stimulating and enervating, but not sodangerous or destructive to organic life as putrefaction, which is a fermentation set up in nitrogenousmatter—protein-bearing foods, but particularly animal foods. Endogenous toxins are autogenerated.They are the waste products of metabolism. Dr. John. H. Tllden, Impaired Health: Its Cause and
Cure,  1921. Suppose a fast-growing city is having traffic jams. “We don’t like it!” protest
the voters.” Why are these problems happening?” asks the city council, trying tolook like they are doing something about it. Experts then proffer answers. “Because there are too many cars,” says the Get
A Horse Society. The auto makers suggest it is because there are uncoordinated
traffic lights and because almost all the businesses send their employees home at
the same time. Easy to fix! And no reason whatsoever to limit the number of cars.The asphalt industry suggests it is because the size and amount of roads isinadequate. What do we do then? Tax cars severely until few can afford them? Legislate
opening and closing hours of businesses to stagger to’ing and fro’ing? Hire asmarter municipal highway engineer to synchronize the traffic lights? Build largerand more efficient streets? Demand that auto companies make cars smaller somore can fit the existing roads? Tax gasoline prohibitively, pass out and give awayfree bicycles in virtually unlimited quantities while simultaneously building mass railsystems? What? Which?
Be_your_own_doctor.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        How and When to Be
Your Own Doctor
by Dr. Isabelle A. Moser
with Steve Solomon
This book is not copyright; it is public domain material. Reproduction and dissemination is encouraged as long asthe entire book is kept intact and remains unaltered. Steve Solomon, June, 1997. Table of Contents
Forward by Steve Solomon – 2Chapter 1: How I Became a Hygienist – 8Chapter 2: The Nature and Cause of Disease – 32Chapter 3: Fasting – 57Chapter 4: Colon Cleansing – 112Chapter 5: Diet and Nutrition – 137Chapter 6: Vitamins and Other Food Supplements – 207Chapter 7: The Analysis of Disease States—Helping the Body Recover – 231Appendices: – 279
Forward
Tis a gift to be simple
Tis a gift to be free,
Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves
In a place just right,
It will be in the valley
Of love and delight. Old Shaker Hymn
Favorite of Dr. Isabelle Moser
I was a physically tough, happy-go-lucky fellow until I reached my late thirties. Then I began to experience more and more off days when I did not feel quiteright. I thought I possessed an iron constitution. Although I grew a big foodgarden and ate mostly “vegetablitarian” I thought I could eat anything withimpunity. I had been fond of drinking beer with my friends while nibbling on saltysnacks or heavy foods late into the night. And until my health began to weaken Icould still get up the next morning after several homebrewed beers, feeling good,and would put in a solid day’s work. When my health began to slip I went looking for a cure. Up to that time the
only use I’d had for doctors was to fix a few traumatic injuries. The onlypreventative health care I concerned myself with was to take a multivitamin pillduring those rare spells when I felt a bit run down and to eat lots of vegetables. So I’d not learned much about alternative health care. Naturally, my first stop was a local general practitioner/MD. He gave me his
usual half-hour get-acquainted checkout and opined that there almost certainlywas nothing wrong with me. I suspect I had the good fortune to encounter anhonest doctor, because he also said if it were my wish he could send me aroundfor numerous tests but most likely these would not reveal anything either. More
than likely, all that was wrong was that I was approaching 40; with the onset of
middle age I would naturally have more aches and pains. ‘Take some aspirin andget used to it,’ was his advice. ‘It’ll only get worse. ’
Not satisfied with his dismal prognosis I asked an energetic old guy I knew
named Paul, an ‘80-something homesteader who was renowned for his organicgarden and his good health. Paul referred me to his doctor, Isabelle Moser, whoat that time was running the Great Oaks School of Health, a residential andoutpatient spa nearby at Creswell, Oregon. Dr. Moser had very different methods of analysis than the medicos, was
warmly personal and seemed very safe to talk to. She looked me over, did somestrange magical thing she called muscle testing and concluded that I still had a verystrong constitution. If I would eliminate certain “bad” foods from my diet,eliminate some generally healthful foods that, unfortunately, I was allergic to, if Iwould reduce my alcohol intake greatly and take some food supplements, thengradually my symptoms would abate. With the persistent application of a littleself-discipline over several months, maybe six months, I could feel really wellagain almost all the time and would probably continue that way for many years tocome. This was good news, though the need to apply personal responsibilitytoward the solution of my problem seemed a little sobering. But I could also see that Dr. Moser was obviously not telling me something. So I gently pressed her for the rest. A little shyly, reluctantly, as though she wereused to being rebuffed for making such suggestions, Isabelle asked me if I hadever heard of fasting. “Yes,” I said. “I had. Once when I was about twenty andstaying at a farm in Missouri, during a bad flu I actually did fast, mainly because Iwas too sick to take anything but water for nearly one week. ’
“Why do you ask. ” I demanded. “If you would fast, you will start feeling really good as soon as the fast is over. ”
she said. “Fast. How long. ”
“Some have fasted for a month or even longer,” she said. Then she observed
my crestfallen expression and added, “Even a couple of weeks would make anenormous difference. ”
It just so happened that I was in between setup stages for a new mail-order
business I was starting and right then I did have a couple of weeks when I wasvirtually free of responsibility. I could also face the idea of not eating for a coupleof weeks. “Okay. ” I said somewhat impulsively. “I could fast for two weeks. If Istart right now maybe even three weeks, depending on how my schedule worksout. ”
So in short order I was given several small books about fasting to read at
home and was mentally preparing myself for several weeks of severe privation,my only sustenance to be water and herb tea without sweetener. And then camethe clinker. “Have you ever heard of colonics. ” she asked sweetly. “Yes. Weird practice, akin to anal sex or something. ”“Not at all,” she responded. “Colonics are essential during fasting or you will
have spells when you’ll feel terrible. Only colonics make water fastingcomfortable and safe. ”
Then followed some explanation about bowel cleansing (and another little
book to take home) and soon I was agreeing to get my body over to her placefor a colonic every two or three days during the fasting period, the first colonicscheduled for the next afternoon. I’ll spare you a detailed description of my firstfast with colonics; you’ll read about others shortly. In the end I withstood theboredom of water fasting for 17 days. During the fast I had about 7 colonics. Iended up feeling great, much trimmer, with an enormous rebirth of energy. Andwhen I resumed eating it turned out to be slightly easier to control my dietaryhabits and appetites. Thus began my practice of an annual health-building water fast. Once a year,
at whatever season it seemed propitious, I’d set aside a couple of weeks to heal
my body. While fasting I’d slowly drive myself over to Great Oaks School for
colonics every other day. By the end of my third annual fast in 1981, Isabelle andI had become great friends. About this same time Isabelle’s relationship with herfirst husband, Douglas Moser, had disintegrated. Some months later, Isabelle andI became partners. And then we married. My regular fasts continued through 1984, by which time I had recovered my
fundamental organic vigor and had retrained my dietary habits. About 1983Isabelle and I also began using Life Extension megavitamins as a therapy againstthe aging process. Feeling so much better I began to find the incredibly boringweeks of prophylactic fasting too difficult to motivate myself to do, and I stopped. Since that time I fast only when acutely ill. Generally less than one week on waterhandles any non-optimum health condition I’ve had since ‘84. I am only 54 yearsold as I write these words, so I hope it will be many, many years before I findmyself in the position where I have to fast for an extended period to deal with aserious or life-threatening condition. I am a kind of person the Spanish call autodidactico, meaning that I prefer to
teach myself. I had already learned the fine art of self-employment and generalsmall-business practice that way, as well as radio and electronic theory,typography and graphic design, the garden seed business, horticulture, andagronomy. When Isabelle moved in with me she also brought most of GreatOak’s extensive library, including very hard to obtain copies of the works of theearly hygienic doctors. Naturally I studied her books intensely. Isabelle also brought her medical practice into our house. At first it was only a
few loyal local clients who continued to consult with her on an outpatient basis,but after a few years, the demands for residential care from people who wereseriously and sometimes life-threateningly sick grew irresistibly, and I found myselfsharing our family house with a parade of really sick people. True, I was not theirdoctor, but because her residential clients became temporary parts of our family, Ihelped support and encourage our residents through their fasting process. I’m a
natural teacher (and how-to-do-it writer), so I found myself explaining many
aspects of hygienic medicine to Isabelle’s clients, while having a first-handopportunity to observe for myself the healing process at work. Thus it was that Ibecame the doctor’s assistant and came to practice second-hand hygienicmedicine. In 1994, when Isabelle had reached the age of 54, she began to think about
passing on her life’s accumulation of healing wisdom by writing a book. She hadno experience at writing for the popular market, her only major writing being aPh. D. dissertation. I on the other hand had published seven books aboutvegetable gardening. And I grasped the essentials of her wisdom as well as anynon-practitioner could. So we took a summer off and rented a house in ruralCosta Rica, where I helped Isabelle put down her thoughts on a cheap word-processing typewriter. When we returned to the States, I fired-up my “big-mac”and composed this manuscript into a rough book format that was given to someof her clients to get what is trendily called these days, “feedback. ”
But before we could completely finish her book, Isabelle became dangerously
ill and after a long, painful struggle with abdominal cancer, she died. After Iresurfaced from the worst of my grief and loss, I decided to finish her book. Fortunately, the manuscript needed little more than polishing. I am telling thereader these things because many ghostwritten books end up having little directconnection with the originator of the thoughts. Not so in this case. And unlikemany ghost writers, I had a long and loving apprenticeship with the author. Atevery step of our collaboration on this book I have made every effort tocommunicate Isabelle’s viewpoints in the way she would speak, not my own.
Dr. Isabelle A. Moser and Steve Solomon
Who is the author of the book "How and When to Be Your Own Doctor"?
Her own health crisis and her desire to help her brother with his health issues
What motivated Dr. Moser to start her own holistic health practice?
She used a combination of orthomolecular therapy, counseling, and self-directed study
What was Dr. Moser's approach to treating mentally ill patients?
Great Oaks
What was the name of the estate where Dr. Moser established her holistic health practice?
She believed that many doctors were arrogant, bigoted, and ignorant, and that their approach to medicine was often ineffective and harmful.
What was Dr. Moser's perspective on the role of the medical community?