A CURE FOR ARTHRITIS: THE “MIRACLES” AT BRANDAL
My first confrontation with biological methods of treatment for arthritis was at Brandals Health Clinic located in Sodertalje, a little idyllic suburb town, a few miles south of Stockholm, Sweden.
Alma Nissen, directress of the Brandals Clinic, met me at the railway station. For the past 12 years I have followed the work of Alma Nissen through the Swedish magazine Tidskrift for Halsa (the Magazine for Health) which has published many remarkable cases of arthritis cures accomplished at Brandal. Mrs. Nissen, after curing her own arthritis a few decades ago, has dedicated her whole life to helping thousands of other arthritis sufferers.
A fortyish-looking, dark-blonde, slim, elegant lady stepped from her station wagon, warmly greeted me with "Valkommen" opened the back door, and threw my heavy bags in. Then she walked around the car and opened the door for me, which made me feel rather old at 50. Imagine my surprise when I found that she is 70! And not a grey hair on her head! There was no doubt in my mind that whatever her "method" is, it certainly works for her!
The Brandals Clinic is beautifully located on the shore of the Baltic Sea and is surrounded by majestic woods. An ideal natural setting for rest and contemplation with a "back-to-nature" atmosphere. It is an old three-floor villa with a huge sitting room featuring a TV, grand piano, other musical instruments, library, and a collection of crutches and prostheses left here by grateful patients who didn't need them any more. The clinic has facilities for accommodation and treatment of 30 patients. At the time of my visit—July, 1966—it was filled to capacity.
Alma Nissen's Own Story
"Tell me, how and why did you become interested in arthritis and what prompted you to open this clinic?" This was my first question when we met at a smorgasbord table in the dining room at Brandal.
"Twenty-five years ago I was so incapacitated by arthritis that I was practically bedridden. After trying all the available medical treatments, consulting dozens of doctors, and several fruitless stays in hospitals I was becoming progressively worse. My hands and fingers were stiff and in constant pain. I could not bend myself, walk, or even turn myself in bed. In addition, I had a chronic ovary inflammation and constant migraine. I was suffering from a bad case of insomnia with resulting nervous exhaustion. I also was chronically constipated...
"I felt hopeless. Nobody could help me. I could not see my way out of the indescribable suffering I had to endure. But my spirit was strong and wouldn't give up. I was not willing to accept my lot as a bedridden invalid for the rest of my life. With the typical Scandinavian sisu and perseverance I rebelled against my fate. I wanted to live, become healthy again...
"A book by a British physician, Sir Robert McCarrison, gave me new hope and become the turning point in my life. It opened my eyes to the relation between nutrition and health. I started to experiment with myself. I changed my diet. I fasted. I drank fresh vegetable juices and broths made with cooked vegetables. I drank herb teas. I took enemas and utilized colonic irrigation to cleanse my intestines of accumulated toxins and wastes. I read all I could on the nature-cure methods and picked up ideas here and there. I met the famous Danish raw-diet pioneer Dr. Kristine Nolfi, M.D., and read and studied her book The Living Foods. I also took heat treatments and hydro-baths. I must admit, I didn't have faith in much of what I did, but desperate as I was, I was willing to try anything.
"Imagine my surprise, when I started to feel better and better! The stiffness in my joints started to disappear. I slept better; pain gave way, and after just a few months I was, to my and everybody's amazement, completely cured!
"This was 25 years ago and I never had a sick day since. No traces of arthritis... Would you like to see how flexible and elastic my body is?"
With this she took her shoes off and gave me a gymnastic demonstration which many a young athlete would be proud to equal
"But I do have visible evidence of my former arthritis. The toes on my feet were so deformed and the joints so fused together, that they never have straightened out completely. Look at them!
"When damage is so extensive that joints are completely destroyed and fused together, nothing can restore them, not even biological methods. But in the great majority of cases, even with deformation, but of shorter duration, the complete restoration of health is possible.
"Now, when I cured myself I was so overjoyed with the discoveries I made that I wanted to share them with others and help as many as I could. I visited Dr. McCarrison and he advised me to open a clinic and help other arthritics regain their health.
"Encouraged by the enthusiastic endorsement of this great scientist, I transformed my seven-room apartment in Copenhagen to an arthritis clinic. Patients came from everywhere. They were brought in on stretchers; they came supported on crutches; they came in wheelchairs. And after four to eight weeks on my simple regime they left the clinic on their own feet, without wheelchairs and crutches. The grateful patients spread the news of their cures and a long line of patients were waiting to come in under my care.
"My arthritis therapies and extraordinary results became widely publicized in the press. The Norwegian Medical Association invited me to present a lecture on my therapies before the leading medical authorities of the country and the students of the Oslo Medical School. Well-known rheumatologists such as Prof. Olav Hanssen, Dr. V. G. Kofoed, Professor Roald Opsaht and others attended and took part in the discussions.
"My fame spread to Sweden and a wealthy benefactor offered the Brandal, a beautiful estate with a large villa, for my disposition, to be used as a rheumatic clinic. I accepted gratefully. That was 13 years ago. During these years we have helped thousands of arthritis sufferers..."
My First Day at Brandal
My first day at Brandal was mostly spent walking in the huge, shady woods, which surround the estate, and listening to Mrs. Nissen tell of her work.
At 5:00 P.M. the bell rang and called all for dinner. I found about half of the patients in the living room, the other half in the dining room. Those in the living room were the "fasting" patients, who were served fruit juice or vegetable broth.
I joined the "eating" patients in the adjoining dining room, where the huge, festive table, decorated with flowers and candles, was filled with colorful and delicious lactovegetarian courses. It was a smorgasbord at its best! The table was laden with at least ten kinds of different salads of fresh, organically grown vegetables; cottage cheese with cummin; baked potatoes, sauerkraut, tomato soup, soybean puree, buttermilk, whey cheese, whole grain bread, and fresh butter. Some guests, just off fast, were advised to avoid certain dishes, mostly bread and cooked foods, but others, including yours truly, enjoyed the whole colorful palette of appetizing "rakost."
After dinner everyone assembled in the living room—Salongen -to watch TV. The favorite Swedish show, 10,000 Crown Question, was on and everyone sat in a state of hypnotized attention waiting for the answers of the competing "experts." It reminded me of our TV in the mid-fifties and the famed scandals of the $64,000 Question.
When the 10,000 Crown Question was followed by the Andy Williams Show, that was enough for me, and I left the Salongen for my room and a good night's sleep.
The "Miracles"
The next morning developments followed in a fast tempo, which prompted me to use the word "miracle" in the subtitle above.
A little Danish woman, who had depended on her crutches for years, left them behind and walked through the hall outside of my room without them. This was her eighth fasting day. She never needed the crutches again.
Another lady from Gothenburg reported that the pain in her joints disappeared on the second day of her fast and that on the fourth day she was able to leave her crutches.
On a big, sunny balcony I met several patients trying to cutch as much as they could of the warm, life-giving sun—in a country where sun is so scarce.
A young girl of approximately 20, was rolled onto the balcony in a wheelchair. She had been afflicted with arthritis for seven years and was a complete invalid. Her hands were grotesquely deformed. She could not move or lift her legs. She came to Brandal in a wheelchair and was still in a wheelchair. But she was already feeling much better, her pain was gone. She was determined to continue fasting for a few more weeks in the hope that she might leave her wheelchair there.
I also met a 43-year-old woman from Stockholm. She had been ill with arthritis for 14 years. For 14 long years she visited hospital after hospital, took drug after drug. You name it— she'd had it: gold injection, cortisone, Imagon, Butazolidin, etc. The best arthritis specialists in the country from Sodersjukhuset and the famous Karolinska Institute in Stockholm treated her until finally they all gave up, admitting that they could do nothing more. She had come to the clime just five days before and started fasting immediately.
"I am so happy. It is unbelievable!" she said to me with enthusiasm. "In just four days all pain is gone. I could not straighten this leg before—look at it now! It is completely straight. After 14 years of pain and suffering-it is just unbelievable! It's a miracle!"
As I walked on the balcony among all these sunbathing men and women, this word "miracle" lingered in my mind. In this clinic alone—and the little country of Sweden has at least half a dozen other clinics with similar biological methods of treatment—thousands of hopeless arthritis sufferers were helped; most of them to a complete recovery. Crippled, deformed, doomed to lifelong invalidism, labeled by official medical authorities as incurable, they had come there as a last resort. After a few weeks of simple biological treatments, without fancy drugs and injections, they walked away happy and grateful restored to complete health. Is this a miracle?
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A CURE FOR ARTHRITIS: THEY SAY, “THERE IS NO CURE”
In the previous chapters you read the true stories of people who were badly crippled by arthritis. They were treated by conventional medical methods with drugs, injections, x-ray treatments, and surgery without getting better, but after changing to the biological therapies, they were completely cured. Later in this book I will show you many other cases, just as dramatic and real, taken from a long list of hundreds of actual cases which could be cited as proof that these are not isolated cases, that biological methods really work, and that arthritis sufferers indeed can get well!
Yet, you have read and heard on television and radio that "There is no cure for arthritis." You have been warned that anyone who speaks to the contrary must be a quack or a fraud. Americans have been brainwashed with this propaganda through various communication media for so long that they accept this statement as truth. Cleverly written and professionally acted—with the authoritative aura of white-coated actors—these drug commercials bombard you from the magic screen day-in and day-out, in an endless repetition until you, in fatalistic resignation, giving up all hope of permanent cure, go to the nearest drugstore and buy a bottle of well-advertised painkiller, that promises you "relief."
But arthritis can be cured! Arthritis sufferers are being cured by the thousands, right now, all over the world, mostly in Europe, but also in the United States. I have seen with my own eyes how patients crippled with arthritis for years, have left their crutches and wheelchairs and walked. I have talked with and interviewed dozens of arthritics who have been cured of arthritis.
The reason why you do not hear about this from your television screen is because there is no money in selling knowledge, truth, education. You cannot pack knowledge in a bright labeled bottle, as the pill manufacturers do, and make a million dollar business out of it
When your doctor tells you that there is no cure for arthritis he means that there is no cure for arthritis with a drug or a knife—because the pharmacological and surgical treatments are virtually the only curative methods accepted and employed by the average orthodox, allopathic medical doctor. And they are 100 per cent correct: There is no cure for arthritis with drug or knife.
But there definitely is a cure for arthritis with biological therapeutic methods. Thousands of arthritis sufferers throughout the world have obtained complete freedom from pain, recession of swollen joints, and disappearance of every trace of this crippling and agonizing disease. There are dozens of clinics and spas in Europe where arthritis is cured today, along with most of the other common ailments and chronic diseases. The biological methods employed by these clinics are: dietetic restrictions, fasting, herbal treatments, juice therapies, biological medicines, heat treatments, massage, manipulations, hydro-therapies, and a number of other drugless treatments. The cases cited in this book were cured by these therapies.
In the following chapters we will discuss in detail all the biological treatments which proved so successful in the reported cases, but first let us briefly analyze what arthritis is, how it develops, and why the conventional medical therapies fail to accomplish a cure.
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A CURE FOR ARTHRITIS: KAJSA ANDERSSON’S LASTING CURE
Life had been good to Mrs. Kajsa Andersson, from Smalandstenar, Sweden. Five healthy and handsome children-happy family life—thriving small family business. All would have been rosy and sunny, but for one thing. After the last baby was born, Mrs. Andersson didn't seem to be able to recover her strength. She was always tired and listless. She could hardly lift up her arms. She lost her interest in everything, and just wanted to stay in bed and rest. Then came the pain in her arms and hands. A visit to a doctor and a dreadful diagnosis: rheumatoid arthritis!
The doctor prescribed a drug and ordered her to stay in bed with warm packs around the affected joints. Warm packs seemed to help relieve the pain, or rather to chase it to another joint As soon as the hands felt better, the pain moved to the elbows. From the elbows it moved to the shoulders. Then her legs and feet started to ache, too. The drug relieved her pains somewhat, but only for a short time. As soon as she was without the pills, the pains returned with increased strength.
After four weeks in bed with increasing disability and pain, which became more and more agonizing, she finally was remitted by her doctor to Spenshults Rheumatic Hospital, one of the most modern medical rheumatic clinics in Sweden. She stayed there six weeks. She didn't receive many treatments, except drugs and rest in bed, plus a typical hospital diet of plenty of meat, desserts, and coffee.
She felt a little better when she returned to her home. But as soon as she started to work around the house the stiffness and pain in the joints reappeared. She felt discouraged and hopeless, being unable to take care of her home and her children. All she had to look forward to was a dreadful future as a helpless invalid.
One day her nurse brought her a magazine with an article on the Brandals Clinic and biological medicine. After she had finished reading, she immediately went to the telephone and made a reservation.
She went to Brandal on October 20, 1957. That day she will never forget. She arrived there very sick and with agonizing pains. She could not get out of the taxi without help. She could not go up the stairs to her room. She could not dress nor undress herself. She was helpless and felt terrible pain with the slightest movement.
The program of treatments at Brandal started with the traditional fasting on vegetable broth and carrot juice. Among the other treatments were an alternating hot and cold shower, a dry brush massage, an enema in the morning and evening, and sleeping with the windows open while the scent of pine-wood aroma filled her bedroom.
"After one week of fasting I felt so much better that I wanted to continue," she said. "And I continued as long as I felt that fasting was doing me good—for 20 days."
"After the first week I could go up and down the stairs and take snort walks outside. And every day my outdoor walks became longer and longer. I felt as if life was returning to me-a most wonderful feeling!"
After 20 days of fasting, one more week on the lactovegetarian diet, and other biological therapies at Brandal, Mrs. Andersson returned to her home-completely free from her arthritis, happy and full of hope for her and her family's healthy future.
This was in 1957. In 1962, five years after her phenomenal arthritis cure, she was interviewed by a correspondent from Tidskrift for Halsa to determine the permanency of her cure.
"During these last five years I have not been sick a single day," said Mrs. Andersson. "I did not even have a cold or a running nose! The only reminder of arthritis I have is that if I work unusually long days using extremely hard labor, like washing clothes by hand or such, I feel a slight stiffness in my hands. Otherwise I am as healthy as anyone could wish to be. I don't remember feeling so healthy and so limber and flexible since I was a young girl."
Now in her fifties she skis regularly in winter, enjoys ocean swimming in summer, and takes long walks in the woods early in the morning before her family gets up. She also follows religiously the routines she learned at Brandal: hot and cold showers, dry brush massage, and exercises. And, naturally, she adheres faithfully to a healthful diet program which she adopted at the clinic: homemade yogurt with figs, prunes and/or raisins, plus nuts and seeds for breakfast; raw vegetable salad of all available vegetables, preferably from her own garden, for lunch; potato porridge with applesauce for dinner. In between meals, fresh unsprayed fruits plus herb teas (peppermint, camomile, or rose hips). Instead of coffee, potato and vegetable broth has become her favorite morning beverage!
*4/176/2*
A CURE FOR ARTHRITIS: HE LEFT HIS CRUTCHES AND WALKED
Albin Vistrand, 60, a Swedish farmer from Bie, Sormland, suffered from agonizing arthritis for 12 years.
Actually it all started long ago. While in military service during his youth he hurt his right arm. The infection spread and developed into a bad blood poisoning. After the operation his arm didn't heal completely and he was discharged as an invalid. For several years he was bothered with open, inflamed ulcers until the arm was finally healed. Then for many years he enjoyed seemingly perfect health.
But in 1953 the same arm was stricken with a severe attack of arthritis. Not only was he unable to perform his farm labors, but he could not write, not even peel his potatoes. After two years of suffering and pain he was finally ordered by doctors to use a prosthesis on his arm to enable him to bend it at all. He had this prosthesis on his arm every day for ten long years!
In 1957 arthritis started to spread to other parts of the body. His left leg became badly inflamed. Increasing stiffness accompanied the unbearable pain. He also received a bigger prosthesis for his leg, which limited his movements and made walking with crutches more bearable.
In addition to various drugs, one doctor gave instructions to wrap the leg in adhesive bandage.
"This treatment I'll never forget," said Mr. Vistrand.
The bandage was left on for several weeks and, finally, when the pain became so bad that he could not stand it anymore, he called the doctor. "Try to remove the bandage," was the doctor's advice.
"I did," continued Mr. Vistrand. "I worked for two hours with a pair of scissors and a razor blade, and when I finished the whole leg looked like bloody flesh and pus."
Now he started the long list of visits to various hospitals and arthritis clinics. Eight weeks in Kullbergska Hospital... Three weeks in Norrtuna Hospital... without any improvement in his condition. In Eskilstuna Hospital he received 12 x-ray treatments for his left knee. After this treatment the knee was so badly burned that they had to operate on it. In addition, he was stricken by double pneumonia. When he finally came back home, his arthritis was worse than ever.
"I had such frightful pains that it is impossible to describe them," he said.
Now some friends recommended the well-known cure clinic for rheumatic diseases in Nynashamn. Mr. Vistrand went there in November, 1958 and stayed until the end of January, 1959. Treatments consisted of various forms of physiotherapy, baths, and massage, plus masses of different drugs. He felt a little better and the drugs killed the pain. When he returned home, however, his pain came back.
The next hospital visit was to Lot. Here the entire treatment consisted of various drugs—14 tablets each day. It was in this hospital that his leg prosthesis of steel and leather was made in an attempt to hold his leg in a straight position.
In spite of all these various treatments and drugs, his condition was getting progressively worse. Now both his legs were affected. A visit to a famous rheumatologist at St. Erik's Hospital in Stockholm, revealed that he also was afflicted with a bad anemia due to an iron deficiency. He received 20 injections of iron in addition to several new drugs, including Butazolidin. They helped to relieve the pain, but now he was seized with cramps in the legs and his toenails turned black and fell off. But his blood quality improved and he started to gain weight
Then his heart started to bother him. A new visit to a doctor resulted in a new drug for his heart condition. He discovered, however, that when he took his heart medicine, it completely disrupted his stomach and digestion. And when he took his drugs for arthritis they affected his heart condition—the typical vicious cycle of drug therapy!
He began to realize that he was at the end of his rope. In his search for relief he had tried everything and nothing had helped. His arthritis was becoming worse with each week. He took 22 tablets of various drugs each day, but they didn't give him any lasting relief. He felt desperate, helpless, and discouraged.
It was at that time that some friends showed him a copy of Tidskrift for Halsa which opened his eyes to an alternative to drugs and operations—a new biological approach to the treatment of arthritis. One cold and dark day in January, 1964 he was taken in an automobile to the Brandals Clinic.
"I was very skeptical when I arrived there," he says. "After all, I went through so many different treatments before, without getting better. Also, I was instructed to get rid of all tablets and my program should start with an enema and potato broth—a water in which potatoes were boiled!"
Twenty-Five Days without Food
His program of treatments at Brandal started with a therapeutic fast which lasted 25 days. He received no solid foods, only vegetable and fruit juices, vegetable broths, and herb teas. His other treatments included alternating hot and cold showers each morning, an enema twice a day, colonic irrigation once a week, exercises, and lots of rest.
After 20 days of fasting he was able to leave his crutches and walk without them. On the 26th day he started eating again. His diet consisted of raw fruits and vegetables with homemade yogurt, wheat germ, crushed seeds and nuts, vegetable soup, and potatoes.
One week after completion of the fast he was able to climb the stairs to the second floor without help and without even holding onto the handrail. The pain had disappeared completely. He had full mobility of his arms and legs.
Mr. Vistrand wrapped his arm and leg prostheses in a package and presented them to Alma Nissen as a new addition to her "museum." They are proudly exhibited in the sitting room of the Brandals Clinic for the inspiration of other arthritis sufferers who come there.
Happy and optimistic Albin Vistrand returned to his farm able to walk and work without crutches, without pain, and without drugs. As a pleasant bonus from the biological therapies at Brandal his heart and stomach problems disappeared as well.
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