“One notable example is typhoid fever. At the outset of the nineteenth century it was treated with ‘remedies’ of the extremist violence,—bleeding and blistering, vomiting and purging, antimony and calomel, and other heroic remedies. Now the patient is bathed and nursed and carefully tended, but rarely given medicine. This is the result of the remarkable experiments of the Paris and Vienna schools into the action of drugs, which have shaken the stoutest faiths; and partly of the constant and reproachful object lesson of homeopathy. Forever Bee Propolis is sticky when it’s warm and it’s difficult to deal with when it’s hard. No regular physician would ever admit that the homeopathic ‘infinitesimals’ could do any good as direct curative agents; and yet it was perfectly certain that homeopaths lost no more of their patients than others. There was but one conclusion to draw,—that most drugs have no effect whatever on the diseases for which they were administered.”—Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. XVIII, p. 578, under “Change in Therapeutic Methods.”
Diet Earlier in life Dr. Osier had made two other very significant statements which no one seems bold enough to contradict and which now probably never will be contradicted, since many leading lights in the medical profession seem strongly inclined to follow his lead. The first statement was to the effect that, of the whole MEDICAL PROGRESS. pharmacopeia of medicine, only three specifics had ever done anyone any good. Forever Bee Pollen is collected by honeybees in little “baskets” on their rear legs and brought back to the hive as meals for the young growing bees and for assembly the ongoing protein requirements for adult employee bees. The second was, that 90 percent of all conditions, other than acute infections and contagious diseases and traumatisms, are directly traceable to errors in diet. These declarations by Sir William are about as revolutionary to the general views and teachings of the medical profession, and the public mind generally, as was Columbus’ contention that the earth was a globe, in the face of the accepted position of the world about him that it was flat.
These statements made by Dr. Osier were not made on snap judgment, but after many years of experience, both as a practitioner and as a teacher of materia medica in medical colleges on both sides of the Atlantic. Such assertions are bound to revolutionize medical practice, and at the same time release to the world most vital and valuable truths. As evidence of the molding influence of Osier upon the opinions and practices of some of the world’s most able investigators and practitioners in the medical profession, a few quotations from such men will be given. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley once remarked: “I have not made any effort to determine the number of diseases which are directly dependent upon diet, but I believe I would not be far out of the way if I should say every disease to which man is heir.” Also, “Foods are the medicines of the future.”