Farming and Gardening for Health or Disease

In the four preceding chapters the diseases of the soil, the crop, the animal, and mankind have been discussed, and my observations and reflections on these matters have been recorded. This recital is of necessity somewhat fragmentary, because such a mass of apparently unrelated detail has had to be described. At least one question will occur to the reader at this point: Is there any underlying cause for all this disease? If the birthright of every plant, animal, and human being is health, surely all these examples of disease must have something in common. It has been suggested throughout these chapters that much of this disease is due to farming and gardening methods which are inadmissible. If this is so, how do these mistakes in practice operate?

For many years I have been on the look-out for some guiding principle which would explain matters and feel convinced that I have at last found it in the writings of a distinguished investigator of human diseases -- Mr. J. E. R. McDonagh, whose work is not very widely known, due perhaps to the fact that an attempt has been made by the author to convey a too complete scientific picture of a very difficult and very intricate subject. I have therefore asked Mr. McDonagh to set out in the simplest possible language the gist of his results on the nature and causation of disease which are discussed in full in his The Universe Through Medicine and other writings. He has very kindly done so in the following note dated 8th September 1944: