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OUR HEALTH
by Doctor Thomas Nelson

What we call sanitation the Bible calls physical sanctification. To those who would enjoy his greatest exercise of health and happiness, the Lord in the law specifically describes the various bird, fishes, and animals whose flesh may be safely eaten and forbids the use of others. He, for instance forbids and especially prohibits the eating of swine's flesh, and licenses as edible the bodies of such animals as divides the hoof and chews the cud.

Why was this decision made? It has a reason in the deep-seated nature of things, but it is primarily physiological, dietetic and hygienic rather than a moral question. The animal that chewed the cud and divided the hoof such as the ox, sheep, goat, deer, buffalo etc., because of the sacculated condition of the alimentary canal and the secondary cud receptacle, they have practically three stomachs as refining and cleansing laboratories for the purifying of their food; thus weeding out from their systems most of the poisonous deleterious matter. It thus takes clean vegetable food over twenty-four hours to be turned into flesh; white flesh even the pre-mosaic law said was clean. This was not mere ceremonial cleansing, but it was hygienically, physiologically and dietetically clean and wholesome.

There is practically but one disease in the human system, and that is blood poison from wrong living. This takes on a thousand symptoms and the doctors gave these many foreign names. The dietary habits of all such vegetarian animals were also clean in comparison with that of the carnivorous swine. On examining the swine's anatomy, we find as a supplement to his bad appetite that he has but one poorly constructed stomach arrangement and very little excretory organs generally. Consequently in about three hours after he has eaten his polluted swill, putrid carrion or other offensive matter, man may eat the same in secondhand-style off the ribs of the pig. This flesh the law condemns as unclean, not merely ceremonially unclean, but hygienically and physiologically as well. In the nature of things it is deadly. Manufactured out of the basest most diseased and polluted material in the speediest way, the diet of the animal or pig is so deadly that it kills the animal itself in about eight or ten years. This is caused, in part, at least, by the powerful disinfectant and germicidal element that nature kindly thrusts onto the system of all carnivorous and some omnivorous creatures. The swine is a scavenger, the turkey buzzard of the animal kingdom - the hyena or jackal of civilization - notwithstanding the preaching of some to the contrary. Even his hams have to be cured. The flesh of the swine is by many authorities on the subject said to be the prime cause of much of our American ill health, causing blood diseases, weakness of the stomach, liver trouble, cancer, consumption, tumors, skin diseases, etc. These diseases were scarcely known among the non-pork eating Jews when they observed the law. There is said to be no word for cancer in the original Hebrew language, nor is the word in the New Testament because Eastern people were not swine eaters.

Our cold Western winters largely form our slim defense against blood poison and death from our base bill of fare. If you examine carefully, you will find a small abrasion behind the front foot of the pig. Rub it off clean and press the leg just above the abrasion, and you may squeeze a spoonful of dirty matter from it. This is original pork gravy. It is an outlet to a sewer pipe that may be traced all through the animal's body. It helps to drain off the teeming filth with which the system is filled. If this external opening becomes clogged, the animal will run about and grunt and rub his leg on anything handy and manifest great pain. He seems almost to know that he will soon sicken of so-called cholera and blood poison and die of his own internal filth, unless he keeps the sewer clean. He - of all creatures, this heaven - forbidden American delicacy - is literally devoured. His body is eaten, his head is turned into head cheese, even his ears and tail inserted. His blood is turned into blood pudding and his intestines are used for sausage covering.

His heart, liver, kidneys are cooked. His very bristles are sought for wax ends, etc. There is not even the grunt left unused.

The fowls and fishes sanctioned by the Mosaic Bill of Fare are designated in this same principal of eternal fitness. The creatures rejected are insectivorous and carnivorous, or have a dearth of digestive and assimilative purity, and those that are accepted have a distinctive  gizzard and scale-arrangement that constitutes a peculiar grinding, refining and cleansing laboratory.

This is especially true of the pheasant family, including the chicken and turkey. The dirty diet would make their bodies deadly were it not for the gizzard arrangement. The scaleless, including the oyster, clam lobster etc., modern science discovers to be but lumps of vitalized and disease-producing filth, because of inadequate excretion. So vile are these creatures that even the densest ignorance can be induced to use them in coldest seasons. Like excessive pork eaters, the users of shell fish delicacies owe much to the cold seasons for the preservation of their lives.

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