V
The Effect of Nicotine — Vegetarian and
Meat Diets — On Taking Absinthe
— Twin Births
A
question is raised concerning the effects of vegetarian and
meat diets, and of nicotine.
Concerning conception, how is it possible that women bear sons
if none of the ancestors had sons? How can the birth of two
sets of twins be explained?
What influence does absinthe have on semen?
What is the difference between the ages of wasps and bees?
Dr. Steiner: The matters I have discussed regarding bees
naturally refer only to bees and not to wasps. Bees differ from
wasps, so my statements refer to bees, not wasps.
Now
we shall try to go into these questions. The first asked about
the influence of nicotine and therefore of the poison that is
introduced into the human body through smoking and through
tobacco in general. First, we must be clear how the effect of
nicotine shows itself. The effect of nicotine shows itself
above all in the activity of the heart. Through nicotine, an
increased, stronger activity of the heart is called forth. The
heart is not a pump, however, but only indicates what goes on
in the body: the heart beats faster when the blood circulates
faster. Nicotine therefore actually affects the blood
circulation, animating it. One must therefore be clear that
through the introduction of nicotine into the human body, the
blood circulation is stimulated. This, in turn, calls forth a
stronger activity of the heart.
Now, this whole process in the human organism must be traced.
You must be clear that everything occurring in the human
organism is actually strictly regulated. One of the most
important points regarding the human organism, for example, is
the fact that the pulse rate of the adult is 72 beats a minute,
and this holds true even into old age.
By
comparison, as I have mentioned to you before, man takes about
18 breaths a minute. When you multiply 18 by 4, you get 72.
This means that on the average the blood substance pulses four
times as quickly through the body as does the breath. Of
course, these are average figures; they differ slightly in each
human being. The fact that this ratio varies in people accounts
for the differences between them, but on the average it is 1:4;
that is, the blood circulation is four times stronger than that
of the breathing rhythm.
If
I now introduce nicotine into the human organism, I can do it
for two reasons — first, because of a strong liking for
tobacco, and second, as a remedy. Every substance that is
poisonous is also a remedy. Everything, one can say, is both
poisonous and healing. If, for example, you drink several
buckets of water, they naturally have a poisonous effect,
whereas the proper amount is a means of sustenance, and when it
is introduced in unusually small amounts, it can even be a
remedy. As a matter of fact, water is generally a potent remedy
when certain methods are employed. It can therefore be said
that even the most commonplace substances can be poisons as
well as remedies. This is why the effect that a given substance
has on the human organism must be known.
If
I introduce tobacco into the human organism, it first
stimulates the blood circulation. The blood becomes more
active, circulating more vigorously. Breathing, however, is not
stimulated to the same degree by tobacco; the breathing rhythm
remains the same. The blood circulation is therefore no longer
synchronized with the breathing. If man were to introduce
nicotine into his body, he would need a blood circulation
different from the one he ordinarily has.
Let
us say, for example, that there were a person whose system was
adjusted to the exact average of 18 breaths and 72 pulse beats
(there aren't any such persons, but let's assume there were
one). Now, nicotine causes his pulse rate to increase to, let
us say, 76 beats. The correct ratio between the pulse and the
respiration thus is altered. The result is that the blood
doesn't receive enough oxygen, since a certain amount is
supposed to be absorbed into the blood with each pulse beat.
The consequence of nicotine poisoning, therefore, is that the
blood demands too much oxygen. The breathing process does not
supply enough oxygen, and a slight shortness of breath occurs.
This shortness of breath is, of course, so negligible that it
escapes notice; after all, as I have told you, the human body
can take a lot of abuse. Nevertheless, the use of nicotine
always calls forth a definite, very slight shortness of breath.
This slight shortness of breath causes with each breath a
feeling of anxiety. Every shortness of breath causes a feeling
of anxiety. It is easier to control a normal sensation of
anxiety than this terribly slight anxiety, of which one is
completely unconscious. When something like anxiety, fear, or
shock remains unnoticed, it is a direct source of illness.
Such a source of illness is constantly present in a person who
is a heavy smoker because, without realizing it, he is always
filled with a certain anxiety. Now, you know that if you suffer
from anxiety, your heart pumps more quickly. This leads you to
realize that the heart of a person who constantly poisons
himself with nicotine continuously beats somewhat too fast.
When it beats too quickly, however, the heart thickens, just as
the muscle of the upper arm, the biceps, grows thicker when it
is constantly strained. Under some circumstances, this is not
so bad, as long as the inner tissue doesn't tear. If the heart
muscle — it is also a muscle — becomes too thick
from over-exertion, however, it exerts pressure on all the
other organs with the result, as a rule, that beginning from
the heart the blood circulation becomes disturbed. The
circulation of the blood cannot be initiated by the heart, but
it can be disturbed when the heart is thickened.
The
next consequence of a thickened heart is that the kidneys
become ill, since it is due to the harmonious activities of
heart and kidneys that the entire human bodily organization is
kept functioning properly. The heart and kidneys must always
work in harmony. Naturally, everything in the human being must
harmonize, but the heart and kidneys are directly connected. It
quickly becomes apparent that when something is amiss in the
heart, the kidneys no longer function properly. Urinary
elimination no longer works in the right way with the result
that man develops a much too rapid tempo of life and comes to
wear himself out too quickly. A person who takes into his body
too much nicotine in relation to his bodily proportions
therefore will slowly but surely deteriorate. Actually, he
gradually perishes from a variety of inner conditions of
anxiety that influence the heart.
The
effects of states of anxiety on the activities of the soul can
easily be determined. In people who have introduced too much
nicotine into their bodies, it becomes noticeable that
gradually their power of thought is also impaired. The power of
thought is impaired, because man can no longer think properly
when he lives in anxiety. Nicotine poisoning, therefore, can be
recognized by the fact that such people's thoughts are no
longer quite in order. They usually jump to conclusions much
too quickly. They sometimes intensify this overly rapid
judgment to paranoid thoughts. We can therefore say that the
use of nicotine for pleasure actually undermines human
health.
In
all such matters, however, you must consider the other side.
Smoking is something that has only come about in humanity's
recent evolution. Originally, human beings did not smoke, and
it is only recently that the use of tobacco has become
fashionable. Now let us look at the other side of the coin.
Let
us assume that a person's pulse beats only 68 instead of 72
times per minute. Such a person, whose blood circulation is not
animated enough, now begins to smoke. You see, then, his blood
circulation is stimulated in the right direction, from 68 to
72, so that his blood circulation and breathing harmonize. If,
therefore, a doctor notices that an illness is caused by weak
blood circulation, he may even advise his patient to smoke.
As
was said before, when the blood circulation is too rapid
relative to breathing, one is dealing with terrible conditions
of anxiety, which, however, do not become conscious. If for
some reason a person's blood circulation is too weak, however,
this makes itself felt by the fact that he goes around wanting
to do something but not knowing what. This is also a
characteristic phenomenon of illness; there are people who go
around wanting something, but they do not know what it is that
they want. Just think how many people go around without knowing
what they want! One commonly says that they are dissatisfied
with life. They are the people, who, for example, somehow drift
into some profession, which then does not suit them, and so
forth. This is really due to a blood circulation that is too
weak. With such a person one can actually say that it is
beneficial to administer nicotine to cure him. If smoking is
agreeable to him, one need not prescribe nicotine in medicinal
form, but one can advise him to smoke, if previously he wasn't
a smoker.
It
is actually true that in recent times people who really do not
know what they want have become more and more numerous. It is
indeed easy in our modern age for people not to know what they
want, because, since about three or four centuries ago, the
majority of them have become unaccustomed to occupying
themselves with something spiritual. They go to their offices
and busy themselves with something they actually dislike but
that brings in money. They sit through their office hours, are
even quite industrious, but they have no real interests except
going to the theater or reading newspapers. Gradually, things
have been reduced to this. Even reading books, for example, has
become a rarity today.
That this has all come about is due to the fact that people
don't know at all what they want. They must be told what they
want. Reading newspapers or going to the theater stimulates the
senses and the intellect but not the blood. When one must sit
down and read some difficult book, the blood is stimulated. As
soon as an effort has to be made to understand something, the
blood is stimulated, but people do not want that anymore. They
quite dislike having to exert themselves to understand
something. That is something quite repugnant to people. They do
not want to understand anything! This unwillingness to
understand causes their blood to thicken. Such thick blood
circulates more slowly. As a result, a remedy is constantly
required to bring this increasingly thick blood into motion. It
is brought into motion when they stick a cigarette into the
mouth. The blood doesn't become thinner, but the blood
circulation becomes ever more difficult. This can cause people
to become afflicted with various signs of old age at a time in
life when this needn't yet occur.
This shows how extraordinarily delicate the human body's
activity is. Diagnostic results are obtained not only when the
blood is examined but also when the manner in which a person
behaves — whether he thinks slowly or quickly — is
studied. You therefore can see, gentlemen, that if you wish to
know something about the effect of nicotine, you must be
thoroughly familiar with the entire circulatory and breathing
processes.
Now, remember what I recently told you about how the blood is
produced in the bone marrow. Essentially it comes from there.
If the blood is produced in the bone marrow and the blood is
made to circulate too quickly, then the bone marrow must also
work faster than it should. As a result, the bones cannot keep
up with their work, and then those creatures develop within the
bones, those little creatures that devour us. Doctors such as
Metchnikoff believed that these osteoclasts, as such little
fellows are called, are the cause of human death. Metchnikoff
said that if there were no osteoclasts, we would live forever.
He held that they literally devour us. The fact is that the
older we get, the more osteoclasts are present. It is true that
our bones are gradually eaten by the osteoclasts, but from the
other side it is like fertilizing a field well — more
will grow on it than if it were badly fertilized. For man, the
introduction of nicotine into the body has a detrimental effect
on the bones, but for these cannibalistic bone-devourers, the
osteoclasts, it creates the best environment possible.
This is how it is in the world. A lazy thinker assumes that the
world is fashioned by the Good Lord and so all must be well.
Then one can ask why God allowed the osteoclasts to grow
alongside the bones? If He had not allowed the osteoclasts to
grow, we would not be slowly devoured throughout life. Instead,
we could abuse our bones so terribly that something else would
finally make them deteriorate. In any case, they could last for
centuries if these little beasts were not contained within
them.
It
serves no purpose, however, to think lazily this way. The only
useful thing is to go truly into the facts, to know that the
delicate forces instrumental in building up the bones have
their adversaries. These osteoclasts, too, are part of
creation, and we have them within us by the millions. The older
you get, the more of these osteoclasts you have. You have
cannibals, though they are minute, always within you. Actual
cannibals are not the most clever; the cleverest are those that
we carry around within us in this way, and they find fertile
ground when nicotine is introduced into the body.
You
can recognize the extraordinary importance of thoroughly
understanding the entire human being in order to determine how
a given substance works in the human body. Now, man constantly
eats. He eats animal substances and he eats those of plants. I
have told you before that I have no intention of promoting one
or another form of diet. I only point out the effects.
Vegetarians have frequently come to me saying they are prone to
slight fainting spells, and so on. I have told them that it is
because they don't eat meat. These matters must be viewed quite
objectively; one must not desire to force something. What is
the “objective view,” however, regarding eating
plants and eating meat? Consider the plant. A plant manages to
develop the seed that is planted in the earth all the way to
green leaves and colorful flower petals. Now, you either
receive your nourishment directly from grains, or you pluck a
cabbage and make soup or something. Compare what you get from
the plant with what is present in meat, usually an animal's
muscle. Meat is a completely different substance from the
plant. What is the relationship between these two
substances?
You
know that there are some animals that are simply gentle
vegetarian beings. There are animals that do not eat meat.
Cows, for example, eat no meat. Neither are horses keen on
meat; they also eat only plants. Now, you must be clear that an
animal not only absorbs food but is also constantly shedding
what is inside its body. Among birds you know that there is
something called moulting. The birds lose their feathers and
must replace them with new ones. You know that deer drop their
antlers. You cut your nails, and they grow back. What appears
outwardly so visible here is part of a continuous process. We
constantly shed our skins. I have explained this to you once
before. During a period of approximately seven to eight years,
our entire bodies are shed and replaced with new ones. This is
also the case with animals.
Consider a cow or an ox. After some years the flesh within it
has been entirely replaced. With oxen the exchange takes place
even faster than with human beings. A new flesh is therefore
made. From what did this flesh originate, however? You must ask
yourselves this. The ox itself has produced the flesh in its
body from plant substances. This is the most important point to
consider. This animal's body is therefore capable of producing
meat from plants. Now, you can cook cabbage as long as you
like, but you won't turn it into meat! You do not produce meat
in your frying pan or your stew pot, and nobody has ever baked
a cake that became meat. This cannot be done with outer skills,
but, taken fundamentally, the animal's body can accomplish
inwardly what one can't do outwardly. Flesh is produced in the
animal's body, and to do this, forces must first be present in
the body. With all our technological forces, we have none by
which we can simply produce meat from plants. We don't have
that, but in our bodies and in animal bodies there are forces
that can make meat substance from plant substance.
Now, this is a plant (sketching) that is still in a, meadow or
field. The forces that have been active up to this point have
brought forth green leaves, berries, and so forth. Imagine a
cow devours this plant. When the cow devours this plant, it
becomes flesh in her. This means that the cow possesses the
forces that can make this plant into meat.
Diagram 1.
Now
imagine that an ox suddenly decided that it was too tiresome to
graze and nibble plants, that it would let another animal eat
them and do the work for it, and then it would eat the animal.
In other words, the ox would begin to eat meat, though it could
produce the meat by itself. It has the inner forces to do so.
What would happen if the ox were to eat meat directly instead
of plants? It would leave all the forces unused that can
produce the flesh in him. Think of the tremendous amount of
energy that is lost when the machines in a factory in which
something or other is manufactured are all turned on without
producing anything. There is a tremendous loss of energy. But
the unused energy in the ox's body cannot simply be lost, so
the ox is finally filled with it, and this pent-up force does
something in him other than produce flesh from plant
substances. It does something else in him. After all, the
energy remains; it is present in the animal, and so it produces
waste products. Instead of flesh, harmful substances are
produced. Therefore, if an ox were suddenly to turn into a meat
eater, it would fill itself with all kinds of harmful
substances such as uric acid and urates.
Now
urates have their specific effects. The specific effects of
urates are expressed in a particular affinity for the nervous
system and the brain. The result is that if an ox were to
consume meat directly, large amounts of urates would be
secreted; they would enter the brain, and the ox would go
crazy. If an experiment could be made in which a herd of oxen
were suddenly fed with pigeons, it would produce a completely
mad herd of oxen. That is what would happen. In spite of the
gentleness of the pigeons, the oxen would go mad.
You
see, such a matter naturally testifies against materialism,
because if oxen only ate pigeons and if only the material
element were effective, they would have to become as gentle as
the pigeons. That would not be the case at all, however.
Instead, the oxen would turn into terribly wild, furious
creatures. This is proved by the fact that horses become
extremely violent when fed a little meat. They begin to grow
wild, because they are not accustomed to eating meat.
This, of course, applies also to human beings. It is very
interesting that historically a part of Asia's peoples is
strictly vegetarian. These are gentle people who rarely wage
war. In the Near East, people began to eat meat and thus
brought about the madness of war. The peoples of the Asian
nations transform plants into flesh by making use of the forces
that otherwise are left unused, unconscious. Consequently,
these people remain gentle whereas the meat eaters of other
nations do not remain so gentle.
We
must be clear that people have only gradually become mature
enough for such deliberations as we are presenting here. When
people began to eat meat, it could not be considered in the way
we have just done; it all arose from feeling and instinct.
You
see, the lion continually devours meat; he is no plant eater.
The lion also has very short intestines, unlike the
plant-eating animals whose intestines are very long. This is
also the case in humans. If a person is born into a certain
race or people whose ancestors ate meat, then his intestines
will already be shorter. They will be too short for pure
vegetarianism. If, in spite of that, he eats only plants, he
will have to practice all sorts of measures to remain
healthy.
It
is certainly possible to be a vegetarian today, and it has many
points in its favor. One of the main advantages of eating only
vegetables is that one does not tire as quickly. Since no uric
acid and urates are secreted, one does not tire as quickly but
will retain a clearer head and think more easily — if one
is in the habit of thinking! A person who cannot think does not
gain anything by freeing his brain from urates, because it is
necessary for the whole human organization to harmonize. In any
case, through self-control, a person can become a vegetarian
today. Then he uses those forces that, in people who eat meat,
are simply left unused.
Now, I wish to call your attention to a strange phenomenon. If
you look around in the world, you will find that there is an
illness that quickly undermines human health. It is so-called
diabetes, the sugar sickness. First, sugar is discovered in the
urine, and man soon succumbs to the body's deterioration, which
is caused by an over-abundance of sugar. It is a truly fatal
illness. Sugar is also what keeps the human being inwardly
strong, when taken in the right way.
This can even be verified by statistics. Much less sugar is
consumed in Russia than in England. This really accounts for
the entire difference between the Russian people and the
English. The English are self-conscious and egotistical; the
Russians are unselfish and physically not as vigorous. This is
related to the lower sugar consumption in Russia than in
England, where a large amount of sugar is eaten in the food.
The human body, however, requires the assimilation of an amount
of sugar. Just as the bones support a human being, so the
amounts of sugar circulating in his body sustain him. If, then,
too much sugar is eliminated in the urine, too little is taken
up by the body and the health is undermined. This is
diabetes.
Diabetes is today more prevalent among Jews. Certainly others
also have diabetes, but it occurs with particular frequency
today among Jews. These people have a tendency to diabetes. The
Jew has more difficulty absorbing sugar, yet on the other hand
he requires it. The Jewish diet should therefore actually tend
to make it as easy as possible for the human body to make use
of sugar and not to eliminate it.
If
you read the Old Testament, you will find a variety of dietary
rules that to this day are observed in restaurants that serve
kosher food. Kosher cooking follows the ancient Mosaic dietary
laws. If you study these, you will find the essence lies in the
fact that Jews should eat food that allows the greatest
assimilation of sugar, since this people has difficulty
absorbing it. Pork makes the assimilation of sugar extremely
difficult — pork aggravates diabetes unusually in the
human being — so the prohibition of pork was calculated
particularly to prevent diabetes. You see, you must read the
Old Testament even from a medical standpoint; then it becomes
terribly interesting. It is fascinating to trace what the
various prohibitions and kosher preparations of foods are
intended to accomplish. Even the so-called
“Schächten,” the special way of
butchering and killing poultry, for example, is intended to
retain just the right amount of blood in the meat a Jew
consumes so he can assimilate from it the right amount of
sugar.
In
recent times, Jews have gradually neglected their dietary laws,
although they still remain within their racial relationships.
Since the dietary rules are really rules for a specific racial
group, to abandon them is detrimental, and they therefore
succumb more readily to diabetes than other people. That is how
it is.
We
therefore can say that a meat diet produces unused forces in
the human being that work in the human body improperly to
produce waste. Naturally, this waste can then be eliminated
again, but it is often a quite complicated task. One can say
that when some matters are rightly expressed, they look quite
peculiar. Some people work in their own particular way all
winter long and eat in their own way, too. They consume with
pleasure just enough food to give them a slight stomach upset
every day, which they keep under control by drinking the
necessary amount of alcohol. Come April or May they are ready
for Karlsbad or some other health spa, since by that time they
have accumulated a goodly amount of waste in their organisms,
in their bodies. What they really need now is a thorough
cleansing. The system must be cleaned out. They go to Karlsbad.
You know that the waters of Karlsbad cause vigorous diarrhea,
which purges the system. This done, they can return home and
begin all over again. As a rule, no more is necessary than to
go to Karlsbad every year, but if they are kept from going
once, they suffer from something like diabetes or some related
problem.
From the standpoint of an affluent society, it does not sound
too bad to say that so-and-so is going to Karlsbad. In reality,
it means using manure buckets to put one's body back in order;
this is what drinking the waters and taking the baths at
Karlsbad accomplish. The system is thoroughly purged and is
then all right for a while.
Naturally, this is no way to raise the level of national
health. Ultimately, the quality of all foods processed and sold
on the market is geared to the eating habits of a person who
can afford to go to Karlsbad or a similar spa. One who cannot
afford to go to Karlsbad also has to eat, but he can't be
purged without the money. No other foods are available to him.
Therefore, a start must be made in medicine to set social life
on the right course.
Naturally, one could expound on this subject much longer. If I
have forgotten something today, however, I shall try to tell
you about it in the course of time.
Concerning absinthe, I only wish to add that it actually works
quite similarly to the alcohol in wine, for example. The
difference is that while wine directly ruins the physical
substance — sleep evens matters out somewhat —
absinthe also ruins the sleep. With absinthe, a person gets a
hangover during sleep, and he is therefore prevented from
sleeping well. One must sleep, however, if one drinks alcohol.
Ordinarily, too much drink must be slept off — this is
testified to by the expression, “to sleep it off.”
Sleep has a beneficial effect on alcohol intake and evens
matters out. For this reason, absinthe is more damaging than
ordinary alcohol, because even sleep is ruined.
Now
you need to consider how our hair, for example, grows more
rapidly during sleep. A person who shaves knows that when he
sleeps particularly late on a given day, he is more in need of
a shave when he wakes. Have you noticed this? (Answer:
“Oh yes!”) When the soul activity is absent from
the body, whiskers grow very quickly. Sleep is there to
stimulate the growth forces in the physical body. Absinthe,
however, extends its effects even into sleep, and with
absinthe-drinkers sleep does not neutralize these effects. The
red corpuscles of the blood are even ruined in sleep in women
who drink absinthe, and in men the white corpuscles are ruined.
Something else comes in here. Since absinthe works all the way
into sleep, a woman's monthly period is very strongly
influenced. Irregularities then occur that become even more
pronounced in her descendants. The result is that ovulation,
which should occur every four weeks, takes place
irregularly.
The
main thing that. can be said about absinthe is, therefore, that
it works similarly to the ordinary alcohol in wine, beer, or
cognac, but it even ruins sleep. Though one could go into more
detail, I wish to say something concerning the other question
that was asked about twins.
In
identical twin births, fertilization occurs just as it does for
single births. A male sperm penetrates the female egg cell,
which then closes itself off; all the other processes take
place within it. The number of offspring derived from this egg
is determined by something quite other than the number of male
sperm. Only one sperm enters the egg, whereas the whole world
has an influence on the offspring. They are created by the
forces of the entire universe.
What I have to say now sounds somewhat curious, but it is the
truth. It can happen that shortly after fertilization the woman
is subjected again to the same influences from the cosmos. This
is what I mean: let us assume that fertilization occurs during
the time of the waning moon. The woman is then exposed to
certain forces in the cosmos that originate from a certain
segment of the moon. Now, in the first three weeks after
fertilization the initial processes are completely indefinite.
Nothing can yet be determined. After three weeks, the human
being is just a minute little fish-like thing. Before that,
everything is indefinite. The three weeks run their course,
always in such a way that almost anything can develop from the
human germ, and if things are just right and the woman now
comes under the influence of the waxing moon, then the same
influences are again present externally. Some effects have
already been present from the waning moon; now the waxing moon
also has an influence, and the birth of twins can come
about.
It
can also be possible that a woman might consciously be eager to
have a child, but subconsciously she harbors a certain
antipathy, perhaps a totally unconscious antipathy, toward
bearing children. She need only have a certain antipathy toward
the man she has married. Such antipathies also exist. Then she
herself holds back the rapid development of the so-called
embryo, the human germ. The influences that should have an
effect once work several times from the cosmos, and thus
triplets can result. Even quadruplets have been born. All this
is never caused by the fertilization, however, but by the other
influences, the outer influences. If identical twin births were
to occur at fertilization, the twins would certainly turn out
to be different from each other since they would have had to
originate from different sperm. Twins can indeed also come from
two eggs rather than one. But the striking feature of identical
twins is that they are alike even in unusual characteristics;
even what comes about at a later age, for instance, develops in
the same way in twins. The reason is that they emerge from one
egg. So you must realize that fertilization is not different in
the case of identical twin births, but rather outer influences
play their part here.
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