74 Diet Wise
I like his word corruption for acquired food intolerance!
Incidentally, I cite this book also as the earliest example of what we
now call journaling. Burton was prone to melancholy himself and wrote his
tract to try and lift himself out of it.
[Anatomy of Melancholy is available as a text file from http://www.gutenberg.
net. There are no page numbers but you can use ‘search’ or ‘find’ to trace
references to milk.]
Brain damage
One of my pioneer causes has been to investigate whether the dietary
correction helps people who are brain damaged. It grew out of a teaching
from one of my old professors; he said it was wrong to cast aside elderly
patients who had symptoms, just because they were old. He pointed out that
vitamin supplements might make a big difference; cut the person’s toenails;
take them for a drive – all these little asides could markedly improve the lot
of a senile patient. Just because a major turnaround is no longer possible,
it doesn’t mean small improvements are not worthwhile! At the very least,
they are gestures of compassion.
When I saw the extraordinary recoveries that were possible, using
the diet wise approach, I remembered his words and asked myself: “We know
there is loss of motor or cognitive function but could some performance be
recoverable, using the food exclusion principle?
You bet it could.
Casebook 4.
One of the most moving stories of my entire medical career was that of
a woman called Susan (her real name). She was thirty-nine years old when
she came to me. Her parents had read about me in the newspapers, talking
about improvements despite brain damage, and wondered if I could help
their daughter in any way.
Susan was indisputably mentally handicapped. She had the mind of
a child. She could not read or write; she could not count or deal with money;
she was a danger to herself in the kitchen, since she was extremely clumsy
and forgetful – the sort of individual who might overlook lighting the gas
and blow herself up, or forget that dishes from the oven are very hot and
could cause serious burns. Susan couldn’t even be allowed to cross the road
unaccompanied, for fear of her safety.