(The following article is an excerpt from the third edition of Lose Weight, Have More Energy & Be Happier in 10 Days.)
Because alternative healing offers different treatments for a lack of vibrant good health and happiness, they are often dismissed or even fought by medical societies. A historical example of this is Sir William A. Lane (1856 – 1943). He was a distinguished member of the British Royal Society of Surgeons. He is still known for three surgical procedures he invented, including the use of plates and screws for repairing fractures that otherwise wouldn’t heal correctly. During the First World War (1914–18), he opened a branch of Queen Mary’s Hospital, which pioneered plastic surgery to repair facial birth defects.
“Lane was regarded at his peak as the best abdominal surgeon in England and was called on to operate on Royalty, politicians and many society figures of the Edwardian era.” Lane’s vast experience in surgery led him to realize that long-term un-eliminated waste in the colon putrefied and therefore caused many other diseases. Lane referred to it as autointoxication (literally, self poisoning). The modern word for it is endotoxins (endo = internal, toxins = poisons).
For example, such are created when protein is acted on by certain bacteria. In his first misguided attempt to remedy this, Lane, being a surgeon, performed total colectomies (removing the entire colon). In 1926 after observing the failure of surgery as the treatment, Lane “started promoting exercise, fruit and vegetables and bran cereal as the answer to bowel problems. Using his many royal and society connections he set up The New Health Society [in England in 1925] to promote … health education… [and] … wrote columns in the newspapers, held public lectures and improved the distribution of fruit and vegetables.”
The medical establishment fought his effort to improve health with non-medicinal, non-surgical means. They were so vehement that in 1926 Lane “in order to promote the New Health Society…, asked to have his name removed from the Medical Register to avoid being disciplined by the [British] General Medical Council.” (“Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, 1856–1943,” by Richard Brand, MD, Aug. 2009)
Sir William A. Lane, addressing the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical College said: “Gentlemen, I will never die of cancer. I am taking measures to prevent it… It is caused by poisons created in our bodies by the food we eat… What we should do, then, if we would avoid cancer, is to eat… raw fruits and vegetables; first, that we may be better nourished; secondly, that we may more easily eliminate waste products… We have been studying germs when we should have been studying diet and drainage. . The world has been on the wrong track. The answer has been within ourselves all the time… Drain the body of its poisons, feed it properly, and the miracle is done. Nobody need have cancer who will take the trouble to avoid it.” (from Why Christians Get Sick by Rev. George Malkmus)
By the way, Lane lived to be 87 years old and died in an auto accident during the Second World War in London.
All the information in this article is from “Sir William Arbuthnot-Lane,” www.Wikipedia.com, accessed Oct. 6, 2010, except where otherwise noted.