Apple cider vinegar by Suzanne Humphries, MD

Apple cider vinegar

by Suzanne Humphries, MD and Roman Bystrianyk

Extracted from: [2013] Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History

Vinegar is a common food product made through fermentation of a variety of sources. Apple cider vinegar is an old folk remedy for high cholesterol, sore throats, sinus infections, and many other conditions. An 1877 article described Dr. Roth's success using vinegar for smallpox prophylaxis.

D. G. Oliphant, M.D., of Toronto, Canada, having read the article on the use of Acetic acid in scarlet fever, writes of a "vinegar cure" as applied to small pox. Dr. Roth first claimed wonderful success in treatment regarding vinegar more reliable as a prophylactic in small-pox than Belladonna in scarlet fever. Dr. Roth gave both to the sick and to the exposed two table-spoonfuls of vinegar, after breakfast and at evening, for fourteen days. Few persons thus treated took the disease at all. None who adopted the prophylactic treatment died, while among those under ordinary treatment the mortality was as usual.

In 1899 Dr. Howe also demonstrated vinegar's ability to protect a person from acquiring smallpox. Those who used the vinegar protocol were able to take care of other people with smallpox without fear of contracting the disease. The author notes that, despite several hundred exposures, vinegar was protective against smallpox and was considered an "established fact."

The vinegar treatment as a preventative against the contagion of smallpox, discovered by Dr. C. F. Howe, county health officer of Atchison, Kansas, has passed the point of mere theory and is now an established fact, having been efficient in several hundred cases of exposure in the city of Atchison and Atchison county. Many of these exposures have been the nurse, as well as many others that it was impossible to isolate from the original case of smallpox for the want of room. In other words, anyone, vaccinated or not, can nurse a case of smallpox without fear of contracting the disease if, at the same time, they use the vinegar in tablespoonful doses four times daily in half a cup of water. It can be taken in less amount for small children or more by adults.

Again, in 1901 Professor MacLean promoted the idea of using apple cider vinegar three or four times a day to protect a person from contracting smallpox.

J-P. MacLean Ph.D., the renowned "anti" Secretary of the Western Reserve Historical Society, having readily overthrown the conclusions of all the great men who for a century past have been convinced of the efficacy of vaccination for the prevention of smallpox, now comes to the front in the newspapers with the real preventative. "Any person who has been exposed need have no fear of smallpox if he will take two or three tablespoonfuls of pure cider vinegar three or four times a day." The discussion may now be regarded as closed, and smallpox at last is conquered! What a pity Secretary MacLean Ph.D. has been so long in expounding his great discovery... Acetic acid from the juice of the grape must by no means be substituted for acetic acid from the juice of the apple.

Today we know that apple cider vinegar is a highly effective disinfectant and also alkalizes the body, which would naturally lead it to be more disease resistant. In addition, it contains potassium and numerous enzymes that aid in digestion, has antiscorbutic properties, and has been used effectively for numerous health issues since ancient times. Prebiotics that feed probiotics are also present in quantity.

In 1902 Dr. G. W. Harvey discussed the merits of vinegar in the use against smallpox. He also stated that, from his experience, it was effective in diphtheria.

Vinegar and cider are both known to possess prophylactic and curative properties against smallpox, and should be tried thoroughly. I know from personal experience that vinegar is an antidote to the poison of diphtheria, and I have so much confidence in it that I use it in every case of that malady, and I have my first case to lose.⁷⁷⁷

The apple cider vinegar used in these instances would have been raw unfiltered and unpasteurized, which is what most health experts recommend today.

Apple cider vinegar might seem silly, but only because most people have been conditioned to accept the age-old prophylaxis for smallpox: raw, disease-laden, contaminated pus scrapings from an infected animal's (usually a cow) belly, diluted in glycerin, and scratched into the human arm with a metal prong until the arm was raw and bleeding. What seems sillier now?