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The distinctive nature of Arabic cuisine also depends upon its use of various seasonings and condiments. Arab cooks, however, indulge in one habit of which many Europeans are not so fond: they mix spicy things with sweet ones, and bitter with mild aromas or flavours, creating peculiar contrasts of taste that may indeed tickle the palate of some but, as a rule, put us off. It often takes a while for outsiders to get used to these contrasts, but the Arab is not bothered in the least by eating peppers together with oranges or other fruit, whereas it would take me a long time to enjoy the combination of these contrasting tastes. On the other hand, it must also be said that the Arabs do not just salt their food but season it. And this is to their credit.

French cuisine is famous, not least because its secrets are found in the kitchen garden where a great variety of herbs abound and beg to be used. Escoffier, the modest Frenchman of small stature, came to be known as the King of Cooks because he mastered the use of culinary herbs in our European gardens and markets in a way that no one else has been able to match. No wonder his skill and art enabled him to produce the tastiest and most stimulating sauces, gravies and dressings that inspired the enthusiasm of even kings and princes!

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It is quite a different story with commercially canned fruits and vegetables. The bleaching, blanching and chemical additives definitely affect the nutritional value. If I speak out against canned foods, it is because it so often happens that, just for the sake of convenience, factory-preserved foods are used when the meal could, with a little extra effort, consist of at least some fresh fruit or vegetables. Canned foods are served all too often in hospitals and sanatoriums. If sick people are to get well, they must have health-giving nourishment, which can be obtained at its maximum value only from fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. For this reason one should eat fresh foods as much as possible – fresh berries, fruit and vegetables – when they are in season. Eat your vegetables raw in salads and fruit in muesli or fruit salad. Any surplus that cannot be used this way should be preserved and bottled immediately, so that provision is made for the winter.

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When you are fasting and taking natural medication at the same time, take only a third or even a quarter of the normal dose of your remedies. While on a fast, your system works more efficiently and will respond to medicines much more promptly than usual.

During the fast it is necessary to maintain the normal rhythm of movement and take adequate rest. All extremes are harmful, so avoid them. For instance, do not spend your days on the couch or in bed in the mistaken belief that you must conserve your energy while not eating. On the other hand, do not engage in arduous sports or walks; it would do you no good. The balance of movement and rest during your fast will revive you, restoring vitality and giving you a new foundation for health and well-being. However, I want to stress that it is important to lead up to your fast days slowly and also to return to your normal diet in the same way.

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For the best results, it will also be necessary to give the bowels a good clean-out beforehand. Soaked prunes or figs, freshly ground linseed or Linoforce, and psyllium seed will serve this purpose very well. But if they do not move the bowels sufficiently, give an enema with a warm camomile infusion in addition. To help even further, hot packs should be applied to the liver area for a few hours before and after drinking the oil. As soon as the bowels have been emptied you can take the oil. That accomplished, lie down, turn over on your right side, relax, and remain in this position for two hours. If you find it difficult to drink the oil by itself, try to take it in alternation with a cereal coffee {Bambu Coffee Substitute). Should even this prove to be obnoxious, you will then have to ingest the required quantity of oil spaced out, a little at a time taken over several days. This method will not be quite so effective, but at least the smaller stones may be eliminated and the remaining bigger ones may not cause any trouble for a while. However, anyone who is capable of drinking the whole quantity of oil at one time should not be surprised if all the stones are eliminated from the gallbladder. Of course, this is more likely to occur in cases which have not become chronic and where no large stones are present.

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There is a special soup which stimulates sluggish bowels if eaten every morning with a little crispbread or wholegrain (wholewheat) bread. The recipe is as follows. Cook freshly ground whole wheat, a small chopped onion and a crushed clove of garlic in some water. After taking the soup off the stove, add a little finely chopped parsley and a spoonful of pure olive oil.

This simple breakfast has cured many of their constipation. For more stubborn cases, psyllium seed or ground linseed should be added.

Alternatively, if you are bothered with intestinal sluggishness, have been overdosed with laxatives, if even natural plant laxatives no longer give relief, or if you simply want to normalise your bowel movement, the following recipe will be helpful.

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Electric and insulin shock treatments could be a step in the right direction. Although these treatments cannot strictly be termed natural methods, the principle behind them may be based on observations from life; for example, the shock brought on by a fright, an accident or other emotionally ‘shocking’ experience can jolt a person back to reason.

A change of climate, environment and latitude, long walks and hikes, breathing exercises (especially diaphragm-breathing), physical training, singing, vocal breathing exercises, etc., are all beneficial and may help to change the patient’s mental outlook. Hydro-therapeutic treatments such as baths, cold or hot showers, Schlenz baths (see pages 433-6), underwater massage, walking or stamping in cold water, walking barefoot, also walking barefoot in the early morning when the dew is still on the grass, are further sources of help which can be employed according to the doctor’s advice and bearing in mind the individual’s needs.

In accordance with the patient’s condition, doctors and nurses

should try various approaches and watch and note the patient’s reactions to each treatment, however small the influence of the shock effect may be. Moreover, anything contributing to a happy atmosphere should be encouraged by the nursing staff, as physical therapy and cheerfulness alone can quite often work small miracles.

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Internal treatment should also start at the onset of a colic. Magnesium phos. 6x and Atropinum sulph. 4x should be given. If the

patient brings everything up, then the remedies must be given by means of an enema.

If, in spite of all precautions, the patient loses consciousness anyway, there is no need to panic as the spell will pass off without doing any harm, and perforation can be prevented.

Keep the bath hot by adding hot water; it should last half an hour, the patient being massaged all the while and the cold compresses being renewed. After the bath apply hot packs and give frequent herbal enemas. If blood comes instead of urine, this means that the stone has become stuck in the ureter and has damaged it. At this stage, it would be beneficial to give Solidago by enema in order to stimulate the kidneys, for if he has a severe attack, the patient will usually be unable to retain anything given by mouth. Continue the packs and enemas for half an hour and then follow up with another hot bath, with massage and compresses.

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First of all, you must take up the fight against constipation, for as long as you remain constipated any treatment will have only partial success. It must be said, however, that the cause of constipation is often more than the lack of a proper diet — one made up of wholegrain or wholemeal bread and plenty of fresh fruit and raw vegetables – and good herbal remedies such as Rasayana and Linoforce; an additional factor can be the mental and emotional stresses and tensions many of us experience as a consequence of unsolved problems in our life. An ‘uptight’ attitude can be an outward sign of a similar tension in the bowels, which, incidentally, are governed by the sympathetic nervous system. Once constipation has been remedied, it is relatively easy to treat the haemorrhoids successfully.

For this purpose there are some fine natural medicines available. Aesculaforce and Hypericum perforatum are good for the circulation and have aided many people in their effort to get rid of varicose veins. For this reason they are equally effective for the treatment of dilated veins in and around the anus. These remedies help to reduce the pressure in the veins and thus have a healing effect on the entire venous system.

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Farmers and gardeners all over the world know that to grow leafy green vegetables, annuals with sturdy constitutions, and shrubs and perennials to their peak, a soil rich in all the necessary plant food has to be provided. Herbs can play an enormously important role in building up soil fertility and, by way of thanks, a healthy soil grows even better herbs, too.

Organic gardening associations, and those gardeners in many countries who follow organic methods, believe that to avoid the soil starvation and depletion resulting from unbalanced artificial fertilizing, and the consequent reduced ability of crops to withstand insect ravages and disease, natural means only of enriching the soil and maintaining its fertility should be used. “Organic gardening” means returning to the earth everything taken from it in the form of decomposing animal and vegetable matter in a natural form which the plants can use. In Nature, fallen leaves, twigs, roots, grasses, and animal droppings, even the bones of dead animals and the microscopic bodies of the bacteria living in the soil, are returned to it, and slowly decompose to form the balanced plant nutrients necessary to keep forests and pastureland alive.

The so-called “complete fertilizers” of unnatural origin give (like some drugs) an initial boost; but much recent investigation has found that the soil, after this type of shot-in-the-arm, is left actually poorer than ever, and no increased applications of chemical fertilizers can restore vitality and life to it. Moreover, much of the mineral and chemical content of these fertilizers is in a form the plants can not easily assimilate. Composting and building up again with organic matter and humus can slowly, over a matter of many seasons, restore to the soil the fertility it has lost; but this is a long-term solution, and commercial growers can go broke while waiting for it to be effective.

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In ancient civilizations, medicine was inextricably bound up with religion. All the earliest physicians practised autosuggestion, hypnotism and psychotherapy, though certainly in somewhat different form and under different names. Natural remedies were prescribed for natural diseases, and “magic” remedies for what we now would call psychosomatic diseases and many forms of mental illness. The skills of genuine healers were sometimes assumed by charlatans and tricksters who had no training and no knowledge, but merely a convincing manner and an outstretched palm. Any fool could chant an unintelligible rhyme or sell a so-called “remedy” or “elixir”, and gullible people would buy. The disrepute thus brought to natural medicines and herbs still dogs herb users today. A friend of mine who has suffered chronic illness for many years steadfastly refuses to try any simple herbal preparations on the grounds that she will not poison herself with herbs and “all that mumbo-jumbo”. (I have been “poisoning” myself and my family with herbs a long time now, and our health and resistance to disease is proof enough for me that Nature knows best.) Prevention, everyone tells us, is better (and easier) than cure. The beauty of using herbs daily in many different ways is that so many of them have value in building up resistance to disease; and if a disease does strike, herbal preparations will usually do good without having the side-effects of so many artificially created drugs. But enough of my pet hobby-horse and back to our history.

As the legions of Rome spread out over their conquered territories, Roman customs and way of life changed the ways of the indigenous peoples. After the soldiers came the governors and administrators, and with them the monks, who brought not only their own religious beliefs, but practical knowledge in the fields of agriculture, health and nutrition. Many herbs were carried as gifts from one monastery to another by travelling monks, and from the monasteries the people gradually gained knowledge of the many uses to which they could be put. One of the earliest forms of taking herbs in the diet was in cordials, or an infusion of the herb in wine. From these “cordials”, evolved over the centuries, came the recipes for many of our present-day liqueurs. When you next drink Chartreuse or Kummel or Anisette, give a thought to those peregrinating monks, who used their knowledge and skill in blending herbs and spices (Chartreuse contains some forty-six ingredients) into recipes still unchanged today. These cordials were drunk usually as an aid to digestion at the end of a large meal, for the eating habits of the day were such that the food was often highly unpalatable, owing to deterioration, or indigestible. It is easy to understand the preoccupation with flatulence and stomach troubles in early herbal writings of this period.

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