For a few decades a few scientists, some of them Nobel laureates, have believed that antioxidants may prevent and even help to treat cancer. Some of the ideas and clinical results have been very promising, but have not received the attention they deserve. Even worse, unsubstantiated and even false claims have been bandied about by some of those who claim to know everything about the antioxidants, which has served to make anyone who touches the subject appear to be disreputable.
The scientist who probably put the most effort into studying cancer and what antioxidants can do to treat it probably was Albert von Szent-Györgyi, some of whose ideas are described in previousposts. Szent-Györgyi certainly had a colorful life. He was married four times; one marriage already troubled by his wife's increasing dominance developed, as they say, "irreconcilable differences" when he was shocked to catch his wife in bed - with another woman. He twice entered into matrimony at an age at which he would have qualified for membership in the AARP if not Social Security payments. But then again, he enjoyed excellent health, and continued working into his 90s, an achievement he attributed to his consuming sizable quantities of Vitamin C and wheat germ, which is very rich in Vitamin E, daily.
The scion of a illustrious family of doctors, Szent-Györgyi studied medicine in Budapest; his first research was of the structure of the skin around the anus; a doctor uncle of his, afflicted with hemorrhoids, had stipulated that he do so in the hope that his nephew's work might help him overcome his painful condition. During the First World War, Szent-Györgyi served with distinction, until he came to conclusion that the war was a fraud; that Europe's old men were wasting Europe's youth on their vanity. Not keen to die for a useless cause, and keen to save his talents for medical research, he shot himself in the arm, reported it as enemy action, and thus escaped from the war. After the war, he wound up at a university in Holland, where at one point his financial conditions was so bleak that he seriously mulled suicide. The tides of fortune changed; he wound up studying biochemistry at Cambridge and then teaching it in Hungary. He came extremely close to identifying the citric acid cycle now known as as the Krebs Cycle, after Sir Hans Krebs who beat him to the discovery. He was the first scientist to isolate Vitamin C from the paprikas for which Hungary is famous, a discovery that earned him the Nobel Prize.
During the 1930s and 1940s he was the rector of the University of Szeged, had some confrontations with the Hungary's pro-Nazi elements, worked as a secret agent for the British during the war, disappeared when he heard that Adolf Hitler literally wanted his head because he'd tried to broker a deal in which Hungary's would have left the war and joined the Allies, was offered the presidency of Hungary by the Russians after they possessed Hungary. After six fruitless months of trying to reach some reasonable modus vivendi with the Russians, Szent-Györgyi left Hungary for the United States, where he ultimately co-founded the National Center for Cancer Research, and spent his last decades pondering cancer as an electronic syndrome, as previously blogged.
One of Szent-Györgyi's close friends was Ralph Moss, who obtained a PhD in Classics at Stanford University before he found employment as a science writer at Sloan-Kettering. He eventually found the atmosphere at Sloan-Kettering uncongenial - science fiction was not his avocation - and left to devote his time to studying and writing about alternatives in medicine; it was on this quest that he met and befriended Szent-Györgyi, and learned about his understandings of cancer and wayward electrons. Moss wrote an excellent biography of Albert Szent-Györgyi, which is well worth reading.
Electron acceptors, which prevent electron donors from donating their electrons to other molecules, or oxidizing them, are, of course, also known as antioxidants. One of Moss's books "Antioxidants Against Cancer" is about the scientific basis for recommending, or not recommending, antioxidants to cancer patients. He's done a first-rate job of poring through myriad journals and papers and establishing which ideas about the use of antioxidants have a solid scientific basis; he references no less than 460 papers on the subject, in other words, every contention is well documented. It certainly isn't a rah-rah book; Moss carefully explains that certain antioxidants are known to worsen certain cancers; this is a field in which carelessness is particularly disastrous.
Dr. Moss's book is full to tidbits that I would desperately want to know if I were fighting cancer; for example:
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health conducted a 1,300 patient study that looked into whether a low dose of selenium had any effect on the rate of skin cancer in people with a history of skin cancer over a span of 8 years. The results didn't reveal any significant difference in skin cancer rates; but when they looked at the rates of other cancers, the group taking selenium had a death rate from the more serious cancers such as those of lung, colon, rectum and prostrate that was half of the death rate in the placebo group! Rates of prostrate cancer dropped by 63%!
In a study too small to allow any general conclusions to be drawn, one case of breast cancer went into regression when the patient dramatically increased the dosage of the antioxidant she took of her own accord. In another case, a case of liver cancer with metastases cleared up when the same antioxidant was administered. Regrettably, this phenomenon hasn't been studied in sufficient detail to allow scientists to draw any conclusive conclusions, much less make any recommendations.
One chemotherapy medication was found to decrease cancer growth by 37%, but when given together with an antioxidant, the decrease in cancer growth was 85%.
I don't want to excerpt Dr. Moss's entire book, but I do know that if I had cancer, I would definitely want to consult his book. Dr. Moss also runs an information service through which advises interested patients about his ideas about alternatives in the treatment of cancer.
Rudyard Kipling is one of those poets who mainly spoke for, and captured the hearts of, the common people, and not the effete literati of his day. Born in what was then British India, he spoke Hindi long before he was able to speak English. After boarding school in England, he returned to India, where he began his career as a journalist. His writing won him a reputation; he became the Poet Laureate of the British Empire in all but name. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and now reposes in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Some insist that that Kipling was a white supremacist or arch-imperialist; neither of these claims holds water. Yes, he invented the term "White Man's Burden", but understood this as the "White" Man's duty to spread his technology to the less technologically advanced people. Not once did he suggest that any race was superior to another; quite the opposite.
One criticism of him that I think is legitimate is that he did have a period during which he at the very least came perilously close to glorifying war. Kipling was almost obsessive in his animosity to German expansionism, and his disdain of those with less fervent beliefs. It wasn't until his only son, who had bent the rules to get to the front, fell, that he rethought and repudiated his glorification of war. In memory of his son, Kipling devoted a lot of his time to serving on the Imperial War Graves Commission.
Incidentally, Theodore Roosevelt, in whose memory Kipling wrote an elegiac poem, underwent the same transformation, when his son, who had memorized an eye exam chart in order to get into the war as an aviator, was shot down and died. To fathom the depths of Kipling's transformation, recall that Kipling's cousin served Her Britannic Majesty as her Prime Minister three separate times; his lines disparaging a dead statesman are not platitudes.
Epitaphs of the War
1914 - 18
Rudyard Kipling
“EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE”
A. “I was a Have.” B. “I was a ‘have-not.’” (Together.) “What hast thou given which I gave not?”
A SERVANT
We were together since the War began. He was my servant—and the better man.
A SON
My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.
AN ONLY SON
I have slain none except my Mother. She (Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.
EX-CLERK
Pity not! The Army gave Freedom to a timid slave: In which Freedom did he find Strength of body, will, and mind: By which strength he came to prove Mirth, Companionship, and Love: For which Love to Death he went: In which Death he lies content.
THE WONDER
Body and Spirit I surrendered whole To harsh Instructors—and received a soul . . . If mortal man could change me through and through From all I was—what may The God not do?
This man in his own country prayed we know not to what Powers. We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours.
THE COWARD
I could not look on Death, which being known, Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.
SHOCK
My name, my speech, my self I had forgot. My wife and children came—I knew them not. I died. My Mother followed. At her call And on her bosom I remembered all.
A GRAVE NEAR CAIRO
Gods of the Nile, should this stout fellow here Get out—get out! He knows not shame nor fear.
PELICANSIN THE WILDERNESS (A Grave Near Halfa)
The blown sand heaps on me, that none may learn Where I am laid for whom my children grieve. . . . O wings that beat at dawning, ye return Out of the desert to your young at eve!
THE FAVOUR
Death favoured me from the first, well knowing I could not endure To wait on him day by day. He quitted my betters and came Whistling over the fields, and, when he had made all sure, “Thy line is at end,” he said, “but at least I have saved its name.”
THE BEGINNER
On the first hour of my first day In the front trench I fell. (Children in boxes at a play Stand up to watch it well.)
R.A.F. (AGED EIGHTEEN)
Laughing through clouds, his milk-teeth still unshed, Cities and men he smote from overhead. His deaths delivered, he returned to play Childlike, with childish things now put away.
THE REFINED MAN
I was of delicate mind. I stepped aside for my needs, Disdaining the common office. I was seen from afar and killed. . . . How is this matter for mirth? Let each man be judged by his deeds. I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed.
NATIVE WATER-CARRIER (M.E.F.)
Prometheus brought down fire to men. This brought up water. The Gods are jealous—now, as then, Giving no quarter.
BOMBED IN LONDON
On land and sea I strove with anxious care To escape conscription. It was in the air!
THE SLEEPY SENTINEL
Faithless the watch that I kept: now I have none to keep. I was slain because I slept: now I am slain I sleep. Let no man reproach me again; whatever watch is unkept— I sleep because I am slain. They slew me because I slept.
BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION
If any mourn us in the workshop, say We died because the shift kept holiday.
COMMON FORM
If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.
A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig: I dared not rob: Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among Mine angry and defrauded young?
THE REBEL
If I had clamoured at Thy Gate For gift of Life on Earth, And, thrusting through the souls that wait, Flung headlong into birth— Even then, even then, for gin and snare About my pathway spread, Lord, I had mocked Thy thoughtful care Before I joined the Dead! But now? . . . I was beneath Thy Hand Ere yet the Planets came. And now—though Planets pass, I stand The witness to Thy shame.
THE OBEDIENT
Daily, though no ears attended, Did my prayers arise. Daily, though no fire descended Did I sacrifice. Though my darkness did not lift, Though I faced no lighter odds, Though the Gods bestowed no gift, None the less, None the less, I served the Gods!
He from the wind-bitten north with ship and companions descended. Searching for eggs of death spawned by invisible hulls. Many he found and drew forth. Of a sudden the fishery ended In flame and a clamorous breath not new to the eye-pecking gulls.
DESTROYERS IN COLLISION
For Fog and Fate no charm is found To lighten or amend. I, hurrying to my bride, was drowned— Cut down by my best friend.
CONVOY ESCORT
I was a shepherd to fools Causelessly bold or afraid. They would not abide by my rules. Yet they escaped. For I stayed.
UNKNOWN FEMALE CORPSE
Headless, lacking foot and hand, Horrible I come to land. I beseech all women’s sons Know I was a mother once.
RAPED AND REVENGED
One used and butchered me: another spied Me broken—for which thing an hundred died. So it was learned among the heathen hosts How much a freeborn woman’s favour costs.
I have watched a thousand days Push out and crawl into night Slowly as tortoises. Now I, too, follow these. It is fever, and not the fight— Time, not battle—that slays.
THE BRIDEGROOM
Call me not false, beloved, If, from thy scarce-known breast So little time removed, In other arms I rest.
For this more ancient bride Whom coldly I embrace Was constant at my side Before I saw thy face.
Our marriage, often set— By miracle delayed— At last is consummate, And cannot be unmade.
Live, then, whom Life shall cure. Almost, of Memory, And leave us to endure Its immortality.
V. A. D. (MEDITERRANEAN)
Ah, would swift ships had never been, for then we ne’er had found, These harsh Ægean rocks between, this little virgin drowned, Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn, but men she nursed through pain And—certain keels for whose return the heathen look in vain.
ACTORS
On a Memorial Tablet in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon
We counterfeited once for your disport Men’s joy and sorrow: but our day has passed. We pray you pardon all where we fell short Seeing we were your servants to this last.
JOURNALISTS
On a Panel in the Hall of the Institute of Journalists
Carl Curt Pfeiffer, MD, PhD, was the Chair of the Pharmacology Department at the Emory University, which is known for its superb psychiatric research. At some point in his career, the State of New Jersey tasked him with investigating the causes of the more serious mental illness such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Not only do these illnesses cause huge disruptions in the lives of those so afflicted, but they also pose a significant burden to the taxpayer.
After doing all sorts of tests - examining patients' blood and urine for unusual substances and characteristics, looking at hair mineral contents and much, much, more Dr. Pfeiffer, (and some coworkers) announced that they had made a number of breakthroughs.
30 to 40 some percent of this patient population, they announced, had a previously unknown form of Wilson's disease, a disease in which toxic copper accumulates in the brain.
Another 30 to 40 some percent had a disorder in their body's ability to synthesize hemoglobin, which caused the depletion of vitamin B6 and Zinc, which are crucial to a well-tempered brain. Other scientists, mainly Abram Hoffer had identified this anomaly, which involves unusual amounts of a pyrole in the urine, by comparing the stain that results when the urine of schizophrenics is applied to blotting paper to the stain that results when the urine of healthy individuals is applied to blotting paper. (Pyroluria in the orthomolecular lexicon.)
Another 10 or so percent had very unusual blood chemistries, (Histadelia in the orthomolecular lexicon)
another 4 percent or so suffered under food allergies which had not been diagnosed because they only affected the brain.
Dr. Pfeiffer attributed the last 10 percent to various rare causes including, among others, lead poisoning, an anomaly in monoamine oxidase, and some unidentifiable causes.
Even more dramatically, Dr. Pfeiffer and his co-workers found that most of the conditions he had discovered could be treated with nutritional supplements instead of expensive and side-effect laden medications. Interestingly enough, Ashley Bush, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, is reporting that some forms of Alzheimer's most likely are caused by the same tendency to accumulate copper that Dr. Pfeiffer identified as a cause of schizophrenia.
At the time that Pfeiffer published all this, psychiatric treatment in the United States, even for bipolar disorder, consisted of sessions of psychoanalysis of questionable efficacy, and strong medications. If there is a very real biological problem at the root of the illness, no amount of talking about one's early childhood or supposed repressed sexual frustrations will do the patient any good from a medical or financial point of view. Dr. Pfeiffer's findings that these illnesses had clear biological causes, and could quickly be cured by the use of nutritional supplements - that is without patented medications - and by general practitioners - was not entirely welcome.
The American Psychiatric Association convened a panel to investigate Dr. Pfeiffer's findings. To this day it is unclear if they got a fair hearing; one member of the panel went into it saying that even if every other psychiatrist in the United States would adopt Dr. Pfeiffer's therapies, he would refuse to believe that they worked. In any event, the panel found that there was no evidence that Dr. Pfeiffer's diagnostic or therapeutic guidelines had any validity. Nor did the panel deign to answer the rebuttal to its findings. This is not to claim that all the members of this panel were hellbent on promoting patented pharmacological preparations; one of the experts, Loren Mosher, once responsible for such research at the NIH, had sacrificed his career to advance his own non-mainstream views that such disorders (sometimes) remit without any pharmacological intervention, an approach now sometimes practiced in Europe. It has yet to be explained why a man so fanatically intent on grinding his axe was included in a panel ostensibly intended to be impartial.
Curiously enough, there is a clinic on the outskirts of Chicago devoted to treating patients according to Dr. Pfeiffer's guidelines. Among its thousands and thousands of patients, it has managed to successfully treat 65% of its patients without patented medications; in another 25% they see marked improvements. Either they have some of the best placebos known to mankind, or else Dr. Pfeiffer and his co-workers were onto something. I suspect that some further discoveries have been made in the years since Dr. Pfeiffer and his co-workers did their investigation. Specifically, there is much evidence to suggest that heavy metals can cause the unusual substances found in the urine (kryptopyroles) and the unusual blood counts (histadelia) of which Dr. Pfeiffer wrote.
Be all this as it may, if I, or one of my loved ones, labored under the illnesses Dr. Pfeiffer sought to treat, I would be sure to acquaint myself with his work, and see what relief could be obtained. This book is the perfect introduction to his findings for lay readers.
Here's a concise summary of Szent-Györgyi's understanding of the alpha and beta states. The relevance to cancer may be apparent. Excerpted from and a synopsis of "Electronic Biology and Cancer; A New Theory of Cancer" by Albert Szent-Györgyi.
Properties of resting (ß) and proliferative (α) states in cells (scroll down; blogspot does not like tables)
There are few topics about which I have read more than what in polite circles is known as the "controversy" about dental amalgams.
My opinions of the science behind the amalgam issue could not be more different than those of the American Dental Association and sundry other high priests of dentistry, who claim - at least in public - that their views are facts. Even the best doctor has made mistakes, even the best medical product has side-effects, and the road to the morgue is plastered with packaging inserts for products withdrawn by the FDA, so I think it's imprudent to accept any claim about the art of medicine as an eternal God-given verity. In any issue where there are huge differences of opinions, the verifiable facts are far more germane than the opinions. This is why I offer my opinions not as facts, but as opinions, and a good starting point for you to do your own thinking and research, which I strongly encourage.
My opinions are based on many discussions with patients, doctors and dentists, who rely on their observations, and have reached conclusions at odds with the world according to the ADA. Nor am I alone, Congresswoman Diane Watson shares some of my concerns.
What are dental amalgams?
Dental "amalgam" fillings are fillings used to fill cavities which consist of mixture of metals, of which mercury accounts for 40-50% by weight. From a structural point of view, there is no better substance than mercury amalgams; they're cheap, much easier to mold than anything else, and almost indestructible. The problem is that mercury is extremely toxic, and there is ample evidence that when mercury evaporates from these fillings, as it does, it can have serious, even lethal, side-effects.
If They're So Dangerous, Why Doesn't Everyone Know This? Different Excretion Rates, Different Symptoms, and the Naked Emperor Effect
The short answers are: their historical legacy, that not everyone gets hurt by them, the multitude of completely different sets of symptoms, and, perhaps, the stakes involved.
Mercury in Medicine from the Middle Ages to the 1930s.
Mercury was introduced to medicine by Paracelsus (1493-1591), one of the greatest doctors of all times. Mercury-based salves are extremely potent disinfectants, and were the first treatment that were of any use at all for treating syphilis. Mercury, in fact, was a hailed as a "wonder drug" in its day, not unlike penicillin. From those days until recently, mercury-based disinfectants have had their place in medicine.
When amalgam fillings were introduced into medicine in the 1850s, there was a huge controversy about their safety. In my opinion, it's not unlikely, perhaps even probable, that when amalgam fillings were introduced into dentistry in the 1850s, they were a huge step forward. At the time, average life expectancy in Western Europe and the United States was between 30 and 40 years, and probably closer to 30 years. There were no antibiotics; mercury -based salves were the disinfectants of choice. In the 1850s some doctors used mercury, in the form of calomel, on just about any wound, even though the patients occasionally went insane. If patients were going to be exposed to significant quantities of mercury one way or another, using it in dentistry was just another use.
Filling teeth serves a useful purpose; if you don't remove the decayed part of the tooth, you'll loose the tooth. If you don't fill the decayed part, your chances of not seeing the tooth decay anew are minimal. Back in the 1850s, when there were no antibiotics, and surgical procedures were far cruder than today; not having anesthetics, dentists would hire big strong men to hold their patients still while they worked on their teeth. To this day, having an undiagnosed infected tooth is a good way to get a chronic heart infection or even chronic neurological problems. Back in the 1850s, when even if such an infection was caught, the odds of a patient surviving it were much worse, the imperative of avoiding tooth loss was far greater than it is today.
And even if fillings were very bad news for a sizable minority of their patients 30 or 40 years down the road, with the average life expectancy being between 30 and 40 years, only very few people stood to be around and predisposed to experience these baneful effects. I think it's conceivable, even probable, that, when they were introduced, the gains that resulted from amalgam fillings far exceeded the long-term problems they caused. In the 1850s, slavery was generally considered "normal," as was the fact that most Congressman chewed and spat out tobacco in the halls of the Capitol. This has changed, and our understanding of the sciences and dentistry far surpasses that of 150 years ago; I think the time has come to question whether amalgam fillings are "normal."
The amalgam controversy re-erupted in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s; scientists, among them Alfred Stock, one of Germany's most respected chemists, wanted to ban amalgam fillings. At the time, Germany was, far and away, the country with the most respected scientists. Students at Harvard University pined to study at the University of Göttingen, today, it's the other way around. Stock had found that he was becoming more and more forgetful, to the point that he couldn't work anymore, and eventually traced the cause of his declining health to the mercury vapors emanating from the fillings in his teeth. After he had his amalgam fillings removed, he slowly began to recover.
You can get some impression of just how toxic Stock thought that mercury is, when you consider that Stock taught and conducted research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, which, until parvenus foisted their noxious notions onto Germany, was one of the most prestigious institute for medical research in the world. One of the researchers at the institute won two Nobel Prizes. Yet when Stock was offered a teaching position at another university that guaranteed a mercury-free work environment, he quickly left the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.
In the 1930s Germany was plagued by a plethora of problems, but its scientists were on a tear; they got smoking in public banned, proved that asbestos is a carcinogen and were working on getting it banned. Stock, who published articles on the mercury levels in cadavers' brains and the high levels he found, and others were pushing for an immediate ban on the most dangerous (high copper) amalgams and the ban of all amalgams as soon as replacements could be developed. As late as 1939, Stock was publishing on the detrimental health effects that amalgams cause. Alfred Stock's literal words are "One day the world will come to realize that the uncritical use of amalgam in dental fillings was a huge sin against humanity." Unfortunately, Germany's bigger insanities overwhelmed their efforts to bring sanity to dentistry.
Wildly Disparate Mercury Tolerances Among Humans
When I had a few amalgams put in, my dentist told me that it was known that mercury does slowly evaporate from these fillings, and that the vast majority of people are able to excrete it as it evaporates, but that a tiny minority of people do get poisoned by them; when this happened, he told me, it was always caught by doctors.
In the time since the 1850s, we've come to a much better understanding of what mercury does and doesn't do in humans. Paracelsus not only introduced mercury into medicine, but is also known for his saying that "Everything is poison, and nothing is poison, only the dosage determines the toxicity." When regulators determined the highest safe levels of mercury, they apparently did so by going into factories where a mercury was used, and measuring the exposures that the workers tolerated without getting sick. Unfortunately, the idea that all men may not be created equal when it came to tolerating mercury seems to have never crossed their mind. Even worse, this caveat has yet to be reconsidered, despite the fact that a multitude of differences among humans are well-documented; some become sick if they consume lactose, some become sick if they consume gluten and so forth. We know that there are genetic illnesses in which humans can't deal with other metals. Some humans tend to accumulate toxic levels of iron, others toxic levels of copper. Could it be that some people tend to accumulate toxic levels of mercury at exposures that others tolerate? I believe this to be the case.
The Insidiousness of Mercury Intoxications
If mercury does accumulate indeed accumulate in the body, the obvious question is what the symptoms of mercury toxicity are. Alfred Stock described mercury intoxications as "insidious," because they are so hard to diagnose. Intoxications with poisons such as strychnine, whose molecules are relatively large and have relatively complicated structures, produce relatively clear cut symptoms, because they only disturb relatively few molecular processes. Poisons such as cyanide and mercury, which have minute structures or are salts are much less limited in the number of processes they can disturb. As the pathways they preferably inhibit depend on the genetic makeup of the individual, low level intoxications do not have specific clear cut symptoms. Trying to identify a single set of symptoms of mercury intoxications is as foolish as seeking a consensus on what a Rorschach blot represents; every individual is different.
If mercury intoxications don't produce clear cut set of symptoms, the only to identify what symptoms it does cause is to take people exposed to mercury, remove them from their sources of exposure, and observe the results. This has been done repeatedly, with spectacular results. Two of the best reports on this are Health Observations After the Removal of Amalgam, and Is Migraine an Incurable Illness. There's also a fairly comprehensive summary of all such investigations.
Removing mercury amalgams reportedly can result in the following woes disappearing:
68% of the 88 patients reported that their health was "much better", 12 % that it was "better", and 7% that it was "somewhat better" after their amalgam fillings were removed. Most doctors would be quite happy to perform a procedure that results in 87% of their patients reporting noticeable improvements in their health. Even more tantalizing is the fact that these huge improvements are only the result of removing the amalgams; often when someone is seriously intoxicated, doctors will use medications to remove the toxin.
But there's even more. Alfred Stock recovered from having a severely diminished memory; there's a credible report of an Alzheimer's patient who recovered from Alzheimer's after having had his fillings removed. Tom Warren the man in question, went on to write a book on his experience of recovering from Alzheimer's an illness irreversible according to the lore of "mainstream medicine": Beating Alzheimer's: A Step Towards Unlocking the Mysteries of Brain Diseases. Interestingly, he believes that in his case, Alzheimer's was the result of a combination of mercury and aluminium intoxications.
Even Sheep Get Mercury in Their Brains
If you have any doubt that mercury evaporates from the fillings and is deposited in various organs of the body, this article proving that a radioactive isotope of mercury quickly made its way into the brain and other organs after it was inserted into sheeps' teeth. Bear in mind that toxins exert synergistic effects, such that a mercury dosage that may only be lethal in 1 rat out of a hundred will be lethal in 100 rats out of 100 in the presence of another toxin at a concentration that is only lethal in 1 rat out of a hundred.
In the ongoing debate about the safety of dental amalgams, one of the contentions of the advocates of their safety was mercury does not escape from the amalgam fillings in any meaningful amounts. There are two theoretical reasons why this is highly unlikely. The first is that every liquid evaporates at room temperature. Unless mercury has properties heretofore unknown to physicists, it, too, must evaporate. The second reason is that dental amalgams are mixtures of metals. Anytime you put two metals touch, or are connected by water or saliva, electric current results; in other words, amalgam fillings are batteries, with their very own electromagnetic field. This results in corrosion, and the release of mercury from amalgams.
(As an aside, it also results in electromagnetic fields (EMF) just as power lines do; since the strength of a such a field diminishes in proportion to the square of the distance from it's source, a filling 5 centimeters from your brain, and a power line with an EMF a million times stronger that is 50 meters from your brain will both exert the same effect on your brain. If the qi that oriental medicine and acupuncturists posit flows through your body is electro-magnetic in nature, this may not be totally without consequences.)
To conclusively prove that mercury does escape from amalgams, Vimy and Lorscheider implanted amalgam fillings containing a radioactive isotope of mercury into sheep, and then looked where this mercury went. Here are their results, with pictures. Note that mercury levels in the brain are elevated, even though mercury concentrations were measured only a month after the amalgams were implanted. If mercury is deposited in the brain, but at a much slower pace than it is in the kidneys or gut, then it would appear that in the long-term, a lot more mercury will accumulate in the brain.
Mercury in Medicine from the 1930s to Today
Among the dentists aware of Alfred Stock's research were a husband and wife who were both dentists in Brazil. They had first been introduced to the notion that amalgam can be dangerous when parents brought a girl dying of leukemia to the husband's practice, and asked him, as a last resort, to please remove the amalgam fillings. Within a matter of days, the girl had recovered . The doctors aware of the case insisted that this was a coincidence, so the husband reinserted amalgam fillings, and the girl came down with leukemia again. And when he removed the fillings, the girl recovered. Nevertheless, the doctors, in their cult-like devotion to the holy scriptures they had learned in medical school, continued to insist that this was a coincidence.
Their son, Olympio Pinto, studied dentistry, and then went to the United States, where he hoped to further research the baneful effects that dental amagalms may cause. According to Hal Huggins in his book It's All in Your Head, the National Institute of Dental Research, - part of the National Institutes of Health - offered him the choice of abandoning his research or being deported. Hal Huggins, was so shocked by what he learned from this researcher, that he wound up devoting his life to studying and documenting the health effects of amalgam. After he made it onto 60 Minutes, he found himself embroiled in regulatory hearings that led to his license being revoked. What I don't know is whether he left the hearings mumbling "E pur si muove." What I do know is that he reports suffering continuous harassment that continues to the present day.
Mercury and the Immune System
One of the areas in which Dr. Huggins has truly distinguished himself is in researching the effects of mercury on the immune system. He realized that a degree in dental science would never suffice to thoroughly understand what all damage mercury can do to the immune system, so he returned to university to get a Masters in Immunology.
Very interesting, and perhaps the topic of another post is that Huggins writes that his "thesis" after following changes in the blood work of patients with amalgams, without amalgams, and after the removal of amalgams is that, among other things, an elevation in basophils, and changes to the white blood cell count, lymphocytes, monocytes, and eosinophiles can correlate with being exposed to amalgams and then having them removed. The source for this is in Dr. Huggins' contribution to the Proceedings mentioned above.
Interestingly, a professor at Emory University, by the name of Carl Pfeiffer MD, PhD, found that some of the more severe psychiatric syndromes are accompanied by unusually high basophil and histamine levels. Histamine is a neurotransmitter that is stored in the basophils. Like serotonin and noradrenalin, histamine is active in the brain. An excess of histamine definitely is a "chemical imbalance." Could mercury - basophils - histamine be cause and effect?
There also is evidence to suggest that mercury exposure plays some role in some, perhaps most, cases of MS. Once again, Dr. Huggins has done truly spectacular work. Although it's not definitive proof, Huggins and a friend of his Thomas Levy, extracted cerebrospinal fluid from the spines of patients with MS, removed their amalgam fillings, and then redrew cerebrospinal fluid. The unusual proteins that are typical of MS in the "after" CSF specimens, though, as Huggins and Levy note, it is unclear if this is due to their absence or that they were no longer picked up by the lab technique. This certainly could explain why one of Dr. Engel's patients was diagnosed with MS, and then recovered after he had the kindness to remove her amalgams. Dr. Huggins has written a great book, Solving the MS Mystery: Help, Hope and Recovery, which, while I don't think is the final word on every aspect of mercury poisoning, is a truly spectacular book. I don't understand how a sentient human can read this book with its multitudinous citations, and honestly deny the MS-mercury connection.
What Other Diseases Could Possibly be Caused by Mercury?
One of the cardinal symptoms of a mercury intoxication is the patient's having rapidly shifting moods, or, in other words, poor impulse control.
Could this (partially) explain why Dr. Engel saw patients recover from psychiatric problems after he removed their amalgam fillings?
Could this (partially) explain why a study of patients afflicted with bipolar disorder found that some of the uncommon personality traits associated with bipolar disorder cleared up when amalgam fillings were removed?
Could this (partially) explain why a study of patients afflicted with schizophrenia found that some of the uncommon personality traits associated with schizophrenia cleared up when amalgam fillings were removed?
Could this explain why the National Instutites of Health prefer to investigate healthy songbirds rather than sick people? Could it be that the NIMH - and the entire government health research establishment - is "for the birds?"
The old joke comes to mind about the drunk who's been searching for his keys under a street light for several hours. Eventually a cop comes to him, and asks him what the problems is. He replies that he lost his keys in the ditch "over there," and has been looking for them ever since. The cop asks him why he's looking for his keys under a street light if he lost them in a ditch. The drunk replies that he's doing so because it's so much easier to search where the lighting is good...
I'm not a physician, and wouldn't want to delve into all the illnesses that could possibly be caused by amalgams. The Department of Truth aka "the FDA" has just rejected a report that concluded dental fillings used by millions of patients are safe, saying "further study" of the mercury-laden amalgam is needed.
Perhaps some good starting points to make educated guesses about why they may not be safe are to note that:
mercury affects the immune system and is toxic,
accumulates in the gut and is toxic,
accumulates in the brain and pituitary gland, the preeminent endocrine gland, and is toxic,
accumulates in the kidneys, where it is also toxic,
mercury is known to be a potent carcinogen,
it probably isn't coincidental that in the hearts of patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, mercury levels were found to be 22,000 times higher than in controls
mercury is one of those gifts that keeps on giving; it's known to cause birth defects.
To top it off, it can be quite hard to diagnose mercury intoxications; all of this means that at the very least it's conceivable that more than a few illnesses "of unknown origin" actually are manifestations of, or caused by, mercury intoxications. Just look at what all Dr. Engel found.
It's time for you to do your own research and thinking.
Hal Huggins, DDS. Solving the MS Mystery: Help, Hope and Recovery. In this book Hal Huggins describes his research into, and understanding of the cause(s) of MS. I don't think this book is the last word on amalgams and MS, but I think it's an excellent resource if you question the party line.
Today is the 300th birthday of Leonard Euler, a supernova of a mathematician. He's universally regarded as the greatest mathematician of the 18th century, and by some as the greatest mathematician of all time.
fathered 13 children, of whom 5 lived to become adults
knew the entire Aeneid by heart, including the page numbers of each line
could do math in his head that most accomplished mathematicians couldn't do on paper
knew Voltaire, disapproved of the philosophe, but liked to debate with him. On one occasion, Diderot allegedly gave a long-winded speech in which he claimed to prove the inexistence of God. At the end of the speech, Euler, a pastor's son, and a man thoroughly conventional in his politics and religion, went up to the blackboard, and wrote e^(i*(pi)(=-1, ergo God exists. Whichever pretentious French philosophe it was, realized that he had no hope of understanding this discovery of Euler's, much less debating Euler on it, so that was the end of the discussion.
Physicists and mathematicians sometimes joke that, in order to avoid naming everything after Euler, discoveries or theorems are named after the "first person after Euler to discover it".
De Condorceret described Euler's death with the following words: "He ceased to calculate and to live."
"Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA (dichloroacetate) on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks."
and:
"Paul Clarke, a cancer cell biologist at the University of Dundee in the UK, says the findings challenge the current assumption that mutations, not metabolism, spark off cancers. “The question is: which comes first?” he says."
Of course, at present we don't know if DCA works or not; we hope it does, but a few things are interesting.
If DCA works, it may vindicate the work of two Nobel Laureates who spent a lot of time thinking about cancer, but whose ideas have faded into oblivion: Otto Warburg, who first discovered that the metabolic processes in healthy cells and in cancer cells are completely different, and Albert Szent-Györgyi, who devoted the later years of his life to studying what life, and cancer is. Szent-Györgyi came to an understanding of life that is substantially more subtle than that of many people in his, and our, time.
What does this have to do with DCA? Szent-Györgyi came to understand life, and pathologies of life such as cancer, not merely as a material or molecular processes, but also as an energetic, electronic, or submolecular processes. He noted that:
life on this planet has existed in two forms, and what he called the "alpha form" which originated in an oxygen free environment, and is anaerobic in its metabolism (the fermentation seen in mitochondria and cancer cells,) and what he called the "beta form," which evolved later, and is aerobic (that is relies on oxidation.)
living substances have ESR signatures (proof of electronic activity) that are quite different from inanimate objects, and noted that comparable cancer cells do not have normal, and sometimes not even discernible ESR signatures.
contrary to the wide-spread belief that these ESR signatures, and the free radicals that cause them, are "artifacts" of rare processes, they, and the electron transfer in various organs that they prove is happening, is central to the health and functioning of the body.
Szent-Györgyi believed that life is much more subtle than the textbooks of his day would have, and that the process of life also involves making changes to the configuration of the electron shells of proteins and more. In the jargon of today's computer scientists, man is a semiconductor and "quantum computer." Szent-Györgyi believed that life uses some chemicals to "dope" the proteins that make up or body, that is to allow them to more easily transfer electrons, just as silicon and germanium semi-conductors are manufactured with inherent impurities, without which the chips made from them would be useless. Interestingly enough, DCA's chemical structure is far from entirely dissimilar to that of the substance which he discussed as the primary doping agent.
If Warburg and Szent-Györgyi prove to have been correct, it will open some extremely interesting new vistas into our understanding of life, health, and the treatment of cancer.
Pax intrantibus can only be translated as "Peace to those who enter," there is no single translation for Exeuntibus Salus that does it justice. Salus is one of those words with a panoply of meanings, among them: well-being, physical and emotional health, fortune, salvation, safety.
Perhaps the best translation would be "Peace unto those who enter; Health, wealth and happiness unto those who leave."
Chris Mannion (Bush versus Benedict: Delusion Confronts Reality) raises a point I had made before ; that Mr. Bush's Weltanschauung, according to which an entirely good United States fights entirely evil enemies across the seas, is Manichean, in other words of Iranian origin. Do you think he understands the irony of his promoting a philosophy of Iranian heritage, and that Manichaeism is deemed a heresy in Christian theology?
Note that: In the years 384-388 a special sect of Manichæans arose in Rome called Martari, or Mat-squatters, who, supported by a rich man called Constantius, tried to start a sort of monastic life for the Elect in contravention of Mani's command that the Elect should wander about the world preaching the Manichæan Gospel. The new sect found the bitterest opposition amongst their co-religionists. In Rome they seem to have made extraordinary endeavors to conceal themselves by almost complete conformity with Christian customs.
This is Chapter 8 of Charles Dicken's American Notes For General Circulation. Note how much, and how little, has changed; Janet Ashcroft had the same hangups with the "Spirit of Justice" that Dickens describes, the question of race still looms omnipresently, and the Congress is still well-stocked with knaves and fools. I've colored the fun parts.
As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public places of America, this filthy custom is recognised. In the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit incessantly. In the hospitals, the students of medicine are requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to discolour the stairs. In public buildings, visitors are implored, through the same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or `plugs,` as I have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of the marble columns. But in some parts, this custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the transactions of social life. The stranger, who follows in the track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory, luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness, at Washington. And let him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my shame) that previous tourists have exaggerated its extent. The thing itself is an exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.
On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big walkingsticks; who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a distance of some four paces apart; took out their tobacco-boxes; and sat down opposite each other, to chew. In less than a quarter of an hour`s time, these hopeful youths had shed about them on the clean boards, a copious shower of yellow rain; clearing, by that means, a kind of magic circle, within whose limits no intruders dared to come, and which they never failed to refresh and rerefresh before a spot was dry. This being before breakfast, rather disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but looking attentively at one of the expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young in chewing, and felt inwardly uneasy, himself. A glow of delight came over me at this discovery; and as I marked his face turn paler and paler, and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with his suppressed agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat again, in emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and implored him to go on for hours.
...
We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were waited on, for the first time, by slaves. The sensation of exacting any service from human creatures who are bought and sold, and being, for the time, a party as it were to their condition, is not an enviable one. The institution exists, perhaps, in its least repulsive and most mitigated form in such a town as this; but it IS slavery; and though I was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its presence filled me with a sense of shame and self-reproach.
...
We reached Washington at about half-past six that evening, and had upon the way a beautiful view of the Capitol, which is a fine building of the Corinthian order, placed upon a noble and commanding eminence. Arrived at the hotel; I saw no more of the place that night; being very tired, and glad to get to bed.
Breakfast over next morning, I walk about the streets for an hour or two, and, coming home, throw up the window in the front and back, and look out. Here is Washington, fresh in my mind and under my eye.
Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pentonville, or the straggling outskirts of Paris, where the houses are smallest, preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and dwellings, occupied in Pentonville (but not in Washington) by furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of birds. Burn the whole down; build it up again in wood and plaster; widen it a little; throw in part of St. John`s Wood; put green blinds outside all the private houses, with a red curtain and a white one in every window; plough up all the roads; plant a great deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought NOT to be; erect three handsome buildings in stone and marble, anywhere, but the more entirely out of everybody`s way the better; call one the Post Office; one the Patent Office, and one the Treasury; make it scorching hot in the morning, and freezing cold in the afternoon, with an occasional tornado of wind and dust; leave a brick-field without the bricks, in all central places where a street may naturally be expected: and that`s Washington.
The hotel in which we live, is a long row of small houses fronting on the street, and opening at the back upon a common yard, in which hangs a great triangle. Whenever a servant is wanted, somebody beats on this triangle from one stroke up to seven, according to the number of the house in which his presence is required; and as all the servants are always being wanted, and none of them ever come, this enlivening engine is in full performance the whole day through. Clothes are drying in the same yard; female slaves, with cotton handkerchiefs twisted round their heads are running to and fro on the hotel business; black waiters cross and recross with dishes in their hands; two great dogs are playing upon a mound of loose bricks in the centre of the little square; a pig is turning up his stomach to the sun, and grunting `that`s comfortable!`; and neither the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pig, nor any created creature, takes the smallest notice of the triangle, which is tingling madly all the time.
I walk to the front window, and look across the road upon a long, straggling row of houses, one story high, terminating, nearly opposite, but a little to the left, in a melancholy piece of waste ground with frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece of country that has taken to drinking, and has quite lost itself. Standing anyhow and all wrong, upon this open space, like something meteoric that has fallen down from the moon, is an odd, lop-sided, one-eyed kind of wooden building, that looks like a church, with a flagstaff as long as itself sticking out of a steeple something larger than a tea-chest. Under the window is a small stand of coaches, whose slave-drivers are sunning themselves on the steps of our door, and talking idly together. The three most obtrusive houses near at hand are the three meanest. On one - a shop, which never has anything in the window, and never has the door open - is painted in large characters, `THE CITY LUNCH.` At another, which looks like a backway to somewhere else, but is an independent building in itself, oysters are procurable in every style. At the third, which is a very, very little tailor`s shop, pants are fixed to order; or in other words, pantaloons are made to measure. And that is our street in Washington.
It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions; for it is only on taking a bird`s-eye view of it from the top of the Capitol, that one can at all comprehend the vast designs of its projector, an aspiring Frenchman. Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament - are its leading features. One might fancy the season over, and most of the houses gone out of town for ever with their masters. To the admirers of cities it is a Barmecide Feast: a pleasant field for the imagination to rove in; a monument raised to a deceased project, with not even a legible inscription to record its departed greatness.
Such as it is, it is likely to remain. It was originally chosen for the seat of Government, as a means of averting the conflicting jealousies and interests of the different States; and very probably, too, as being remote from mobs: a consideration not to be slighted, even in America. It has no trade or commerce of its own: having little or no population beyond the President and his establishment; the members of the legislature who reside there during the session; the Government clerks and officers employed in the various departments; the keepers of the hotels and boardinghouses; and the tradesmen who supply their tables. It is very unhealthy. Few people would live in Washington, I take it, who were not obliged to reside there; and the tides of emigration and speculation, those rapid and regardless currents, are little likely to flow at any time towards such dull and sluggish water.
The principal features of the Capitol, are, of course, the two houses of Assembly. But there is, besides, in the centre of the building, a fine rotunda, ninety-six feet in diameter, and ninetysix high, whose circular wall is divided into compartments, ornamented by historical pictures. Four of these have for their subjects prominent events in the revolutionary struggle. They were painted by Colonel Trumbull, himself a member of Washington`s staff at the time of their occurrence; from which circumstance they derive a peculiar interest of their own. In this same hall Mr. Greenough`s large statue of Washington has been lately placed. It has great merits of course, but it struck me as being rather strained and violent for its subject. I could wish, however, to have seen it in a better light than it can ever be viewed in, where it stands.
There is a very pleasant and commodious library in the Capitol; and from a balcony in front, the bird`s-eye view, of which I have just spoken, may be had, together with a beautiful prospect of the adjacent country. In one of the ornamented portions of the building, there is a figure of Justice; whereunto the Guide Book says, `the artist at first contemplated giving more of nudity, but he was warned that the public sentiment in this country would not admit of it, and in his caution he has gone, perhaps, into the opposite extreme.` Poor Justice! she has been made to wear much stranger garments in America than those she pines in, in the Capitol. Let us hope that she has changed her dress-maker since they were fashioned, and that the public sentiment of the country did not cut out the clothes she hides her lovely figure in, just now.
The House of Representatives is a beautiful and spacious hall, of semicircular shape, supported by handsome pillars. One part of the gallery is appropriated to the ladies, and there they sit in front rows, and come in, and go out, as at a play or concert. The chair is canopied, and raised considerably above the floor of the House; and every member has an easy chair and a writing desk to himself: which is denounced by some people out of doors as a most unfortunate and injudicious arrangement, tending to long sittings and prosaic speeches. It is an elegant chamber to look at, but a singularly bad one for all purposes of hearing. The Senate, which is smaller, is free from this objection, and is exceedingly well adapted to the uses for which it is designed. The sittings, I need hardly add, take place in the day; and the parliamentary forms are modelled on those of the old country.
I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places, whether I had not been very much impressed by the HEADS of the lawmakers at Washington; meaning not their chiefs and leaders, but literally their individual and personal heads, whereon their hair grew, and whereby the phrenological character of each legislator was expressed: and I almost as often struck my questioner dumb with indignant consternation by answering `No, that I didn`t remember being at all overcome.` As I must, at whatever hazard, repeat the avowal here, I will follow it up by relating my impressions on this subject in as few words as possible.
In the first place - it may be from some imperfect development of my organ of veneration - I do not remember having ever fainted away, or having even been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight of any legislative body. I have borne the House of Commons like a man, and have yielded to no weakness, but slumber, in the House of Lords. I have seen elections for borough and county, and have never been impelled (no matter which party won) to damage my hat by throwing it up into the air in triumph, or to crack my voice by shouting forth any reference to our Glorious Constitution, to the noble purity of our independent voters, or, the unimpeachable integrity of our independent members. Having withstood such strong attacks upon my fortitude, it is possible that I may be of a cold and insensible temperament, amounting to iciness, in such matters; and therefore my impressions of the live pillars of the Capitol at Washington must be received with such grains of allowance as this free confession may seem to demand.
Did I see in this public body an assemblage of men, bound together in the sacred names of Liberty and Freedom, and so asserting the chaste dignity of those twin goddesses, in all their discussions, as to exalt at once the Eternal Principles to which their names are given, and their own character and the character of their countrymen, in the admiring eyes of the whole world?
It was but a week, since an aged, grey-haired man, a lasting honour to the land that gave him birth, who has done good service to his country, as his forefathers did, and who will be remembered scores upon scores of years after the worms bred in its corruption, are but so many grains of dust - it was but a week, since this old man had stood for days upon his trial before this very body, charged with having dared to assert the infamy of that traffic, which has for its accursed merchandise men and women, and their unborn children. Yes. And publicly exhibited in the same city all the while; gilded, framed and glazed hung up for general admiration; shown to strangers not with shame, but pride; its face not turned towards the wall, itself not taken down and burned; is the Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, which solemnly declares that All Men are created Equal; and are endowed by their Creator with the Inalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness!
It was not a month, since this same body had sat calmly by, and heard a man, one of themselves, with oaths which beggars in their drink reject, threaten to cut another`s throat from ear to ear. There he sat, among them; not crushed by the general feeling of the assembly, but as good a man as any.
There was but a week to come, and another of that body, for doing his duty to those who sent him there; for claiming in a Republic the Liberty and Freedom of expressing their sentiments, and making known their prayer; would be tried, found guilty, and have strong censure passed upon him by the rest. His was a grave offence indeed; for years before, he had risen up and said, `A gang of male and female slaves for sale, warranted to breed like cattle, linked to each other by iron fetters, are passing now along the open street beneath the windows of your Temple of Equality! Look!` But there are many kinds of hunters engaged in the Pursuit of Happiness, and they go variously armed. It is the Inalienable Right of some among them, to take the field after THEIR Happiness equipped with cat and cartwhip, stocks, and iron collar, and to shout their view halloa! (always in praise of Liberty) to the music of clanking chains and bloody stripes.
Where sat the many legislators of coarse threats; of words and blows such as coalheavers deal upon each other, when they forget their breeding? On every side. Every session had its anecdotes of that kind, and the actors were all there.
Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who, applying themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and vices of the old, purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the dirty ways to Place and Power, debated and made laws for the Common Good, and had no party but their Country?
I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought. Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with public officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered, is, that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal types, which are the dragon`s teeth of yore, in everything but sharpness; aidings and abettings of every bad inclination in the popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences: such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of the crowded hall.
Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the true, honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there, were drops of its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay. It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked. And thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest from that degradation.
That there are, among the representatives of the people in both Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character and great abilities, I need not say. The foremost among those politicians who are known in Europe, have been already described, and I see no reason to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of abstaining from all mention of individuals. It will be sufficient to add, that to the most favourable accounts that have been written of them, I more than fully and most heartily subscribe; and that personal intercourse and free communication have bred within me, not the result predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but increased admiration and respect. They are striking men to look at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in varied accomplishments, Indians in fire of eye and gesture, Americans in strong and generous impulse; and they as well represent the honour and wisdom of their country at home, as the distinguished gentleman who is now its Minister at the British Court sustains its highest character abroad.
I visited both houses nearly every day, during my stay in Washington. On my initiatory visit to the House of Representatives, they divided against a decision of the chair; but the chair won. The second time I went, the member who was speaking, being interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as one child would in quarrelling with another, and added, `that he would make honourable gentlemen opposite, sing out a little more on the other side of their mouths presently.` But interruptions are rare; the speaker being usually heard in silence. There are more quarrels than with us, and more threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed to exchange in any civilised society of which we have record: but farm-yard imitations have not as yet been imported from the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The feature in oratory which appears to be the most practised, and most relished, is the constant repetition of the same idea or shadow of an idea in fresh words; and the inquiry out of doors is not, `What did he say?` but, `How long did he speak?` These, however, are but enlargements of a principle which prevails elsewhere.
The Senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings are conducted with much gravity and order. Both houses are handsomely carpeted; but the state to which these carpets are reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon with which every honourable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary improvements on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it in every direction, do not admit of being described. I will merely observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the floor; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account.
It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to see so many honourable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely less remarkable to discover that this appearance is caused by the quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the cheek. It is strange enough too, to see an honourable gentleman leaning back in his tilted chair with his legs on the desk before him, shaping a convenient `plug` with his penknife, and when it is quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth, as from a pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place.
I was surprised to observe that even steady old chewers of great experience, are not always good marksmen, which has rather inclined me to doubt that general proficiency with the rifle, of which we have heard so much in England. Several gentlemen called upon me who, in the course of conversation, frequently missed the spittoon at five paces; and one (but he was certainly short-sighted) mistook the closed sash for the open window, at three. On another occasion, when I dined out, and was sitting with two ladies and some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the company fell short of the fireplace, six distinct times. I am disposed to think, however, that this was occasioned by his not aiming at that object; as there was a white marble hearth before the fender, which was more convenient, and may have suited his purpose better.
The Patent Office at Washington, furnishes an extraordinary example of American enterprise and ingenuity; for the immense number of models it contains are the accumulated inventions of only five years; the whole of the previous collection having been destroyed by fire. The elegant structure in which they are arranged is one of design rather than execution, for there is but one side erected out of four, though the works are stopped. The Post Office is a very compact and very beautiful building. In one of the departments, among a collection of rare and curious articles, are deposited the presents which have been made from time to time to the American ambassadors at foreign courts by the various potentates to whom they were the accredited agents of the Republic; gifts which by the law they are not permitted to retain. I confess that I looked upon this as a very painful exhibition, and one by no means flattering to the national standard of honesty and honour. That can scarcely be a high state of moral feeling which imagines a gentleman of repute and station, likely to be corrupted, in the discharge of his duty, by the present of a snuff-box, or a richlymounted sword, or an Eastern shawl; and surely the Nation who reposes confidence in her appointed servants, is likely to be better served, than she who makes them the subject of such very mean and paltry suspicions.
At George Town, in the suburbs, there is a Jesuit College; delightfully situated, and, so far as I had an opportunity of seeing, well managed. Many persons who are not members of the Romish Church, avail themselves, I believe, of these institutions, and of the advantageous opportunities they afford for the education of their children. The heights of this neighbourhood, above the Potomac River, are very picturesque: and are free, I should conceive, from some of the insalubrities of Washington. The air, at that elevation, was quite cool and refreshing, when in the city it was burning hot.
The President`s mansion is more like an English club-house, both within and without, than any other kind of establishment with which I can compare it. The ornamental ground about it has been laid out in garden walks; they are pretty, and agreeable to the eye; though they have that uncomfortable air of having been made yesterday, which is far from favourable to the display of such beauties.
My first visit to this house was on the morning after my arrival, when I was carried thither by an official gentleman, who was so kind as to charge himself with my presentation to the President.
We entered a large hall, and having twice or thrice rung a bell which nobody answered, walked without further ceremony through the rooms on the ground floor, as divers other gentlemen (mostly with their hats on, and their hands in their pockets) were doing very leisurely. Some of these had ladies with them, to whom they were showing the premises; others were lounging on the chairs and sofas; others, in a perfect state of exhaustion from listlessness, were yawning drearily. The greater portion of this assemblage were rather asserting their supremacy than doing anything else, as they had no particular business there, that anybody knew of. A few were closely eyeing the movables, as if to make quite sure that the President (who was far from popular) had not made away with any of the furniture, or sold the fixtures for his private benefit.
After glancing at these loungers; who were scattered over a pretty drawing-room, opening upon a terrace which commanded a beautiful prospect of the river and the adjacent country; and who were sauntering, too, about a larger state-room called the Eastern Drawing-room; we went up-stairs into another chamber, where were certain visitors, waiting for audiences. At sight of my conductor, a black in plain clothes and yellow slippers who was gliding noiselessly about, and whispering messages in the ears of the more impatient, made a sign of recognition, and glided off to announce him.
We had previously looked into another chamber fitted all round with a great, bare, wooden desk or counter, whereon lay files of newspapers, to which sundry gentlemen were referring. But there were no such means of beguiling the time in this apartment, which was as unpromising and tiresome as any waiting-room in one of our public establishments, or any physician`s dining-room during his hours of consultation at home.
There were some fifteen or twenty persons in the room. One, a tall, wiry, muscular old man, from the west; sunburnt and swarthy; with a brown white hat on his knees, and a giant umbrella resting between his legs; who sat bolt upright in his chair, frowning steadily at the carpet, and twitching the hard lines about his mouth, as if he had made up his mind `to fix` the President on what he had to say, and wouldn`t bate him a grain. Another, a Kentucky farmer, six-feet-six in height, with his hat on, and his hands under his coat-tails, who leaned against the wall and kicked the floor with his heel, as though he had Time`s head under his shoe, and were literally `killing` him. A third, an oval-faced, bilious looking man, with sleek black hair cropped close, and whiskers and beard shaved down to blue dots, who sucked the head of a thick stick, and from time to time took it out of his mouth, to see how it was getting on. A fourth did nothing but whistle. A fifth did nothing but spit. And indeed all these gentlemen were so very persevering and energetic in this latter particular, and bestowed their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages, or, to speak more genteelly, an ample amount of `compensation:` which is the American word for salary, in the case of all public servants.
We had not waited in this room many minutes, before the black messenger returned, and conducted us into another of smaller dimensions, where, at a business-like table covered with papers, sat the President himself. He looked somewhat worn and anxious, and well he might; being at war with everybody - but the expression of his face was mild and pleasant, and his manner was remarkably unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable. I thought that in his whole carriage and demeanour, he became his station singularly well.
Being advised that the sensible etiquette of the republican court admitted of a traveller, like myself, declining, without any impropriety, an invitation to dinner, which did not reach me until I had concluded my arrangements for leaving Washington some days before that to which it referred, I only returned to this house once. It was on the occasion of one of those general assemblies which are held on certain nights, between the hours of nine and twelve o`clock, and are called, rather oddly, Levees.
I went, with my wife, at about ten. There was a pretty dense crowd of carriages and people in the court-yard, and so far as I could make out, there were no very clear regulations for the taking up or setting down of company. There were certainly no policemen to soothe startled horses, either by sawing at their bridles or flourishing truncheons in their eyes; and I am ready to make oath that no inoffensive persons were knocked violently on the head, or poked acutely in their backs or stomachs; or brought to a standstill by any such gentle means, and then taken into custody for not moving on. But there was no confusion or disorder. Our carriage reached the porch in its turn, without any blustering, swearing, shouting, backing, or other disturbance: and we dismounted with as much ease and comfort as though we had been escorted by the whole Metropolitan Force from A to Z inclusive.
The suite of rooms on the ground-floor were lighted up, and a military band was playing in the hall. In the smaller drawingroom, the centre of a circle of company, were the President and his daughter-in-law, who acted as the lady of the mansion; and a very interesting, graceful, and accomplished lady too. One gentleman who stood among this group, appeared to take upon himself the functions of a master of the ceremonies. I saw no other officers or attendants, and none were needed.
The great drawing-room, which I have already mentioned, and the other chambers on the ground-floor, were crowded to excess. The company was not, in our sense of the term, select, for it comprehended persons of very many grades and classes; nor was there any great display of costly attire: indeed, some of the costumes may have been, for aught I know, grotesque enough. But the decorum and propriety of behaviour which prevailed, were unbroken by any rude or disagreeable incident; and every man, even among the miscellaneous crowd in the hall who were admitted without any orders or tickets to look on, appeared to feel that he was a part of the Institution, and was responsible for its preserving a becoming character, and appearing to the best advantage.
That these visitors, too, whatever their station, were not without some refinement of taste and appreciation of intellectual gifts, and gratitude to those men who, by the peaceful exercise of great abilities, shed new charms and associations upon the homes of their countrymen, and elevate their character in other lands, was most earnestly testified by their reception of Washington Irving, my dear friend, who had recently been appointed Minister at the court of Spain, and who was among them that night, in his new character, for the first and last time before going abroad. I sincerely believe that in all the madness of American politics, few public men would have been so earnestly, devotedly, and affectionately caressed, as this most charming writer: and I have seldom respected a public assembly more, than I did this eager throng, when I saw them turning with one mind from noisy orators and officers of state, and flocking with a generous and honest impulse round the man of quiet pursuits: proud in his promotion as reflecting back upon their country: and grateful to him with their whole hearts for the store of graceful fancies he had poured out among them. Long may he dispense such treasures with unsparing hand; and long may they remember him as worthily!
The term we had assigned for the duration of our stay in Washington was now at an end, and we were to begin to travel; for the railroad distances we had traversed yet, in journeying among these older towns, are on that great continent looked upon as nothing.
I had at first intended going South - to Charleston. But when I came to consider the length of time which this journey would occupy, and the premature heat of the season, which even at Washington had been often very trying; and weighed moreover, in my own mind, the pain of living in the constant contemplation of slavery, against the more than doubtful chances of my ever seeing it, in the time I had to spare, stripped of the disguises in which it would certainly be dressed, and so adding any item to the host of facts already heaped together on the subject; I began to listen to old whisperings which had often been present to me at home in England, when I little thought of ever being here; and to dream again of cities growing up, like palaces in fairy tales, among the wilds and forests of the west.
The advice I received in most quarters when I began to yield to my desire of travelling towards that point of the compass was, according to custom, sufficiently cheerless: my companion being threatened with more perils, dangers, and discomforts, than I can remember or would catalogue if I could; but of which it will be sufficient to remark that blowings-up in steamboats and breakingsdown in coaches were among the least. But, having a western route sketched out for me by the best and kindest authority to which I could have resorted, and putting no great faith in these discouragements, I soon determined on my plan of action.
This was to travel south, only to Richmond in Virginia; and then to turn, and shape our course for the Far West; whither I beseech the reader`s company, in a new chapter.
I'm a voracious reader, and wanted to share some of what I've read with the world at large. I hope my humble offerings are of interest. Polite and thoughtful comments are not only welcome, but strongly encouraged!
An excellent introduction to Dr. Pfeiffer and his work.
A more thorough, extremely well documented resource for those interested by the work of Drs. Pfeiffer, Hoffer et al.
. Interestingly, he believes that in his case, Alzheimer's was the result of a combination of mercury and aluminium intoxications.
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