| Compared with the way things used to be, we have | | | | great plagues and epidemics was not the disease |
| it so very soft today. It's easy to take our modern | | | | agent, but the fragile or non-existent immune system |
| conveniences for granted. We can fill our days with | | | | of the starving and poisoned host.) The church would |
| leisure, bustle around in comfy autos, work only 40 | | | | help allay the pain by harnessing hunger to spiritual |
| of the 168 hours in a week, chat with therapists, | | | | purposes. Lent made virtue of necessity, coming as it |
| read philosophy, shop for unnecessary stuff to clog | | | | did in the final months of winter when barns and |
| our closets and garages, climate control our dwellings | | | | larders were growing empty. Feast and famine were |
| and complain about the softness of our mattresses. | | | | linked to spiritual purification and gave meaning to |
| In the year 1000, even when agriculture had been | | | | hardship as well as hope for better times. July was |
| around for some 10,000 years, life was entirely | | | | particularly tough since the spring crops had not |
| different. In Anglo-Saxon society, a precursor to the | | | | matured and the barns were empty from the |
| modern West, the possibility of famine was | | | | previous year's harvest. Starving was common in the |
| ever-present and memories of the last one made | | | | balmiest month of the year when so much toil in the |
| dread and fear a part of everyday life. Looming | | | | fields was necessary. Every single hour of the August |
| natural disasters were constant specters. Domiciles | | | | harvest month was filled with urgency, since |
| were not the neat and clean hygienic environs we | | | | everyone knew from the pains of July what was in |
| experience today. They did not smell of disinfectant | | | | store for them next year if they did not fill their |
| or exhaust from engines wafting in the windows, but | | | | larders now. Work was not a right, a place to lobby |
| the exhaust from every manner of farm creature | | | | for benefits and ease. It was a life and death |
| and humans always hung in the air. Manure was | | | | struggle. The contrast between then and now is |
| everywhere with each one having its characteristic | | | | astonishing. They were on the verge of starvation; |
| bouquet of fragrance. The human nose in the year | | | | we are fighting an epidemic of obesity. They might |
| 1000 could certainly not be so prissy as ours today. | | | | have to subsist for months on potatoes or stale |
| Latrines were located at or near the back door and | | | | bread; we have a glut of food options at our instant |
| moss was toilet paper. Flies filled the dank and | | | | disposal. They had shortened life spans and were |
| earthen floor homes where there were few if any | | | | highly vulnerable to injury and disease. We live longer |
| hard surfaced utensils and there was no | | | | but suffer cruel lingering degenerative conditions. It is |
| understanding of disease vectors or antiseptic. If you | | | | clear from a realistic view of times gone by that it |
| dropped food on the filthy floor, you picked it up and | | | | was not the advent of modern medicine that |
| ate it with relish. Five baths a year for monks was | | | | brought relief, it was, as I mentioned in a previous |
| thought to be fanaticism by Saxon standards of | | | | article on SARS it was the plumber bringing public |
| personal hygiene. In time of famine, their law code | | | | utilities and with that the possibility of hygiene and |
| permitted fathers to sell their sons aged seven or | | | | the trucker distributing food supplies that brought us |
| above into slavery. Infanticide was not a crime. | | | | our present long lives. For them it was a daily |
| Communities of 40 or 50 starving emaciated people | | | | struggle for survival. Necessity and muscle ruled the |
| would join hands at the edge of a cliff and jump. | | | | day. It was the physical stress of enduring cold, |
| Some chronicles report that "men ate each other." | | | | harnessing 8 oxen to a plow to break new soil, hand |
| They would comb the forests for beechnuts | | | | harvesting and making their own way every moment |
| overlooked by the wild pigs and would grind acorns, | | | | of the day. It was the true helplessness and |
| beans, peas and tree bark into a flour to bake as | | | | victimization (unlike modern day contrived social |
| bread. Hedgerows were scoured for paltry herbs, | | | | "victims" clamoring for rights and handouts) from |
| roots, nettles and grasses. "What makes bitter things | | | | floods, droughts, winds and rain that could wipe out |
| sweet?" asked a Yorkshire schoolmaster. "Hunger." A | | | | their only hope to avoid starvation in the coming |
| "crazy bread" of ground poppies, hemp and darnel | | | | year. For us it is a surfeit of choices requiring |
| gave our poor starving ancestors some relief with | | | | intellectual decisions - decisions that make the |
| visions of paradise. Molds that laced the rye that was | | | | difference between whether we experience full |
| aging contained a variety of mycotoxins (and lysergic | | | | health or its slow insidious ruination by mindlessly |
| acid [LSD], the psychedelic drug of the "60s) that | | | | partaking of every offering that promises yet more |
| could not only make people appear mad but would | | | | ease and flavor just because it is there. For further |
| severely weaken the immune system, permitting | | | | reading, or for more information about, Dr Wysong |
| disease to run rampant. (Note that the cause of the | | | | and the Wysong Corporation please visit or write to . |