Ralstonism

Ralstonism is a program of self-improvement that was devised by Webster Edgerly (1852-1926), an American attorney, actor, and author who wrote under the pseudonyms Everett Ralston and Edmund Shaftesbury. It was originally promoted through the auspices of Edgerly's Ralston Health Club, and continued to be promulgated by the Ralston Society, which published Edgerly's books after his death in addition to those of Napoleon Hill.

Ralston Laws

 * 1) Each Life-cell conveys its purpose to all the cells it creates.
 * 2) Each part of the body must be supplied with food that contains material exactly like that of which the part is made.
 * 3) Blood, which is the food of the body, is itself created by the action of its own food-cells on the stomach.
 * 4) Proper habits of life will prevent the development of poisons within the body.
 * 5) Every disease has two causes.
 * 6) Things that are wholesome in one form may become violent poisons in another form.
 * 7) Foods that do not digest together generate a deadly poison in the body.
 * 8) All foods belong to some digestive time class.
 * 9) The use of the Medicinal Foods and the Life-Building Foods will produce an absolutely perfect body.
 * 10) Perfect health follows the perfect digestion of perfect food.
 * 11) Combined perfection of food and digestion is found only in one-food meals.
 * 12) Two of the Life Enemies, the First (dead tissue within the body) and the Third (carbon poison from indigestion), may be overcome by the adoption of one-food meals.
 * 13) The Second (food that is foreign to the body), Fourth (adulterations) and Fifth (preservatives) Life Enemies are overcome by Food Selection.
 * 14) Old age is a disease caused by an excess of mineral matter in the food.

Ralston Axioms

 * 1) Health is the most valuable ASSET in the world; and no person is too old, or too much out of repair, to build a NEW BODY.
 * 2) A person who TAKES CARE of health stands twenty chances to one of outliving a person who lets health take care of itself.
 * 3) EVERY INCURABLE DISEASE may be prevented; but most persons do not believe in looking for trouble until it comes; like the engineer who did not examine his locomotive until something broke and a wreck followed.
 * 4) The SECRET of good health is the body's  resistance to the attacks of disease. Where resistance is strong, exposures to dangers are harmless; where weak, the most careful protection does little or no good.
 * 5) Resistance is perfect when the ORGANIC LIFE within the body is perfect; and Nature has endowed every organ with almost indefinite life when sustained by life-building foods.
 * 6) LIFE BUILDING FOODS are the fourteen nature-elements and their seventeen combinations of which the human body is composed; but people eat more than sixty combinations that are not foods. This foreign matter weakens or endangers life in the body, and the result is SICKNESS.
 * 7) Germs and bacteria of every kind are created to attack and destroy SICKNESS; never to cause it. This newly discovered law will revolutionize the treatment of disease.
 * 8) When people decide to eat the exact foods required by nature to build the body, then SICKNESS and DISEASE will disappear and be forever unknown; and old age will be regarded as mankind's only enemy.
 * 9) OLD AGE and weakening of the faculties are due chiefly to the use of DREGS in foods and drinks from which the YOUTH-VALUE has been boiled away. These DREGS harden the arteries, stiffen the muscles, dry the bones, wrinkle the skin, and clog the whole body.
 * 10) A PERFECT stomach, perfect digestion, perfect heart action, perfect organic life, and pure blood, CLEAR THE BRAIN, electrify the nerves, drive out irritability and abnormal cravings; and equip men and women for the battle of existence and the JOY OF LIVING.

Ralston Health Club

 * General Membership Book of Knowledge of the Ralston Health Club
 * The Book of Complete Membership in the Ralston Health Club