This book was interesting. It is in the same series with Nourishing Traditions and the Nourishing Baby Care book by Dr. Thomas Cowan. It teaches you how to heal yourself from various ailments and avoid them if you don't want them too! Spoiler alert: cod liver oil. That's the missing factor in all the diseases in the book. There's other nutrient lacks as well, but that's the one that is the game changer throughout, mostly because the foods we eat these days don't have enough of the same nutrients it has. This is because when we eat meat; the majority of animals aren't pastured on grass, or they aren't in the wild, or we don't eat the whole animal as traditional cultures did. If you don't feel like reading the whole book, there's a summary for each ailment on what he recommends to take which is nice, but the explanation on why he uses what he does for healing is very interesting I think.
He relies strongly on Weston A. Price dietary principles and Standard Process vitamins for the other basis of healing, along with body work (think calesthenics) to relax and get energy moving in the right ways through the body. I'm not so sure how that works exactly, but he tends to think it does help heal. He also uses something called protomorphogens for healing organs. We've used these also through our Naturopath to heal specific organs. They work kind of like homeopathy, allowing the body to heal specific areas using small amounts of bovine organ material. It kind of reminds the glands to rebuild themselves. This Dr. is also uses homeopathy in a more methodical and mechanical way than I've seen before, using specific doses for specific conditions across the board.
He does get into the emotional/physical connections a lot, which is nice, as they are far more intertwined than most of us believe. (I'll explain this in my homeopathy post coming up!) He also talks about how much of our healing is not due to the Dr, but our relationship with the doctor. Do we have a friendship with them so that we trust that they are looking our for our true healing (not just symptom management), or is it a purely business deal (involving prescriptions, surgery and the like). Normal medical doctors spend an average of 7 minutes with their patients twice a year. How can they establish a caring relationship in that amount of time? There's just not enough time, even among the best of the best. Typically a Functional, Osteopathic or Naturopathic Dr. spends between 30-90 minutes in each appointment, thus establishing a caring and trustful bond. The other lack is that mainstream doctors have to do so much charting and coding for insurance claims (up to half their day is spent this way), this eats into the time they can spend with their patients and it also limits the care they can give as well. (They can only offer what insurance deems worthy to cover, rather than what each patient actually needs). That's all in this book!
Side Note, not from the book~
A new trend and great option out there that I just learned about is called Direct Primary Care where you pay a monthly fee and have your doctor at your beck and call. They work for you and will do what you want (within reason, of course!) They do recommend they you get a high deductible health plan for any major medical issues or emergencies. The benefits of this system are:
1) you get more time with your doctor due to them not dealing with insurance shenanigans
2) they work for you rather than for insurance
3) less ER and urgent care visits as issues are taken care of quickly and efficiently, there's always someone on call and they know you well enough that a phone call or Zoom interview is often enough
4) each doctor has less patients and thus can give better care overall
Here's the link to find one near you~
Here's a link for one local Dr, which explains it much more thoroughly~
I would say the only downside I can see is that if you are quite healthy, this can get expensive for minimal care. But isn't insurance the same?! Sometimes finding a Dr who takes cash payments is a cheaper option overall, with just a high deductible major medical plan of some sort, whether through insurance or a health care sharing co-op.
