BIOGRAPHY
I have often been asked how I came to be a believer in live (uncooked) food, whether I was brought up in this manner, and if not, how long since I was converted to this new way of living. So perhaps a general outline of the facts may be illuminating and helpful to my readers.

 My father was a country physician of the conventional medical type. He also owned a drug store in the little North Dakota town of Fargo in which I was raised. He waited me to be a medical doctor, just as he was; but, as it happened, I had worked, as a young man, for nine years in his drug store, and had had plenty of experience in the compounding of inorganic drugs. I had observed their effects on my father's patients. He decided to send me to the Rush Medical College in Chicago, and he thought it strange when 1 showed no desire to fulfill his wishes.

 However, I did go to Chicago, and soon got a position in a machine shop. Before the first winter was over, I had become acquainted with the so-called "movement cure," in which the general theory and practice of vegetarianism of the cooked-food type was incorporated. In my spare time I studied at the institute in which this health system was taught, finally graduated and received my diploma.

 Since my father had been writing me for some time to come home, I decided I would. When I got there, I showed him my diploma. The first thing he said on seeing it was "quack," uttered emphatically and with disgust. Of course, nothing could have hurt me more than that. Yet I said, "Well, father, perhaps I will be good enough to drive your ponies." When I said that, I did not know what the final result of my taking over the coachman's job would be.

 As we drove from place to place to see father's patients, he would tell me, perhaps, "We are going to see the French lady. She is suffering from rheumatism; has been in bed for three years; and is one of my charity patients. Of course, there is no cure for rheumatism; I just help her with liniment and make her comfortable." Again he would say, "There is Janet Smith. She has epilepsy-six to twelve spells a day, and she will always have it, poor girl. She is another charity patient." And so on. He had some fifteen or twenty patients, all with some supposedly incurable disease. One day an idea occurred to me. "Father, let me have all those cases you cannot cure, so that I will have some experience." He replied, "Very well, I shall ask the French lady if she is willing; also Janet Smith." These two cases were then turned over to me. After a short time, he gave me all the other "incurables" to care for as well.

 I thought I would surprise father with the results which I had obtained. The French woman, under my care, was out of bed before two weeks were up, and in six months ventured to walk all the way to our office. Father had never seen her in street clothes. When she opened the office door, she saw father sitting behind his desk, and me at the library table. He did not recognize her by her appearance, but the moment she spoke he knew her. He greeted her and looked over toward me. She turned, came over to me, and kissed me; and Two weeks later, father went out alone with the ponies, and saw someone who looked like Janet Smith going along unassisted. At first he could not trust his eyes, but he drove up closer and realized that they had not deceived him. He called out, "Are you on your way home? Get into the buggy and I'll take you there," motioning toward the seat. "You must tell me all about yourself." And she told him all that had happened Father thought, "How amazing. These two people are well. I am going to look over the whole list of chronics and see if they're all well." Sure enough, he found they were all improved practically beyond recognition, some of them having even resumed their old trades. After he had made this trip of inspection, father came into the office, where he found me sitting. He walked up to me, slapped me heavily on the shoulder. I thought I had done something terrible for which he was about to reprove me. But he only said, "My son, I shall never call you 'quack' again." Then he told me about his experience.

Notice that all these cures were accomplished under the Battle Creek system of diet-cooked food vegetarianism, with a considerable amount of green vegetables and fruits. The results I had obtained were marvelous. How was it, then, that I finally decided the disease problem could be cured only by natural living, the most prominent feature of which being a diet consisting exclusively of uncooked fruits, nuts, and vegetables selected according to individual taste? I shall explain.  Farther dropped his head. I walked out, leaving them there to converse together. After having lived for fifteen years largely on a cooked-food diet (no meat, of course), I noticed that there was something physically wrong with me. My kidneys were not functioning properly. I seemed to lack recuperative energy. Although I did not feel ill enough to be in bed, I was constantly harassed by a "gone" feeling, lack of power to rebuild myself-in short, general lack of energy. Especially was this forced upon my attention once when I was called out into the country on a consultation. I was practicing independently at that time in Minneapolis. It was a long, hard trip-thirty miles over the prairies, and back to the city only at four in the morning. It was too late to have any real rest in bed, as I thought; therefore I simply waited around until it was time to have breakfast. Then I went to the office to get ready for business. The patients were already coming in, but I was so tired that every now and then I would find myself dozing over my work. I would shake myself, take a swallow of cold water, and rub cold water over my face. Yet in a moment or two I would again be nodding. I was nonplussed, not to say alarmed, at this lack of reserve energy. I became dizzy, too, at intervals. What was there in my system of living that was wrong? Had I not at least been eating correctly? That set me thinking. It was not, however, until later that I became convinced it was really the food I had been eating which was at fault. This is how it came about: in a naturopathic magazine which had come to my hands, there was an article describing how a certain Dr. Lust had been invited by Dr. George Drews of Chicago to partake of an uncooked food dinner. It told of the many different varieties of food that were served, of how delicious they were. It said something, too, about raw pie. I thought, "How curious, unbaked pie!" I remembered how mother used to make hers. But this was raw pie. The whole idea took me by surprise. How can people live on uncooked food, I wondered, just as people today ask me the very same question.

 I kept thinking about it, however, and finally decided to give this new diet a trial, to see if it would bring me that unlimited reserve of energy which I so ardently desired, as well as freedom from the more obvious diseases. Dr. Drew came to Minneapolis to teach me, as well as the class I had organized for him. Gradually, my health began improving, as the result of faithful adherence, one hundred per cent, to the prescribed diet. In six months such a change had been wrought in my body that it seemed logical to use the new system in my practice in order to observe how it would affect others. After a period of nine months, I realized that the nature of my bloodstream had been completely transformed. My blood, under tests, had previously shown too much acid present. Now it had become slightly alkaline, which is the normal state for one who is in first-rate health. We now know that cooked-food vegetarians, as well as meat eaters, alike suffer from too much acid in the bloodstream, as a rule. Nine months had been required in my case, but many others require only from three to six months. You can well suppose that I was very happy when I found my blood was sufficiently alkaline. What a mental relief and assurance to know that I was getting better at lasts As to weight, when I first began, my 145 pounds dwindled away to 123. Many of my friends told me, as yours will undoubtedly tell you, that I had better quit before starving to death. Yet, realizing that my old, worn-out body cells had to be utterly eliminated before new cellular tissue could take their place, I remained faithful to my task. All the while, of course, even though seeming to be thin, I felt much better than I ever had before, and really did not care whether the scale index went up or down. Soon I redeemed that loss-redeemed every pound and a little additional.

 For many years now I have lived according to this system. I was in the late forties when I started. Today, at 84 (I was born in 1864), I am active and without disabilities of any kind. No aches or pains have plagued me for many years.

- October 1936 [revised 1959]