MILK CURES MANY DISEASES

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MILK CURES MANY DISEASES

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by J. R. Crewe, MD

 

The following is an edited version of an article by Dr. J. R. Crewe, of the

Mayo Foundation, forerunner of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, published in

Certified Milk Magazine, January 1929. We are grateful to Dr. Ron Schmid, ND

of Middlebury, CT for unearthing this fascinating piece. The " Milk Cure "

was the subject of at least two books by other authors, written subsequently to

Dr. Crewe's work. The milk used was, in all cases, the only kind of milk

available in those days—raw milk from pasture-fed cows, rich in butterfat.

The

treatment is a combination of detoxifying fast and nutrient-dense feeding.

Note that Crewe quotes William Osler, author of a standard medical textbook of

the day. Thus, this protocol was an orthodox, accepted therapy in the early

1900s. Today the Mayo Clinic provides surgery and drug treatments, but nothing

as efficacious and elegant as the Milk Cure

 

For fifteen years the writer has employed the certified milk treatment in

various diseases and during the past ten he had a small sanitarium devoted

principally to this treatment. The results obtained in various types of disease

have been so uniformly excellent that one's conception of disease and its

alleviation is necessarily changed. The method itself is so simple that it does

not greatly interest most doctors and the main stimulus for its use is from

the patients themselves.

To cure disease we should seek to improve elimination, to make better blood

and more blood, to build up the body resistance. The method used tends to

accomplish these things. Blood conditions rapidly improve and the general

condition and resistance is built up and recovery follows.

In several instances, Osler (Principles and Practices of Medicine, by

William Osler, MD eighth edition) speaks of milk as being nothing more than

white

blood. Milk resembles blood closely and is a useful agent for improving and

making new and better blood. Blood is the chief agent of metabolism. Milk is

recognized in medical literature almost exclusively as a useful food and is

admitted to be a complete food.

The therapy is simple. The patients are put at rest in bed and are given at

half hour intervals small quantities of milk, totalling from five to ten

quarts of milk a day. Most patients are started on three or four quarts of milk

a

day and this is usually increased by a pint a day. Diaphoresis [copious

perspiration] is stimulated by hot baths and hot packs and heat in other forms.

A

daily enema is given.

The treatment is used in many chronic conditions but chiefly in

tuberculosis, diseases of the nervous system, cardiovascular and renal

conditions,

hypertension, and in patients who are underweight, run-down, etc. Striking

results

are seen in diseases of the heart and kidneys and high blood pressure. In

cases in which there is marked edema, the results obtained are surprisingly

marked. This is especially striking because so-called dropsy has never been

treated with large quantities of fluid. With all medication withdrawn, one case

lost twenty-six pounds in six days, huge edema disappearing from the abdomen

and legs, with great relief to the patient. No cathartics or diuretics were

given. This property of milk in edema has been noted in both cardiac and renal

cases.

Patients with cardiac disease respond splendidly without medication. In

patients who have been taking digitalis and other stimulants, the drugs are

withdrawn. High blood pressure patients respond splendidly and the results in

most

instances are quite lasting. The treatment has been used successfully in

obesity without other alimentation. One patient reduced from 325 pounds to 284

in two weeks, on four quarts of milk a day, while her blood pressure was

reduced from 220 to 170. Some extremely satisfying results have been obtained

in a

few cases of diabetics.

When sick people are limited to a diet containing an excess of vitamins and

all the elements necessary to growth and maintenance, which are available in

milk, they recover rapidly without the use of drugs and without bringing to

bear all the complicated weapons of modern medicine.

Under the head of Treatment in Chronic Gastritis, Osler has said, " A rigid

milk diet should be tried " (Principles and Practices of Medicine, by William

Osler, M.D., eighth edition). And quoting from George Cheyne, he wrote, " Milk

and sweet sound blood differ in nothing but color: milk is blood. " Under the

heading of treatment in many diseases, it was true that he had little to say

about drugs but did say a good deal about diet and particularly as in most

every instance he recommended large quantities of milk.

Under chronic Bright's disease (p 704) he says, " Milk or buttermilk should

constitute for a time, the chief article of food. " Under treatment of cancer

of stomach (p 505), he says many patients do best on milk alone. Under

treatment of rheumatic fever (p 378), he says, " Milk is the most suitable

diet. "

With Olser as a background, one need not hesitate to go a bit farther. In fact,

practically all medical men are agreed as to the value of milk as a food, and

as an important part of the diet in the treatment of many diseases. But as

the chief remedy in the treatment of disease, it is seldom used.

For more than 16 years I have conducted a small sanitarium where milk is

used almost exclusively in the treatment of various diseases. The results have

been so regularly satisfactory that I have naturally become enthusiastic and

interested in this method of treating disease. We used good Guernsey milk,

equal to 700 calories to the quart.

Interestingly, diseases that have no similarity respond equally to this

treatment. For instance, psoriasis clears up beautifully. The improvement in

tuberculosis or nephritis is equally interesting but there is no similarity in

these diseases. I once heard a very distinguished medical man discussing a case

of psoriasis. He said, " This was the worst case of psoriasis I have ever

seen. This boy was literally covered from head to foot with scales. We put this

boy on a milk diet and in less than a month he had a skin like a baby's. " To

me, this means that there was evidently some nutritive substance or vitamin

or glandular secretion lacking, that was furnished by the milk.

It is well known that there is no time in the life of practically any

mammal, but especially of the human, when the body is so beautiful and perfect

as

during the period when milk is the only food. It will be admitted that there

is no period in life when the body is so perfect as in infancy, the infant

being fed on milk from a healthy mother.

The Arabs are said (Encyclopaedia Britannica) to be the finest race,

physically, in the world. Their diet consists mostly of milk and milk products

with

fruits and vegetables, and some meat.

You are all familiar with the writings of Colonel McCarrison, a medical

officer in the British Army. He tells us that for nine years he was stationed

in

India in a district in the Himalayan Mountains. He said that the natives were

very fine physically, that they retained a youthful appearance to advanced

age and lived long and that they were very fertile. During the nine years of

his residence there he saw practically no disease, no cases of malignancy or

of abdominal disease. The diet of these people was simple and consisted

principally of vegetables and fruits and milk and milk products.

Steffanson wrote most interestingly of the Eskimo, who, when uncontaminated

by civilized conditions were hardy and robust. Their diet of course was

almost entirely of meat and fish. He tells us, however, that the habits of

meat-eating people are similar to those of carnivorous animals. The wolf first

attacks the heart and gets the blood and later eats the glandular organs and

viscera, leaving the muscle meats till the last. The Eskimo does the same

thing.

During one expedition Mr. Steffanson and party started on a nine months'

trip over the Arctic ice with only one day's provisions. All previous Arctic

explorers had said that civilized men could not live in the Arctic regions

without bringing in their supplies. Mr. Steffanson and his party, during the

nine

months, were almost never without an abundance of food, and much of it was

eaten frozen and raw. I wish to show from Steffanson's experience, first, that

it is possible for people to be robust and maintain good health on various

types of food of limited variety. That the condition common to all types of

diet is, that much of the food is eaten raw. I wish to say here that our very

excellent results obtained in the treatment of disease were had with uncooked

food and raw milk.

The experience of seeing many cases of illness improve rapidly on a diet of

raw milk has suggested more and more the feeling that much of modern disease

is due to an increasing departure from simple methods of preparing plain

foods. The treatment of various diseases over a period of 18 years with a

practically exclusive milk diet has convinced me personally that the most

important

single factor in the cause of disease and in the resistance to disease is

food. I have seen so many instances of the rapid and marked response to this

form of treatment that nothing could make me believe this is not so.

We have often seen most satisfactory results in the treatment of anemia,

including pernicious anemia, on a milk diet. I have repeatedly seen a marked

reduction in the size of simple and toxic thyroid, with improvement in the

symptoms of the toxic one. In prostatic diseases and associated conditions,

this

treatment will achieve rapid and marked improvement in the infection and in

the reduction of the gland and lessening of obstruction. A professor of surgery

in one of our state universities once said to me, " Since I have used your

method in preparing prostate cases, I have had most excellent results and no

mortality. " I replied that if he had continued the treatment a little longer,

he would not need to operate. All infections of the urinary tract are greatly

improved by this treatment.

An old friend of mine, a woodworker, aged 74, had a marked heart lesion and

complete prostatic obstruction, so that it was necessary to use a permanent

catheter. He had been taking digitalis but this was discontinued, and he

received no medication of any kind. The prostate was very large and the

residual

urine very foul. His recovery has been rapid, and he has been able to work

since that time and is now in very good health at 77 years of age. Another

local

man was treated six years ago for a severe chronic winter cough and

prostatic disease, which necessitated his getting up many times at night. He

volunteered the information a few days ago that he had no more trouble with any

illness since that time.

Indeed we had a number of patients who took the treatment for " beauty

treatment. " The tissues become firmer and the general appearance is markedly

improved.

One patient with very advanced cardiac and nephritic disease lost over

thirty pounds of edema in six weeks. One would expect the large quantities of

fluid would increase the edema but the above experience has been repeated many

times in lesser degrees.

Hypertension responds with equal gratification. The blood pressure improves

rapidly. I have never seen such rapid and lasting results by any other

method. One of the patients lived almost exclusively on milk for more than

three

years.

About ten years ago a very sick man came to the Sanitarium suffering from a

severe cystitis and nephritis. He was a diabetic. As milk contains about five

percent milk sugar, it was feared that he could not manage this amount of

sugar. But he did manage it, and improved in every way and in eight weeks was

sugar free. My experience with milk diet in diabetes has been limited, but

very interesting. These few patients, only seven or eight, have been much

pleased with the results. Insulin was used for a time in some of the cases.

They

all became sugar free, or nearly so, after from four to ten weeks. From the

fact that these patients were able to use a much more liberal diet than

diabetics usually can take [after the treatment], it would seem to indicate

that at

least a partial regeneration of the pancreas is not impossible.

Recently I received a letter from a soldier who was confined in a government

hospital in Arizona [for tuberculosis]. He said a former patient of mine had

induced him to try this method. He said that he had done so well that a

number of the men were also attempting it and he had written for more definite

instructions. He also said that the patients had to buy their own milk and

received no encouragement from the hospital authorities.

There is a large class of patients who are ill but in whom no definite

organic lesion can be found. These patients are often underweight. They may

consume a fairly large amount of food but they do not gain in weight or

strength.

These patients do respond admirably to our system of large quantities of milk.

The chief fault of the treatment is that it is too simple. Patients attempt

to do it at home, but there are many pitfalls, and it does not appeal to the

modern medical man.