Wonderful article that presents the problem so simply and clearly. I read Jarvis’s book decades ago and still have a copy on my shelves. Bach developed the Bach Flower Remedies which are still used and potent. Homeopathy has become the 3rd most used healing protocol in the world but was attacked by the Flexner Report, a totally prejudicial fraud in order to destroy the homeopathic colleges and other naturopathic schools. The medical industry that was being built threatened doctors with destruction unless they came under the umbrella of the industry which would protect them. This is exactly what we see today with the medical industry
FYI, the term Quack was originally used against the medical doctors as they caused so much harm with the toxic drugs being pushed. No different today other than people being conditioned into a co-dependency with this industry, too frightened to break that emotional chain. So we have an industry that is the biggest killer of people annually. Even the industry admits to causing at least 250,000 deaths a year in hospitals with legally prescribed drugs and protocols! And this is estimated to be only 1-10% of the deaths, all unnecessary.
“The story medicine tells about this transition is that science replaced superstition. The structural reality is that one mode of knowing was financially compatible with industrial capital and the other was not.” This quote struck us as we are currently reading a lecture by Foucault on the European Enlightenment that points to something related. He writes that the Enlightenment ‘story’ of the Light of Reason vanquishing the Darkness of superstition, myth, the supernatural is but the propagandized version. What the Enlightenment involved was a battle of different forms of knowledge vying for legitimacy within the institution of the what he termed the ‘Napoleonic university.’ What is more, Foucault thought that European society was still very much embroiled in this Enlightenment project. Whatever the jargon, the field of modern medicine, and the work of Jarvis and Bach, shine light, for us, on this same pretension of institutional domination that eclipses the sound and profoundly valuable work of figures like Jarvis and Bach (and so many others Unbekoming thankfully brings to readers’ attention). Thank you for your work and scholarship.
Thank you for these insights which we have grown to overlook. I do wonder in your research about Dr. Bach if you came across reports that he learned the use of the individual flowers by being in a quiet state like meditation and hearing within what emotions each plant could help to balance. I had read years ago he had been inspired using intuitive faculties--another gift we have been trained to ignore.
After reading several articles, I ordered quite a few books. I now ordered the Jarvis. Together with others, like Buhner and Huxcey, the true healers have been called quacks by those that legally kill people with their poisons, while these real ones are called quacks. Just like Dr Moerman, Budwig and all the others, who healed numerous people with harmless methods. I am cooking the Bieler soup every week now, using the salty water to rinse my nose, the vanadium advised by another of your doctors, and hope to never have to go to one of these true quacks again.
The problem is that 4G kills off the honey bees. That's why I call the elite morons, because they will be dying themselves if we lose our honey bees since most of what is pollinated is by honey bees. This has been confirmed by a woman who has her Ph.D. in Public Health from Harvard University, because the honey bees died because they couldn't find their way back to the hive where I used to live.
Absolutely true Tony. One man who lived in New Mexico, whose name I can't recall now, asked everyone to dump their cell phone, an Email I, as a publisher of top secret history, sent around the world in my feeble attempt to get people to do that.
Of course, hardly anyone was able to do that, and now that man in New Mexico is dead. I suspect that he was murdered by some entity that stands to lose a lot of money if cell phones are no longer a part of our life.
I recently moved to another home in the UK where it was my understanding that I would not be able to have a landline, but just days ago I learned that I can have my landline operational here. So now on June 25th, 2026, I will have my landine to use here. Hooray! No brain cancer for me from the cell phone.
I think the acid intake results in alkaline inner. Everything I have heard is that cancer does not grow in alkaline internal. Lemons intake becomes alkaline.
I was reading Jarivs in the '60's, watching Nature Boy on Steve Allen. Health stores were a new phenom; even saw a SWAT team raid our local store for daring to give lectues on vitamins and natural healing!
Still, while they told us to drink 8 glasses of water daily, it made me gag. I'm a desert tortoise I guess. Is it really one size fits all?
E.g. what is the body pH of carnivore cats? Are they alkaline? Inland people v. coastal people have different mineral needs. Blood types vary as to their preferred diet...so I've read.
clearly good sanitation, fresh food is basic; fermented products for the gut.
What we need is a feedback we can do at home. Listen to your body. Some find kinesiology (which is a sort of radionics) good for checking dose and kind.
I'm not puting down this article at all. So much has been lost.
This essay argues that some of the most valuable medical knowledge came not from laboratories but from long-term observation of nature. It compares two physicians—D. C. Jarvis and Edward Bach—who believed that careful attention to animals, plants, and human experience revealed truths about health that modern medicine largely ignored. Jarvis learned from Vermont farmers who watched their livestock and found practical benefits from remedies such as apple cider vinegar, honey, and mineral-rich foods. Bach reached similar conclusions by observing how animals instinctively sought certain plants when unwell. The author contends that both men practiced an older form of knowledge based on direct observation, patience, and experience rather than institutional authority.
The central claim is not that apple cider vinegar or honey are miracle cures, but that modern medicine abandoned a valuable way of understanding health when it shifted toward patented drugs, laboratory testing, and industrialized healthcare. The essay argues that observation-based medicine was pushed aside not because it failed, but because it could not be easily commercialized. It points to the influence of the Medical Education in the United States and Canada and the restructuring of medical education as turning points that favored pharmaceutical approaches over traditional observational methods.
The broader message is that nature remains an open book for those willing to pay attention. Cows still graze, bees still seek mineral-rich flowers, and animals still display instincts that may teach us something about health. Whether or not one accepts all of Jarvis's conclusions, the essay invites readers to recover the habit of observing the living world directly rather than relying entirely on experts and institutions. In the author's view, the real lesson from Jarvis and Bach is that wisdom often begins with watching carefully, testing what is observed, and remaining open to knowledge that cannot be patented or sold.
Phenomenal body work and more affirmation of my chosen life style choices. I am 77 now & I stopped all Pharma & Dr’s 13 yrs ago. A recipient of Iatrogenesis, sick from faulty diagnosis & treatments. I tell everyone I can about The Flexnor Report that vilified naturopathic medicine & pushed propagandized Allopathic medicine and synthetic drugs. My medicine cabinet is my kitchen cupboard & my grandparents remedies on the family cattle ranch. I’ve taken a daily drink of purified water, 1tsp each Tumeric, Ceylon Cinnamon, Ginger and 1 TBS ea Raw Apple Cider Vinegar & Raw Honey every morning for these past 10 years. I have no pains arthritis or otherwise. I walk 40 min daily. I eat a keto low carb of Vegetables, high protein diet of mostly salmon,tuna and sardines. I had a kidney stone 3 years ago that was dissolved by a week of Organic Castor Oil packs over my kidney & groin. I’m a firm believer in GOD’s Creation that made our bodies to heal itself when we put the Correct nutrients & minerals in it. Colds & tumors are detoxifying our bodies not a to take Pharma or intervene. Starve a fever, cancers, Feed a cold vitamin C, Bone brothe & sunshine and let it run its course to detox you. Watch the Animals Love it they use the instinct and Instructions GOD gave them. He gets the Glory!
This article is close to home, for me. I agree entirely, and that is what I see, observe and practice. The results are obvious, when compared with the alternatives. Seek out the old paths, the good ways. Return to God, and prosper, with health and vigor. Food is medicine, when used wisely. We can learn from watching the animals, as I've observed. I have fired several doctors because of what I've learned. Thank you for this valuable article, I will share it.
The sense that animals have is in humans too, we have mostly forgotten it. Learning to muscle test is the way to start listening to that part of your body/brain.
I'm 81 been doing the alt-health "natural" way ...more or less...60 years. Simplicity is an ideal to hope for...meanwhile in the old days I met people who knew Paul Bragg (you apple cider fans will know of him)...one of the pioneers ...Despite all the juice and raw veggie talk...Paul liked to quietly eat a steak on the QT. Yes, there was censorship and cancelling even amongst the Pure!
But what brought me back for a second comment was my mind was troubled/irritated by the "wisdom" story about nighttime fresh air and hens tucking their little pointy heads under their feathers...
Just how stupid is this anyway? Most animals I'd wager, and humans way back when in their "harmony with Nature"...slept outside in the fresh air. They didn't have windows to open or close.
And this reminds me of another modern health tip about sleeping in total darkness...I pity all those primitives out there under the blazing Milky Way night sky. So unhealthy. NOT.
Read widely. Avoid fanaticism. And have some fun even if it violates someone else's Rules For Life.
You make some good points. I like your final paragraph. I read the book by Jarvis and I am somewhat skeptical about the hens purportedly wanting warm air. I am not saying this is wrong, just wondering. Some of my hens & cocks would indeed sleep that way, but others would not, in all seasons warm and cold. Why the difference. Except when some would get killed by a hawk or wolf (once), they all died of relative old age, usually between 5 & 8 years of age. They had no sickness and did not molt. (their feathers fall out). I don't see molting as something natural at all. I consider that to be a sign of poor nutrition and overall stress. Some of my old heirloom varieties would not go into the chicken house at night but would fly up into a nearby tree to spend the night. Different strokes...
Also, re sleeping in total darkness. Sometimes the primitives would do so. I lived in the country for years, and some nights it was super-dark, but during the full moon it was wonderful, all that light. That moon light coming in thru the window did not prevent me from sleeping and feeling rested in the morning.
Re Paul Bragg. It would seem to me that he could not live comfortably without his hunk of meat because he avoided meat for the wrong reason in the first place, as so many vegetarians and vegans today can't stick with their diets. And the reason for that is they are avoiding meat & fish for the wrong reasons, namely, a belief that meat is bad for you or that by avoiding flesh you are "saving the environment and preventing global warming". You need emotion (usually an identification with animals) to be able to stick with it for decades without ever wanting meat. One health writer pointed this out, Annemarie Colbin. You pick ideas that you like, she said, and you'll have no problem finding reasons to defend your actions. Also, Bragg was never 100 per cent vegetarian, as he did eat fish, so I think he is misunderstood by some people.
Read “Castor oil and quinine : once a doctor, always a doctor / by George Wonson Vandegrift”. A late 1800’s doctor’s son tells the story of how his dad practiced medicine in his community in New York. Very interesting.
Observing animals, plants, and human beings brings the watcher to the need to discern the meaning or significance of the actions and the results, which are not obvious nor conclusive. The challenge is not to leap to a permanent and pervasive certainty. One can keep an open mind (growth mindset) and deepen one's understanding through experimentation, intuition and insights. Ongoing...
Wonderful article that presents the problem so simply and clearly. I read Jarvis’s book decades ago and still have a copy on my shelves. Bach developed the Bach Flower Remedies which are still used and potent. Homeopathy has become the 3rd most used healing protocol in the world but was attacked by the Flexner Report, a totally prejudicial fraud in order to destroy the homeopathic colleges and other naturopathic schools. The medical industry that was being built threatened doctors with destruction unless they came under the umbrella of the industry which would protect them. This is exactly what we see today with the medical industry
FYI, the term Quack was originally used against the medical doctors as they caused so much harm with the toxic drugs being pushed. No different today other than people being conditioned into a co-dependency with this industry, too frightened to break that emotional chain. So we have an industry that is the biggest killer of people annually. Even the industry admits to causing at least 250,000 deaths a year in hospitals with legally prescribed drugs and protocols! And this is estimated to be only 1-10% of the deaths, all unnecessary.
“The story medicine tells about this transition is that science replaced superstition. The structural reality is that one mode of knowing was financially compatible with industrial capital and the other was not.” This quote struck us as we are currently reading a lecture by Foucault on the European Enlightenment that points to something related. He writes that the Enlightenment ‘story’ of the Light of Reason vanquishing the Darkness of superstition, myth, the supernatural is but the propagandized version. What the Enlightenment involved was a battle of different forms of knowledge vying for legitimacy within the institution of the what he termed the ‘Napoleonic university.’ What is more, Foucault thought that European society was still very much embroiled in this Enlightenment project. Whatever the jargon, the field of modern medicine, and the work of Jarvis and Bach, shine light, for us, on this same pretension of institutional domination that eclipses the sound and profoundly valuable work of figures like Jarvis and Bach (and so many others Unbekoming thankfully brings to readers’ attention). Thank you for your work and scholarship.
Thank you for these insights which we have grown to overlook. I do wonder in your research about Dr. Bach if you came across reports that he learned the use of the individual flowers by being in a quiet state like meditation and hearing within what emotions each plant could help to balance. I had read years ago he had been inspired using intuitive faculties--another gift we have been trained to ignore.
After reading several articles, I ordered quite a few books. I now ordered the Jarvis. Together with others, like Buhner and Huxcey, the true healers have been called quacks by those that legally kill people with their poisons, while these real ones are called quacks. Just like Dr Moerman, Budwig and all the others, who healed numerous people with harmless methods. I am cooking the Bieler soup every week now, using the salty water to rinse my nose, the vanadium advised by another of your doctors, and hope to never have to go to one of these true quacks again.
The problem is that 4G kills off the honey bees. That's why I call the elite morons, because they will be dying themselves if we lose our honey bees since most of what is pollinated is by honey bees. This has been confirmed by a woman who has her Ph.D. in Public Health from Harvard University, because the honey bees died because they couldn't find their way back to the hive where I used to live.
Effects of electromagnetic radiation on bees and pollination dynamics
https://www.entomologyjournals.com/assets/archives/2024/vol9issue12/9352.pdf
Absolutely true Tony. One man who lived in New Mexico, whose name I can't recall now, asked everyone to dump their cell phone, an Email I, as a publisher of top secret history, sent around the world in my feeble attempt to get people to do that.
Of course, hardly anyone was able to do that, and now that man in New Mexico is dead. I suspect that he was murdered by some entity that stands to lose a lot of money if cell phones are no longer a part of our life.
I recently moved to another home in the UK where it was my understanding that I would not be able to have a landline, but just days ago I learned that I can have my landline operational here. So now on June 25th, 2026, I will have my landine to use here. Hooray! No brain cancer for me from the cell phone.
I think the acid intake results in alkaline inner. Everything I have heard is that cancer does not grow in alkaline internal. Lemons intake becomes alkaline.
I was reading Jarivs in the '60's, watching Nature Boy on Steve Allen. Health stores were a new phenom; even saw a SWAT team raid our local store for daring to give lectues on vitamins and natural healing!
Still, while they told us to drink 8 glasses of water daily, it made me gag. I'm a desert tortoise I guess. Is it really one size fits all?
E.g. what is the body pH of carnivore cats? Are they alkaline? Inland people v. coastal people have different mineral needs. Blood types vary as to their preferred diet...so I've read.
clearly good sanitation, fresh food is basic; fermented products for the gut.
What we need is a feedback we can do at home. Listen to your body. Some find kinesiology (which is a sort of radionics) good for checking dose and kind.
I'm not puting down this article at all. So much has been lost.
This essay argues that some of the most valuable medical knowledge came not from laboratories but from long-term observation of nature. It compares two physicians—D. C. Jarvis and Edward Bach—who believed that careful attention to animals, plants, and human experience revealed truths about health that modern medicine largely ignored. Jarvis learned from Vermont farmers who watched their livestock and found practical benefits from remedies such as apple cider vinegar, honey, and mineral-rich foods. Bach reached similar conclusions by observing how animals instinctively sought certain plants when unwell. The author contends that both men practiced an older form of knowledge based on direct observation, patience, and experience rather than institutional authority.
The central claim is not that apple cider vinegar or honey are miracle cures, but that modern medicine abandoned a valuable way of understanding health when it shifted toward patented drugs, laboratory testing, and industrialized healthcare. The essay argues that observation-based medicine was pushed aside not because it failed, but because it could not be easily commercialized. It points to the influence of the Medical Education in the United States and Canada and the restructuring of medical education as turning points that favored pharmaceutical approaches over traditional observational methods.
The broader message is that nature remains an open book for those willing to pay attention. Cows still graze, bees still seek mineral-rich flowers, and animals still display instincts that may teach us something about health. Whether or not one accepts all of Jarvis's conclusions, the essay invites readers to recover the habit of observing the living world directly rather than relying entirely on experts and institutions. In the author's view, the real lesson from Jarvis and Bach is that wisdom often begins with watching carefully, testing what is observed, and remaining open to knowledge that cannot be patented or sold.
Phenomenal body work and more affirmation of my chosen life style choices. I am 77 now & I stopped all Pharma & Dr’s 13 yrs ago. A recipient of Iatrogenesis, sick from faulty diagnosis & treatments. I tell everyone I can about The Flexnor Report that vilified naturopathic medicine & pushed propagandized Allopathic medicine and synthetic drugs. My medicine cabinet is my kitchen cupboard & my grandparents remedies on the family cattle ranch. I’ve taken a daily drink of purified water, 1tsp each Tumeric, Ceylon Cinnamon, Ginger and 1 TBS ea Raw Apple Cider Vinegar & Raw Honey every morning for these past 10 years. I have no pains arthritis or otherwise. I walk 40 min daily. I eat a keto low carb of Vegetables, high protein diet of mostly salmon,tuna and sardines. I had a kidney stone 3 years ago that was dissolved by a week of Organic Castor Oil packs over my kidney & groin. I’m a firm believer in GOD’s Creation that made our bodies to heal itself when we put the Correct nutrients & minerals in it. Colds & tumors are detoxifying our bodies not a to take Pharma or intervene. Starve a fever, cancers, Feed a cold vitamin C, Bone brothe & sunshine and let it run its course to detox you. Watch the Animals Love it they use the instinct and Instructions GOD gave them. He gets the Glory!
This article is close to home, for me. I agree entirely, and that is what I see, observe and practice. The results are obvious, when compared with the alternatives. Seek out the old paths, the good ways. Return to God, and prosper, with health and vigor. Food is medicine, when used wisely. We can learn from watching the animals, as I've observed. I have fired several doctors because of what I've learned. Thank you for this valuable article, I will share it.
The sense that animals have is in humans too, we have mostly forgotten it. Learning to muscle test is the way to start listening to that part of your body/brain.
I'm 81 been doing the alt-health "natural" way ...more or less...60 years. Simplicity is an ideal to hope for...meanwhile in the old days I met people who knew Paul Bragg (you apple cider fans will know of him)...one of the pioneers ...Despite all the juice and raw veggie talk...Paul liked to quietly eat a steak on the QT. Yes, there was censorship and cancelling even amongst the Pure!
But what brought me back for a second comment was my mind was troubled/irritated by the "wisdom" story about nighttime fresh air and hens tucking their little pointy heads under their feathers...
Just how stupid is this anyway? Most animals I'd wager, and humans way back when in their "harmony with Nature"...slept outside in the fresh air. They didn't have windows to open or close.
And this reminds me of another modern health tip about sleeping in total darkness...I pity all those primitives out there under the blazing Milky Way night sky. So unhealthy. NOT.
Read widely. Avoid fanaticism. And have some fun even if it violates someone else's Rules For Life.
You make some good points. I like your final paragraph. I read the book by Jarvis and I am somewhat skeptical about the hens purportedly wanting warm air. I am not saying this is wrong, just wondering. Some of my hens & cocks would indeed sleep that way, but others would not, in all seasons warm and cold. Why the difference. Except when some would get killed by a hawk or wolf (once), they all died of relative old age, usually between 5 & 8 years of age. They had no sickness and did not molt. (their feathers fall out). I don't see molting as something natural at all. I consider that to be a sign of poor nutrition and overall stress. Some of my old heirloom varieties would not go into the chicken house at night but would fly up into a nearby tree to spend the night. Different strokes...
Also, re sleeping in total darkness. Sometimes the primitives would do so. I lived in the country for years, and some nights it was super-dark, but during the full moon it was wonderful, all that light. That moon light coming in thru the window did not prevent me from sleeping and feeling rested in the morning.
Re Paul Bragg. It would seem to me that he could not live comfortably without his hunk of meat because he avoided meat for the wrong reason in the first place, as so many vegetarians and vegans today can't stick with their diets. And the reason for that is they are avoiding meat & fish for the wrong reasons, namely, a belief that meat is bad for you or that by avoiding flesh you are "saving the environment and preventing global warming". You need emotion (usually an identification with animals) to be able to stick with it for decades without ever wanting meat. One health writer pointed this out, Annemarie Colbin. You pick ideas that you like, she said, and you'll have no problem finding reasons to defend your actions. Also, Bragg was never 100 per cent vegetarian, as he did eat fish, so I think he is misunderstood by some people.
Read “Castor oil and quinine : once a doctor, always a doctor / by George Wonson Vandegrift”. A late 1800’s doctor’s son tells the story of how his dad practiced medicine in his community in New York. Very interesting.
Thanks!
I just purchased Folk Medicine: A New England Almanac of Natural Health Care.. based on this excellent article.
I have been interested in apple cider vinegar for a long time.
I am unsure how it works in regards to ph changes in humans.
I understand how it could change the urines ph.
And a brief change in stomach ph..
But not a large change in blood ph (which can be dangerous anyway).
So maybe the mechanisms it works by is something different?
Observing animals, plants, and human beings brings the watcher to the need to discern the meaning or significance of the actions and the results, which are not obvious nor conclusive. The challenge is not to leap to a permanent and pervasive certainty. One can keep an open mind (growth mindset) and deepen one's understanding through experimentation, intuition and insights. Ongoing...
Thank you. My instincts follow what both of these physicians observed. I purchased both books.