Parasitic Diseases
There
are many kinds of parasitic derangements of children. When we are
enlightened enough to separate children and animals--dogs and cats--and
keep them from intimate association with each other, the human animal
will be better off. This statement will not be very kindly received
by dog and cat fanciers, and I suppose it is wasting my voice to
dictate it. Most doctors and laymen have not the slightest conception
of how many children are laid low by their intimate mingling with
animals. Not being wise to this truth, not much thought is given
to the subject. I once insulted a very loving father by telling
him that his little four-year-old child had developed its liver
and intestinal disease from playing with the family dog. The dog
was very fond of the child, and vice versa. If the dog was not licking
the child, the child was kissing the dog. The child died of hydatid
cyst, which means Tenia echinococcas--dog tapeworm. The parasitic
infection was developed from the child's association with the dog.
It is a very fearful disease when once established, and it is doubtful
if any case ever gets well. Just how many people are deranged, more
or less, by their association with dogs and cats it is very difficult
to say. The ova of parasitic diseases are taken in with food and
association with animals.
When digestion is normal--when the digestive
secretions are one hundred per cent normal--parasites have no show
in the human body.
There is this to be said about disease:
It comes from ignorance and filth. The human animal bathes little
enough, and dogs and cats not at all. If it is impossible for the
human animal to keep from developing disease because he is not clean
enough, what are the possibilities among the lower animals? It is
true that animals have evolved a toleration for certain parasites,
both internally and externally, but when dogs die they die from
parasitic derangements.
Children kept in clean houses and fed plain,
wholesome food, free from fear of all kinds, free from inoculations
of vaccine and serums, and free from association with lower animals,
should be ideally well. Children who are properly taken care of
at birth will develop sufficient resistance to withstand a reasonable
amount of association with animals; but children who are abused
in their homes by neglect of bathing, and imprudent and improper
eating, are made susceptible to periodic infection from animals.
Children who are brought up in that manner are susceptible to so-called
contagious diseases. An absolutely normal child will not take any
contagious disease.
What I have said above is rank heresy to
the ordinary individual; but I manage to be on that side of the
argument nearly all the time and all my life; so a little more or
a little less will not kindle the flame of the pyre very much higher.
