PART IV.

Dear Ms. Kidder at Ashoka:

I'm taking this opportunity of what is developing into an ongoing serial letter, to announce some further ground-breaking medical insights, from my 27 years of devotion to the art of natural healing through Macrobiotics.

Please permit me to pick up some loose threads from my previous letter (Part III).

There I brought forth a logical inference that the AIDS Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa is caused mainly by the inability of the natives to keep their skin dry in their hot, humid climate; which in turn creates a phlegmatic condition from excess body moisture in the digestive tract. Thus the body, clogged with mucus (phlegm), experiences stagnated digestion, their food putrefies in them, making the person an ideal host for micro-organisms, which feed on the unmetabolized food, especially the protein and fat, which shows externally in a swollen nose in which the nostril-lines are not clear and deep, as they should be in a person who is internally clean from practicing effective personal hygiene.

The swollen nose may not be conspicuous, especially in a person wasting away from AIDS. But if you look closely, you will see that the sides of the nose are not concave, as they should be in a body internally clean. Rather, the nose is wedge-shaped, indicating a body clogged with mucus.

Another visual symptom detectable in people with AIDS is glazed eyes, watery eyes, in which the pupil is generally contracted very small, and there is no clear focus in the eyes. These are unmistakable symptoms of sickness when the eyes have no focus.

I pointed to synthetic, non-absorbent junk clothing, bedding, and home furnishings, all largely or wholly made of petroleum, which has been dumped on the unsuspecting Africans and people of the Third world around the globe, by the enterprising Western capitalists, destroying thereby their native cottage industries which traditionally produced high quality clothing of all natural organic fibers.

Further, I pointed out that there has been nothing remotely comparable to this Material Revolution of this last half century, since nylon stockings were invented during World War II, which has changed the way of life of humanity from a natural way, based on natural cellular, absorbent materials--cotton, wool, linen, wood, straw, horsehair, clay, leather, etc.--to an increasingly unnatural way, which prevents the TRANSPIRATION, the discharge of body wastes and excess moisture through the pores of the skin into surrounding absorbent materials.

This has been my insight for about 20 years, and every day I make new observations which confirm and deepen the profundity of it. I could write a book of anecdotes of cases where people's and animals health and lives are being destroyed by living amidst intranspirable petroleum products that do not allow the body to breath. Put a cage of mice directly on a polyester carpet, so that the animals have no access to contact with natural materials, and they die within a few hours. Such experiments have already been done; it is known as polyvinyl chloride poisoning.

Well, today in my scholarly reading, I finally came across a historical precedent for THE BIOLOGICAL DEGENERATION OF HUMANITY DUE TO THE STEADILY INCREASING INTRANSPIRABILITY OF THE SYNTHETIC MATERIALS ON WHICH MODERN LIFE IS NOW BASED.

This is what I joyfully came across in an old book, MALARIA AND GREEK HISTORY (Manchester University, 1909), by the British scholar W.H.S. Jones, M.A., who subsequently, in 1923, did the Loeb Library of Classics edition of HIPPOCRATES (1923), the 3 first volumes of that series.

On page 87, Jones cites an early 19th century study, by an Italian scholar, of the ancient Romans, and why their civilization declined into weakness and sickness amidst their marshy, damp land, long before drainage systems were built.

"BROCCHI [1820: DELLO STATO FISICO DEL SUOLO DI ROMA] held that the ancient Romans were as subject to unhealthy influences [viz. marshy damp air] as are the modern inhabitants of Italy, but were saved from the worst effects BY THE USE OF THEIR THICK, WOOLEN TOGA.AS WOOL GAVE WAY TO [LESS ABSORBENT MATERIALS] LINEN AND SILK, SO DID THE FEVER [MALARIA] INCREASE."

The scholarly book written in Italian ("On the Physical State of the Subsoil of Rome", 1820) is indeed a fascinating geological study, which happens to exist in the Rare Books Collection of Amherst College, where I've been privileged to pour over it. An American scholar who first owned it inscribed his name on the flyleaf, with the date in the summer of 1838, when he was apparently in Rome. Although I have no facility in reading Italian without the aid of a dictionary, I was deeply moved by the aesthetic quality of the handmade paper with feathered edge, and by finding three places where the original owner had inserted fresh wildflowers between the pages, where they dried perfectly and were still in good condition over a century and a half after being put there.

The geological importance of knowing what the subsoil under a city consists of in various places was extremely critical in the days before paved-over cities and poured-concrete basements. It was because one had to know what "effluvia", as it was called, would be rising up from the depths of the soil under any building that might be constructed. In those days, what we now call "sick building syndrome" arose from the physical state of the soil, whereas in our time it arises from the quality of the petroleum-based synthetic materials used in the construction of the building.

This is another example of "The reversal of the Tao." Whereas formerly, man might harm his health by building in the wrong place, today he harms his health by building with the wrong materials.

"So great are the damage AND THE MORAL DEGENERATION CAUSED BY THE DISEASE [MALARIA]" (p.87)...THE VICTIMS OF MALARIA FALL AN EASY PREY TO OTHER DISEASES..."(p.19, footnote 5). The parallel between MALARIA and AIDS is surely striking! In both diseases there is a process of fever, sweating and chills, and the progressive wasting away unto death.

But the important point is that the Romans, at the height of their culture, had the best protection against damp air in their thick woolen robes, which produced ample transpiration of body wastes from their diet.

Why did the Romans gradually discontinue their heavy robes of wool and switch to lighter garments of linen and silk? Obviously, they undoubtedly felt more comfortable in the lighter weight smooth materials which caress the skin, rather than cause itchiness when heavy dietary wastes are drawn out from the skin by coarse wool.

Hasn't this cultural pattern been repeated in our time, 2,000 years later, as we see so few people wearing wool any longer? Moreover, our switch to lighter weight smooth materials in the past half century has been much more disastrous in the unprecedented epidemics of killer diseases our civilization has produced through the artificial synthetic lifestyle.

I am convinced that heart disease, arteriosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, rheumatism (especially so) are all produced through failure to metabolize our food completely, with the aid of good quality clothing and footwear, leaving the body clogged with dietary waste matter that causes many kinds of complications and diseases, depending upon where it gets deposited.

I have pointed out that the dramatic rise of breast cancer in women is directly correlated with women increasingly covering their bodies with petroleum-based intranspirable fabrics. First it was nylon stockings, which prevented women's legs from discharging their waste matter through the skin.

Then it was pantyhose, which brought the petroleum covering up to the belly-button, beginning in the mid-1950s. Then nylon panties and bras, slips, petticoats, garters; the whole undergarments became intranspirable.

Women's fashions have recently turned to increased use of polyester and other petroleum materials in the outer garments as well. Dresses, skirts, blouses, shoes, suits, jackets, coats: there is nothing they won't succumb to if it is sold as fashionable.

So then, let me conclude: The World Health Crisis, which became evident in the 1970s, is directly tied to the transformation of the TRANSPIRABLE NATURAL WAY OF LIFE into an increasingly INTRANSPIRABLE UNNATURAL WAY OF LIFE.

Jesus, born in a manger, amidst transpirable straw and wood, had the luxury of coming into this world in far healthier surroundings than the offspring of affluent families, born in a modern hospital, where there is virtually no possibility of human contact with any organic material made of cells that expand and contract according to the condition of the air, and which provide healthy comfort to the human body.

The modern way of life, the world over, is relentlessly being transformed away from the natural materials that allow our body to breathe, and have the power to absorb our dietary waste products. Thus we see obesity, the thick bullnecked condition, swollen noses, bloated cheeks--all the signs of ill-health that are so conspicuous in the images of the Roman Caesars on their coinage.

Just as the Romans progressively debased their way of life and fell into self-indulgent gluttony, weakening themselves until they could no longer resist the barbarians at their gates, so we too are doing the same thing. But the barbarians are no longer outsiders. Those who fail or forget how to learn to feed and clothe and house themselves amidst natural transpirable materials gradually revert to a barbarous way of life.

And just one sign of the uncultured, unhygienic barbarian way of life may be seen nowadays in the numbers of people who do not wear an undershirt. The difference between barbarism and civilization is the wearing of an undershirt, which conserves body heat essential for smooth digestion, without the need of violent activity--prerequisites for the creation of culture by tranquil minds.

Sincerely,

Harold Kulungian
177 No. Pleasant St., Apt. 2
Amherst, MA 01002-1719
1-413-253-2277 by 9 AM