STARVED TO GET WELL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 334, 9 March 1910, Page 5

STARVED TO GET WELL.

DOCTOR'S DEATH AT NINETY-ONE. THE SIMPLE LIKE. It is not often that a doctor succeeds in proving his tJioories by not dying tiefore reaching the great "age oi "<JI. The feat is the mora remarkable when these theories are very unconventional and ■opposed to all commonly accepted ideas. Dr. George Skene Keith, who had just ' died at Currie, near Edinburgh, aged 01, was Known in his time as "the starving doctor,-' and was much criticised by his fellow-practitioners and others for his almost complete abandonment of medicine, his condemnation of alochol, and his attacks on the "keep up the strength of the patient" school. Many people who innocently consulted him were horrified by liis unconventionality. "Don't eat anything," he would say, "but go to bed, open the windows, "and drink plenty of good water." He scarcely ever proscribed medicine of any kind' and never alcohol. "In illness," he said, "neither medicine, nor alcoholic stimulants, nor food, are necesary as a general rule, and arc often absolutely injurious." His great idea was that near, ly every illness could be traced to overeating, especially of meat, and he did not hesitate to tell his patients so. That he wa« successml is shown by the immense practice he built up, in spite of great and often bitter testimony. As a child he was considered the weak one of the family, and he was therefore the most "dosed." Calomel was in fashion then, ond his experience of it made him resolve that if ever he became a doctor he would

iNTRVER GIVE A CHILD A DOSE, and be never did. He was always delicate when young, and decided to move: to a warmer climate. Fortunatelv, lie /wrote of his intention to Dr. Merci, of Manchester, who "fetronglr advised him before talcing so serious ,; step to give up meat, reduce tea am' coffee by half, and oi wine to take onh a little light claret at dinner. The chance was entirely successful, and Dr. Keith was moved by his own experience to prescribe it for others. Tn his book, published in 189"), "A Plea for a Simpler Life," he wrote: "T have heard oi old men who never had modieinp, nor consulted ;i doctor, and who. if they Mt unwell, at once stopped all food; if thi* were not enough they went to hod and remained then- till they were better. The first rule I havp followed for 40 years, the last for 15, and I do not intend to do anything more in the 'iuture. I now enjoy such health a* few can boast of after an active and anxious life of more than three-'marters of a centurv." TVhen Dr. Keilh was practising his "starvation" theories, many of his younger medical friends, who worked on very used to laugh, at him. As he himself said: ''One recommended me to a good beef-steak and a pint of Burgnndv; another his three B's—beef, beer and "bread; another honestly said he would not care to live as T did. but would rather die." The dector laeonicallv added: "They are fill dead lons a«o." Asked how it was SO many people recovered under the common system or meclioine. "feedinc-up," and alcoholic stimulants, he had always found one replv. "The human body," he would say, "is the highest work of the Creator, and can stand a great deal of bad treatment."