I decided that this wasn’t good enough and if my doctor couldn’t help me then I’d help myself. On passing my entrance exam I enrolled in medicine at the university with the intention of becoming the sort of doctor who could do something about acne and allergies. Filled with crusading zeal and convinced I’d find all the answers I read every book I could find on those subjects.
My quest for knowledge took me from the medical school library to the public library where I read Let’s Get Well by Adele Davis. Her book described in detail how allergic people needed greater quantities of vitamins and minerals than non-allergic people to keep their metabolisms balanced and to strengthen the walls of their cells against the entry of allergenic substances. Impressed by the research evidence she submitted and the successful treatment she quoted I decided to give it a go.
I immediately changed my diet from the typical student fare of beer, salted peanuts and take-away foods to fresh fruit and vegetables and properly prepared, balanced meals. I added to my program supplements of full spectrum vitamins and minerals.
Within six weeks there was a noticeable improvement in my acne and nervousness. As the months rolled by my skin became steadily better as did my concentration, memory, self-confidence and energy levels. Although I was still getting my periodic skin rashes, especially when I drank beer, they weren’t as itchy and for the first winter on record my stuffy nose didn’t develop into a cold or ‘flu.
Enthused by my new level of well-being, I began quoting Adele Davis to anyone who would listen. Disappointingly, my peers and lecturers weren’t the least bit interested in what I had to say. Undaunted. I continued to preach the virtues of diet for the treatment of acne, allergies and flagging mental and physical vitality. Before long I was labeled a fanatic and when I remonstrated that nutrition should be taught at medical school, I was labeled a rabble-rouser and put on notice to behave.
This antipathy on the part of the establishment was beginning to take its toll and I was having trouble getting my enthusiasm up to study. I began sleeping in and missing lectures. I couldn’t bring myself to open a pharmacology textbook, let alone read one. I was disillusioned and depressed. I was losing faith in modern science and what I was being taught and for the first time doubted I’d find the answers I was looking for.
The final straw was the conversation I had with a sixth year medical student at a party one night. This character boasted about how much money he was going to earn when he went into private practice. He was going to specialise in allergies, especially allergic skin conditions. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because your patients never die and they never get better. They just keep on coming back year after year spending money with you,’ he replied.
His words both flabbergasted and depressed me. What did I have to look forward to? I hadn’t even sat my intermediate exams. Clearly five years of more study wasn’t going to teach me what I wanted to know.
I left university and after a couple of years working on building sites, digging graves in a cemetery and working on garbage trucks, I had enough money to put myself through naturopath college.
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