Cider Vinegar

by Margaret Hills

  Sore throats were a common occurrence in our house: cider vinegar and honey were the antidote. I dissolved two teaspoons of honey in 300 ml/half a pint of hot water (not boiling), and added to this two teaspoons of cider vinegar. The sufferer sipped the mixture and then gargled with it two to three times a day. The cider vinegar killed the virus that was causing the sore throat, and the honey had a wonderful calming effect on the child, who soon slept peacefully. The doctor’s visits to our family were few and far between.

  Honey has proved excellent in the healing of wounds – I have even heard that honey is being used in some hospitals now to aid healing. Honey is also excellent in breathlessness, especially that related to emotional stress. As in asthma, it has a very calming effect on the nerves. Two teaspoons of honey straight from the honey-pot can work wonders (sucking a honeycomb produces the same effect).

  Honey for hay fever

  The efficacy of honey for hay fever was brought to a wide readership in the book Folk Medicine by Dr C. Jarvis, first published in 1958. He recommended chewing one teaspoonful of honeycomb three times a day, starting at least four months before the hay fever season begins. He also drew attention to the observation that honey cappings (the waxy coating made by the bees), being richer in pollen, were more effective. It is best if the honey taken is produced within a 15-km (10-mile) radius of the sufferer. Local honey has a better chance of dealing with local pollens.

  Honey for ulcers

  For years, standard ulcer treatment has centred around counteracting acid secretion which causes indigestion, acid reflux, heartburn etc., but recent research has found that most gastric ulcers are caused by an infection of the Helicobacter pylori bacteria, which weakens the protective lining of the stomach and intestines. Tests have shown that the growth of this bacteria is completely prevented by honey.

  When a patient takes an antacid, it neutralizes the acid in the stomach, but in so doing, the stomach has to produce more acid to enable the digestive enzymes to work. Antacids do not treat the underlying problem – and they bring their own set of side effects. In my opinion, it would be so much better to strengthen the mucous lining of the stomach with a daily dose of honey, which would prevent any invasion of the offending bacteria. This advice does not apply to diabetics, who must regulate their sugar intake.

  Honey has the advantage of being absorbed relatively slowly when used as a sweetener in the diet. But make sure that the honey you buy is labelled ‘raw’ or ‘unheated’.

  If you have a yeast problem (candidiasis) you must not take honey until the condition is well under control. The yeast in the honey could aggravate the condition.

  Honey for hyperactive children has also had remarkable results – possibly because of its calming effects on the nerves.

  At my clinic, we have various alternatives to the honey and molasses in our treatments – but we realize that without cider vinegar we would get nowhere. I have never known anybody to reject it completely.

  5

  Case-notes from the clinic

  Before patients are treated at our clinic, they have to fill in a detailed questionnaire, answering many questions about their health – i.e. past history, medication, current symptoms, and any other relevant information. We never treat children without seeing them and doing urine tests for the pH balance, blood, protein, nitrates, leukocytes, glucose, etc. We also test for zinc deficiency, blood pressure and take pulse-readings.

  People who suffer only from arthritis can normally be advised from a distance – we have patients in many parts of the world. If, when reading a person’s answers to the questionnaire, we find that they are taking a variety of drugs, we sometimes ask them to contact their doctor for urine tests, anaemia and thyroid tests, and furnish us with the results, so that we may treat them correctly if they cannot come to the clinic.

  It is my sincere belief that all human beings have the right to live the best life they can and to choose whatever method they think best to gain good health and freedom from pain. It is our right to choose between conventional medicine, which deals with symptoms of disease, and natural methods, which aim to improve the immune system with high-quality nutrition.

  Drugs prescribed by doctors (especially steroids) suppress the immune system. This I cannot understand. Without a healthy immune system we have no chance of attaining a long life and the happiness of which we all dream. We have many systems in our bodies (e.g. the digestive system, the circulatory system, the glandular system, the reproductive system, the nervous system and the immune system). None of these systems can function properly by themselves. They are all dependent on each other. If one is not working properly, all the others are incomplete and show signs of ill-health.

  Research in recent years has found that we should eat more fruits, vegetables, grains and seeds for a healthy, long and active life. It saddens me that a lot of my patients have been told by their doctor that diet has nothing to do with their arthritis. On the contrary: I have found for years that diet has everything to do with all illnesses. It is my firm belief that arthritis, cancer, heart-trouble, diabetes, and many more illnesses are directly related to the unnatural food that we are now living on. Our apples are sprayed with chemicals to make them bigger and look better, as are all our fruits and vegetables. These chemicals have ruined the nutritional value, so fruits and vegetables which once offered nourishment now do so no more. Sprays and chemical fertilizers not only add extra, harmful, ingredients, but they also destroy the nutritional value of the crops. The soil is a complex of inorganic and organic mineral complexes. Adding mineral or chemical fertilizer to the soil, of whatever quality, will tend to upset this delicate balance. The result could be that vitamin, mineral, amino acid and trace element uptake by the plants could be depressed, affecting the nutritional quality of the produce. Chemical pesticides, fungicides and herbicides are also used, and these too are taken up by crops. These contaminants are foreign to the body and can accumulate therein. Most cannot be removed by washing the fruit or vegetable.

  The old adage ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’, is no longer true. Doctors’ surgeries are full of people with all sorts of diseases: the quality of life has deteriorated to an all-time low.

  It is time we stopped interfering with nature. People would be much healthier if they were to eat only organically grown fruits and vegetables, and to take responsibility for improving the conditions of life. More and more people these days are looking for ways to get fit and healthy.

  I speak from personal experience. As I have already related, I developed rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 21. The pains in every joint of my body were excruciating. I was in constant pain, a nagging ache, with intermittent flare-ups, until eventually, 16 years on, I could not perform the simplest task without pain. I had backache, my feet were swollen and painful as were my hands and my knees. My jaws were locked and I could not chew my food. I was underweight and my nerves had gone to pieces. My whole body was so sore that I could not bear the dog to brush against me.

  Looking back on all this, I associate it with the excess of dairy foods I had as a child. When I was young I was very underweight, and prone to infections. My mother fed me on the fat of the land. My father had a small farm; we kept our own cows, killed all our own pigs and grew our own vegetables. I never liked vegetables of any sort, but my mother insisted that I had plenty of milk straight from the cows. I always got the top of the milk, i.e. the cream. I loved it and my mother felt that it made up for the food I did not have because of my ‘delicate stomach’. But I now feel that my diet in those days contributed in a very big way to my rheumatic condition later.

  When I read Dr Jarvis’s book, I began to understand the cause of my arthritis. I began to take cider vinegar, and my nursing training helped me a lot in changing to an acid-free diet – the same diet that is so beneficial to my patients today.

  The combined regime of cider vinegar and an acid-free diet became a habit. My arthritis subsided, and gradually I got rid
of it. I realized that, because my diet had for many years lacked essential vitamins and minerals, I had to replace these in any way I could; so I ate plenty of salads, non-citrus fruits, and grated raw vegetables. My heart returned to normal, and I became a healthy woman at the age of 37 years, having suffered for 16 years with crippling arthritis. I give thanks to God and Dr Jarvis for putting me on the right road and showing me the way ahead. At the time of writing, I am 71 years old, and to date I have not had a return of the arthritis. I do not keep strictly to the regime now, but I do take my own prescribed vitamins and minerals and a cider vinegar drink daily. This keeps me free.

  When my patients are clear of their arthritis, I treat them as I do myself. They return to a normal diet, having a glass of wine if they wish and partaking of various other, previously forbidden, foods, but always taking their cider vinegar and a reduced vitamin and mineral programme. Some patients overdo their new-found freedom, and the acids in their bodies start to build up again. They know what to do. They go back to the old regime of diet, vitamins, minerals and cider vinegar three times daily. Soon they are clear of acids again.

  It is wonderful for me to know that, through my suffering all those years ago, I can bring comfort and health to so many throughout the world today. We treat people in many parts of the world. A lot are suffering from the side effects of drugs – the anti-inflammatory drugs or steroids. I give thanks to God for the day I got the idea of opening a clinic and writing my books. The benefits to me cannot be measured in terms of money, but in the smiles of gratitude on people’s faces. Very few people fail to derive benefit from our treatment. Some take a long time to get good results; others improve relatively quickly.

  The following are a selection of case histories from the clinic. All the patients have been on cider vinegar, plus different nutritional programmes according to their individual needs. All, too, have been on our low-fat acid-free diet.

  Mrs S. wrote to us in February 1995, having had problems for about a year:

  I began to wake up in the morning very stiff, and walking down the stairs was painful to the knees. Turning on the tap and lighting the kettle hurt my hands. After about three weeks things had got no better, and I visited my doctor who arranged blood tests. When I returned to see her, I had worsened. She said that the results showed an under-active thyroid gland and that the rheumatoid arthritis tests were positive. She wrote to the hospital to get me an appointment with the rheumatologist, which came through for the end of November – some time off. By now it was taking me until lunch-time to get fully mobile, and by evening all the aches and stiffness returned. My mother then gave me your book Treating Arthritis the Drug-Free Way – a friend of hers had lent it to her. I read it and decided to give the treatment a try. Within three weeks of starting the programme I felt better in myself generally. Gradually the morning stiffness grew less, and I was able to lift my arms above my head. After three months I started to play badminton again. The pain and stiffness was confined to only a few remaining places – in my feet, hands and elbows. It took about another three months or so for all symptoms to disappear. When I went for my last appointment to the hospital, I told them I was better. I know that your regime cured me, but the doctor was not impressed. However, I am continuing with the cider vinegar treatment, diet and supplements because I know it is the wisest thing to do.

  Mrs S. is now clear of arthritis. She has got on extremely well in a very short time, mainly because she would not take any drugs for her arthritis. She never visited our clinic. She was quite prepared to come for a consultation, but, on processing the questionnaire she had completed, we felt that there was no need for an appointment. We were quite right. We assumed her immune system was low, so we treated her with zinc so that she would not feel her pain so intensely. (Approximately 90 per cent of the patients who apply to us for treatment are low in zinc.) She was also anaemic; we gave her extra iron and vitamin C to help the body absorb it. Taking iron alone, without vitamin C, is a dangerous practice. If the iron is not absorbed into the bloodstream it can settle in the liver and result in liver-poisoning.

  Mrs S. was willing to help any other patients, so we introduced her to Mrs C., who has now started our treatment. We hope that Mrs C. will achieve similar results.

  Mrs F. applied to us for treatment in May 1993. She was a patient from that date, taking all our treatments: vitamins, minerals, protein – and cider vinegar, honey and molasses. She is now free of suffering. Her last letter to us goes like this:

  My symptoms were different from those of the general run of arthritis sufferers. My joints were not swollen, nor were my limbs twisted. I did have severe inflammation in my muscles and tissues. I had the sensation of being severely scalded, especially the muscles between my shoulder-blades, but in fact everywhere. When it was bad, even my eyelids, tongue and scalp were affected, giving acute pain and weakness, total misery. No one could diagnose what was wrong with me; a Harley Street rheumatologist put me on an antidepressant. I didn’t in fact take the drugs, so I was left to suffer.

  A friend told me about the Margaret Hills treatment, and gave me the book Treating Arthritis the Drug-Free Way. I started the treatment in April 1993 and I am now free from this awful malady. I did have to persevere. I did have flare-ups, but it has all been worthwhile. Thank you again for your help; to have the hand of hope stretched out in such circumstances is indescribable.

  Mrs F. continued with our cider vinegar, honey, molasses, acid-free diet, with vitamins, minerals and proteins from May 1993 until November 1995. As she says, she is free from her malady but will continue with a reduced programme for the future, but she can now face the future with hope and thanks in her heart.

  Mrs H. applied to us for treatment in December 1993. When she filled in our questionnaire she wrote: ‘In the last three weeks the pain in my neck is worse, it is in my shoulders too with dreadful pain going down my right arm to my wrist.’ She was in a lot of pain, and was not sleeping well; she also lacked calcium. She was taking a drug to stimulate her underactive thyroid; she was overweight and she was also on HRT. She had already started to take the cider vinegar, honey and molasses. She did not attend the clinic: we treated her by post and gave her advice and encouragement by telephone. It took her two years to clear herself of arthritis. In December 1995 she wrote to us:

  I started your treatment two years ago, at which time I was in considerable pain in my feet, knees, wrists, thumb-joints and particularly in my shoulders. For the first two months of treatment I was unable to move my arms properly. Gradually, the pain disappeared from all joints except my shoulders, which continued to be painful. But as time went on the flare-ups lessened and eventually they lasted only two days.

  The pain in my arm-muscles was the last to clear up, and at one time I felt that it was never going to improve. But I awoke one morning and found that I was completely free of pain. It was a wonderful feeling, and I could not quite believe that it was going to last. However, after being totally free of pain for three months, I am feeling absolutely great! I am so grateful that I discovered your treatment – it has certainly changed my life.

  Some people work solely from the treatment prescribed in my first book Treating Arthritis the Drug-Free Way. This is fine if they are taking no drugs for arthritis, and if they have no complications. We do not even know that they are doing it until we get a letter such as the following one, which arrived in August 1993:

  I am writing just to say that I suffered with rheumatoid arthritis for nearly two years. It started after being away on holiday in Cyprus. When I came back, one of my knees had doubled in size and I was getting horrific pains in my legs. I used to cry with pain.

  My doctor sent me to see a specialist, as by then it had moved to my wrists and I did not know what to do because of all the pain I was getting. I could not even write a note for my daughter for school, because it looked as if a 5-year-old had written it. I was given pain-killers but even then I was still in pain; I was also given splints t
o wear on my hands at night and splints for the day. I honestly thought I would be on tablets for the rest of my life. But then a friend bought me a book called Treating Arthritis the Drug-Free Way.

  I have been following the treatment advised in this book, and have been discharged from the hospital and now suffer no pain at all. I am just writing this in the hope that it will give someone, somewhere, faith in what you say.

  Such letters arrive frequently at the clinic. I feel humble and privileged to know that the words I write are doing so much good to so many people.

  In January 1992, a 12-year-old girl arrived at the clinic with her parents. She had been diagnosed with arthritis the previous June. She was very underweight. She had pericarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), which frequently occurs in cases of rheumatoid arthritis. I believe that the virus that causes arthritis is streptococcus, and that pericarditis occurs when this virus attacks the heart. I have personal experience of this: when I had rheumatoid arthritis my heart became very badly enlarged. It was very comforting for the child’s parents to know that my heart recovered completely and that, nearly 50 years on, I have not had a return of the virus. The girl had a very high temperature and could not sleep at night. I advised her parents to ask her GP for a test for anaemia as well as thyroid and liver-function tests. She was on various drugs, which I felt were causing the very high temperatures. I advised her to discontinue the drugs – which she did.