We are still working our way through the anatomy section of the Library of Health. I am going to launch a new section of this site to dive into the Library of Health's coverage of herbs and natural remedies soon. There is one thing that has changed a great deal over the last year and in doing so has almost not changed at all. For hundreds maybe thousands of years people have been looking for better natural health supplements. A hundred years ago people around the world were using all sorts of natural supplements. My great grandfather for example used to hunt ginseng and sell it at market. These days ginseng related natural health supplements are extremely common again after decades where they were hardly touched by western medicine. Today's health supplements have changed in some ways. They are starting to mix natural ingredients with soft science to try potential new products out. Many natural health supplements do not undergo rigorous levels of scientific review or study for the effectiveness. They are not regulated as drugs. This creates the potential for risk but also puts the burden on the consumer for experimentation. Its a classic case of buyer beware. Sometimes the buyer may experience something that provides a benefit, sometimes they may experience nothing and sometimes an item may cause them some form of harm. The FDA came into existence about 100 years ago to stem the flow of cure all remedies that were often times laced with opiates or cocaine without any labels to indicate these primary ingredients. Natural supplements today do not include opiates or cocaine, but the FDA does not review most of them either. This means that consumers need to be extra diligent about their review of products and companies. It also means that they should consult with their health care provider or physician before mixing any type of supplement into their diet or current medicinal regimes.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• The Contaminated Ice Pond
  
  

  The Contaminated Ice Pond.  — both the house in which the ice was stored in the water from the melted ice gave off a decidedly disagreeable or even offensive odor.  Finally, a visited upon from which the ice and then gathered disclose the fact that much of the water and it was dark colored, file and highly contaminated with filthy marsh mud and decomposing sawdust.  Chemical analysis showed that both it and the suspected eyes contain a large excess of organic and volatile impurities, including four one hundredths of a grain per gallon of albuminoid ammonia.

• How May Adults Remain Healthy?
  
  

  How may adults Remain Healthy?-In this day and generation struggle for existence is becoming more and more complex, the occupations are more enacting and confining, exposure to accidents more frequent, due to modern machinery and it’s difficult handling.  Competition in all lines is great and therefore more string is put upon the brain and nerves of man in all walks of life.  This lead-in time to state of “overwork, closed quotes nervous frustration or worry, if the individual has not the physical strength to stand the battle or fails to keep himself in a normal state of body and mind by careful living.  When the latter condition, man is a suitable soil for development of disease which makes short work of the rundown systems, and such a person when exposed to disease or accident is very apt to succumb about some reserve vitality comes to the aid of him or her in the physician or surgeon in attendance and the uneven battle for life.

  Man can keep his health and thus prevent disease by insisting on getting the best and purest of foods, working in factories or shops, dairies, bonds, etc., which are well lighted and ventilated, free from dust, smoke, irritating vapors from paints, gases, assets, etc.  By insisting upon regular working hours, eight hours sleep, dry and warm clothing of exposed during outdoor work, but not too warmly dressed for indoor work.  To your coffee and moderation is not harmful light beers, Porter, Stout, ale; wines, as Sherry, port, claret, without strong preservatives or alcohol, except in small proportions, are not harmful and refresh and cheer the tired nerves.  Whiskey, Brandy, cognac, Jin, except as medicine, are absolutely harmful and the whiskey with the government allows sold in this country is a disgrace and a poison.  More and more corporations and his men are insisting on their employees abstaining from its use.  It causes a sense of stimulation or well-being which is temporary and is soon followed by a sense of depression which can only be relayed by a renewal of the does and the stupid man continues to be temporarily stimulated, while the total effect of his imbibing is to lower his vitality, destroy his mind, I was judgment and render ambitious; Rudy’s appetite by the action up on his stomach, harden his liver and destroy his kidneys.

  That section was a little preachy but it’s definitely interesting as it provides some insight into some of the concepts that went into the prohibition movement before laws were enacted to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol by the general population in the United States.   I wonder how modern preventative concepts will hold up in 100 years such as The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

• Transformation of Food Into Flesh
  
  

  Transformation of Food Into Flesh.– How strange this is — the transformation of food into human flesh, into human thoughts!  We eat a meal; it is composed of meat, bread, vegetables and liquids.  The more solid part is ground by the teeth, mixed with the different juices, dissolved, changed, organize and is swept through the body and the circulation of the blood.  Each organ sees as its own particular food as it passes.  Within the cells of the various tissues it is transformed into the soft, sensitive brain, or the hard, callous bone; here into the nerve of sight, there into gristle or tendon; here briny tears are formed, they are bland saliva; in the stomach, acid juice; in the skin, acrid perspiration; bile for digestion, oil for the hair, nails for the fingers, muscle for the strong arm of toil, and flesh and fat to give shade, form and beauty to the face.

   

  I think the previous section prepared me actually for this section.  In the previous set action the author sounded like he was speaking gibberish.  In this section the author or marbles at the ability of the body to turn one type of matter into another matter which is part of the human body or system.  Today I look at this process as a function, a program if you will run by the programmed DNA of the human system and control by the major organs.  In some ways my own interpretation is only slightly less obscure than the authors interpretation.  The other marvels at something that is relatively new and highly misunderstood where is I take it for granted.

   

  Neither one of our perspectives in that regard are more accurate than the other or may be a better way to say that is that we both have a perspective that equally valuable or valid.  The author doesn’t actually offer up any interpretation as to how the systems work or how it performs any of these items that they discuss, instead the author chooses just to remark on the fact that the actions are interesting even amazing.

  In many ways almost any system that we talk about today might have appeared equally as amazing to the author a hundred years ago.  Some of those systems could be interpreted better back then than they could stay such as the workings of kitchen faucets possibly as opposed to the workings of a Turing machine or computer neither of which had been invented as of the writing of this book, but both of which had been speculated on for many years.

   

  In many ways it’s these types of remarks it illustrates that the book is filled in large parts with what I might call science fiction or scientific interpretation or even a scientific editorial and not scientific fact.