The Reciprocal Relationship of the Health of Plants, Animals, and Human Beings

Step by step, by analysis and synthesis, the chemist has attempted to solve the riddle of nature. Now and then we hear a rumor that life itself has been created by some laboratory. However fantastic that may be, it is true that many of the hormones, vitamins, and enzymes essential for life have been produced in the chemist’s test tube. This apparent conquest of nature has been so vividly broadcast that many have erroneously come to believe that all has been accomplished and that man no longer requires a long line of biological perfection from the soil to his foods in order to reach and maintain physiological perfection.

Man is a part of a biological cycle. The continued development of optimum human beings requires that this cycle be maintained. The soil is the first element in this cycle, and it is prepared for vitality by the bacteria which inhabit it.¹ These in turn enable the earthworm to live and carry out its activity of tilling the earth by carrying the soil through its own body, thus aiding in the conversion of organic matter into humus, which in turn provides food for the growth of plants supporting animal life.² The excreta of animals, when returned to the soil, furnish the bacteria with nutriment, causing the cycle to go on ad infinitum.³

Early man understood the part he played in these related processes, but modern man has been guilty of breaking the cycle because it seemed filthy to him. The so-called “honey barge,” as the barge carrying human excrement up the river from Shanghai is termed, is considered essential by Chinese agriculturists for maintaining the fertility of their soil. In India, too, the Indore⁴ method of preparing human manure or “night soil” is recognized as of great benefit to agriculture. That healthy plants are essential to animal life and animal excrement when properly taken care of acts as a soil rejuvenator can be questioned by none; but the fact that conditions other than optimum, when existing in any phase of this cycle, cause interference in other parts of it so that man himself suffers has not received the attention it deserves.⁵

A sterile soil does not support plant life. Nearly everyone is familiar with the type of earth which at one time has been fertile but which has lain fallow under a house. After several years, when the house has been removed and the soil is exposed, it is found to be sterile, and considerable time is required to reinstate fertility. No earthworms are found, and it is necessary for the soil bacteria to be re-established before this earth again becomes fruitful. Humus itself results from the activity of bacteria and the earthworm, without which vegetable and animal materials do not break down and do not become integral parts of the soil. Although vegetable matter receives a very large part of its total weight from the atmosphere, nevertheless it depends upon a rich humus to furnish the necessary catalyzing agents and minerals for the development of a proper plant. The animal that consumes the plant in turn adds to the soil something that is more than just the nitrogenous by-product of its excreta. It is something that is essential to the proper development of the rest of the cycle.

The careful preparation of organic materials of both plant and animal origin has long been practiced by experienced farmers. The composting of these materials occupies much of the time of the good agriculturist, for he has learned their value in the production of healthy plants and animals. However, it is only as these animal and plant by-products act as food for bacteria and the earthworm that they become useful.

Modern man has gleaned the fields in order that his larder may be plentiful. Not only has he destroyed much of the valuable waste materials such as garbage, but he has also, through his system of sanitary engineering, disposed of human excrement in an unutilizable form. No longer does he return to the soil those things of which the soil has been robbed. Instead he has largely poured these materials into the ocean, losing them to his civilization, possibly to prepare new soil for a new civilization. That this is having a definite effect on the health of human beings today has been ignored. Harsh mineral fertilizers which destroy soil bacteria and earthworms have largely replaced the organic compost of the past. At the same time, after a temporary increase, the crops produced become smaller and smaller and their biological efficiency less and less.⁶

Gardeners consider steer manure much more valuable than that of dairy cows for fertilization purposes. A study of the methods of fattening and feeding meat and dairy cattle shows that cattlemen at least in our section of the country make relatively little distinction between the type of material fed these animals. The dairy cattle receive a little more green material, a little less of the dried industrial waste, and a little less molasses; but by and large molasses, cotton seed meal, beet pulp, orange pulp, and grape pulp, along with other industrial by-products, field-dried alfalfa, and grain constitute the major portion of the two diets.

The question arises whether or not factors other than the small variation in food composition might enter into the difference in value of these two fertilizing agents. It is common knowledge that the average dairy cow is not as healthy as her sister on pasture. This is shown by lessened fecundity and reproductivity. In our section of the United States cows bear calves usually for only about 1½ years, instead of 9 to 14 years as is normal for healthy cattle. The steer, on the other hand, being the offspring of a range animal, comes to the fattening lot well fed on pasture. The purpose of feeding in the fattening lot is to increase his weight and to put on a “finish.” This process as carried on today produces the tender beef desired by the American people, but renders a once-healthy animal nutritionally edematous. This provokes another question, “Is it possible that the steer passes off in his excrement activators that allow his manure to yield a much higher fertilizing value than the material from dairy animals that have not had the opportunity of a relatively excellent dietary over as long a period of their life?”

The physiological and pathological changes observed in cats fed on sufficient and deficient diets suggested the question, “If manure from healthy and from sick cats is composted, will there be any difference in the fertilizing value of their manures?” The odor of the manure of the unhealthy animals under experiment was much more putrefactive than was that from the healthy cats. The physiologic state of the animals, as well as the health of the plant produced, was reflected in the number of earthworms inhabiting the soil fertilized by the composted manures. Plant differences were studied in beans fertilized by the excrement of healthy and unhealthy cats. The only difference in the feeding of the animals was the fact that the healthy ones were for the most part fed raw meat, while those that were deficient were fed cooked meat. Inasmuch as food of the same composition was given to both groups of animals, some vital unknown elements, or perhaps the difference in the enzymes, hormones or vitamins must have produced the variations noted.

The changes which represent to us better nutrition from the manures of healthy animals, as reflected in the plants, were as follows: Beans raised on soil fertilized by the manure from healthy cats were more even and regular both in contour and in size (Fig. 1). The variations in the weights of the beans grown on the different types of fertilizer are given in Table I. The fiber content of the plant was greater in the beans fertilized by the healthy animals, but the plant did not show a lush growth. Both the color and the tactual impression given by the leaf were entirely different from that of the plants fertilized by manure from deficient cats. It was interesting, however, that the plant on fertilizer produced by deficient animals grew rapidly, picking up a great quantity of moisture and having a much greater flowering capacity, although there were fewer settings in proportion to the flowers. The total fecundity of the plant from the plots fertilized by the compost from the unhealthy animals was slightly greater than in the plant fertilized by the compost from healthy animals, but when the bean had dried for seed purposes, evidence of imperfect resistance to destruction by mold was noted. When it came to the second season, there was a marked difference in the ability of the plants to sprout. The seeds produced from our healthy cat fertilizer were far superior.

Fig. 1. Navy beans fertilized by excreta from cats fed the following: (1) Pasteurized milk, (2) raw metabolized vitamin D milk, (3) raw meat, (4) cooked meat, (5) no fertilizer used. Note the greater evenness of size and shape of beans fertilized by animals fed raw meat.

 

Table 1–Weights of Individual Beans (in milligrams)

Food of Cats	Smallest	Largest	Average (for 25 beans)
Pasteurized Milk Raw Milk (metabolized Vitamin D) Raw Meat Cooked Meat  No Fertilizer	72.2 74.5 107.0 35.8 62.1	198.5 203.7 210.4 201.9 194.6	117.9 121.7 166.2 146.7 113.5

The sole foods fed to the cats during the period of experiment were: Pasteurized milk, raw milk, raw meat, and cooked meat. Composted manure from the animals was used to fertilize plots of ground when the beans were planted.

 

Pfeiffer5 has pointed out that the fecundity and health of plants materially improve under bio-dynamic methods and that the health of the animals and human beings consuming them is likewise affected. At this particular time much furor is being caused by vitamins. Man destroys the life of his food products by milling, autoclaving and subjecting them to many processes such as centrifuging and filtration. Still he hopes to maintain health by the addition of vitamins! It is wise to pause and consider how important it is to preserve the vitamins in our foods and not to interfere with these infinitesimal factors which are essential to the biological cycle so necessary to health.

The loss of fertility of the American farm is not just that of top soil erosion. The lessened nutritional value of our foods is not just too much inbreeding of plants. The inadequate health of civilization today is not just a matter of bad heredity, but is due to the failure of modern man to realize his place in the biological scheme. He has tried to live in a synthetic media and has failed to maintain a vital soil teeming with bacteria and earthworms. He does not produce healthy plants and healthy animals, which he must do if he is to maintain himself at an optimum level. Primitive man reproduced his physical perfection generation after generation through adherence to these biological fundamentals, as Price⁷ has shown. The Chinese have learned that this cycle of life must not be broken. As a result they have the oldest continuous civilization, and they too have a relatively high degree of physical perfection among their people.

In this biological cycle of which I am speaking the cumulative effect of little things on the human being is, in toto, very great. The failure of modern man to return to the soil the elements he has removed (which are necessary to plant and ultimately to animal health) is possibly causing a problem for the future as serious as that of the erosion of soil, which is the result of the destruction of the trees of the forests, the grasses of the prairies, and the chaparral from our mountain slopes.

Summary

Extensive cultivation has depleted the soil to such an extent that optimum crops are no longer produced. Mineral fertilizers have been used to make up for this depletion but they are not enough. Organic or living fertilizers, such as plants and animal or human excreta, are necessary for the production of fertile soil, which in turn will produce excellent crops. The nutritional value of plant and animal products is diminished under conditions of depletion and this in turn decreases the biological efficiency of man.

An experiment is described in which the excreta of healthy and of sick cats was used as fertilizer for growing bean plants. The healthy cats were fed raw meat and the deficient cats were fed cooked meath. The plants fertilized with the manure of healthy cats had greater sprouting capacity, a better color, were sturdier; their fiber content was greater and the beans were more uniform in size and contour than those beans fertilized with the manure of deficient cats.

 

References Cited:

1. Zinsser, Hans: Textbook of Bacteriology, chapter 4. D. Appleton & Co., 1927.
2. Darwin, Charles: The Formation of Vegetable Mold Through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits. D. Appleton & Co.
3. Milton, W. E. J.: Jour. Ecol., 23:326-356, 1940.
4. Jackson, F. K., and Wad, Y. D.: Ind. Med. Gaz., 69 (2) : 93-119, 1934.
5. Pfeiffer, Ehr.: Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening. Rudolf Steiner Pub. Co., London.
6. Waksman, Selman A.: Jour. Amer. Soc. Agron., 18 (2):137-142, 1926.
7. Price, Weston A.: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Paul Hoeber, Inc., New York, 1939.

 

[Editor’s note: page 4 of the pdf is a duplicate of page 2]