Three Generations of Vegetarian Hygienists
he following excerpt from a booklet with 1962 and 1976 interviews with Dr. Gian-Cursio by Dr. Bass, "With Three Generations of Vegetarian Hygienists", illustrates the difficulties early Hygienists had of putting together a vegetarian/vegan diet that was optimal and sufficient in all nutrients, as well as being as raw as possible.
This text is still extremely important, since similar mistakes are still being made today, typically by aspiring vegans and vegan raw-foodists. Deficiencies that sometimes hardly are noticed in the first generation, will show in children and grand-children.
Free download of the complete text is now possible from the books-page.
Dr. Bass' later research concentrated on finding the ultimate vegetarian diet. The result can be found in "In Search of the Ultimate (Vegetarian) Diet", Volumes I and II ["Discovery of the Ultimate (Vegetarian) Diet"], download possible at booklist, and in articles at this website.
WITH THREE GENERATIONS OF VEGETARIAN HYGIENISTS
Article about the Penepent family of three generations of Hygienists. He sent it to Dr. Shelton and Shelton liked it, but it was 12 years too late. He wants to update it. He wants to know how many members there are – and the general psychological qualities of the family. Are they calm? The schooling, how many in college, how many graduated, the business, and all that to give an idea of how they increased in productivity and social orientation? Here's Dr. Bass.
Anthony: Dr. Cursio first took care of my mother and father in 1935. They were Hygienists before I was born. [This is an important point.] My brothers were all youngsters when they became Natural Hygienists under Dr. Cursio's care. My brother Phil, he was the oldest, and about ten years old then and 25 years older than me. He had a heart condition. There were eight girls in the family. As a rule you could say that they kept away from drugs and all that and they've lived pretty good. And they're usually pretty calm. They're not argumentative which they ascribe to our lifestyle. One of the members of the second generation, in his middle 20's, has a bachelor's degree and a doctorate, and he's halfway through his medical basic sciences and he intends to be a medical doctor, but to practice Natural Hygiene. He was born after his mother had been in Hygiene about 10 years. [Note: all his brothers now have offsprings from which these thirty people came]. One had a serious cardiac condition in the early teens, who is now still a vital, healthy human being.
Dr. Bass: Are the children being raised the same way?
Anthony: Yes, they all are. Dr. Cursio sees them every time he comes here. Now from the father who was very ill, one of the sons is finishing medical school. He's in Italy. One girl is graduating from college in education.
Dr. Bass: You don't have the names? It may be confusing.
He's raised four children Hygienically: Phil Jr., the oldest; Mike, a college graduate; and David and Mary Ann. That's in this one family now where the father, Phil Sr., was seriously ill with heart trouble, rheumatic heart at age 12. Now, I noticed in the beginning of the third generation, some of them that were born–this is where I noticed the nearsightedness, the hydroceles, and the abnormalities. Then I made my shift into more green stuff, blended salads early, cut out the orange juice – like I'd give the child the milk and I'd use the vegetable juice. Then I saw the difference.
The children were better – were more sturdy. Instead of pigeon-chested or chicken-chested, they were fine-chested.
Dr. Bass: In other words, you kept the blended salads going?
Oh yeah! That was the change. I don't think there's a dental carie in the whole group.
Dr. Bass: That's a permanent change then, increased salads and blended salads?
Dr. Cursio: Yeah! They subsist 90%, I'd say 95%, on unfired food–and the other percentage they'd have some steamed vegetables like rice or potato or legumes. Basically, it's unfired. That's it! You've got it all. They are representative. This family is representative of many families in the area and elsewhere, where they've been raised this way. But this is like a sample, a sampling.
Dr. Bass: Can you state specifically what diet they were on?
Dr. Cursio: Their diet would be predominantly fruit, nut proteins, and a relatively small amount of salad compared to what they get now – they used to get one salad a day. They'd have a fruit meal in the morning, a fruit meal at noon, and a salad at night. In the morning, they'd have just fruit; at noon they'd have the fruit and nuts, and at night they'd have the salad, sometimes with nuts and sometimes with vegetables – but on this kind of a setup, I've been noticing the inadequacies in these children. Then I made the drastic changes! First I noticed the hydroceles, nearsightedness, the skeletal development. And the musculature was not developed in these children. But, at any rate, I started to think. In line with this of course were other things that I noticed with other individuals – people who had been living this way and living, I know, 100%. One of them – I don't think he's [Dr. Shelton] going to publish this – with Miss Natural Hygiene. There were two Miss Natural Hygienes. One of them came to me with multiple sclerosis. And gum recessions, dental caries I noticed. But a great deal of gum recession and marginal erosion of the gum line of the teeth. Now, at first I ascribed this to the citrus fruit, so I cut it down. I cut down on the amount of fruit, without making any relative increase in the green stuff (salads). Then, I finally found that though there were slight improvements, they were not sufficient. So then I figured there's got to be an additional factor here. There's got to be, what, I had talked to Weston Price about it – he was one of the men I spoke to. And, I said this is an X-factor that's missing – I don't know what it was. Later on, you know this work done on B 12 , I came to the conclusion that this perhaps was one of the factors that could lead to this kind of pathology.
Dr. Bass: The salad?
Hence the blended salad. To insure the proper impact, the proper intake in sufficient amounts with minimal expenditure of energy, especially in the ill, so that we had the assimilation, and we had the utilization with the minimal usage of vital power, and leaving sufficient energy, you know, for reparative and healing and restorative purposes.
Dr. Bass: What about the oxidation factor which occurs during blending?
Well, sure, there's a minimal amount, but that was overcome and balanced up by the increased utilization. Now, because there was increased utilization, you had to be very selective in the kind of foods you used. So you didn't want an imbalance of nutrients. You didn't want to have an imbalance of the chloride ratios, you know, like an overload of potassium over sodium. There have been some studies made which indicate that potassium in excess could prove carcinogenic, you know, could create an ionization, I mean. There was some work done with the Japanese. And I was in correspondence with one of the men who had done this work, so that I was very cautious that I used only certain raw things that I felt had this proper ratio.
Dr. Bass: In sending this material to Dr. Shelton, shall I quote you?
Quote me – also your observations too. These were studies that were made on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. What we call clinical studies and observations, in which there was a morphology, a clinical observation based on, you know, recovery, rates of recoveries. And also in post-fasting nutrition, when this kind of setup was used, that they rebuilt and were able to get back to a normal musculature. There were individuals who came to me, for example, who'd never been able to go beyond the skeletal stage. After they fasted they just seemed to stay thin – and no matter what you tried. And after you gave them blended salad for awhile, they started to fill up again.
Dr. Bass: And they wouldn't do it on the whole salad?
But the one thing that forced my attention to the defects, that was the recession of gums and the marginal erosion of the gum line of the teeth, nails that wouldn't grow, nails that were deformed, toenails, fingernails, all of this. Also warts tend to form on these cases. They tend to get moles or proliferation of moles. And there were all things of this nature that started to make me suspicious. Why, in a so-called ideal diet, was this happening? I didn't want to go back to meat. I didn't want to go back to fish, as some Hygienists did in the past, like Walter did.