A System of Hygienic Medicine (1886) and The Advantages of Wholemeal Bread (1889)
BMJ 2008; 336 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39562.446528.59 (Published 01 May 2008) Cite this as: BMJ 2008;336:1023
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It is somewhat naïve on the part of Dr Beard to assume that Dr Allinson who was correct about whole foods, fruit, vegetables and avoidance of smoking and alcohol in contravention of medical opinion of his day, should be wrong about vaccination.
He was certainly a practitioner ahead of his time, when his contemporaries were treating people with mercurials, arsenicals and promoting smoking; indeed a Wellcome diary of the 1930's promotes the smoking of menthol cigarettes for the relief of asthma!
The fin de siécle British medical establishment of Dr Allinson'e time is no different from the fin de siécle British medical establishment of today and their attempts to remove from the medical register those who question the blind administration of pharmaceutical products from womb to tomb with scant regard for their efficacy and adverse effects, for example Dr Peter Mansfield, Dr Andrew Wakefield, and myself . Thankfully for me, after a three week hearing, a GMC panel found that my evidence, which an Appeal Judge had thrown out of court with the jingoistic label of 'Junk Science', “had not failed to be independent, objective and unbiased” and completely exonerated me of all charges of serious professional misconduct.
What is most surprising is that Dr Beard, as a medical historian, should make such an untenable comment.
Anyone with even a slight acquaintance with disease figures of the 19th and 20th century, would know, for instance, that 99% of the people who used to die from whooping cough had stopped dying before the vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, as with the introduction of the measles vaccine in the UK in 1968 – when the death rate continued to drop despite an only 30% initial uptake of vaccine, and how the enforcement of the compulsory smallpox vaccination law in 1867, when the death rate was already falling, was accompanied by an increase in the death rate from 100 to 400 deaths per million population.
Perhaps, as Dr Beard is lucky enough to be studying at Oxford, he could avail himself of some of the archived journals and textbooks and read what prominent men of science, medical officers for health and doctors wrote about vaccination and its sequelae, that never made it into today's textbooks, where infant vaccines containing mercury were still being promoted as late as autumn 2004.
Happy reading!
Competing interests: Promoter of healthy eating and living
Competing interests: No competing interests
"The bread with nowt taken out". The good Doctor Allinson would probably be turning in his grave if he could see what a pale imitation of proper wholemeal bread now bears his name on the supermarket shelves of the UK.
It differs little in consistency and flavour to any other mass- produced, mass-market, sliced and wrapped loaf. More like coffee-coloured Mother's Pride than real wholemeal bread.
Competing interests: None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Use Your Loaf!
Personally, I minimize my intake of wholemeal bread as it tends to go through the digestive system too fast and compromises absorbtion and digestive harmony. And I used to grind my own flour, so I know it was wholemeal. Pasta, made from unbleached husk free flour, is just as good as bread for my active lifestyle, is free of yeast, and doesn't take as much preparation. Fibre, can be soluble or insoluble, and I find soluble mainly works better for me. I don't agree with the sixties and seventies revival of "wholemeal always" which was popular in my youth. I haven't had a head cold for five years or more, yet all around me seasonal epidemics of colds manifest themselves.
What always amazes me, is that hospital patients (surgical/medical ward - digestive diseases) don't catch the colds which often affect the staff, yet many patients are partially or completely fasting. So which is weaker?
Competing interests: None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests